Still Alive

The Tea Partiers don't believe in global warming. “They’re trying to use global warming against the people,” Ms. Deaton said. “It takes way our liberty.”

“Being a strong Christian,” she added, “I cannot help but believe the Lord placed a lot of minerals in our country and it’s not there to destroy us.”

Would somebody translate that "takes away our liberty" business for me? You hear it all the time from the Tea Partiers. What liberty is anybody trying to take away? Okay, there's the liberty [metaphor coming] to dump your night soil in the village well; we want to take that liberty away, yes. But what else, exactly?

Meanwhile, Juan Williams finally got canned at NPR. I'd largely stopped listening to NPR because of his "analysis," which consisted of repeating things he'd heard over at Fox News. Apparently he actually said, "I'm not a bigot, ... but ..." and then said some stupid things about Muslims. Fox News, where anti-Muslim bigotry is an article of faith, took no action.

Gail Collins can still make me laugh at it all.