This is a bleg for information on 1911-pattern handguns optimized for concealed carry. Since receiving my most recent death threat, I’ve been carrying a Glock .40 pretty continuously. The .40 is an excellent weapon, but has two drawbacks from my point of view. One is that it has a 5-inch barrel and a relatively wide… Continue reading RFI on 1911-pattern carry guns
Month: June 2009
Misconstruing Mussolini
I’ve been reviewing the history of fascism recently, because the Republic of Iran has many structural features in common with fascism and I think the history of fascism in Europe holds lessons about its future. And recently I ran across a quote beloved of American leftists in an email signature: From Benito Mussolini: “Fascism should… Continue reading Misconstruing Mussolini
“This is massacre! This is genocide! This is Hitler!”
Listen to this CNN interview with an eyewitness to the Baharestan Square Massacre. If it does not freeze your blood, you are no longer part of any community of human feeling I can recognize. I am, as of now, DONE with people who say we shouldn’t “impose American values” or “promote democracy” in the Middle… Continue reading “This is massacre! This is genocide! This is Hitler!”
Dispatches from the Iranian cyberfront
I’ve spent the last seventeen hours living inside a cyberpunk novel. A libertarian cyberpunk novel. It’s been a weird and awesome experience. Within an hour after I received a plea for help from Iran, a regular commenter on this blog recruited me into a hacker network that has been forming to support the democratic Iranian… Continue reading Dispatches from the Iranian cyberfront
A plea from Iran
I received an email that deeply moved me a few moments ago. I’m going to reproduce it here exactly, except that (as requested) I am omitting the name of the sender. Because I think I’m going to need a term of reference for him, I am substituting the name of a legendary Persian hero. My… Continue reading A plea from Iran
Responding to Eliezer Yudkowsky’s “Overcoming Bias”
This was originally email to Eliezer Yudkowsky about his excellent and thought-provoking blog Overcoming Bias (actually, the links here are to the older newer Less Wrong, which has been re-indexed at Overcoming Bias). Eliezer encouraged me to publish this commentary; I have provided HTML markup and fixed some typos. Warning: the following may be heavy… Continue reading Responding to Eliezer Yudkowsky’s “Overcoming Bias”
Reinventing Homosexuality
I’ve recently been reviewing what I know about the historical evidence for how homosexuality has been viewed in other times and places, and doing a bit of additional research into the area. This, which is partly a response to comments by my regulars on some recent essays here, has led me to an interesting perspective… Continue reading Reinventing Homosexuality
How to Type with a Foreign Accent
I spend a lot of time on IRC channels and discussion forums where many of the users are not native speakers of English. Recently one of these expressed surprise when I observed: “You type with a foreign accent. What is your birth language?” He knew, of course, about speaking English with an accent, but he… Continue reading How to Type with a Foreign Accent
Protective camouflage and holy victims
Today I’m going to repeat a story from the blog Alas! and discuss it, because…well, the author does not seem to have grasped the actual implications of what he wrote. It’s what I think of as a “holy victim” narrative, but the actual lesson is not, perhaps, what the author intended.
We are not sheep
I had a breakthrough moment last night. It was on the IRC channel for one of my projects. The developers, and the IRC’s regulars, are a small and tight-knit group. By a coincidence completely unrelated to the nature of the project, we’re all firearms fanciers who take a firm line on Second Amendment rights. Occasionally… Continue reading We are not sheep
Extreme punctuation pedantry
Most people don’t know that there are two different philosophical camps that differ about how to do correct punctuation in English. This has been on my mind lately because of some questions I have been asked by non-native speakers on the Battle for Wesnoth development list, where I am the resident English pedant. The rules… Continue reading Extreme punctuation pedantry