Michael Flynn's Blog, page 96

The Perils of Government-Funded Stuff

The following is copied from the Wall Street Journal Weblog without comment.


'Artists' as Servants of Power
By JAMES TARANTO, Wall Street Journal Weblog

Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood is out today with new details on the National Endowment for the Arts scandal, including a full transcript and audio recording, as well as a CliffsNotes summary by John Nolte, of the notorious Aug. 10 conference call in which administration officials urged artists to help promote President Obama's...

Exemplia gratia

The Twenty Worst Sentences in the Writings of Dan Brown

So many sentences; so little time.  But the Telegraph has manfully made the effort.

www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/6194031/The-Lost-Symbol-and-The-Da-Vinci-Code-author-Dan-Browns-20-worst-sentences.html

14. Angels and Demons, chapter 100: Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers glorified the four major rivers of the Old World - The Nile, Ganges, Danube, and Rio Plata.

The Rio de la Plata. Between Argentina and Uruguay. One o...

Le Bon Mot

We All Know Books Like This, Don't We?

There are, however, two large problems with his books. The first is that one will find them compelling in directly inverse proportion to one’s familiarity with the topics they address, because they make sense only when all the nagging questions that relentlessly wear away at careful scholars... have been ignored. And the second is that his arguments seem coherent only because they are so perfectly circular.
  -- David Bentley Hart, "Origin of the...

Science Fiction

On Rickety Thistlewaite

ANALOG has the new custom of sending out the page proofs in pdf format.  SF catches the wave of the future!  Now I have to see if I can make corrections!!!

If I need to.  It may be perfect in every way. 

All The News That Fits, We Print

Today's Headlines

Talk About Seeing the Glass as Half Empty!
"Inmate 'Traumatized' After Failed Execution"--headline, Associated Press, Sept. 16

Superman in his Old Age
"Elderly Driver Swatting Bug Demolishes Tree"--headline, Taunton (Mass.) Daily Gazette, Sept. 16

I See a Bad Moon on the Rise
"Wells Fargo CEO Sees Bad Loans Rising"--headline, The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 17

Now This is Diversity!
"Transgender Belly Dancer Helps Launch Arab Gay Initiative in Sweden"--headline...

The Next Tolstoy

Wonder No More

Curious what Dan Brown's next literary triumph will be? 
www.slate.com/id/2228327/

If Only....

But Bald Men Wear Wigs

The Age of Hope

Plus ca Change We Can Believe In

politics.theatlantic.com/2009/09/the_obama_administration_wants_congress.php

Quote of the day

Lichtenberg on Books

“If a book and a head collide and make a hollow sound, is that always on account of the book?”

[“Wenn ein Buch und ein Kopf zusammenstoßen und es klingt hohl, is das allemal im Buch?”:]

G.C. Lichtenberg, Sudelbücher., D.396 from Sudelbuch D, (Frankfurt am Main und Leipzig: Insel Verlag, 1984), (1773-1775), p.156.

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Russell Loses His Mind

Bertrand Russell noted, that in the early twentieth century, whilst psychologists were coming to regard mind as more and more material, s...

m_francis @ 2009-09-13T19:07:00

Whitehead on the Inadequacies of Materialism to Account for Materialism

A number of modern modern philosophers have seen the problems inherent in the early modern philosophy of Hume, Descartes, and their ilk.  Whitehead was one; Schroedinger was another.  We might regard them as the demolition crew who tore down positivism so that Popper and his crew could erect something else.  But then, Popper has his problems as well.



“If the cause in itself discloses no information as to the effect, so that...