For reasons that escape me, the Amazon US search widget was making the blog inaccessible for readers using Chrome or Firefox. I’ve removed the offending item and replaced it with a text link just like this one, below the Amazon UK widget, top right, which seems to work fine. Again, my thanks to all who are using the widgets and links to do their shopping, each time earning a small fee for me at no extra cost to you. It’s much appreciated. Obviously I quiver in anticipation at the prospect of your comments, but it’s the filthy lucre that keeps this barge afloat.

Newcomers are advised that the greatest hits have been updated. If you’d like some idea of what goes on here, it’s a good place to start. As is the reheated series. There are nuggets to be had, not least in the comments.

Also, a note of thanks to all who’ve been using the Amazon search widgets to do their shopping. Any purchase made via the widgets, or via this link (for Amazon US) and this link (Amazon UK), results in a small fee your host at no extra cost to you. Readers are of course welcome to make a donation via PayPal. Think of it as a magazine subscription, a way to keep your host banging on month after month. Or just monetised love. 

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.