Read it. And this.

Read it. Me want.

Read it. Keep up the good work, girls.

Steve Sailer nails it again. There was a tremendous difference between the music of 1945 and that of 1955, and a substantial difference between that of 1955 and that of 1965 — my older brother and I, just over five years apart, are effectively part of separate musical generations.

Between 1965 and 1975 is much less difference, and between 1975 and 2005 it’s almost negligible.

The rise of rap is, so far as I can tell, the only significant musical development (if, indeed, one can call it music rather than recited poetry) during that period, that I can recall. (No, disco was not a development. It was a fashion statement, and lasted about as long.)
High-schoolers today can listen to Fleetwood Mac and the Rolling Stones and will readily admit that it’s “classic rock”; when I was in high school, music from before we were born was antedeluvian crap the parents listened to, for which we had no time.

The problem has become that the punk-New Wave rebellion against the blues got institutionalized, and the same musical styles that were refreshing in 1977-1982 are still hanging around. The more linear, abstracted styles that emerged after 1977 were interesting, but you can’t keep mining that vein — abstracting an abstraction hits diminishing marginal emotional returns pretty quickly.

So what happened?

Read it. I understand that Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams have a deal not to ride on the same airplane, so that the country isn’t faced with the prospect of losing both of its great black economists in one accident. It’s probably just an urban legend, but a comforting one nevertheless.

Read it. Really rich people don’t care about taxes, because even if you take away most of their income they still have ten times what you started with.

Read it. Watch a trained professional take an entire page to go over what a Dilbert cartoon can cover in three panels.

Read it. On the other hand, hydrogen is more entertaining — just look at old footage of the Hindenburg if you doubt it.

Read it. A very good illustration why we must never let a Clinton into a position to appoint a Supreme Court Justice ever again.

Read it. Just in case you’re in the market for bonier mice. And who isn’t?

Thomas Sowell would like certain people to get over themselves. I have to say I agree with him.

Read it. Good old Ted Stevens, the gift that keeps on giving.

Read it. I haven’t read Hart’s book yet — it’s on my list of Things To Do In My Copious Free Time — but I think that Kling carries quite a bit of baggage along with him into this review.

Hart is not someone whose views I trust.

Well, that’s fine, but at least tell us why not.

Arnold raises some worthwhile questions, but I don’t think he gives them enough thought before drawing his conclusions. The basic problem is more objectively defining what the term “IQ” means — or, prior to that, what the term “intelligence” means. Just saying that intelligence is the ability to think better than someone else is worse than useless, because “think” itself isn’t a well-defined term, and the statement appears to say something useful without doing so.

I suspect that Hart and Kling are using “IQ” in different ways, and that makes for a tedious and unfruitful discussion. The problem with these quasi-political discussions is that nobody starts out by defining his freaking terms, which would be the first thing they’d do if they were writing a systematic treatment of any other subject.

That chaps my butt big-time.

Read it. This is the same reason the Times and the Post periodically run lists of names of the dead — not to honor them or to commemorate their service, but to create as large a virtual body pile as possible.

Read it. It would appear that the only sure way to avoid identity theft is never to give your personal information to anybody — and that includes the government.

Of course, that means you have to pay cash for everything. And that won’t get you an iPhone.

I’m not a big fan of punitive damages in lawsuits against corporations, since that only hurts the stockholders rather than the actual culprits. However, I’d be up for some cruel and unusual punishment on corporate managers that breach their fiduciary duties.

Arnold Kling. Good stuff. Read it.

Read it. And rightly so, it would seem.

Read it. And place your bets on when — or whether — this news will make it to the New York Times or Washington Post.

Read it.

So buy it already.

Read it. A good question.

Read it. It is a mark of how low we have sunk that most “intellectuals” in America have a knowledge of religion  that would disgrace a cartoon character.

Even Steve Sailer sometimes gets it wrong. Perhaps if we paid our military a competitive wage, they wouldn’t look elsewhere for work? Hmm? Actually, they ought to be paid higher than market, including a premium for the risk of getting shot. But no — people like Steve want their monopsony. Dorks.

The dirty little truth is that working for the government means being paid less than a competent person could make in private industry … which is why most government employees come from the shallow end of the gene pool, and take their bonus in petty exercises of power that this monopsony gives them.

And if Steve had bothered to do a little research, he would have found out that “Blackwater” is the name of the area in which their headquarters is located. Don’t go Ron Paul on us, here, Steve.

Read it. That big light in the sky in the east used to be London.

Read it. I’ve been thinking this for a while. Good to know I’m not the only one.

I think we’ve gotten to the point where anything bad, that can’t be directly linked to George Bush, is going to be blamed on Global Warming.

Read it. Of course, this doesn’t fit the usual Upper Crust mantra of “Government good, private bad”.

Read it. The problem is not the enemies abroad but the enemies at home.

Read it. Sometimes the old ways are best.

Read it. No doubt the goblins, being oppressed, will all vote Democrat — so at least they can be oppressed democratically.

Oh, wait, we’ve got that now. So what will change?

Read it. If a foreign country did this to our people, we would rightly consider it an act of war.

Read it. A very interesting notion.

Read it.

Read it. Adam Weishaupt, call your office.

Steve Sailer delights in pointing out inconvenient truths — and, unlike AlGore, he’s right.

Considering the lame-brained ingratitude involved, if I were Watson I’d make the rounds of the donors I’d previously contacted and urge them not to give to Cold Spring.

Read it. Typically government is part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

Jeremy Wagstaff has some comments on the new Apple operating system; Vista is looking even more lame, if possible.

Leopard looks hot, and makes Vista look impoverished and, I suspect, somewhat irrelevant, like someone trying to sell aluminum siding to people who realise that while people still have it on their houses, no one really wants it anymore. Apple see what people want and give it to them.

And that about says it all.

Read it. I guess enforcement works.

The farmers enjoy big subsidies on their crops. Plus, they get ethanol subsidies. On top of all this, their illegal alien workers cost us far more (e.g. in education and health care for them and their kids) than they pay those workers in salaries. Enough already.

What he said.

Read it. That’ll show’em.

Read it.

Steve Sailer has a great idea.

Of course, one could get more bang for one’s buck (so to speak) by putting out contracts on certain cowardly administrators, but I tend to prefer the direct approach.

Read it. Apparently anthropology is as full of fashion as a catwalk in Milan.

Read it. It has no chance in government-factory schools, of course, but there may be some hope for private schools and homeschooling efforts.

Steve Sailer dares to say, “Told you so.”

Read it. Hear, hear.

Read it. Not as many as you might think.

Read it. I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked.

Read it. I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked.

Read it. Those pesky Muslims are at it again.

Arnold Kling points to some interesting stuff. A teaser:

It strikes me that we use the same formula to raise prices in both health care and education. (a) Subsidize demand; (b) Restrict supply using accreditation rules.

Consider that health care and education are the last two major areas of human life that haven’t benefited significantly from automation. In health care, people are sensitive to quality, so price goes through the roof. In education, people are sensitive to price, so quality goes in the toilet.

Read it. Ross Douthat responds to a comment by Neil Gaiman.

I don’t much care about what happens in HarryPotterWorld, but the discussion has some thought-provoking ideas with respect to writing and Life.