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The best episode of The Simpsons, ever, was episode 402: A Streetcar Named Marge. Discuss.

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 →