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The Long View

The Long View 2005-08-17: Bananas & World Domination

It would appear that John won this bet: I would give Bill better odds at the Secretary Generalship than I would Hillary for president. Bananas & World Domination Forget global warming; here's an ecological crisis you can get your teeth into: the We are also told that this

The Long View 2005-08-12: The Discouverie of Witchcraft

I wish I had remembered this post when Spotted Toad made this excellent analysis of why Harry Potter has become a political myth. The Discouverie of Witchcraft The fear expressed by many Christian groups about the influence of occult and Gnostic ideologies on popular culture is by no means ill

The Long View 2005-08-10: Recusant Bears & Bulls Revise History in Extraterrestrial Standard Time

Since by happenstance this post comes up almost exactly 12 years later than it was first published, it manages to be entirely topical with regards to the bombing of Hiroshima. My contribution to the annual event is to remind you how nutty the Japanese government had become in the 1930s

The Long View 2005-08-05: Generations & Revivals

Social survey data continues to show the trends John noted twelve years ago: young Americans are more prudish and conformist and statist than the Baby Boom generation. Generations & Revivals: Here is a bit of Marine Corps propaganda from a Captain B. Quinn about the Americans who are actually fighting

The Long View 2005-08-05: Police Powers; The Skeptical Assassin; The Ironies of ID; The Travelog Not To Be Described

The Aga Khan reportedly protested that the Assassin's Creed series falsified the history of his sect, the Nizaris. I am entirely sympathetic. But falsification may be more than the series is truly capable of, since it features an unusually insipid storyline. I am also sympathetic to John'

The Long View 2005-07-31: Proselytizing; Bad Reviews; Kuiper Belt Trash

I grew up reading Charles Schulz' Peanuts, so any reference to Bulwer-Lytton's famous line immediately brings to mind Snoopy. Proselytizing; Bad Reviews; Kuiper Belt Trash Hillaire Belloc is not my favorite Catholic writer. Nonetheless, much of his work remains interesting, not least those pages in Great Heresies

The Long View 2005-07-27: Incredulity: Justified & Otherwise

I also find that my suspension of disbelief is jarred by things that should be otherwise orthogonal to the story, such as John Constantine's smoking habit. Something like that almost ruined the Name of the Wind for me. Incredulity: Justified & Otherwise I am at a loss to