Humor Section

rickm brought to our attention, in the item below, that Ms. McArdle is just a bit humor-deficient.

Now I'll note that she is very humor-deficient. Whining about the budget deficit (What does any of this crap mean? Many of the commenters take it as a reason to cut "entitlements," which they of course follow w/: "But I couldn't get elected if I ran on that platform, har har." Oh, what a pain it is living in a democracy, when people are just crying out to be forced to live correctly.) she comes up w/ this attempt at humor:

Either way, we're in for a bumpy ride. Can America get a second job?

In case you haven't noticed, Ms. Megan, much of America is unable to find even a first job. But that's good, as it keeps wages down & the proles scared. (See, I'm learning something about econ from constant reading of Our Muse's web log.)

Elements of Style©:

Nonetheless, this sends a rather clear message: danger, Will Robinson!

Not really funny, because the robot has the voice of a buffoon, & was almost never believed when he used the phrase. And, when following a colon w/ a phrase or sentence, one capitalizes the first word. Especially when the sentence/phrase is a quotation. (We're not sure if it should be in quotation marks in this case, so we'll let that slide.)

P. S.: Megan, getting a second job does not mean flying to a conference somewhere, blathering for 30 mins., taking a few questions, & then retiring to the bar for appletinis before passing out in your free hotel room.