New York - Ain’t that a bitch!  What else can one say?  The way I figure it, it was 357 columns without a miss for the first seven years, then, after a Pentonville break, 1,275 straight until last week. The lawyers broke my streak, but then they would. And on my thirtieth year, too. Well, what the hell, all good things come to an end, but at least only Claus von Bulow rang to inquire whether I had dropped dead. Actually, I ran the offending piece on my Web site, http://www.takimag.com, so it did see the light of day. Some 100,000 … 
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[Via Drudge] Heck, I coulda told you that .... For one thing, just look at the “decisions” that led to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. 
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An announcement received on my email indicates that Abraham Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, has been invited to Heritage Foundation on October 18 to deliver a “lecture” on “The Israeli Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control.” I also learned that the eminent Mr. Foxman is coming to Heritage to refute the Mearsheimer-Walt critique of AIPAC. He believes this controversial text reflects a widespread “myth” about “Jewish control” in America, a figment that is generated, according to Foxman, by rampant Christian anti-Semitism. Now there is much that one might criticize in M-W, and my comments for this website suggest some … 
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Okay, so it isn’t quite “morning” on the East Coast, but we all know the center of the universe is situated somewhere very close to Puccini’s cafe in North Beach. (San Franciscans provincial? Well, a little ...) At any rate, here are a few suggested destinations for your morning stroll in cyberspace: Joe Lieberman (War Party—Connecticut) stops just short of advocating military intervention in Burma, but laptop bombardier Bill Kristol goes all the way: even some of the warbots over at National Review are horrified. Says Mark Krikorian: “I’m sorry — is this a joke? What possible American interest is there … 
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Having been a sportsman throughout my youth, I learned early on never to second guess athletes. One day you can’t miss a backhand even if you try, as they say—and the next you’re flailing like a dowager. Fans don’t ever get it. Nor do sportwriters. If A-Rod is having a hell of a year, it means that he will have a hell of a playoff. If only it were that simple. I just watched the Yankees lose the fourth and final game to the Indians. A-Rod played well, but not for A-Rod, because he didn’t deliver under pressure, the sign of … 
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In the comments on my previous post on the Connecticut bishops’ decision to allow Catholic hospitals to administer the Plan B “morning after pill” to rape victims who do not pass a pregnancy test, Adriana offers some very astute comments: “There is something a bit sickening about the idea that abortion should be allowed in case of rape. Why? Because since the woman was an innocent party, then she does not deserve to carry a baby to term. She cannot be punished when she is not guilty. “Somehow the baby got identified with punishment for the sin of fornication. If you … 
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Writer Christopher Hitchens has hit the jackpot. His new book, God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, has proved a runaway bestseller. Why, then, is Mr. Hitchens so angry? Eyewitnesses report that Hitchens erupted into a drunken rage at a recent promotional event for his book. Hitchens reportedly descended from the stage, visibly inebriated, approached a Roman Catholic priest in the audience, and began shouting at him, only inches from his face. Hitchens’ manner appeared so physically menacing, witnesses say, that a plainclothes bodyguard on duty at the event rushed in and escorted the drunken scribe from the room. All … 
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Hmmmm…. This story about the fire-sprinkler system not working at the $597 million US embassy in Iraq is getting some circulation, but the headline buries the real news. Well, yes, the electrical system doesn’t exactly work, either: when the kitchens were tested, all the wiring melted down. I guess that’s how they found out the fire-sprinkler system didn’t work. It seems the company contracted to do the work—“Kuwaiti First”—‘used counterfeit electrical wiring that did not meet specifications.” Okay, but here’s the icing on the cake: “One-time aides to [State Department Inspector General Howard] Krongard, including former Assistant Inspector General for Investigations … 
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The Blackwater massacre is only the latest in a long line of mercenary misdeeds in Iraq. In January, a Blackwater contractor, Andrew Moonen, shot and killed a bodyguard for one of the (two) Iraqi vice-presidents. Blackwater”disciplined” the miscreant, after spiriting him out of the country, by fining him $15,000. Now listen to this NPR segment: An alert reader notes: “At or about 1:30 of the recording, Kaste refers to payments for the shooting being a subject of discussion.  At or about 1:57 of the recording, Kaste mentions that the biggest of the fines Moonen made to Blackwater was . . . … 
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Having already finished most of a 600-page biography about French man of letters and political thinker Charles Maurras (1868-1953) by Stéphane Giocanti, Maurras: Le chaos et l’ordre (Paris: Flammarion, 2006), I’d like to address a question that the managing editor of this site posed about Giocanti’s subject. Is there a useful comparison to be drawn between Maurras, a monarchist and religious skeptic who enlisted French Catholicism for political purposes, and the Straussian boosters of American global democracy? Are the Straussians, who appeal to a certain notion of transcendence in order to teach “democratic” virtue and to fuel foreign military incursions, replicating … 
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