MovableType has outlived its usefulness.

In lieu of anything thought-provoking or intelligent, here's a cat video.

Packet really likes the space behind my flat screen monitor.

E-cigarettes don't burn anything, and the only "second hand" by-product is water vapor. Yet, the usual gang of minding-everyone-else's-business "public health" harpies naturally want to treat electronic cigarettes in the same way that tobacco cigarettes are treated — that is, the users and producers tarred, feathered, drawn, quartered and burnt at the stake. (Waterboarding, however, is unacceptable.)

Hey, guess what? I've been a smoker for over 25 years. I tried everything to quit except hypnosis, all to no avail. Last month I switched to electronic cigarettes and haven't yet looked back. These things are a godsend.

By the same token, a simple truth spoken plainly can cut like a razor. Many ads I'm seeing and hearing this year feature four little words:

"Voted with Nancy Pelosi."

Plain. Factual. Dull, even.

And yet in this election cycle, lethally effective.

In many corners of the country, "voted with Nancy Pelosi" might just as well be synonymous with "Incumbent X soul sold his to Satan, and we have the documents to prove it." I don't think the Democrat power players who put Pelosi in the Speaker's chair have realized — or indeed are capable of understanding — that to most people who pay attention, Pelosi represents most of what is wrong with the Left in America.

There are reasons that Jeanne Kirkpatrick's famous 1984 constructions — "San Francisco Democrats" who routinely "blame America first" — ring so true. Pelosi is merely the current most visible exemplar.

Ace of Spades HQ routinely refers to her as "Granny Rictus McBotox." (I think I got that right.) Me, I think she's got the "Speaker Sardonicus" thing going on.

You be the judge.

"I love the markets. I watched them since I was a teenager. I'm fascinated by it and it's a force, it's a force in our economy."

Sure, Nan, sure.

Personally, I'm all in favor of putting as many professional politicians as possible (and their coterie of professional flunkies, as well) out of office and into the private sector. It looks like, come November, a good start will be made on doing exactly that. Maybe we could get some engineers in there, instead, some day....

Most of those soon-to-be-unemployed politicians are professional parasites, making their livings by feeding off the productivity of the American people and returning virtually nothing of value.

Most being lawyers, many without private sector experience, and virtually none who've created a single job or indeed benefitted the nation or the economy in any private capacity whatsoever, I expect (and maybe hope) a goodly number of them would either starve or end up in prison.

Where, incidentally, most of them belong anyway.

The reason not to burn Qurans is that it's unkind -- not to jihadists, but to Muslims who mean us no harm. The same goes for building a mosque at ground zero -- in both cases, it's not a question of anyone's "rights," it's just a nasty thing to do.