Category Archives: Miscellany
Long Division
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 13th August 2023Dividing by two isn’t very hard. But if the divisor is large the resultant halves will also be quite large. The disposition of large countries has never been homogeneous no matter the dense accretion of national myths. Typically, there is a degree of truth on either side of internal disagreements. It is rare for one…
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No News
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 28th June 2023The title of this article is what’s available on the numerous TV outlets purporting to be purveyors of news. Their problem is time inflation. There just isn’t that much real news in comparison to the time devoted to its dissemination. The product delivered as “news” is largely devoid of content though enveloped in a sesquipidelian…
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Pronoun Dysphoria
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 27th April 2023Pronoun madness has progressed to the point where even innocuous ones like us and we have been reshaped beyond analysis. Consider the following sentence from a New York Times article about bird flu published on April 23, 2023. The second sentence of the fourth paragraph reads as follows: “The Book of Matthew may assert that…
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Follow the Leader
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th October 2022It (progressivism) is rather as if a nurse had tried a rather bitter food for some years on a baby, and on discovering that it was not suitable, should not throw away the food and ask for a new food, but throw the baby out of window, and ask for a new baby. GK Chesterton…
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Wisdom
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 22nd September 2022Wisdom in an individual is hard to define. One almost has to resort to the Potter Stewart approach: I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it. Here’s a dictionary definition: “The soundness of an action or decision with regard to the application of experience, knowledge, and good judgment.” Neither Stewart or…
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Predicting Violent Behavior II
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 16th May 2022The latest shooting in Buffalo has prompted cries for the government to do something to prevent further events like the one now in everyone’s mind. The problem is that there is no ready solution. Predicting violent behavior is almost impossible. There was a study, now more than 30 years old, that presented case histories of…
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Elon Musk’s Babylon Bee Interview
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 26th December 2021Elon Musk gave a long interview with The Babylon Bee that has received a lot of attention. If you missed it, it’s linked below. The Babylon Bee describes itself as a Christian, conservative, satire online magazine. They were as amazed as was everyone else that the busy industrialist and the world’s richest man (if not,…
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Three Army Recruitment Ads
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 12th December 2021The video below displays three recruitment ads. One for the Chinese Army, the Russian Army, and finally one for the US Army. We seem to be willing to bring a cookie cutter to an artillery fight. We are in big trouble if our ad accurately reflects the warrior ethos of the US Army. One viewer…
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Smaller Brains
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 31st October 2021The human brain is the most complex structure known. As human-like species evolved over several million years into homo sapiens, hominid brain size tripled. Today the average human brain weighs about three pounds. Our nearest primate relative, the chimpanzee, has a brain that weighs less than a pound. Our brains constitute about 2% of body…
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Rationality – Review
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 25th October 2021Rationality is Steven Pinker’s latest book. It’s also one that will leave the reader nonplussed or just thinking “is this all there is”? It contains a relatively brief but accurate introduction to elementary logic and statistics. Bayesian analysis is explained successfully; but I suspect that explanation will be fully grasped only by those who already…
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