I’d never really read this before, but it’s an interesting description of the rules there. No home cooking allowed, and alcohol is rationed, which makes sense, I guess. I wonder if some people make their own hooch, though?
Category Archives: Social Commentary
Martin Rees
…has some thoughts on risk, and who will be exploring Mars:
…space travel will be done by adventurers, doing it for the sake of it, and they will thus become more like today’s mountaineers, who are actually doing things which others have already done, but making life harder for themselves – for example by climbing without ropes.
“I hope that some people now living will walk on Mars, but they will go in my view not in the spirit of Nasa astronauts – who are exposed to fairly low risks – but as part of a cut-price venture accepting great danger and perhaps even a one way ticket. If the Chinese wanted to have a prestige programme, as the Americans did with Apollo, they could get there in 20 years. But unless they do so, the first people to land on Mars will be mad, brave adventurers, and we will cheer them on.
Yup.
High-Speed Rail
It’s not news that Kevin Drum opposes it, but it’s still nice to see attacks on it from the left. Yes, it is a waste of time and money.
Charlie Hebdo
How do we stop another one? Thoughts from Richard Epstein on religious tolerance:
The hard question then is what should be done with those who refuse to accept the universal truce not to use violence against those who dare to utter statements that they regard as blasphemous.
Here again the libertarian theory offers the first step towards a response. By their refusal, they become outlaws. Those who are prepared to use force should be subject to the full range of criminal and civil sanctions. Individuals and the state may use force to resist force, they may work hard to ferret out threats of the use of force before they materialize, and they may root out conspiracies of individuals for particular acts of violence. Similar hostility is the order of the day against the nations and groups that practice the use of unlawful force or harbor those that do. Once again, it is critical to note that the libertarian vision seeks to preserve a large domain for protest and dispute, but it is relentless against those do not play the game in accordance with those rules. Its basic principle is: you disarm, we disarm, but if you fight, we fight harder.
At this point, the practical program should be clear. It is no longer defensible to try to soft-pedal the enormity of the difficulty by announcing some supposed parity between murderers and the people they murder. Supposed social grievances against those who ridicule and deal in satire must fall on deaf ears. Moral equivocation worsens our ability to maintain an ordered liberty. Force must be met with force. France, the United States, and other nations must conduct massive manhunts against those who commit terrorist actions, properly labeled as such. They must go further and deprive these individuals of the sanctuaries from which these attacks can be brought, which means troops on the ground, as well as planes in the air.
No one has a right to not be offended. And yet, with perfect timing, the largest Islamic organization in the world calls for more anti-speech laws.
[Update a few minutes later]
Popehat has some questions for the New York Times regarding its policy on depicting Mohammed.
Whole Foods
America’s angriest store?
I have to say, this hasn’t been my experience, but I don’t go that often — I think most of the food is way overpriced. It might be partly a function of geography.
Via Dr. Eades:
This has been my exact experience. Probably comes from not enough good quality dietary fat for the brain. http://t.co/6ONmMOtnlz
— Michael Eades, M.D. (@DrEades) January 13, 2015
[Update a few minutes later]
Wrong link, fixed now, sorry.
Islam’s Tarnished Brand
Thoughts on the problem from Instapundit.
By the way, I’d say that Al-Sisi has already done more to deserve a Peace Prize than Barack Obama had when he got his. Or has done since.
Wearable Tech
Forget it, what people want is more battery life.
This obsession with “thin” phones makes me crazy. Have the gay men who run the fashion industry, but hate normal female bodies, taken over tech as well?
I just “upgraded” from my dying Droid Global 2, a phone whose batteries were easily changed, for a Droid 4, which has a better OS, and is 4G instead of 3G, and slightly thinner, but has a non-replaceable battery. I consider it a downgrade.
“Charlie,” Free Speech, And Climate Change
Thoughts from Judith Curry:
Anyone defending the satirists at Charlie should have a tough time defending Michael Mann in his legal war against the satirical writings of Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg. It will be interesting to see if Charlie and the defense of satirists changes the dynamics of the Mann vs NRO/CEI/Steyn lawsuits.
For the record, I have never sued, or threatened, let alone committed any acts of violence against people who call me a “denier,” a term I find quite offensive (particularly when they can’t describe exactly what it is I “deny”). I have this crazy idea that the proper response to speech I don’t like is more speech.
[Afternoon update]
“Free speech is so last century. Today’s students want the right to be comfortable.” I like the phrase “Stepford students.”
The Federal Drinking Age
It’s long past time to abolish it. It was an idiotic idea from Elizabeth Dole, during the Reagan administration. It’s a major contributor to college binge drinking (and associated sexual regrets that some people want to redefine as rape).
Charlie Hebdo
The publication faced the Islamists alone:
They offered high-handed but paper-thin excuses about not causing needless offense. Their cowardice ensured that publications like Charlie Hebdo and Jyllands-Posten stood alone and exposed, lightning rods for Islamist violence. But many others were targeted anyway — some 200 people were killed around the world in protests after Jyllands-Posten published its cartoons in 2005.
Yesterday, much of the traditional media doubled down on its shameful behavior by again refusing to show the cartoons. Many web outlets, including The Daily Beast, Buzzfeed, and PJ Media, did publish them. One of the first newspapers spotted keeping its head below the parapet was the UK’s Telegraph — its website pixellated out a drawing of Mohammed in a photograph of a Charlie Hebdo cover. The New York Daily News followed suit. CNN ordered its staff not to show the cartoons. The major networks refrained from doing so. The Associated Press claimed its policy was to “refrain from moving deliberately provocative images,” a policy which, it was quickly pointed out, hasn’t prevented it from selling photos of Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ.
Those organizations that bothered to offer an excuse fell back on the “offense” line, but it hardly needs saying that they’ve never felt compelled to extend the same courtesy to Christians or Jews.
The double standard can in part be explained by the fact that the liberals who dominate the U.S. media, and Britain’s globally influential BBC, believe that Islam is to be respected because it’s broadly the religion of brown people and victims of Western oppression, while Christianity can fairly be ridiculed because it’s the religion of white people and Western oppressors. And don’t, of course, get them started about the Jews.
But mostly, it comes down to the fact that journalists of every political hue have long been wary of provoking Muslims because they fear they’ll be murdered, while they know they have nothing to fear from Christians or Jews beyond strongly worded statements and perhaps a boycott.
They are cowards who will not defend western civilization against barbarians.
[Update a few minutes later]
Reminder: If there is such a thing as a moderate Muslim, we shouldn’t undermine them by treating the monsters who did this as Muslim.
[Update a while later]
Europe under siege: This was an attack on perhaps the greatest idea of the West.