Monthly Archives: November 2010

20 Years after Sexual Personae: Has Camille Paglia Become a Big Wash Out?

At Pajama’s Media, Bruce Bawer takes after Camille Paglia, most especially for her failure to extensively critique Islam, which is, he says, among “the most serious issues of our time”: [O]n Canadian TV earlier this year, the once feisty, vivacious Paglia … Continue reading

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Islamic Militants Seek Pakistan’s Nuclear Arsenal

This today at the BBC: In one of the latest cables to be released by Wikileaks, senior UK Foreign Office official Mariot Leslie told US diplomats in September 2009 that Britain had “deep concerns about the safety and security of Pakistan’s … Continue reading

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The Euro Crisis: European Leaders Wing It and Deny Reality

At Spiegel Online, Stefan Schultz offers this ironic assessment of the way that Europe’s leaders have, thus far, managed the euro crisis: Since the start of the euro crisis, Europe’s leaders have perfected two techniques: scrambling to catch up with events, and … Continue reading

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Palin-Huckabee 2012 and George Carlin

About 20 years ago, when George W. Bush’s father was president of the United States, George Carlin, in one of his stand-up routines, observed that there are three groups of dismaying people in this world, the first of which are those who are … Continue reading

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Nuclear Scientist in Iran Blown Up with a Bomb

This is in the Los Angeles Times today: Two separate explosions killed a nuclear scientist and injured another in the Iranian capital Monday morning, official news outlets reported. Both scholars’ wives and a driver were also injured in the attacks, … Continue reading

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WikiLeaks: World War III Begins in December?

Based on what’s just been made public via WikiLeaks about Middle East discussions surrounding what to do about Iran, Andrew Sullivan speculates that “the Israelis could launch World War III within a month.” And at Wired, Spencer Ackerman flags this … Continue reading

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WikiLeaks Cables Reveal Pakistan’s Nuclear Materials May Not Be Secure

It appears that this may be the biggest revelation from WikiLeaks’ recent release of 250,000 classified embassy cables: Pakistan’s nuclear materials are not terribly secure (to put it politely). The Guardian, which is one of the international media outlets the documents were leaked … Continue reading

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Solar Roofs over Parking Lots Are Going Viral in California and The Southwest

This is in the New York Times this week: Ersatz roofs made of solar panels have sprouted above dozens of school parking lots in the state [of California], altering vistas and promoting a philosophy of green thinking among the young. Yet … Continue reading

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Abu Dhabi and Qatar Meet Frank Gehry and I.M. Pei: This Too Is Islamic Civilization?

A AAA+++ for effort. According to the New York Times today, the royal leadership of two tiny Muslim countries, Abu Dhabi and Qatar, seeing down the road a time when they’ll need to gather brains into their cisterns rather than oil, are turning … Continue reading

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Faust in the Middle East: I’ll Give You Oil Wells If You’ll Give Me Brain Drains

Here’s a little statistic buried in a long article at the ResetDOC (Dialogue on Civilizations) website on efforts to bring science to (Islamic) regions that are otherwise anti-freedom of thought: [T]he governments of Arab nations (led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt) are investing … Continue reading

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A Thankgiving Proclamation from a Governor Who, in 1936, Could Seriously Write

This spell-casting Thanksgiving proclamation was penned by Connecticut Governor Wilber Cross in 1936: Time out of mind at this turn of the seasons when the hardy oak leaves rustle in the wind and the frost gives a tang to the air and … Continue reading

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For Whom the Bell Tolls: Is Spain Too Big to Fail? Are We?

The following was in the New York Times on the day before Thanksgiving, 2010. It describes with stark clarity the vicious debt whirlpool that Spain is in the grips of. I wonder what Paul Krugman would say about this. I suppose that, someday, the United States could find … Continue reading

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Ben Franklin: Science Hippie

I love the Promethean line that Anne Marie Jacquez Turgot wrote to accompany Houdon’s bust of Benjamin Franklin: Eripuit coelo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis. Translation: He snatched the lightning from heaven and the sceptre from tyrants. That says it all. Ben Franklin: another science oriented … Continue reading

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Is Kim Jong-il a Rational Player—the Choreographer of a Power Transfer to His 25 Year-Old Son, Kim Jong-un?

The New York Times today suggests in a recent news story that the shelling of a South Korean island by North Korea is just a way for Kim Jong-un, the 25-year-old son and presumptive heir of Kim Jong-il, to earn some street … Continue reading

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The Poor You Will Have with You Always

In the wake of North Korea’s shelling of a South Korean island, this is in the New York Times today: North Korea’s artillery shells fell on Yeonpyeong Island, a fishing village whose residents fled by ferry to the mainland city … Continue reading

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What a New Korean War Might Entail: Hundreds of Thousands of Casualties in Just the First Three Months

In case you’re wondering what a war on the Korean peninsula might entail, this appeared in the Atlantic Monthly back in the July/August 2005 edition of the magazine. It was written by Scott Stossel: North Korea is widely believed to have … Continue reading

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Kim Jong-il is Clinically Sadistic and Paranoid. And He Has A Bomb.

If you’re wondering what we’re dealing with in Kim Jong-il of North Korea, I found a rather sobering psychological evaluation of him, and offer a quote from it. The paper appeared in the journal Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, Vol. 1, No. … Continue reading

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“Jews Look Like Monkeys and Pigs”: Medieval Cultism and Antisemitism in British Islamic Schools

Out of 30,000 schools in Great Britain, 160 are Muslim faith schools. Below is a deeply troubling BBC report on what some of these schools are teaching: So this is what happens when you set out to live a segregated and parallel … Continue reading

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Think Mind Wells, Not Oil Wells: Is Where You Live a Brain Drain or a Brain Collector?

If you want to be hopeful about the human future (including America’s), think about this: free minds and strong exchange economies are positively correlated. It’s not that there is a one-to-one relationship between them, but wherever you have free minds the odds are good, … Continue reading

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An Agnostic Interviews an Imam: Kamal Tells a Non-Retaliation Story from His Tradition and Discusses the Prayer Rug

In the below clip, Kamal al Khatib offers an anecdote from the life of Muhammad that illustrates (for him) Islam’s general commitment to non-retaliation. I’ve actually heard the story that Kamal tells from another Muslim. I recall the previous telling of the … Continue reading

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