As the Obama administration prepares its legal attack upon Arizona for trying, in desperation, to enforce federal immigration law, Allahpundit over at Hot Air reports that Arizona Senator John Kyl says that President Obama actually told him in a meeting that he won’t do anything about border security because it doesn’t serve his political interests. […]
In this item from a couple of days ago, we learn that representatives of various Muslim nations have appealed to that supremely impartial and impeccably credentialed arbiter of justice, the U.N. Human Rights Council, to protest a rising tide of “Islamophobia” in Western nations. We read: “People of Arab origin face new forms of racism, […]
For those of you who pay attention to these things, a long era of American technological superiority in air-combat systems appears to be at an end with the deployment of the Russian Sukhoi T-50 PAK-FA. This aircraft’s raison d’etre is to match or exceed the capabilities of our own F-22 Raptor, and early assessment seems […]
June 1940 was one of the darkest moments in Britain’s long history. The Germans had overrun Western Europe, mighty France had just fallen, and the over-matched Allied forces had barely managed, only a fortnight earlier, to flee the Continent in the panicky and humiliating evacuation at Dunkirk. The Nazi juggernaut seemed unstoppable, and all in […]
Florida scientist Dr. Rainer Meinke has a new and clever idea for sealing the leaking oil pipe. Here.
As the conservative eye surveys the field of presidential prospects for 2012, it is hard for it not to linger appreciatively upon New Jersey’s straight-talking new governor, Chris Christie. To understand why, have a look at this collection of video clips, which the National Review has gathered together under the title Chris Christie’s “Common Sense […]
What with working all day, and class in the evening, I keep running out of gas on Thursdays. For tonight, then, a closer look at the dynamics of starling flocks, with video. Here.
Following on our previous post about violent ethnic disaggregation in Krgyzstan, here’s an item from yesterday’s paper that I found interesting. It begins (emphasis mine): MOSCOW ”” The violence that has claimed scores of lives in Kyrgyzstan is frequently ascribed to ethnic tensions, but regional experts say the causes are more complex. “I don’t believe […]
We’ve been hearing breathless reports today about how new geological findings have shown, to the astonishment of all, that Afghanistan is sitting atop a dragon’s hoard of mineral resources, an immense and “game-changing” cache of hidden treasure. As usual, there’s more to the story. Here.
Reading today’s paper on the subway to work this morning I learned about a clever new way to cut health-care costs: pay people to take their medication. In a Philadelphia program people prescribed warfarin, an anti-blood-clot medication, can win $10 or $100 each day they take the drug ”” a kind of lottery using a […]
On the front page of today’s Times we read about Kyrgyzstan, which is busy providing intelligent observers, at sanguinary cost, with yet another data-point about the incomparable blessings of Diversity. Meanwhile, Dennis Mangan brings to our attention an outstanding paper on said blessings, by Australian academic Frank Salter (original here, but visit Dennis’s place for […]
Our conversation with Jim Kalb and Kevin Kim continues, here.
I’ve never been much of a soccer fan, but I’ve been watching some of the World Cup games this time around. What made the biggest impression on me, however, was not the play on the field, but the unvarying, awful blare of plastic trumpets that fills the arena. It is a horrible, buzzing drone, and […]
I’ve written in the past about the idea, popularized by the inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, of an impending “Technological Singularity”: a convergence of accelerating progress in computer science, neuroscience, and biotechnology that will, in a few decades, lead to a kind of critical mass in all these fields, with historically discontinuous effects. (If, as […]
Traffic has been creeping up around here lately, and now is more than double what it was a month or two ago. I was glad to see it at first, thinking my humble star was ascending, but then I realized it was due to the World Cup’s official theme song, whose title is roughly congruent […]
I stand corrected. Following on our gloomy post on the Gulf oil leak, here, thanks to the most steady and stalwart of our Southern sources, is a story about a prior spill that still holds the lead. There are at least two mitigating factors, however. First, the Ixtoc I spill described in the article happened […]
Too pooped to post tonight, so here’s a dismal item by John Derbyshire on the absurdities of our educational system.
Good news from Holland: I’m gratified to see that Geert Wilders’s Freedom Party made substantial gains in yesterday’s elections. Read all about it in this catty little article.
For weeks now, boffins examining the BP well-head videos with such techniques as particle image velocimetry have insisted that the rate of flow has been a good deal greater than the official estimates. Now the U.S. Geological Survey has joined them, saying that prior to the latest cap-and-suction manoeuvre the rate was probably in the […]
Here’s a conversation-starter: the National D-Day Memorial is planning to add a bust of Josef Stalin, to go with the ones it already has of FDR, Truman, and Churchill. Obviously whoever makes these decisions wishes to acknowledge the Soviet Union’s key role in defeating the Nazis, but Stalin was arguably even viler than Hitler himself, […]
Blogging can be a dispiriting business, and most of us scribble away in near-perfect (and perhaps well-deserved) obscurity. Existentially speaking, it can feel rather like shouting up a drainpipe. So it’s encouraging to see a hard-working blogger’s voice rise suddenly above the din, particularly when it’s a voice that was deserving of wider attention all […]
Jim Kalb, founder of View From The Right and author of the Inclusiveness essay-series that we discussed in a recent post, has dropped by to comment. Here.
It appears that our good name (which, along with our tag-line, owes its derivation not to Pac-Man, nor to the Muppets, but to the song Coffin for Head of State, by the remarkable Fela Kuti) has now taken on a somewhat unsavory connotation in our deteriorating popular culture. Oh well, between this and Shakira, maybe […]
It’s getting harder and harder to remember that this was once a virile and vigorous nation. Here’s an appalling letter from today’s Times: To the Editor: In “The Hard Sell on Salt’ (front page, May 30), it was said that the food industry successfully persuaded the Food and Drug Administration not to regulate the salt […]
Pessimistic, black-hearted, hate-filled bigots like me occasionally feel the need to point out that Islam — not “extremist” Islam, or “radical” Islam, mind you, but Islam — presents rather a problem for the rest of us, and in particular is fundamentally incompatible with Western norms. Morally enlightened Western folks who want us all to feel […]
Think you’re a good speller? Well then, give this a go.
A reader sends along the widely circulated image below, with which the U.S. continues to burnish its gleaming international reputation for the education and intellectual engagement of its citizenry: (I see the predicted low temperature was 49°. How I wish; we’re sweltering here.)
Jonah Goldberg also weighs in on the IHH flotilla debacle: Question: If Israel is always hell-bent on murder, massacres, and genocide, why is it so bad at it? If its battle plan called for a slaughter, why kill “only’ nine people? Why not sink all of the boats? … North Korea recently sank a South […]
Charles Krauthammer has published today a fine piece on the Israeli blockade of Gaza. An excerpt: [A]s Leslie Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, writes, the blockade is not just perfectly rational, it is perfectly legal. Gaza under Hamas is a self-declared enemy of Israel ”” a declaration backed up by more […]
Here we learn that “lactose intolerance” is a racist slur.
Here’s the Obama administration’s new National Security Strategy. Let’s all have a look.
Just got this email bulletin from the Washington Post: ——————– News Alert: Gulf Coast oil cap in place over blown-out well 09:55 PM EDT Thursday, June 3, 2010 ——————– A cap is in place over the Gulf of Mexico gusher, live video footage provided by the company showed Thursday night, but the spewing oil made […]
Paul McCartney was honored with the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song at the White House yesterday. He is only the third person to receive it, and he certainly deserves it. (The first was Stevie Wonder, and the second was Paul Simon, who by the way performed at our son’s commencement exercises two […]
Here is a fine little essay by Thomas Sowell on the seasonal tide of self-congratulating commencement speeches by public “servants”. So good is it, in fact, that I reproduce it in its entirety below.
To those of you who send me comments and other tidbits by email: I’ve been having technical problems, since Wednesday morning, that prevent me from accessing my main email account from my network at the office. So far I have resisted acquiring an email-equipped cell-phone, but these corporate-firewall issues may push me over the brink, […]
It’s almost midnight on Tuesday, and we’ve just got back from a long (and, as far as the news goes, completely tuned-out) weekend, with a lot of catching-up to do. So for tonight, here’s an entertaining site that I ran across while putting together last week’s Martin Gardner post. Don’t miss the Mandelbulb.
National Review has just reposted a fine, and scathing, editorial published on May 6, 1961, in the aftermath of the doomed Bay of Pigs invasion — which failure NR editors Buckley et al. ascribed to a “failure of will”, and a reluctance to offend “World Opinion”: Have we learned? There is always reason to hope. […]
From my friend Jess Kaplan (not to be confused with commenter JK) comes a very interesting item about just what’s painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Here.
It’s a busy stretch just now: I’ve been putting in long days at work, and will be traveling tomorrow evening. So for tonight, here’s a timely piece by Wellfleet resident John Stossel about the realities of “green energy”. He reminds us that it is unrealistic to imagine that there is anything in prospect anytime soon […]
One of my oldest and closest music-biz pals is the great jazz guitarist Steve Khan. Here’s an interview he did recently for the new Inside Musicast website.
I was saddened to learn today that the great Martin Gardner had died on Saturday at a rest home in Norman, Oklahoma. He was 95. For those of you who didn’t know him, Martin Gardner was universally regarded by those who did as one of the brightest lamps of the 20th century. He was best […]
We’ll be away all weekend, joining our son at his college graduation. Back in a few days.
In yesterday’s paper was an article about how prevalent marijuana use is amongst professional chefs. (According to my wide-ranging observations, they could also have written the same article about professional writers, artists, dancers, musicians, psychologists, lawyers, accountants, etc.). It’s an interesting story, and remarkable for how casually marijuana use, which is after all still illegal, […]
Readers who have been trying to get a handle on Elena Kagan may find this interesting: her baccalaureate thesis from Princeton, written in 1981. In it she makes a searching examination of the causes leading to the self-destruction of the American Socialist Party in the years following the First World War. She concludes with the […]
An article in Monday’s Times describes the current state of affairs in Rwanda. It has been a full sixteen years since the challenges of multiculturalism got out of hand there, but for some reason the blessings and benefits of Diversity — despite the vigorous application of exactly the sort of enlightened government measures that always […]
As a counterpoise to the impression I might have given in a recent post, here is what all that Russian “directness” leads to at home.
The New York Times has introduced a philosophy-blog. It’s called The Stone. It will be interesting to see how it goes.
Amongst the many blessings conferred upon a reluctant polity by the recent health-care bill is a little “Easter egg” you may not yet have heard about. (To be fair, I suspect that most of the solons who poked this egregious legislation down our gullets didn’t know about it either, though that hardly redounds to their […]
One of the reasons America is declining in the world is that we (and the rest of the effeminized West) are perceived by our foes and rivals, rightly, as having lost our virile resolve. We are generally more concerned with “being better” than our enemies than actually defeating them, and so we court-martial Navy Seals […]
Our cyber-friend Jeffery Hodges has just published, and posted at his website, a thoughtful article on the intellectual and cultural requirements for productive discourse. The subject is of particular interest to Jeffery, who is a college professor in Korea — where, in keeping with Confucian social tradition, to question one’s superiors is to get above […]