La Chitarra Piangente

June 5, 2013 – 3:37 pm

Still swamped today, but had to pass this along. For all of you youngsters.

By Malcolm | Posted in Music and Recording | Comments (0)

Service Notice

June 4, 2013 – 11:31 am

Another busy spell here. Back shortly.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (0)

Ad Astra Cum Asta

June 2, 2013 – 1:43 pm

Here.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (13)

Stage Four

June 2, 2013 – 1:27 pm

This latest current-events biopsy further confirms the diagnosis.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture | Comments (2)

It’s ON

June 1, 2013 – 10:59 pm

This is an interesting item: even as Sunni-Shia violence is getting hotter by the day in Iraq, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s preeminent intellectual, has called on all Sunni Muslims to join the anti-Assad forces in Syria, now that Hezbollah has joined the coalition fighting for the preservation of the regime.

The ancient hatreds are burning hotly now, throughout the region. Instability is always dangerous, of course, and the humane mind recoils from such horrors as are now being described in this bloody civil war — but from a purely pragmatic point of view, to see civilization’s fiercest enemies slaughtering one another with such brio has clear advantages over other imaginable scenarios.

By Malcolm | Posted in Foreign Affairs, Jihad | Comments (6)

The Camel’s Nose

May 31, 2013 – 11:16 am

And here it is:

DOJ: Social Media Posts Trashing Muslims May Violate Civil Rights

In its latest effort to protect followers of Islam in the U.S. the Obama Justice Department warns against using social media to spread information considered inflammatory against Muslims, threatening that it could constitute a violation of civil rights.

The move comes a few years after the administration became the first in history to dispatch a U.S. Attorney General to personally reassure Muslims that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is dedicated to protecting them. In the unprecedented event, Attorney General Eric Holder assured a San Francisco-based organization (Muslim Advocates) that urges members not to cooperate in federal terrorism investigations that the “us versus them’ environment created by the U.S. government, law enforcement agents and fellow citizens is unacceptable and inconsistent with what America is all about.

“Muslims and Arab Americans have helped build and strengthen our nation,’ Holder said after expressing that he is “grateful’ to have Muslims as a partner in promoting tolerance, ensuring public safety and protecting civil rights. He also vowed to strengthen “crucial dialogue’ between Muslim and Arab-American communities and law enforcement.

Evidently that was a precursor of sorts for an upcoming Tennessee event (“Public Disclosure in a Diverse Society’) that will feature the region’s top DOJ official, who serves as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, and an FBI representative. The goal is to increase awareness and understanding that American Muslims are not the terrorists some have made them out to be in social media and other circles, according to a local newspaper report. The June 4 powwow is sponsored by the American Muslim Advisory Council of Tennessee.

The area’s top federal prosecutor, Bill Killian, will address a topic that most Americans are likely unfamiliar with, even those well versed on the Constitution; that federal civil rights laws can actually be violated by those who post inflammatory documents aimed at Muslims on social media. “This is an educational effort with civil rights laws as they play into freedom of religion and exercising freedom of religion,’ Killian says in the local news story. “This is also to inform the public what federal laws are in effect and what the consequences are.’

I wonder what the “consequences” will be. Beheading? Stoning?

Actually, this isn’t the camel’s nose. Shoulders, maybe.

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (6)

Why Not?

May 31, 2013 – 10:02 am

In an essay distributed today, Patrick Buchanan suggests abolishing the corporate tax.

We read (long excerpt):

In a press release, “Avoiding Their Fair Share of Taxes,” the AFL-CIO hails Levin [that’s Senator Carl Levin, D-MI, who summoned Apple to the presence and berated Tim Cook for taking advantage of legal tax-minimization strategies] and bewails the fact that though the U.S. corporate tax rate is 35 percent, highest in the world, corporate income tax revenue has fallen to well below 10 percent of federal tax revenue.

“Cash tax payments by non-financial companies in the S&P 500 Index fell … to $222 billion in 2010,” moaned the AFL-CIO.

“Another corporate tax avoidance strategy is to move overseas to a corporate tax haven like Bermuda. By reincorporating offshore, companies avoid paying federal income taxes on profits earned outside the United States.”

Yes, they do. But instead of bewailing this, perhaps we should start thinking and acting as our forebears did. In the same Wall Street Journal that reported on Cook’s defense of Apple, former Sen. Phil Gramm described that earlier America:

“Over the late 19th century, real GDP and employment doubled, annual average real earnings rose by over 60 percent and wholesale prices fell by 75 percent, thanks to marked improvement in productivity.”

Astonishing. And what is the difference between that age and ours? A 35 percent income tax rate on individuals and corporations that did not exist then, and would have been regarded by Americans of the Gilded Age as the satanic work of Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx.

From the Civil War to World War I, our economy grew from one-half the size of Great Britain’s to twice Britain’s. American companies were capturing markets abroad. Today’s U.S. companies are looking for ways to relocate abroad.

Herewith, a modest proposal to turn this around.

Since the U.S. corporate income tax now produces less than 10 percent of federal revenue and less than 2 percent of gross domestic product, abolish it. Get rid of it.

Think of it. A continent-wide nation that doesn’t tax business.

Assume this would cost the Treasury $250 billion in lost revenue.

How to make it up? Put a 10 percent tariff on imports entering the United States, which last year added up to $2.7 trillion.

This tax reform would thus be revenue neutral.

And what would a corporate income tax rate of zero, with a 10 percent tariff on goods entering the U.S.A. from abroad, accomplish?

First, every U.S. corporation that had moved abroad in search of lower taxes in recent years would start thinking about coming home and bringing its production and its jobs back to America.

Second, that $2 trillion in income U.S. companies have stashed abroad would come roaring back into U.S. institutions.

Third, foreign companies would begin to relocate and produce here in America, both to get around the tariff and pay no taxes.

Fourth, U.S. producers would see sales soar inside the $17 trillion U.S. market, at the expense of foreigners who would pay a 10-percent admission fee to get into this market, a fraction of what they used to pay in the 19th century.

While this would cause a surge in unemployment among IRS agents and accountants, hundreds of millions of man hours could be redirected away from filling out tax forms and into productive work.

“Since 1980, the U.S. has run trade deficits in every year totaling about $9 trillion,” writes columnist Robert Samuelson.

That is 9 thousand billion dollars in trade deficits!

It is what unmade America as a self-reliant republic and made China a manufacturing marvel. And those trade deficits are how America became a dependent nation in hock to the world.

From 1865 to 1914, America had 10 Republican presidents. All believed in financing government by taxing imports, not the incomes of U.S. citizens or the U.S. companies that employed them.

Serious question: Can anyone explain to me why this is a bad idea?

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (3)

O Brave New World

May 29, 2013 – 11:12 pm

This is very impressive indeed.

By Malcolm | Posted in Technology | Comments (5)

No Pain, No Gain

May 29, 2013 – 3:01 pm

This just in: as of 2014, the U.S. armed forces are to begin phasing out their traditional physical-fitness programs in favor of a new, full-body conditioning system, which has already shown dramatic effects after being adopted by police forces in the U.K. and Sweden.

You can see it here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Sport | Comments (7)

How Big Is Africa?

May 29, 2013 – 1:49 pm

Big.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (5)

Coming Attractions

May 28, 2013 – 7:40 pm

With a hat tip to our man Mangan, we have this, from the Telegraph:

Death risk lottery of NHS surgery

We read:

Patients undergoing planned operations on the NHS are far more likely to die if they have their operations towards the end of the week, according to a landmark study published in the British Medical Journal.

Death rates were lowest for patients having operations on Monday, increasing by around 10 per cent for each subsequent day of the week, so that for those having surgery on Fridays the risk of death was 44 per cent higher than at the start of the week, the study found.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (0)

It’s Not About The Nail

May 28, 2013 – 5:30 pm

OK, maybe this should have been the Clip of the Day.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (2)

Clip Of The Day

May 28, 2013 – 5:21 pm

Amazing footage: storm chasers in a specially prepared vehicle end up inside the tornado they were following.

Hope that thing has washable seats.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (0)

Human Gravy Siphon

May 28, 2013 – 4:34 pm

To the tune of 156,000 New York taxpayer dollars annually, plus lavish perks. Here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (1)

Anarcho-Tyranny

May 27, 2013 – 10:32 pm

You’ve heard the term lately, no doubt. If you’re wondering what it means, have a look here:

Parking Tickets Issued on Wrecks while Stockholm Burns

We read:

[W]hile the Stockholm riots keep spreading and intensifying, Swedish police have adopted a tactic of non-interference. ’Our ambition is really to do as little as possible,’ Stockholm Chief of Police Mats LÁ¶fving explained to the Swedish newspaper Expressen on Tuesday.

’We go to the crime scenes, but when we get there we stand and wait,’ elaborated Lars BystrÁ¶m, the media relations officer of the Stockholm Police Department. ’If we see a burning car, we let it burn if there is no risk of the fire spreading to other cars or buildings nearby. By doing so we minimize the risk of having rocks thrown at us.’

To understand the concept of “anarcho-tyranny” more fully, keep in mind that the owners will, in all probability, pay the tickets.

— Related terms: “dhimmitude”, “pussification”.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Foreign Affairs, Jihad | Comments (2)

Simple Common Sense About Diversity And Immigration

May 26, 2013 – 10:46 pm

I think it’s time for a brief review of some simple, obvious facts about human nature and the character of human societies.

1) People generally prefer to live with others like themselves. Even in highly diverse places like great port cities, people generally associate homogeneously in their private lives.

2) In highly homogeneous societies, those things that form the social framework of homogeneous groups in private association — commonalities of language, religion, folklore, history, humor, cuisine, manners, literature, music, sport, custom, courtship, drink, pastimes, ritual, dress, taboo, myth, and legend — may also be shared in the public square, without friction or controversy.

3) This expansion of shared values into the public square favors, in turn, high social cohesion and public trust, and, importantly, a feeling of liberty that flows naturally from congruence of manners, desires, aversions, attitudes and behavior. (See this post from a couple of years back.)

4) In small amounts, diversity, existing in conformance with (and subordinate to) a society’s ambient culture, adds flavor and spice to a community.

5) The more diverse a society becomes, however, the less congruence there is between the social lexicons of its several subpopulations. As more circles are added to the cultural Venn diagram, the area of mutual overlap — the region that represents the range of commonality suitable for uncontroversial expression in the public square — diminishes, rapidly.

6) In contrast to 3), this shrinking commonality erodes social cohesion and public trust (even, it has been shown, trust within one’s own group). As it does so it erodes liberty, and happiness.

7) There is, then, a “sweet spot” for diversity: a percentage of exotic residents and influences that is sufficient to season and enliven an otherwise homogeneous society without becoming large enough to begin to usurp its ambient culture or disrupt general social cohesion. Beyond that “tipping point”, though, the effect on the host society is increasingly divisive and detrimental.

8) Just where the tipping point is depends, in large part, on the rate of immigration, and on how similar the new arrivals are to the culture they are joining. Denmark, for example, could far more easily absorb a large wave of Norwegian immigrants than an equal number of Somali Muslims. I think we will all agree that if, say, you were to swap out three-quarters of the native population of Denmark with Somali Muslims, that the indigenous, traditional cultural life of that nation would be irrevocably changed, and effectively destroyed — and that the happiness of the remaining Danes would be greatly diminished. (It should be obvious that on this cultural level, the same is true for any people’s traditional homeland — Danes, Somalis, Tibetans, American Indians, indigenous Australians, or anyone else.)

9) It is nearly impossible to know in advance just where this tipping point is. By the very nature of this sort of gradual change, it only becomes apparent after it has already been crossed.

10) Once wrought, the demographic changes brought about by mass immigration are almost impossible to reverse, without recourse to great, often sanguinary, unpleasantness.

11) Given, then, a) the destructive effects of excess diversity; b) the difficulty of knowing when the demographic “tipping point” has been reached; and c) the irreversibility of demographic change wrought by immigration, it seems that wisdom, prudence, and a concern for general happiness all counsel that any ethnic homeland’s immigration policy should err strongly on the side of caution and moderation, particularly as regards immigration from profoundly (often irreconcilably) alien cultures.

These commonsense truths are the basis of the widely accepted idea that indigenous societies have a fundamental right to defend and preserve the cultural and demographic integrity of their homelands. Nobody in the liberal West imagines, for example, that the forcible settlement of Han Chinese in Tibet, and the ongoing displacement of traditional Tibetan culture, is conducive to the happiness of the Tibetans.

There is a curious blindness, however, on the part of the educated elites of the liberal West to acknowledge that these obvious principles, the generality of which should be entirely and uncontroversially self-evident to anyone of sound mind, might in fact apply to Western peoples and homelands. Can any person not a child or an imbecile look at, for example, Britain, Sweden, France, or the Netherlands and seriously imagine that the native people of these countries are happier (or freer) now, after decades of mass immigration of Muslims and other non-Europeans, than they were when the populations of these nations were almost exclusively British, Swedish, French, and Dutch? Can anyone even begin to think such a thing is actually true?

Apparently so, even now.

It would have seemed unimaginable just half a century ago — but barring a very sudden and dramatic awakening from this deadly enchantment, the ancient peoples and cultures of the Western world are on a path to self-inflicted extinction.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Pretty Good Posts | Comments (32)

There Is Something Fascinating About Science

May 25, 2013 – 8:36 pm

Sorry, readers, for my neglect of these pages over the past few days. I’ve hardly looked at a computer, or read the news, since Wednesday, and I will say that I’m a better man for it.

Until I get caught up, and find myself actually having something to write about, here’s a little nugget from America’s greatest prose stylist. In the following passage, excerpted from Life on the Mississippi (page 120), Mark Twain discusses the river’s habit of cutting shortcuts through its meandering course from time to time, sometimes shortening itself by tens of miles at a stroke. He also demonstrates his understanding of the geological theory of “gradualism“, which was quite new at the time.

Once there was a neck opposite Port Hudson, Louisiana, which was only half a mile across, in its narrowest  place. You could walk across there in fifteen minutes; but if you made the journey  around the cape on a raft, you traveled thirty-­five miles to accomplish the same thing. In  1722 the river darted through that neck, deserted its old bed, and thus shortened itself thirty-­five miles. In the same way it shortened itself twenty-­five miles at Black Hawk Point in 1699. Below Red River Landing, Raccourci cutoff was made (forty or fifty  years ago, I think). This shortened the river twenty­-eight miles. In our day, if you travel  by river from the southernmost of these three cutoffs to the northernmost, you go only  seventy miles. To do the same thing a hundred and seventy-­six years ago, one had to go a  hundred and fifty­-eight miles! — a shortening of eighty-­eight miles in that trifling distance. At some forgotten time in the past, cutoffs were made above Vidalia, Louisiana; at island 92; at island 84; and at Hale’s Point. These shortened the river, in the aggregate, seventy-­seven miles.

Since my own day on the Mississippi, cutoffs have been made at Hurricane Island; at island 100; at Napoleon, Arkansas; at Walnut Bend; and at Council Bend. These shortened the river, in the aggregate, sixty­-seven miles. In my own time a cutoff was made at American Bend, which shortened the river ten miles or more.

Therefore, the Mississippi between Cairo and New Orleans was twelve hundred and fifteen miles long one hundred and seventy­-six years ago. It was eleven hundred and eighty after the cutoff of 1722. It was one thousand and forty after the American Bend cut­off. It has lost sixty­seven miles since.  Consequently its length is only nine hundred and seventy-­three miles at present.

Now, if I wanted to be one of those ponderous scientific people, and ‘let on’ to prove what  had occurred in the remote past by what had occurred in a given time in the recent past, or what will occur in the far future by what has occurred in late years, what an  opportunity is here! Geology never had such a chance, nor such exact data to argue from! Nor ‘development of species,’ either! Glacial epochs are great things, but they are vague — vague. Please observe:

In the space of one hundred and seventy-­six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty­-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the old Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and  stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing­rod. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-­two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-­quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual  board of aldermen.

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

By Malcolm | Posted in Books | Comments (2)

Breaking The Spell?

May 21, 2013 – 11:00 pm

Over the transom tonight comes a link to Victor Davis Hanson’s latest: a summary of just how dangerous the bloat and rot and corruption of our Executive Branch has become.

We read:

Government has become a sort of malignant metastasizing tumor, growing on its own, parasitical on healthy cells, always searching for new sources of nourishment, its purpose nothing other than growing bigger and faster and more powerful ”” until the exhausted host collapses. We have a sunshine king and our government has become a sort of virtual Versailles palace.

I suppose that when a presidential candidate urges his supporters to get in someone’s face, and to take a gun to a knife fight, from now on you better believe him. And, finally, the strangest thing about nearing the threshold of 1984? It comes with a whimper, not a bang, with a charismatic smile and mellifluous nonsense””with politically correct, egalitarian-minded bureaucrats with glasses and iPhones instead of fist-shaking jack-booted thugs.

Yes, things have gotten really, really bad, and in exactly the way that the Framers foresaw, so long ago. Either there must be be a serious reaction, a great convulsion of resentment and anger — and it had better happen soon! — or we will descend meekly henceforward into servitude and ruination.

A story: once, when I was a teenager, I noticed a wart on my finger. It got bigger, and soon there were several more, all over my hands. It got worse and worse — until one day I noticed they were all dying. Within a week or so there was nothing left of them. I’ve never had one since.

I realized that the problem had to rise to a certain level — in this case, it had to get pretty bad indeed — before it prompted an immune response. When that response finally happened, though, it was swift and effective. This realization has stayed with me, and I have often described our civilization’s wasting disability as a disorder of the immune system. (Most recently here, for example.)

I’m hoping that the same thing is happening here: that our condition has now become serious enough, and obvious enough to all, to provoke a long-overdue immune response. Even Piers Morgan, if you can believe it, seems to have noticed that all that “tyranny” stuff he’s been mocking so caustically for so long is actually starting to happen. (That’s a very hopeful sign, because he’s about as obtuse as they come.)

We’ll see. I’m strangely optimistic, all of a sudden (well, a little). There may be some backbone in this nation yet.

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics, Society and Culture | Comments (3)

Sock Puppets

May 21, 2013 – 3:35 pm

So: the rest of the press gets Baghdad Bob Carney in the briefing room, and the ones with the OFA kneepads get a private pow-wow. Duly noted.

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (1)

The Truth Is Great, And Shall Prevail. Or Not.

May 21, 2013 – 10:52 am

Yesterday I wrote, with regard to the Richwine affair, that “in their ardor to eliminate, for all time, every form of discrimination ”” which righteous Quest, infinite and unbounded, is the holiest sacrament of our new secular religion ”” it seems that many on the multiculturalist Left are more than willing to bring Truth itself to die on the altar.”

Here’s an example — from Scientific American, no less! — in which journalist John Horgan suggests an outright ban on research into race and IQ.

We read:

Institutional review boards (IRBs), which must approve research involving human subjects carried out by universities and other organizations, should reject proposed research that will promote racial theories of intelligence, because the harm of such research”“which fosters racism even if not motivated by racism”“far outweighs any alleged benefits.

And a bit further on (emphasis mine):

Scientific American has just published two excellent article [sic] on “stereotype threat,’ which is a kind of reverse placebo”“or “nocebo’”“effect; victims of negative stereotypes may underperform because they believe the stereotype. See here and here. Some clever critics of my post might accuse me of hypocrisy, because these articles present esearch on race and and should be subject to my proposed ban. Obviously I’m trying to eliminate research that reinforces rather than counteracting racism. I mean, Duh.

And obviously we’ll know in advance what the results of our research will be, I suppose, so we can foster the one sort and stifle the rest.

Elsewhere in the article, Horgan asks:

… Harvard researchers Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray argued in The Bell Curve that programs to boost black academic performance might be futile because blacks are innately less intelligent than whites; and in 2007 when geneticist and Nobel laureate James Watson ascribed Africa’s social problems to Africans’ genetic inferiority. (Watson is also a former Harvard professor. What is it with Harvard? Could there be something in the drinking water?)

The answer? Why, it’s right there in Harvard’s motto: Veritas.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture | Comments (6)

Speak Of The Devil!

May 20, 2013 – 8:54 pm
This entry is part 7 of 7 in the series Jason Richwine

In recent days we’ve linked to an assortment of comments on the public flaying and excommunication of Jason Richwine. (The linked items have all been supportive; had I found anything from the other side that I thought was intellectually respectable enough to offer our readers, I would have done so. If you readers have anything you consider fit to present, by all means send it along for scrutiny.)

Now, here is Jason Richwine himself, defending both his dissertation and the Heritage Foundation’s immigration report.

An excerpt (emphasis mine):

If the dissertation were taken seriously, its real contribution would be to open a forthright debate about the assimilation challenge posed by the post-1965 immigration wave. Because regardless of what one believes IQ scores really measure, or what determines them, they are undeniably predictive of a wide variety of socioeconomic outcomes that people care about.

We’re still waiting for that assimilation debate to start. I am not aware of a single major news outlet that acted as if my results merited real discussion. The reporters scanned the text for damning pull-quotes, giddily pasted them into stories about “extremism’ on the right, and presented my statements as self-evidently wrong. Liberal bloggers piled on with ignorant condemnations. Even some conservative supporters of the Schumer-Rubio amnesty eagerly joined the hatefest. At no time did the critics seem to wonder whether what I was saying might be true.

The reason for that is simple. The media were never interested in me or in the substance of my dissertation. They wanted only to use my work to embarrass the Heritage Foundation and, by extension, all opponents of amnesty. It’s a familiar formula for “gotcha’ journalism: Uncover an “extremist’ associated with a mainstream organization, then demand to know how the organization could possibly associate itself with him. Keep turning up the pressure, hour after hour, with “shocking’ new revelations.

To see how the furor over my dissertation is so inextricably linked to today’s heated debate over immigration, consider that no less a mainstream-media institution than the New York Times reported on some of my dissertation’s ideas in 2009. The newspaper’s Idea of the Day blog discussed my proposal for IQ selection in neutral terms. No moral panic ensued. What’s different now is that immigration reform is at stake, and the whole conversation is hopelessly politicized.

Also:

In my judgment, the initial criticisms of the Heritage study were not enough to sink it, so the media latched on to my dissertation as a convenient distraction. Better to shoot the messengers than to deal seriously with what they are saying.

Some students at Harvard are now using the same strategy to denounce my dissertation findings. An open letter signed by 23 ethnic student groups contains this gem: “Even if such claims had merit, the Kennedy School cannot ethically stand by this dissertation whose end result can only be furthering discrimination under the guise of academic discourse.’ It would be difficult to find a more explicit embrace of censorship.

Earlier today a commenter at Foseti made a similar remark:

I take lefties at their word when they say that they are worried about belief in racial differences in this or that being taken to justify discrimination or hatred.

I’m sure they are. But what ‘lefties’ never seem to grasp, and should learn to worry about as well, is that the counterfactual denial of statistical differences between human groups is also used to justify discrimination (race-based initiatives based on the assumption that disproportion in group outcome must therefore be based on institutionalized racism) and hatred (of pallid “racists’).

Moreover, in their ardor to eliminate, for all time, every form of discrimination — which righteous Quest, infinite and unbounded, is the holiest sacrament of our new secular religion — it seems that many on the multiculturalist Left are more than willing to bring Truth itself to die on the altar. Which is bad.

Read Dr. Richwine’s remarks here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Science | Comments (5)

Too Busy

May 20, 2013 – 5:54 pm

Sorry for the lack of substantial content over the past few days. Lord knows there’s been a lot to comment on, but I’ve had no time for writing.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (0)

Death Extends His Finger

May 20, 2013 – 5:49 pm

Here is a horrifying video of the tornado that just devastated Moore, Oklahoma.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (0)

It Can Happen Here

May 20, 2013 – 12:27 pm

In case you needed reminding.

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (0)

And Then You Die

May 20, 2013 – 12:19 pm

Here‘s what hemotoxic snake venom does to blood.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (0)

Ticker Symbol, Please

May 19, 2013 – 10:44 pm

This is quite a story, if it’s all it’s cracked up to be.

By Malcolm | Posted in Technology | Comments (3)

The HBD Bibliography

May 19, 2013 – 10:06 pm

One-stop shopping for all you HBD and Endarkenment sorts (you know who you are*).

Here.

 
 
* And the IRS probably does, too.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (0)

Breaking!

May 17, 2013 – 11:08 pm

Fabulous surfing video, here.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (1)

RHex

May 17, 2013 – 8:59 pm

Wow, I love this little guy.

By Malcolm | Posted in Technology | Comments (1)

The Greatest Of Heresies

May 16, 2013 – 11:51 pm
This entry is part 6 of 7 in the series Jason Richwine

Despite the multiple eruptions of scandal threatening to engulf the Obama administration (a dazzling constellation of embarrassments that I would normally be commenting on with gusto), it’s the Jason Richwine affair that has my attention. It is the best and most public example, so far, of the pathological cognitive dissonance required to sustain mainstream multiculturalist liberalism.

Richwine’s heresy is particularly dangerous because it sprang from the very heart of the Cathedral itself, and was built on solid rock: a patient, rational examination of quantifiable attributes of the real world, by a Harvard-trained expert in the analysis of empirical data. It was not religious or superstitious. It was, in short, everything the secular Left prides itself on: to paraphrase President Obama’s inaugural address, it was Science restored to its rightful place. Veritas!

Yet the result it brought forth was a hideous, damnable thing: a reanimated, tottering corpse, long thought dead for all time; the enemy and anathema of all that the Cathedral has made holy. In its animal truth it reeked of corruption, of worldly filth. Its sweet, rotten stench, filling the nostrils of the faithful, had the power to reawaken forbidden, pagan memories, ancient and dark and seductive.

So: it had to go. Being nothing more than a creation of rational inquiry, though, it couldn’t be fought on its own terms, and so no one has tried. What was needed was a witch-burning. And so Jason Richwine was dragged to the stake.

Not a witch-burning, you say? Sorry, but I’m afraid that’s exactly what it was. For the details, I urge you all to read this excellent post by hbd* chick.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Science | Comments (0)

Slip-Sliding Away

May 15, 2013 – 10:39 pm

The DOJ/DOE announce new on-campus speech restrictions. Here.

Oh, and don’t miss this, courtesy of @Iowahawk.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture | Comments (0)

This Just In!

May 15, 2013 – 4:35 pm

Now here’s an interesting item: it seems that upper-body strength in males correlates positively with opposition to redistributive economic policies.

We read:

“Our results demonstrate that physically weak males are more reluctant than physically strong males to assert their self-interest ”” just as if disputes over national policies were a matter of direct physical confrontation among small numbers of individuals, rather than abstract electoral dynamics among millions,’ [Aarhus University researcher Michael Bang] Petersen said.

Yes, another shocker from the frontiers of Science: “physically weak males are more reluctant than physically strong males to assert their self-interest”. Who knew?

Well, I seem to fit the pattern; I’m six feet tall, sturdily built, strong as an ox, and no socialist. (I first became strong, as a young man, by working hard to earn myself a living as a laborer on the railroad, which of course may have something to do with it.)

This finding is hardly surprising, from an evolutionary, or even common-sense, viewpoint. (The correlation is not observed in women.) It is certainly understandable that a feminized, soft-handed, epicene beta male of the sort seen everywhere in the big cities these days would prefer that people not have to toil or compete for a living. (Leaving aside economic redistribution, I find myself wondering who opens their jars for them.)

Of course it’s atavistic to imagine that competition in this day and age requires physical dominance, but muscle mass likely correlates with testosterone levels, and so in turn with competitiveness.

By Malcolm | Posted in Darwin and Biology, Society and Culture, Science | Comments (9)

Voices Of The Damned

May 14, 2013 – 9:03 pm
This entry is part 5 of 7 in the series Jason Richwine

The latest to comment on the Richwine defenestration: Patrick Buchanan, with perhaps the sharpest response yet. Read it at the peril of your soul — or at the very least, of your adjustment to the Matrix.

Update, May 15th: adding Charles Murray and Andrew Sullivan.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Politics | Comments (2)

But Wait, There’s More!

May 14, 2013 – 10:24 am

According to a story in today’s Washington Examiner, the systematic harrying of conservative groups by the federal government was not limited to the IRS.

It’s becoming clearer by the day why Barack Obama selected Joe Biden as his running mate.

More here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (4)

A Spontaneous Reaction

May 12, 2013 – 9:24 pm

Just in case you missed it the first time around: here’s Susan Rice on Meet The Press, Sunday, September 16th, 2012.

By Malcolm | Posted in Rubbish | Comments (0)

Skywhale

May 12, 2013 – 8:56 pm

I pass this along without comment.

By Malcolm | Posted in Curiosities | Comments (0)

As It Happens

May 11, 2013 – 10:15 pm

Here’s a map showing changes to Wikipedia in real time.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (7)

Like An Impure Being

May 11, 2013 – 1:48 pm
This entry is part 4 of 7 in the series Jason Richwine

More on the Richwine witch-burning, from VDare’s Peter Brimelow, here.

This really matters, folks, and people (at least on the more mainstream, non-HBD Right) are starting to realize it, I think. This man was awarded a doctorate from Harvard on the basis of a carefully researched, quantitative analysis of empirical data. His review panel was a trio of academics of unimpeachable credentials. Yet this meticulously prepared, 166-page thesis is now Exhibit A in his heresy trial.

At the end of Brimelow’s piece, he writes:

Earlier this week, I was talking to a Harvard academic who is familiar with Richwine’s work. He commented that there were simply some subjects the study of which is incompatible with an academic career.

“That’s a remarkable thing in a free country,’ I said.

“This isn’t a free country,’ he replied.

To be clear: of course it is important that individuals and civil institutions be free to associate or dissociate themselves from other individuals and institutions as they see fit, and there is certainly a still a distinction, here in America, between what has happened to Dr. Richwine and the actual suppression of speech by force of law (for now, at least; not so much in Canada and Europe). But the man has been subjected to serious punishment, including the loss of his livelihood, for doing exactly what I thought we were supposed to be doing: engaging in an “honest” discussion about immigration and race — and for bringing to the discussion not wishful thinking, idealistic bromides, and fashionable opinion, but empirical data, painstakingly gathered under the supervision of America’s foremost academy of higher learning.

We might imagine that this represents a sudden descent into P.C. madness, but in fact it’s nothing new. In Democracy in America (published in 1835), Alexis de Tocqueville wrote:

In America the majority raises very formidable barriers to the liberty of opinion: within these barriers an author may write whatever he pleases, but he will repent it if he ever step beyond them. Not that he is exposed to the terrors of an auto-da-fe, but he is tormented by the slights and persecutions of daily obloquy. His political career is closed forever, since he has offended the only authority which is able to promote his success. Every sort of compensation, even that of celebrity, is refused to him. Before he published his opinions he imagined that he held them in common with many others; but no sooner has he declared them openly than he is loudly censured by his overbearing opponents, whilst those who think without having the courage to speak, like him, abandon him in silence. He yields at length, oppressed by the daily efforts he has been making, and he subsides into silence, as if he was tormented by remorse for having spoken the truth.

Fetters and headsmen were the coarse instruments which tyranny formerly employed; but the civilization of our age has refined the arts of despotism which seemed, however, to have been sufficiently perfected before. The excesses of monarchical power had devised a variety of physical means of oppression: the democratic republics of the present day have rendered it as entirely an affair of the mind as that will which it is intended to coerce. Under the absolute sway of an individual despot the body was attacked in order to subdue the soul, and the soul escaped the blows which were directed against it and rose superior to the attempt; but such is not the course adopted by tyranny in democratic republics; there the body is left free, and the soul is enslaved. The sovereign can no longer say, “You shall think as I do on pain of death;” but he says, “You are free to think differently from me, and to retain your life, your property, and all that you possess; but if such be your determination, you are henceforth an alien among your people. You may retain your civil rights, but they will be useless to you, for you will never be chosen by your fellow-citizens if you solicit their suffrages, and they will affect to scorn you if you solicit their esteem. You will remain among men, but you will be deprived of the rights of mankind. Your fellow-creatures will shun you like an impure being, and those who are most persuaded of your innocence will abandon you too, lest they should be shunned in their turn. Go in peace! I have given you your life, but it is an existence in comparably worse than death.

Tocqueville ascribes this frightful power to “the majority”, but he also notes that “those who think without having the courage to speak, like him, abandon him in silence.” Given that Dr. Richwine’s heretical utterances are nothing more than expressions of what appears to be empirical truth (and truth having a way of making itself apparent, even if people don’t like to talk about it), the “majority” behind his excommunication may in fact be smaller than we think. We must refuse to abandon Dr. Richwine in silence; perhaps we may embolden others to do the same, and so put an end to this suicidal folly.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Immigration | Comments (1)

Casting Out The Devil, Cont’d

May 9, 2013 – 7:48 pm
This entry is part 3 of 7 in the series Jason Richwine

Michelle Malkin has now joined the small chorus of writers protesting the ruination of Jason Richwine for crimespeak (see our previous entry, just below).

She writes:

Richwine’s 166-page dissertation, “IQ and Immigration Policy,’ is now being used to smear him ”“ and by extension, all of Heritage’s scholarship ”“ as “racist.’ While the punditocracy and political establishment sanctimoniously call for “honest discussions’ on race, they rush to crush bona fide, dispassionate academic inquiries into the controversial subjects of intelligence, racial and ethnic differences, and domestic policy.

Richwine’s entire thesis, “IQ and Immigration Policy,’ is now online here. Part One reviews the science of IQ. Part Two delves into empirical research comparing IQs of the native-born American population with that of immigrant groups, with the Hispanic population broken out. Richwine explores the causes of an immigrant IQ deficit that appears to persist among Hispanic immigrants to the U.S. through several generations.

The thesis analyzes social policy consequences of these findings and uses a model of the labor market “to show how immigrant IQ affects the economic surplus accruing to natives and the wage impact on low-skill natives.

The smug dismissal of Richwine’s credentials and scholarship is to be expected by liberal hacks and clown operatives. But a reckless and cowardly pile-up of knee-jerk dilettantes on the Right ”” including former McCain campaign co-chair Ana Navarro and conservative Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin ”“ have joined the character assassins of the Soros-sphere, MSNBC, and Mother Jones in deeming Richwine a “racist.’ The drooling attack dogs of far Left blog Daily Kos have now launched a pressure campaign against the JFK School demanding to know “why the school awarded Richwine a PhD and what they plan to do in the future to prevent it from happening again.’

No researcher or academic institution is safe if this smear campaign succeeds…

… The willingness of Republican Gang of 8’ers to allow a young conservative researcher and married father of two to be strung up by the p.c. lynch mob for the crime of unflinching social science research is chilling, sickening, and suicidal.
These are serious people doing serious work. The crucifiers of Jason Richwine pretend to defend sound science. But if it is now inherently racist to study racial and ethnic differences among demographic groups, then it’s time to shut down every social sciences department in the country.

“Chilling, sickening, and suicidal” is about right. A friend and fellow blogger wrote to me earlier today:

The Jason Richwine ritual crucifixion is almost literally making me sick. Even after Watson, Summers, Kanazawa, and others, I’m amazed at how dishonest his “critics” are.

I replied:

Things suddenly seem to me to have got much, much worse… What’s telling about the Richwine thing is that nobody is, as far as I can see, even bothering to rebut his position on the merits (if indeed they could); they don’t even feel the need to try. He is simply being denounced, dragged through the mud, his career ruined, just for threatening the ideological hegemony of the Cathedral.

This is, of course, a natural consequence of the triumph of radical multiculturalism, and of the displacement of mostly homogeneous societies by jumbles of miscellaneous, and largely immiscible, subpopulations: the necessary, dogmatic, and ruthlessly enforced denial of all meaningful human distinctions.

I continued:

The only way to keep the peace is to limit allowable public discourse [and eventually even private discourse, as in the case of Lars Hedegaard] to the shrinking area in the middle of the Venn diagram where nobody can be offended. It’s like modern-day Rwanda: nobody dares to utter a word. It’s sickening. Like you say. And it’s scary.

I’d expect Steven Pinker to weigh in on this shameful episode sometime soon — Richwine’s offending dissertation was written at Harvard, and he and Pinker probably know each other. I hope he does. Meanwhile, you can read the rest of Ms. Malkin’s piece here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Science, Immigration | Comments (0)

We’re Number One

May 9, 2013 – 3:55 pm

Here is a map showing the occupation of the highest-paid public-sector employee in each of the fifty states.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture | Comments (1)

Casting Out The Devil

May 9, 2013 – 11:44 am
This entry is part 2 of 7 in the series Jason Richwine

The Heritage Foundation’s recent immigration study, mentioned in these pages just the other day, has now attracted the attention of the Inquisition. In particular, one of the study’s authors, Jason Richwine — who made the serious mistake of making public certain well-researched psychometric data of a profoundly heretical nature — today finds himself, in conformance with our 21st-century Malleus Maleficarum, taking a seat upon the Judas Cradle.

John Derbyshire, who last year rode the strappado for a related offense, comments here. Steve Sailer comments also, here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Science, Immigration | Comments (0)

Yes, It Matters

May 8, 2013 – 9:39 pm

It was quite a day at the Benghazi hearings: sharp contradictions of the Obama administration’s account of events (regarding in particular the YouTube story and the failure to provide both security and relief), as well as clear signs of a coverup. This story is not going away.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post — which as, readers of a certain age will remember, was responsible for some very consequential investigative journalism some years back, but which now stands watch in the Cathedral’s Swiss Guard — had only this to say about the investigation of another Executive Branch, forty years on:

 
I knew times had changed, and not for the better, but I didn’t know we had fallen quite this far. Gone is even the least pretense of impartiality, or even dignity.

We’ll see who laughs last.

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (7)

Senator Rubio, Call Your Office

May 7, 2013 – 9:14 pm
This entry is part 1 of 7 in the series Jason Richwine

Speaking of the Heritage Foundation (see our Sanford post just below), here’s a report they’ve just released: The Fiscal Cost of Unlawful Immigrants and Amnesty to the U.S. Taxpayer.

Spoiler: it’s a lot.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Politics | Comments (0)

Crack!

May 7, 2013 – 9:03 pm

Here’s a fantastic shot: lightning strikes the Grand Canyon.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (1)

Firearms Dysmorphia Syndrome

May 7, 2013 – 8:59 pm

Making the rounds today: gun homicides are way down in recent years, but a majority of Americans think they are more frequent than ever.

I wonder why that could be?

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Guns | Comments (0)

Democracy In America

May 7, 2013 – 8:47 pm

Well! South Carolina’s in the news again. The story this evening is that the swinish philanderer Mark Sanford has defeated the liberal candidate, Elizabeth Colbert Busch, for the vacant House seat left open by Rep. Tim Scott’s ascent to the Senate (which in turn followed Jim DeMint’s abdication of his Senate seat in order to take over the presidency of the Heritage Society).

Two things are clear. One is that if the Democrats couldn’t even manage to beat the odious Sanford there is reason for us conservatives to be guardedly optimistic about 2014. The other is that, given how quickly the disgraced former governor has risen from the dead, we all have good reason to fear an impending zombie apocalypse.

My darkest fear, though, in light of this surprising result, can be summed up in three terrifying words:

Mayor Anthony Weiner.

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (3)

Murder One

May 6, 2013 – 6:51 pm

Over at Mangan’s, Dennis returns to the spotlight a year-old article showcasing the destructive malevolence of the Cathedral. Go have a look.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture | Comments (0)

Stop The Presses!

May 6, 2013 – 6:43 pm

What’s just fantastic about living in these exciting times is that just about every day, Science turns up amazing facts that nobody could ever have imagined possible. (Nobody, that is, who received his or her education in the liberal West of the past few decades; these things would of course have been blindingly obvious to everybody else, always and everywhere throughout human history and around the globe.)

Today’s gobsmackingly astonishing shocker: women appear to be wired up differently from men, in a way that predisposes them to care for infants.

Read more here. (And from a related item: as for what wakes up men and women, for women a crying baby is at the top of the list, while for men it doesn’t even make the top ten.)

By Malcolm | Posted in Science | Comments (2)

Hang ‘Em High

May 6, 2013 – 12:39 am

Right. Well, godless heathen that I am, I won’t be going to Bangladesh anytime soon, I’ve decided.

Venice is nice.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (0)

Battle Won. War Continues.

May 5, 2013 – 10:33 pm

Charles C.W. Cooke, who has been covering the gun-control controversy for National Review, gives us a recap of the NRA convention in Houston.

I’m becoming rather a fan of young Mr. Cooke, who writes well and thinks clearly. He had this to say about the enormous groundswell of public resistance to further restrictions on gun ownership:

Any group that combines millions of normal Americans and the defense of an unalienable right will be difficult to demonize effectively.

Read the rest here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Guns | Comments (0)