Some Christmas cheer

Some deeply warped Christmas humor here . Now, this Santa might get me the presents I really want. Like, say, a custom-tuned Baer .45 semiauto. Or Liv Tyler, fetchingly attired in nothing but a pair of Arwen ears. I actually did get a really peculiar Christmas present from a stranger this morning. It was a… Continue reading Some Christmas cheer

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Away from Keyboard

I’ve on hiatus for a bit while I wrap up my next book, The Art Of Unix Programming. Blogspot comments

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Sneering at Courage

One of the overdue lessons of 9/11 is that we can’t afford to sneer at physical courage any more. The willingness of New York firemen, Special Forces troops in Afghanistan, and the passengers of Flight 93 to put their lives on the line has given us most of the bright spots we’ve had in the… Continue reading Sneering at Courage

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Categorized as Culture

Demographics and the Dustbin of History

Karl Zinsmeister’s essay Old and In The Way presents a startling — but all too plausible — forecast of Europe’s future. To the now-familiar evidence of European insularity, reflexive anti-Americanism, muddle, and geopolitical impotence, Zinsmeister adds a hard look at European demographic trends. What Zinsmeister sees coming is not pretty. European populations are not having… Continue reading Demographics and the Dustbin of History

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Categorized as Politics

Today’s treason of the intellectuals

The longest-term stakes in the war against terror are not just human lives, but whether Western civilization will surrender to fundamentalist Islam and shari’a law. More generally, the overt confrontation between Western civilization and Islamist barbarism that began on September 11th of 2001 has also made overt a fault line in Western civilization itself —… Continue reading Today’s treason of the intellectuals

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When to shoot a policeman

A policeman was premeditatedly shot dead today. Now, I don’t regard shooting a policeman as the worst possible crime — indeed, I can easily imagine circumstances under which I would do it myself. If he were committing illegal violence — or even officially legal violence during the enforcement of an unjust law. Supposing a policeman… Continue reading When to shoot a policeman

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What a responsible American Left would look like

The congressional Democrats have made Nancy Pelosi their leader. Whether or not this is conscious strategy, it means they’re going to run to the left. And very likely get slaughtered in 2004. It’s truly odd how self-destructive the American Left has become. They’re like that famous line about the Palestinians, never missing an opportunity to… Continue reading What a responsible American Left would look like

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Conspiracy and prospiracy

One of the problems we face in the war against terror is that al-Qaeda is not quite a conspiracy in the traditional sense. It’s something else that is more difficult to characterize and target. (I wrote what follows three years before 9/11.) Political and occult conspiracy theories can make for good propaganda and excellent satire… Continue reading Conspiracy and prospiracy

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The Charms and Terrors of Military SF

I took some heat recently for describing some of Jerry Pournelle’s SF as “conservative/militarist power fantasies”. Pournelle uttered a rather sniffy comment about this on his blog; the only substance I could extract from it was that Pournelle thought his lifelong friend Robert Heinlein was caught between a developing libertarian philosophy and his patriotic instincts.… Continue reading The Charms and Terrors of Military SF

My Very First Fisk

Ta-daa! In ritual obeisance to the customs of the blogosphere, I now perform my very first fisking. Of Der Fisk himself, in his 8 Nov 2002 column “Bush fights for another clean shot in his war”. “A clean shot” was The Washington Post’s revolting description of the murder of the al-Qa’ida leaders in Yemen by… Continue reading My Very First Fisk

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Post-postmodern politics

The Democratic Party fell off a cliff last night. Never mind their shiny new governorships — the `smart’ money pre-election was on them picking up an absolute majority of governor’s seats, and at the Congressional level they took a shellacking nearly as bad as 1994’s. The races Terry McAuliffe targeted as most critical — notably… Continue reading Post-postmodern politics

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That bad old-time religion

It’s official. The anti-war movement is a Communist front. No, I’m not kidding — go read the story. Investigative reporter David Corn digs into last Saturday’s D.C. antiwar rally and finds it was covertly masterminded by a Communist Party splinter originally founded in support of the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary. For good later, he… Continue reading That bad old-time religion

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Armed children

The Bear of Considerable Brain, writes: “This does not mean every man, woman and child should roam the streets packing heat, much as some of my more rabid hoplophile colleagues in the Blogosphere might enjoy the sight.” N.Z. was probably thinking of me as one of his “rabid hoplophile colleagues.”; I’d be rather disappointed if… Continue reading Armed children

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Draft for an Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto (version 5)

Changes are deliberately not marked. Read the whole thing, this is a final pre-publication draft. Most of the changes from version 4 are deletions of excess verbiage. Counting email, this now reflects approximately 200 comments from across the blogosphere. Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. Since this process has to close sometime, I’m declaring that… Continue reading Draft for an Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto (version 5)

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A request to web artists

I am planning on publishing the Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto soon, via petitiononline.com and possibly other channels. My hope is that enough bloggers will sign it and talk about it to get the position it describes some notice in the more blog-friendly of the mainstream media. Towards this end, I’m seeking volunteers to design a web button… Continue reading A request to web artists

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