Rimshot, Please

October 26, 2009 – 9:53 pm

After eleven hours of heavy lifting at the office, I’m afraid the little grey cells have now called it a day, and a meaty post is simply not in the cards. But readers will know by now that having nothing of any interest whatsoever to say rarely keeps me from posting — and tonight is no exception.

This evening’s offering fits with particular aptness into our “tomfoolery” taxon, having been tossed over the transom today by my old Hung Gar training brother Tom Andrus. So, without further ado:

Can’t find the book you’re looking for? Well, it’s probably because you’re in the:

Read More »

By Malcolm | Posted in Tomfoolery | Comments (5)

Face Facts

October 26, 2009 – 12:09 am

It’s been a busy weekend, and I’ve had no time for writing. For tonight, then, a curiosity: the effect of visual contrast on gender recognition. Here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Science, Mind and Brain | Comments (3)

Meating Of The Minds

October 23, 2009 – 10:48 pm

An item in today’s Physorg newsletter describes some remarkable neurological research: scientists at CalTech, by showing pictures to test subjects while monitoring brain activity, have managed to associate individual neurons in the medial temporal lobe with specific perceptions.

We read:

Dr. Moran Cerf of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and colleagues conducted their experiment by showing the subjects images of people, places or objects that were familiar to them, including pictures of celebrities such as Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe, and Bill Clinton. They then looked for the neurons that fired when the subject was shown each image.

In each of the subjects they found individual neurons fired when the person looked at a specific image. So there was a “Michael Jackson neuron”, a “Marilyn Monroe neuron”, and others that fired when the person was shown an image of the Eiffel tower, a spider, or other familiar objects or places.

When the neurons corresponding to particular images had been identified, the researchers hooked the electrodes up to a computer that displayed the image corresponding to the neuron that fired. The subject was then asked to think about one of the images. So, for example, a subject was asked to think about Marilyn Monroe. The Marilyn Monroe neuron in the subject’s brain fired, and the information was relayed to the computer, which then displayed Monroe’s image.

Another experiment designed to test how well the subjects could control the single neurons was a fade experiment in which the subject was shown a combined image of two faces: Josh Brolin (star of Goonies) and Marilyn Monroe, and told to think of Josh Brolin. The electrodes sent data on the Josh Brolin and Marilyn Monroe neurons to the computer, which brightened the image of the one causing most neuron firing. As the subject thought of Brolin, the image of Monroe faded out.

This is an impressive result, with enormously important implications.

Next questions: if I have a neuron in my brain that reliably activates when I see or think of Marilyn Monroe, does it really fire only when I see or think of Marilyn Monroe? I’ll be surprised if neural resources are allocated in such a “dedicated” way — a one-to-one mapping of the kind suggested here, with each neuron representing exactly one intentional referent, and doing nothing else; it seems so limiting. I’ve always imagined that the hardware implementation of our memory and intentionality would take the form of configurations of groups of neurons; it seems you’d get more for less that way. And is this “Marilyn” cell activated if I see a picture of Marilyn Monroe without being conscious of it? How about if I dream about her?

And then the much harder question: why that neuron?

Read the story here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Mind and Brain, Science | Comments (4)

Could Be Worse

October 23, 2009 – 6:48 pm

Life is hard, but at least it’s short.

By Malcolm | Posted in Apophthegmata | Comments (6)

Man Bites God

October 21, 2009 – 1:02 pm

Over at CNN today we learn that the Coalition of Reason, an association of godless heathens, has purchased some advertising space in Gotham’s subway system. Their ads will point out the plain empirical fact that it is possible for people to be good without religion.

What’s telling about this is not the story itself, but that the story — interest group buys advertising — was considered newsworthy in the first place. After all, nobody batted an eyelash when Pastor Ock Soo Park ran an ad suggesting that we should all forsake our faculties of reason and join the Bible Crusade.

I’ve suggested before that if religion is, as I believe, an evolutionary adaptation that improves the relative fitness of human groups, then atheism — its truth-value notwithstanding — may be maladaptive. This ad campaign’s making the news might be seen as an example of the social organism’s immune system at work.

Read the story here.

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

Thoughtcrime

October 21, 2009 – 12:32 pm

Over at Mangan’s today, Dennis reports on pressure being applied to the journal Medical Hypotheses (and its editor Bruce Charlton) in an attempt to suppress a controversial paper on AIDS. Here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Science | Comments (1)

Scatterbrains

October 21, 2009 – 12:06 am

The model of the modern mind, it seems, is one that can attend to many things at once, effortlessly picking up new tasks as completed ones are dropped. This new-and-improved kind of mind features an agile attention that is almost entirely without inertia, dancing nimbly upon flickering streams of incoming data without fatigue or failure.

My mind isn’t like that. I can only think effectively about one thing at a time, and furthermore I don’t think I’m really all that different from anybody else. I’ve always thought that people who pride themselves on their “multitasking” are actually operating at a rather superficial and mediocre level.

According to an article published a few weeks ago in the Times, it turns out I’m right. Learn more here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Mind and Brain | Comments (5)

Back From the Future

October 19, 2009 – 10:57 pm

Time travel is a persistently tantalizing idea, and has been a recurring theme in literature and other cultural media since at least as far back as the Mahabarata. Today it lives at the very edge of scientific plausibility: never entirely ruled out, but subject to persuasive objections. One of the most problematic is the “grandfather paradox”, which asks what would happen if you were to go back in time and kill your own grandfather in his boyhood. He would, then, never have grown to adulthood, and would never have become a father — which means, of course, that you would never have existed. But then you wouldn’t be able to go back in time to do the dastardly deed in the first place! There seems no way out of the loop, and to many that means that time travel itself must be forbidden by the fundamental order of Nature. But this objection doesn’t cover ordinary, non-murderous tourism; perhaps it is simply in some way impossible to perform actions that disrupt the continuity of the time-stream. Or perhaps our consciousness can travel in some purely observational way that lacks causative power; after all, to physicists the very “flow” of time itself appears to be just some sort of illusion presented to our consciousness. (In relativistic physics time doesn’t “move”; it is, in a sense, all there at once: just one of the axes in the space-time framework.)

Stephen Hawking asked: if we were to become able in the future to learn how to travel to the past, where are all the tourists? Shouldn’t we see them here now? But perhaps they are hiding, or simply aren’t visiting, or perhaps they can only travel back to regions of time that lie after some point in the future where we learn to make suitable cosmological arrangements. And of course there have been various allegations of actual time travel; perhaps the most curious and interesting one, though almost certainly a hoax, is the strange story of “John Titor”, which you can read about here.

But lately the idea has been popping up again, and in rarefied circles. Some physicists, noting the oddly unproductive history of super-high-energy particle colliders — first the startling de-funding of the Superconducting Supercollider here in America (an “anti-miracle”, in one scientist’s words), and then the suprising breakdowns at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider — have suggested, and apparently seriously so, that operating these devices above a certain energy threshold may lead to such horrifying calamities that some sort of causal agency has actually reached backward in time to prevent them from getting up and running.

Learn more here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Science, Technology | Comments (5)

Picture Postcard

October 18, 2009 – 6:19 pm

We’ve been off the air for a couple of days, having holed up in Wellfleet for a long weekend.

The weekend after Columbus Day is when the town hosts its annual Oysterfest, a two-day celebration of our renowned local mollusc. As you can see from the schedule of events, there are concerts, lectures, exhibitions and competitions (including a lively oyster-shucking contest and the annual Spelling Bee); there are also dozens of booths set up along Main Street where local artists and craftsmen hawk their wares, and where local charities do lucrative sheep-shearing. First and foremost, though, there is food, and above all there are Wellfleet oysters everywhere, plucked fresh from their briny slumber in our scenic harbor and served up in every way imaginable.

Read More »

By Malcolm | Posted in Cape Cod | Comments (5)

Surprise!

October 15, 2009 – 11:20 pm

We’ve been traveling all evening, so just a brief item for tonight: a giant, glowing ribbon at the outer limits of our solar system. Here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Science | Comments (1)

Seriously?

October 14, 2009 – 11:08 pm

We certainly have plenty of things to worry about already, I think most of you would would agree. To name just a few, we have an ancient clash of civilizations, with hot wars on two fronts and fanatical terrorists scheming in every shadowy corner of the globe; paranoid despots, who hate us, armed with nuclear weapons; a deeply polarized society here at home; a ravaged economy that, despite recent appearances, is likely to get far worse before it gets much better; the melting away of European society as it wallows forward under the deadly spell of doctrinaire socialist multiculturalism; the accelerating coarsening and trivialization of our own culture here in America; swine flu; earthquakes, floods, typhoons and tsunamis; unmapped asteroids that can wipe us out at a stroke; the Democratic Party; depleted fisheries; rainforest destruction; a floating island of garbage the size of Texas; the various religions of the world and their vexatiously incompatible fantasies; the Republican Party; global overpopulation, poverty and ignorance; AIDS; mass extinctions, increasing power and influence on the part of China and Russia; drug wars on our southern border and the erosion of free speech to our north; the end of the Maya calendar in 2012; the New York State Legislature; and of course the ever-present threat of a possible reappearance, without any warning, of Janet Jackson’s nipple.

So, given all this, you’re probably saying to yourself that the last thing we need is giant blobs of floating sea mucus. But here they are.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (4)

Thy Rod And Thy Staff Shall Comfort Me

October 13, 2009 – 4:20 pm

A friend at work just sent this awkward logo my way…

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (7)

Baby Steps

October 13, 2009 – 10:31 am

National Geographic recently added a new feature to its website: a zoomable map du jour. I particularly enjoyed today’s offering, depicting 50 years of space exploration. Here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Technology | Comments (1)

You Don’t Know What You’ve Got Till It’s Gone

October 12, 2009 – 6:37 pm

Here, with a hat tip to Dymphna at Gates of Vienna, are some video clips that should be of interest to all: Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant testifying before the Canadian Parliament’s Justice and Human Rights Committee, as part of an inquiry into the inquisitorial powers of the Canadian Human Rights Commission regarding censorship of “hate speech”.

This is where the West is headed, if we aren’t careful.

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics, Foreign Affairs, Jihad | Comments (1)

Pulling The Plug On Grandma

October 12, 2009 – 3:53 pm

Lovely. It won’t happen here, of course.

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (2)

Peace Prize Be Upon Him

October 11, 2009 – 4:29 pm

A commenter on our recent post about President Obama’s Nobel Prize disapproved of my saying that Mr. Obama had made, in his Cairo speech to the Muslim world, “fawning salaams and obeisances before Islam”. At the time of the speech I had refrained from dwelling on this, preferring instead to compliment Mr. Obama on an earnest attempt simply to get everyone to simmer down a bit, but the fact is that the speech (in contrast to the one I suggested he ought to make) was indeed larded with false and fulsome praise for a religion whose orthodox adherents are the principal threat to peace in the world today.

I had begun to assemble some point-by-point remarks, but as it turns out the Norwegian essayist who goes by the nom de plume “Fjordman” has already done a nice job of it here; go and have a look.

Read More »

By Malcolm | Posted in Jihad | Comments (2)

You Cannot Be Serious

October 9, 2009 – 10:35 am

Continuing his ascent toward globe-girdling Godhead, Barack Obama has now been given the Nobel Peace Prize. The Peace Prize is already little more than a political and cultural absurdity, a rubber-stamp of leftist adulation — but this award, in which the Nobel Committee shows all the dignity and sober judgment of a bunch of teenage girls at a Jonas Brothers concert, is remarkable even by the usual tendentious standards. What, exactly, has Mr. Obama — whose nomination, by the way, was submitted when he had been in office for about two weeks — done? Aside from making fawning salaams and obeisances before Islam in Cairo, and apologizing to all at every opportunity for America’s central role as creator and sustainer of all the world’s ills, his only accomplishments to date have been the extraction of tentative support from Russia for nuclear sanctions against Iran, and a handful of vague and hopeful speeches about a better tomorrow.

There was a time when the Prize was, at least, given for achievements, not aspirations. But I suppose we shouldn’t be too hard on the Nobel Committee: to their credit, they refrained from awarding Mr. Obama top honors in all the other categories as well.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (29)

So Sorry

October 8, 2009 – 11:15 pm

When we enumerate those few qualities that, despite Man’s infinite capacity for folly and cruelty, reveal nevertheless a transcendent spark that sets us apart from the beasts, chief among them, perhaps, is our astonishing ability at times to create, even as we groan upon the rack, works of art of timeless and ennobling beauty. We think of the music of Bach and Beethoven; the plays of Shakespeare; the paintings and sculpture of Leonardo and Michelangelo; the novels of Tolstoy; the great cathedrals of Europe.

Or, if that stuff doesn’t do it for you, there’s this:

For Nuit Blanche 2009, The Apology Project will be staged in its largest scale thus far. A cluster of 55 people wearing large brown paper bags on their bodies will congest a public hallway and personally apologize to every person who ventures through them. The uncanniness of this human blockade will disrupt the regular flow of traffic and provoke reflection about passive aggressive behavior. Who are these people? Why are they here? Why are they wearing brown paper bags over their bodies? There is an enigma about what precisely they are sorry for and why they are choosing to continue doing something that they find reproachable. If it is their awkward presence in the space that they are apologizing for, why do they chose to remain there? Why not just stop an offensive behavior rather than continue to indulge in it and apologize?

Encountering something like this moves me to such depths of emotion that I am simply unable to find words to do it justice. Read all about it here. And for an aesthetic experience of incomparable import and ineffably poignant beauty, be sure to visit the artist’s hompepage, here.

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

Great Circle

October 7, 2009 – 4:40 pm

If you’re like me, you’ve spent a lot of time wondering why Saturn’s moon Iapetus is dark on one side. Well, here’s your answer.

By Malcolm | Posted in Science | Comments (5)

Tar Baby

October 6, 2009 – 11:28 pm

President Obama is grappling with a momentous and extremely difficult choice in Afghanistan. It is a grim situation, and there are really no good options; there is also no consensus amongst his advisers, or the punditry at large, about what we ought to do. Reader JK, who always has his ear to the ground, has sent us a link to a brief article by Henry Kissinger in which the former Secretary of State — who, however you may feel about him, is certainly an experienced hand — examines the problem.

Read More »

By Malcolm | Posted in Foreign Affairs, Jihad | Comments (1)

Fourplay

October 5, 2009 – 10:18 pm

With thanks to my colleague Eugene Dushlin for sending this my way, here’s a delightful video clip featuring some very nimble guitar-playing.

By Malcolm | Posted in Music and Recording | Comments (3)

…And The Clocks Were Striking Thirteen

October 5, 2009 – 12:46 pm

According to the New York Times, the city’s Education Department has now banned bake sales. Here.

(Hat tip: The Stiletto.)
By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Politics | Comments (2)

Atheists In The Trenches

October 5, 2009 – 12:02 am

Over at Maverick Philosopher Bill Vallicella cites, with apparent approbation, an essay by the atheist author Julian Baggini that criticizes the agenda of “New Atheism”, exemplified by the “Four Horsemen” Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens, as misbegotten and counterproductive. What Bill does not link to is a piquant response, at the same website, by the Canadian philosopher George Williamson.

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By Malcolm | Posted in Religion | Comments (2)

Sent Packing

October 2, 2009 – 1:46 pm

I see that Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympics has been rejected. Lord knows why President Obama thought it was appropriate to the dignity of his august office to go, hat in hand, to Copenhagen to petition the IOC on behalf of his hometown; his failure to carry the day is now an embarrassment he, and we, could well have done without.

P.S. While we’re at it, can anybody explain to me why on Earth they (whoever it is that’s in charge of such things) decided to light up the Empire State Building in red and gold last night to honor 60 years of Communist rule in China??

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (8)

Maybe We’ll Win After All

October 1, 2009 – 11:42 pm

With talent like this, how can America lose? (Hat tip to Matt Pierson.)

By Malcolm | Posted in Tomfoolery | Comments (8)

Can’t Touch This

October 1, 2009 – 11:24 pm

Anybody who had the patience to wade through yesterday’s far too long-winded post (do forgive me for having such a low-rent editorial staff) knows that I have religion on my mind lately. In that post I mentioned, as I have often done in the past, the magnificent defensive arsenal of highly evolved religions. I ran across a splendid example in the subway today — a poster carrying the following message:

“Even though you may know the Bible, spiritual life is hard because Satan deceives you into accepting your thoughts. Living life with God becomes easy when you forsake what you know for the Word. Discover the secrets of true spiritual life at the Bible Crusade.”

-Pastor Ock Soo Park

Wow! That, I have to say, is getting things right out in the open, and no shilly-shallying. You have “thoughts”? And you were going to accept them? Man, that was close; you’re reading this poster just in time. Do you “know” things? Yikes! Forsake them at once. All that stuff — knowledge, thoughts, or anything else that enters your mind that didn’t come from Pastor Ock Soo Park — comes from Satan. And you know that’s true, because you have Pastor Ock Soo Park’s word for it, rather than anything you might “think” about it yourself, which comes from Satan, as we just explained.

Got it?

By Malcolm | Posted in Religion | Comments (9)

Is Secularism Maladaptive?

October 1, 2009 – 1:00 am

In the paper the other day there was an item about Pope Benedict’s recent remarks to the people of the Czech Republic. The Pope, speaking to one of the most secular societies on Earth, sought earnestly to persuade them of the dangers of a society without God.

On a superficial level this is easy enough to understand; after all, Benedict is the CEO of a huge, multinational business that has been losing market share at an accelerating pace in recent years. We’ve seen a lot of this sort of thing lately: I recall, for example, the CEO of General Motors admonishing Congress not too long ago about the dangers of a society without Chevy Camaros.

But this is a special case, of course: the Catholic Church has been in business even longer than Ford, GM, and Chrysler put together. More than that, though, the Church markets a product that has, for twenty centuries, inspired some of the fiercest brand loyalty in all of merchandising. Which is, really, the point.

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By Malcolm | Posted in General, Darwin and Biology, Society and Culture | Comments (22)

William Chung, 1935-2009

September 29, 2009 – 11:19 pm

It is with the profoundest sorrow that I must mark the death of Grandmaster William J. Chung, who was my kung-fu master for many years. He had been suffering from cancer, and collapsed at his home in New Jersey a few days ago. Attempts to revive him failed.

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By Malcolm | Posted in Martial Arts | Comments (38)

Peeing And Becoming

September 28, 2009 – 9:37 pm

There was an amusing anecdote in my family about my long-departed Scottish grandmother, who, in the course of helping to potty-train one of her grandchildren (indeed I think it might have been yours truly), attempted to stimulate the “wee bairn” by running the water in the sink. The plan, however, immediately backfired, and she ended up having rather suddenly to usurp the throne herself, amid gales of laughter from those present.

This story popped into my mind this evening, and made me wonder: just how did we acquire that response to the sound of running water, anyway? As a good Darwinian, I have to imagine it is likely to have been in some way adaptive, but how did such an adaptation arise?

A guess: perhaps the masking effect of the sound provided an opportunity for our ancestors to relieve themselves in stealth when they might otherwise have been overheard by a predator, or revealed themselves to prey.

Any thoughts, readers?

By Malcolm | Posted in Darwin and Biology | Comments (20)

Race To The Bottom

September 28, 2009 – 9:07 pm

A reader emailed me a link today, and asked: “Ought the government prosecute?”

The story in question is a distasteful one: apparently somebody set up a poll on Facebook that asked the question “Should Obama be killed?”

According to the linked item, there were three options: “Yes“, “No“, and “Maybe, if he cuts my health care“.

This is, of course, reprehensible and utterly unfunny — and probably very stupid, as I imagine the Secret Service will be making things mighty hot for the idiot who thought this would be nothing more than an amusing prank. They take threats against the President very, very seriously, as they should. The political and racial climate is terribly tense at the moment, and the Secret Service are surely on edge.

So: ought the government prosecute? The answer to that depends on another question: is what this jackass did illegal? I don’t know the answer to that, but I have a feeling it might be, or at least close enough to give it a go. With my blessing. He certainly didn’t do the loyal opposition any favors.

Have we lost all decency?

No need to answer, it’s a silly question.

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

O Beautiful, For Spacious Skies, For Empty, Wasted Brains

September 27, 2009 – 11:32 pm

We’ve been hearing a lot lately about how stupendously ignorant most Americans are about science: one in five Americans thinks the sun revolves around the Earth, for example, and almost half of us believe the Earth itself is less than 10,000 years old. But utter benightedness about basic science isn’t nearly enough, as it turns out — we are Americans, after all, and it won’t do simply to be massively ignorant about one or two subjects. As in everything else, we are determined to lead the world in empty-headedness too, it seems, and where better to start than by knowing absolutely nothing at all about America itself?

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By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (9)

William Safire, 1929-2009

September 27, 2009 – 9:40 pm

I was startled a few hours ago to hear that the grand-daddy of political “pundits”, William Safire, whose outstandingly informative columns on politics and the use of language educated, persuaded and entertained so many of us for so long, has died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 79. I didn’t even know he was ill, and I am awfully sad to learn that he is gone.

His Times obituary is here.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (4)

High Achiever

September 24, 2009 – 5:47 pm

I’m off to a concert tonight, and traveling tomorrow, so I may not have much time for blogging over the next couple of days. For tonight, then, here’s an engaging biographical sketch, from Tuesday’s New York Times of one of my favorite scientists: astronomer Dr. Carolyn Porco, who is best known for her long association with the unmanned probes that have been exploring our solar system for the past few decades.

Also, don’t miss the stunning new images of Saturn that her Cassini team have been making available, here. And while we’re at it, here’s Dr. Porco giving a talk at the TED conference a couple of years ago.

By Malcolm | Posted in Science | Comments (3)

Come To Papa

September 23, 2009 – 11:53 pm

I speak up for Western society often, and consider its defense important, but I have to wonder sometimes if it’s really worth it anymore. There may indeed be barbarians at the gate, but the accelerating putrescence of our popular culture reminds me daily that we have an ample store of them right here at home.

A few days ago, the dilapidated former actress MacKenzie Phillips caused a galvanic frisson of anticipation throughout the land when she remarked that she would shortly be disgorging, on the Oprah Winfrey television program, some dank and titillating secret. It has now been revealed: Ms. Phillips has graciously chosen to share with a breathless nation the news that she was for many years the sexual plaything of her father, John Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas.

This important story is, of course, front-page, breaking, blockbuster news, of vital interest to all Americans, and you can be sure that when the interview aired today its target audience, in their millions, watched with rapt attention and satisfying, visceral engagement, just as they might a chicken-wing-eating contest, or a public hanging. I guess the notion that any civilized person might wish to keep such a hideously, repugnantly distasteful thing as private as possible — as I am sure any member of my dear mother’s generation would have taken the utmost pains to do — must nowadays seem amusingly, touchingly quaint.

It would be nice if there were a decent middle ground somewhere between this and this, but I suppose I’m asking too much.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture | Comments (10)

The Army of Sisyphus

September 23, 2009 – 12:09 am

The situation in Afghanistan is very bad. If we leave, the consequences will be dire, not least for the many hopeful and trusting Afghans who have taken our side against the monstrous Taliban; those who have cooperated with us will surely be slaughtered. And if we give up the fight, it is not hard to imagine how things will go in Pakistan, nor to imagine the enormous danger that fundamentalist control of the region (and of Pakistan’s nuclear arms and seaports) would pose to the rest of the world.

If we stay, on the other hand, then we will have to fight harder; we are losing ground. We will need a deeper commitment of resources, both military and civilian. But even if we redouble our efforts, it seems very unlikely indeed that we will ever create a reliable, democratic, self-sufficient ally there. Our forces, advisors, and allies will be under constant, patient attack, forever. It will cost us a steady stream of lives and money, and will be a persistent drain on our military and economic strength.

There are no good options.

The noted war correspondent Michael Yon is ever so slightly less pessimistic than I am; he writes:

Today, the war is still worth fighting, yet the goal to reengineer one of the most backward, violent places on Earth, will require a century before a reasonable person can call Afghanistan “a developing nation.” The war will not take that long – but the effort will.

There are no short-term solutions to fix this place. We are planting acorns. Oak trees grow slowly.

He also says that “Pundits who are saying we should pull out of Afghanistan today, to my knowledge, are not here.” He’s right about that.

Mr. Yon has made available an enormously informative presentation outlining the current situation in Afghanistan, and making the case for reinforcements. It’s here.

Meanwhile, a declassified version of General Stanley McChrystal’s grim assessment and request for additional forces is available online as well. Here.

As General McChrystal says in the first sentence of his report, the stakes in Afghanistan are high. This is an understatement. If you have an opinion about this war, you should care enough to be well-informed. Read these documents.

By Malcolm | Posted in Foreign Affairs | Comments (3)

The Forgotten H.G. Wells

September 21, 2009 – 11:19 pm

Today marks the 143rd anniversary of the birth of H.G. Wells, and Google has marked the occasion with one of those curious UFO banners they’ve been featuring lately.

Wells is best known today for his immortal contributions to science-fiction — such classics as The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, and The Invisible Man — but in his own time (1866-1946) he was perhaps better known as a political author and activist, one of the most outspoken members of the “Progressive” movement from which today’s liberalism descends. He had an extraordinary faith in the ability of visionary men and women, armed with the ascendant power of science, to sweep aside the old order of the world, and to put a new and better civilization in its place.

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

Irving Kristol, 1920-2009

September 20, 2009 – 11:08 pm

The enormously influential conservative thinker Irving Kristol (who defined a neoconservative as “a liberal who has been mugged by reality”) has died at the age of 88. His New York Times obituary is here, and an informative Wikipedia article, with many quotes, is here.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (1)

This Would Be Funny, If It Weren’t So Sad

September 20, 2009 – 10:30 pm

If you’ve been paying attention to the news this weekend, you’ve heard that President Obama — who, having apparently run out of things to take over at the federal level, now seeks to expand his suzerainty to state governments as well — has told New York’s dismally feckless governor David Paterson not to run for re-election, so as not to diminish the prospects of other Democratic hopefuls.

This seems a bit much, I have to say. Mind you, I expect there isn’t a registered voter in the Empire State who won’t dance a little jig on the day Mr. Paterson is turned out of office — but I thought we already had a system in place whereby we voters sort those matters out.

Meanwhile, the governor announced today that, presidential decreta notwithstanding, he is not about to abandon his touching little dream of actually being elected to the office he presently holds as a matter of bureaucratic contingency (readers will recall that Mr. Paterson, the former lieutenant-governor, was automatically promoted to fill the vacancy made available by the scandalous sexual escapades of his vastly abler predecessor, Elliot Spitzer).

Mr. Paterson then demonstrated his eagerness to make Mr. Obama’s gloomy prognosis a reality, by announcing his support for the Democratic mayoral candidate, William Thompson — who, I am sure, was every bit as delighted to receive the Paterson anointment as a drowning man is to be thrown an anchor.

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (3)

NFI

September 20, 2009 – 9:28 pm

In case you didn’t know, there’s another mystery-creature story making the rounds. This time it isn’t a pulsating blob in the sewer, but a large, glabrous shmoo-like critter (perhaps some sort of defective sloth?) allegedly stoned and beaten to death by some Panamanian teens. (The whole thing may be a hoax, of course.)

Being dead and white, it’s not likely to get much attention in the academic world, but you can see it for yourself here.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (1)

E Pluribus Pluribus

September 18, 2009 – 5:52 pm

Readers may have heard, by now, about former President Jimmy Carter’s wise and helpful comment that “an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he is African-American.”

In today’s Best of the Web newsletter (second item), James Taranto has found in the Newsweek archives a remark that Mr. Carter made during his 1976 campaign:

The furor began when Carter was asked in Indianapolis to explain his recent statement that there was “nothing wrong with ethnic purity being maintained” in neighborhoods. Carter replied that he wholeheartedly supports open-housing laws that make it a crime to refuse to sell or rent a house or apartment on the grounds of race, color or creed. But he opposes Government programs “to inject black families into a white neighborhood just to create some sort of integration.” Said he: “I have nothing against a community that is made up of people who are Polish, or who are Czechoslovakians, or who are French Canadians or who are blacks trying to maintain the ethnic purity of their neighborhoods. This is a natural inclination.”

Whoa, whoa, wait a minute: did he say “ethnic purity”? That there is a “natural inclination” for people to associate with others who are like themselves? But how can that be? What about the primary obligation and summum bonum of any morally respectable society, which is, I hear, to maximize diversity at any cost?

It’s all so very confusing. If Mr. Carter was right, it could mean that emphasizing cultural diversity over unity, and promoting immigration from all over, might actually be bad for a society — that it might even, in the worst imaginable case, lead to an awful sort of politics based on little more than a kind of tribal identity, where each racial, religious, and ethnic group is just out to get what it can for itself!

We’d better keep an eye out — I’d hate to see anything like that happening here in America.

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

Under New Management

September 18, 2009 – 11:35 am

The U.S. has decided to abrogate its agreement with Poland and the Czech Republic to deploy advanced missile-defense systems in those Eastern European nations. This sort of inconstancy is a well-known issue with democracies such as ours, where the internal balance of power shifts every few years, but the Poles and Czechs — who, having had recent firsthand experience of tyranny, have been among America’s most stalwart allies (and who signed on for this missile agreement at the peril of arousing the ire of their reawakened former master, right next door) — are understandably upset, and as far as they are concerned, we’ll be sleeping on the couch for some time to come.

The WSJ’s editorial staff sums up the political overview here. But there are many complex strategic factors in play that are not reflected in the WSJ’s editorial: for a more military-centric perspective, have a look here. New technology is transforming military strategy, and land-based missile defenses may largely be supplanted, in the near future, by rapidly maturing naval systems. In light of that, the president’s decision may well — despite the cost in goodwill amongst our Eastern European allies — prove to be the right one.

By Malcolm | Posted in Foreign Affairs | Comments (1)

Mary Travers, 1936-2009

September 17, 2009 – 11:54 am

We note with sadness the death of singer Mary Travers, of complication from leukemia. She was 72.

I spent some time with Ms. Travers many years ago, in the course of mixing two albums for Peter, Paul, and Mary, and it was a pleasure getting to know her. She was cheery and affable, with a wonderful, lusty laugh and a delightfully pungent sense of humor, but was also passionately committed both to her craft and her vision of social justice. My sympathies to her family, to Peter and Noel, and to her many fans.

By Malcolm | Posted in Music and Recording | Comments (1)

It’s A Trap!

September 17, 2009 – 11:44 am

Too much time on your hands? Try this little diversion.

By Malcolm | Posted in Tomfoolery | Comments (8)

The Lady Mondegreen

September 16, 2009 – 11:59 pm

In a recent post we celebrated the healing power of music. But often, when a song touches our very plimsoul, the real baraka is in the lyrics. Here, with a hat tip to Ellisson by way of Kevin Kim, is a splendid example.

By Malcolm | Posted in Music and Recording | Comments (2)

Railroad Days

September 16, 2009 – 12:19 am

An item in the news today about a D.C. Metro worker who was struck and killed by a train — the third fatality in that system in recent months — was a madeleine that brought back a flood of memories of my own fifteen months as a railroad worker, back around 1975. It’s a mighty dangerous job.

I worked in the signal department of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, reporting for duty at the Boyd tower in Raritan at eight each morning. My official title was “signalman’s helper”, which meant I drove trucks, schlepped equipment, dragged cables, and, mostly, dug ditches.

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By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (7)

Tuts My Barreh

September 14, 2009 – 11:00 pm

Ah, the healing power of music. Here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Shameless Filler | Comments (6)

Parallel Postulates

September 14, 2009 – 10:32 pm

Lawrence Auster is a very smart fellow, and I admire his formidable presence on the ramparts of Western culture. But he has curious blind spots, for one so intelligent, and one of them has to do with Darwinism.

Have a look at this exchange with a reader, one who patiently tries to explain, as I have often done myself (see, for example, here, here, and here), why biologists use the language of intentionality when discussing evolution. We speak, without any qualms, about the “purpose” of the various “designs” of evolved organisms: a wing is “for” flying, a fang is “for” injecting venom, etc. The point is that designed things have purposes — a proposition with which even Mr. Auster would agree — but what he and others refuse to accept is that the rationale behind the existence of a wing or a fang need not be anyone’s consciously conceived or represented rationale: that there is in Nature a process from which design can emerge without the need for any teleological agency at all. Yes, there is a rationale for the existence of a wing, but it is not the bird’s, or even evolution’s, rationale; it is what Daniel Dennett has called a free-floating rationale. But it seems that Mr. Auster and like-minded like others simply cannot conceive of design — real, functional, finely tuned design — arising in the absence of a conscious and purposeful Designer. I am reluctant to psychologize, but perhaps their intuitions are simpy too irrevocably conditioned by their embedding in the world of human agency.

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By Malcolm | Posted in Darwin and Biology, Reason and Philosophy, Science, Religion, Dualism vs. Materialism | Comments (4)

How High Is It, Jimmy?

September 13, 2009 – 9:39 pm

Tuesday is Primary Day here in Gotham, and as a subscriber to our fair city’s newspaper of record, I have before me the New York Times 2009 Primary Election Voter Guide. It’s very helpful.

Among the positions up for grabs is that of Mayor, which has been filled for the past two terms by New York City’s wealthiest resident, Michael Bloomberg. Having shamelessly modified the city’s term-limit laws so as to allow himself a third tour of duty, he is going to be pretty hard to knock off his perch, but there are some highly qualified challengers who might give him a serious run for his money.

Chief amongst them, I think, is one Jimmy McMillan. Here he is:

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By Malcolm | Posted in General, Politics | Comments (2)

The Loyal Opposition

September 11, 2009 – 10:43 pm

Ever since he first bestrode the national stage back in 2004, people have been swooning over Barack Obama (quite literally so, in fact, during last year’s campaign). Yes, yes, he’s handsome, articulate, intelligent, and all that — I get it — but there is also something else, a certain je ne sais quoi, about the man that makes him as heady as catnip to an awful lot of otherwise sober folks.

One wants to be wary in the presence of such a Lothario, however pure his heart and noble his aim, and our friend The Stiletto — who is, for whatever mysterious reason, unensorcelled by his charms — casts a watchful eye on the phenomenon here.

Meanwhile, as long as I’m piling on, here’s a review of Mr. Obama’s healthcare speech, from someone with his eye on “that man behind the curtain“.

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (1)

Bent Donut Hole

September 11, 2009 – 10:11 pm

Poking around over at Normblog today, I found a link to something that I think is just brilliant: it’s a map of London’s Tube system, with all the station names replaced by anagrams. Have a look here (you can compare it with the real thing, here).

By Malcolm | Posted in Tomfoolery | Comments (1)