I had an interesting, but friendly and therefore short conversation about the appeal of Sarah Palin last night. My interlocutor was appalled that someone so un-brilliant can be considered so seriously as a political figure. The President, he said, should be brilliant and intellectual. I said, you've already got that' [...]
Information isn't power. Power is power.
I don't understand economics. I'd like to think I do, but there are some secrets behind it that I don't quite get intellectually. I think I understand them on a gut level and my gut is telling me to inform my opinion with the skepticism [...]
I have two thoughts regarding this matter, one of them somewhat unkind and provocative (thus the title of this blogpost) the other a bit more subtle.
First the subtle one, and the official establishment of Cobb's Rule #23: Internet links are weak links.
Borne of personal experience [...]
There's no way to get around the fact that today is both my 15th wedding anniversary and Thanksgiving.
This is a big deal year and yet not. Crystal, say the doyennes, is the appropriate material for my giving. But what's crystal clear to me is that there are high elevations which [...]
About a year ago, somebody asked:
I enjoyed reading the post but am confused by your response to Snacks stating that you support mature, responsible gay relationships but because the motivation for gay marriage is not purely protection of the minority you are against gay marriage. My question to you is why should the [...]
This is better than Lefkowitz vs Bernal.
Briffa is now a name that will go down in history, with Al Gore as one of the greatest perpetrators of fraud in the modern world. Steve McIntyre will go down in history, rather like the man who finally stopped Senator Joe McCarthy by [...]
It has been a long time since I've seen anybody left of Akindele articulate (well, there's a loaded word) any semi-serious black community organizing principles. But there's a dude by the handle of FreeMan who has put up some structure and a multipoint manifesto.
FreeMan is outrageous, optimistic, excitable, intelligent,' [...]
Just needed to lift these from Hitchens to have a reference here at Cobb. I'm doing some post-facto witch hunting.
1) Hasan had been in direct correspondence with a notorious preacher of violence, Anwar al-Awlaki, whose enthusiasm for the teachings and actions of al-Qaida has long been well-known to researchers and intelligence' [...]
Bill Whittle has got my attention again, although he's less brilliant than observant this time around at Afterburner. He explains something we all know - Republicans suck at branding, marketing and the otherwise seductive art of getting people to trust what's inside by making what's outside very attractive. When [...]
I have stopped being surprised at the depth to which conspiracy theorists have stooped to blame the rocking of their worlds by the phenomenon of white supremacy. Now that I realize that their primary and permanent audience are peasants, I rather expect it.
Since, according to these fanatics, the GOP [...]
I've picked up three histories by Niall Ferguson having decided that I'd rather not try to hack the regional ban on his audiobooks over here in the states. I'm starting with War of the World, which I've been meaning to get since Beevor's Stalingrad months ago. Also, as you can [...]
Note: Pop culture is supposed to be popular. It has to be easy. It has to be cute.
[...]So I was in an elevator full of men who were wearing the team colors of the Cleveland Browns. They grumbled aloud and boldly that there wouldn't ever be any Baltimore Ravens fans anywhere near. I thought better of making a joke.
My reading of Ferguson is on a brief hiatus,' [...]
Republicans are responsible, by and large for all of the tax abatements that are given by states. So states are going broke. There is a conservative principle behind this principle of 'no new taxes' and it is a fundamental and righteous principle. That principle is the defunding of the welfare [...]
"Shepherd doesn't care about danger close."
If you play Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 2 on Normal, you will finish it in eight hours. If you play in on one of the more advanced levels, you'll probably have too much time to think about it. I did not want to think [...]
Let us pray for our brothers and sisters as they go forth with courage and determination to face the forces of violence, weapons of destruction and hearts filled with hate.
For our Commander-In-Chief, and our political and military leaders that they may tirelessly seek peaceful settlements to international [...]
I'm checking out Naim Akbar, who in my opinion, used to be the man back in 1983. As I'm listening to him now it occurs to me that without such folks, we would not talk about slavery. Now I cannot speak for many other people's families, but in mine the [...]
Everywhere I go, amongst people of the middle and especially the upper middle class, I keep hearing this phrase: "It is what it is. Some of the time when I hear it, it is uttered with some frustration. But lately I hear people saying it with a kind of confidence, a" [...]
ATROPINE SULFATE
BACITRACIN [...]
Seven years, 750 thousand hits. 25 thousand comments. 7400 posts.
It ain't a book, but I always said I'm a writer, not an author.
Was it as good for you as it was for me?
Cobb has accomplished about six missions for me. It has given me a stupendous sense of achievement. [...]
A thoughtful reader just passed on this interesting tidbit from a recent Gallup survey:
The United States is the top desired destination country for the 700 million adults who would like to relocate permanently to another country. Nearly one-quarter (24%) of these respondents, which translates to more than 165 million [...]
I think we just had election day last Tuesday. Yep. That's true. so it has been a year. So let's just narrow it down to one, big, fat unavoidable fact. Obama is breaking his neck to pass a government funded health care insurance plan. I am reminded of the woman [...]
I have begun to use Google Scholar more and more often. One of these days JSTOR is going to be free, and I will use it even more. For now, the guilds of academia are using economic jiujitsu to force peasants to read uncited unreviewed material and use a bit [...]
"The reason a meritocracy works is that all the members of an organization operate under a single consistent set of rules. What political correctness does is overlay a second, or even a third set of unspoken rules on top of the formal ones. Suddenly nobody knows what gives and the system seems not only" [...]
Willie got straight A's, was a Jehovah's Witness and wore a hearing aide, and so even though they were archrival footballers, the boys in Silas accepted' [...]
Over at the Respectable Negroes and TCoates as Adam shared with me, there's an old discouraging existential battle going on. It is the battle between the essential and the merely black.
The pique is some highschool teacher somewhere in the South is losing his job because he presumed that his students [...]
If you asked the premier rock critics, at the time I was young and impressionable and on the outside looking in at your America, they would tell you the greatest and most socially significant song from the greatest and most socially significant band would be Eleanor Rigby from The Beatles. [...]
Nocturnes.
I have a fairly long playlist which starts almost always with Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. I first started to go to bed every night to Beethoven back in 92. It's odd how I got into the rap criticism stuff last week without giving anyone much of an idea of what [...]
"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows."
It would be foolishly speculative to assign a particular motive to the mass murder perpetrated yesterday to Army Major Nidal M. Hasan. But that hasn't stopped people from their agendas of spin. Such' [...]
I can't remember the last time I wrote a pure diary entry. I've been pontificating a while. So it occurs to me at 11:34pm Eastern time that I've created something of a unique voice for myself, taking as a primary cue some dude named John Cheever of whom I haven't [...]
I'm now on the lookout for the word 'homophobic' to describe in negative terms any article of cultural criticism. When I find it, I will automatically assume the critic is a wuss and then make appropriate adjustments.
There are, among my contemporaries, several or maybe few, who cannot seem to get' [...]
I'm reading Christopher Hitchens' reflections on his various debates with religious authorities et al, and I think it is very tempting to confuse faithfulness with adherence to doctrine. He says:
Usually, when I ask some Calvinist whether he is really a Calvinist (in the sense, say, of believing that I will end up [...]
I've been hearing that the Obama Administration has been spending a lot of energy trying to punch Fox News in the nose. I concur with those who say this is a demeaning and petty use of presidential power. But that Obama is using it at all suggests to me that' [...]
Somebody out there thinks that an Apple gaming platform would be really nice. That somebody is obviously not a gamer.
The quick and dirty answer to the question of whether or not Apple could float a decent gaming platform out there is yes. yes in lowercase letters. If a reasonably priced [...]
