My beloved Philadelphia Inquirer has recently launched a very excellent blog with the witty name, Blinq.

Blinq is run by Daniel Rubin, a reporter at the Inquirer and so far, it’s a great read, particularly for anyone with Philly ties.

My only complaint is that in his blogroll Rubin links to Gawker, the NYC gossip blog. Now that’s just an insult. The City of Brotherly Love don’t need no stinkin’ New Yawk gossip. We don’t idolize the glitterati; we throw batteries at them.

What are the odds Andrew Sullivan will suddenly discover what a smart, intellectually-honest thinker Max Boot is this week?

Seriously. 5-2? 13-5? Let’s get the vigorish going . . .

Update, 1:45 p.m.: An anonymous emailer points out that at 11:09 this morning, Sullivan pointed to Boot’s “smart comments.” Talk about a sure thing.

Mickey Kaus points us to Steve Sailer’s very interesting post on the key to Republican electoral success: “Affordable Family Formation.”

Sailer notes four categories making up this idea:

* “The Dirt Gap”–land supply around cities which drives the cost of housing.

* “The Mortgage Gap”–“Bush carred the 20 states with the cheapest housing costs, while Kerry won the 9 states with the most expensive.”

* “The Marriage Gap”–“Bush carried the top 25 states ranked on ‘years married’.”

* “The Baby Gap”–“Bush carried 25 of the top 26 states in white total fertility . . . while Kerry was victorious in the bottom 16.”

None of these “gaps” is new, but Sailer’s the first person I’ve seen to combine them into a unified field theory of financial family incentives. Thought provoking stuff.

I’m not much of a culture snob, but I just don’t get American Idol. I’d never seen the show before this season, when I tuned in for about 15 minutes during one episode. It didn’t do much for me.

But millions of Americans can’t be wrong, so in honor of last night’s Idol finale, here’s a link to Matt Labash’s brilliant piece, False Idols, from a couple years back:

THERE WAS A TIME, not long ago, when primetime television was populated by famous people. Someone appearing on TV meant that they’d likely worked their way up through the ranks: doing school plays, regional theater, and embarrassing commercials, until finally, they honed their skills, perfected their craft, and slept with the lecherous casting director who’d cause them to become obscenely wealthy and loved by millions.

These days, however, television isn’t so much about being famous, as it is about auditioning to become famous. With televised tryouts being the entire point of such shows, aspirants of fame, even in failure, still become quasi-famous by default. There are nights when one can tune into network programming and see nothing but wall-to-wall talent shows. In just the past season, there’s been the Debbie Allen-hosted “Fame,” a creaky brand extension of the early ’80s incarnation in which Cocoa, Bruno, and the rest of the leg-warmer wearing cast would break into song at the slightest provocation. Then there is “American Juniors,” in which the cloying, over-rouged Jon Benets of today strive to become the cloying, overexposed Celine Dions of tomorrow.

But with a glut of such shows evidenced by the likes of “30 Seconds to Fame”–in which a contestant has all of a half-minute to say, turn his nostrils inside-out to the delight of an ADD-afflicted crowd–it is time to get back to First Principles–to the show that spurred it all–“American Idol.” . . .

No offense, but I’ve never gotten the Neal Pollack thing. Today I understand a little. In a piece for Slate about the Phoenix Suns he writes:

The coach, Mike D’Antoni, doesn’t get out-cooled by his team. Though American by birth, he’s arguably the greatest player in the history of Italian basketball. He’s married to a model and hangs out with the Benetton and Versace families. TNT recently showed vintage footage of a shirtless D’Antoni, wearing the same crisp ‘stache he still has today, holding aloft a trophy while a crowd of Italian revelers dumped champagne on his head. The Italians call him Arsenio Lupin, after a movie about a cat burglar. That’s not a reference that means anything to me. I call him Coach Pornstache.

That’s alright.

Dean Barnett has a piece at NRO on stem-cell rhetoric and the great news that he now has a part-time job doing book reviews for the Philadelphia Inquirer, a paper near and dear to my heart.

This is a great match and it couldn’t happen to a better guy.

The Spoons Experience has a great little riff:

A burglar breaks into your house and steals $500.

Outraged, you declare, “I am going to put new locks on the doors, install an alarm, and sue that burglar to get my money back!”

The burglar, who happens to be your next door neighbor, asks, “Don’t you think that’s a little extreme?”

You hesitate, “Well… uh… I don’t know….”

The burglar proposes: “How about this? I’ll give you back $300. You promise not to change the locks or install an alarm, and don’t go to the cops with this. In return, I promise that I won’t break into your house and steal from you anymore unless I really, really need the money.”

As a rule, I’m against personal blog disclosures, but this entry at Captain’s Quarters is so touching that I have to make an exception. If you want to start your day off with a smile, go read it.

Happy Birthday David! And Ed, congratulations for helping turn out such a good guy.