Here and There

Hypocrisy Watch —Okay, so Egypt is brokering a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and meetings have been held between the three parties in Cairo, so will somebody please remind me why-oh-why negotiating with one of the few elected governments in the Arab world is so terrible? This ...

Out and About

Meee-ooow!—In what has got to be the cattiestiest interview since the Cheshire Cat took on the Cowardly Lion, Gore Vidal displays his utter contempt for the New York Times. In answer to "€œWhy do you think that critics have traditionally praised your essays more than your fiction?"€ good ...

Libertarianism’s Divergent Roads

The history of libertarianism as a doctrine and an organized political movement is of interest these days on account of all the attention garnered by Rep. Ron Paul, the Texas congressman known as "€œDr. No,"€ in his quixotic yet attention-getting and surprisingly successful campaign for the ...

Racialism As Pseudo-“€˜Science”€™

What prompted this whole discussion about race and alleged racial differences—Christopher Roach’s post here, and my response—was the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, his rise as the putative Democratic candidate, and I want to bring the discussion back to its source. Because ...

Mishima”€”Paleocon as Samurai

The final river of Yukio Mishima's life to swell from a stream into a rushing torrent was that of action, and it propelled him toward his fate. This was really, however, the river of ideology, which for Mishima was his own unique brand of Japanese nationalism: it might be called Japan's version of ...

Rise and Shine

How hated are the neocons?—When even sports writers are on your case, you know the peasants with pitchforks can’t be far behind. From a piece headlined “Are the Mariners the Neocons of Baseball?”: “Should we be worried the Mariners are baseball's equivalent of the ...

Attack of the Reasonoids

Ron Paul’s recently published book, The Revolution, is number one on Amazon and will debut on the New York Times bestseller list at number seven—good news, eh? Not to the fake “libertarians” over at Reason magazine, no sirreee! David Weigel posts this snarky little rant, ...

Hot Links in the Morning

Why is this man smiling—or, rather, smirking? It took them some 23 years, but the FBI finally got around to arresting Ben-Ami Kadish, who stole US secrets for Israel—and reported to the same Israeli “controller” as Jonathan Pollard. Newsweek has some of the ...

At This Ungodly Hour

What, in the name of all that’s holy, is anyone doing up at 5:28 am? At this ungodly hour, one can only be up to no good. Unless you’re over 50, like me, in which case it’s simply old age: with the sand in the hourglass moving rather too quickly, we oldsters simply want to ...

The Morning Scene

You Got That Right—Matt Yglesias on the arrogance of the neocons: “The attitude of thoughtless, unreflective scorn that you see from the Pollacks and Kirchicks and Goldfarbs of the world is like it comes from some weird alternative reality where their ideas have generally been deemed ...