Monthly Archives: January 2015

From Kenan Malik  comes this discussion (to me via 3QuarksDaily) of the ‘Kennewick Man’ controversy (which, it seems, basically boils down to the question of whether modern indigenous tribes have a right to claim the bones of Starfleet Captain Luc Picard  – who … Continue reading →

Prompted by Michael Walzer’s piece on Islamism and the Left in ‘Dissent Magazine’ (to which I was led by Jeffrey Goldberg’s report in ‘The Atlantic’ on French PM Manuel Valls’ resistance to the term “islamophobia” ). The Zealotry of Righteous Assholes is a universal … Continue reading →

Briggs is certainly right that much of what is touted as ‘Artificial Intelligence’ is just the use of electronic machinery to implement the calculations in a method devised by human intelligence. Indeed, for now that really is all that computers … Continue reading →

Suis-je Charlie? Muss ich Charlie werden? Why am I not Charlie? Perhaps I am *not* Charlie, but if I am not Charlie, then I *must* be Ahmed! I have often (well, at least occasionally) loved Charlie Hebdo with a love … Continue reading →

D.G.Mayo has reproduced Nathan Schachtman’s post on Naomi Oreskes’ op-ed in the NYTimes – and of course Briggs also chimes in. I have to admit that I find Oreskes’ piece less than compelling and in many ways seriously wrong. Her main point … Continue reading →

I actually thought it was a pretty good movie, but in her review of The Imitation Game: A Smart Person’s Fantasy, Emma Green at The Atlantic encourages the reader to confound fantasy and reality. The creators of a movie, presented as … Continue reading →