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American government has become a collection of sordid and dangerous clowns. It was not always thus. Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects, were sometimes corrupt, and could be disagreed with on many grounds. They weren’t crazy. Today’s administration would seem unwholesome in a... Read More
This is a greatly updated version of a column of some years back on an unusual and intriguing people. Maya civilization was not 1850 Vienna, but neither was it the primitive horror lovingly imagined by the ill-mannered and barely informed of the web. Inasmuch America has a large population of Latin Americans, it seems to... Read More
A storm, methinks, is just over the horizon: The genetics of intelligence, perhaps of behavior. Geneticists know that intelligence is largely genetic. They know better than to say so. But research advances rapidly. Laboratories close in on the responsible genes. Things like genomic-sequence correlation proceed apace. Within ten or fifteen years, I will guess, the... Read More
One often sees the silly assertion by right-wing extremists that feminists, social justice warriors, and other “cranks” are enstupidating American education. The purpose, according to these fascists, who are just like Hitler, is “to make historically incompetent groups look competent.” The racism in these absurd claims is obvious. In particular such Neo-Nazis say that mathematical... Read More
Having just returned from two weeks in the curious environs of Washington, DC, I offer a few observations on the national lunacy deposit: The de-Christianization of the country, or at least this part of it, is almost complete. I can think of hearing the word “Christmas” only twice in two weeks of trough-inciting retail advertising.... Read More
In my capacity of shade-tree anthropologist at large, I am trying to make sense of the far Left. It is tough sledding. Most of it makes as much sense as lug nuts on a birthday cake. Help me. I am really confused. I can’t see that the Left actually is Left, I mean. The Left... Read More
I have followed China’s development, its stunning advance in forty years from impoverished Third World to a huge economy, its rapid scientific progress. Coming from nowhere it now runs neck and neck with the US in supercomputes, does world-class work in genetic engineering and genomics (the Beijing Genomics Institute), quantum computing and quantum radar, in... Read More
This is my second column on the two weeks that Vi and I just spent in Chengdu, China. It is meant not so much as a travelogue as a snapshot of what is going on in an economic juggernaut. Judging by email from readers, many do not realize the scope and scale of China’s advance.... Read More
Vi and I have just returned from Chengdu, a Chinese village of seventeen million and the gateway to Tibet. Since China is of some interest to the US these days, I thought a description of sorts, actually more in the nature of a disordered travelogue, might be of interest. I hadn’t been to the country... Read More
The United States seems to be contemplating war with Russia, Iran, China, or all three. Washington pushes NATO ever closer to Russia, leaves the nuclear-missile treaty and tries to destroy both countries and China economically. Why the push for war? Simple. Asia is awakening. China (from which I have just returned) grows economically at a... Read More
Oh God. Oh God. Is there no surcease? I know, silly question. Squalling protesters: Half of the country seems fifteen years younger than its chronological age. Staged ire. Sordid passion of the herd. Hysteria. Irrationality. Weird accusations. Savage feminists. As per custom, it is all about how horrible men are. One of the sillier sillinesses... Read More
I am sorry. I admit it: I am a bad person. I promise I will never write about this again. Well, sort of never. It’s just too much fun. Anyway, it’s not my fault. My childhood makes me do it. Maybe I ate lead paint. Science is supposed to be objective study of nature, impelled... Read More
I have no choice. I must don the mantle of greatness and take the reins of the country. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I will run for the office of dictator, or President in American parlance. Readers may ask, “But Fred, what makes you think you are qualified to be President?” To which I... Read More
The big roads were safe then, or we thought they were. Many of us, the more adventurous, poured onto the highways, just going, moving, looking. We were devotees of the long-haul thumb, crossing and recrossing the continent, dropping into Mexico, whatever. A camaraderie held. There were rules. On an onramp it was first come first... Read More
Today, nothing shocking. You won’t need your fibrillator. Some not-too-coherent thoughts from south of the border: In Guadalajara near the US Consulate there is the Estación de Lulio, an open walled restaurant, cafe and wine bar sort of place with unencrypted Wifi. Early on I could never remember the name and so began calling it... Read More
I am not sure why people write columns. Partly from boredom, I suppose, or lack of anything better to do. Partly from exasperation. Yet partly from the hope that if enough people collectively become aware of problems, they might, just maybe, do something about them. I can’t believe this any longer. Today’s crimes, lunacies, and... Read More
By now I suppose that everybody and his dog knows (well, actually, I haven’t asked my dog) that the New York Times has hired, and defended, one Sarah Jeong, an avowedly racist, sexist, mouthy, and apparently kinky twitess as tech writer. “Kinky” is the polite term for people who enjoy cruelty. Which, she says, she... Read More
Recently I wrote a column about the theory of Intelligent Design, which holds that that life, both in its origins and its changes over time, are the result of design instead of chance. Several hundred comments and emails arrived, more than I could read. This was not surprising as there seems to be considerable public... Read More
A question that never ceases to fascinate is that of how life originated, and how and why it has progressed as it seems to have. The official story and de rigueur explanation is that that life came about through spontaneous generation from seawater. Believing this is the mark of an Advanced Person, whether one has... Read More
I’m trying to figure out politics. It’s slow going. I’m just a holler hopper out of West Virginia, and I guess I puzzle easy. Maybe you can help me. I reckon America is pretty much a dictatorship now. It’s because one man, just one, does anything he wants to other countries and to us and... Read More
OK, book report time. I have just finished reading Bad Blood, by John Carreyrou of the Wall Street Journal. Good read, fascinating story. It is the saga of Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos, the miraculous blood-testing company of Silicon Valley. Holmes, formerly said to be worth $4.5 billion, ended up under criminal indictment for fraud... Read More
I don’t get it. I know, I know, I’m just some mutt in Mexico with a computer, and easily puzzled. But…huh? Trump, we are told, pulled off a master stroke in Singapore. All the world reels at this astonishment. We see Talleyrand and Metternich rolled into one gorgeous taco. But…but…. Who did the doing, and... Read More
“Affirmative action” means hiring people because they can’t do the job well. Near-synonyms are “diversity,” meaning groups that cannot do the job well, and “inclusiveness,” which means seeking people who you know cannot do the job well. These underpin American society, and have ruined education. For some time the sciences seemed less susceptible to the... Read More
Being as I am a self-appointed explicator of things Latin to Americans curious about what lies to the south, and has come north, I occasionally and in a scattershot and prejudiced manner try to offer a picture of life below the border. There is more to the place than narcos and MS-13. If I lived... Read More
Why did the Cockatoo-in-Chief renege on the Iran deal deeply prized by Russia, China, France, Germany, England, and the European Union? Why did he deliberately damage relations with Europe and cost American workers many thousands of jobs at Boeing among others? Why do all of this to hurt a country that poses no danger to... Read More
A few thoughts on our disastrous trillion-dollar military: It is unnecessary. It does not defend the United States. The last time it did so was in 1945. The United States has no military enemies. No nation has anything even close to the forces necessary to invade America, and probably none the desire. A fifth of... Read More
Disordered thoughts on the National Cockatoo’s latest antics. One: The aghastment and horrilation about the terrible, appalling, shocking etc nature of gas warfare is nonsense. There is nothing unusually hideous about the use of toxic chemicals. Hideous, yes, but not unusually hideous. Boring old workaday artillery, that nobody criticizes, leaves children watching as mommy frantically... Read More
The obvious and intelligent course regarding immigration from the south is to stop further influx and assimilate those who are not going away and, being citizens, cannot be deported. Mr. Trump’s placing of troops along the border, if carried out, can quickly and practically accomplish the first of these, as his silly wall would not.... Read More
I see that a man named Sessions, apparently Washington’s Attorney General, threatens to unleash the coercive powers of the federal government against the state of Colorado, his reason being that he does not like the state’s policy with regard to marijuana. This is most curious. Why he believes the policies of Colorado to be his... Read More
It is strange: Jews have been disliked everywhere and in all times. The dislike appears in odd places. I was astonished to find that my Nepalese trekking guides were intensely hostile to Jews. They said that Jews (actually Israelis in most cases I think, but the Nepalese do not seem to make the distinction) were... Read More
OK, so why is the country falling apart? Specifically, why are kids blowing each other away? America has become a source of wonder the world over with its Colulmbines and hundreds and hundreds of dead in Chicago and Baltimore and its burning cities and riots. Other advanced countries don’t do these things. America didn’t either... Read More
Gazing out over the chaos of America today, the racial and ethnic antagonism, the hostility over sex and faith and politics–I have never seen anything like it. The country is imploding. The main culprit is diversity–in the broad sense, not just the juxtaposition of races, but the mixing of ideas and philosophies with no dominant... Read More
Everything goes to hell. It warms a curmudgeon’s heart. I remember when, as God intended, reporters were bright and profane drunks with no respect for anything. This philosophical end-point was natural for men steeped daily in the lying, thieving, corruption, bribes, shysterism, misery, and unrelenting stupidity that are public life. Ashen-souled, cynical, with a wonderful... Read More
Today I must ask the reader’s pardon. I do not usually write about the intimate details of my life. They would embarrass me and bore everyone else. But in this case I am obligated, as will shortly be apparent. We have all heard of Twelve-Step Programs. Alcoholics Anonymous was the first and remains the best... Read More
Mr. Trump’s comment regarding his preference for immigrants from Norway instead of “shithole countries” such as Haiti engendered among the commentariat a great squealing. I cannot fathom this. Are they geographic virgins, and just don’t know anything of the world? Is it only the usual schadenfreudian gotcha pile-on? The if-A-then-B response to stimulus of a... Read More
Methinks that, for the good of the country, it is time that the “Alt-Right,” those bitterly hostile to our Latin-America population, stop and think. There is a difference between opposing further immigration, a good idea, and constantly attacking American citizens. Many good reasons existed for preventing massive immigration from the south. But it happened. Some... Read More
With regard to Mr. Trump’s Border Wall, I am skeptical. Now, I freely concede that I am not an authority on Border Walls. In fact, I have never built a Border Wall. This may surprise readers. Yet it is true. So all that follows is in the nature of speculation. Be warned. Still, though I... Read More
Today we will ponder America, a country, even a civilization, that existed long ago where the United States is today, but bore little resemblance to it. It will be like studying cave drawings, or Sargon of Akkad. Pay attention. The is original source material of historical importance. I was there, in America: Athens, Alabama, at... Read More
Let us look into the abyss. It will do no good. First, another page in the sordid comic book of American race relations. In Beijing, three black basketball players from UCLA were arrested for shoplifting. They faced jail time. Ten years, actually. The theft was so stupid that it demands explanation. It was too stupid... Read More
Once upon a time in America the ruling dwarves, mostly psychologists, sociologists, academics, and suchlike riffraff, held that all people were equal in everything, that men and women were identical, as were all races, ethnic groups, and cultures. Criticizing any of this could, and did, lead to firing, ostracism, and having to suffer crowds of... Read More
For Americans concerned about Mexico and Mexicans, and what sort of wights they be, a little history may help. We seem to know almost nothing about a bordering nation of 130 million. It is not what most of us think it is. It is certainly not what the Loon Right would have us believe. For... Read More
The other night we watched a documentary, The Dark Net, on Netflix on child pornography. Dim as I am, I didn’t realize that there was such a huge amount of it, mostly on the Darknet. This refers to transmission of material by layered encryption and quickly becomes technical: TOR, asymmetric encryption, IP packets, session keys,... Read More
The Atlantic waters off Snead’s Ferry in North Carolina are shallow, maybe 125 feet to the continental shelf. Several wrecks lie on the bottom, mostly in advanced stages of disintegration, sunk by U-boats in the early years of the war. I know them well as for years I was a member of Capital Divers, out... Read More
A Truth Not Welcome: People do not like being with those different from themselves. Sometimes, briefly, we find it interesting, as in traveling, but for extended periods, no. This distaste pervades society, often unnoticed, with consequences. Instances of untogetherness: People cluster by intelligence. With high consistency, we choose mates of intelligence close to our own.... Read More
As Washington bombs Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Iraq, and Syria, militarily threatens Russia, Venezuela, North Korea, and China, sanctions Cuba, North Korea, Russia, Ukraine, Iran..one may wonder: Why? Are wars about anything, or just wars? In modern times, a reason of sorts is thought decorous, yes: Ruritania is threatening us, or might, or does something wrong,... Read More
In America two narratives about Mexico dominate. The first, chiefly emanating from anti-immigrant ideologues who usually have never been here, holds that Mexicans have low IQs and cannot function at other than a primitive level. Breitbart News and something called Vdare are chief among these. They don’t quite expect to find all Mexicans either robbing... Read More
Harper’s, December, 1980 I begin to weary of the stories about veterans that are now in vogue with the newspapers, the stories that dissect the veteran’s psyche as if prying apart a laboratory frog — patronizing stories written by style-section reporters who know all there is to know about chocolate mousse, ladies’ fashions, and the... Read More
OK, immigration, the ongoing soap opera. Let’s start with the week’s logical disaster: The Dreamers, 800,000 artfully named Latinos who were brought over as children, sometimes as children of thirty-five. Under something called DACA, a sort of almost amnesty, they had work permits. They were working. Yes, doing their part as Americans: paying taxes to... Read More
To understand many Mexican attitudes toward the United States and immigration, you have to go back to the Mexican-American War of 1846-48, of which most Americans have never heard. The United States attacked Mexico in a war of territorial acquisition, occupied Texas, California, New Mexico, and Arizona, and drove south to conquer Mexico City. It... Read More
Katie, bar the ever-lovin’ door. Compromise seems a forlorn hope in today’s strange version of America. Anger runs too deep. All that is left is to choose sides. We will then see whether the country sinks—continues sinking–into a Soviet future already largely upon us, or we see armed mobs battling in the streets. Does this... Read More
Fred, a keyboard mercenary with a disorganized past, has worked on staff for Army Times, The Washingtonian, Soldier of Fortune, Federal Computer Week, and The Washington Times.
He has been published in Playboy, Soldier of Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Harper's, National Review, Signal, Air&Space, and suchlike. He has worked as a police writer, technology editor, military specialist, and authority on mercenary soldiers.
Alas we've apparently uncovered the horrific root of your problem: There's no such thing as right or wrong, only "politics" in an "imperfect world"; sad, but not unexpected.
You don’t have to; your implicit defense of the morally indefensible monster in the white house says it all.
Joy Reid is that you? Someone is watching too much pmsnbc
You just another schmoe
An Eye-talian using "Schmoe???"
I don't know Hym...I mean, Richie, you'd better switch to "jaggoff", not "schmoe", "schmuck" or "schlemeil" or I'm going to start wondering...
"Trump To Europe: Take Back 800 ISIS Foreign Fighters Or We'll Be Forced To Release Them:" https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-17/trump-europe-take-back-800-isis-foreign-fighters-or-well-be-forced-release-them
Where is the pussy Bolton to solve his boss' problem? Actually, the 800 ISIS fighte...
Wait a minute, are you saying Donald Trump, the President of the United States, mass murdered your family? Guess what? Even that doesn't put you on a "higher moral plane". You just another schmoe with nothing better to do than argue politics on the internet. Sorry, pal, you're right here in the m...
"'Jew drivel'? Really? That’s the best you can do?"
Not necessarily.
"Look, Harold, we live in an imperfect world, you’re pretending to stay above it, okay, if that makes you feel good about yourself, go with it."
I bet if orange clown casually mass-murdered your family the way he ca...
"Jew drivel"? Really? That's the best you can do? Look, Harold, we live in an imperfect world, you're pretending to stay above it, okay, if that makes you feel good about yourself, go with it. But "Jew drivel"? Come on, I didn't mention the Torah or the Federal Reserve once.
She was a self-made millionaire while living off government salaries her whole life.
LOL, hey you're from Brooklyn Big Sexi, fill in the quote below:
Don't hate the playa... hate the _ _ _ _.
So is that how your belief system works? Anything less than flattering - regarding the evil orange clown - must not be true? ROTFLMAO! Well at least you're entertaining if nothing else.
"When you find a politician who isn’t a liar or a con man, let me know."
Why; am I supposed to be looking for one?
"Are you a Bernie guy?"
No; why do you ask?
"Nothing like a multi-millionaire socialist to show the way, right?"
Well it's your strawman so you might as well have yo...
When you find a politician who isn't a liar or a con man, let me know. Are you a Bernie guy? Nothing like a multi-millionaire socialist to show the way, right? Hilary? She was a self-made millionaire while living off government salaries her whole life. Come on, grow up.
"So basically, ' Orange man baaaaad unless he single handedly reverses 20 years of neocon American imperialism."
No; basically, orange clown baaaaad because he's a liar, con man, traitorous, mass-murdering, warmongering jew puppet ruler who has no intention of reversing or attempting to reve...
So basically, " Orange man baaaaad unless he single handedly reverses 20 years of neocon American imperialism". Trump seems to be non interventionist at heart,hence the bizarre attempts to delegitimize and remove from office which you are apparently in favor of. When Trump is removed you'll get y...
"Yet, unlike your hero Obummer no major wars have been started uner Trump administration, with all its neoconservatives."
First, unlike you junior, neither Obama nor any of the other "deep state" agents are my "heroes."
Second, the only reason no new wars have been started *yet* is apparently ...
Yet, unlike your hero Obummer no major wars have been started uner Trump administration, with all its neoconservatives. So you have a cabinet full of bloodthirsty neoconservatives and Trump, and they're pulling troops OUT of Syria and Afghanistan. Pull the cnn/NPR/NY times from your ears for a mo...
Angles and Saxons were from Jutland in what is now Denmark.
And the English yeoman farmers and minor aristocrats who founded the US are nobody. Irish, Jews, Italians, Asians took over the US anyhow.
Now the Asians and Hispanics are taking it from the Jews and Irish-Americans.
Hindus and H...
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Seth Rich, and High Treason in the US Congress:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-15/disappearing-democratic-scandal-part-1
Luke Rosiak:
Imran Awan was an IT guy for Congress for many years. He was working for Debbie Wasserman Schultz and other members of Congress...
Same people who founded the usa and who descend from the sussex-wessex-essex invasion of Britain. Nothing new. Ad for their children if they had any conscience it would have neen seen allready and the likes of these barbarians would not ne threatening anyone.
Germanicus was RIGHT.
The emporer a...
Dude, did you just insult, The Boss?!?!?
From Bensonhurst and you insulted The Boss?!?!
Man, there is nothing sacred anymore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOxOR3x8FBQ
I'm highly skeptical of the idea that the invention of zero was a monumental achievement or that it has only been invented twice. If a civilization has advanced to the point of using ledgers and its members have the means to represent quantities of measurable items, then it takes no great leap o...
What do?
Easy - our Oriental friends make them neat little genetic modification systems, and then everyone gets every single IQ-increasing gene that isn't also bad (and can't be countered).
Beep boop, suddenly Africa's development expands by a power of 1000. Libruls die of confusion