At the risk of revealing myself a hopeless — what’s the phrase? — white male atheist virgin working in IT living in his mother’s basement libertarian troll (although I’m married, living my own home, Jewish, working in astronomy, slightly more conservative than libertarian and always thought of myself as more of an ogre than a troll), I have to like to Reason’s tribute to Robert A. Heinlein.

My favorite Heinlein quote for today? I mentioned it earlier. It’s from Jubal Harshaw:

I don’t like to be called ‘Doctor.’. . . Oh, I’m not offended. But when they began handing out doctorates for comparative folk dancing and advanced fly-fishing, I became too stinkin’ proud to use the title. I won’t touch watered down whiskey and I take no pride in watered-down degrees . . . it is time they called it something else, so as not to have it mixed up with playground supervisors.

It’s even worse than when Heinlein wrote this. Christ, the people they give Ph.D.’s to these days. They even gave me one. But I’ll paraphrase the good Mr. Harshaw:

“I don’t like to be called ‘conservative.’. . . Oh, I’m not offended. But when they began calling “conservative” torture of detainees and advanced moral hypocrisy, I became too stinkin’ proud to use the title. I won’t touch watered down whiskey and I take no pride in watered-down political philosophy . . . it is time they called it something else, so as not to have it mixed up with neo-fascist twinks.