Triumph of the Vulgarians: Decency is now the new taboo
Triumph of the Vulgarians: Decency is now the new taboo.
Triumph of the Vulgarians: Decency is now the new taboo.
Tag: culture
Triumph of the Vulgarians: Decency is now the new taboo
A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.
The world of English freedoms.
The world of English freedoms.
Read it. Daniel Hannan outlines exactly why freedom has prospered first in English-speaking nations.
The world of English freedoms.
Read it. Daniel Hannan outlines exactly why freedom has prospered first in English-speaking nations.
Sixteen different foreigners describe things they couldn’t believe about America until they moved here.
Sixteen different foreigners describe things they couldn’t believe about America until they moved here.
Almost all the reactions are positive, and practically all the items named exist because of freedom.
Sixteen different foreigners describe things they couldn’t believe about America until they moved here.
Almost all the reactions are positive, and practically all the items named exist because of freedom.
In preparation for November 5 launch of India’s first mission to Mars, ISRO successfully performed a full dress rehearsal countdown yesterday
In preparation for November 5 launch of India’s first mission to Mars, ISRO successfully performed a full dress rehearsal countdown yesterday.
We all cross our fingers and wish India well on this mission.
The article also had this additional tidbit that reveals a great deal about world culture:
» Read more
In preparation for November 5 launch of India’s first mission to Mars, ISRO successfully performed a full dress rehearsal countdown yesterday.
We all cross our fingers and wish India well on this mission.
The article also had this additional tidbit that reveals a great deal about world culture:
» Read more
Five stupid movie deaths that should have been really easy to avoid.
Five stupid movie deaths that should have been really easy to avoid.
These examples are why I find most modern movies either boring, annoying, or stupid. They too often follow the same predictable action formula developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s, they too often require their main characters to act stupid, and they too often are based on ridiculous concepts that are so silly that even after typing randomly for one million years one million monkeys would find them unworthy.
Five stupid movie deaths that should have been really easy to avoid.
These examples are why I find most modern movies either boring, annoying, or stupid. They too often follow the same predictable action formula developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s, they too often require their main characters to act stupid, and they too often are based on ridiculous concepts that are so silly that even after typing randomly for one million years one million monkeys would find them unworthy.
How to Become a Member of the new Nobility
How to become a member of the new nobility.
The author warns us that this essay is satire, but sadly, it is all too true. Also, he leaves out one criteria that is essential for any of his categories: A blind partisan loyalty to Democratic Party politics.
How to become a member of the new nobility.
The author warns us that this essay is satire, but sadly, it is all too true. Also, he leaves out one criteria that is essential for any of his categories: A blind partisan loyalty to Democratic Party politics.
In another country.
Own two of a certain object in the home will almost guarantee your kids will do well in school. Can you guess what it is?
Own two of a certain object in your home and you will almost guarantee your kids will do well in school. Can you guess what that object is?
Own two of a certain object in your home and you will almost guarantee your kids will do well in school. Can you guess what that object is?
.45 acp Guns and The People Who Carry Them
An evening pause: A lot of the jokes only gun owners will understand, but nonetheless, this is funny.
Why are liberals so rude to the right?
“Why are liberals so rude to the right?”
This column was published not by the right but by the very leftwing Guardian. It has been years since I’ve seen a leftwing publication willing to let these kinds of questions be asked. Could we finally be seeing a crack in the wall of silence that the left has erected since the 1990s to protect itself?
“Why are liberals so rude to the right?”
This column was published not by the right but by the very leftwing Guardian. It has been years since I’ve seen a leftwing publication willing to let these kinds of questions be asked. Could we finally be seeing a crack in the wall of silence that the left has erected since the 1990s to protect itself?
“Please stop watching it … Please stop filling your head with filth.”
An honest actor reviews the show he stars in: “Please stop watching it … Please stop filling your head with filth.”
An honest actor reviews the show he stars in: “Please stop watching it … Please stop filling your head with filth.”
How our bitter election will end
Seven ways Star Trek changed the world.
Seven ways Star Trek changed the world.
Seven ways Star Trek changed the world.
Of thee I sigh: Baby boomers bust.
P.J. O’Rourke: “Of thee I sigh: Baby boomers bust.”
My sad generation of baby boomers can be blamed. We were born into an America where material needs were fulfilled to a degree unprecedented in history. We were a demographic benison, cherished and taught to be self-cherishing. We were cosseted by a lush economy and spoiled by a society grown permissive in its fatigue with the strictures of depression and war. The child being father to the man, and necessity being the mother of invention, we wound up as the orphans of effort and ingenuity. And pleased to be so. Sixty-six years of us would be enough to take the starch out of any nation.
The baby boom was skeptical about America’s inventive triumphalism. We took a lot of it for granted: light bulb, telephone, television, telegraph, phonograph, photographic film, skyscraper, airplane, air conditioning, movies. Many of our country’s creations seemed boring and square: cotton gin, combine harvester, cash register, electric stove, dishwasher, can opener, clothes hanger, paper bag, toilet paper roll, ear muffs, mass-produced automobiles. Some we regarded as sinister: revolver, repeating rifle, machine gun, atomic bomb, electric chair, assembly line. And, ouch, those Salk vaccine polio shots hurt.
The Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of Sputnik caused a blip in chauvinistic tech enthusiasm among those of us who were in grade school at the time. But then we learned that the math and science excellence being urged upon us meant more long division and multiplying fractions.
The Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space programs were cool, but not as cool as the sex, drugs, and rock and roll we’d discovered in the meantime. When Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon in 1969, many of us had already been out in space for years, visiting all sorts of galaxies—in our own heads. And in our own heads was where my generation spent most of its time.
Read the whole thing. O’Rourke, in his witty style, captures the failure of my baby boom generation perfectly.
P.J. O’Rourke: “Of thee I sigh: Baby boomers bust.”
My sad generation of baby boomers can be blamed. We were born into an America where material needs were fulfilled to a degree unprecedented in history. We were a demographic benison, cherished and taught to be self-cherishing. We were cosseted by a lush economy and spoiled by a society grown permissive in its fatigue with the strictures of depression and war. The child being father to the man, and necessity being the mother of invention, we wound up as the orphans of effort and ingenuity. And pleased to be so. Sixty-six years of us would be enough to take the starch out of any nation.
The baby boom was skeptical about America’s inventive triumphalism. We took a lot of it for granted: light bulb, telephone, television, telegraph, phonograph, photographic film, skyscraper, airplane, air conditioning, movies. Many of our country’s creations seemed boring and square: cotton gin, combine harvester, cash register, electric stove, dishwasher, can opener, clothes hanger, paper bag, toilet paper roll, ear muffs, mass-produced automobiles. Some we regarded as sinister: revolver, repeating rifle, machine gun, atomic bomb, electric chair, assembly line. And, ouch, those Salk vaccine polio shots hurt.
The Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of Sputnik caused a blip in chauvinistic tech enthusiasm among those of us who were in grade school at the time. But then we learned that the math and science excellence being urged upon us meant more long division and multiplying fractions.
The Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space programs were cool, but not as cool as the sex, drugs, and rock and roll we’d discovered in the meantime. When Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon in 1969, many of us had already been out in space for years, visiting all sorts of galaxies—in our own heads. And in our own heads was where my generation spent most of its time.
Read the whole thing. O’Rourke, in his witty style, captures the failure of my baby boom generation perfectly.
A masked man attempting to rob a Las Vegas Dairy Queen with a 3-foot-long samurai sword was shot and killed by the restaurant clerk.
Life imitates art: A masked man attempting to rob a Las Vegas Dairy Queen with a 3-foot-long samurai sword was shot and killed by the restaurant clerk.
I am reminded of this:
» Read more
Life imitates art: A masked man attempting to rob a Las Vegas Dairy Queen with a 3-foot-long samurai sword was shot and killed by the restaurant clerk.
I am reminded of this:
» Read more
A detailed, fact-based look at the successes and failures of the Obama administration.
A detailed, fact-based look at the successes and failures of the Obama administration.
Sadly, they are mostly failures. What is significant to me is that this article is from liberal Newsweek of all places. It is another data point indicating that even the intellectuals on the left are beginning to realize how much of a failure Obama has been.
A detailed, fact-based look at the successes and failures of the Obama administration.
Sadly, they are mostly failures. What is significant to me is that this article is from liberal Newsweek of all places. It is another data point indicating that even the intellectuals on the left are beginning to realize how much of a failure Obama has been.
A visual tour of the leftist paradise of Berkeley.
More weird than you can imagine: A surreal visual tour of the leftist paradise of Berkeley.
More weird than you can imagine: A surreal visual tour of the leftist paradise of Berkeley.
The disappearance of the old-fashioned chemistry set.
The disappearance of the old-fashioned chemistry set.
Here’s what it used to be like, when we lived in a free society:
By the 1920s and 30s children had access to substances which would raise eyebrows in today’s more safety-conscious times. There were toxic ingredients in pesticides, as well as chemicals now used in bombs or considered likely to increase the risk of cancer. And most parents will not need to be told of the dangers of the sodium cyanide found in the interwar kits or the uranium dust present in the “nuclear” kits of the 1950s.
The disappearance of the old-fashioned chemistry set.
Here’s what it used to be like, when we lived in a free society:
By the 1920s and 30s children had access to substances which would raise eyebrows in today’s more safety-conscious times. There were toxic ingredients in pesticides, as well as chemicals now used in bombs or considered likely to increase the risk of cancer. And most parents will not need to be told of the dangers of the sodium cyanide found in the interwar kits or the uranium dust present in the “nuclear” kits of the 1950s.
A study has found that Americans and Europeans give directions differently.
And now for some important results! A study has found that Americans and Europeans give directions differently.
Americans were far more likely, across all tests, to give navigators a street name or a cardinal direction (i.e. north, east, south, or west). Dutch wayfinders, on the other hand, provided far more landmarks and left-right turn-descriptors.
And now for some important results! A study has found that Americans and Europeans give directions differently.
Americans were far more likely, across all tests, to give navigators a street name or a cardinal direction (i.e. north, east, south, or west). Dutch wayfinders, on the other hand, provided far more landmarks and left-right turn-descriptors.
Boeing and Lockheed Martin are both considering hiring the Russia aerospace company Energia to build components for the CST-100 and Orion manned capsules.
It appears that both Boeing and Lockheed Martin are considering hiring the Russia aerospace company Energia to build components for the CST-100 and Orion manned capsules.
What is going on here is that both Boeing and Lockheed Martin are looking for a subcontractor who can build these components for less money. Since labor costs in Russia are much lower than the U.S., both companies are considering Energia for this work.
This quote, however, encapsulates the cultural war that still goes on sometimes between Russia and the U.S.:
“[Russian] achievements in docking sites and [thermal protection equipment] production are quite competitive, but I am not sure that the Americans will accept our offer because they not only have the task of building a spaceship but also of gaining competence in this matter,” Dmitry Payson, director of the space and telecommunication technology department in Russia’s Skolkovo hi-tech hub, told Izvestia.
In interviewing many Russian and American space engineers over the years I have found an amazing amount of contempt from each for the work of the other, often without justification. Just as the Russians above seem to falsely think that Boeing and Lockheed Martin know nothing about docking equipment or thermal protection, American engineers repeatedly have expressed to me unjustified disdain for the space station technology developed by the Russians for Mir. The result: both countries often don’t take advantage of the other’s skills.
It appears that both Boeing and Lockheed Martin are considering hiring the Russia aerospace company Energia to build components for the CST-100 and Orion manned capsules.
What is going on here is that both Boeing and Lockheed Martin are looking for a subcontractor who can build these components for less money. Since labor costs in Russia are much lower than the U.S., both companies are considering Energia for this work.
This quote, however, encapsulates the cultural war that still goes on sometimes between Russia and the U.S.:
“[Russian] achievements in docking sites and [thermal protection equipment] production are quite competitive, but I am not sure that the Americans will accept our offer because they not only have the task of building a spaceship but also of gaining competence in this matter,” Dmitry Payson, director of the space and telecommunication technology department in Russia’s Skolkovo hi-tech hub, told Izvestia.
In interviewing many Russian and American space engineers over the years I have found an amazing amount of contempt from each for the work of the other, often without justification. Just as the Russians above seem to falsely think that Boeing and Lockheed Martin know nothing about docking equipment or thermal protection, American engineers repeatedly have expressed to me unjustified disdain for the space station technology developed by the Russians for Mir. The result: both countries often don’t take advantage of the other’s skills.
A failed public works project — from the year 1350 AD
Yesterday my wife Diane and I took my 94-year-old mother on a sightseeing trip to see the Casa Grande ruins southeast of Phoenix, “the largest known structure left of the Ancestral People of the Sonoran Desert.”
This four story high structure was built around 1350 AD from bricks made of concrete-like caliche mud, with the floors and roofs supported by beams of pine, fir, and juniper brought from as far away as fifty miles. (The rooflike structure above the ruins was built by the National Park Service in order to protect it from rain.)
Though impressive, I must admit I’ve seen far more impressive American Indian ruins elsewhere. Casa Grande, which means “Great House” in Spanish, suffered as a tourist attraction from two faults:
» Read more
The 100-year march of technology in one graph.
The 100-year march of technology in one graph.
The 100-year march of technology in one graph.
Muslim Teens Recount Thrilling Spring Break Trip to End of Driveway
“The USA is officially the most charitable nation in the world.”
“The USA is officially the most charitable nation in the world.”
Damn those rich capitalistic bastards. We should tax them more!.
“The USA is officially the most charitable nation in the world.”
Damn those rich capitalistic bastards. We should tax them more!.
NORAD is ready to track Santa’s flight
Important! NORAD is ready to track Santa’s flight.
Important! NORAD is ready to track Santa’s flight.
What Tim Tebow Can’t Do
Funny and to the point: What Tim Tebow can’t do.
Funny and to the point: What Tim Tebow can’t do.
What Do Democrats Really Stand For Today?
A valid question: What do Democrats really stand for today?
A valid question: What do Democrats really stand for today?
A millionaire has purchased two tickets on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo and is looking for a woman to join him
Want a date? A millionaire has purchased two tickets on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo and is looking for a woman to join him on the flight.
Want a date? A millionaire has purchased two tickets on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo and is looking for a woman to join him on the flight.
Jibjab – Time for some campaigning
An evening pause: In celebration of election day. This might have been made for the 2008 election, but it is remarkably up-to-day now, three years later.