When we valorize ignorance and debase reason, we diminish man and the humanity that dwells within him, to bum an old fashioned phrase from Kant. - Laura Penny

I can sculpt a birthday cake out of shit and insist that I obviously mean cake, that my real intent is to wish you a happy birthday, but my intentions and protestations cannot turn crap into a delicious dessert.

Posthumous fame, book fame, nerd fame is not like the good kind of fame. It might last for centuries and let antique egg heads torture the young from the grave, but it just doesn't pay the bills.

The panic over public health care is funny and sad, since America has had death panels and sinister bureaucrats for years. They're called Aetna, Humana, and Wellpoint, they make a killing, figuratively and literally.