Anti-semitism seems to be much in the news this week. When I initially read Gregg Easterbrook’s strange item on the movie Kill Bill, I started checking his weblog every day for the inevitable apology. Sure enough, he posted one on October 16. Easterbrook’s statement was stupid, but struck me more as being ill-conceived than as being malicious. What blew me away last week was the Prime Minister of Malaysia’s lengthy anti-Semitic diatribe given at the Islamic Summit (also on October 16). I heard a snippet of it on the BBC, but you have to scan the speech for the full impact. (The best way is just to search for instances of the word Jew and read the surrounding text.) The fact that he gave this speech to great applause is incredibly chilling, not only because it shows how readily outright racism is embraced but because it also reveals a pathetic culture of victimization that doesn’t serve the interests of its adherents, and contributes greatly to global instability. (Slate has the meta-story.)