Some deeply warped Christmas humor here . Now,
this Santa might get me the presents I really want. Like,
say, a custom-tuned Baer .45 semiauto. Or Liv Tyler, fetchingly
attired in nothing but a pair of Arwen ears.
I actually did get a really peculiar Christmas present from a
stranger this morning. It was a gourmet [...]

I’ve on hiatus for a bit while I wrap up my next book, The Art Of Unix Programming.
Blogspot comments

One of the overdue lessons of 9/11 is that we can’t afford to sneer
at physical courage any more. The willingness of New York firemen,
Special Forces troops in Afghanistan, and the passengers of Flight 93
to put their lives on the line has given us most of the bright spots
we’ve had in the war against terror. [...]

A friend of mine, Russ Cage aka Engineer-Poet, comments on my essay
Demographics
and the Dustbin of History:

People used to have children to take care of them in their old age.
Social Security took care of this by socializing the benefits, but all
of the costs still fell to individuals; worse, taking time out of the
workforce to raise kids [...]

Karl Zinsmeister’s essay Old and In The Way presents a startling — but all too plausible — forecast of Europe’s future. To the now-familiar evidence of European insularity, reflexive anti-Americanism, muddle, and geopolitical impotence, Zinsmeister adds a hard look at European demographic trends.
What Zinsmeister sees coming is not pretty. European populations are not [...]