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The team’s press officer, Nick Birkin, agrees. “Reenactors are used to dink, dink,” he says, mimicking the prissy swordplay anyone who’s sat through a retelling of Agincourt will no doubt cringe to recall. Another weekend warrior sums up the distinction more succinctly: “Reenactment’s for pussies.”

Sometimes the old ways are best.

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Israelites crossing the Red Sea:

FRAGILE WETLANDS TRAMPLED IN LABOR STRIKE
Law Enforcement Officials Slain While Pursuing Unruly Mob

Steve Sailer is not afraid to ask the hard questions.

Hillary Clinton’s disastrous Labor Day raises the question: If Donald Trump were as bad as she says, shouldn’t Hillary drop out so a better candidate could beat him?

But first… Why is Trump outsmarting Hillary? And what’s this “alt-right” she’s denouncing?

Hillary has been doing almost nothing but politics for over 40 years, while Trump has had a lot of other fun stuff to think about. Shouldn’t she be dominating him on the issues? How is this a close race?

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We might object to the phrase crony capitalism for two reasons:

First, because cronyism is in some ways the antithesis of capitalism. The freedom to compete and the freedom to fail that are central tenets of capitalism are severely compromised by cronyism when in the former case powerful politicians intervene to shield their friends in business and finance from competition, and in the latter intervene again to save them from bankruptcy or occasionally from criminal prosecution. Of course, these friends in turn are no disloyal slouches and they later show themselves to be supremely appreciative by underwriting, financially and otherwise, those same politicians who had all but guaranteed their continued dominance in normal times and their survival against bad odds in times of distress.

Second, because cronyism is just as prevalent, or arguably more prevalent, in a socialist system than in a capitalist one. Socialism is made popular by charismatic figures appealing to the idealism of some voters but wherever it succeeds in establishing itself, its anonymous toiling bureaucrats turn out to be expert cronies of the very first order, if we are to judge by the experience of many countries in the past century.

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It’s a lie, of course. They always say it, but never do it. Such teases.

But wouldn’t it be nice if they did?

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Cash—the familiar, anonymous paper money and metallic coins that most of us grew up using—isn’t just convenient, it’s also a powerful shield for our autonomy and our privacy. That’s the argument of cash advocates of course—but also of those economists and government officials who want to abolish the stuff. Cash’s power to protect people from meddling and tracking motivates both parties, either to shore up our defenses against the state, or to squish them under their thumbs.

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Perhaps this is God telling him to go into another line of work.

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A report last year from the Russian news agency TASS turned up on Reddit Thursday, stating that baseball bat sales in Russia soared in 2014 even though the sport has struggled to gain traction there.

Russians bought 500,000 baseball bats but purchased only one pair of baseball gloves and one ball, according to Moscow traffic police chief Viktor Kovalenko, who reportedly suggested that the bats were often used to resolve traffic disputes.

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How about that Global Warming, eh? We may be doomed, but at least we’ll have full stomachs.

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English speakers know that their language is odd. So do people saddled with learning it non-natively. The oddity that we all perceive most readily is its spelling, which is indeed a nightmare. In countries where English isn’t spoken, there is no such thing as a ‘spelling bee’ competition. For a normal language, spelling at least pretends a basic correspondence to the way people pronounce the words. But English is not normal.

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If performing like an asshole in a public forum creates the perverse impression that you are more clever than others who do not, there is a clear incentive to behave this way.

Welcome to the Internet.

Read it.

Typing helps you learn the syntax. It helps you learn the keywords. It makes you think, and as you’re writing out the 10th import foo from ‘foo’, the little details become apparent.

“Oh, those separators in the for loop are semicolons, not commas.”

“Oh, import {foo} from ‘foo’ isn’t the same as import foo from ‘foo’.”

Typing makes you curious about the words you are forced to write out. “What do all those things in public static void main(String[] args) mean, anyway?”

It also helps you learn the various error messages. Inevitably, you’ll type something wrong or leave out something you thought wasn’t important or that your eye didn’t notice (damn semicolons).

When you’re typing in a program by hand, you can try to run it at various points along the way, to see what works. Maybe more importantly, you can see where it breaks. “Poking the box.”

Sometimes the old ways are best.

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According to Time, Henry Kissinger and George Schultz are considering making a joint endorsement of Hillary Rodham Clinton for president. This is not surprising – in an era of dopey anti-“Establishment” rhetoric, Kissinger and Schultz may be the last two men in politics happy to call themselves pillars of the establishment. Which, of course, they are, as is Mrs. Clinton.

‘Hillary: The New Nixon’ Yeah, I can see that. Birds of a feather flock together; the Crust takes care of its own.

The next part, which will be amusing, will be watching progressive leftovers from the 1960s, who have for decades denounced Kissinger as a war-monger, an enabler of genocide (as Senator Bernie Sanders charges), and a war criminal – who have called for his prosecution — rejoicing in his endorsement of Mrs. Clinton. “Even Henry Kissinger!” they’ll say. Schultz doesn’t stand very much higher in the Left’s estimate, to be sure, though he doesn’t inspire quite the passion that Kissinger does.

It’s all about the Narrative, Larry.

Read it.

If, of course, that’s what you want to do.

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Waaa waaa waaaa….

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The math myth is the myth that the future of the American economy is dependent upon the masses having higher mathematics skills. This myth goes back to at least Sputnik, when the Russians were going to surpass us because they were better in math and science. It returned in the late 80’s when the Germans and Japanese were going to surpass us because they were better in math and science. It’s occurring again now because the Indians and Chinese are better than us in math and science.

I find it difficult to find anyone who uses more than Excel and eighth grade level mathematics (=arithmetic, and a little bit of algebra, statistics and programming). In the summer of 2007 I taught an advanced geometry course and had two students in the class who had been engineers and one who had been an actuary. They claimed never to have used anything beyond Excel and eighth grade level mathematics; never a trig function or even a log or exponential function! There is in fact a deskilling going on in our economy, where even the ability to make change is about to disappear as an important skill.

I’ve actually used calculus once, in a D&D game where I needed to find out the maximum length of a spear that would fit around the corner of the intersection of a 10-foot-wide corridor and a 5-foot-wide corridor. I’ve used algebra and trig in Navy electronics — again, in school, never out in the Fleet.

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As good a summary of the current situation as I’ve seen.

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Usually, writing about the Early Modern Age isn’t my deal, but it was definitely an interesting time. This was the period in which men went around in puffy pants with rapiers at their hips, ready to duel anyone who ridiculed the puffiness of their pants. And if you’re going to wander around with a rapier, you’d better know how to use it.

‘Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.’

Remember: Han shot first.

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“For the first half of my life, I thought Democrat was the only way to be,” Lephart says. “There’s this belief that you can’t be Republican and union-but I don’t believe that any more.”

Freeberg nails it again.

This question on Quora intrigued me, not quite so much because of the educated-above-their-hat-size, “solve all the world’s problems while we still know everything,” seldom-correct never-in-doubt sophistikateds that talk with smiles on their faces & their eyes closed; that’s a Quora staple right there. Rather, I was taken by the unusual experience. You have to read down quite a way to see it, but the answers under this one constitute a healthy mix. Eventually someone with good old-fashioned horse sense weighs in on the issue…yeah. Someone must’ve forgotten to close a door or something.

…

It all seems just so correct and reasonable. Until you stop to think — just how current are these ideas, which are ushering in this bold new age? And the answer is, not very. Discarding phrasing styles and words that have only recently come into existence or fashion, like “[I]nternet,” this all could’ve been written in…well, just about any year from 1917 onward. The overall sentiments of progressivism have remained unchanged in all that time. We’re battling these “conservatives,” who want to keep things the way they are, but our victory is inevitable, because we’re for sharing and economic equality, and the old bastions of stodgy traditionalism favor inequality, but the world is changing. There isn’t a thought in there that’s less than a century old. And the basics of it are considerably older than that…again, still unchanged.

The future is now.

Where is John Conner when we need him most?

Read it.

A cross-channel swimmer has died just a mile short of reaching France, organisers have said.

The man, named in reports as Nick Thomas, 45, from Ellesmere in Shropshire, was pulled unconscious from the water as he neared the end of the 21-mile endurance feat.

Let that be a lesson to us all.

If swimming the Channel is on your ‘bucket list’, leave it there.

Read it. And do watch the video.

Once you hear it, you can’t un-hear it. It will be forever with you. Just a warning.

It’s not a secret that a lot of popular music is unoriginal. In fact, science has proven it: The combinations of notes in pop songs have been losing diversity consistently over the last 50 years. Popular songwriters, producers, and record labels found a formula people like, and the result is many hit songs sound the same.

For example, hundreds of recent pop songs feature the same chord progression, parodied by Australian musical comedy group The Axis of Awesome in their 2009 song “4 Chords” (newer performances of the song include more examples of the progression in the years since). And most mainstream American country music not only sounds similar but is linguistically homogenous (blue jeans, drinking beer, pick-up trucks).

This latest phenomenon, though, is a much more specific musical trope.

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In this new series, I propose to explore the sequence of errors, large and small, through which the climatological establishment has – until now – gotten away with greatly exaggerating climate sensitivity.

The errors have an unholy, cumulative effect, conspiring to bring about an exaggeration that is grievous.

The focus in this series will be on describing each error clearly, so that the commenters who have so vigorously had their say on my earlier descriptions of the current method of determining climate sensitivity can examine them and say whether they think the climatological establishment has come to the right conclusion.

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The real divide in politics pits the people who think government looks like The West Wing against the people who think it looks like Yes, Minister. The soaring principles of The West Wing did sometimes turn up in Yes, Minister (and its sequel, Yes, Prime Minister), but by the end of each half-hour they had usually been buried in a committee or snuffed out in a seedy bargain. The result may not have been an inspiring vision of good government, but it was one of the wittiest TV shows of the 1980s; this week, sadly, saw the death of Antony Jay, the British broadcaster who co-created and co-wrote it.

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No weed for me, then — I’m lazy enough as it is.

Freeberg nails it again.

If we discuss this cultural shift honestly, we have to see it for what it is. You simply aren’t supposed to do any enforcing; you aren’t supposed to confront evil. You’re only supposed to go through the motions. More rules, more rules, more rules…don’t ever enforce anything. It makes the people who’ve already decided not to do any enforcing, look bad.

The rules are always aimed at the same places. Soft, rule-abiding types. They may go along enthusiastically, racked by guilt, or they may go along the way I do, full of resentment. But an uprising is unlikely, so this is the soft, fatty tissue — the yummy part. No claws, no thorns, none of that messy back-fighting stuff. It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s popular. Hey you homeowners, don’t water your lawns, because drought! And hey you law-abiding gun owners, it’s high time we passed some (more) rules against you! Someone who is not you just shot up a school.

We seem to be living in the age of “Go after the ones who didn’t do it.” I’m not sure how we got here, or how to get out of here. But, we’re here. If we really do want things to get better, that’s our first step. We have to break free of that diseased mindset. People are looking for ways they can vote in elections to make things better, and that’s the answer to that question. Skip that step, the rest of the effort isn’t going to matter much.

Read it.

Macaroni and cheese is one of those dishes — beloved by all Americans — that transcends geographical location or history. We eat it from sea to shining sea. It’s a nostalgia-inducing classic, the perfect compliment for everything from BBQ, to burgers, to Hennessy. It thrives in dank college dorm rooms and upscale restaurants. Point being, mac and cheese can do it all.

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Harry’s not the only one whose wand sometimes acts up.

Joe Bob Briggs brings the heat.

Only two athletes in history have won medals in six consecutive Olympic Games.

Only two.

…

Let’s face it, though, nobody was gonna go out of their way to congratulate Kimberly Rhode, because Kimberly Rhode carries a shotgun.

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That’s pretty rude.

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“Laissez faire, laissez passer” is the most tolerant of all creeds. As Smith insisted, it’s the very opposite of “pro-business” or pro-inequality; the market loves to disrupt complacent cartels. Yet to listen to most of the intelligentsia, you would think that freedom to exchange goods and services – which they prefer to call by the Marxist word “capitalism” – has done terrible harm in the world and needs taming by virtuous government. Further, that small-government philosophy has been terminally discredited, not least by the financial crisis of 2008.

There is no such thing as ‘capitalism’, except in the minds of Marxists and their dupes (which is almost everybody these days).

There are free markets, and there are unfree markets; that’s all.

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Although popular culture and many of the leading media organizations have bought wholeheartedly into the idea that gender identity is something distinct from one’s biological sex — that a man could be born in a woman’s body or vice versa — such beliefs have no grounding in any credible scientific evidence, according to a report published Monday in the journal The New Atlantis.

Arizona State University professor of statistics and biostatistics Lawrence S. Mayer and John Hopkins University Medical School professor of psychiatrics Paul McHugh co-authored the report, which examined top peer-reviewed studies in the biological, psychological, and social sciences.

“Examining research from the biological, psychological, and social sciences, this report shows that some of the most frequently heard claims about sexuality and gender are not supported by scientific evidence,” they noted.

Among the key findings listed by the authors was that, “The hypothesis that gender identity is an innate, fixed property of human beings that is independent of biological sex — that a person might be ‘a man trapped in a woman’s body’ or ‘a woman trapped in a man’s body’ — is not supported by scientific evidence.”

Amazing how that works.

Read it.

Democrats — party of the rich.

What do they know that you don’t know?

Freeberg nails it again.

I am worried. I’m worried that it’s been so long since we’ve seen a problem actually solved, we don’t know what it looks like anymore and we don’t understand the process. The partisanship has just made things worse, when a U.S. President or some other executive inserts himself. Half the time, nothing identifiable actually gets done; if it does get done, then the party opposed to that executive will find all sorts of things wrong with it, while the executive’s own party just cherry-picks anything that might be interpreted as positive news, and hogs all the credit, casting blame upon whoever came before for whatever might not be so positive. People have resigned themselves to the reality that that’s the process. The idea that there are simple and reliable ways to forecast things from other things…genuine causes and effects, with genuine relationships tying them together…gets lost.

That’s modern American politics in a nutshell.

Political correctness is destruction, plain and simple. We’ve been wandering through the thick of it, like through a fog, since I was a kid. And I just turned fifty.

Yup.

Political correctness is political. It is not decency. An attempt to enhance decency, resulting in destruction of the person who caused offense, but realizing no acknowledgement that the better behavior is better behavior — will have failed. Political correctness is about the destruction. If P.C. can bring about the acknowledgement of better behavior, and a sincere promise not to re-offend, but fails to destroy, then it, too, has likewise failed. It’s got nothing to do at all with bringing about a more enlightened or civilized society, and some among us are quite tired of this obligatory expectation that we should treat it that way.

It’s about getting people canned. Period, full-stop.

As such, it does not promote civilized-human behavior. It promotes shark behavior.

Right on.

Jim Goad just lets it all hang out.

If you dare to question whether Hillary Clinton is physically ill, her dutiful media maidservants will smear you as mentally ill.

It matters not how many times she falls, how many speeches she interrupts with uncontrolled coughing, how many memory lapses she has in mid-sentence, how many times she cackles loudly and inappropriately, or how many apparent seizures she has while cameras roll and fawning reporters flinch. She’s not sick; you’re sick for even noticing.

Read it.

Steak is king. Steak is what other meat wishes it could be. When a person thinks of meat, the picture that forms in his or her mind is a steak. It can be cooked, crosshatched from the grill and lying in its own juice in a pose suggestive of unmatched succulence, or it can be raw, blood-coloured and framed by white fat, the steak that sleeping bulldogs in vintage cartoons dream of.

Dead cow and spuds are the basis of all true civilization.

Nobody ever built an empire on tofu or bean sprouts.

And don’t get me started on sushi….

Read it.

…leftists who are too obsessed with global warming to want to reproduce. Hey, if that’s what it takes, we probably should be grateful. NPR asks the question–seriously, as far as I can tell–“Should We Be Having Kids In The Age Of Climate Change?”

We certainly ought to encourage ‘progressives’ not to have children.

The problem is, once they get an idea into their heads, they won’t rest until you go along with it (by force of government if necessary).

Joe Bob Briggs reads the tea-leaves.

I should have waited four more days so that I could read the column by Jim Rutenberg in The New York Times explaining that there’s no media bias because all the rules of journalism have changed.

Damn, Jim, if you’d told me in advance, I could have saved Taki some money.

I learned from this article that the way it works now is, if you’re a working reporter and you think Donald Trump is a demagogue, “you have to throw out the textbook American journalism has been using for the better part of the past half-century, if not longer, and approach it in a way you’ve never approached anything in your career.” You have to “move closer than you’ve ever been to being oppositional.”

Steve Sailer is not afraid to ask the obvious questions.

Why do people say things like “talent must be distributed equally” when all the evidence of our eyes from watching the Olympics is that talent is not distributed equally? Instead, talent is distributed in complex patterns by nature, which are in turn made even more complex by nurture.

Because ‘progressives’ are all about Must Be Distributed Equally, and if it isn’t so, they strive to make it so — and where they can’t make it so (Hello, Nature!) they just assume it (because wishing will make it true).

Read it.

One of the best send-ups of SWPL life I’ve ever read.

Your wifi enabled coffee maker downloads the perfect instructions to brew a cup of Blue Bottle?—?and you don’t have to do anything. The Roomba purrs in the background while you continue to read from your smartphone. You see a few articles about Trump and how crazy he is?—?somehow this comforts you.

You decide to share an article about Brexit from The Atlantic, which will somehow shed light to all your friends as to why it happened. The article is 1,000 words long?—?you only read half of it, but that’s good enough. It captures all the arguments you’ve been wanting to make for the past two months to your friends. Will this be the Facebook post that finally spurns your friends into action? You realize your Facebook friends all agree with your political views and social views already.

Read it.

My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Watch it.

Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.