Henry VIII had needed to import bronze cannons from the continent. But home-made iron cannons, though harder to cast, were far cheaper (almost one-fifth the price). This meant significantly more ‘bangs per buck’ – a technical advantage that was to… Continue Reading
When your biology changes, so can your decision-making and your desires. The drives you take for granted (“I’m a heterosexual/homosexual,” “I’m attracted to children/adults,” “I’m aggressive/not aggressive,” and so on) depend on the intricate details of your neural machinery. Although… Continue Reading
U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White today ruled in favor of the plaintiff in the case of Golinski v. Office of Personnel Management. Karen Golinski is a research attorney for the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.… Continue Reading
Credit should go with the performance of duty, and not with what is very often the accident of glory. * * * Of course those who stayed had done their duty precisely as did those who went, for the question… Continue Reading
Ten years ago, you know, everybody would’ve said, ‘We are unique. We have a specific culture.’ And now we understand that culture is created by what we do. – Andreas Schleicher
Catholic writer Kyle Cupp writes about the difficulties of the anti-contraception argument: Opponents of contraception face seemingly insurmountable obstacles, not the least of which is their position’s antagonism toward today’s common sense view of sexual morality. Opposition toward contraception is… Continue Reading
I made a Tron joke elsewhere today. While debating the humor content of a follow-up comment I was considering, I got to wondering what Samuel L. Jackson would have been like cast as the Master Control Program. (“Did you not understand… Continue Reading
Pseudonymous blogging strikes the right balance, for me, between the ability to project a clear and consistent identity to those interested in exchanging ideas, and buffering my sometimes unpopular ideas from meatworld decisionmakers, some of whom hold power over ways… Continue Reading
Convinced that a socialist revolution was doomed to failure, Mussolini now attempted to build a new movement. The original Fascist program delivered a radical message, with heavy doses of anti-clerical and republican rhetoric, vaguely left-wing in its politics and economics,… Continue Reading
If we have the ability to worry about things like abortion, gay marriage, religion in politics, and contraception, then that means that our wars aren’t so bad, and the economy isn’t so bad, that we can enjoy ourselves bickering about… Continue Reading