For readers who missed last week’s fundraising post, this blog is now an Amazon affiliate. Which means that, should you do any shopping via this link in the UK, or this link in the US, or using the Amazon search widgets at the top left and right of this page, your host receives a small fee at no extra cost to you. If that’s not an incentive to shop, and shop deliriously, I don’t know what is. 

Among the items already bought this way are several books found on my own shelves, including Fabian Tassano’s excellent Mediocracy, a sort of devil’s dictionary of modern inversions and dishonesties; David Horowitz and Jacob Laksin’s One-Party Classroom, an eye-widening overview of dogma and question-begging masquerading as education; and Thomas Sowell’s no less marvellous Intellectuals and Society, which was discussed here and here. An extract:

If you happen to believe in free markets, judicial restraint, traditional values, etc., then you are just someone who believes in free markets, judicial restraint and traditional values. There is no personal exaltation resulting from those beliefs. But to be for “social justice” and “saving the environment” or to be “anti-war” is more than just a set of beliefs about empirical facts. This vision puts you on a higher moral plane as someone concerned and compassionate, someone who is for peace in the world, a defender of the downtrodden…

In short, one vision makes you somebody special and the other vision does not. These visions are not symmetrical. Because the vision of the anointed is a vision of themselves as well as a vision of the world, when they are defending that vision they are not simply defending a set of hypotheses about external events, they are in a sense defending their very souls – and the zeal and even ruthlessness with which they defend their vision are not surprising under these circumstances.

Should anyone feel compelled to make a direct contribution to the upkeep of this blog, and thereby boost my self-esteem, there’s a PayPal button top left. And by all means use the comments to suggest other items of possible interest. And thanks to Pierce. 

Patrons are reminded that this rickety barge is kept afloat by the kindness of strangers. If this place has entertained you during the last few months – say, with things like these – then by all means feel free to monetise your love. Think of it as a magazine subscription. Or an act of nobility in a cruel, cruel world. 

I’ll just leave this here, should you feel the urge. 

Update: 

The keen-eyed among you may have noticed that Amazon search widgets have appeared at the top left and right of this page, for the US and UK respectively. Any items bought via the widgets will result in a small fee for your host at no extra cost to you. Now you can indulge your consumerist lust with the loftiest possible motive. 

Incidentally, this blog is six years old today. So cake for everyone.

As this blog is now four years old – and despite conventions of modesty and good taste – I thought I’d air some of the kind words aimed this way during that period. (The unkind words, a much longer and more expressive list, can wait for another day.)

One of my favourite blogospherical institutions is David Thompson’s Friday Ephemera. No matter what else may be happening in the world, there, every Friday, they are… A couple of clicks will get me to things like… a horse in a car… a sex toys chess set… a cat with bionic legs… (Brian Micklethwait, Samizdata.)

Brilliantly analytical stuff. Go there now. (Libertarian Alliance.)

Particularly astute. (FIRE.)

Inestimably wonderful… Thompson has the Olympian detachment to see the posturing of radical academics for what it is. (Pirate Ballerina.)

David Thompson has done yeoman work in documenting some of the worst excesses of PC thought disorders in education. (Shrinkwrapped.)

Cool, cultured and cynical. (Fabian Tassano, Mediocracy.)

Brilliant skewering. (Nick M, Counting Cats in Zanzibar.)

Intelligent, funny and very sharp. (Paul Saxton.)

If you’re my kind of conservative, you should really be reading David Thompson (this post is a killer), who was pointed out to me, strangely enough, by none other than Canada’s favourite pinko, Dr Dawg.  (Olaf Raskolnikov, Prairie Wrangler.)

David Thompson, a British ‘muscular liberal’ commentator (on the right, where I sit, although he objects to that description), runs one of the most elegant blogs in the ‘sphere, truly a thing of beauty. I agree with barely a word the man says, but he says it so well. (Dr Dawg.)

David Thompson’s blog is a consistently interesting read, but where I think he really outdoes himself is with his weekly ‘Friday Ephemera’ slot. Today is no exception; you can meet the man who’s collected his own navel fluff since 1984 (and see pics of 25 years of lint and the jars he stores them in); video of the International Space Station, eerily floating 360 km above the camera; a rundown on the world’s most impressive bank vaults; and a mirror made of wood. Actually made of wood… Utterly sound, consistently fascinating, never predictable. (Mr Eugenides.)

The artful, applied essence of incisive, muscular, game-changing ridicule. You could spend a year of weekends in his archives. (EBD, Small Dead Animals.)

Oh, and during his time at Protein Wisdom, Dan Collins saw fit to compare your host, favourably, with Kate Beckinsale in a skintight leather catsuit – a comparison that has more than once robbed me of a good night’s sleep. If you’ve found this rickety barge at all entertaining over the last four years, please note that it’s kept afloat not by advertising or a secret private fortune, but by readers’ donations. Regarding which, buttons can be found below.

And thank you.