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.

Read it. Having the New York Times review Rand is like having Pravda review Edmund Burke, but it’s worth reading.

Read it. In case you were wondering. I know I was.

Read it. Of course, they mention — but don’t dwell on — the real reason: Flying commercially these days is like volunteering to be processed for Dachau.

A first-class ticket no longer promises a first-rate travel experience: shoeless walks through security checkpoints and quart-size baggies of toiletries are just the latest indignities. Average flight delays at the busiest airports have doubled in the last five years. Meanwhile, routes are being cut back.

 While a commercial passenger waits hours to go through ticketing and security lines, business-jet travelers don’t even have to walk through a metal detector. They can drive straight up to their plane, hand their bags to the crew, and climb aboard.

Read it. Interesting stuff – sort of a CAT scan for documents. This is very much like the use of laser “needles” to play vinyl records without touching the disk itself (and so not deteriorating it).

Read it. In case you were wondering. I know I was.

Read it. Mickey Kaus brings up a point that has irritated me for a long time.

Is it really a good idea, from President Bush’s point of view, for him to give a prime time address today about Iraq? Seems like Bush speeches haven’t convinced anybody of anything for several years now–especially about Iraq, but also about Social Security reform and immigration reform. The president’s rhetorical campaigns not only didn’t win those fights–it seemed as if they didn’t even move the needle in his direction.

I am regularly amazed at how bad most politicians are at public speaking. The whole point of politics is persuading people that you have a better idea, and yet most people in public office today could scarcely persuade someone to sell them a Happy Meal. This is like an engineer not being very good at math. If they were businesses, they’d soon go out of business, because nobody would buy their product. The only thing that saves them is that everyone else is so much worse.

Read it. And ponder.

Steve Sailer looks at the sociology of crime. Sort of.

Read it. In case you were wondering. I know I was.

Of course, the article that Tyler references has a lot of the standard prog tropes: that charitable giving is just a scheme to screw the government out of tax revenue that would otherwise go to Worthy Causes (those dogs in the manger!), that government is more “effective and efficient” in helping society than charitable giving because let’s face it private persons have really screwed up priorities compared to civil servants who are more likely to listen to enlightened progressives like us, that it’s a pity that the wealthy control so large a share of the National Income which is of course not something that they produced after all that’s why it’s called the National Income so why should they have any say over how it is spent at all that just makes no sense, etc., etc.

In essence, the public is letting private individuals decide how to allocate money on their behalf.

See, it’s not really their money anyway, it’s the public’s money, and it just wound up in their hands because our society is oppressive and degenerate but just hasn’t realized it yet the way we enlightened leftists have. So it’s just a question of public policy whether we let they spend it or have it spent by the aforementioned enlightened civil servants I mean the question really answers itself ya know?

Read it. More than you’ll ever want to know about.

Read it. I’m not sure but what this might not be a case of Oversharing, but it’s a fascinating discussion.

Read it. An interesting thought.