A few weeks ago, I went to see a new Russian horror film called S.S.D. (the acronym translates to “Death to Soviet Children”) about a bunch of annoying Moscow urbanites who get slaughtered while shooting a reality TV show in…

Statement of the Grand Inquisitor: The American election cycle is the perfect complement to America’s vain, self-serving Calvinist religion. American Democracy and American Calvinism both pander to lazy, bipolar drama queens who lack the least capacity for moral introspection. The…

Zia ul-Haq: the Pakistani Dracula with the dead raccoon eyes. Well, time to ease out of my chair and get back to work, because people have been yelling at me to finish off that “Islamablog” series I started about the…

Today’s Defendant: Jellyfish Statement of the Grand Inquisitor: God has a grand assortment of flails, whips, crops, knouts, taws, fouets and quirts. In His house are many mansions, and in those mansions are many walk-in closets to overawe the best-equipped…

I was in Georgia last week researching a magazine story on the Russo-Georgian conflict, when I stumbled upon the shuttered Russian embassy in Tbilisi. The gated compound looked normal — no bullet holes or anti-Russian graffiti — but there was…

Got ninety minutes to kill? When you’re a young Have in a rich country, you’ve got a glorious wealth of time to waste, and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is a movie that’s about young Haves, for young Haves. The…

The fix was in. There’s no other way to explain the disconnect between Sarah Palin’s performance in last night’s debate–which made me cringe so much that my forehead started to cramp–and the post-debate analysis, in which everyone in punditland agreed…