This piece from the Atlantic Monthly Online, “The Desert One Debacle,” about the Carter administration’s attempt to rescue the embassy hostages in Iran in 1980, is a sobering read. I vaguely remember the incident–just one in a long line of … Continue reading →
Christopher Hitchens (previously no special friend of Israel’s) deconstructs Juan Cole’s Dowdification of Ahmadinejad’s threats to Israel in this Slate article (via Austin Bay) entitled “The Cole Report: when it comes to Iran, he distorts, you decide.” Hitchens’s contention is … Continue reading →
One of my favorite authors is Milan Kundera. Yes, I know, I’ve said it before–I’ve discussed Kundera’s work here and here, as well as here and here. So, why Kundera yet again (and I doubt this will be the last … Continue reading →
Part of an interesting piece by Dr. Horsefeathers on the subject of Kipling, posted some time ago (ignore the spambot dump that the comments section of that post has managed to become) , is the following observation on Kipling and … Continue reading →
Gerard Van der Leun has written a rumination on the return of history, post-9/11. I offer a few excerpts here, although they don’t really capture the full flavor of the thing (to do that, it needs to be read as … Continue reading →
Now that the case against Abdul Rahman has been dropped, Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi has offered him sanctuary: “I say that we are very glad to be able to welcome someone who has been so courageous,” Premier Silvio Berlusconi said. Berlusconi … Continue reading →
Sigmund Carl & Alfred has written a post that tells a story I’d not heard before, of “The Mosque that Sheltered Jews.” The rescue occurred in France during the German occupation of WWII. Here are some details: The mosque-based resistance … Continue reading →
See an excellent roundup of differing views on the current post-mosque bombing crisis in Iraq, here. And the latest from Iraq the Model, who’s on the scene in Baghdad. Belmont Club writes: The good news is that there are enough … Continue reading →
David Irving, historian/Holocaust denier (although if anything should be an oxymoron, that would be it), is facing trial in Austria soon for violating a law against Holocaust denial (or, to be technical for “minimizing the crimes of the Third Reich“). … Continue reading →
The Anchoress has written this wonderful post, so I don’t have to. Read the whole thing, please, but most particularly this: Right now, the insurgents are being vastly encouraged by what they read coming out of the mouths of Democrats … Continue reading →
The first time I ever saw a photo of Lenin’s embalmed corpse on display in its mausoleum in Moscow, the sight gave me the creeps. There was something dreadful about making a body into an icon–a sort of zombie-esque quality … Continue reading →
Norman Geras is a man who has thought long and hard about the Holocaust. Recently, he tackled the controversial question of whether the Holocaust was, “in some significant moral sense, singular or unique in the long catalogue of calamities that … Continue reading →