What a Rich Pyre!, by Russell Setiz Being a poem in the style of “Under Which Lyre?” WH Auden’s adieu to WWII, which Norman Podhoretz ought to have read before taking the poet’s name in vain in his epic fantasy, World War IV.   The Bushies at last have quit the field, The Weekly Standard’s bloodstains yield   To seeping showers, … [Read More]

The cultural contrast between intriguing guests and apparently brain dead yack TV hosts has John Derbyshire lamenting :   ” It’s not the dumbing-down that bothers a lot of us fogeys so much, it’s the loss of interest in things and stuff.” I’ll say- gone are the days when   Massachusetts and California overflowed with the not so wretched refuse of … [Read More]

The road to the White House often intersects the path of rapidly moving projectiles.  Bravely volunteering to put themselves and their horses, naval vessels and airplanes into the way of arrows bullets , cannonballs torpedoes, and the odd destroyer launched Jackson, Tyler, Lincoln, Grant, Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Bush 41 into the Oval Office ,and Senator McCain’s close encounter with a … [Read More]

In Leaderless Jihad, former Foreign Service Officer Marc Sageman, now a University of Pennsylvania professor,distills what he learned from years of reading the daily feed of intelligence, both classified and open source,  streaming through the State Department. But Sageman is no mere desk warrior—he went to see the forces of terror in action on their own turf in Afghanistan, and has … [Read More]

In what may count as the first wine commercial starring a Wahabi mullah, Omar Al-Sweilem waxes lyrical on what awaits the suicide bombing classes on the first 72 of their 1001 Arabian nights in Paradise: the text hardly does credit to Al Sweilem’s performance, which I suggest you lay back on your musk scented cushions and view here in its John … [Read More]

This morning, a bottle hit the Manhattan island shore, containing a rather distressing log from The Weekly Standard‘s annual Caribbean Cruise. It seems that things have gone terribly awry aboard the dreadnaught HMS Hegemonic. Bimini: Great news—no going back to Fort Lauderdale. The good ship Hegemonic has just been bought by some Greek tycoon who thinks we deserve a longer vacation! … [Read More]

After the 1964 election, a book appeared damning Conservatism’s debut as a “brute assault on the entire intellectual world” and charging, “Republicans as a party have been alienating intellectuals deliberately, as a matter of taste and strategy.” This withering critique of the politics of Senator Goldwater and his spokesman Ronald Reagan came not from Bill Moyers but a recently graduated … [Read More]

Kim Jung-Il’s dictatorial taste in cinema, cuisine, and above all public sculpture remains deeply mysterious, witness the fusion of folk culture and socialist realism in the Lunar Rabbit Zodiac Memorial installed at Pyongyang’s uninhabitable 105 story Pyramid Hotel. While a symphony orchestra can be sent to the DPRK in reasonable expectation of returning unscathed from a state banquet, rabbits are another … [Read More]

They dream strange academic dreams in far Northern Norway, where the Aurora Borealis can blaze until the Midnight Sun rises over a seat of learning equidistant from Rome and the North Pole. When the sun does rise over the University of Tromso, the air up there will start to warm more avidly than in normal climes. In the land of long … [Read More]

From Climate of Here Is a conservative climate consensus possible? If hard cases make bad law, soft science makes sensible politics even harder. The Climate Wars present legislators on both sides of the aisle with few certainties, among them that one side is prone to construe any human impact on climate as tantamount to Weather of Mass Destruction. It does … [Read More]