Pun Salad

Hey, I got mail from a Pun Salad fan! What do you think?

Hello dear My name is jasmine in search of a man who understands love as trust and faith rather seeing it as a way of fun but a matured man with good scence of humor reading about you i derive interest on you contact me with this address (happyjany2007@yahoo.comi believe we can start from here, waiting your urgent reply so i can send pictures for further introductions
kisses Jasmine.

Anyway, I'm very unavailable. But something tells me she's not that picky, so I'm throwing it out there for any other matured man with good scence of humor; perhaps she could be persuaded to derive interest on you. And, after further introductions, if money changes hands (as I think it's almost certain to), she might be able to afford a keyboard with a few more working punctuation symbols.

• James Kirchick takes to the op-ed page of the LA Times to say what needs to be said about the raft of "enlightened" people who despise Clarence Thomas and deride him as an "affirmative action hire."

  How can you support a policy of racial preferences and then attack one of its supposed beneficiaries as undeserving? This, ultimately, is the intrinsic hypocrisy of the Thomas bashers. They allege that he's not competent and that the only reason he became a Supreme Court justice was because he's black. And in so doing, they level the exact same arguments against Thomas that they castigate conservatives for making about affirmative action itself. But let's face facts: A program that gives people with a certain skin color an advantage will invariably reward some who would otherwise not qualify.

  Definitely gets the coveted Pun Salad "Read the Whole Thing" award for today. (Via Katie's Mom.)

• James Kirchick, the author of the column linked above, is on the editorial staff of The New Republic. As much as I liked his column, I don't think anyone should link to anything from anyone involved with that magazine unless they also point out that TNR published made up crap about Iraq, they refuse to admit it, and they hope we'll all just forget about it. Let's not.

  I hope Kirchick is looking for a more reputable publication to work for.

• Good news from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education:

  Following a three-year dispute and a multi-million-dollar lawsuit, Occidental College and former student shock jock Jason Antebi have settled a lawsuit in which Antebi sued the school for maliciously violating his freedom of speech and due process rights when it fired him and found him guilty of "harassment" for jokes both on and off the air. Stunningly, Occidental used this controversy as a pretext to dissolve the student government and began an aggressive campaign of false accusations and distortions to justify its actions. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which took up Antebi's defense in 2004, is happy to announce that Antebi is pleased with the outcome of the settlement.

  … which probably implies that Oxy is displeased with the outcome of the settlement. Excellent! What is it about college administrators that makes them feel they can act as petty tyrants?

• I don't blog much about my beloved Boston Red Sox, but I've been paying a little more attention than usual this year. Melissa Lafsky at the Freakonomics blog explains why:

  Earlier this year, Massachusetts furniture chain Jordan's Furniture announced a marketing gimmick that would delight any diehard Red Sox fan: if the Sox went on to win the 2007 World Series, all furniture sales made between March 7 and April 16 of this year would be refunded.

  And, yes, I bought a new mattress for Pun Salad Manor back then. The article describes the insurance mechanism involved.

  I'm kind of amazed that this was legal, because it smells a lot like, well, gambling; the article says that the Mass AG gave it the thumbs up, however.

  Also, I thought that it was kind of cute that all the Jordan's personnel had apparently been coached to not phrase the offer as: "if the Red Sox win the World Series…" Without exception, from salesperson to cashier, they all said: "when the Red Sox win the World Series…"

  Anyway: unless you're a diehard fan of some other team, wish us luck. As I type, the lads only need to win six more games, including the next two. How hard is that?