The Adventures of Shylock Holmes

From LibertarianCitizen Ha! (via TJIC )

Psychological constraints are real constraints. People act as if they're not - because you can't see the process driving them, you s...

- Incentives? Who gives a damn about incentives ? -Partly in regards to this , Obama was asked what Donald Trump has against him . Good q...

Do friends and colleagues accuse you of being 'too masculine' or 'too heteronormative'? Thankfully, today's selection of...

Sometimes it's hard to know whether stupid-sounding statements by politicians are genuinely believed, or just thrown out there for the r...

People are apparently still surprised that when you take a country like Egypt and remove most of the forces ensuring law and order (however ...

The setup has been done many times (Bob Dylan's 'With God On Our Side' being a classic example), but the mark of a great comedia...

"Put your most important content at the top of your slides." Interesting.

...when you're mentally ill. Hacker News linked to this very interesting article in the Washington Post by Paul Gionfriddo, talking a...

From Pax Dickinson : "Mr. President, would the US be better off today if you'd been prosecuted for smoking pot as a youth, or are...

- Entirely Alive! defends giving the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union . I tend to agree. Let's put it this way - it's a hell...

I loathe graffiti. Courts tend to view it as a petty crime, just kids letting off steam. But I find it aesthetically angering in a way tha...

Do it . I dare you .

Famed internet movie critic Jabrody  has a list of the 50 most memorable movie characters, parts 26-50 , 11-25 and 1-10 . Check it out. I...

 ( image credit ) If you're at the zoo with educated types, a frequent complaint you'll hear is about the cruelty of keeping t...

If you want further evidence that the Dredd idea about order is a reactionary one, consider this great statement of principle from famous r...

Reddit is the home to more-educated-than-average teenagers and twentysomethings. As a result, they post a bunch of interesting and funny s...

As part of your introverted correspondent's mission to understand social conventions, I find myself interested in what personal question...

If you've ever had cause to say 'I'm not like those other guys', it is certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are, in f...

The new Judge Dredd movie is actually surprisingly good. It's at 76% on Rotten Tomatoes , which is unusually high for an action movie. ...

I was in an English-themed pub on Friday night (in the US of A), watching the Australian Rules Football Grand Final. I don't know why, b...

What charities say on their reply-paid envelopes: Your stamp on this envelope adds to your gift! What charities should  say on their repl...

Barack Obama recently made a speech at the UN talking about the recent attacks on the US Embassy in Benghazi, and the anti-Islamic film tha...

I keep telling 'em , but they just don't listen . Not a Shylock Holmes reader, clearly.

Every time I hear EU politicians speak (other than a few hilarious exceptions ), I like to mentally play a game called 'Six Degrees of ...

One of the things I miss the most by living in an urban environment is the fact that you don't get to see the stars in the evening.  Som...

Point: Counterpoint: "I tried all in my power to avert this war. I saw it coming, and for twelve years I worked night and day to p...

Over at Hacker News comes another story of patent trolls at PersonalWeb trying to use the legal system to extort money out of a company that...

What a disgrace. What a complete, disgusting disgrace . Ken at Popehat points out , correctly, that this guy has potentially violated his ...

From a few days ago : In the likely event that no serious military response is forthcoming, let me advance the following prediction: Expect ...

Athenios writes to disagree with my previous post : "Sometimes, your posts are pure genius."  Thanks! "Other times, they ar...

So this is  where "democratic" revolution in Libya has gotten us. Some nobody in the US makes a film months ago saying nasty thing...

George Gershwin is rolling in his grave every time you play your sh***y bastardised adult contemporary version of 'Rhapsody in Blue'...

Athenios and I sometimes frequent the restaurant Fogo De Chao . It's one of those all-you-can-eat Brazilian steakhouses. They give you a...

The great David Foster Wallace, describing the mindset of the suicidal: “The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill h...

If I had to submit a candidate for the category of 'music video that adds most to the underlying song', this would have a very good ...

Great sentences from Steve Sailer : Robot & Frank raises the metaphysical question of what makes something human. Can simulacra easily ...

There was a CNN article on Hacker News recently complaining about the amount of wasted food in America today. Forty percent of food in the...