Taki's Daily Blog
One amusing aspect of the New York Times’s coverage of the government takeovers of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae is that throughout the Gray Lady’s 2000-word lead essay, it’s never once mentioned that the two lending institution have, well, already been federal organizations for the past 70 years (!). The latest “nationalization” is not too different from the government deciding to … [Read More]
That Bill Kristol, neocon bellwether and house intellectual of the McCain-led GOP, would have nice things to say about Sarah Palin, would even have floated her selection as VP two months ago (!), should furrow the collective brow of all of us in the alternative Right who can barely contain our excitement over the Alaskan governor. [Hat tip to Aaron Biterman … [Read More]
Before 85,00 adoring fans, the man of “Hope” and “Change” finally got down to specifics and told us who he really is and what he really plans to do as president. Well, sort of… Energy Independence in 10 years (a timeline politicians typically reserve for impossible tasks) was joined by a pretty conventional grab bag of federal goodies: public school teachers … [Read More]
I grew up in the age of the party convention as “everything’s already been decided” made-for-TV special, and thus I have a certain vicarious nostalgia for the days when these get-togethers were rowdy, contested, dramatic affairs—when, say, Bill Rusher was calling out orders to delegates on the floor via walky-talky while organizing the unlikely nomination of Barry Goldwater in ’64. Something … [Read More]
In one of his best TAC columns, Fred Reed took issue with the kind of contrived story telling engaged in by many of the practitioners of so-called “evolutionary psychology,” including one fellow, whom Reed came across, who’d just written an article expanding on the subject of why guys like the girls with big knockers. It’s all about the reproductive strategic signalling, … [Read More]
Declining “the West"--Why It’s Past Time We Got Out of NATO
In a 1955 foreign-policy cabinet meeting, Dwight Eisenhower is reported to have remarked, “Adenauer’s the West’s ace in the hole.” The president was of course referring to the chancellor of the German Federal Republic, Konrad Adenauer, who was at the time rather assiduously pursuing good relations with Washington and taking the lead in the establishment of various international institutions: from the … [Read More]
Near Astor Place, you can actually sit in a Starbucks, enjoy a venti latte, and look out across the street onto—another Starbucks. I’m sure there are many other places where such a thing is possible. During the big Starbucks expansion in the late ’90s and early ’00s, it seem that one might not be able to escape the green logo of … [Read More]
In response to the movement of Russian troops into Georgia this morning, State Department spokesperson Amanda Harper announced to the German press: “We support Georgia’s territorial integrity and we call for an immediate ceasefire.” Senator McCain was even more forceful, demanding, “Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory.” Both statements are … [Read More]
As the story goes, Pauline Kael “couldn’t believe Nixon won in ’72,” as everyone she knew voted for McGovern. The quotation is probably spurious, but that makes it no less suitable as an epigraph for cultural life on the Isle of Bagel. And this holds for the New York-centered publishing establishment, which, as Harry Stein explains in his informative article for … [Read More]
Heather Mac Donald has a nice piece on gender inequality in math and science and the New York Times’s efforts to wish it all away: The New York Times is determined to show that women are discriminated against in the sciences; too bad the facts say otherwise. A new study has “found that girls perform as well as boys on standardized … [Read More]