Hitchens recently (WSJ $$) met up with the charming and wise Robert Conquest, author of the earliest comprehensive work about Stalinism, The Great Terror, who,

[a] few years ago … said to me that the old distinctions between left and right had become irrelevant to him, adding very mildly that fools and knaves of all kinds needed to be opposed and that what was really needed was “a United Front against bulls–t.”

Indeed. And against demagogues, moral purists, and party disciplinarians—regardless of party.

I’m an Aquarius. Can you tell?

(update: added a missing link)

What do you do when you’re humiliated by international support (to the tune of $7 billion) for your political opposition?

Well, if you’re Hezbollah’s would-be rock star Hassan Nasrallah, you soften your tone, admit to mistakes, cop to your own international support, clarify your opponents’ failures and your own heroism. Oh yes, and you project your 40-foot-high image on the wall of a government building so that no Lebanese need miss your TV interview.

Hizbullah supporters gathered near the government house watch on a giant screen Nasrallah speaking during an interview on Hizbullah’s Al-Manar television, in Beirut, Lebanon.
Photo: AP

Not exactly Cinema Paradiso, eh?

It’s an Eminem kind of day:

[S]ince birth I’ve been cursed with this curse to just curse
And just blurt this berserk and bizarre shit that works
And it sells and it helps in itself to relieve
All this tension dispensin these sentences
Gettin this stress that’s been eatin me recently off of this chest
And I rest again peacefully (peacefully)..

“The Way I Am”