Random thoughts on the passing scene:

 Bumper sticker in Berkeley: "Animals are little people in fur coats."

 My tastes must be behind the times. When I see women in "before" and "after" advertisements, I often think they looked better before.

 What enables ex-President Jimmy Carter to be taken seriously is that millions of people are too young to remember what a disaster the Carter administration was. He lost his bid for re-election in a landslide for a reason.

 Who would have dreamed that "Merry Christmas" would become a controversial phrase? But increasingly schools and other institutions avoid it like the plague, in order to be politically correct.

 Is there something about being rich that makes some people go off the deep end? The limousine liberals among the Democrats and the country club Republicans are the most unrealistic people in each party.

 Cartoons in "The New Yorker" magazine used to make me burst out laughing but those in recent years don't even produce a smile. Could it be that political correctness makes it impossible to see and portray the humor in the many absurdities all around us?

 Nightmare for the 2008 Presidential election: Hillary Clinton versus John McCain. I wouldn't know whether to vote Libertarian or move to Australia.

 It apparently does not occur to some engineers who design products that most of the people who will be using those products are not engineers.

 We are so much more rational about sports than we are about politics. No one considers it "unfair" that Tiger Woods does so much better than the average golfer, or resents him for it, or accuses him of "gouging" when he collects big bucks.

 One of the many affectations of the political left and the intelligentsia is to disdain crass material things. But it is the increased production of crass material things which has released hundreds of millions of human beings from the curse of grinding poverty and endless toil, and given them longer lives.

 British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher gave the best definition of "consensus": Lack of leadership. Continued...