Item. Slow news day. Or perhaps they have a big “Connections” tournament coming up, and this is practice.

Item. These guys must think the Brits are dumber than rocks.

On the other hand, considering the public statements by the people they’ve elected to office, they may not be that far wrong.

Item. More than you want to know. Trust me on this.

Iterum. But wait, there’s more.

Item. The Kremlinology of cartoons, or: Some people have too much idle time.

Been there, done that….

Item. Perhaps, if we wait long enough, they’ll just kill each other off.

Item. Of course, a few have yet to master English….

Why are politicians these days such appalling public speakers? People used to do day-trips to listen to political speeches; nowadays people will pay money to avoid them. The system is certainly broken somewhere.

I may have to vote for Mike Huckabee.

Item. Every now and then, the WaPo gets something right.

The only thing that saves us is that we don’t get all the government we pay for.

Item. An excellent appreciation of the fact that most Republican problems are self-inflicted. Too often the difference between electing a Republican and electing a Democrat is the difference between getting bitten by a dog compared to getting bitten by a bear.

Item. We could wait for Global Warming to flush them out….

Iterum. And, of course, it’s all George Bush’s fault. When it isn’t Dick Cheney’s.

Item. I was wondering when they would get around to doing that.

Item. You gotta love New York.

“The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”

“Well, then, we’ll need more funding.”

Iterum. D.C. wants it’s turn at the trough, too.

Item. Bryan sometimes loses track of history when he’s thinking. But it’s an interesting question.

Item. Yeah, tinkering is for wimps.

Item. I wonder whether we could trade them George W Bush and perhaps a politician to be named later?

Item. Nice when you can afford to do that.

Item. Or, alternatively, have the law on your side. :)) (Sorry, I knew I couldn’t say that with a straight face.) Or — whoa, here’s an idea — change the law through those guys the people vote for, what do they call them, oh yeah, the legislature.

Item. Pretty sad when we have professionals devoted to making our crappy technology actually work.

Item. Well, there you have it. Presumably the souks of the Middle East will now stock them in the back rooms….

Item. When I first saw the headline, I thought “Cripes, first Madonna and now Paris Hilton. What’s up with these people?” But it’s actually about the city. (Yes, there actually is a city named “Paris”.)

Item. As does Stalinism, for which Frida was one of the major apologists. No mention of “Stalin” in the article, of course; it wasn’t in the whitewash bucket.

Item. Oh, ya think?

Item. The horrible thing is that, like many Californians, these people see their fate as being in somebody else’s hands. Iraqi marsh-dwellers have more ambition. This place could use somebody with gumption — illegal immigrants, say.

Item. Well, they’ll have to bury their younger generation as well, since they’re the only people who use that term any more.

Item. Moral courage is always more palatable when it comes with full benefits.

Item. Why the Jews never conquered the world.

Item. Oh, no. The youth of the world are at risk.

Item. Saw that one coming.

I can see Microsoft’s lawyers, dollar signs in their dreams, licking their pencils and thinking, “Yeah. Sue us for violating the GPL. Uh-huh. Bring it on.”

Item. Actually, I agree with Mom in this one. The guys at Language Log have a very bad habit of proceeding from the assumption that if anybody at any time anywhere used a particular form, well, then, that’s okay with them.

Item. You know Fred is a Real Candidate when the New York Times starts doing drive-by hit-pieces on him.

Go, Fred.

Review of On Royalty by Jeremy Paxman.

I’m pretty much a sucker for books on monarchy, especially ones that have something serious to say on the subject, as this one appears to. (And I am perenially astonished at what one can find at the Plano Public Library.)

Of course, the review is by Christopher Hitchens, so it would be worth reading in its own right, even if it were about nematodes.

Review of a couple of new books about Tocqueville. Just about any book on Tocqueville is worth reading.

Review of More Sex Is Safer Sex by Steve Landsburg. That Landsburg is a professor at a university nobody ever heard of who writes for Slate tells you pretty much all you need to know about the book, but the review is nicely characteristic of the sort of people who review books for the New York Times.

Item. How, exactly, does one get to be an “ethicist”? That sounds like a great job, for which I feel eminently qualified, but I can’t find any openings on CareerBuilder….

Item. More than you ever really wanted to know about T-shirts. (Or “Tees!” as the fashion ads say.) So simple a garment, so complex a sociology.

Review. I gotta say, “Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall” is such a perfectly English name that it makes you want to read the book all by itself.

Item. I have always been fascinated by proposals to split up the U.S., ever since I read a copy of this book when I was younger. I’ve got my own thoughts on the subject, as you might expect, but Garreau’s analysis rang very true.

Item. The coasts are not breeding. Good.

So why can’t all those single guys from LA and those thousands upon thousands of single girls from NYC meet up somewhere in the middle?

That would be more excitement than Kansas City could stand. Think about it.

Item. Oh, sure — mention that you don’t approve of homosexuality being taught in the schools and see how much “tolerance” you get.

Item. For some people (I won’t bother to label them) talking counts as Doing Something.

A national conversation on this issue is urgently needed.

Oh, I’m sure that will solve the problem.

Item. George Will points out that government interference rarely helps and almost always hurts. Would that those who see the government as the solution rather than as the problem would repent and see the light.

Item. John McCain is really starting to irritate me.

“You will see the states and cities scrambling to pass their own laws and regulations,” he said, “and you’re going to get a completely contradictory set of policies.”

Sorry, John, but that’s what “federalism” is all about. Feel free to look it up.

Item. Follow very closely or you’ll get lost.

Item. Ya, sure, you betcha — eh?

Item. Pretty amazing.

Item. Naw, they wouldn’t do that, would they?

Item. Not something that one would expect from an economics blog.

Item. How would you like to have a name like Kermit Roosevelt? Sounds like a cartoon character.

Item. I love the Internet; one runs across the most delightful stuff in the most unexpected places.

I like the opening of Richard III, but that’s because I love heraldic puns.

Item. I’m taking bets on how long it will be before the sort of people who read the New York Times will be denouncing such houses as “Mini-McMansions”.

Item. Sure, let’s fly people in from all over the world and use massive amounts of electricity to warn people that flying all over the world and using massive amounts of electricity is a Bad Thing.

That makes perfect sense.