Inciting to riot

Gary Farber asks: Would you assert that a modest libel law, or copyright law, or incitement to riot law, inevitably lead to 1984? How about a law banning private nuclear weapons? I would say that the risk from a modest libel law or copyright law is small, though not nonexistent; look at the way the… Continue reading Inciting to riot

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Keeping Freedom Alive: a response to Vodkapundit

In a trenchant essay he posted on the 30th of January, Vodkapundit fulminates against people he calls “doctrinaire libertarians”. While I sympathize in some respects — I too have been attacked for my pro-war position — I think there is some serious danger that Steve’s arguments are throwing out the baby along with the bathwater.… Continue reading Keeping Freedom Alive: a response to Vodkapundit

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The Web and Identity Goods

InstaPundit writes: This seems to me to suggest that free downloads don’t do much to cannibalize actual [book] sales. I have more (or at least longer-term) experience with this than anyone else. Back in 1991, The New Hacker’s Dictionary was the very first real book (like, with an ISBN) to be released simultaneously in print… Continue reading The Web and Identity Goods

War is the Continuation of Journalism

StrategyPage reports that Baathist dead-enders in Iraq are now using press credentials as cover. Some Iraqis working for Reuters were arrested after an attack on U.S. troops guarding a downed helicopter. Reuters is now protesting that this was an error. Considering the virulently anti-American slant of Reuters coverage, this is bleakly funny. Those Iraqi employees… Continue reading War is the Continuation of Journalism

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Categorized as Terror

Donald Sensing is so right

Donald Sensing is dead on target in his post suggesting the U.S military re-adopt the M1911 .45ACP pistol. I’ve fired a Beretta 92F and it’s an ugly, awkward gun that neither feels good in the hand nor inspires confidence in its stopping power. Those who have actually seen the sharp end of combat generally agree… Continue reading Donald Sensing is so right

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Categorized as Firearms

Gay Marriage

If I needed any reminder of why I’m not a conservative, the bizarre contortions that right-wingers have been putting themselves through lately in opposition to the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision on gay marriage would provide one. Watching this has been almost as much fun as watching the left thrash itself to pieces in a futile… Continue reading Gay Marriage

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The 2004 election is over

From the Telegraph: A spokesman for Mr Berlusconi said the prime minister had been telephoned recently by Col Gaddafi of Libya, who said: “I will do whatever the Americans want, because I saw what happened in Iraq, and I was afraid.” This is the quote that will re-elect George W. Bush president. Because after 9/11,… Continue reading The 2004 election is over

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Racism and group differences

At the end of my essay What good is IQ?, I suggested that taking IQ seriously might (among other things) be an important step towards banishing racism. The behavioral differences between two people who are far apart on the IQ scale are far more significant than any we can associate with racial origin. Stupidity isn’t… Continue reading Racism and group differences

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Categorized as Science

Comment policy

I removed a comment from my blog today. This is only the second time I have done so, and the first was just cleaning up an accidental double post. To whoever left the original comment #6 on Lessons of Libya: I won’t suppress a coment for being mindless, formulaic ranting. Nor will I suppress a… Continue reading Comment policy

Lessons of Libya

Muammar Qaddaffi, Libya’s dictator and long-time terrorist sugar-daddy, has agreed to dismantle his WMD programs and allow international inspections. The NYT’s December 20th article Lessons of Libya, covering this development, is unintentionally hilarious. An honest account would probably have read something like this: When Qaddafi saw the Hussein capture pictures they must have scared him… Continue reading Lessons of Libya

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Sex and Tolkien

Yes, I went to my local instantiation of the all-three-LOTR-movies marathon on Tuesday, and enjoyed it immensely. The movies were a delight; Peter Jackson’s Return Of The King fully lived up to the promise of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. Despite minor flaws and some questionable omissions, Tolkien fans have reason… Continue reading Sex and Tolkien

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Giving Up The Gun

In response to my post on The Last Samurai, one reader asked a question I should have expected: didn’t the Tokugawa Shogunate successfully suppress firearms in Japan? No. Actually, they didn’t. Many American believe they did because they’ve vaguely heard the argument of Noel Perrin’s book Giving Up The Gun, explaining that the Tokugawa Shogunate… Continue reading Giving Up The Gun

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The Last Samurai

Hollywood has given us a run of surprisingly good movies recently. By ‘surprisingly good‘ I mean that they’re rather better than one might expect from their genre. Loony Toons: Back In Action, for example, could have been a mere merchandising vehicle, a repetition of clichés and tired sight gags. Instead it was a wickedly funny… Continue reading The Last Samurai

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Ejected in Geneva

The organizers of the Internet Summit in Geneva have had Dr. Paul Twomey, the president of ICANN (the organization that’s chartered to administer the international domain-name system), ejected by security guards after he’d flown twenty hours to participate in the meeting. I was not especially surprised. The organizers of the Geneva summit seem to be… Continue reading Ejected in Geneva

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Cthulhu and Christ

This parody below comes to us from an artist named Howard Hallis, to whom all credit is due. I’ve taken the liberty of reproducing it here because the design of his website leads me to suspect that this cartoon might be replaced by something else the next time he has a fit of artistic inspiration.… Continue reading Cthulhu and Christ

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Da Big Snow

Yup, the blizzard is big. Here in eastern Pennsylvania we’ve had over a foot of snow and a lot of drifting today. I shoveled my driveway. I’m going to be stiff tomorrow.

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