#MicroReview youtube.com/watch?v=daDqSw… Rudolph Kattnigg's 1934 Piano Concerto is engaging and colorful. The form and orchestration are workaday, but it is vigorous and tuneful, in a basically tonal idiom, with hints of period film scores. Recommended fun.

R.I.P UnsungMasterworks YouTube channel. A real shame, even though they were probably shut down for good reason. I discovered several fascinating composers there.

1/2 - People are sitting in their homes, video conferencing, working & playing on computers, streaming videos, using their smart phones, & hoping not to need the latest medical innovation, all the while complaining about the evil of capitalism & the profit motive...

A civilization that had worked for generations against individual rights, attempts to solve every problem caused by collectivism with--more collectivism, can't expect a police force that respects individual rights. In the long run a civilization gets the police force it deserves.

Certainly I don't want my taxes supporting avowed enemies of the Republic; at the same time, if they withhold funds preferentially, you can't say it's not censorship. The only resolution of the contradiction is to get government out of arts entirely. artreview.com/cuban-chinese-…

The Afghan debacle: from which I conclude that G. Bush either never played Risk or never saw Princess Bride. But why is everyone else acting so surprised?

Wow. Monty Python predicted the future so accurately. Eerie… 😳 So is is this IT? Are we all WOKE now? No pushback?

I find it difficult to take seriously anyone who ever uses the word "societal."

I find it difficult to respect anybody who ever uses the "historical present" tense.

Voting is win-win. If the person you voted for wins, then "yay! -- we won!"; and if they lose, then you don't have to feel partly responsible for all the idiotic shit they were going to do when in office.

The US is experiencing a dangerous shortage of diesel fuel. Blame our anti-fossil-fuel politicians, who: * Prevented us from importing Canadian oil well-suited to our refineries * Prevented or shut down diesel-producing capacity in the US * Threatened new investments in diesel

Swear to God, #Republicans, if you nominate that jackass again I will vote for someone else. Anyone else. I would vote for Bernie Sanders before I would vote for him.

And number 6: The government shouldn't be involved in the decision in the first place. If developers can afford to buy the land, they should do what they want with it. cei.org/blog/five-reas…

If your side of the issue is having to constantly invent new words and slogans for what amount to the same ideas, then your side almost certainly doesn't have reality on its side. Bad ideas flourish though the constant rejuvenation of the fuzzy language that carries them.

A new informal fallacy seen particularly on Twitter: Argumentum ex multis sectatoribus -- argument from number of followers.

It may be that the main job of the 21st century is to learn to understand the 20th.

New from my colleague @ZiemowitGowin: "Why wouldn’t Putin think he could get away with another invasion, if he had gotten away with two previous wars and other crimes?" newideal.aynrand.org/european-appea…

This is the basic phenomenon that has been operational in commercial software for decades now. It's why companies don't write software like Emacs, or if they do, they release it as open source instead of trying to sell it. nothinghuman.substack.com/p/the-tyranny-…

At the end of every chain of causal reasoning stands a smiling gremlin -- smiling or leering, depending entirely upon our own temperament.

I just heard someone unironically use the phrase "unbiased government data."