Few people are wise enough to prefer useful criticism to treacherous praise. -La Rochefocauld "Thousands of records are being brutalized all over Asia, which is by far the most extreme event in

I distrust every idea that doesn't seem obsolete and grotesque to my contemporaries. -Nicols Gmez Dvila In 1980, 6.5% of the US population was hispanic. In 2000, 12.5% of the population

We all have enough strength to bear the troubles of other people. -La Rochefocauld Call someone an isolationist or an anti-war activist, call it a sin tax or a progressive tax, call it an incenti

"Any fool can lampoon a king or a bishop or a billionaire. A trifle more grit is required to face down a mob, or even a studio audience, that has decided it knows what it wants and is entitled to get

"Taste is relative" is the excuse adopted by those eras that have bad taste. -Nicols Gmez Dvila A man gave his coat to a homeless bum and the homeless bum up and stole his wallet as thanks.

Happy Easter! I discuss the enslavement of perhaps 1,000,000 white/Christians by the barbary pirates and the man who finally brought that trade to an end. "And the more I considered Christianit

Seems like just yesterday Conan O'Brien et al were telling us about what a lovely place Haiti was, on account of Trump said it wasn't. As the corpses are roasting in the streets, join me on a stroll

It has been said critically that there is a tendency in many armies to spend the peace time studying how to fight the last war. January-February 1929, The Military Engineer, Some Notes on the Wor

Utopian ideologies invite genocide for two reasons. One is that they set up a pernicious utilitarian calculus. In a utopia, everyone is happy forever, so its moral value is infinite. Most of us agree

We dance round in a ring and suppose, But the Secret sits in the middle and knows. -Robert Frost. "The Secret Sits" (1942) @psychiconfire makes a good point on Twitter. Sometimes it is impos