They Walk Among Us

March 1, 2009 – 11:46 pm

I’ve mentioned that I have sort of a drummer’s crush lately on Porcupine Tree / King Crimson batteur Gavin Harrison — who, I have decided, may not be human (I’m well acquainted with others of his alien species: Dennis Chambers, Keith Carlock, Peter Erskine, etc.). Here he is again.

By Malcolm | Posted in Music and Recording | Comments (7)

Omphaloskepsis

March 1, 2009 – 3:57 pm

I have been harping a lot lately, it seems, on cultural conflicts: immigration, racial and ethnic disharmony, and above all the struggle between Islam and the West. These are of course important topics, but the tagline of this blog (taken, as is the title itself, from Fela Kuti’s Coffin for Head of State), is “I go many places”, and it seems lately that the itinerary has been rather short.

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By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (3)

Endangered Species

February 28, 2009 – 12:25 am

In today’s email, a friend has sent me some photographs of angry Muslims demonstrating on the street in what appears to be London. They are carrying signs, glowering menacingly, brandishing their fists, and shouting. The messages they carry are clear enough, if rather unimaginatively monotonous:

SLAY THOSE WHO INSULT ISLAM. BUTCHER THOSE WHO MOCK ISLAM. BEHEAD THOSE WHO INSULT ISLAM. ISLAM WILL DOMINATE THE WORLD. EXTERMINATE THOSE WHO SLANDER ISLAM. EUROPE YOU WILL PAY. YOUR 9/11 IS ON IT’S [sic] WAY. BE PREPARED FOR THE REAL HOLOCAUST.

In one of the pictures, a policeman stands nearby, dutifully making sure that the protestors are kept safe from harm as they cry out for Western blood. This adds a note of irony to my favorite placard of the lot, which says FREEDOM GO TO HELL.

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By Malcolm | Posted in Darwin and Biology, Society and Culture, Jihad | Comments (33)

And Did Those Feet, In Ancient Times…

February 26, 2009 – 11:30 pm

There’s an interesting little item in the news today: paleoanthropologists have found Homo Erectus footprints 1.5 million years old that record the earliest known example of anatomically modern human feet — feet that are designed solely (so to speak) for walking, and not for grasping.

It is hard to imagine anything more evanescent than a footprint left in the mud, yet these have lasted 150 times as long as the entire span of recorded history. Think of all the forgotten generations that have lived and died and turned to dust, and more recently the empires that have risen, triumphed and fallen, while those fragile impressions — nothing at all, really, just some wet feet on a rainy day — slumbered in the stone. It must be an eerie feeling to walk in them.

You can read a brief account here, or watch a truly riveting video here.

Meanwhile, new analytical tools are making it possible for linguists to identify the oldest words still in use, and to make predictions about which ones will last. Learn more here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Marginalia | Comments (8)

It’s A Wong Story

February 26, 2009 – 12:04 am

When I began learning southern Chinese kung fu toward the end of 1975, there were still very few Chinese masters who were willing to teach “roundeyes”; my sifu at the time, William Chung, and his sifu Gin Foon Mark, were among the earliest to do so. But the one who first opened the door, as far as I know, was Grandmaster Wong Ark Yuey (1899-1987), who opened a school in Los Angeles in 1964, and began teaching Westerners the following year.

Back then few people in the West had even heard of kung fu; this was before Bruce Lee introduced us all to it in his role as The Green Hornet’s astonishing sidekick Kato. Most people, if asked about the Asian fighting arts, would have named the Japanese systems of judo, karate, and jiu-jitsu.

Now Black Belt Magazine has put some of its old back issues online, and in the January 1965 edition is an interview with Master Wong himself. Have look on page 11, here. And check out those sneakers!

By Malcolm | Posted in Martial Arts | Comments (4)

Jihad Blotter

February 24, 2009 – 11:14 am

With a double hat-tip to Dymphna and the Baron at Gates of Vienna, here are several items of interest on the clash-of-civilizations front.

First, Geert Wilders is in town, fresh from being turned away at the door by the supine and craven British Government. He paid a visit to TV host Glenn Beck, and you can watch the interview here.

Read More »

By Malcolm | Posted in Jihad | Comments (8)

Thank You Sir!

February 23, 2009 – 12:47 pm

In an editorial piece at CNN’s website, Michael Eric Dyson praises Eric Holder’s recent speech on race relations as “courageous and honest”, and suggests that Holder’s “nation of cowards” remark, which a great many morally stunted people have found tendentious and gratuitously offensive, has been “taken out of context”.

Read More »

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

In God We Trust

February 22, 2009 – 11:36 pm

If I told you that I knew there were invisible beings directing the flow of traffic on the highway, or that I had just seen someone rise from the dead and ascend into the sky, you’d want some proof — and if I had none to offer, you’d begin to doubt my sanity, and might start looking for the door. If the President of the United States were found to be making decisions based on such assumptions, you’d be gravely concerned for the safety of the nation.

All of this stands on its head, of course, when the subject is religion. So powerful a system for social cohesion is religion that, regarding religious notions, one is not only granted a waiver for holding bizarre beliefs on no evidence, but one is looked upon with wary suspicion (or worse) if one does not hold such beliefs: if one does not exempt these ideas from the rational scrutiny that is in all other matters the touchstone of sanity itself.

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By Malcolm | Posted in Politics, Religion | Comments (3)

Fault-Finding

February 21, 2009 – 4:04 pm

Every now and then I am reminded of just how exotic the most ordinary scientific notions seem even to the average “educated” American. For example: in Thursday’s New York Times, there was a story about some feeble little earthquakes along the Ramapo Fault.

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By Malcolm | Posted in Science | Comments (6)

Mr. Diplomacy

February 19, 2009 – 11:24 pm

There is quite a ruction today about Attorney General Eric Holder’s calling America “a nation of cowards” for its reticence to speak frankly about race (transcript here). I wonder what he really means, and what he really wants. At the very least, it seems a tad atrabilious for the nation’s first black attorney general — who serves under the nation’s first black president, at a time when the leaders of both major parties are black men as well — to greet his new constituency so charmlessly.

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

Clean Machine

February 18, 2009 – 10:40 pm

Automakers, at least the ones that still have employees, are scrambling to design alternative-fuel vehicles. On the drafting board, or already out on the road, are cars powered by electricity, ethanol, natural gas, hydrogen, and even french-fry grease. But while I was poking around online the other day I discovered that even as early as the 1950’s the Ford Motor Company was already way out in front in the hunt for an alternative to fossil fuels. Have a look at the Nucleon.

By Malcolm | Posted in Technology | Comments (3)

Losing

February 17, 2009 – 11:02 pm

For those interested in the mortal struggle between Islam and the West (viz. those with the wit to acknowledge that such a struggle even exists), it’s been an eventful few days. The biggest story has been that the government of Pakistan has now surrendered the valley of Swat to the Taliban. The story in the Times claims that certain concessions were given — that schools will not be closed, and so forth — but obviously that is nonsense. This is defeat, and retreat, and we should have no doubt that the Taliban are going to do as they please.

Read More »

By Malcolm | Posted in Jihad | Comments (6)

Plug

February 16, 2009 – 11:39 pm

One of the enjoyable quirks of the Outer Cape is Provincetown’s own radio station, WOMR (“Outermost Radio”). The station is everything you might expect from a place as full of artists, writers, musicians, eccentrics, oddballs, and misfits as the far end of Cape Cod is, and the playlist is eclectic, and seldom boring.

A particular treat is the show “AOR”, which airs every Friday evening from 9 until midnight. The host, “G. Orcalimbo Jones”, is a connoisseur and collector of lesser-known recordings from the long and ramified history of rock music, and each week’s program is a little guided tour of some of the curiosities in his collection. His show also features a call-in segment in which listeners vie to identify the week’s Mystery Guitarist.

I realize most of you are not within radio range of Provincetown on any given Friday, but take heart: you can listen to a live stream of the show here. Nine to midnight, Eastern time.

By Malcolm | Posted in Music and Recording | Comments (9)

Credit Where Due

February 16, 2009 – 10:46 pm

We congratulate Maverick Philosopher and Normblog for making the Times Online list of 100 best blogs.

Cream does rise, it seems.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (1)

Ice Sculpture

February 15, 2009 – 2:22 pm

We are in Wellfleet for the long weekend, and the Lower Cape seems particularly tranquil and beautiful under the blue winter skies. Yesterday the memsahib and I took a little spin up to Provincetown, at the outermost tip of the Cape, and along the way stopped at Longnook Beach in Truro to take a quick peek at that loveliest of littoral landscapes.

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By Malcolm | Posted in Cape Cod | Comments (3)

In Brief

February 14, 2009 – 10:28 pm

A reader has emailed us this link to a pithy, bullet-point summary of America’s security situation by retired general Barry McCaffrey (now Adjunct Professor of International Affairs at West Point). It’s terse, and worth reading.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (3)

This Time, The Shirts Are Red

February 14, 2009 – 9:58 pm

Tomorrow is a big day in Venezuela: a vote is scheduled on a term-limits referendum intended to assist the swaggering egomaniac Hugo ChÁ¡vez in the further consolidation of his fascist dictatorship.

It appears that “El Comandante” is slightly in the lead. It will be interesting to see what happens if he loses.

By Malcolm | Posted in Foreign Affairs | Comments (4)

The Most Dangerous Game

February 13, 2009 – 12:43 pm

Things are not going well in Afghanistan. A resurgent and emboldened Taliban has been harrying the Karzai government and its Western allies with renewed truculence, even going so far as to make a brazen attack this week in the heart of Kabul. Meanwhile the Russians, who have for centuries vied with the West for dominant influence in the region, testing the steel of the new administration, have gotten us expelled from our Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan, a vital supply station. Suddenly we are back on our heels. What are our options? In this essay, Pat Buchanan argues that they are few, and grim.

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

Good Friday

February 13, 2009 – 12:34 pm

Today is Friday the 13th. Having actually been born on such a day, way back in 1956, I’ve never been given to friggatriskaidekaphobia myself, but anxiety about Friday the 13th lingers as one of our more persistent superstitions (taking a distant back seat to religion, of course). It’s said that to have been born on such a traditionally inauspicious day is the ticket to a star-crossed life, but looking back over my 52 years I’ve been, I think, more fortunate than most. (I’ve sometimes wondered what notable characters also belong to this odd little granfaloon, but so far the only ones I know of are Christopher Plummer, Steve Buscemi, and Alfred Hitchcock.)

On a whim I decided to look up “Friday the 13th” on Wikipedia this morning, and was not surprised to find a fascinating article, with an equally interesting collection of links at the bottom of the page. Have a look here.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (3)

This Is Taking Too Long

February 12, 2009 – 10:45 am

If Charles Darwin were alive, he’d be 200 years old today, and there has been an enormous outpouring of ink commemorating the great man’s bicentennial. From reader JK comes a link to a Pew Research Center article on the degree to which acceptance of his “dangerous idea” — in many people’s opinion the most important scientific insight ever had by anyone — is still obstructed by religious belief (and in particular, Protestant and Muslim belief). Here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Darwin and Biology | Comments (10)

Apply Within

February 11, 2009 – 11:59 pm

We’ve had some noisy conversations here recently on the subject of immigration. My own position has been that we should admit those, and only those, who will be assets rather than liabilities — and that we need to cultivate in ourselves the discernment to tell the difference. We want intelligent, motivated, creative, hard-working people who appreciate what America is and what it offers, and who yearn to participate not only in our prosperity but also in our culture. I would rather have these bright and energetic people working hard over here than over there, and lifting our economy as they are already lifting those of their own countries. In today’s New York Times, Thomas Friedman tells us, if I am reading him correctly, that he feels more or less the same way. (What he is not telling us, however, is whether he would restrict immigration to only those so qualified, as I think we should, or leave the doors flung agape as they presently are.)

His column is here.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (10)

No Rubbernecking, Please

February 11, 2009 – 11:28 pm

I suppose this was bound to happen: two satellites have collided in Earth orbit. Somebody’s insurance is going to be going up.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (0)

A Darwin Schriftfest

February 10, 2009 – 11:48 pm

It being the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth on the 12th of this month, this week’s Tuesday science supplement in the New York Times offered an engaging crop of Darwin-themed articles. Have a look here, here, here, here, here, and here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Darwin and Biology | Comments (1)

The Cowardly Lion

February 10, 2009 – 8:35 pm

Apparently the British government has now refused entry to the Dutch politician Geert Wilders. Wilders, who has made a name for himself with his outspoken criticism of Islam, and by his vociferous opposition to its increasing presence and influence in the dangerously multiculturalist West, has lived under police protection in Holland since the release of his provocative film Fitna, which showed news footage of fundamentalist Islamic violence and rage against a backdrop of Koranic text.

Wilders is already facing prosecution in his home country for daring to voice his opinions, and now the Crown, upon whose mighty empire the sun formerly never set, is apparently so weak-kneed the prospect of Muslim outrage that it feels it must bar the gate against a member of the Dutch Parliament. This pigeonhearted decision is further evidence of Western Europe’s abject and continuing surrender of what we in America still view, for now at least, as fundamental freedoms. What would Churchill say?

If you haven’t seen Fitna already, you can do so here. And as always, you can keep abreast of the ongoing decline of Europe by visiting Gates of Vienna.

By Malcolm | Posted in Jihad, Foreign Affairs | Comments (9)

Search Called Off

February 9, 2009 – 11:03 pm

Kevin Kim mentions, in a post published this evening, his curiosity about what he refers to as “real-time searching”. If things had gone a little differently back in 2006, real-time search would be a lot farther along than it is: this is exactly what the start-up company I used to work for, PubSub Concepts, was all about. We were all set to take over the world.

Read More »

By Malcolm | Posted in Technology | Comments (3)

Ox Tale

February 8, 2009 – 8:31 pm

Today was the annual Yee’s Hung Ga Lunar New Year parade, in which our dragon and lion-dance teams make their way along a circuitous, miles-long path that covers just about every block of New York’s Chinatown. It’s a long day of physical effort and deafening cacophony, and by the end we are all completely worn out and more than a little shell-shocked (I know I certainly am). I would describe it all for you in more detail, but already did just that, three years ago, here — and even posted pictures, two years ago, here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Martial Arts | Comments (3)

Word Processors

February 7, 2009 – 11:47 pm

I’ve just read an interesting item over at Bill Vallicella’s website, The Maverick Philosopher. It was a guest post (actually a “promoted” comment) by philosopher Peter Lupu, who has joined us over here on occasion as well.

The post by Peter was about Objectivism; it was a fairly technical examination of the Objectivist position that everything that is, necessarily is. Peter’s post is excellent, and if you are interested in these things you should read it. But what I want to comment on here is not the content of the post, but something I noticed while reading it.

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By Malcolm | Posted in Mind and Brain | Comments (2)

What You Mean “We”, Kemosabe?

February 6, 2009 – 11:13 pm

More than a few states, facing the prospect of an increasingly activist federal government under the new Democratic administration, have passed measures in their local legislatures to assert their sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment.

Here are some bills from Washington, New Hampshire, Arizona, Montana, Michigan, Missouri (this one has to do with resistance to Federal aborotion laws), Oklahoma, California, and Georgia. More are on the way.

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (3)

The Penny Drops

February 6, 2009 – 10:52 pm

In today’s Best of the Web newsletter, WSJ editorialist James Taranto pokes some fun at the New York Times:

The editorial board of the New York Times has stumbled onto a possibly revolutionary economic idea. The paper is sounding a note of caution about Gov. David Paterson’s proposal to impose a tax on theater tickets:

The proposal could increase ticket prices by about 8 percent, which could dim Broadway’s lights as tourists start thinking twice about that vacation in Manhattan. If tourism slumps in the city, the state’s budget problems would surely worsen along with it. Rocco Landesman, the president of Jujamcyn Theaters, summarizes his latest pleas to lawmakers this way: “Please, don’t kill your golden goose.”

Normally, a tax hike is a classic win-win: The government raises taxes, people pay the higher taxes, and the government gets more revenue, which it uses to stimulate the economy, promote social justice, educate our children, free us from dependence on foreign oil, and provide health care for all.

So how come the theater ticket tax doesn’t work the same way? Is Broadway some kind of Bizarro World where the normal rules of economics are stood on their heads?

Or could it be that this maddeningly counterintuitive phenomenon the Times has identified, in which taxing economic activity actually discourages it, can be found in other areas as well?

We await further enlightenment from future editorials.

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (1)

Sorry, Charlie

February 5, 2009 – 11:23 pm

February 12th being the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, the University of Chicago biologist Jerry Coyne has written a substantial essay on the status of science and religion in American culture 150 years after the publication of On The Origin Of Species, and on just how compatible the two really are. His answer: not so much.

Read More »

By Malcolm | Posted in Darwin and Biology | Comments (5)

Pearls Before Swine

February 5, 2009 – 12:09 am

From Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal: Daniel Pearl’s father writes, seven years after his son’s brutal murder, on how far we haven’t come.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (4)

Aiming To Please

February 4, 2009 – 11:14 pm

Readers have often mentioned that they wished our comment box had a ‘preview’ feature, so I went poking around in the WordPress Plugins Directory and found one. It is a ‘live-preview’ plugin, which means the formatted text is displayed in a box below the comment, and is updated as the user types. There are others out there if this one doesn’t give satisfactory results, but some of them will require that I upgrade to the newest version of WordPress (which is something I’ve been meaning to do anyway, as I’m still running version 2.21, and the latest is 2.7).

I’ve also added a ‘subscribe-to-comments’ plugin, which lets users request email notifications of new comments on any thread they are participating in, and a plugin that makes it easier to embed images.

What I’d really like to be able to do would be to get rid of that little spam-blocking ‘captcha’ box that forces unregistered users to enter digits from a displayed image. It appears that I still need it, though: I turned it off for all of about thirty seconds while I was installing the new ones this evening, and even in that brief interval I received an enormous comment full of unsavory links.

Let me know if this preview plugin seems acceptable, or if you think I should keep looking.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (7)

Flying High

February 3, 2009 – 10:53 pm

Here’s another item sent our way by Jess Kaplan, who is himself a frequent traveler to Moscow: passengers about to embark on an Aeroflot flight mutinied when they saw that their pilot was obviously drunk. (Quite a contrast, of course, with our own Chesley Sullenberger, who soberly managed to put his plane in the drink.)

And while we are on the subject of aviation mishaps, we would be remiss if we did not pause to note with sadness that today is the 50th anniversary of the crash that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and The Big Bopper on February 3rd, 1959.

It’s all still safer than driving, though, I suppose.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (1)

Hive Minds

February 2, 2009 – 10:46 pm

We’ve all heard of spelling bees. Now it turns out they can count, too.

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

What Is ‘Chi’?

February 2, 2009 – 12:37 am

From our friend Jess Kaplan come links to two YouTube clips, both of which show two chi-gung practitioners — one a Tibetan giving a martial-arts demonstration, and the other a Javanese healer. What we see in each is quite extraordinary, and will certainly tax the credulity of skeptical Westerners.

Read More »

By Malcolm | Posted in Martial Arts | Comments (19)

Just Imagine

January 30, 2009 – 11:37 pm

In this clip from 1981, the future swims into view.

By Malcolm | Posted in Technology | Comments (2)

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

January 29, 2009 – 6:22 pm

Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich has been removed from office. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

Next!

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (4)

Endangered Speeches

January 29, 2009 – 11:11 am

It’s time to leave immigration aside, and get back to our usual business; the past few days have given us enough to mull over for quite a while.

Here, then is a project behind which waka waka waka can throw its enthusiastic and unambiguous support: Save The Words.

By Malcolm | Posted in Language | Comments (2)

Post-Mortem

January 29, 2009 – 1:01 am

The little dust-up following Monday’s post was not, I’m afraid, this site’s finest hour, and I certainly take responsibility for doing a poor job as moderator. I had written the post during the day and evening Sunday, and put it up on Monday around lunchtime. There were a few responses early on, but I was ill-prepared for the onslaught on Tuesday, when over 80 comments — many of them long and bristling with links — poured in. I was at work, and was not in a position to keep up.

Read More »

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture | Comments (31)

Gung Hey Fat Choy

January 27, 2009 – 11:43 pm

So distracted have I been by a little melee (now ended) in another corner of these premises that I have neglected, I am sorry to say, to wish all of you a happy Lunar New Year.

It is the Year of the Ox; may the markets be bullish.

Yee’s Hung Ga will be taking to the streets in Chinatown, performing our usual lion dance and kung-fu demonstrations, on the last day of the celebration, February the 8th. Do come down if you are in town.

By Malcolm | Posted in Martial Arts | Comments (5)

An Immodest Proposal

January 26, 2009 – 3:47 pm

A few days ago Dennis Mangan posted at his website, Mangan’s Miscellany, some remarks of mine about a notion he had been discussing: the restriction of immigration on the basis of race. This gave rise to a long comment-thread. The comments were of varying quality, but nearly universal in their agreement that anyone who might suggest, as I did, that race is hardly a desirable or respectable criterion by which to filter out prospective immigrants must be a naive and deluded Pollyanna in the grip of an infectious liberal madness. I was told that to hold such an opinion meant that I was in the “kindergarten stage” of understanding the problem, that I lack “fundamental insight”, that I was an “escapist sloganeer” who, having mouthed “nice-sounding phrases”, imagined that I had “handled the issue”. I learned that I “just want the ideal liberal world”, and that I should “dream on”. I stood in the dock as an exemplar of “liberal, blank-slade [sic] thinking” (Really? moi?? see here, here, here, and most recently, here).

Moving on to actual clinical diagnosis, I learned that I “clearly suffer” from an “infantile disorder” that the blogger Mencius Moldbug (who is, just as an aside, certainly an interesting fellow, and worth reading) has called “human neurological uniformity”, which is:

…characterized by the belief that “modern human subpopulations are neurologically uniform… genetic differences between races… are of no behavioral significance… [and] genetic differences between individuals are of no behavioral significance.” People who do not suffer from this disorder consider that what people look like is, in fact, associated with how they behave.

Although it builds character, no doubt, to offer a thoughtful remark in a public forum and find oneself pelted with rotten vegetables, it is not, as it turns out, an unalloyed pleasure. Perhaps I am too thin-skinned.

Anyway, all of this happened while I was working sixteen-hour days, and had no time even to outline a response, let alone write and post one. Now that I have a few quiet moments, I’d like to make some clarifying remarks. (This is rather a long post, by the way; for that I apologize in advance.)

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By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture | Comments (92)

Much Better Now

January 24, 2009 – 9:38 pm

It is Saturday evening now, and at last I have the time to begin to respond to all this brouhaha about immigration and race. Tomorrow looks like a very quiet day, and I should have ample time to compose a proper reply.

The problem tonight is that my Internet access has been on the fritz all day; it is working at dial-up speeds right now, but will probably conk out again any minute. If the trouble persists I will post from the office on Monday.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (2)

Service Notice

January 23, 2009 – 9:50 pm

So exhausted. Even complete sentences, subject-verb agreement is quite beyond me. Sleep first. Back tomorrow.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (1)

Backup!

January 22, 2009 – 10:31 pm

OK, waka wakans, I can use a hand here. I am once again working till at least midnight, and have no time for a post. But I would like it if you would visit this thread at Dennis Mangan’s, where I am alone under heavy fire, and have no time to respond. Go forth, and comment away; the topic is complex and important. But I warn you: think before you post. Be rigorous, be coherent, be consistent. Show ’em what we’ve got.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture | Comments (33)

Here Comes The Sun

January 21, 2009 – 10:40 pm

I’m working late tonight (still at the office at 10:30), and have no time for writing. But as always I hate to send you away empty-handed, so I have a little tidbit that ought to give you one more thing to worry about. Have a look here.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (1)

Skunk At The Garden Party

January 20, 2009 – 11:02 pm

After I posted this morning’s item, I watched the inauguration, along with the rest of the world. It is unquestionably a promising and historic moment, and I am not immune to President Obama’s charismatic appeal myself — but I have to say, at the risk of being a cranky old grouch, that I found the love-fest in the National Mall rather disturbing. I’m leery of large crowds, particularly when they are sharing a powerful emotion.

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By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (22)

And Now For Something Completely Different

January 20, 2009 – 11:25 am

Looking back over my 52 years, I must say I cannot recall anything like the giddy euphoria attending today’s inauguration. Perhaps the mood was something like this in January of 1961, but if so I was too young to remember, and anyway I doubt it. Certainly I don’t remember pilgrims descending on Washington in their millions to touch the hem of Jimmy Carter’s garment, or even Ronald Reagan’s.

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

Trouble In Paradise?

January 19, 2009 – 10:29 pm

Software engineers often imagine that Google must be just the best place to work. A couple of years ago I visited a friend who works in their New York office (which then was in Times Square), and I have to say it looked pretty good: a beautiful, modern office with all sorts of worker-friendly touches: huge monitors on everyone’s desk, lavishly appointed lounges, a free cafeteria, and so on. The company is obviously a mighty engine of creativity, and developers are even given one day a week just to tinker with ideas of their own. It is also notoriously hard to get hired there; the candidate must run a long and arduous gauntlet of interviews and examinations. As you might expect, it isn’t easy to land The Best Job In The World.

But according to some former employees, Google isn’t quite the Shangri-La it’s cracked up to be. Have a look here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Shameless Filler | Comments (2)

Avast, Ye Scurvy Dogs

January 18, 2009 – 11:13 pm

The US has deliberately done nothing much to deal with the problem of piracy in the waters off the Horn of Africa; the idea was that this would instill a sense of urgency in other nations that had more at stake. One problem has been that nobody knew what to be done with pirates if caught; there is no local government capable of the job. All this may be changing. The Navy has announced the creation of a new body, CTF-151 (CTF stands for Combined Task Force), that will be a coalition fleet of vessels from several “interested” nations. Furthermore it appears that the State Department has reached an agreement with a nearby nation to serve as the venue in which captured pirates will be tried (there is no way to be sure, but it appears it might be Kenya). It looks like this may all get going soon after the inauguration on Tuesday.

If you are interested in this sort of thing, you should read this briefing on the subject by Commander, U.S. Naval Forces, Central Command, U.S. 5TH Fleet, Vice Adm. William Gortney, given on January 15th. And as always with matters naval, go to Information Dissemination for analysis.

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

Two Views Of A Secret

January 18, 2009 – 8:09 pm

In last night’s post we linked to a reminiscence about the late Patrick McGoohan. That essay, in turn, linked to another blog with a post about Mr. McGoohan, this time by a film writer by the name of Glenn Kenney. Mr. Kenny’s post is a good one, and if you were a McGoohan fan you should read it. But what raised my eyebrow was a comment left by one of Mr. Kenny’s readers.

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By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (1)