September 30, 2008 – 11:01 pm
I’ll confess that the more I stew over whether or not to hope this bailout takes place, the more I feel like a sort of Buridan’s Ass in reverse: equally repelled by both options. With a hat tip to Bill V., we offer an item from CNN in which Harvard economist Jeffrey A. Miron tells us why its a bad idea. Mind you, he’s a libertarian, and while I like my liberty, I still see a broader role for government than does the average hardcore libertarian, who generally seems to want the borders defended and not a whole lot else.
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September 30, 2008 – 9:52 pm
For those of you who still don’t quite get how we got into this mess: have a look here. (Be sure to click at lower left for full-screen mode, to best experience the incredible graphics).
September 29, 2008 – 10:52 pm
The proposed Federal bailout bill died in the House today, and the markets plummeted in response, causing a trillion dollars or so of America’s wealth to vanish into thin air. I have no doubt whatsoever that the bill, a top-down rescue plan that rewards a great many powerful people for their catastrophic incompetence, is a foul, stinking thing, a grotesque and insulting mockery of responsible governance, and a violent and brutal buggering of the American taxpayer.
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September 28, 2008 – 11:05 pm
We haven’t spilled much ink in here lately on the subject of the mind, but it is never far from my own. This evening I stumbled across the website of a marvelous organization: the Neukom Institute at Dartmouth, whose mission is “to foster collaborative research between computational science and other disciplines; educate future generations of interdisciplinary researchers; and develop new curricular, mentoring, and collaborative learning opportunities at Dartmouth.”
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September 28, 2008 – 12:35 am
I do wish I weren’t so susceptible to the enervating effect of warm, damp weather. Today was exactly that: overcast and misty, without the slightest stirring of a breeze, too warm for comfort (mine, at least), with the humidity pegged at 100%. In me these conditions induce a feeble-minded torpor, a morose lassitude, an otiose and unsociable ennui that renders me utterly unproductive, and makes me poor company. I forced myself, with enormous effort of will, to do some training, in the hope that physical exercise would perk me up; it didn’t.
So if you have come here looking to find anything broadening or amusing, I must dash your hopes, as tonight the well is dry (and it’s the only thing around here that is). I would have written about Michigan’s extraordinary come-from-behind victory against #9 Wisconsin, which was perhaps one of the most astonishingly improbable sporting events I have ever witnessed — but if you didn’t see it yourself, you wouldn’t believe it anyway, and if you did see it, you know words won’t do it justice.
So all I can do is send you on your way, or invite you to browse our archives (which as of now contain 1,102 posts, ranging from lightweight froth to the utterly trivial; you can even try the brand-new “View a Random Post” link at the top of the sidebar). Or, if you seek something intellectually provocative, have a look at this recent post by Dennis Mangan about our genomic maladaption to agriculture.
I hope to perk up soon; there is a lot to comment on, and plenty of unfinished business. Do come again.
September 27, 2008 – 7:54 pm
CNN is offering a new and helpful feature in their coverage of the recent Presidential debate: a complete transcript attached to a fully indexed video, with a search feature that allows you to enter a keyword or phrase and go right to that spot in the video clip. It’s not exactly an antigravity machine or interstellar warp drive, but it’s clever and useful.
Have a look here.
September 27, 2008 – 12:10 am
Well, like many of you, I’m sure, I’ve just watched the first McCain/Obama debate. I’ll just blurt out a few first impressions.
First of all, and above all, it is an enormous relief that for the first time in a very long while we actually have two plausible candidates, men of genuine intelligence and substance. No matter who wins, we are far better off. After Bush/Gore, and then Bush/Kerry — the nadir of American politics in my lifetime — this is immensely gratifying.
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September 26, 2008 – 12:19 am
Some of you may be wondering what’s going on around here. There are new links at the bottom of each post, and all of a sudden the place is overrun with garrulous and unfamiliar visitors, some of whom are, well, not quite the sort of commenters we’re used to seeing in here.
What’s happened is that I have registered my website with a service called Sphere, which aggregates blog content and puts up links at various media outlets. So whenever I write a post that links to a story, say, at CNN, there will now be a link on that CNN page right back to our humble salon.
I’ve done this in the interest of greater exposure, but one of the most precious things to me about this little website is the intelligence, insightfulness, and eloquence of our little community of readers and commenters. If this new service begins to attract too many of the wrong sort of people — for example, I had a fellow yesterday complaining that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for all his Islamic swagger, drove a christian car — I promise you I will nip it in the bud, or move to some system whereby I must approve commenters before they can post here.
Thanks for bearing with me while I try this out.
September 25, 2008 – 11:59 pm
Things have moved along a little since this morning’s post went up.
It has seemed obvious since yesterday that John McCain, having galloped off to Washington in the role of the United States Cavalry, needed — in order for this flamboyant gesture not to be seen as the most transparent political grandstanding — actually to do something once he got there. It appears, however, that he simply sat rather diffidently in today’s meeting with our president (who seems quite stunned himself), and it does not appear now that Mr. McCain had any clear idea whatsoever of exactly what “leadership” role he was going to play once he blew into town. (To be fair, nobody else has any idea what to do either, of course. As far as anyone can tell, this really might be the End of Days.)
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September 25, 2008 – 2:13 pm
By now, of course, you have all heard that John McCain, whose love of country and capacity for personal sacrifice know no equal, has sorrowfully set aside his personal ambitions to answer, once again, the call of duty.
It is hard to find fault with Mr. McCain’s ostensible purpose here. One can certainly argue that it is entirely appropriate for the Senate’s most influential member to drop whatever else he might be doing and show up for work at a time like this, and so Mr. McCain is perfectly positioned to affect wounded indignation should anyone make the cruelly cynical suggestion that he is motivated solely by his lust for the glittering prize that suddenly seems to be slipping away. It is a brilliant tactic, and indeed it may well be more than just a tactic: even though both sides are predictably applying the spin that suits their needs, the beauty of this move is that it serves both purposes — playing for the high ground in the political skirmish, and actually helping to get this crisis under control — equally well.
If nothing else, we must give the man full marks for having made this presidential campaign some of the best political theater I’ve seen in my 52 years, first with his selection of the ostentatiously underqualified populist mascot Sarah Palin as his understudy, and now with this clever gambit.
September 24, 2008 – 11:34 pm
I’ve had my differences with Maverick Philosopher Bill Vallicella over the past few years — he can be an obstinate cuss, and we have divergent views on a variety of topics. But I’ve always admired his intelligence, scholarship, and the quality of his writing — and joining the conversation at his philosophical salon has appreciably broadened my perspective.
Today he has put up an outstanding post on what, in his view, it means to be a conservative. I find little to disagree with. Read it here.
September 24, 2008 – 10:20 am
Apparently Bluehost, the company that hosts this website, will be doing hardware maintenance this evening for a couple of hours starting around midnight EDT. We’ll be down during that interval.
September 23, 2008 – 11:35 pm
Speaking this afternoon just a few short blocks from my Park Avenue office, Iran’s president Ahmadinejad informed us that the despicable American Empire is circling the drain, along with the suzerainty of our evil Zionist puppets over their innocent Palestinian victims. As you can probably imagine, I was downright chopfallen to hear such distressing news. But then, to cheer us up, Mr. A. reminded us all of an important fact that we should keep in mind whenever we’re feeling down: because we are living in the End Times, we can all look forward to the imminent inauguration of the Kingdom of God, presided over by the elusive 12th Imam, with our own doughty Jesus right by his side!
Now, I realize that our own Pentecostalists and other such sorts (who make up about 99% of the population, I hear, once you get out past Weehawken) may quibble about who’s at the top of the K.O.G. ticket (and I can name one in particular who is raring to haul off and smite those nucular-crazy Eye-rannians without so much as blinking), but at least they all have something in common. Kind of makes you feel better about this crazy old world, doesn’t it?
September 23, 2008 – 12:20 am
The good ship Britannia, with hull stove in and gunwales awash, slips slowly beneath the waves. Writing bravely from her deck, our friend, the estimable Deogolwulf, vouchsafes us a poignant glimpse of that mighty vessel in her mortal throes.
Here.
September 22, 2008 – 11:55 pm
Today was the first day of autumn, which means it will be Christmas before you know it, and once again we’ll be racking our brains to find just the right gift for those hard-to-shop-for people on our list. My mother-in-law is a good example; she is is a woman of refined and particular tastes, and already has just about everything she needs.
But for this year, at least, I think I’ve got it taken care of. Have a look here.
September 21, 2008 – 12:49 pm
While I might have found, prior to the national conventions, reasonable arguments for and against electing either of the candidates now before us, the prospect of the blithely ignorant Pentecostalist “hockey mom” Sarah Palin succeeding Mr. McCain as President of the United States should he die in office is so appalling that, as I mentioned in a recent post, the GOP ticket almost certainly will not be getting my vote.
Now Sam Harris, writing in Newsweek, offers a long and pungent essay making the same point, and decrying the anti-elitism of all those “just plain folks” who see in Ms. Palin the chance for one of their own to get — if I may paraphrase Mencken — her thumb in the eye of their betters.
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September 20, 2008 – 12:19 am
Sorry for the dead air yesterday; I’ve gone and got myself involved in another wrangle over at Bill Vallicella’s, and spent too long over there to have time for a post here. The topic is the morality of abortion, which as everyone knows by now is a great sucking vortex of infinite confusion and intractable debate; the particular aspect of the discussion in which I have become bogged down, like a hapless mastodon in a peat bog, is the question of potential: does an embryo’s potential to become a fully developed child in the future entitle it to moral consideration now?
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September 17, 2008 – 10:41 pm
I try to keep my ear to the ground, which may account for my having missed an outré little story. Scientists from the Supernova Cosmology Project, who have been using the Hubble Space Telescope to scour the heavens for faraway stellar cataclysms, stumbled across something very odd.
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September 16, 2008 – 12:12 pm
If you’re like me, then Sarah Palin gives you the willies, just a little. I have nothing against conservatives — I hold fairly conservative views myself, on quite a few issues — but it’s the kind of conservatism she embodies that gives me the fantods.
One of the things that has always appealed to me about old-school American conservatism is its unrepentant admiration for excellence: its conviction that all forms of thought and expression are not equal, that there is high and enduring value in the great canon of Western culture, and that erudition and worldly perspective are valuable assets in a statesman. These last are not qualities that Ms. Palin conspicuously exemplifies. That her lack of them is for very many Americans the essence of her appeal is evidence of another, far ruder form of “conservative”, one that has less in common with the with the founders of modern conservative thought than with the lowbrow, unwashed populism of William Jennings Bryan — about whom H.L. Mencken once said: “His career brought him into contact with the first men of his time; he preferred the company of rustic ignoramuses.”
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September 16, 2008 – 12:09 am
September 15, 2008 – 10:24 pm
After a century and a half, it appears the Anglican Church may finally have got round to apologizing to Charles Darwin for its sneering reception of The Origin of Species.
Better late than never, I suppose, though at this point it hardly matters; the approval of this archaic institution hardly seems relevant any longer.
Story here.
September 15, 2008 – 10:18 pm
We must note with sadness the death, from cancer, of one of the founding members of Pink Floyd, keyboardist Richard Wright. His Times obituary is here.
September 14, 2008 – 11:16 pm
The other day I read a little article about Google’s News Archive Search service, and thought I’d take it for a spin. I wanted to search for something that wouldn’t have been written about much for a long time, so after a moment’s thought I typed in the name “Czolgosz”, which readers will remember as the name of the Michigan-born anarchist who shot and fatally wounded President William McKinley in Buffalo on September 6th, 1901. I was rewarded with a fascinating clipping from my hometown rag, the New York Times, published on October 27th of that year, shortly before Czolgosz’s immolation in the electric chair.
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September 13, 2008 – 10:43 pm
As always, there is a provocative exhange of views taking place over at the website Edge.org. It began with an essay by the psychologist Jonathan Haidt entitled Why Do People Vote Republican?
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September 11, 2008 – 11:48 pm
I headed home late from the kung-fu school this evening, and all the way along Eighth Avenue I could see the twin beams of light stabbing into the sky from across the river. They light them up every year: two colossal searchlights marking the place where all those people died, and the world changed, seven years ago today. Now that I’m home, I can see them from my back door, where I used to step out at night and see the towers themselves. The people in charge of these things left the lights on for months back in late 2001 and early 2002, but now they only fire them up on the anniversary itself.
The lights are so powerful that on a clear night they reach, effectively, to infinity. They point straight up, of course, but when you see them from a distance they seem to lean toward you as they rise to the zenith. It’s a strange effect, because in the ordinary course of our affairs we simply never see any vertical object of infinite height. But this is curiously fitting, I think; the event they mark had nothing to do with the ordinary course of affairs either — and has also reached, effectively, to infinity.
September 10, 2008 – 11:05 pm
As you have probably heard, the folks at CERN have fired up the Large Hadron Collider, and it seems to be working: at least, the lights came on, the clock started blinking “12:00”, and so forth. By some miracle, we are all still here, and have not been gobbled up by a strangelet, or yanked into some cosmic wormhole. Actually, of course, we wouldn’t have been, anyway, just yet, because it will be quite a while before anything particularly energetic is happening over there, and quite a while indeed before any actual particle-colliding takes place. So to all the concerned citizens I’ve been hearing on the radio lately, gibbering in fathomless ignorance about how these crazy physicists are going to “punch black holes into the Earth” — as if the Collider were some sort of colossal seed dibber — you still have plenty of time to get your affairs in order, if you like.
September 9, 2008 – 1:13 pm
Is something fishy here? If so, maybe we’ll call it “Billingsgate“.
September 9, 2008 – 11:36 am
Today’s Times carries on the Op-Ed page an item by foreign-affairs correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg, in which he makes a grim prediction: a 10 to 50 percent likelihood of a nuclear strike against America by our Islamic foes within the next ten years.
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September 8, 2008 – 10:04 pm
It is difficult sometimes, I will confess, to maintain a steady stream of penetrating insight and infectious wit. Although I know the pen is mightier than the sword, sometimes the flow of ideas is restricted, and occasionally, even despite all the momentous events transpiring in continents far away — like the approaching activation of the European particle accelerator — my creative engine remains at idle, and I just can’t get it up to speed.
So for tonight, rather than send you away empty-handed, here’s an unusual little website that for some reason seems oddly apropos. After all, you’ve taken all this trouble to come, and I’d hate to piss you off.
September 8, 2008 – 9:30 pm
I realize that this may have limited appeal for most of you, but I just can’t get enough of this sort of thing. At the very least, it’s further proof that there is something for everyone on the Web.
September 7, 2008 – 11:46 pm
In today’s New York Times Magazine is an article, by respected Mideast hand Dexter Filkins, about the realities “on the ground” in the tribal areas of Pakistan — a region that belongs, in any realistic sense, not to Pakistan at all, but to the brutal and illiterate warlords of the Taliban. Filkins makes the case that any notion that Pakistan is now, or ever was, a useful ally against Islamist extremism in this area is nothing more than a snare and a delusion, and a costly one at that.
Pakistan is in a very precarious and unstable condition politically at the moment, and besides being a safe haven for the most virulent Islamic extremism, possesses a modest nuclear arsenal. There is much to be worried about.
Read the article here.
September 7, 2008 – 12:06 am
In a comment to a recent post, reader David Brightly asked if I was worried that naturalistic accounts of morality “might lead to less good and more harm being done.” It’s a good question, and I am not sure about the answer.
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September 5, 2008 – 11:08 pm
In today’s New York Times is an account of some fine experimental neuroscience, and another revealing glimpse of the “merely” physical substrate of conscious experience.
The story describes work done by an American/Israeli team of researchers into the neurological underpinnings of memory. By examining the activation patterns of individual neurons, the team found that they were able to predict what memories were about to enter a subject’s mind, a second or two before the subject consciously experienced them.
Results like this — and we are going to be seeing more and more of them as our tools and expertise improve — are going to be making things hotter and hotter for those who still cling to dualistic models of the mind, I expect.
Read the article here.
September 5, 2008 – 10:49 pm
Glaciers are melting in Europe. Alpine valleys that have been blocked by rivers of ice for as long as anyone can remember are now passable on foot. This is due to the maleficent influence of human activity, we hear: in particular, due to humans of the gas-guzzling American entrepreneurial capitalist white male sort. But there was time, long before Republicans, oil-company executives, current or prospective vice-presidents, or talk-radio personalities bestrode the beleaguered Earth, when those same high valleys were as free of ice as they may soon be again. Reader JK earns his second hat tip in as many days with this item about recent archaeological discoveries in Switzerland.
September 4, 2008 – 10:36 am
Reader JK, in a comment to our previous post, has pointed out something so amusing that it needs a post of its own, I think.
When the presumptive GOP vice-presidential nominee was first presented to the public last Friday, she made an introductory speech in which she mentioned “nucular” weapons. I was horrified, of course, and said so in a contemporaneous post.
Apparently there were those in the GOP who saw this deplorable continuation of Bush-era policy as a dangerous liability also. In the pre-released transcript of the speech Ms. Palin gave last night, the word “nuclear” is explicitly spelled out as “new-clear”, presumably because her handlers had determined that simply telling her how the word ought to be pronounced just wouldn’t get the job done.
I’ll bet that everybody thought somebody was going to clean that up before releasing the transcript to the press. Those media elites and pointy-headed liberal East Coast college types are going to have lots of fun with this one, I’ll bet.
I told you this Palin nomination would liven things up.
September 4, 2008 – 12:23 am
Along with much of America, I’ve just watched Sarah Palin’s speech to the assembled Republican delegates, poo-bahs, and panjandrums. She made a very good showing, and my earlier characterization of her as nothing more than a “back-country Pentecostalist fishwife” was perhaps a trifle harsh.
The speech was about what you would expect: a fawning introduction of her swelling tribe, folksy bromides about small-town goodness, and dewy-eyed encomiums for the selfless warrior at the top of the ticket. Ms. Palin reserved a fair measure of praise for herself as well, contrasting, as expected, her conquest of Juneau — and single-handed cleansing of its Augean stable of lobbyists and special-interest brokers — with Mr. Obama’s utter lack of, well, anything at all worth mentioning. She also managed to wedge in, if rather jarringly, a brief discussion of foreign policy, in which she demonstrated her easy familiarity with the names of several other countries.
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September 1, 2008 – 10:51 pm
There is an organization, which I expect most of you have heard of by now, called “the The Brights“. It is dedicated to the promotion of what it calls a “naturalistic worldview”, which it defines as being free of “supernatural and mystical elements”. The name, I think, is exceedingly unfortunate; it seems smug and pollyanna-ish, and has probably put off a great many people who might otherwise have been inclined to join in.
I am, to be sure, a fair approximation of what most Brights would consider one of their own: I am certainly no believer in any sort of gods or teleological cosmic arrangements, and I think it overwhelmingly likely that we humans — along with our minds, consciousness, and consciences — are exclusively the product of a natural process of selection and evolution. In particular I resent the enormous role that religion plays in public affairs here in America. But there is something about the Brights that irritates me, even though many thinkers I admire, such as Steven Pinker and Daniel Dennett, have become prominent (“enthusiastic”, in typically gushy Bright locution) members.
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September 1, 2008 – 1:36 pm
In Barack Obama’s speech at the convention last week, he presented himself as the nation’s best hope for the amelioration of a dolorous litany of woes. But is this glum tableau an accurate accounting of how most voters see the nation, and their own lives? Apparently not, according to this item in today’s Wall Street Journal.
August 31, 2008 – 11:30 am
For the second year in a row, catastrophe has struck in Ann Arbor. The Wolverines have once again lost their season opener to an unranked team — in this case, Utah.
Well, we knew it was going to be a tough year; the old guard — Henne, Hart, Long, Manningham and others, even including Coach Carr — are all gone. At least this time its a school I’ve even heard of.
August 30, 2008 – 11:55 pm
“Baron Bodissey”, at Gates of Vienna, mans the ramparts against creeping socialism in a clear and forceful post. An excerpt:
A basic rule for the classical liberal is that government should perform as few functions as possible, and that taxes should be kept as low as possible, in order to eliminate the corruption and non-productive behavior that saps the national commonweal and the individual character.
Defending the borders, managing the currency, maintaining national security, and regulating interstate commerce ”” those are some of the very few necessary functions of government. There’s no earthly reason ”” other than a century of Progressive habit ”” why the government should design school curricula, tell people what they should eat, or fund ballet companies. Localities can do the first, individuals can decide the second for themselves, and people who like ballet can do the third.
Good sense to some; twaddle to others, I’m sure (you know who you are). It depends upon what you think is important, and what you think is fair. Read it here.
August 30, 2008 – 2:46 pm
Here, courtesy of the Drudge Report, is a link to a blog post and video clip in which we see the pinguid pinko propagandist Michael Moore gloating at the approach of Hurricane Gustav. Caring not a fig for the human and economic impact of the impending storm — which is sure to be considerable, and which he breezily dismisses by saying “I hope nobody gets hurt” — Moore snuffles and smirks with glee that the tempest appears due to smite poor and miserable New Orleans just as the Republicans begin their convention.
August 29, 2008 – 11:35 pm
I watched earlier today as John McCain introduced his clever choice for running mate: the former Miss Wasilla (and current governor of Alaska), Sarah Palin.
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August 28, 2008 – 12:18 pm
Here’s Peggy Noonan once again (do forgive me for generating so little original content during this vacation), commenting on the speeches made so far at the democratic convention. She offers a simple but accurate insight:
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August 26, 2008 – 11:30 am
Surrounded as I am by family and friends while on holiday, I continue to find time alone for writing to be in short supply. But here’s a gem for the “Shameless Filler” category: the “Old Perfesser” himself, the great Casey Stengel, testifying on July 8th, 1958 at the Senate Anti-Trust and Monopoly Subcommittee Hearings. This is priceless.
Perhaps best of all: Mickey Mantle’s opening remark (last line of the transcript).
August 26, 2008 – 11:08 am
Here’s the latest in lethal technology: the wasp knife.
August 24, 2008 – 10:21 pm
It’s late in the day, and it’s been a long, full day: up early this morning to drive our son back to college, then an evening memorial service here in Wellfleet for a truly remarkable woman — Ellen Rafel, our next-door neighbor here on Hiram Hill, who lost her fight with cancer this spring. So for tonight I want to direct readers to an ongoing discussion at The Maverick Philosopher on what is perhaps the most intractable social and political dilemma of them all: abortion.
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August 23, 2008 – 5:51 pm
We’ve had a demanding schedule today: lolling and body-surfing at White Crest Beach, then the daily swim at Great Pond — and still to come this evening, our friend Larry Horowitz’s latest opening at the Cove Gallery, followed by dinner at Winslow’s Tavern. But a free moment having presented itself, I’ll take this opportunity to catch up a bit.
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August 22, 2008 – 1:41 pm
A quiet, lazy midday having presented me with an opportunity to switch on my laptop, I thought I might, at the very least, offer those readers who’ve made the effort to stop by (and I think them for doing so) a tidbit or two.
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August 18, 2008 – 12:05 pm
We are on holiday at our little seaside retreat, and the schedule is simply so demanding — sleeping, loafing on the beach, swimming in Wellfleet’s cool and limpid kettle ponds and the backshore’s bracing surf, sampling the area’s toothsome viands, strolling through town, visiting with friends, brushing up my Iron Wire out on the deck, playing music, and reading — that it’s hard to find the time for serious bloggery. There will be rainy days ahead, though, I’m sure.
Meanwhile, some amusing fluff: the periodic table of the elements, in an easy-to-use video format.
August 16, 2008 – 10:07 pm
There seems to be little doubt that the world’s oceans are in trouble. Here in Cape Cod, which was named for shoals of fish once so numerous that you could “walk across the water on their backs”, the fishing industry is all but gone, the result of near-total depletion of a fishery that once seemed limitless. It now appears, as we read here, that fertilizer runoff is leading to algal blooms that cause oxygen-deprived “dead zones”, and in this article we read about the “rise of slime”:
Areas that had featured intricate marine food webs with large animals are being converted into simplistic ecosystems dominated by microbes, toxic algal blooms, jellyfish and disease.
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