Idiocy on Parade

I grew up in the age of the party convention as "€œeverything'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 ...

Mating Habits Among Humans

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 "€œevolutionary psychology,"€ including one fellow, whom Reed came across, who"€™d just written an article expanding on the subject of why guys ...

Declining “€œthe 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, "€œAdenauer'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 ...

Defending the Mermaid

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 ...

With Georgia, They”€™re Out of Their Minds

In response to the movement of Russian troops into Georgia this morning, State Department spokesperson Amanda Harper announced to the German press: "€œWe support Georgia’s territorial integrity and we call for an immediate ceasefire."€ Senator McCain was even more forceful, demanding, ...

The Conservative Write

As the story goes, Pauline Kael "€œcouldn"€™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 ...

In Praise of Inequality

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 "€œfound that girls ...

I Really Wanted to Believe, but…

If you believe The Truth is Out There, then I highly recommend that you avoid the latest “X-Files” movie , stay in, and read Tom Piatak’s fantastic article on the conservative impulses in the original series. Even a perusal through “The X-Files”'s rather fascinating ...

Batman”€”Anarcho-Fascist or Unassimilated Jew?

The most enduring superheroes"€”Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain America among them"€”were all born in Lower East Side at some point between 1938-1944. Their creators were almost entirely first-generation Jews. The current theory of this all runs something like, "€œ"€˜double ...

The Ugliest Yacht in the World

Friedrich Nietzsche observed, “it requires more genius to spend than to acquire”"€”making money being a question of diligence and cunning, wasting it a matter of taste. When the great philosopher wrote these words, he was actually concerned with the pervasiveness of the ascetic ideal ...