From “Brickbats,” Reason (May 2006): Italy has imposed a 25 percent tax on hard-core porn.  The law, similar to one already passed in France, applies to all films and magazines as well as merchandise sold in sex shops. At the risk of offending those social conservative readers I haven’t already chased away with a lot of potty-mouthed posts about Shannon Elizabeth’s nipples, let me argue here that these kinds of

Associate professor of political science at the University of Virginia and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Gerard Alexander, writes of “the long and growing list of things you can’t legally say” in the Old Country.  From the April 10 Weekly Standard: On February 20, an Austrian court sentenced the notorious British writer David Irving to three years in prison for denying in a 1989 speech that Auschwitz

James Taranto muses on the latest turn in the Plame affair.  From WSJ’s Best of the Web: If you’d told us earlier this week that the Valerie Plame kerfuffle was about to turn even sillier, we wouldn’t have believed you. But it has. This story appears on the front page of today’s New York Times: President Bush authorized Vice President Dick Cheney in July 2003 to permit Mr. Cheney’s chief

—Feh.  I haven’t even seen the little guy in 3 days.  But if I had to guess, I’d say he’s on his way to San Diego to catch tonight’s Rockies – Padres game.  At least, that would explain why I’m missing my Rockies’ beer coozie, along with my tailgating chair, a cooler, two bags of pork rinds, and a case of India Pale Ale.  Oh.  And a sniper’s rifle and

Garrett:  “Eh, what’s to tell, really?  Orange jumpsuits, all-male showers, fatty foods served cafeteria style on plastic plates—it’s like they’re sending me back to high school in the 70s again.  Only, y’know, without the heroin and primo herb.  “Plus, I won’t lie to you:  the chances of Barbie Benton getting drunk on Champagne and using her foot to get me off like she did at Elaine’s in ‘79 are virtually

From the NY Daily News’ Front Page, “The billionaire, the Post and the $220G shakedown:  Page Six writer wanted $$$ to stop inaccurate coverage”: A New York Post Page Six staffer solicited $220,000 from a high-profile billionaire in return for a year’s “protection” against inaccurate and unflattering items about him in the gossip page, the Daily News has learned. In two 90-minute meetings, characterized by a shocking breach of ethics,

Well, those whacky “Others,” eh?  From Reuters: A textbook used at schools in the Indian state of Rajasthan compares housewives to donkeys, and suggests the animals make better companions as they complain less and are more loyal to their “masters,” The Times of India reported Tuesday. “A donkey is like a housewife … In fact, the donkey is a shade better, for while the housewife may sometimes complain and walk

So I spent the morning dragging the wife and kid through the rain and cold to make my pulmonologist appointment, only to learn that he’d been called to the hospital on an emergency (evidently, unlike the crap they try to sell you on “ER,” pulmonary specialists are needed for intubations). Which means I had to reschedule—and probably won’t get to see this guy for another 2-3 weeks.  Here’s hoping any

Man.  Somebody on the anti-war side better get to work pushing that “these so-called ‘captured’ documents are all CIA / Chalabi plants, and are, like, so totally worthless” meme.  And quickly!  Otherwise, the “official” narrative that Bush Lied might just unravel—and well before the November elections. OPEN THREAD!

Debbie Schlussel introduces her readers to someone who claims to know released hostage and Christian Science Monitor reporter Jill Carroll.  The picture of her he paints isn’t very pretty.  Especially if you happen to deplore anti-semitism and find distasteful Americans who rail against their country as “imperialists” and not a force for good in the world, even as its armed forces are fighting to free an entire population from under