That's a very different sort of read than your first link. Your first link was basically snark. I laughed a few times, although I didn't agree with where the author was coming from. I didn't come away thinking the author had very much to say.
Go to the root domain of that site, and you find what I think most would agree is right-wing spin on current events.
Your second one is to Peter Norvig, a super-smart person at the top of his field, writing inside his area of expertise. He isn't snarking, or being disrespectful, but he's definitely giving substantive answers to legitimate questions. Norvig clearly has a lot of interesting things to say.
Visit the root domain and you find a bunch of other interesting stuff by Norvig, most of it technical. No axes to grind jump out at me.
Let me first agree with you that the first link was not very HNish.
But I don't think it was mere snark. It was mockery, of quite a high order. In case its not obvious most of the words quoted are actually Chomsky, from http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/200307--.htm
But let me draw some parallels.
PW paraphrases Chomsky as saying "Language has nothing much to do with language"
Norvig paraphrases Chomsky as saying "Observed use of language ... may provide evidence ... but surely cannot constitute the subject-matter of linguistics"
Not so different.
Lastly, you could say Chomsky might even take more offense at Norvigs calling him 'Mystic' and likening him to Bill O'Reilly!
Anyway, I don't take PW so seriously, but he is quite entertaining.
