McArdle on not being stupid about de-incarceration: We’re hampered by the rampant perception that all we need is to wise up and stop incarcerating people for simply possessing drugs, something many of us feel shouldn’t be a crime at all and certainly shouldn’t merit prison time. At the event I attended, someone who has actually… Read More As it Turns Out, People In Jail Commit Real Crimes
When Medieval Inquistion (of the non-Spanish variety) rode into a town beset with heresy, everybody got 30 days to confess without punishment. This was known as the “Term of Grace”. Anyone who came in out of the cold during those 30 days and admitted their heresy was considered saved through the mercy of the Church.… Read More Confess Your Whiteness
It’s time to deal with some unpleasant truths, Song of Ice and Fire fans. The Shows are going to Lap the Books. This is going to happen. We are going to get spoiled by a show in which there is no Lady Stoneheart, no Brave Companions, in which the Greyjoys except Theon hardly exist and have… Read More Leave George R.R. Martin Alone
I need a nap. In the Wall Street Journal, Matt Ridley argues that fossil fuels are not going anywhere. In a nutshell: they’re getting cheaper to get, the alternatives are either false or not feasible yet, and the climate catastrophe is probably overstated. This quote struck me: Although the world has certainly warmed since the… Read More Mad Monday Linkfest
Watching Star Wars – the original trilogy, I mean – as it was before George Lucas screwed with it is what we’ve all been hoping for since the Disney buyout. Rumors of this were floated about last spring, but Disney did not confirm that they even wanted to do this. A debate was prompted about… Read More Disney is Going to Re-Release UnAltered Star Wars, Says the Same Stupid Rumor That Said So Last Year
I remember first hearing this back in college. It was girls who said that they hated the way “moist” sounded. I’ve never had that level of aversion to a word, where I experience white-girl-ewws if I hear it. There’s one four-letter word that I wrinkle my nose at, but I fortunately don’t encounter it that… Read More Are People Really That Bothered by the Word “Moist”?
In the 229 years of this Republic’s existence, no one has successfully made the 50-mile trek from the Annapolis Governor’s Mansion to the White House. I don’t know how many have even tried. Maryland is too small to be a big state, and too liberal to be a contended state. It would take a peculiar… Read More Clinton Fatigue Returns: The Martin O’Malley Bubble
Why You Won’t Find the Meaning of Life: Most people who make heroic efforts at originality learn eventually that they are destined for no such thing. If they are lucky, they content themselves with Kierkegaard’s pot roast on Sunday afternoon and other small joys, for example tenure at a university. But no destiny is more… Read More Spengler: You Are Not Original. Be Glad of It.
It’s not that I disagree with the suggestions Variety offers: 1) Hire Jimmy Fallon to host, with a multi-year contract, 2) Get people who actually share the general public’s taste to vote, 3) FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, MAKE IT SHORTER, 4) Throw in some Audience Participation, and 5) Give the Celebs their booze back.… Read More Earth to Variety: No One Wants to Fix the Oscars
A Continuing series in which I post my notes of reading this engaging book. In The Rebel, Camus frames Metaphysical Rebellion in the words of Dostoyevsky’s Ivan Karamazov (among other ways). God is to be not denied, but refuted and condemned. The Problem of Evil on steroids, as it were. From pgs. 56-57: Ivan rejects the basic… Read More Camus and Karamazov, “The Rejection of Salvation.”
Content Blues 