Well, it appears from yesterday’s referendum that the people of Crimea would rather be Russian. Vladimir Putin is glad to welcome them back to the Motherland. The Obama administration, which didn’t want to see the referendum happen at all, imposed some punitive measures on a few Russian big-shots, but nobody over there seems to mind […]
It was a sad day today: the lovely Nina and I drove to Philadelphia to attend a memorial service for the twenty-eight-year-old son of some dear friends. The young man, who died suddenly and unexpectedly, had made a very deep and very positive impression on a great many people’s lives, and hundreds were in attendance. […]
XKCD is always clever, and often brilliant. I like this one in particular.
February 25, 2014 – 12:56 am
We’ll probably be offline for a few days. Meanwhile, here’s something interesting to read. Update: this is a good one too: with a hat tip to Bill K., a fine rant from VDH.
February 15, 2014 – 3:33 pm
Yep, they’ve been piling up again. (Just like the snow is supposed to do, again, here in the Outer Cape tonight.) — Life, and love, in Russia. — The GDP of American states and foreign nations. — Theodore Dalrymple on the suppression of dissent. — See above. — More from Russia. — The most beautiful […]
February 10, 2014 – 11:18 pm
Here’s your antidote for those Monday blues: two stories to warm your heart. First you’ll be glad to see that New York State residents can own an AR-15 after all, and at the same time show just how foolish these hysterical “assault-rifle” bans — which prohibit, on the basis of superficial appearance, weapons that are […]
February 6, 2014 – 5:41 pm
Some good reads from the Web today: Matt Ridley on inequality. Kevin Williamson on feminism. From the Statistics Lab at Cambridge University, a look at some climate-alarmist buncombe.
January 30, 2014 – 9:20 pm
I’ve been working long hours this week, and haven’t had the time — nor sufficient sleep — to write anything worth reading. Meanwhile, the links have been piling up, as they tend to do. So it’s time once again to flush, as we programmers say, the cache: — Another reason that I hope humans never […]
January 20, 2014 – 11:00 pm
Boy, do these things pile up quickly. — Ice balls. — I can almost hear him say “I told you so.” — Maybe we can get the Dems to primary this guy in 2016. — Well, whaddya know? — Satan’s Kimchi. — Common sense from Jim Cramer. — Even more personality tests. — Race trumps […]
January 19, 2014 – 11:30 pm
A lot has been made of The New York Times’s recent article, by David Kirkpatrick, about the sacking of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi on September 11th of 2012, in which four men, including our ambassador, were killed. The Obama administration’s partisans have given the article a triumphal reception, and have announced repeatedly that […]
January 14, 2014 – 12:30 am
I’m having a busy stretch here; the blog might be rather quieter than usual for a few days. Back to normal soon.
January 11, 2014 – 12:45 am
I haven’t anything substantial prepared for tonight, so just a brief salmagundi: — Fun with sound waves. — A lexical-distance graph of European languages. (Where’s Basque? So far out it’s off the chart, maybe.) — “Exponential medicine”. — VDH vs. Pajama Boy. — Amazing to see this, from the Times’s senior science writer. Is the […]
January 6, 2014 – 11:11 pm
It’s a sad day here at waka waka, where we’ve just heard that an old friend, Dr. Clive Sell of Phoenix, Arizona, has died unexpectedly of a heart attack. I got to know Clive many years ago, and hadn’t seen him in a long time, but he was a fine man: a charming Southerner, exceptionally […]
January 4, 2014 – 12:11 am
They’ve been piling up a bit, I’m afraid. — Graphene: the gift that keeps on giving. — Remember what happened to the Shakers, kitten. — How to keep your man. — The Daily Telegraph, just a century ago. — “You will know us by the trail of dead.” — Ice, Ice, Baby. — Eagle grinders: […]
January 2, 2014 – 11:06 pm
As you may have heard, there’s quite a storm on in the Northeast tonight. The lovely Nina and I are riding it out in our snug little dacha at the far end of Cape Cod, twenty-five miles out in the Atlantic. It’s been snowing all day, and we’re supposed to end up with about two […]
January 1, 2014 – 11:27 pm
Once again, here’s our New Year’s selection of some of the search-engine keyphrases that have brought visitors our way in the past year: dark enlightenment mola mola compelling natural force washington monument syndrome freedom go to hell what is a moral fact he’s no fun he fell right over hirsutative nipples brooklyn outwash moraine fools […]
December 31, 2013 – 4:59 pm
Happy New Year, everybody. And have a rip-roaring Hogmanay. Thanks again. See you in 2014!
December 24, 2013 – 5:34 pm
A warm and happy holiday to each and every one of you. Thank you all, as always, for reading and commenting.
December 23, 2013 – 1:54 pm
By now, I imagine, you are all familiar with the smug, epicene Eloi putz that the Obamacare P.R. machine recently chose to promote their product. He has entered the popular culture as “Pajama Boy”, and to an awful lot of people he has become an icon of American decadence and enfeeblement: a vain and useless […]
December 22, 2013 – 5:37 pm
Making the rounds today is a rant by one of the online community’s preeminent dyspeptics, Fred Reed. In it he responds to the New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd’s opinion that men are no longer necessary. Ms. Dowd sums up her little idea as follows: So now that women don’t need men to reproduce and […]
December 18, 2013 – 10:42 pm
— As above, so below. — Forget engineering: here’s a degree that will always be in demand. — An excellent article about the Second Amendment. — Farewell to the Warthog. — Yet another example of the importance of social cohesion. — Ralph Nader and Charles Murray examine their differences and similarities. — Jersey’s “Jackson Whites”. […]
December 15, 2013 – 9:49 pm
The post just below this — “Small World” — was originally posted back in August. I took it down to mull it over some more, but really never got around to mulling it over very much at all, and thought I might as well just repost it more or less as it was. It is […]
December 15, 2013 – 9:44 pm
A while back somebody remarked to me that the world was “getting smaller”. It’s a familiar expression, but this time it evoked in me a literal image of a closed container whose volume was actually shrinking. The metaphor led in interesting directions, and the more I thought about it, the more fertile it seemed to […]
December 6, 2013 – 11:39 pm
— That’s life. — Democracy! Meh. — Do you ever get the feeling… — Well, they do love to play with yarn… — A Protestant Manifesto, 1942. — Quip of the month. Orwell smiles. — We don’t need no stinkin’ Constitution. — Floral design. — A negative income tax? (We could look at that universal-suffrage […]
December 5, 2013 – 5:00 pm
Nelson Mandela has just died. Waiting for President Obama to release a tribute featuring himself. … Update: …aaaaand — here it is! Rest in peace, Nelson Mandela. pic.twitter.com/4qlqsXLp6e — The White House (@WhiteHouse) December 5, 2013 A twofer this time: a picture of himself, AND he quotes himself, too!
November 28, 2013 – 10:59 pm
Thanks to all of you, readers, for all your time and attention these past eight years. Thanks especially to those of you who have joined the conversation here. It’s why I started this blog in the first place.
November 21, 2013 – 12:05 am
Here are a few language-related links I’ve collected over the past few days: — The Webster’s that wasn’t. — Lost in translation. — More of the above. — Some old-school cussin’. — OK, this last one isn’t about language, but here it is anyway: break-dancing Turks. No need to thank me.
November 20, 2013 – 12:10 am
I apologize for the lack of substantial content here these past several weeks. There has been so much to comment on — if nothing else, I’ve been missing out on one of the great Schadenfreudefests of modern political history — yet somehow I’ve found it difficult to lift the pen. Of course this has been […]
November 15, 2013 – 9:36 pm
I’m back home in New York, but I’m completely exhausted. These past few weeks have really taken it out of me, and it may be a days or two before I’ll get back to posting here. Thanks again to everyone who has written, posted, and Tweeted their condolences. I really appreciate it.
November 13, 2013 – 11:09 am
My father’s obituary is in today’s New York Times. You can read it here.
November 10, 2013 – 9:43 pm
I’ll be there all week, on business. The days will be long, and there will be scant time for the blog, I’m afraid. I’ll do what I can, but it’s likely that political outrages will go unremarked, scientific breakthroughs will transpire in silence, amusing links will go unposted, and fatuous comments will even go unrebutted. […]
November 8, 2013 – 3:35 pm
Saved myself a thousand words here:
November 7, 2013 – 11:06 pm
Spare a thought tonight, all of you, in the comfort of your homes, for the poor people of the Philippines who are suffering the horror of Nature’s awful wrath. Many will not see tomorrow.
November 7, 2013 – 12:24 am
— Hovercrafts. No eels. — Safety first! — Thomas Sowell on race war in America. — From Isegoria: the original Peabody & Sherman! — Hayek rips Keynes a new one. — Gordon Ramsay explains how to cook a perfect steak. — A mendacious montage. — Jowls a-flappin. — It’s always in the last place you […]
November 4, 2013 – 11:32 pm
I flew home today, and will be glad to put this awful week, and Southern California, behind me. Thanks so very much to all of you who wrote to offer support and sympathy. It was a great comfort to me at a very difficult time. We’ll be getting back to normal here soon. So much […]
November 3, 2013 – 11:49 am
My father, Dr. William Pollack, died at about 8:25 this morning, after having slipped into a coma last night. He was a remarkable man. I will have more to say when the words come.
November 1, 2013 – 4:22 pm
I’m still in California, where my father is slowly sinking, and is now almost completely unresponsive. I have put everything else aside — in particular writing, and work — but will try to get back to both in the next few days, as he lingers on. If nothing else it will be a distraction. Thanks […]
October 26, 2013 – 10:06 pm
Things may be quieter than usual here for the next few days. My elderly father, who has been in declining health for some time, has taken a very serious turn for the worse, and is gravely ill. I am flying to California to join my brother at his bedside.
October 25, 2013 – 2:25 pm
As noted in these pages seven years ago, I’m a “fall guy“. It’s always been my favorite season. Here are some lovely photos of autumn in America. (I mean that literally, not figuratively, of course.)
October 15, 2013 – 8:15 pm
From an item at SFGate: People whose 2014 income will be a little too high to get subsidized health insurance from Covered California next year should start thinking now about ways to lower it to increase their odds of getting the valuable tax subsidy. Slip-slidin’ away…
October 14, 2013 – 10:55 pm
— Steve Sailer comments on the tendency of women who are interested in science to go into the “life sciences” (medicine, biology) rather than fields like physics and chemistry. — Mark Steyn on King John and Barack Obama. — A “must-know” endgame from Susan Polgar. — Iron Man. — Walter Williams on guns, and the […]
September 29, 2013 – 11:17 pm
The lovely Nina and I met a very interesting gentleman today: Paul Sheehan, a columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald. (He has also served as that newspaper’s Washington correspondent, and its day editor.) Mr. Sheehan is an old friend of our friend Allen Kurzweil, and is in Wellfleet for a visit. This afternoon Allen, who […]
September 8, 2013 – 9:45 pm
Sorry — no time for a post today. Some links: — Natural selection in action. — A Chinese guide to the West, c. 250 A.D. — Sheep and bull. — Japan is just… different. — Steve Sailer on American exceptionalism. — Postcard from Mars. — BHO vs. BHO, from VDH. — Murder in America. — […]
September 3, 2013 – 1:04 pm
— Spiffy map-making from the Smithsonian. — The New York Times on the “dismal science“. — Fence-building bugs. — Derb takes on “Uncle” Tim Wise on the mathematics of race and crime. — And while we are at it: here’s Ron Unz on the same subject. — That STEM crisis you’re always hearing about doesn’t […]
August 26, 2013 – 11:51 am
We’re still a week or two away from resuming normal operations here at waka waka waka; all of our staff are on holiday, and our offices are shuttered, both here and abroad. We invite you to browse our archive, or to try the “View a Random Post” link at upper right. To boldly go. Well, […]
August 22, 2013 – 10:53 pm
— Delta Airlines says Obamacare will cost it $100,000,000 next year alone. — Daniel Pipes on the Obama administration’s gormless foreign policy. (Just the tip of the iceberg. Let’s not forget, in 2016, who was running State through all of this.) — A sensible item on Russia’s goals in Syria and the Mideast. — The […]
August 14, 2013 – 9:12 pm
Here’s an interesting item from Sam Harris: a round-table discussion of self-defense and the law. One thing I learned: California is a really terrible place to have to defend yourself. It sounds as insane as Britain, almost.
August 12, 2013 – 11:45 pm
It’s August, the weather here in Wellfleet is warm and pleasant, and so it’s time to give the glowing screen a rest for a few weeks, and recharge the “little grey cells”. I’ve got a lot of reading to catch up on, and there are ponds* that need swimming in, oysters that must be gathered […]
A reader pointed out to me that comments had apparently been closed on the previous post. This was not intentional. Comments are welcome, as always.
Note: I’ve taken down this post for now, in order to rewrite it. Feel free to email me about it: malcolm [at] malcolmpollack.com.