Posts Tagged Uncategorized

The Invention of Tradition

Compare and contrast this:

With this:

Looks like everything in rugby has gotten more professional over the past 25 years. Bonus haka (vs Ireland) below the fold.


You Know, Like Squirrels

Back during the Katrina Disaster, we learned that whereas black people loot things from grocery stores, white people find things in grocery stores. Now that a container ship has foundered off the English coast we can see what it is the English do under similar circumstances. Not looting, obviously (perish the thought). But not […]


Weather Report

It’s snowing. Here, in downtown Tucson, Arizona. Just wanted to let you all know.


Oatmeal Prospect Theory

On the side of this box of McCann’s Oatmeal here it says: “Tip: Add liquid to oatmeal a few minutes before cooking. It will cook faster.” Now, I can see the benefits of doing this in terms of energy conservation. But the fact is, I’m not going to get my oatmeal any faster, am I? […]


Blogging avant la lettre

Analysis publishes a lot of relatively short papers, but this one—by G.E.M. Anscombe—from 1966 seems close to the limiting case. The link goes to the JSTOR copy, which requires a subscription. No matter. I shall reproduce the paper in full here, including notes:
A Note on Mr Bennett By G.E.M. Anscombe

The nerve of Mr Bennett’s argument […]


Paging all Mac Nerds

This thing just arrived from the future.What can I say? if this is the RDF, sign me up.


demoralize, v|diˈmôrəˌlīz|

1. trans. To corrupt the morals or moral principles of; to deprave or pervert morally.

The Senate approved legislation this evening governing the interrogation and trials of terror suspects, establishing far-reaching new rules in the definition of who may be held and how they should be treated. … The legislation … strips detainees of a habeas […]


Cover Stories

Via Unfogged and ThinkProgress, Newsweek’s current cover as it varies by geographical region:

I commend them for sparing the world from Annie Leibowitz. The funny thing is that the graphic is right there on Newsweek’s own site. I went back and looked for others. Here are the covers from the week before last.


Liberty and Security, Then and Now

By chance, I had just finished rereading a famous speech by Ronald Reagan when I heard the news that President Bush had confirmed the existence of secret CIA prisons. Yesterday, while looking over it again, I heard the Judge Advocates General strongly resist the White House’s plan for military tribunals that would allow conviction based […]


Queueing for Terror

Well, I picked a good day to be taking an international flight. At least I’m not in the UK. Next time I travel, I’ll be sure to check to see whether John has identified any empirical regularities about my mode of transport and act accordingly. This is why economics is the queen of the […]


Speak, Memory

In her hugely successful memoir, Olivia Saves the Circus, Olivia gives a virtuoso account to her school class of how she single-handedly rescued a circus performance (all the performers were sick with ear infections, she claims) by doing everything herself. The book is replete with astonishing but true accounts of Olivia the Lion Tamer, Olivia […]


All Creatures Great and Small

Technorati’s List of Popular Books introduces me to There is Eternal Life for Animals, which argues that

All animals go to heaven. How do we know? We look in the book that God left us, the Bible. This book takes you through the Bible and proves through the scriptures that there is life after death […]


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