Free Republic

Hello! Today will be gruesome for those on the F911 side of the audience, alas. Those disinclined to endure a screed are advised to head over to this week’s addition: Laff mag from 1952, a worthy addition to the dank treasures of Stagworld. You’ve been warned. Still here? Okay. Believing in Bush’s perfidy gives some people the same comfort and emotional nourishment others get from believing in Jesus. It validates them, cements their view of the world — venal, conspiratorial, run by capering chimps who are somehow ten times less intelligent than Usenet posters but somehow able to yank strings...

The man who once embodied male beauty ended his career as the fattest star in motion picture history. But despite the debauchery, the legend of Brando endured. A few years back, The New Yorker published a cartoon in which two ladies discussed the appeal of Marlon Brando: "He plays galoots really well," suggested the first woman, "galoot" being American slang for a big, uncouth, rough-hewn kind of a fellow — "ya big galoot", "ya big lug", etc. "No, he's not a galoot," says the second. "Like in On The Waterfront, he's much more sensitive than a galoot." "He's a sensitive...

I don't think it's my imagination, though I have had to read a lot of tea leaves to come to this conclusion. I think, quite apart from exigencies of an election year, that the Bush administration, nay verily, President Bush himself is changing his tune; that his own reading of the apocalyptically bad situation in the Middle East is evolving with experience. He is quietly abandoning positions which have been proven naïve. He is hunkering into positions that have been proven unavoidable. The new song, which will flavour his second term if there is one, might be entitled, "No more...

I've met Stephen Harper just the once, and nothing he said on that occasion was memorable. It hardly ever is. In fact, the only thing I remember about it is that he broke off the conversation because he wanted to telephone his kids and say goodnight to them. We were both far from home. "Maybe I should phone my kids," I thought as he wandered off. "If they still remember who I am... And if I can find the bit of paper with their names on..." In his victory speech, as is now traditional, Harper also said nothing memorable, except...