Read it. I tried to connect this to Talk Like A Pirate Day, but creativity is hard to come by on Monday morning.

Safire on Language.

Read it. I’m sure this says something profound about our culture, but I’m too lazy to figure out what.

Since the 19th century, gray squirrels, an American import, have been overtaking Britain’s native red squirrels and claiming their territory.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Read it. Much like Democrats with tax cuts, certain primitive tribes appear to lack any concept of “number”, to the point where the don’t even have words for it.

Read it. Christopher Hitchens at his best.

Read it. And ponder.

Read it. Is music destined to be free? (Only your hairdresser knows for sure — and she’s busy listening to her iPod….)

Peggy Noonan. Always worth reading.

Read it. Well, we’ll see. I usually don’t rush to believe what I read in The Guardian.

Read it. And be careful what you wish for.

Read it. A very good write-up.

Read it. A lot of the conventional wisdom and old-economy assumptions about how markets for easily distributable and replicable goods work is being blown out of the water by people who “do it wrong” and make money at it. We live in an exciting time.

Read it. Welcome news.

Read it. I’m surprised to see no reference to crime control in the article. Any police department would pay big bucks for such a system, if reliable.

Read it. Not very, apparently — although that doesn’t surprise me, since I studied it as an undergraduate.

Read it. That would explain a lot.

Read it. Mercenaries rock.

Read it.

Read it. Got milk? Congratulations, you’re part of the master race.

Every wonder why the lactose-tolerant rule the world? It’s all right here, baby.

Jeremy Wagstaff reflects on his profession.

Read it. But what about the rain forest?

Read it. I expect any day now to see a headline “Large Genetic Component to Invincible Ignorance”.

Read it. And probably the book, too; I plan to.

Read it. Go, Fred.

Read it. A very thought-provoking article. I’m surprised to find something of this quality in the Washington Post.

Read it — if you dare.

The kind of conflicts we’re seeing and are likely to see are far more like crime, pervasive and opportunistic, than like conventional interstate warfare. The patriotic sentiments that motivated volunteer armies in the past are harder to apply to campaigns designed to strengthen vulnerable foreign states, or to limit the extent of bunkering and other criminal activities that have no obvious ideological valence. And so we will need to rely on skilled professionals to help police the world.

Indeed. What our culture faces today is the sort of thing that civilizations faced in times past — barbarians who do not share our values and are relics of an earlier and more primitive time, people who think it cooler to be pirates and slavers than to earn a living, people who don’t think twice about raping, torturing, pillaging, and murdering those to whom they’ve taken a dislike, etc. What we face is a pest control problem rather than a military problem. If you’ve got fire ants in your yard, you don’t declare war on them and call the Army; you call the appropriate professionals and get it taken care of.

Do read the comments and reflect on the fact that people that intellectually vacant have a vote that counts as much as yours.

Read it. An eternal truth: People drive because it’s easier than walking.

Read it. Wally is my hero.

Read it. Hah!

Read it. Sometimes biology does matter. The supposition here is that lower voice timbre in males is a marker for testosterone levels, the implication being that females select for the one in hopes of getting the other.

So far as I’m aware, nobody has bothered to ask some actual females about this — but, after all, are they really qualified to have an opinion on the subject, not being trained biologists or statisticians? Let’s get real….

Read it. This deserves separate mention. It’s going to be a problem until people figure out how to handle it.

Read it. And take your time — there’s a lot here.

The problem with our old pal Mencius here — and his unwitting launchpad, Dawkins — is that they are like Euclidean geometers working in a non-Euclidean world. Since the Existence doesn’t match their assumptions, Existence is therefore wrong. The flaw in this ought to be obvious.

But it’s fun watching them sweat. I could do it all day.

Read it. Surprised to see something like this in the New York Times.

It turns out that there are rules governed by physics to explain why the best distance runners look so different from the best swimmers or rowers and why being big is beneficial for some sports and not others.

Imagine that. Whoda thunkit?

Of course, I wouldn’t want to be in this guy’s shoes when the feminists get through with him. He’ll be facing three to five as Hillary’s towel-boy.

Read it. Never been to Disney World. Don’t plan to go there. Heard good things about it, mostly from people whose tastes differ from mine.

Read it. Well, most of them sound like you’re gargling with your mouth full.

Read it. Language is a wonderful thing.

Read it. No particular reason; it’s just interesting.

Read it. Alex Tabarrok’s wife is smarter than most.

Read it. Turns statist proposals for forced “national service” on their heads — with interesting results.

Read it. Well, I have my doubts — but it’s a clever idea.

Read it. Apparently not. (On the other hand — do you really expect the New York Times to tell you the truth?)

Read it. The thing I find most fascinating about rich people is that they don’t fit any of the stereotypes and clichés that people cling to, many dating from the Victorian era and outdated in our grandparents’ day — and yet they subscribe to them nevertheless. It seems to be a case of “Well, I’m not like that, but I guess the rest of them must be.”

Read it. Jeremy Wagstaff is one of the few people who actually thinks about technology rather than just looking at it.

Actually what I suspect happens in companies is that they just ignore the user entirely. This is partly because technical products are built (and much of them designed) by programmers and engineers. I hate to generalize, but these people thrive on complexity, not on usability. For them creating and mastering the opaque is an achievement, not a symptom of failure.

And there’s an Eternal Truth you can take to the bank — which will probably be closed.

Steve Sailer takes this theory more seriously than I do. (Part of that, of course, may be that its progenitor is a rabid socialist; I’m disinclined to believe that any socialist knows squat about intelligence.)

Reading his books, it’s pretty clear that, while he’s a bright, interesting guy, he pretty much made up his categories off the top of his head.

I rest my case. Much as with astrology, any congruence between these “intelligences” and the actual human mind is purely coincidental.

Christopher Hitchens is always entertaining, even when he’s wrong — which isn’t all that often.

Americans could also choose a complete crook like Richard Nixon, or a complete moron like Jimmy Carter, and we still had to watch our local politicians genuflect to the so-called Atlantic alliance.

And that really tells you all you need to know about American politics.

Don’t ask what a campaign against global warming has done for “peace”; that would be like asking what Mother Teresa or Henry Kissinger had ever done to reduce global conflict. The impression is the main thing.

And that really tells you all you need to know about European politics.

David Friedman does not hesitate to examine the most commonplace of activities.

Read it. Most people don’t appreciate how many graduate degrees an officer will accumulate over the course of his career. It’s a rare colonel who doesn’t have at least a master’s and I don’t know of any generals who aren’t PhDs.

Read it. Also not news. But still worth reading.

Read it. An interesting article about an interesting fellow. Would that all of our wealthy felt that way about their own nation.

Read it. The Freakonomics guys bring up a serious case of Unintended Consequences.