The reason I write this is because I just received a bill from the yard where I keep my boat. In the south of France. I wouldn’t wish it on the Kagans. Or perhaps I would. Owning a boat, especially a sailing yacht, is like having a beautiful mistress with your wife’s approval. This is the good news. The bad is that a boat is even more expensive than a high class courtesan. Boats have always been considered feminine. Sailors refer to them as “she,”  and for good reasons. They’re capricious, unpredictable, trouble, and offer momentary, exquisite pleasure which nevertheless make … 
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Most Americans are unaware of it, but in the country which gave birth to the rights which they take for granted, the home of the Magna Charta and the Mother of Parliaments, free speech is not what it used to be. Under the seemingly innocuous guise of preventing racial violence, the British government in 1976 passed the Race Relations Act, which made it a crime to “incite racial hatred.” Students of bureaucracy will not be surprised to learn that the definition of “incite” and “racial hatred” used in enforcing this law has proved extremely elastic—and served as a tool for government … 
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Since his rise to the Russian presidency in late 1999, Vladimir Putin has represented to the Western media and political class an infuriating obstacle that needs to be removed and a kind of politics that they regard as utterly abhorrent. Increasingly savage criticisms of Putin and his regime have over the past 4-5 years flooded the pages of a certain kind of putatively conservative magazine and newspaper—periodicals which evinced little interest in Russia when it was being misgoverned by the inebriated Boris Yeltsin, and looted by the Communist kleptocrats he put in charge of “privatizing” (i.e. confiscating) its massive state enterprises. … 
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The Boston Globe praises Saudi Arabia and its rulers for its diplomatic finesse in brokering a cease-fire between Hamas and Fatah. This is the way it should be. When someone finally does something good, they should be praised. Up to a point, that is. For far too long the Saudi ruling kleptocracy—because that’s all it really is—has bought safety for itself by paying off regional thugs and relying on the American safety umbrella. Personally I cannot ever forget that the first thing the Bush administration did following 9/11 was to fly Saudi ruling family relations to safety. In other words, away … 
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Oh, to be in England! The once upon a time green and pleasant land is now Europe’s burglary capital, the most violent country in the old continent, Albania included. It’s gotten so bad that the paralyzed Blair government has reverted to television slogans such as: “Don’t moan, take action: it’s your street too.” Sure, and pigs may fly. In Britain’s mean streets taking action is taking your life in your hands. One wrong look and some ethnic minority—a protected species—will knife you quicker than you can say John Bull. Blair’s cool Britannia has made it virtually impossible for neighbourhoods to protect … 
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Dear Wordworm, I received your recent note, which was rife with glee as you reflected on the ongoing string of statements made by American Catholic bishops and lay politicians in support of unregulated immigration into that country. You positively gloated at the temporary alliance of the Enemy’s most short-sighted clerics with politicians who are so thoroughly in our pocket that at times “one almost forgets that they are not yet in Hell, but still technically alive”—all united in flagrant contempt for laws which are at once just, necessary, and prudent. You chortled like an apprentice tempter at this ménage, in particular … 
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Gstaad A London friend has sent me a book whose subject caused a few faint complaints in the beginning but has now escalated to a full-scale furore, Jimmy Carter’s Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Racist and anti-Semitic have been the operative words used by outraged pundits to describe it, while people such as the Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz and the director of the Anti-Defamation League Abe Foxman have gone overboard in calling the 39th President of the good old USA not only an anti-Semite but a Christian madman and a pawn of the Arabs. Let’s take it from the top. Jimmy … 
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Well, the responses have begun to come in to our newly-launched site, and we are deeply gratified at the number of positive comments we have received—not ALL of them from Taki’s friends in the Vendee. It’s apparent that the range of debate on the Right has been artificially narrowed for far too long, and that many thoughtful conservatives crave an honest debate on the future of their political tendency (as a “Movement” it is almost already dead). Entailed in such a debate must be questions of U.S. involvement in the quarrels of other countries, the proper limits of American foreign policy, … 
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(To the tune of "Thanks for the Memories.") Thanks to the neocons Their websites full of dreck The magazines they wrecked The foundations they took over In service to a sect. How easy it was… And thanks to the neocons Our girls are off at war On a hateful foreign shore Our cluster bombs trashed Lebanon But strengthened Hezbollah How heady it was… But when the voters demote us Send us skulking home in a daze Like whipped dogs we lick our disgrace And learn to get used to the taste. But thanks to the neocons For every war a shill … 
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Style is the most abused word in the English language. It is usually attributed to fashionable people by those not in the know. Style, however, is an elusive quality, and few fashionable people and almost no celebrities possess it outright.  No one is capable of buying it, although thousands try. The dictionary defines ‘style’ as a noticeably superior quality. It is of an abstract nature and one either has it or one does not. As a child, I used to admire dictators, their brilliant uniforms, their swagger and their conviction. Although I hate to admit it, I still like dictators and … 
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