St Moritz—The lack of snow drove me to the Engadine valley and the queen of ski resorts, St Moritz. Mind you, the queen is no longer what she once was. In the beginning of the last century, St Moritz was the indisputable numero uno winter spot.  European aristocracy flocked there for amusement and sport. Downhill skiing had not as yet been invented, but there was curling, toboganning, and following the latter,  the bob and cresta runs which saw brave young blades risking their necks after a night spent dancing and pursuing the fairer sex. In between the wars St Moritz reached … 
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“How do you do, Mr Podhoretz?” “Quite well, Mr. Frum and you?” “And where might you be going, sir?” “I’m looking for a war, how ‘bout you?” “Well, let me help you find it, for I’m looking for one too.” Together: I’ve never seen a war I didn’t like, the bombs, the guns, the tanks and all the planes, and soldiers shooting everywhere and landscapes now all bare, they tell you that the losses are not losses but are gains. No, we’ve never seen a war we didn’t like, with cities going up in brilliant flames, and all the carnage and … 
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Quest is a quaint little glossy magazine of regulated circulation (50,000)  and the greatest demographics in the world—the upper east side of Manhattan. It is a lifestyle monthly, a Vanity Fair for superannuated WASPs on the social register. It was started 25 years ago by a nutty English woman, Heather Cohane, and is now owned by Chris Meigher III, an ex Time-Life honcho who has really made it click. It’s the way we were before Ralph Lauren stole our style. I’ve been a columnist for Quest since seven long years and have never missed a deadline. In Spring, Quest always runs … 
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If you’ve read A. Millar’s excellent piece on the assault on British nationhood being conducted by its ruling elites, who use ethnic minorities as a wedge to “divide and rule” the populace through bureaucratic diktats, you’ll know why I was so moved by “Roots,” a song by the British folk/rock band Show of Hands. It’s about time that Englishmen were permitted to feel patriotic again—and it’s particularly healthy to see a patriotism arising from a love of what Chesterton called “Little England,” instead of a vanished (and ultimately self-destructive) Empire. It’s a brave, moving, entirely positive song about the need to … 
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Last October, a Syrian Orthodox priest, Fr. Boulos Iskander, went shopping for auto parts in the Iraqi city of Mosul. He was never seen alive again. A Muslim group kidnapped him and initially demanded $350,000 in ransom; they eventually lowered this to $40,000, but added a new demand: Fr. Boulos’ parish had to denounce the remarks made the previous month by Pope Benedict XVI that caused rioting all over the Islamic world. The ransom was paid, and the church dutifully posted thirty large signs all over Mosul, but to no avail: Fr. Boulos was not only murdered but dismembered. Five hundred … 
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For men to choose to kill the innocent as a means to their ends is always murder, and murder is one of the worst of human actions.  So the prohibition on deliberately killing prisoners of war or the civilian population is not like the Queensbury Rules: its force does not depend on its promulgation as part of positive law, written down, agreed upon, and adhered to by the parties concerned. —Elizabeth Anscombe, “Mr. Truman’s Degree” In 1956, Oxford philosopher and Catholic convert Elizabeth Anscombe published a little pamphlet entitled “Mr. Truman’s Degree,” in which she explained her reasons for opposing the … 
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It’s pretty darned frosty here in New York City, at last. It took so long for cold weather to kick in that I became even more paranoid about global warming than I already have been. (And no, I’m not reassured by the four or five scientists whom the coal industry has rounded up to reassure us “Keep moving, folks, nothing to see here.” These climatologists are the 21st century equivalent of the doctors once hired by the Tobacco Institute to argue that smoking helped keep your lungs germ-free, and the doctors working for Big Pharma who argue that birth control pills … 
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The neocons who helped bamboozle the U.S. into its current futile war—and are ginning Americans up for the next one—claim that their actions and disinformation tactics were undertaken for the moral good of the world. The mind reels at their continued arrogance after the disaster of Iraq. Secure in their think tanks and comfortable government pensions, these Fifth Column fanatics have not had the grace to even do a mea culpa after the destruction they have caused. To the contrary, the leading warmonger, William Kristol, has been provided with a column in Time Magazine in order to spread his poison to … 
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Gstaad. There’s more happy dust to be found indoors around here than powder on the slopes. Last week I drove to the Diableret glacier and skied my legs off trying to catch up. At 3000 meters—the maximum height the old prop planes used to reach when crossing the Atlantic—and upwards, the white stuff was perfect. (I mean the snow on the ground).  Although I smoke non-filter Camels and drink the heavy stuff, my lungs felt perfect. My feet hurt like hell, however, and I became convinced while skiing that I had gangrene, or something equally disgusting. After two hours I could … 
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Having already seen ample evidence that the neocon Evil Empire is wild about Rudy Giuliani and supports him enthusiastically for president, last week I encountered further proof courtesy of Jonah Goldberg, who is syndicated in the Lancaster New Era. Although our evening paper pretends to be on the center-right, in contrast to its equally narcoleptic morning counterpart, which is Democratic, most of the items in both papers come out of decidedly leftist news services. The featured columnists every evening are unfailingly neoconservatives, so much so that after several nights of the assorted maunderings of that predictable Bushite windbag Cal Thomas, I … 
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