I don't see why not. They don't let us toss dwarves anymore. A liberal is an adequate substitute. Especially if you're tossing him over a cliff.

Why am I reminded of a feminist denouncing the Tyranny of the Patriarchy?

You are not.

Teachers no longer grade, schools no longer test for competence at admissions... how long before they stop bothering to teach the students at all?

If I had a kid, I'd probably just enroll him in a street gang. At least he'd learn *something* from the experience.

Royalties on recordings are a relatively new innovation that started with Bing Crosby. Before that, the artists just got paid for the recording session.

Recording royalties have always been on shaky ground, as they were made possible only by being able to commoditize music into little plastic disks that could be sold. Artists made the mistake of viewing them as a form of revenue rather than a form of advertising.

While this might be considered unfair, keep in mind the musician is still a beneficiary even if he gets paid nothing at all for his recording. I'll point out that musicians sure weren't buying mansions in Bel Air and playing to stadium crowds before the advent of the recording and broadcast industries.

If you want to make money in music these days, you have to do it the old-fashioned way - putting butts in seats rather than selling plastic disks.

Definition of a scientist: a political activist that also wants to take credit for advances actually developed by engineers, entrepreneurs and lay inventors.

Is There Hope in New Climate Science?

When I first saw the headline, I was hoping "Is There Hope in New Climate Science?" might be a new Broadway musical. Sadly, it seems to be more of the same hysteria we've been getting for the last 50 years.

Two thumbs down.

We can only hope! The sooner the last of the 60s dementia patients has left the air, the better!

There is one thing they have in their favor - they don't play Neil Young! That's a competitive advantage if ever there was one!

Sounds more entertaining than listening to the music aging Laurel Canyon hippies, anyway. But so is watching the paint dry.

You mean, people who will all be dead in 10 years, and mostly don't use Spotify anyway, assuming they've even heard of it. Yeah, don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya!

Don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya!

It might help if the teachers themselves quit reinforcing that impression.

At least one author would agree you have a point.

Witches, Feminism, and the Fall of the West

The archetype of the "witch" is burnt deep into the European psyche, recurring again and again in folklore and fairytales. But is she merely the stuff of fantasy? Roald Dahl warned that witches don't always don black hats and ride on broom sticks. They "dress in ordinary clothes, and look very much like ordinary women. . . . That is why they are so hard to catch."

In Witches, Feminism and the Fall of the West, Edward Dutton examines the history of witches and witch-hunting in light of evolutionary psychology. Throughout the centuries, witches were ostracized across Europe and often condemned and executed for sorcery and harming children. They generally adhered to a type: witches were low-status, anti-social, and childless, and their very presence was viewed as poisonous to the community. Dutton demonstrates that witches did, in their way, represent a maladaptive mentality and behavior, which undermined Europe's patriarchal system. When times got tough-that is, when Europe got poorer or colder-the witches were persecuted with a vengeance.

Today, the evolutionary situation has been turned on its head. The intense selection pressures of the past have been overcome by the Industrial Revolution and its technological marvels. Modern witches survive and thrive in the postmodern West, still possessed by the motivations and dispositions of their sisters of yore. "Sorcery" (nihilism and self-hatred) is no longer taboo but has become a high-status ideology. Roald Dahl was all-too correct. Witches do exist, and they mean to do us harm.

(Score:5, Funny)