Defining Moments
“Can you play chess without the Queen?” – Ludwig Wittgenstein Moving from one blog to another and thus one audience to another, a writer will invariably experience a certain amount of deja vu. Clearly,...
Daily Archive: November 18, 2010
Moderating Extremists
Hugh Hewitt, one of America’s Most Easily Mocked Pundits™ argues that the first debate of the 2012 GOP primaries should not be moderated by MSM personalities from Politico and NBC, but instead by “different kinds...
The Class of ’06
There are some good things to be said about absorbing periodic electoral “shellackings.” For one thing, it gives the shellacked party an opportunity to reflect a bit, to let internal battles sort themselves out,...
The Real Miscarriage of Justice
Below, Ned rightly derides Rep. Peter King for calling the verdict in the Ghailani trial a “total miscarriage of justice.” Ned correctly notes that the miscarriage of justice here was not the verdict itself,...
Raindrops, bubblegum, and recursion
From the comments at reddit: Why isn’t it surprising that the porn industry is leading the way in creating an AI that can pass the Turing test?
The Aura of Expertise
I’m preparing to head back to France next Saturday, preparing a Napoleon course for the spring, and trying to land a job teaching at a university in Singapore; so posting will be light! However, I...
A “Total Miscarriage of Justice”
Image via Wikipedia That’s how incoming House homeland security chair Pete King described the Ghailani trial. Ghailani (pictured) was, of course, found guilty on only one of the 285 charges brought against him, and...
The Science of Evil
I’ve gotten some pushback in the comments for citing S.L.A. Marshall’s findings on how many soldiers actually fired on the enemy during World War II. Marshall came up with an improbably low figure —...
Language & Politics
In the comments, Mike at the Big Stick writes: I’ve often used the term Progressive Conservative for myself (although I stop sub-labeling after watching all of ED Kain’s self-labeling acrobatics). I would just note...
Bread & Circuses: A mini-review of Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
I finished the third installment of The Hunger Games last night, Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins, and my goodness what a read. All three books are absurdly intense page-turners bound to keep one up far...
