One of the things I had in mind for this blog was a combination of my politics blog, Revolutionary Nonsense, with my music blog, Genre Confusion, mostly because writing two blogs was exhausting. And while my political writings shifted over here with ease, the music criticism hasn’t. Genre Confusion was about a lot of things (hatred of trendies… Read More I Write About the Rolling Stones
Over at Wired, a lawyer named James Daily has done a quick (to the extent that lawyers do anything quick) analysis of the legal contract drawn up between Bilbo and the dwarves in The Hobbit. It’s a fun read for those interested in the intricacies of law, and manages to avoid turgidity. For the most part, Daily… Read More The Hobbit: An Unexpected Legal Conundrum
Not being a reporter, I have neither the skills nor the resources to discern fact from fiction in the Steubenville Rape Case. I trust that Stacy McCain has the right of the matter, and that the KoolKids from 4Chan (or whatever) are just desperately seeking lulz. So I’d like to talk not about the particulars,… Read More Stupid Teenagers are Stupid
Lileks smacks around the tech scribes, weedy dweebs that they are: I don’t trust any sources that uses “Teens” as a category. What the 19-year old finds interesting is different than what the 13-year-old wants. Half the economy consists of catering to the various differences between 15 and 18. So when we hear that “Teens… Read More Apple is So Not Cool Anymore, It’s Making Handfuls of Money.
At present time, Queen Elizabeth II has been on the English throne for 61 years. If she lasts another three, she’ll tie the record for the longest reign by a British monarch (my money’s on her doing it. She’s only in her 80’s, and her mother lived to be 100). There’s a reason that The King’s… Read More With Monarchy, the Name of the Game is Longevity.
Please enjoy this terse, blunt declaration of defiance from a Marine veteran to Senator Feinstein, on the occasion of her proposed gun registration law. It is an instructive delight: instructive in that it affords the Senator an opportunity to learn the possibility of noncompliance, of a whole new swath of citizens learning the means of… Read More “I am Not Your Peasant”
Presidents win re-election as a referendum on their first term, on the people’s view of them. They don’t tend to accomplish much with that term. In fact, recent two-termers tend to spend years 5-8 getting swatted around like weathervanes by events and opposition. So there’s that. Then there’s the actual circumstances of this particular second… Read More Welcome to The Second Term
Dear sweet merciful God, but I am tired of the periodic Rebellion of the Childless. I never failed to find their screeds juvenile, even before I became a father. Now that I am one, I have less time to care. So I’ll take No One of Any Import’s summation of this year’s Barren-and-Loving-It boomlet as accurate,… Read More Yes, Your Childlessness is a Valid Choice. Have You Considered Shutting Up About It?
I don’t know if there’s any response to that other than laughter. “We needed $5 million. Nobody would do it.” Wait a minute, we said. Let us get this straight: No studio would budget $5 million for a movie with Damon and Douglas? “They said it was too gay. Everybody. This was after ‘Brokeback Mountain,’… Read More Film About Liberace Rejected For Being “Too Gay.”
In Der Spiegel, a Kenyan economist named James Shikwati attempts the Herculean task of explaining economics to a journalist. Shikwati: … for God’s sake, please just stop. SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty. Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If… Read More African Official: Please Stop With the Aid Already, You’re Killing Us…
Content Blues 