Frequent breast beater and all-around intellectual marshmallow David Brooks has touched off a real foofaraw, if not an outright hullabaloo, around the internet with his recent post for the New York Times, What if We’re the Bad Guys Here?, arguing that the rule of “us”, that horde of Ivy League educated sissy britches who hold…
Author: Alan Vanneman
Liz Draper—“Played Twice”
Liz on bass and Tasha Baron on the piano. Posted by Liz
Yo, America! Donald Trump’s epistemology isn’t Wittgensteinian! It’s Schopenhauerian!
The world is everything that is the case? No way, Johann, says El Donaldo. The world is my will! There is a great deal of debate these days about Donald Trump’s “state of mind” during the events both leading up and occurring on January 6, 2021—and, what the hell, a few occurring in the aftermath:…
Megan McArdle, keepin’ it cool
On August 1, 2023, former President Donald Trump was formally charged in federal court with four felonies, as a result of his efforts to defy the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and remain in office after January 20, 2021. On August 3, 2023 Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle ran her weekly column, this one…
Noah Smith is an idiot! But not all the time!
No, Noah, the “Noahopinion” guy, is not always an idiot. Take, for example, this recent post, If this is a bad economy, please tell me what a good economy would look like, expressing a bit of amazement at how well things have worked out under Uncle Joe’s genially geriatric hand. In fact, Noah says he…
Get your misinformation here! Get your red hot misinformation here! Courtesy of the New York Times!
How many times am I going to write this story? Well, damfino, but if the Times won’t quit, neither will I. The latest provocation from the Gray Lady of West 35th St. or wherever the fuck the Times hangs its hat these days is David Quammen’s The Ongoing Mystery of Covid’s Origin. Here’s how Dave…
Pablo Held—“Played Twice”
Pablo Held, piano; Kristina Shamgunova, sax; Christian Ramond, bass; Fabian Arends, drums. Recorded 2021. Posted by Pablo Held
Shorter Roberts Supreme Court: Let’s Make A Deal!
Originalist sin, anyone? The Volokh Conspiracy’s David Post has the scoop: Case or Controversy Requirement? What Case or Controversy Requirement?. As Dave points out, in a post that is, I would say, “thorough”, two of the many “big” decisions handed down by the Supreme Court in its recently concluded “summer session”—Moore v. Harper, shooting down…
The New York Times, lost in a Metaverse of Misinformation
As all you Gödel guys n’ gals know, Kurt’s “Incompleteness Theorem” states, among other things, that any system of mathematics powerful enough to prove the basic theorems of arithmetic must allow for the existence of theorems that cannot be proven to be either true or false, and is thus necessarily “incomplete”. The so-called “Vanneman corollary”…
Is Joe Biden toast?
Okay, Literature R Us has never scooped anyone in its 15 year existence, but this strangely seems to be a “speculation scoop”, to wit: How the hell is Joe Biden going to survive the testimony of “whistleblower” Gary Shapley appearing in today’s Washington Post, testimony that, if unrebutted, should convince just about everyone that Hunter…