Assistant Village Idiot

I have been listening to sportsguys talking about Ezekiel Elliot's suspension. By the way, sportsguys these days tend to be liberals, ...

I just set a post to be published in a month. I do that occasionally, usually when I am reviewing a book I am giving as a present and don...

I have been busy with many things, including worrying about Ben, who lives north of Houston.  He was trapped in the house, but took no damag...

Experts exist, and some of them are even right. But you can't count on that.  I came upon the historian David L. Hoggan (1923-1988) at ...

A young friend at work told me there was this great SNL routine about a woman in charge of an emergency room, who keeps telling people with...

Ann Althouse is predicting that the news will quickly gravitate to hoping that dealing with it makes Trump look bad (as with Bush and Katri...

For those of you who have been influenced, whether opponents or fans, be aware that Greg Cochran is dicing it up at West Hunter (sidebar).  ...

WRT the stabbings in Turku, Finland. Interior Minister Paula Risikko said on Twitter on 19 August: "Terrorists want to pit people ...

It's overdone.  Oh, I'm sorry, is that a problem for you?  Too bad. Maybe I'll repost some Luv' next.  That'll fix y...

Though people got the general idea very well, I'm not sure they picked up that the "mittens" post was about gun control.

An email correspondent - and a bright up-to-the-minute one - mentioned in response to a comment of mine that he "had forgotten about Sc...

I have wondered about how much of the commentary from the responsible right about neo-nazis was boilerplate, a stating of the obvious in a r...

Every time I read Dalrymple, I kick myself for not remembering to read him more.  

I had occasion to use an old line of mine in an email today: "Statistics don't lie after you force them up against the wall and mak...

The math giveaway: if A is really likely to be true (say, 90%) and B is very likely to follow from that (say, 80% likely), we feel very conf...

The stories I tell myself change over time.  My Christian conversion story (the word "journey" has become a cliche) has been a bit...

I was thinking about relatives long-dead, and a strange loyalty in not doing things that would have upset them. As I was attempting to quick...

I wonder whether we all would have been better served if teaching the young - or anyone, actually - had been regarded as a trade rather than...

Note:  At least four interesting things, none quite what is usual in the popular media, have come in by email or FB about Charlottesville.  ...

Psychiatrist Scott Alexander over at Slate Star Codex , in plugging Frederick DeBoer's essay on the subject , makes the following import...