The Iconoclast

by Phyllis Chesler The comments I posted about the two raunchy, pole dancing, crotch-grabbing, half-naked celebrity performances at the Super Bowl at half-time “reached” nearly 6500 people, “engaged” 3089 people, and drew 52 comments. What I posted about Harvey Weinstein’s genitalia “reached” ...Read More...

by Hugh Fitzgerald Elizabeth Warren is a former law professor whose specialty is bankruptcy law. She knows how to read and make sense of complicated codes, rebarbative regs, and the most taxing of tax texts. But when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, she shows no signs of having understood, ...Read More...

I don't want to go the route of witness statement porn (and yes there is such a thing; the authorities may have clamped down on it but in my time I knew of cases where defendants in sex crimes sold the witness statements against them, which they were allowed to possess so as to prepare their defence, ...Read More...

by Phyllis Chesler Both Bemelmen’s Bar and the Carlyle Hotel which houses it (pictured above)—are now owned by Katara Hospitality (Qatar); the Plaza Hotel is still standing but the fabled Palm Court is different, the Old World violinist and pianist have been replaced by Muzak, and it is now owned ...Read More...

From the West Yorkshire Police Press release. It sounds good but 6 into 55 goes not enough.  Six men have been jailed for a combined 55 and a half years years after being sentenced for the sexual abuse of two girls in Huddersfield.His Honour Judge Marson described the men's actions as disgusting ...Read More...

From the Telegraph and The Times An inmate with no history of extremism told guards he had staged a jihadist attack after luring officers into his cell and lunging at them with an improvised weapon, it was claimed last night. Xeneral Imiuru, 20, allegedly launched the attack in Winchester Prison ...Read More...

From the Huddersfield Examiner H/T Mrs F. I missed this in the news last night. Reporting restrictions on the trial must have been very strict; I couldn't even follow its progress for the last month through the public information Cause List.  Seven men have been convicted of raping two vulnerable ...Read More...

He and the other candidates face a vicious fight for the right to lose to Trump. by Conrad Black It is a little early to become too declarative about this, but no one seems to have got much of a launch from Iowa and New Hampshire except, to a slight degree, Sanders, and he is still below 30 ...Read More...

by Hugh Fitzgerald The appearance and spread of the coronavirus has been much in the news, in the Western world, where scientists discuss questions of epidemiology and of how rapidly a vaccine might be available. We see photographs, too, of empty Chinese cities, where everyone is in lockdown ...Read More...

by Michael Curtis Benjamin Griveaux Sometimes like Greta Garbo we want to be alone, sometimes like Mae West we do not. There’s a somebody I’m longing to find, someone to watch over me.  Is French political life becoming “Americanized” on issues of privacy, sexual transgressions, respect for ...Read More...

by Theodore Dalrymple I was only twice in a room with the famous, or infamous, British politician Enoch Powell, both times without speaking to him. Sitting on his own, he had a disconcerting expression of passionate intensity, an intensity that was probably characterological and attached itself ...Read More...

by Hugh Fitzgerald A column in the Boston Sunday Globe for February 9 – “Trump’s acquittal could be a dangerous turning point” – by Michael A. Cohen, caught my attention, or rather, its first two paragraphs caught my attention, infuriated me, and I saw no reason to read further. Here is what ...Read More...

From popular Nigerian newspaper The Punch and Associated Press OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — Gunmen killed 24 civilians, including a church pastor, and kidnapped three others on Sunday in Burkina Faso, an official said. It was the latest attack against a religious leader in the increasingly unstable ...Read More...

by Phyllis Chesler I knew it was all over when they shut down the Horn and Hardart Automat, the restaurant where portions of food appeared in glass cages—but their liberation could be purchased with as little as five cents. Oh, those baked beans! And those tempting slices of pie! They took Chock ...Read More...

by Hugh Fitzgerald Here’s what: #1. Making Water From Air “Israeli startup Watergen, which has developed a technology to make water from air, has been named winner of the Energy Efficiency Product of the Year in the 2020 Smart Home Mark of Excellence Awards at CES in Las Vegas for its ...Read More...