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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Categorized as Politics

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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Categorized as Politics

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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Categorized as Terror

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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Categorized as Culture

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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Categorized as Firearms

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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Categorized as Culture

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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Categorized as Politics

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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Categorized as Culture

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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Categorized as General