I like a lot of the people on this list.  I just voted in the straw poll and selected Marco Rubio, but I like Tim Scott, Ted Cruz, and Bobby Jindal too.

For a short time, I was manager of a sales team at a tech company. One of my team members was a charming, well-dressed, vaguely Hispanic looking man in his late 50s.  He commanded such authority, and no one who met him would ever forget him.  I wanted to be him more than I've ever wanted to be anyone else, and felt a bit down for a few days after realizing that even if I had the most magnetic personality (I don't) and the best looks (another deficiency), I'd never have the advantage of being a middle-aged man.

I was going to chime in here to say this -- not that I'm an editor any longer...but I didinvent the "Most Popular" feature.  It's an automatic widget on something like a 36 hour rotation (or some other time period that the engineers have deemed optimal).

I'll stop by!

Here's a link to a collection of posts written by Ricochet Contributors and Members about Andrew last year.  It's moving to go back and read them a year later.

I remember taking a 12 mile run through Golden Gate Park the Saturday after Andrew's death last year while listening to the Ricochet podcast with Jonah, Rob, and James.  It was the only time I've cried while running. (I don't recommend it.)

Maybe the title of the post should have been "Not MY Grandma's Republican Party" then.  Eisenhower was a good and honorable man, but geez louise, those tax rates were insane!

I don't disagree with you at all here.  But it will be no easy feat for the Republican Party to recast itself as an honest pro-liberty party in a way that doesn't completely repel the demographic within the party that typically gets pretty upset when their social issues aren't front and center in an election. 

Yep, I think that's exactly it though it honestly really pains me to say it as someone who's as socially conservative as I am fiscally conservative.  And, on a personal level, I think many self-professed libertarians (present company excluded, of course!) are as smug and sanctimonious as liberals.  

But, prevailing attitudes change.  And, so must the Republican Party. 

Lately I've felt overwhelmed by the sheer volume of content that's produced on the internet each and every day.  In a world that never sleeps, however, I suppose there's no escaping the constant sludge.

What bothers me most is that so many people write without having anything to say.  For a few quarters in college, I was TA for a class on Russian folklore.  How frustrating it was to read through a stack of 50 papers that presented no perceptive thinking, no original ideas, nothing but fancy words on a page.  I would write, "what's your point?" on so many of those essays. 

Yours is the best response to the "trillion-dollar platinum coin idea that popped into some lazy person’s head and went viral" that I've read to date!

Also, don't you love how Paul Krugman took to his online diary to write about how he couldn't possibly accept the open Treasury Secretary position?  Response: Well that's good — no one asked you in the first place.

One book I'd love to receive this year: Everyday Drinking by Kingsley Amis.

Books that I recommend people get for Christmas include anything and everything by my favorite novelist, Milan Kundera.  I read my first  Kundera novel (Immortality) on recommendation by a Ricochet Member in the comments section of a conversation about literature, and after I finished it, I had an insatiable thirst for more Kundera.  In the past few months I've read The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Joke, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, and Life is Elsewhere.  Amazing literature.

I was once invited to a wedding where the couple asked that, in lieu of gifts, guests simply donate to one of their preferred charities.  Problem was that I found both charities to be distastefully liberal, and I didn't want to send my money off to them.

So the couple got nothing from me (except for love and moral support and all that :) ).

I'm generally not a fan of the concept of giving donations in someones name.  The only exception might be on the occasion of someone's death.  I like the idea of giving a financial gift to a cause that someone cared about during his or her life.

You look absolutely gleeful in that photo.  Also, I'm impressed that you found an interesting and perfectly legitimate way to brag about your new drumstick.

When Troy next makes it out to D.C., I propose a live Young Guns reunion show.  I finally met Keith Urbahn and Meghan Clyne in person— both are exceptionally delightful people (which, as Troy will know, is a rare breed in DC).

Maybe "Diane Ellis, Ed." was always just one of Pat Sajak's pseudonyms. Something to ponder.

In all seriousness, I haven't said "goodbye" because I haven't exactly left. While I am no longer in the employ of Ricochet, I still compulsively check the Feeds and listen to the podcasts.  The election results have got me feeling down, so I haven't been too active in conversations.

I watch Love, Actually at least annually as well. It's, in fact, the only DVD I own.