Month: March 2004

Here’s Virginia Postrel on the Kass Council: This sort of indirect genetic evidence for human evolution is going to pile up until it resembles the overwhelming geological case against believing the earth is a few thousand years old. More important, and more interesting, will be how understanding the genetic origins of brain functions lets us…

Sigh. Long time Kass-ing, I guess… But here’s another Kass quote which will not go away: “Could the beauty of flowers depend on the fact that they will soon wither? . . . How deeply could one deathless ?human? being love another?” Is love conditioned upon death? I thought love was theoretically “eternal.” But I…

I hope this new trend will catch on: Having decided to make the capitol in Phoenix a wireless hot zone, the Arizona legislature can claim bragging rights over their colleagues in other states, at least for a little while. Any portable computer user with wireless local-area network 802.11b or 802.11a capability can now surf the…

Glenn Reynolds, Jeff Jarvis, and others have exchanged many words about Howard Stern, and I’ve contributed a few myself. But I want to talk about one word right now. The infamous “n” word. While not on the FCC’s list of seven deadly words, in reality, it is considered far worse. Quite possibly the most taboo…

(Or maybe “Family not shot” depending on your preferences. “Family head shots?” Well, it is a family!) Just let the dogs out and they ran some deer out of the yard. But they didn’t go that far, so I was able to get close enough to snap this: If I had a good zoom lens…

This is not a happy day, either for me or for today’s online tests. While I do not feel my test results are accurate, I nonetheless present them — in the interests of accuracy. It’s nice to know that I’ve been hated as long as this first test — “Which Survivor of the Impending Nuclear…

Here’s InstaPundit on when the left lost their teen spirit: I think it happened in the 1980s, when Kitty MacKinnon and Tipper Gore decided to launch the Left’s anti-sex purges. Danny Goldberg sort of agrees. He also asks the vital question: “How did we get these fucking zombies as our candidates?” Now that is indeed…

That’s Carnival of the Vanities #76, to be exact. Andrew Ian Dodge is hosting. Please go read them! I have been gone ALL DAY, on the road (and thus unable to link), but I shall return shortly.

Is immortality bad? Leon Kass’s new appointee to the President’s Council on Bioethics, Diana Schaub offers a few thoughts (of which I supply a couple of excerpts, but I seriously suggest reading the whole thing): [D]irect and general age retardation….[]… holds out the truly radical promise of combatting senescence and extending the maximum human life…

What an analogy! Reboot: My father, who has worked with computers his whole life, called to wish me a happy birthday. I had just turned 36, and 36 is how old my father was when my parents, Sasha, and I emigrated from Russia to America. You’re turning 36 the way people are supposed to, he…

The Bonfire of the Vanities is hosted this week by Heather at angelweave, and she does a really nice job! I have a lot of fun reading these, and I am almost tempted to comment on them all, but that would spoil the fun, and it ain’t my job! A few of these notable posts:…

Is there life on Mars? A number of scientists say the answer is yes! But for reasons not clear to me, they are remaining tight-lipped: There is a palpable buzz here at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California that something wonderful is about to happen in the exploration of Mars. In a small…

Robins in the ‘hood! These guys don’t mess around with the white stuff! They EAT it!

Back in November, I wrote a post (entitled Join the anti-anti-family family!) in which I cited the Roman definition of family as including “all members of a household: relatives, non-relatives, servants, slaves, and other employees.” While it’s nothing new, this has been confirmed again by what has been described as a “landmark analysis” based on…

Frank J. is angry about sneaky attempts to insert amendments into new federal gun legislation intended to stop frivolous lawsuits from shutting down the gun industry. So am I. Here’s Frank: ….[T]he Democrats are trying to ruin a perfectly good bill stopping useless lawsuits against gun manufacturers. I hate Democrats! Anyway, there are like these…

The following story was sent to me in an email from Newsmax.com: Rolling Stone Blames Obscenity Worries on Republicans A Rolling Stone article entitled “Republicans Blast Bono” details the bi-partisan support of an FCC crackdown on broadcasters who allow words like f***, which the singer uttered on the 2003 Golden Globes awards show. Despite the…

During a recent visit to a brew pub, Glenn Reynolds asked a good question: I wonder if there were people who feared brewing technology when it was new? “They put in water and stuff, and out comes beer, which alters your consciousness. It’s evil magic!” Actually, I’m pretty sure that there were people like that.…