Some thoughts from Joel Achenbach, with some bonus advice on writing.
They’re Not Transporters
They’re replacers.
It’s not a new idea, but it’s an amusing take on it.
Godzilla
His impossible anatomy.
I’ve commented about this in the past.
Cognitive Biases
The top ones that prevent us from being rational.
Obama’s Presidency
The day it died:
Let us now return to Parshall’s observation that ”all military failures fall into three basic categories: failure to learn from the past, failure to anticipate what the future may bring, and failure to adapt to the immediate circumstances on the battlefield.” It’s possible that Obama did exactly that on the night of September 11, 2012. He didn’t see the double cross coming; he had no Plan B for Syria, for al-Qaeda, having bet the farm on Plan A and he covered failure up.
He went and committed all three categories of failure. ”Finally, at the apex of failure stand those rare events when all three basic failures occur simultaneously-an event known as catastrophic failure. In such an occurrence, the result is usually a disaster of such scope that recovery is impossible.”
And now he’s living with the consequences of having to pursue a strategic assumption he knows is wrong but does not dare denounce.
It’s going to look worse and worse as time goes on.
Samuelson On Climate Change
“We have no solution.”
I’d go further, and say it’s not even clear that we have a problem that requires one.
Virgin Galactic And Google
Will they team up?
A World Without Humans
We don’t worry enough about it.
I think that AI is a much bigger danger than “climate change.” Of course, some people dream of the end of humanity. Many of them are the same ones who worry too much about climate change.
[Update a few minutes later]
Peripherally related: More thoughts on much of the Left’s apparent hatred of humanity:
You know, it’s almost as if, having lost the doctrine of original sin and Christian forgiveness, these poor women are left with nothing but the free-floating, universalized guilt that makes them hate themselves and life. Maybe that’s unfair. I don’t know these ladies. But life hatred — humanity hatred, self-hatred and ultimately God hatred — seem to permeate so much of radical leftism. Feminism and Marxism with their revulsion at human nature, environmentalism with its elevation of greenery over humankind, radical groups like PETA that put the love of animals before the love of neighbor, the sweaty insistence on self-esteem and feeling good about yourself, giving praise, praise, praise for nothing, nothing, nothing, the ceaseless need to define your opposition as hateful… and abortion as a positive. It all smacks of self-hatred, doesn’t it? The love of death over life.
Actually, Bob Zubrin wrote a good book
The Kidnapped Girls In Nigeria
…may have already been genitally mutilated.
Sadly, that’s the way to bet. But don’t call them Islamic terrorists! That will just make them even more terroristy!
Just keep up the #hashtag bombardment. That’ll learn ’em.
Rape On Campus
It belongs in the courts. It does seem like a quaint idea:
The lefty stuff always leads to the same place. But you’re crazy to go to these schools if you’re a man. And women don’t want to go to schools that men avoid. So I predict either an eventual equilibrium, or a collapse.
His predictions have been playing out pretty well, so far.