I returned to the Embassy in Belgrade to be told to watch on TV what was happening in New York. I did. The Twin Towers crashed. My thought then is still valid: This level of Islamist madness is quite different. It can’t be defeated by normal means. Only moderate Muslims […]
Over at Commentator is my latest piece on UK engagement with Libya, in which I argue that what happened in recent years was principled, smart and mainly effective. Take that, you chattering classes: there are only two basic choices available to democracies when it comes to dealing with odious regimes: […]
One of the greatest passages in the Bible: Then the Lord said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?""I know not," he replied. "Am I my brother’s keeper?" When – and to what extent – is X responsible for Y? German President Christian Wulff might be expected with his first […]
++Update++ A warm welcome to readers from Instapundit and The Corner. (There’s nothing like an unexpected Instalanche for improving one’s meagre August web-stats) * * * * * Mark Steyn has some savage things to say about contemporary British life. No doubt he exaggerates. Or does he? How would we know? Thus: The […]
As I peck at the keyboard there is plenty of scrambling in Washington to try to get together the votes needed to pass the ‘compromise’ package agreed by President Obama and Republican/Democrat leaders. Hardcore Democrats bewail the ‘cuts’. Hardcore Republicans/Teapartyers bewail the fact that the cuts don’t go far enough […]
So much going on in the world. Most of it unambiguously bad. Tension in Kosovo. Tension in the Turkish army. Libya duly quagmired. Famine in Africa. Something or other going in and around North Korea. And so on. Yet bigger even than those problems, each of which is capable of […]
Here are our holiday snaps. First, no Turkish resort seems to be able to avoid littering the place with freakishly kitsch ancient Greek-style statues. Try this one of Harvest Goddess, with a creepy white head seemingly stuck on a couple of inches out: Not to forget two examples worthy of a […]
Thinking of Lileks’ Regrettable Food took me back to his site. A terrible mistake. Because you sink deeper and deeper into his world of baffling imagery from the early twentieth century and lose hours of your life rolling in inane laughter. Such as a searching analysis of the artwork of Art […]
A snappy young Serbian woman with two degrees from universities in the USA comes back to Belgrade to live and work. She gets a good job in a major Serbian bank on the corporate communications side. She gives a presentation to the bank top brass on how the bank can […]
When B Obama was running against J McCain, all the usual liberal pundits warned just how awful things would be if people voted for McCain. Yes, millions of people did vote for McCain. And yes, things have turned out awfully. Here’s a long handy list, starting with one obviously obnoxious Republican appointment […]
