Item. John Scalzi is a National Treasure. In his non-fiction writing he reminds me a lot of Harlan Ellison, although I like John’s fiction more than I do Harlan’s.

(I still have fond memories of Harlan’s shredding of the “Good Grammar or Good Taste” cigarette ads, back when he was writing The Glass Teat for the L A Free Press. Ah, those were the days….)

Item. Listen closely and you’ll find out why mass transit is such a stupid idea these days.

Item. The bland leading the bland. Of course, they don’t want to get sued.

Item. That certainly explains the growing popularity of home-schooling.

Item. ODF.

Item. I’m appalled that they didn’t mention Steve Graham’s book.

Item. I have somewhat mixed feelings about this….

Item. Wagstaff is always worth reading. This is one of the best critiques of journalism I’ve ever seen.

Item. And the fate of mankind hangs in the balance.

Item. Well, what else would you use it for?

Item. I love these guys; they come up with the weirdest stuff.

Item. News that is sad and funny at the same time.

Item. God forbid they should be confused with one of those, you know, religious groups. (They appear to be perfectly adequately confused all by themselves.)

Item. Funny how the People of the Crust always assume that it’s their job to save everyone else in the world. Arrogance seems entirely inadequate a term.

Item. Or at least as some people think we do.

Item. At least for some.

Item. I’ll never take parasites for granted again.

Item. Four Navy Crosses plus the Medal of Honor. There were giants in those days.

Item. You know you’re a serious candidate when the New York Times is shocked, shocked I tell you, that you’re doing something the Clintons do every day.

Go, Fred.

Item. No subject is too obscure to bring out the tedious tools of modern “thought”. I’m sure there’s a government grant or a PhD thesis in there somewhere, probably in a field that doesn’t require mathematics.

Item. It always surprises me what a clot of pretentious bottom-feeders work for the New York Times.

Item. Somehow, when I think “fashion”, Chicago never leaps to mind.

Item. Now this is just stone cool.

Item. Apparently the Crust makes a lot of noise about minorities but feels free to ignore them when it counts.

Item. Barone is probably the best of the people who are on the wrong side of this issue.

Item. I suspect that George W Bush is smokin’ and not sharin’.

Item. Victor Davis Hanson. The distinction that he draws between the restrictions that liberals hate, which were properly passed into law by the people’s representatives (including the liberal ones), and those that liberals favor, imposed on an unwilling public by “progressive” judges, is one that cannot be too often repeated.

Item. That would never happen — would it?

Item. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. No, really.

Item. Christopher Hitchens, at his most dyspeptic. I like that in a columnist.

Item. The problem is, of course, doing something about it.

Item. It would be more appropriate for the President to seek a charge of contempt against Senator Leahy, the guy notorious for leaking classified information for partisan purposes.

Item. Go, Fred.

Item. What, not Arabic? How did that happen?

Item. The Episcopalian Church in America has gone beyond parody.

Maybe this has something to do with this. Ya think?

Item. How’s this for a program:

1. Fire Chertoff.
2. Hire somebody who will actually attempt to enforce the law.

Naw, that would be too much like sense.

Item. Most amusing line: “Camping out last night at the Palo Alto Apple store was not about an iPhone. It was about an experience.” Guys, Woodstock was like Pennsic, times ten, run by amateurs. Believe me, you didn’t want to be there.

Consider a group of people so pathically lacking in lives that waiting in line to buy an electronic toy is a supremely meaningful experience. Where is Charles Darwin when you really need him? (On the other hand, I doubt that we’ll have to worry about these people reproducing, after all, so that’s a bullet dodged.)

Item. I especially like the phrase “‘colorblind’ as a disguise for racial neglect.” What, exactly, is “racial neglect”? Why, what else than failure to appreciate the fact the non-white people are morally superior to “those others” and therefore deserve our best efforts.

I think it’s safe to say that we’ll never have a colorblind society so long as there are people around who worry about “racial neglect”. Far too many people operate under the delusion that Brown v. Board of Education was trying to promote integration rather than end segregation, two entirely distinct concepts. And I certainly hope that Clarence Thomas enjoys his new status as a Powerful White Male.

(I’m sorry, but “Deepak Chopra” sounds like a method of freeze-drying agricultural produce for overseas shipment.)

Item. Well, shucks. Here I was, feeling guilty about getting my vitamin D from a pill (Centrum Silver, in case you’re interested).

Item. Well, duh.

I remember reading an analysis in college that suggested that the subsidization of the Interstate highway system was the chief economic factor in shifting bulk goods transportation from rail to trucks. On the other hand, trucks are a lot more flexible than trains, so the argument for trucks over trains is similar to the argument for cars over light-rail lines. They’re just more convenient.

Item. Steve Sailer has some interesting thoughts on evolution.

Personally, I think the major failure when it comes to evolution is its failure to expunge from the gene pool the sort of fools who tend to write for Newsweek. But that’s just me.

Unmentioned is the fact that ugly people want to get laid as much as pretty people, and sometimes they’ll settle for what they can get. All it takes is two Settlers to make several ugly children, so there you are.

Item. I swear, if we were to shoot every third person who works for the U.S Department of State, our success in foreign affairs would skyrocket.

Item. These two guys have entirely too much fun talking about economics,for heaven’s sake.

Key point: “My point: Bring up revenge, and most people get upset and speak in platitudes. I’d like to know: What’s wrong with revenge?”

Indeed. What is the most common way of expressing the desire to do dirty to someone who has done dirty to you? “I want to get even with so-and-so.” There appears to be a deeply-rooted appreciation in almost every human being that an injury requires an equal and opposite injury going the other way. That “balance” seems to be what most people intuitively think of as “justice”. So I would agree with Bryan that sometimes justice = revenge. But that’s just me.

Item. But of course the surge isn’t working and we’ve lost already and the only thing left to do is take bets on how long it will take to bug out.

Item. Probably not, since the message is “We want to kill you all” and the U.S. government just nods complacently and goes back to doing what it was doing.

Yeah, I know, that isn’t what Hirsh is saying, but what he’s saying is the same old sheepdip about how we could all come out of this smelling like roses if we just sat down together in a spirit of goodwill and Engaged In A Dialogue. Foreigners can smell these clowns a mile a way. (What’s Farsi for “Let’s have some fun with these guys”?)

The Romans had the right attitude: Oderint dum metuant.

Item. Which raises an interesting question: What’s wrong with the rest of the idiots on the left? I would not be so crass as to suggest that they all know that it’s bullshit and just want the rules to apply when it favors the ruling class. Nope, I’d never do that. Wouldn’t even think about it. Farthest thing from my thoughts.

Item. I give up — somebody please tell me why anyone with two brain cells to rub together would give a rat’s ass about what their rating by Greenpeace is?

Item. I rather suspect that they wouldn’t be so sniffy if, say, Ruth Bader Ginsberg were Chief Justice.

Obviously they didn’t reflect long on the fact that John Edwards didn’t get his 28,000 square foot extravaganza by being a judge. If a highly-qualified lawyer can be a judge at five figures or a trial lawyer at seven, pretty soon the only people on the bench will be the second-rate. (Some might say that we’re already there, but I’m trying to be nice here.) I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader how many people take government jobs because they’re “inside work with no heavy lifting”, as Bob Dole once famously said. Or they’re in it for the power; and do we really want that?

Item. Amity Schlaes points out that FDR, far from being the nation’s savior, actually made things worse. Of course, we all knew that.

I’m looking forward to reading her book.