Substantive changes from version 1 to 2 are marked in red; changes from 2 to 3 are marked in blue. I think the changes largely speak for themselves. I will say that I think some of the criticisms I received reflect a conservative bias in the blogosphere population, and that for appeal to a wider… Continue reading Draft for an Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto (version 3)
Author: esr
Draft for an Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto (version 2)
Substantive changes from version 1 are marked in red. I think the changes largely speak for themselves. I will say that I think some of the criticisms I received reflect a conservative bias in the blogosphere population, and that for appeal to a wider audience it is necessary to excoriate the Right a little harder… Continue reading Draft for an Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto (version 2)
Draft for an Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto (version 1)
WHEREAS, the year since the terrible events of 9/11 has exposed the vacuity and moral confusion of all too many of the thinkers, politicians, and activists operating within conventional political categories; WHEREAS, the Left has failed us by succumbing to reflexive anti-Americanism; by apologizing for terrorist acts; by propounding squalid theories of moral equivalence; and… Continue reading Draft for an Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto (version 1)
Failsafe
I just sent the following letter to the Boston Globe after reading Elaine Scarry’s excellent piece Failsafe!: Congratulations on having the bravery to publish Elaine Scarry’s “Failsafe”. She is right to point out that distributed threats require distributed countermeasures. She is right to point out that centralized defense of the U.S. massively failed us. She… Continue reading Failsafe
Defeating Hussein Without Government
The aftermath of 9/11 is a hard time to be an anarchist. For many years before the WTC came down I believed that America could be better defended by have no government than by the system we have now, I imagined a nation of heavily armed militias, without the power-projection capabilities of a conventional military… Continue reading Defeating Hussein Without Government
Imperialists by necessity?
Steven den Beste wrote a long, intelligent and insightful essay on who the enemy is. I think he is right to see Afghanistan, Iraq, and the suppression of Al-Qaeda as phases of longer, wider war — a clash of civilizations driven by the failure of Islamic/Arab culture (though I would stress the problem of the… Continue reading Imperialists by necessity?
So, Howell Raines isn’t a complete waste of air
The NYT ran a pro-Linux editorial today. That’s good. They had to slip their “communitarian” spin in there, though, as if Linux hackers are all a bunch of PBS-worshiping Mother Jones readers and natural suckers for the fuzzy-sweater cause of the week. Hah. If they only knew. I’m not going to say my gun-toting red-meat… Continue reading So, Howell Raines isn’t a complete waste of air
Living With Microsoft
In today’s episode of the Microsoft follies, we learned that Media Player 9 is un-uninstallable. Deliberately. A A Microsoft spokesthing confirmed that Media Player 9 is so deeply integrated into the operating system that it cannot be removed without doing a `system restore’. Which, incidentally, will wipe out your Office installation. It’s at times like… Continue reading Living With Microsoft
When there’s nothing left to say, self-parody is the way
I’m just, barely, old enough to remember the anti-war Leftists of the 1960s and 1970s. I disagreed with them over Vietnam then, and I disagree with the anti-war Left’s agitation against a war on Iraq today. But as I read what comes out of minds of people like Robert Fisk and Noam Chomsky and Susan… Continue reading When there’s nothing left to say, self-parody is the way
Right back at ya, Captain
Last Saturday morning in San Diego I had breakfast with Steven den Beste, the redoubtable captain of U.S.S. Clueless. One of the side-effects of that meeting was a long critique of open-source development. Herewith my response. Steve and I agree on the scaling problem that has pushed software development efforts to the ragged edge of… Continue reading Right back at ya, Captain
Run Silent, Go Feep
Warning: The following blog entry provides way more than the recommended daily allowance of geeking. If you don’t have a serious propeller-head streak, surf outta here now before it’s too late. I’m mainly a software guy, but occasionally I build PCs for fun. Design them, rather; the further away I stay from actual hardware the… Continue reading Run Silent, Go Feep
The Non-Portability of Barbecue
(Originally titled: Travelling in Texas) I was on the road in Texas last week, addressing Linux user groups in Dallas and Austin. I always enjoy visiting Texas. It’s a big, wide-open place full of generous people who cultivate a proper appreciation of some of my favorite things in life — firearms, blues guitar, and pepper… Continue reading The Non-Portability of Barbecue
Diet Considered as a Bad Religion
A current New York Times news story, What If It’s All Been A Big Fat Lie, entertainingly chronicles the discovery that low-fat diets are bad for people. More specifically, that the substitution of carbohydrates like bread and pasta and potatoes for meat that we’ve all had urged on us since the early 1980s is probably… Continue reading Diet Considered as a Bad Religion
Winning the War Against Terror
(Final essay of the series.) In previous essays in this series, I have described Islam as a warlike and bloody religion subject to periodic fits of violent fundamentalist revival. I have analyzed the roots of Islamic terror in the Koranic duty of jihad, and elucidated Osama bin Laden’s goal as nothing less than the destruction… Continue reading Winning the War Against Terror
Why Diplomacy Is Doomed
(Fourth essay of a series.) In Mirror, Mirror: Why Americans Don’t Understand the Threat of Jihadism, What al-Qaeda Wants and The Mirage of Moderate Islam, I have described Islam as a warlike and bloody religion subject to periodic fits of violent fundamentalist revival. I have analyzed the roots of Islamic terror in the Koranic duty… Continue reading Why Diplomacy Is Doomed
Mirror, Mirror — why Americans Don’t Understand the Threat of Jihadism
(Third in a series.) In What al-Qaeda Wants and the first essay in this series, The Mirage of Moderate Islam, I have described Islam as a warlike and bloody religion subject to periodic fits of violent fundamentalist revival. I have analyzed the roots of Islamic terror in the Koranic duty of jihad, and elucidated Osama… Continue reading Mirror, Mirror — why Americans Don’t Understand the Threat of Jihadism
What Al-Qaeda wants
(Second in a series.) In a The Mirage of Moderate Islam, I have described the Koranic roots of Islamic fanaticism, and observed that Osama bin Laden’s terror war on the west is part of a recurring pattern of fundamentalist revival associated with jihad in Islamic history. In this essay, I’ll get more specific about what… Continue reading What Al-Qaeda wants
Beating software version fatigue
In his latest Tech Central Station column, Glenn Reynolds complains of `version fatigue’, his accumulating angst over the fact that since the emid-1980s he’s had to migrate through three word processors and several different versions of Windows. I can’t fix the sad fact that every new VCR and remote control you get has a different… Continue reading Beating software version fatigue
The Mirage of Moderate Islam
Diplomatic lies notwithstanding, Islam is anything but a `religion of peace’. Any honest scholar will tell you that Islam is a religion of violence, martyrdom, and conversion by the sword. The duty to wage war for the propagation of the faith is plainly written in the Koran; Osama bin Laden’s suicide bombers are part of… Continue reading The Mirage of Moderate Islam
The Elephant in the Bath-House
Mary Eberstadt’s Weekly Standard article The Elephant in the Sacristy shines a strong light on facts that will discomfit many of the politically correct. I don’t completely agree with her analysis; as Amy Welborn argues, Ms. Eberstadt is too quick to dismiss the role of the doctrine of celibacy in creating an ingrown, perfervid, and… Continue reading The Elephant in the Bath-House