The latest from David Brooks:

In a perfectly rational world, citizens would figure out which parties best represent their interests and their values, and they would provisionally attach themselves to those parties. If their situations changed or their interests changed, then their party affiliations would change.

But that is not how things work in real life. . . . party attachment is more like attachment to a religious denomination or a social club.

Respondent is a 29 year old jockey and truck driver, unmarried, living with widowed mother and sister. Interview was a succession of “Don’t knows.” Not interested in the election. Said he was registered but didn’t know whether he would vote. Barely reads or writes. In pre-election interview said in answer to question about the candidates, “I don’t know nothing about that. I just vote the way the guy at the corner tells me. (Why?) Because he does me favors I just vote the way he says.” In post-election interview said he voted and gave the reason “Well, I had to vote for somebody. One was going to get in and I was registered Republican with this politician down the street so I did him a favor. I vote the way that guy wants me to.”

In the beginning was not the Word. The Thompson gazelle, that elegant beast, existed well before Thompson or the word gazelle.

Wow. Now I know we've jumped the shark. Assprat Pretentia, our long-suffering, mustly-funny, and always-vulgar parody-blog has just announced that its author has finally found better things to do with his time.

[One note-- in the course of making fun of Sudeep (now dubbed "Sodeep underwata"), the author intimates that Sudeep might have a taste for BMWs. As I was just talking to him about this yesterday, I should note that he's expressed a preference for Volkswagens, Saabs, and (especially) Volvos. These are all preferences I strongly share. In high school I drove my mom's Saab a lot. My friend Tom Rampley told me that it had "the sex appeal of a toaster-oven." I did love it so.]

As may be obvious, our archives are sometimes a little difficult to navigate if you're looking for a specific post since-- like me-- you probably can't remember what day what Crescat post appeared. We've switched, with some hesitation, away from weekly archives (or the lovely, engorged monthly archives we had in our heady Blogger days) partly because they take a long time to load, and partly because this new method devours seven times less bandwidth.

Our categories are similarly unhelpful, although a lot more fun. Some Crescatters (like me) use categories for most of their posts. Others use them rarely. And each of us has different and non-obvious standards about what posts go in what categories. I refuse to use the "poetry" category and put all poetry posts in literature. I put all personal posts in "meta" unless I can find some tangential relationship to something else. Posts about sex are generally in "Relationships" unless they are in "Vice". Alcohol is sometimes in the latter, but sometimes in "food". And so on. You may find wandering through our category pages (which are still pleasantly engorged and take forever to load for the large categories) amusing, but you will rarely find it useful.

So: If you're looking for an old Crescat post, I recommend you use the "search" function, located a little farther down the sidebar. It works very well-- I think it's one of the biggest perks of Movable Type-- and will almost certainly help you find a post if you remember a few of the less-common words that appeared in it.

Also, sometimes you will try to link to an old post only to discover that the page is broken. This is especially true for July 2003, but probably for some other time as well. I can rebuild these pages, but only one at a time, and I haven't gone to the trouble of doing so wholesale. But if you'd ever like to link to one of our old broken posts, just send me an email and let me know and I'll happily rebuild it for you.

Hope all of this helps.

Amber Taylor (among others) has taken issue with my recent harumphing about comments. First, an apology to all readers-- I shouldn't let stupid comments on other people's blogs bother me, and even if they do bother me, I shouldn't go whining in quite such an unseemly manner. An apology.

Now on to substance. The thrust of Amber's post seems to be that on smaller blogs or more personal ones, comments are better than they are on the large political blogs. Agreed wholeheartedly. Their presence on large political blogs strikes me as an unhelpful and often mis-informative form of pollution (the comments on Crooked Timber being a notable sometimes-exception to this rule, especially in response to the complicated posts about paradoxes). On smaller or more personal blogs, the value of comments is a high empirical question.

Certainly, some comments communities (dare I say it?) are actually worthwhile and of positive value. I think whether that's so depends a lot on keeping out people who post truly witless or unhelpful or insulting stuff, however. So I urge those bloggers who do have nice little civil comments sections to edit and censor with a heavy hand. It's not because insulting or witless opinions shouldn't be expressed-- of course they should-- but it's about context. The presence of a comment on your blog obviously doesn't imply endorsement, but there is a virtue (and no impoliteness, I think) in noise control. Those who wish to be witless or insulting should get their own blogs. Other bloggers will-- often against our better judgment-- read and link to them often enough.

As I've said before, Juan Non-Volokh's not the only one who can while away the weekends this way. Apropos all of the blogging here and there about kisses, my 8th 7th 4th most listened-to song on ITunes:

A Kiss To Build a Dream On, Louis Armstrong

Give me a kiss to build a dream on
And my imagination
Will thrive upon that kiss
Sweetheart, I ask no more than this
A kiss to build a dream on

Give me a kiss before you leave me
and my imagination
will feed my hungry heart
Leave me one thing before we part
A kiss to build a dream on

When I'm alone
with my fancies
I'll be with you
Weaving romances
Making believe they're true

Oh, give me your lips for just a moment
and my imagination
will make that moment live
Give me what you alone can give
A kiss to build a dream on.

When I'm alone
with my fancies
I'll be with you
Weaving romances
Making believe they're true

Oh, give me your lips for just a moment
and my imagination
will make that moment live
Give me what you alone can give
A kiss to build a dream on.