Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Getting the boot as a commencement speaker is becoming quite fashionable these days: The head of the International Monetary Fund on Monday joined an élite group—those whose plans to give commencement addresses this graduation season were derailed by student or faculty protests. Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, was scheduled to speak this coming …
Continue reading "Just Mail Us Our Diplomas and Be Done With It"
In the midst of our family's recent sad event, we found closure on yet another family tragedy that came from World War II. As I noted in my 2011 Fourth of July piece: This year, however, I’ve picked something a little closer to home: the aviation service during World War II of my uncle, Don …
Continue reading "Closure for One World War II Tragedy, Hope for Another"
When I was growing up, one of my father's favourite expressions to get my brother and I to not stray from the path he set before us was to demand that we "get with the program". The flip side to that was that, if we did get with the program, life would be good. That …
Continue reading "Getting With the Program: The Lesson of the Brandon Eich Fiasco"
Crimea is back in the news; the Russians have basically taken the place over again and the Ukrainians--along with their friends in the West--aren't sure what to do. There's a lot of bluster out there; comparisons to the Sudetenland and even the Rhineland abound, the Cold War is being reignited by the neocons, etc. Barack …
Continue reading "Crimea, the Place Where the West Goes Nuts"
But the Ivy Leaguers are hard at work to change that: Yet the liberal obsession with “academic freedom” seems a bit misplaced to me. After all, no one ever has “full freedom” in research and publication. Which research proposals receive funding and what papers are accepted for publication are always contingent on political priorities. The words …
Our strange government is at it again: It began when the head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported that the interplay of taxes and subsidies in the law “creates a disincentive for people to work.” The report predicted the mix would lead to fewer hours worked, costing the equivalent of nearly 2.5 million jobs. …
Continue reading "America in Blue Suede Shoes: Obama vs. the Work Ethic"
There are two threads in the news these days that illustrate where our "Western civilisation" (which at this stage is neither) is going. As is usually the case, "God, gays and guns" are at the centre of the problem, but not in the venues they're normally associated with. Let's start with Archbishop of Canterbury Justin …
Continue reading "Our Insane "Civilisation": John Kerry and Justin Welby"
Namely Taiwan: Beijing and Taipei this week announced the beginning of their first ever government-to-government talks. It is to some extent a mutual recognition of each other's standing, and as well as a sure-footed step in the process of reunification - so important for the People's Republic of China - it sets an important precedent …
He confidently states that "extremist religions" are at the bottom of conflict these days: Referring to wars and violent confrontations from Syria to Nigeria and the Philippines, Blair, writing in the Observer, argues that "there is one thing self-evidently in common: the acts of terrorism are perpetrated by people motivated by an abuse of religion. …
And it's about to kill him: America's best-known public-opinion guru hasn't suddenly gone vegan. Luntz—the tubby, rumpled guy who runs the focus groups on Fox News after presidential debates, the political consultant and TV fixture whose word has been law in Republican circles since he helped write the 1994 Contract With America—has always been a …
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