I don’t know about you, but my heart sank when I read about Jon Stewart’s Million Moderate March, planned for the Mall next weekend. My heart sank further when I learned that liberal groups, lacking any better ideas, have decided to take this endeavor seriously. It’s bad enough that the only way to drum up enthusiasm for a “Rally to Restore Sanity” is to make it into a television comedian’s joke. But it’s far worse that the “moderates” in attendance will have been bused in by Arianna Huffington and organized by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Read on »

LONDON - Half a million jobs will be lost. More than $130 billion in public spending will be cut. Payments of all kinds — to university students, inhabitants of public housing, the BBC — will be chopped, blocked or frozen. Thus did the chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, usher in what has been called “a sober decade” in Britain while the nation listened in stony silence. Read on »

In 1958, an English sociologist and Labor Party politician named Michael Young imagined a future in which the British establishment dissolved itself, abolished all forms of hereditary power and created instead a meritocracy (a word Young invented) based on IQ. In Young’s fable, the academically talented from the working class happily join the elite. But the less-talented resent them even more than they did the old dukes and duchesses. By 2034, this resentment leads to a violent populist revolution that sweeps the meritocracy away. Read on »

“The State Department alerts U.S. citizens to the potential for terrorist attacks in Europe. . . . Terrorists may elect to use a variety of means and weapons and target both official and private interests. U.S. citizens are reminded of the potential for terrorists to attack public transportation systems and other tourist infrastructure. Terrorists have targeted and attacked subway and rail systems, as well as aviation and maritime services. U.S. citizens should take every precaution to be aware of their surroundings and to adopt appropriate safety measures to protect themselves when traveling.”

– State Department travel alert, Oct. 3

Speaking as an American who lives in Europe, I feel it is incumbent upon me to describe what people like me do when we hear warnings like this one issued on Sunday: We do nothing. Read on »

In April, the Chinese navy abruptly deployed 10 warships near the Japanese coast and sent helicopters to buzz Japanese ships. In July, the Chinese foreign minister angrily asserted his country’s claim to international waters in the South China Sea, along with some islands claimed by others. Last week, a Chinese fishing trawler smashed into two Japanese Coast Guard boats, possibly on purpose, leading to a Japanese arrest and a furious reaction from Beijing. Read on »

LONDON - ”In all my years as a campaigner I have never felt such animus against any individual as I do against this creature. His views are so disgusting, so repellent and so hugely damaging to the rest of us, that the only thing to do is to get rid of him.” Thus did Claire Rayner, a British journalist, novelist, former advice columnist and professional-campaigner-for-worthy-causes, greet news of the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI in the United Kingdom. Read on »

LONDON - ”Vicious cuts.” “Savage cuts.” “Swingeing cuts.” The language that the British use to describe their new government’s spending reduction policy is apocalyptic in the extreme. The ministers in charge of the country’s finances are known as “axe-wielders” who will be “hacking” away at the national budget. Articles about the nation’s finances are filled with talk of blood, knives and amputation. Read on »

AGIOS NIKOLAOS, CRETE - A handful of Estonians and a Pole are sitting around a Greek taverna, telling stories. There are some jokes about the good life the Greeks lead — all of that vacation time, and the Germans pay for it! There are some anecdotes about the way time seems to work differently here, about how things take longer here. One regales the others with tales of the Greek real estate market. The thing to remember, he says, is that all houses have two prices: the “official” price and the “real” price. You pay taxes on the official price. You pay the owner the real price. Everybody knows about this, and everybody winks — including the tax office.

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On Tuesday, Barack Obama will make a speech about Iraq. With 50,000 troops still in the country in an “advisory capacity” he can’t declare victory, so he will instead celebrate “the end of combat operations.” If he follows others who have already marked this occasion, his comments will focus on Iraq: the state of Iraqi democracy, the level of violence, the impact seven years of war has had on Iraqi society.

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Why do we care about presidential holidays? I don’t know for certain, but I’m blaming the Kennedys, whose photogenic touch football games and elegant yachts set a standard to which later presidents could only aspire. They did have precursors: Franklin Roosevelt was photographed fishing in Florida, riding horses, even swimming at a pebbly beach. And there are many, many pictures of his cousin Theodore holding up his hunting trophies in exotic forests.

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