Welcome to the online journal of larvatus. Stable texts are open to the general public. Squibs and sallies, schemes and stratagems, jaunts and taunts, are restricted to friends. Please note that locked texts subject to third party copyright are provided to my friends under the doctrine of fair use, subject to implied consent by all their readers to ( Read more... )

Over sixteen twenty years online, I have received a broad spectrum of threats and pitches, and entertained a commensurate range of slurs and plaudits. This experience has crystallized two iron laws of online communications.

The first law is a corollary of Occam’s razor. No matter what you are promised or threatened on the Internet, the most you ( Read more... )

In stark contrast to rightwing claims, 93% of demonstrations have involved no serious harm to people or property.
- Lois Beckett, “Nearly all Black Lives Matter protests are peaceful despite Trump narrative, report finds”, The Guardian, Saturday 5 September 2020

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In related humanitarian developments, Sherlock Holmes’ 7% solution is nearly drug-free ( Read more... )

Spence (Sean Bean): You ever kill anybody?
Sam (Robert De Niro): I hurt somebody’s feelings once.
- Ronin, written by J.D. Zeik and Richard Weisz, a.k.a. David Mamet, and directed by John Frankenheimer, 1998

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“If your intention is to stop terrorism, do not try to blame the whole population of Muslims for it because it cannot stop terrorism. It will radicalise more terrorists.”
- Malala Yousafzai, 15 December 2015We have before us an interesting example of a political argument, proceeding from a prediction of fact to a prescription of policy. Let us take ( Read more... )

Dear Fred,

Good to hear from you. I appreciate your advice in this matter, but you overestimate my budget and misunderstand my intent. As to the former, I can get into a fully functional Ferret with an operational semiauto Browning M1919A4 for under $20,000. Concerning the latter, my paranoia is well served by driving a Dodge Ram Viper truck. The ( Read more... )

I reproduce and translate below the key fragments of two texts accounting for the strategies that informed the tragic events of this century, from 11 September 2001, to 7 January 2015. ( Read more... )

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Barack Obama [on TV]: It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled…
Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt): Ah, yes, we’re all the same. We’re all equal ( Read more... )

In criminal law, the claim that the deceased victim “needed killing” is known as “the Texas defense”, also designated as “misdemeanor homicide”. On Wednesday, 27 August 2014, a jury acquitted David Barajas of murder at the Brazoria County Courthouse in Angleton, Texas. Barajas had been accused of fatally shooting one Jose Banda in December 2012 ( Read more... )