Fragments of a blog
Fragments of a blog
No matter who gets to occupy the New Shaab Palace and the White House, the Kremlin’s occupants will still have to admit that Russia, viewed as a country rather than merely a strutter on the global stage, is not getting anywhere.…
In the Oregon standoff trial, the defense has presented evidence of FBI infiltration verging into entrapment: Defense lawyers rested in the Oregon standoff case Monday after they called a witness who confirmed he was an informant for the FBI and…
On the other hand… Pro-choicers and pro-lifers are given to hurling accusations at each other, including the inevitable charge of racism. It is said that restricting minority women’s access to abortion would make their lives even harder. Perhaps a good deal…
I wrote this on Sept. 27: The Russian Orthodox patriarch has called for all abortions to be banned, and his Muslim colleague, the mufti, has joined the appeal, but with a provision for termination on medical grounds. A day or…
Himadri, the Argumentative Old Git, is unsurprisingly critical of BBC presenter Jenni Murray’s proposal that children be taught about pornography to inoculate them against its harmful effects. Somewhere along the way, Dame Jenni suggests that porn could be analyzed like, say, Jane Austin’s…
The International Energy Agency’s estimates of global oil demand growth – watch the evolution: May (2016): 1.2 mmbpd y-o-y in 2016. June: 1.3 mmbpd in 2016, 1.3 mmbpd in 2017. July: 1.4 mmbpd in 2016, 1.3 mmbpd in 2017. August:…
I’m trying to put things into the right perspective in response to Sean Guillory‘s post at Publius Pundit.
President Bush has said this: I believe liberty is a universal thought. It’s not an American thought, it is a universal thought. And if you believe that, then you ought to take great comfort and joy in helping others realize…
I have enjoyed Donald Pittenger’s “Peripheral Artists” series as 2Blowhards.com more than any other visual arts text for I don’t remember how long. Here are the installments: Edelfelt Gallén Serov Levitan Vrubel Peripheral Explanation In a similar vein, a post…
Reading this translation thread at LanguageHat‘s, I asked myself: Why is that theories of translations have multiplied in the past, say, four decades, but good translations (of Russian authors into English and vice versa) have not? Also found via comments…
Whoever writes in The Asia Times under the pen name of Spengler must be one of the most intriguing Anglophone columnists. Some of his theological views, if I may call them so, remind me of Lev Shestov, although the Russian…
The great Wagnerian soprano Birgit Nilsson, who died on Christmas Day, 2005, had a great sense of humor. A few years ago, Martha Moedl, Birgit Nilsson and Astrid Varnay gave a talk about their careers for the Bavarian TV. A…