Joe Biden Ungirds His Loins

"With all due respect, that isn't remotely close to what he said..."

That's why I like Tapper, though I don't know how much I'd like him if he was asking questions of me.

I love Gibbs' reponse here: Ignore what Biden said. I'm telling you what he was supposed to say.



The backstory on this is that Joe "Gird Your Loins" Biden went on TV and said that he told his family not to take the subway in case they catch swine flu. So much for that steel cup he's been sporting. Chicken.

He also said schools should be shuttered and added, "If you're out in the middle of a field and someone sneezes that's one thing. If you're in a closed aircraft or a closed container or closed car or closed classroom it's a different thing."

Well. The Veep decided to go it alone and has now frightened parents of schoolchildren, made the subway a deathtrap, put the kibosh on the airline industry, and left everyone wondering which "containers" they should avoid at all costs. Partying with friends in a Tupperware bowl? Beware!

I remember a while ago when people were complaining that there weren't enough flu shots to go around. Bush said that if you were healthy and strong, don't get a shot. Leave it for the kids and the elderly. He added that he hadn't received a shot and wasn't going to.

Now you've got Biden hiding in the middle of a field dodging sneeze particles.

This guy's a laugh a minute.

The Drudge Pandemic

Drudge is an interesting character. He likes to stir things up. He throws things against the wall to see if they'll stick. They often do. Every newspaper editor and TV news producer has Drudge at the top of their favourites list. He drives news.

Last week, Drudge ran a massive headline about a possible flu outbreak in Mexico. Above The Drudge Report title, he ran another six smaller headlines, all of them warning of impending doom.

My antenna went up: Drudge is trying to drive a story. He's bored.

A day went by and nobody else was talking about it. I mean nobody: I surfed the websites of various blogs, papers, and TV news shows. Nobody had "swine flu" as a leading headline. But Drudge didn't quit. He put ten headlines above The Drudge Report title and he turned the main headline bright red, as he does when there's an "emergency" (the definition of "emergency" is very flexible in Drudge's world). Drudge rarely puts more than one or two headlines above the title, so he was out to prove that he was serious: this is a big story. Huge.

Another day went by and I started hearing about swine flu on the TV channels. Just a little bit. CNN got interested, and slowly the politicians got in on the act. Drudge ran a headline of LEVEL 5 and, sure enough, the TV news treated me to an explanation that LEVEL 5 is just shy of a real pandemic, which would be level 6. Bubble headed morning hosts suddenly got wise and used graphics to explain the difference between epidemic and pandemic (the first is bad, the second is apparently the end of the world).

Drudge hammered home the idea of closing the Mexican border. He ran headline after headline about Mexico's impending demise. That became a topic of conversation in the blogs straight away until finally, last night, a reporter asked the President of the United States if the border should be closed.

Last night I was watching a TV show out of Seattle and an anchorman broke in with a breathless update. You know the type: a red screen, booming music, and a high budget graphic: BREAKING NEWS, followed by a man wearing a tie but no jacket. He reported that two cases of swine flu had been confirmed - confirmed - in the state of Washington. He repeated it - confirmed - and then they went back to late night TV. So basically he broke in to tell me that someone had a cold.

So far, a smattering of people in Mexico have apparently died from swine flu. This number doesn't come close to the tens of thousands that die from plain old influenza every year, but hey, it's early days. Vaccines won't work, because influenza mutates all the time (this is why your flu shot is bogus; it's a waste of time and money). Wearing masks doesn't do much, though washing your hands does. If you can wash them 24 hours a day, you probably won't get sick. Or you might anyway. Such is life.

In The Great Influenza, a very good book by John Barry about the Spanish Flu, Barry points out that totally sealing yourself off from society or having a constantly running nose is probably the only way to dodge the flu. (By the way, about pig farmers and the Israeli government not liking the "swine" part of "swine flu," chill out. Spanish Flu didn't start in Spain - according to Barry it probably started in Kansas - but the name stuck, anyway. It's just a name. Last night's pork chops tasted great).

“It is all of humanity that is under threat during a pandemic." That's the director-general of the World Health Organization. And she's right, to a degree. But the real threat is from people that want to scare the hell out of you while making the manufacturers of Tamiflu rich.

An influenza pandemic can be devastating, but this flu doesn't look to be the one to do it. During the Spanish Flu outbreak, people were fine one minute and literally dropping dead the next. It was a very bad flu and it ended up killing tens of millions. By contrast, people with this flu are wearing surgical masks while talking to reporters about their Mexican vacation. Provided it doesn't mutate, this flu doesn't appear to be any worse that any other influenza that affects us year in, year out.

For me, the real pandemic to come out of this craze is the rumour mill of Drudge. He drove this story from the beginning. He was the first one to push it and he pushed it until people started to talk about it. He's the germ. Big media is the body. It took him three days to infect them. And there's not a doubt in my mind that he did it on purpose. He was sitting around and thought, "I am going to change the news for the next couple of weeks. For the hell of it. This flu thing in Mexico looks kind of interesting. Let's see..."

When I first saw his six headlines of doom I thought, what's he up to?

Not much. Just infecting people. And enjoying it. He does it all the time.

Photo: NY Times

Mr. T

A good story from the National Post:

The immortal Mr. T received a tryout this week, not for a part an upcoming screen version of his classic TV series, The A-Team, but for jury duty in his home town...

"If you're innocent, I'm your best man," he said. "But if you're guilty, I pity that fool."

T wasn't selected.

One Look Says It All

I'm not a big basketball fan. I tune in to college hoops in March, but beyond that it has to be an off night for baseball, hockey, or football before I'll watch basketball.

Having said that, even an exceedingly casual fan like me knows that losing by 58 points in the playoffs is bad. Really bad.

The Nuggets beat the Hornets 121-63. Two thoughts: one, being a Hornets fan has to suck. Two, if you took the Hornets in this game then you are the worst sports gambler in history.

Photo: AP

Absolute Boneheads

I wrote a few days ago that officials in Washington are acting as if 9/11 happened back in the Jurassic period. Ancient history.

I was wrong. This story pretty much proves that they don't believe 9/11 happened at all.

The place: New York City.

The time: Morning.

The incident: A low-flying jumbo jet flies over the city, chased by fighter planes.

The reaction: Fear, injuries, and exclamations of, "Oh, my God," and "Run..."

The reason: White House Military Office director Louis Caldera issued a brief statement.

"Last week, I approved a mission over New York. I take responsibility for that decision," he said. "While federal authorities took the proper steps to notify state and local authorities in New York and New Jersey, its clear that the mission created confusion and disruption. I apologize and take responsibility for any distress that flight caused."

The article goes on to quote Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer of NY, who places the blame on...the FAA. The FAA, in their own defense, says they were told that the flight was classified and they couldn't tell anybody. Atta boy, Chuck. Absolve the precious Obama White House of any blame at all for scaring the crap out of your state's citizens.

Note to White House: Jumbo jets being chased by fighter planes over any city in the country shouldn't be authorized for any reason whatsoever. A communication breakdown is no excuse because the flight should never have happened in the first place. Boneheads.

If Obama is really a president who understands the people, he should fire Caldera on the spot and can ten other people for good measure. If Obama approved this stunt, he should be grilled mercilessly for the full hour at his upcoming press conference.

Here's a clip from today. See if it brings back some chilling memories:



Video and link via Hot Air.

Klein on Steyn

I was reading Steyn's piece on Pakistan, and I saw the heavy duty Intellectual Alert that Joe Klein spewed forth because of it:

Mark Steyn, the British conservative who seems to play at thinking rather than going through the actual work of thought, is all upset about the deteriorating situation in Pakistan. Well, yeah. Pakistan, neglected for eight years by a mortally hoodwinked Bush Administration, is a mess.

Ah, yes. Pakistan's troubles are all George W. Bush's fault.

Is there anything you can't blame on Bush? Opinion pieces in today's (but not tomorrow's; they're going bankrupt) high brow journals are a cut-and-paste affair. First sentence: state a problem. Second sentence: write the words "after eight years of" and continue.

Lefties are a funny breed. I think Twain said that southerners regarded the Civil War as the new B.C./A.D. For freaky self-descibed "intellectuals" (the kind of people that ruin a party just by showing up and opening their mouths), the new B.C./A.D. is the Bush Administration.

Before Bush, everything was sunlight, roses, an ask-not JFK speech, and the odd stained dress. Those were the halcyon days of tightly knit ozone layers and peace in our time. After Bush, life is just hell. If it hadn't been for him, Pakistan would be a vacation spot on par with Maui. Alas, the dumb Texan was elected president of the United States and suddenly Pakistan went in the tank.

Vis-a-vis the Pakistan deal, I can think of no better explanation than the one put forward by those venerable hard-thinkers at The Onion. No word on what Joe Klein thinks of it. Then again, maybe he couldn't draw overtime for the chore of watching a video and thinking it over (I'm still giggling over this line: "...the actual work of thought." Does this butthead really answer the phone, tell people he's working, then hang up and...think?)


Volatile India-Pakistan Standoff Enters 11,680th Day

Wings Win Round 1

One stunning fact occurred to me last night: if the Wings won game four, they'd be the first Stanley Cup champ in seven years to win the next year's first round series. I hit the internet and found out that Colorado was the last champ to do it since 2002. Weird.

The Wings looked like a veteran team last night, though a sloppy one. Maybe a 3-0 series lead had put some complacency in their skates.

They had a 3-1 lead...and blew it. They had a 5-3 lead...and blew it. They won the game anyway, 6-5. Ironically, it takes a good team to blow two two-goal leads yet keep their wits about them and pull out a win.

Columbus fans were angered by a late penalty call for too many men on the ice, but the refs had to make the call (and I am no fan of refs): when the one-too-many-man is the first one to touch the puck when he comes off the bench, then he forces the ref's arm to go up.

I've always believed that teams need a loss once in a while, just to teach them a lesson. While the Wings didn't lose last night, it was good that Columbus gave them a dogfight and reminded them that playoff hockey isn't supposed to be easy.

Photo: Getty

Look! I Care! I Care! I Really Do!

"Journalist" Shepherd Smith has decided that being on the internet absolves him of watching his mouth.

What a colossal loser this windbag is. Lemme guess: failed actor?

If a terrorist took this guy's hair gel hostage, he'd have the CIA beat it out of him in nothing flat.

Translation: "I Lied, Suckers. And What Are You Gonna Do About It?"

The demise of the UK continues:

AFP: "In November, I announced a new rate of income tax of 45 percent on incomes above 150,000 pounds -- the top one percent of taxpayers," [Chancellor] Darling said in his budget speech.

"In order to help pay for additional support for people now, I have decided that the new rate will be 50 percent and will come in from next April -- a year earlier."

"You Could Smell Him."

Let's see...Breaking into a car that has a uniformed police officer inside. Soiling yourself. Ratting out a buddy.

Not exactly a tale of glory this genius will want to tell around the campfire later in life:

Deseret News: The boy dashed into a friend's house, where a party was going on, police said. Officers were let into the house where they found him — and discovered that he had soiled himself, Child said.

"You could smell him," Taylor said. "He told us, 'Yeah, I crapped my pants.' "

Police said the teen implicated a friend whom Taylor saw trying to break into cars across the street from his home.

"He gave up his friend," Child said, pointing to another 16-year-old who was also arrested in the burglary investigation.

Tolerance

Question from Perez Hilton to Miss California during the Miss USA Pageant:

Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalise same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit. Why or why not?

Answer from Miss California:

We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And you know what, I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised.

Response from Perez Hilton, on his video blog:

And when I asked Miss California her question, and she gave the worst answer in pageant history....Now, let me explain something to you. Miss California did not lose because she doesn't believe in gay marriage. Miss California lost because she's a dumb bitch. Okay? This is how a person with half a brain answers the question I posed to her....If that girl had won Miss USA - California - I would have gone up on stage - I shit you not - I would have gone up on stage, snatched that tiara off her head, and run out the door.

Editorial from Leonard Jacobs, Fox News:

Dear Miss California: I will not scream at you, castigate you for your stupidity or label you “ignorant” for what you said at the Miss USA Pageant. After all, you didn’t win; that’s punishment enough...No offense taken, Carrie. You have the right to your opinion. I don’t have to love it. Nazis have a right to march in Skokie. I don’t have to love them, either.

Twitter post from E! News anchor Giuliana Rancic:

...i [sic] know i'm [sic] a journalist, and i [sic] should be objective...but she is an ignorant discrace [sic] and she makes me sick to my stomach.

Think Fashion Celebrity News:

Unbelievable! What’s even more unbelievable is the fact that she still became runner-up after that pathetic answer. Do we really want someone so close-minded becoming a role model for our children? I don’t think so.

Tolerance.

Photo: La Jolla Light

The Uninvited - Review

Director: The Guard Brothers
Writer: A whole lot of people
Starring: Elizabeth Banks/David Strathairn
Runtime: 87 minutes

This is one those reviews that starts with, "Do I have to?"

Write it, that is.

I guess I do, because I haven't written a movie review in a while and I'm feeling guilty. But...do I have to?

All right, here goes:

1) The movie starts with a dream sequence.

2) Throughout the movie, there's a lot of dream sequences.

3) The heroine, Anna (Emily Browning), is a nutso kid who can't get over the death of her mother. She thinks the nanny did it.

4) The nanny, Rachel (Elizabeth Banks), has been boffing Anna's dad since Anna's mom died in an accident.

5) Spooky ghosts haunt Anna's dreams. Since this movie is yet another remake of an Asian horror flick, the ghosts walk bent over backwards and make weird noises at the backs of their throats. Old.

6) Anna's sister walks around in a bikini all the time, probably to draw the teenage boy crowd.

7) David Strathairn plays Anna's dad. He's a great actor. I have no idea why he's in this movie, but hey, money's money.

8) See this movie if you're really bored, or have a 14-year-old daughter. It's tame enough for the teen crowd, but it's only a must-see if you're a total horror junkie.

9) Seeing this movie reminded me that good, original horror flicks are very hard to come by. Very. The best part about it was, being a teen horror flick, I knew it wouldn't be longer than 90 minutes.

There. Did it. Now on with my day.

Photo: Yahoo Movies

Bronx Bummed

There's one question on my mind this morning: "How does Joe Girardi still have a job?"

Yesterday, the manager of the Yankees watched his team suffer another mammoth loss at the hands of the Indians, going down 22-4. Yes, Cleveland hung 22 runs on them, 14 of them coming in a second inning that seemed like it would never end.


A few days back, the Yankees proved that their new digs weren't exactly lucky. They lost 10-2 in the first home game in the new Yankee Stadium's history. The next day, they managed to salvage some pride by winning 6-5. Then came the historic blowout: Yahoo Sports quotes the Elias Sports Bureau as saying that no team has ever scored 14 runs in the second inning, against the Yankees or anybody else.

Steinbrenner's sons are in charge of the team now. That's pretty obvious. If The Boss had been in charge during yesterday's 22-4 rout, Girardi would have been canned by the sixth inning.

And rightfully so. New stadium? $1.5 billion. New payroll? $201 million. Headline from the New York Post: TRIBE'S 14-RUN 2ND SPARKS RECORD ROUT. Talk about your Bronx bummers!

Embarrassment isn't the word. The Yankee empire built themselves a crown jewel and then managed to make it look like a home for wayward losers.

I never saw Girardi as a Yankee manager. He's too buff, too slick. Yogi Berra had the the proper paunch and Billy Martin the filthy mouth (trying to deck Reggie Jackson in the dugout made him the inta-classic Yankee manager). Joe Torre was a gentleman but looked like a hitman. Girardi's too Miami or too Hollywood. He needs to head back to Florida first chance he gets.

Photo by Nick Laham/Getty Images

Munich Redux

Now:


U.S. President Barack Obama greets his Venezuela counterpart Hugo Chavez as Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez (L) looks on before the opening ceremony of the 5th Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain April 17, 2009. -- Yahoo News

Then: “The United States empire is on its way down and it will be finished in the near future, inshallah," Chavez told reporters, ending the statement with the Arabic phrase for "God willing." -- 2006

Congrats to Hugo Chavez. A dictator can't buy this level of legitimacy. Time for him to start playing the US like a fiddle.

I've never understood the weak-in-the-knees appeasement crowd. I guess I've read too much history. Fact is, you can't play these lowlifes. They play you. And the President of the United States walked right into it, grinning. Unreal.

Photos: Yahoo News

Will the Piñata

Wow. George Will wrote a silly little column about hating jeans and denim and...the whole right wing blogsphere fell on his head.

I read the piece yesterday and thought, "Ah, George, get over it." It was an amusing little piece written by a guy who doesn't wear denim. Kinda funny, kinda not, on my with my day. I guess I didn't understand what an earth shattering column this really was.

Hot Air is especially full of sour grapes, as one of their bloggers spends an entire blog (complete with updates) pointing out that jeans are great and Will is a goof. Michelle Malkin piles on, along with a bunch of other bloggers. Ed Morrissey says, "Did I miss a memo? Have we solved all of the world’s problems? This doesn’t even make for an interesting blog post, let alone a nationally-syndicated column from an erudite political commentator."

Get bent, loser.

I've taken a swipe at Will before over political stuff, but going after a writer because of a one-off subject is lame. Will can write whatever he wants. Maybe he was tired of the politics and was just sitting around thinking of a story, saw someone in jeans and said, "You know. I never liked jeans." And wrote something.

The column's silly, and the last line shows that Will is goofing around. This is way over the heads of the blogosphere. Upset at Will ever since his betrayal during the McCain campaign, they are determined to pay him back. But by making fun of him for not wearing jeans? News flash: George Will has been wearing bow ties on TV his entire life. Did you expect him to like jeans?

A few weeks back Will wrote about the Arizona/Mexico border. A couple of weeks ago he wrote about the US constitution. A week ago he wrote about baseball. Yesterday he wrote about denim. Who cares?

Morrissey's "miss a memo" and "erudite" drivel smacks of an intellectual alert. Morrissey would never know this, but the dirty little secret about writers is that they write. Bloggers blog. The difference between them is that writers sometimes write about something else once in a while just for the hell of it. Bloggers are a broken record.

In Canada, I've seen this kind of stuff before. It's usually about Mark Steyn and how he used to be a DJ, so he has no business being in the writing trade. Whatever. The internet opened up a wide world of information, but it also gave every jealous hack with a keyboard a chance to tell writers how to write. Tough luck. Maybe Will or Steyn's next column should be about where the slogan "eat me" came from.

Steyn Throwing Grapefruits

I'm not sure if Steyn could make it any easier for someone to have fun at his expense, but here he goes:

Kathryn, re that German condom ad, okay, I'll bite:

If they ever do a dystopian movie about the death of Germany they should have a giant version of one of those Euro-condoms sticking up out of the sand like the finale of Planet of the Apes as the Teuton version of Charlton Heston (Helmut Berger?) sinks to his knees.

I get his drift. But the phallic symbolism, biting, and bended knees...

Dude.

Showdown in Texas

Very interesting and, dare I say, exciting.

I'm a constitutional junkie and I've been waiting for someone to say something like this for a long time. It will be interesting to see how it shakes out (if it shakes out; the governor of one of the biggest states in the union just told the capital to stick it, and damned if you can find a word about it on the airwaves).

I agree with pretty much everything Perry says in this statement vis a vis the federal government usurping states' rights. It's funny how parochial his words sound, literally and figuratively. It just sounds so old fashioned and hick to talk about a state as a sovereign territory in its own right. It doesn't fit the kumbayah storyline. Federalism has become a dirty word.

When it comes to the US constitution, I'm old school. It was not a document concerned with providing a central government with power. It was a document written with keeping that power in check at every turn. You'd never know that today.

Fade to Black - Mark Fidrych

I never got to see Fidrych play. I was too young. But my brother used to talk about him, and every so often you'd see highlights of "Big Bird" on the sports shows.

He died today in an apparent accident while working on his truck.

The Freep has a good write-up on him. A taste:

He had a no-hitter through seven innings in [his] first start, won nine of his first 10 starts, started the All-Star Game and even had Howard Cosell genuflecting at his feathered feet before a national television audience – all in a span of two months.

The rest is worth reading.

Baseball players never die. They just turn into black and white photographs.

I Have Seen The Future, Brother, And It Is...Fees

That title doesn't quite match the Leonard Cohen lyrics for driving fear into your heart. But maybe it should:

After her sport utility vehicle sideswiped a van in early February, Shirley Kimel was amazed at how quickly a handful of police officers and firefighters in Winter Haven, Fla., showed up. But a real shock came a week later, when a letter arrived from the city billing her $316 for the cost of responding to the accident...

Such cash-per-crash ordinances tend to infuriate motorists, and they often generate bad press, but a lot of cities are finding them hard to resist. With the economy flailing and budgets strained, state and local governments are being creative about ways to raise money. And the go-to idea is to invent a fee — or simply raise one.

As the White House Chief of Staff said, never let a crisis go to waste.

What a great way to keep the economy moving. Make an accident more expensive for the driver so they can't repair their car, pay the rent, afford food.

According the above article, the city expects either Shirley Kimel or her insurance company to pay. So no big deal, right? Shirley can fob it off on her insurance tab and carry on with life. Fat chance. The article states that in most cases, the insurance company does not cover the cash-per-crash fee. But how about the cases where they do? You can bet the farm that every insurance company is going to take a close look at a city's cash-per-crash laws and hike insurance premiums accordingly. Vacation? Out. DVD player? Not this year. Hire an extra employee? Forget it.

The decline of democracy is not being caused by a war from without. It's being caused by a war from within. A political class is scaring you into believing you owe them more, and more, and more, and they're here to collect. They're not the "public servant." You are.

Serfdom meet the 21st century.

Musing on Fans

I was doing some work last night and had the TV on in the background. The Academy of Country Music Awards was on. As company, it was good enough for me. During the broadcast, I heard the presenters and award recipients say the word "fans" dozens of times. Fans-this, fans-that. "I'd like to thank the fans." And, "If it wasn't for the fans, I wouldn't be here." And, "The fans made this song a hit." The speeches were maybe ten or fifteen seconds long, and all of them revolved around record labels, family, and fans.

Country music is good at marketing itself to the people that matter: the fans that buy albums and listen to the radio.

Contrast that with the Oscars, where the show is designed to prove how far the movie business has gone in alienating its audience. Every speech is about "me," followed by an endless string of names that the home audience has never heard of. Agents, script consultants, producers, on and on.

A few years back, Hilary Swank made the faux pas of forgetting to mention her husband during her Academy Award speech. She was knocked around for it by the rags. I asked: why? It was perfectly understandable. These people dispose of marriages like coffee cups. (Swank is since divorced).

After thanking their sycophants, movie stars then get on a soap box. You have the writer of Milk preaching for gay rights, Sean Penn thanking "Commies" and "homo lovers" for granting him the Best Actor award, and any number of stars bashing the former US President. When they're finished, they go to a ritzy after-party, get drunk, and sometimes drink and drive. Want to meet a movie star? Depends how much they've had to drink and how fast they're driving. Movie stars can afford to buy ten thousand BMWs, but not one chauffeur.

During this year's Oscars, I heard the word "fans" exactly twice, one time as a joke from Will Smith (he correctly observed that action movies are great because they have one thing that most Oscar contenders don't: fans). Someone else mentioned the fans almost by accident. And that was that. All of the other speeches were about people we've never seen and never will.

Think about that. A room full of people, rich because people buy tickets to watch what they do, and it never crosses their mind to thank the people buying the tickets.

It really is amazing that people still line up to meet movie stars, or ask for their autograph, or even go to the movies. We know these people don't give a damn about us. To paraphrase Warhol, they tell us how to think, how to vote, how to behave and, more importantly, how to look while we're behaving. We pay their salaries and treat them like royalty while they treat us with indifference. They'd just as soon never meet us, let alone shake our hands. But we love them.

Amazing. Amusing.

Existential Epiphany

Not much new video-wise on The Onion right now, but I watched this beauty again. Never get tired of it.


Pre-Game Coin Toss Makes Jacksonville Jaguars Realize Randomness Of Life

Intellectual Alert - Hot Air

Too bad, as the guys at Hot Air are usually pretty good. I read them quite often. Then again, this entry is from the blogger who calls himself Allahpundit. I've said before that he's a jackass. Now he's confirmed it by using the most asinine word in the language.

To whit:

Spellbinding and agonizing for many reasons, foremost among them the fact that Maher’s tepid disapproval seems to be the only thing keeping the moronic audience from siding with this willful imbecile against two of the world’s leading public intellectuals.

"Public intellectuals." As opposed to "private buffoons."

Anyone who uses the "intellectual" label is a putz, but Allahpundit goes the extra mile. "World's leading public intellectual." Wow. I had no idea that someone was measuring the intellectual prowess of everyone on Earth. If Hitchens is leading, we're all trailing? And who's dead last? The plumber sitting on the john reading The Economist, or the university professor sitting on the john reading Playboy?

Allahpundit shouldn't be calling anyone an imbecile. Like David Brooks, he has achieved High Putz status.