Shades Of Night Descending

April 22, 2009 – 11:18 am
This entry is part 2 of 4 in the series Fall of Pakistan

It should come as no surprise to any that the Taliban, emboldened by its defeat of the moribund government of Pakistan over control of the valley of Swat, now seeks to seize the initiative in its campaign to impose its totalitarian and sadistic Islamic theocracy upon the entire nation.

Last week the architect of the Red Mosque uprising, Maulana Abdul Aziz, was released from detention and immediately gave a speech in Islamabad calling for the overthrow of the secular system and its replacement with Shari’a law; next the new masters of Swat have lost no time in casting away all remnants of civilized law in the conquered region. In a live broadcast, the Taliban cleric Sufi Mohammed announced that there will henceforward be no more appeals of Shari’a verdicts to the state courts. In effect Swat is now entirely isolated from civilization, and its Taliban captors have a free hand to subjugate and brutalize its hapless citizenry, and to impose upon them the odious and wicked religious barbarism that is the object of their ruthless and unrelenting jihad.

Now, in today’s news, we learn that the Taliban — capitalizing upon their gathering momentum, as any good tacticians would — have begun advancing into neighboring provinces. Such are the wages of appeasement.

Read More »

By Malcolm | Posted in Jihad | Comments (2)

Nobody’s Friend Is Nobody’s Fool

April 21, 2009 – 4:19 pm

There are those of us who would prefer that our president not seem quite so eager to be pals with absolutely everyone. The spectacle of Mr. Obama schmoozing gaily yesterday with the grotesque Venezuelan strongman Hugo ChÁ¡vez — a man who is no friend of our nation or culture, and who has missed no opportunity to slander and defame the United States while working to consolidate his fascist dictatorship — was particularly troubling.

Mr. Obama is right to set a more gracious and diplomatic tone after eight years of pugnacious Bush-era swagger, but he seems at times almost eager to usher the United States down from its place at the summit of world leadership. To address as friends or peers nations that are neither is a serious mistake. There are ruthless men in the world — Messrs. ChÁ¡vez, Putin, and Ahmadinejad, to name a few — who will see such blithe and undiscriminating amiability as a sign of weakness. Which is what it is.

Political analyst Gloria Borger articulates these concerns well in an online opinion piece published today. Read it here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Foreign Affairs | Comments (7)

Exit, Pursued By A Bear

April 21, 2009 – 10:29 am

Today, according to this item, is Talk Like Shakespeare Day (i’faith, I had no idea). However, the clay-brained, knotty-pated flirt-gill who composed the headline for the link at CNN’s main page needs some remedial instruction, methinks. The text says, imperatively, “Speaketh Boldly on ‘Talk Like Shakespeare Day’” — but “speaketh” (and the ‘-eth’ suffix generally) is only an appropriate form for the third person, according to the Columbia Guide to Standard American English, which advises us to “use it correctly or not at all”.

I suppose, in a more generous mood, I might have borne it with a patient shrug, but suff’rance is not the badge of my tribe.

[Update: We get results, it seems; the headline has been corrected, and now says “Unleash thy inner bard”.]

By Malcolm | Posted in Language | Comments (6)

Next They’ll Want Health Care

April 20, 2009 – 5:29 pm

CNN is abuzz with interesting items today. Here’s one: former NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell is convinced that the US government is covering up the truth about extraterrestrial aliens, and claims that “there really is no doubt we are being visited”.

To have a bona-fide NASA astronaut making such assertions certainly lends a little gravitas to the we’re-not-alone camp, although according to this Wikipedia entry, Edgar Mitchell is not exactly a hard-nosed skeptic when it comes to fringe science and matters of the paranormal.

Anyway, they report, you decide. Story here.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (74)

The Weight Of Opprobrium

April 20, 2009 – 2:25 pm

When a political movement seeks to control behavior, an important first step is customarily to stigmatize the practice in question as morally offensive. For example, during the First World War, when criticism of the Wilson administration’s policies was suppressed by harsh restrictions of the press, it was common to hear calls for severe punishment, all the way up to execution, for dissenting voices. Likewise, nowadays one must be prepared to face vicious ad hominem attacks if one dares to express skepticism regarding prevailing political orthodoxies concerning multiculturalism, religious “tolerance”, race relations, global warming, etc.

One area where the net has been tightening lately has been obesity; where once it was merely awkward and embarrassing to be fat, in recent years it has come to be seen more and more as a moral weakness. Till now the stigmatization of the corpulent has had to do with health-care costs and a general Puritanism regarding physical fitness, but now a powerful new moral weapon is being brought to bear: it has been determined that being fat contributes to global warming.

This inspired move should provide ample political leverage for progressive social engineers to really get to work. Though we no longer, in these enlightened times, operate debtor’s prisons — after all, personal debt is now the government’s responsibility — dieter’s prisons may not be far off.

Learn more here.

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

Stephen Hawking Hospitalized

April 20, 2009 – 12:22 pm

We note with alarm that Dr. Stephen Hawking is, apparently, gravely ill, and has been taken to a Cambridge hospital.

Dr. Hawking, the extraordinarily gifted mathematician, physicist and cosmologist who holds the same Lucasian Chair of Mathematics previously occupied by such luminaries as Isaac Newton and Charles Babbage, has battled motor neuron disease for decades, and has in recent years been almost entirely “locked in”: unable to speak, and barely able to move any part of his body at all. It is, indeed, quite remarkable — some would say miraculous — that he has lived so long with a disease that usually claims its victims’ lives in a few short years.

We understand that Dr. Hawking’s hospitalization is due to a chest infection; his prognosis is sure to be complicated by his condition. More details will surely be forthcoming shortly.

By Malcolm | Posted in Science | Comments (2)

Fast Forward

April 19, 2009 – 6:48 pm

I’ve written a few posts lately about Ray Kurzweil’s notion of an impending technological “Singularity“, a sort of “omega point” at which exponentially accelerating technological trends will converge, with world-changing effect.

Now Dr. Kurzweil and several others have founded, at NASA’s Ames Research Center, an institution called the Singularity University (modeled on the International Space University), which aims, according to its mission statement, to “assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies and apply, focus and guide these tools to address humanity’s grand challenges.”

As it happens, the Singularity University’s executive director is my friend Salim Ismail, who was a co-founder of PubSub Concepts, a “prospective-search” startup where I worked from mid-2004 until its catastrophic implosion in June of 2006. Salim is one of those people who always seem to be involved in something “edgy” and interesting, and this latest venture is certainly no exception.

Have a look here.

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

Drug-Induced Dementia

April 17, 2009 – 4:26 pm

When President Obama won election last fall, many of us thought that his victory might lead, at long last, to a re-evaluation of our nation’s endless, obsessive, futile, puritanical and ruinously costly “war on drugs”. Alas, it appears that this insane policy, which perpetuates the enormous black market and resulting drug-cartel violence that have effectively turned Mexico into a failed state, is not going anywhere soon; we see that Mr. Obama has now announced his intention to “crack down on drug use in our cities and towns.”

The naive opinions of well-intentioned pundits notwithstanding, this is an enormously stubborn, paternalistic and foolish attitude, and I am deeply disappointed in Mr. Obama for publicly endorsing it: as the Harvard economist Jeffery Miron argued in this cogent essay, it is past time for the “war on drugs” to end. I hope Mr. Obama comes to his senses; he will probably need some prodding.

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (4)

Sky Show

April 17, 2009 – 2:49 pm

If you enjoy this sort of thing, there will be rather a spiffy celestial display on Wednesday morning. Details here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Marginalia | Comments (1)

Pwned

April 17, 2009 – 10:51 am

From today’s New York Times: a remarkable account of a dramatic nighttime encounter between US troops and Taliban fighters. Here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Jihad | Comments (3)

That And This From Info Diss

April 17, 2009 – 10:25 am

For those who like to keep an ear to the ground, Information Dissemination, as always, offers some noteworthy items.

First, it’s beginning to look like al-Qaeda may be putting the squeeze on Somali pirates. And big things may be afoot once again in the Caucasus; it looks like Russia is mobilizing.

By Malcolm | Posted in Foreign Affairs | Comments (2)

Radical Cheek

April 17, 2009 – 10:06 am
This entry is part 1 of 4 in the series Fall of Pakistan

The collapse of secular government in Pakistan continues apace; the jihadist cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz, imprisoned for his role in the uprising and siege at the Red Mosque, was freed on Thursday by that nation’s Supreme Court.

At CNN we read:

Addressing Friday prayers in the battle-scarred mosque, Aziz said he was willing to see more blood spilled for his cause.

“My only son was killed for this great mission of Islam,” he told a capacity crowd at the mosque. “If I had 100 sons, I would ask them to die for Islam.”

Aziz was arrested after the Pakistani government laid siege to the mosque in July 2007 to crack down on its efforts to promote Taliban-style sharia law. He was seized while trying to sneak away disguised with a women’s burqa.

He was held under house arrest until Pakistan’s Supreme Court allowed his release late Thursday. It was the latest in a series of concessions by the government of President Asif Ali Zardari to Islamist militants.

I doubt this man has 100 sons, but for however many he has got, I hope he gets his wish. Story here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Jihad | Comments (8)

Calling A Spade A Topsoil Redistributor

April 16, 2009 – 2:19 pm

With a hat tip to Norman Geras, here’s a fine essay by Joe Queenan on the “euphemism treadmill” that is now affecting what used to be called the “War On Terror”.

Read More »

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

KÄ“s Off

April 16, 2009 – 1:15 pm

There appears to be a bit of friction between the US Army and some of its Sikh recruits about whether the soldiers should be allowed to maintain the turban, uncut hair and beard that are emblematic of their faith.

This is likely to be cast as a rights issue, but it is of course nothing of the sort; there is no “right” to serve in the military. The question, then, is whether the Army’s interest in regulating matters of hair and dress — for the sake of both safety and uniformity — trumps any question of religious discrimination, and whether it is in the Army’s interest to make exceptions for certain groups.

My inclination is usually to side with the organization in cases like this; for example, the lowering of physical-strength standards for firefighters so as to admit more women has always seemed to me a triumph of ideology over practical reality. It is the Army’s business to decide how best to maintain an optimal fighting force; if, for example, I were to insist that if hired as a soldier I must be allowed to wear a thong, sunbonnet, and rollerblades into battle, I would quite rightly be told to look for work elsewhere. In my mind, religious strictures are no different: if your religion requires something that is incompatible with the way the Army works, you are free not to join.

The question, then is whether the value of having Sikhs in the Army exceeds the drawbacks of bending the rules to accommodate them, and this is an empirical question for the DoD to settle. In this case, though, the answer might indeed be yes: the Sikhs have a long and distinguished martial tradition, and if they can get a helmet on it may well make sense to allow them to serve.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Politics | Comments (7)

Fourth Out

April 15, 2009 – 11:40 pm

For those of you who take an interest in our national pastime: a rare baseball oddity occurred this past Sunday, and our former skipper, Joe Torre, was at the heart of it. Read about it here, and watch the video here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Marginalia | Comments (3)

The Sixth Sense

April 15, 2009 – 11:14 pm

It’s late, and I have been distracted, as often happens, by a conversation at another website — this time an engaging thread at our friend Deogolwulf’s lair on the subject of consciousness and materialism. So for tonight, here’s a glimpse, from this year’s TED conference, of some very clever engineering.

By Malcolm | Posted in Technology | Comments (1)

This Just In

April 14, 2009 – 2:40 pm

The boffins at the University of California have just alerted us that use of Twitter may imperil our moral faculties. Apparently the problem is that no sooner has the popular messaging service delivered to us a 140-character synopsis of some calamity than another “tweet” comes along, driving the old one from our consciousness before we “can fully digest the anguish and suffering.”

In other words, our Twitter stream might look like this:

Tiffany: OMG the new Jonas Bros vid is so freakin awesome (3:17 p.m.)

CAmanpour: Massive flooding, suicide bombings, Ebola outbreak complicate asteroid-impact relief efforts in Darfur (3:19 p.m.)

Jimbo: Hey, I’m gonna go get a beer down at the Baby Doll — anybody comin’?… (3:20 p.m.)

I can see their point: a few seconds before I might have fully digested the moral dimensions of Ms. Amanpour’s entry, I’ve already started thinking about heading off to have a brew with my buddy Jim.

This is nothing new, however; I imagine people made the same glum predictions once upon a time about newspapers (and then telegraphs, radio, TV, etc.). The sad fact is that our moral apparatus, designed to bind human groups at the scale of families, tribes, and villages, is entirely inadequate to encompass all the woes of the world, even if we were to spend the better part of an hour trying.

We read:

New findings show that the streams of information provided by social networking sites are too fast for the brain’s “moral compass” to process and could harm young people’s emotional development. … “If things are happening too fast, you may not ever fully experience emotions about other people’s psychological states and that would have implications for your morality,” said researcher Mary Helen Immordino-Yang.

I quite agree that there is a problem here, but I hardly think it has only just arisen with the advent of Twitter. Before I even arrive at my office each day, my survey of the morning paper has already brought to my cognitive doorstep a ghastly summary of tragedy and misfortune affecting thousands or millions of people. Does Ms. Immordino-Yang imagine that by the time I sit down to begin the day’s toil I have, thanks to the comparatively glacial tempo of the newsprint medium, “fully experienced” an appropriate bouquet of emotions about the “psychological states” of entire populations of suffering wretches?

No, the moral erosion lamented in this article — an inevitable consequence of global communication — has been proceeding apace for centuries. Twitter, providing a useful modern convenience, simply makes it available to the increasing number of people who lack the attention-span for television.

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

Ars Schlonga, Vita Brevis

April 13, 2009 – 10:43 pm

We note with sadness the untimely death, at 56, of adult-film star Marilyn Chambers — who rose, as readers of a certain age will remember, to national celebrity back in 1972 when it was revealed that the star of the movie Behind the Green Door was also the familiar face on the front of the Ivory Snow (“99 and 44/100% pure!”) laundry-soap box.

(I expected for years afterward that some waggish porn impresario would shoot a sequel, set in an Indian restaurant, to be called Behind The Tandoor, but it was not to be.)

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (7)

Submission

April 13, 2009 – 10:04 pm

In case there was any doubt in anyone’s mind about the Taliban’s victory over the Pakistani government in the northwestern valley of Swat, President Zardari today formalized his nation’s abject surrender with a signed document.

This means that the imposition of the Taliban’s barbaric totalitarian theocracy, a central feature of which is the sexually perverted and grotesquely sadistic repression and enslavement of women, may now proceed with the government’s official blessing.

Perhaps “victory over the Pakistani government” misrepresents the facts: in the minds of a great many Pakistanis, and of many in the Pakistani military and intelligence forces, this is no defeat at all, but a battle won.

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

Never Quit

April 12, 2009 – 3:49 pm

The US Navy SEALs have rescued Captain Phillips. He jumped overboard for a second time, and the SEALs (probably, according to my sources, with their “ears on the lifeboat’s hull” and using Drager rebreathers to avoid showing bubbles) shot and killed the pirates in the lifeboat before they could recapture him as they did before.

The situation, in which a ragtag band of men in a lifeboat brought the mighty US military to a days-long standoff, has been a stark example of the difficulty of such asymmetrical engagements. As Galrahn at Information Dissemination explained it a few days ago:

To give some sense of the situation, the USS Bainbridge (DDG 96) is powerful enough of a warship that it could sink every ship in that entire region, destroy every single pirate facility associated with the clan of hijackers involved in the current incident, and blow every aircraft in that region out of the sky.

But this incredibly powerful warship has very few options when the choices don’t include blowing up a specific target. Our restrictive policy that limits the rules of engagement is not compatible with the US Navy technologies that are designed by requirement to blow stuff up. If we are unwilling to adjust our policy to align them with the capabilities of our existing technologies, the US Navy must develop technologies that better align with the policies of our nations leaders. This would, in theory, be part of developing a realistic littoral strategy for surface warfare that addresses littoral challenges during BOTH peacetime and wartime. Surface Warfare is in dire need of new ideas, and the evidence suggests better leadership, or more guidance from leadership, might be needed as well.

Perhaps the game in these waters is changing. Readers who have been following this topic will probably find this article, by one “Herschel Smith”, interesting.

By all accounts Richard Phillips, who offered himself to the pirates in exchange for his crew, and whose spirit remained indomitable throughout his ordeal, is a truly remarkable man, and an authentic American hero. His defiance and resolve in the face of unimaginable adversity should be an example and inspiration for us all.

[Correction: It appears that it was snipers aboard the Bainbridge, not SEALs in the water, who took out the pirates. Each one was, according to DOD, shot in the head.]

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

Bücherdämmerung

April 10, 2009 – 7:51 pm

At work today someone mentioned the Amazon Kindle, and a lively chat ensued. The people I work with are, for the most part, highly intelligent and much younger than I — and they generally, and probably correctly, see printed books as increasingly quaint, and ultimately doomed.

Read More »

By Malcolm | Posted in Books | Comments (6)

Speciousism

April 10, 2009 – 12:09 pm

The cult-like animal-rights organization PETA, sparing no exertion in its mission to make a laughingstock of itself, continues fearlessly to explore the remotest frontiers of pop-culture idiocy. Here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Rubbish | Comments (1)

Movers And Shakers

April 9, 2009 – 3:50 pm

The mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, is something of a contradiction: though a Republican, he is a committed nanny-stater. A little while back he led an initiative to outlaw the serving of trans-fats in Gotham’s restaurants, and he offered praise for Governor Patterson’s ridiculous and insulting “obesity tax” on soda pop. Now he is on a crusade to exert control in loco parentis over another of Gotham’s dietary choices: the amount of salt we eat.

Read More »

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (7)

Maersk Line Hijacking: Update

April 9, 2009 – 1:39 pm

There are new facts emerging in the Maersk Alabama hijacking. Apparently an 18-man guard detail is aboard, as reported here and here.

Interested observers may also find this item relevant. And as always, InfoDiss is following the story attentively, here, here, and, with informative background analysis, here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Foreign Affairs | Comments (8)

Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense

April 9, 2009 – 11:00 am

There is a characteristically penetrating conversation underway over at The Maverick Philosopher on the subject of whether mere thoughts can be morally wrong (Bill Vallicella says yes.)

I’m still mulling over the arguments made, and haven’t had time myself to read all of the latest contributions, so am reserving comment for now.

Go and have a look for yourself, here, at an excellent example of why blogging is perhaps, as Bill has argued, the best medium of all for the practice of philosophy.

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

Big Game

April 8, 2009 – 4:44 pm

Readers have probably heard by now that a US-flagged Maersk ship has been hijacked by Somali pirates. This is surprising, to say the least; it seems odd that a ship of the Maersk line, which provides logistical services to many U.S. government agencies, would be operating in these perilous waters without adequate security, indeed without at least a “loose” naval escort.

There may be more to this story than meets the eye. Stay tuned.

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

Make His Day

April 8, 2009 – 2:36 pm

It’ll be Father’s Day before you know it. Problem is, the old man already has all the neckties he needs — and one “World’s Greatest Dad” coffee-mug is probably enough. But don’t despair: find the perfect gift here.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (1)

Cassandra

April 7, 2009 – 12:38 pm

Gates of Vienna has posted a video of Geert Wilders’ speech to the David Horowitz Freedom Society in Beverly Hills last weekend. Wilders, as you probably know, has been demonized, not only by Islamists, but also by his own government, that of Britain, and well-intentioned but myopic cultural relativists everywhere, for his commitment to the defense of liberty and Western culture in Europe. At least here in America he still can speak his mind without fear of prosecution.

Watch his speech here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Jihad | Comments (1)

Wrath And Slaughter

April 7, 2009 – 11:09 am

I have for many years held the opinion, shared by many, that Winston Churchill was the greatest prose stylist in the modern history of the English language. That opinion was reinforced the other day when, in search of a historical reference, I took down from my bookshelf The Gathering Storm, the first part of Churchill’s incomparable six-volume History of the Second World War. The book opens with an introductory description, in two magnificent paragraphs, of the aftermath of World War I.

Read More »

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (1)

In God’s Name

April 6, 2009 – 5:14 pm

Recently the crumbling government of Pakistan handed over the valley of Swat to the Taliban. For those of you who were unaware of what the consequences of that surrender would be — or who need reminding that there is abroad in this world a perverse and despicable religious ideology, as vile an abomination of the human spirit as any that has ever befouled the pages of history — the Guardian has now made available a video of a 17-year-old girl being held face-down in the dirt and flogged as she screams and begs for mercy. Her crime? We read:

Reached by phone, Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan claimed responsibility for the flogging. “She came out of her house with another guy who was not her husband, so we must punish her. There are boundaries you cannot cross,” he said.

The article, with video clip, is here. See also Tunku Vadarajan’s comments in his column at Forbes, here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Jihad | Comments (4)

‘A’ For Audacity

April 6, 2009 – 2:13 pm

We note that a British-owned ship has just been hijacked by pirates in the Gulf of Aden. This bears watching: the British, however much their star may have fallen in the world, do not fool around when it comes to matters naval, do not look kindly upon piracy, and will not have forgotten that it wasn’t all that long ago that their command of these waters was absolute.

Those with an interest in this sort of thing should probably check in over at Information Dissemination to see what pops up.

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

Great Success!

April 5, 2009 – 5:02 pm

In an important step toward bringing the noble and vitalizing spirit of Juche to faraway worlds, the peaceable space program of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea took a great leap forward today with the launch of a mighty rocket, carrying a glorious payload of prosperity and self-reliance into space.

Meanwhile, the running dog lackeys of bourgeois capitalist imperialism have convened an emergency session of their paper-tiger “Security Council”, which will no doubt issue another of its meaningless “resolutions” for the children of our Dear Leader to ignore.

At a historic moment like this, we should all reflect on the immortal thoughts of our beloved Great Leader:

Let’s take revenge a thousand times on the US imperialist wolves! Let’s create a social impetus for enjoying wearing our national dress!

By Malcolm | Posted in Foreign Affairs | Comments (5)

The Blood-Dimmed Tide

April 3, 2009 – 3:31 pm

There has been yet another sickening homicidal rampage today, this time in an immigration-services center in the decaying city of Binghamton, New York. It seems that horrors of this sort are happening more and more often in recent years.

Incidents like this throw fuel on the gun-control debate, with restrictionists arguing that the problem is easy access to deadly weapons, and Second-Amendment libertarians arguing that when such havoc erupts, a disarmed citizenry is helpless to stop the rampaging murderer. (My own sympathies are with the latter view.) Certainly these incidents are symptomatic of some sort of societal necrosis, of an increasing breakdown of the mutually supportive relations and obligations that bind human communities (it is perhaps not insignificant that this latest killing-spree occurred at an immigration center). The world is at once more prosperous and more desperate than ever, it seems; more crowded and more lonely, more connected and more fragmented, and the rate of disorienting change will only increase.

When something becomes common enough, it usually acquires a name. Many years ago I read a remarkable book called Stand On Zanzibar, by John Brunner, in which this process of increasing disaffection and violence in a densely crowded and rapidly changing near-future (2010!) world was the central theme. In this dystopic milieu it had become commonplace for people stressed beyond the limits of sanity to run amok in this way — suddenly to slaughter, indiscriminately, until they were killed themselves — and Brunner coined a word for them. He called them muckers. We may all be familiar with the term before much longer.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (26)

Strange Attractor

April 2, 2009 – 5:51 pm

I’m puzzled by something. About three years ago I wrote a brief post that linked to an online essay by computer scientist Jaron Lanier about the shortcomings of collaborative projects like Wikipedia. For some reason, since last November the post has attracted a steady stream of visitors (several an hour), from scattered locations. There are no referring sites listed, and a Google link: search has turned up nobody linking to the page. There’s nothing special about the post, really; all it does is recommend that readers go have a look at Mr. Lanier’s essay.

I think the whole thing is very odd, and I do wish I had some explanation for it. If you are reading this and are one of the mystery visitors, I’d be most grateful if you could leave a comment, or send me an email.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (1)

On The Spot

April 2, 2009 – 11:16 am

In yet another alarming sign of accelerating environmental deterioration, astronomers have reported that Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, one of the outer Solar System’s best-loved natural attractions, is shrinking.

“I’m not surprised,” said well-known leaflet-wielding vegan subway pest Persephone Finch, when told of the recent diminution of the iconic gas giant’s most distinctive feature. “This is what we get for years of reckless corporate greed and Bush-era environmental policies. And for MAKING OUR COLONS A GRAVEYARD FOR DEAD ANIMALS,” she continued, her voice rising to a shrill, keening wail as she turned to address her sullen audience of weary commuters.

Learn more here.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (4)

Bang The Drum Showily

April 1, 2009 – 11:19 pm

A little while back I confessed my infatuation with Porcupine Tree‘s extraordinary drummer Gavin Harrison, who is, I still think, pretty much the bee’s knees when it comes to tapping the tubs. In that recent post I encouraged readers to go have a look for themselves, and linked to a YouTube clip of one of Mr. Harrison’s dazzling performances.

Commenter “Chris G.”, however, soon offered a dissenting opinion. He explained that Mr. Harrison “plays like a girl”, and said that in order to see “how you do it” we should all watch this clip of the tattooed urbanite Travis Barker (formerly of Blink-182) adding a few percussive touches to a haunting little tone poem by the American composer Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em. It was beautiful, sophisticated playing, and we were all duly impressed.

Well, Gavin and Travis, I have bad news for the both of you: there is a new king of the hill. Have a look here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Music and Recording | Comments (11)

Coy April Deviltry Is Everywhere

April 1, 2009 – 4:10 pm

Like, for example, this from Google.

By Malcolm | Posted in Tomfoolery | Comments (2)

They Just Can’t Help It

March 31, 2009 – 6:44 pm

Here, if you haven’t seen it, is an amusing item from YouTube: how would Microsoft have marketed the iPod?

By Malcolm | Posted in Shameless Filler | Comments (1)

Still Crazy After All These Years

March 31, 2009 – 12:06 pm

Here’s more good sense about our nation’s demented and obsessive “War on Drugs”, this time from Jack Cafferty:

Someone described insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result each time. That’s a perfect description of the war on drugs.

Exactly right. (That “someone”, by the way, was Albert Einstein.)

Maybe the mood is finally starting to shift on this ruinously idiotic policy. Read Mr. Cafferty’s remarks here.

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

Irisism

March 30, 2009 – 11:47 pm

It is a truism these days that any claim relating the statistically varying abilities and aptitudes of human beings to, say, skin color, or “gender”, is a shocking and benighted atavism, a pernicious throwback to the bad old days of racism and sexism. If such correlations emerge, as they occasionally do, from a “scientific” study of some sort, then either the thing is an ideologically motivated fraud, is tainted by unwitting biases, or fails to take into account malleable cultural factors (generally speaking, the malevolent influence of white-male colonialism, or of Western culture generally).

But lo! Here in the New York Times itself — and in the column, no less, of Maureen Dowd — we read the following:

A 2007 University of Louisville study concluded that people with blue eyes were better planners and strategic thinkers ”” superior at things like golf, cross-country running and preparing for exams ”” while people with brown eyes had better reflexes, making them good at hockey and football.

What? How can this be?? We have already established, by progressive social intuition and infallible political fiat, that even such enormous and obvious physiological differences as those plainly evident between the races and the sexes are absolutely, positively, never, ever, ever inherently associated with variations in any abilities, traits, or talents whatsoever — and now we are told by the New York Times that mere eye color is indicative of variations in our faculties of planning and strategic thinking?

Isn’t this blasphemy, or heresy, or something? Don’t we have laws about this kind of thing? I hardly know what I’m supposed to think anymore.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Science | Comments (4)

Shell Game

March 29, 2009 – 11:19 pm

An item at the CNN website reports that a study from Queen’s University, Belfast suggests that crabs “feel” pain.

The study, by researchers Bob Elwood and Mirjam Appel, examined the behavior of hermit crabs subjected to electric shocks. Hermit crabs, as I am sure you know, live in the abandoned shells of other animals, and what the researchers did was to wire up their shells, give them a jolt, and see how they reacted. If the shock was strong enough, the crab would pop right out, but if it was just below this threshold, the crab would still have a higher likelihood of moving to a new shell when one was offered than crabs who hadn’t been shocked: presumably it remembers the shock and wants to avoid getting another.

What this result indicates, then, is that electric shocks influence the behavior of crabs. The spin here seems to be, however, that hermit crabs consciously experience the shocks — that they suffer — and that therefore we have a moral obligation to avoid causing them pain. While this may also be true, it is a far more audacious claim, far less certain, and raises some difficult questions.

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By Malcolm | Posted in Mind and Brain, Darwin and Biology | Comments (28)

F. E. Smith

March 29, 2009 – 11:01 am

I’ve been reading the book Gandhi & Churchill: The Epic Rivalry that Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age, by Arthur Herman, and was taken by this description of Churchill’s close friend F. E. Smith, the 1st Earl of Birkenhead, and Secretary of State for India from 1924 to 1928:

“F.E. to his friends, his tall ungainly frame and sallow mournful face hid a mordant wit and restless appetite for power (as well as for alcohol, which eventually killed him.”

I’d never really thought much about Birkenhead before — he was really little more to me than a name I’d seen from time to time in books by and about Churchill — so I thought I’d have a closer look.

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By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (3)

Plugged

March 28, 2009 – 1:17 pm

We’d like to thank G. Orcalimbo Jones, host of the Friday night show at WOMR in Provincetown, for the mention he gave this website on the air last night. If any of you have found your way here as a result, welcome, and thanks for dropping by.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (1)

Groveling In Geneva

March 27, 2009 – 10:21 pm

We are in Wellfleet for the weekend, and earlier this evening I spent a delightful hour gathering a few dozen of our highly prized local oysters from the tidal flat at Indian Neck Beach.

Though most of the critters you’ll find there at low tide are molluscs and crustaceans — clams, oysters, crabs, and the like — there is still a lot more backbone in evidence than at the United Nations, where the laughably yclept Human Rights Council has now adopted, in a craven act of appeasement, a resolution declaring “defamation of religion” off limits. (You can guess the religion in question, I expect: the one that has become the world’s angry drunk in the subway car.)

Blogger Norman Geras weighs in here:

It is quite proper that governments should protect people from ‘acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion’, but that is because these are acts, and furthermore people should be protected from them whatever they result from, not only when this is ‘defamation of religions’…

Nobody can be obliged to respect a belief or set of beliefs, and once they are so obliged their freedom of thought has been severely compromised and thereby one of their fundamental human rights. We must be free to criticize and, yes, lampoon, mock, ridicule, defame, religion or any other type of belief. The fact, consequently, that the Human Rights Council of the UN – supposed to be an international guardian of human rights – should support a resolution like this does not strengthen the cause of human rights but merely serves further to discredit that Council itself.

Exactly right. Story here.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (8)

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

March 26, 2009 – 3:47 pm

Diligently doing its part to undermine America’s intellectual respectability and competitiveness, the Texas Board of Education is taking up an amendment this week that seeks to smuggle religious myths, such as the transparent Creationist fraud known as “Intelligent Design”, into the science classroom in the name of “academic freedom”. Were this dispute taking place only in some rustic Bible-belt backwater it might merely be pathetic, but given that the nation’s textbook publishers often conform to Texan standards, it has genuine national significance.

The debate proceeds at an impressive academic level, as usual. In this AP account we read:

Protesters and activists gathered nearby, fervently arguing their sides of the debate.

“My grandfather was not a monkey!” one woman shouted at a crowd before the meeting began.

Good “argument”! Yes, we’ve come a long way.

I suppose some might argue that if the people of Texas have decided that “science” is nothing more than whatever their old-time religion tells them it is, then they are, in principle, entitled to teach whatever vacuous and comforting poppycock they like. After all, as H.L. Mencken said: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

It’s awfully sad for those poor captive children, though. Man the ramparts, I say.

By Malcolm | Posted in Darwin and Biology, Society and Culture, Religion | Comments (4)

President Wonderful

March 25, 2009 – 11:33 am

Recently the decorated journalist Bernard Goldberg, incensed by a conspicuous left-leaning bias in many of the nation’s news and entertainment providers, published a book called A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (And Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media. In today’s Washington Post, we find a good example, in a review of last night’s speech. Here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (1)

Parts Of Speech

March 24, 2009 – 9:37 pm

I’ve just watched President Obama’s press conference on CNN. It was not an easy night for him. The focus was on the economy; in fact there was not a single mention of Iraq or Afghanistan. To illustrate this, the producers at CNN used a cute little application that generates what are called “word clouds” — those graphic displays that show words in different sizes according to the frequency of their appearance in a given block of text. We’ve all seen them by now, and lots of blogs feature them prominently. This site, Wordle.net, is apparently where CNN got theirs.

Having lambasted President Bush for his many verbal boo-boos, it would be unfair of me to spare Mr. Obama similar scrutiny. I will confess that I winced this evening to hear him say “comprised of”, and if his approval ratings sag a bit after tonight’s speech, I think we need look no further to understand why.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (2)

Hear, Hear

March 24, 2009 – 2:09 pm

As President Obama sends a wave of federal agents to our border states in response to the violence now spilling over from Mexico, we find on CNN’s main page a sensible Op-Ed piece calling for an end to our bloody and puritanical “war on drugs”.

We read:

It is impossible to reconcile respect for individual liberty with drug prohibition.

Some will disagree. Not me. Read the essay here.

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

Basta!

March 23, 2009 – 11:11 pm

I realize that if I am going to live and work in New York City I am necessarily going to come into contact with bothersome people, and that the effect is magnified in the confined quarters of the subway. Over the thirty-odd years I’ve been living here I have certainly met my share of unpleasant and annoying characters down in those grimy tunnels, but like all Gothamites I have learned that for anything short of aggressive physical contact (which I have had to deal with only on very rare occasions), the best policy is just to ignore such pests and hope they go away, which they usually do.

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By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (14)

Whoops!

March 22, 2009 – 10:32 pm

While I was doing some research for an upcoming post about last weekend’s fascinating trip to Welland, Ontario, I ran across a remarkable bit of amateur video. It shows the events of August 11th, 2001, when the freight ship Windoc, while traversing the Welland Canal, struck a lowering drawbridge at Allanburg, Ontario. Amazingly, nobody was injured, no cargo was damaged, and the waterway was not even befouled.

Have a look here.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (1)