Feb 03 2025
John Anderton: Why’d you catch that? Danny Witwer: Because it was going to fall. John Anderton: You’re certain? Danny Witwer: Yeah. John Anderton: But it didn’t fall. You caught it. The fact that you prevented it from happening doesn’t change the fact that it was going to happen. [From Minority Report] “Prediction is hard, especially …
Sep 20 2024
…he’s volcanic: The elite wants what we’re now getting: an administrative state where experts who just happen to share all the priorities and prejudices of the elite make all the decisions. Do you wonder why the left is so concerned about controlling academia? Because that’s where experts are made, and you don’t get …
Aug 13 2024
Aren’t you sick of them? I am… and I was one, back when. Experts – sometimes called “authorities” – seem to be everywhere today. And all of them ceaselessly proclaim this or that in stentorian tones. Nutrition experts, who all want to work for a government. Exercise experts, who drop dead while running. …
Apr 28 2024
Normally, the term rent-seeking applies to an attempt to profit without producing anything or offering a valued service. While the use of the term can be tendentious, when a nominally private enterprise rides the coat-tail of some governmental entity, thus compelling others to use its services willy-nilly, the evil is plainly recognizable. To make …
Feb 18 2024
Then keep well away from me: The topic of COVID-19 vaccine shedding has long been controversial, but now, some doctors say it is real. “Shedding is unfortunately real,” said Dr. Pierre Kory at the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) conference in Phoenix, Arizona, in early February. “The FDA (U.S. Food …
Feb 08 2024
If there’s a more misunderstood sociopolitical concept than authority, I’m not aware of it. Most people can’t even answer the key questions: “Are there varieties of authority? If so, what are they? How do they differ?” For today, let’s omit the uses of the word authority to denote high expertise in some subject. …
Nov 15 2023
Some years ago, Dr. Robert Mendelsohn wrote a provocative book titled Confessions of a Medical Heretic. Dr. Mendelsohn’s thesis was essentially that the trend toward medical interventionism – i.e., the willingness of doctors to intrude into the processes of the human body for ever vaguer and less compelling reasons – was accelerating at a …
Sep 15 2023
Most folks have probably encountered a situation like this. You’re arguing on social media with some Lefty, and he copies and pastes some links he dug up on Google as evidence his point of view is right, and you’re just an idiot who hates fact-based rational thought. After all, how can you ignore the opinion …
Apr 22 2023
Your Curmudgeon is coming to believe that “experts” and the relentless promotion thereof exist solely to reinforce “official” BS and intimidate those who see through it. Perhaps he’s even a bit late to the party, as that seems to be a burgeoning recognition among Americans generally. Nevertheless, it’s a notion that deserves some exploration, …
Feb 10 2023
The C.S.O. has another procedure scheduled for later this morning. Once again it will involve a long drive, a lot of cutting (for her) and a lot of waiting (for me), a long drive back, and then postoperative care most of which will fall on my shoulders. When we get back there will be …
Jan 03 2023
…to be as frequently and consistently wrong as the notorious Paul Ehrlich. Nevertheless, the mainstream media can’t seem to stay away from him: CBS’s “60 Minutes” welcomed the new year with a doomsday message from Paul Ehrlich, a well known eugenicist who has called for population control due to ‘limited resources’ on planet …
Apr 22 2022
Persons who develop high expertise in a specialty purely hate to see that specialty abused. That’s certainly the case with me. During my wage-earning years (I refuse to call them my “working years;” I work more and harder today than I ever did when I was getting paid for it), I became an expert …
Feb 25 2022
Ahhh, Friday. Just as with Mondays, even retirees still look forward to them. No, it doesn’t make sense. Does it need to? Have a few squibs before I sit down to compose the main event for today. *** “Experts” Gerard Van der Leun has done so much good stuff for so long …
Feb 09 2022
This is a very short clip, yet critically important. Tucker Carlson asked why public officials ignore the significantly irregular rise in deaths in the last quarter of 2021. Adding “Why aren’t they screaming.” For some reason Charlie Kirk simply did not come up with one particular motivation even though he broke the story. It is …
Oct 04 2021
[Cannot be sung to the tune of “Baubles, Bangles, and Beads.” Don’t even try. Please!] There have been times when, after watching supposedly intelligent people swallow utter bilge in Great-Lakes quantities, I have asked myself “Which of us is crazy? Are we living in Andrew Klavan’s Empire of Lies for real?” The answer …
Jun 03 2021
You knew there was something dodgy, as our English cousins would say, about the way the government and the media heaped endless plaudits on Anthony Fauci. You knew, from the way Big Tech defended Fauci’s pronouncements from contradiction, close scrutiny, or even analytical discussion, that there were reasons to question them—and him. You knew, …
May 31 2021
Good morning, Gentle Readers. I haven’t fallen deathly ill, taken a vow of inscripience (i.e., a vow not to write), or been kidnapped by the Scientologists. I’ve just been working feverishly on a novel you’ll soon be declining to purchase. At any rate, I trust you’ve all had pleasant weekends. Remember that today is …
Apr 26 2021
Some years ago – I hesitate to say how many – a colleague and I got into a wrangle about the compiler he was using in his development work. I’d found a fault in the generated code – I did my debugging in machine language, back then – and, upon comparing it to the …
Apr 09 2021
Those without expertise who nevertheless posture as authorities do so for a range of reasons, but most common among them is the desire to promulgate a falsehood. The causal logic behind this is unfortunately quite compelling. If you want people to believe a thesis that is untrue, when there are sources of information that …
Mar 30 2021
Karl Denninger has produced a compendium of “expert” errors and lies about the Chinese Coronavirus and its social and political outcroppings. It’s an exceptionally useful item that everyone should read. If you’ve harbored suspicions that the Kung Flu has little to do with public health and a lot more to do with the aspirations …
