Not until I read hartmut's most recent post did I realize: This was hilzoy attempting to write a parody of Sarah Palin's quitting-equals-not-quitting speech. Unfortunately, one of the few verbal things hilzoy *can't* do is string words together in a completely incoherent and rambling manner. Nice try, toots, but leave that stuff to the professionals (e.g., Samantha Bee).

Good grief. Even as I was refining the wording of my characteristically cheap pun, an actual Rwandan reader chimes in. Do I have mysterious powers or what?

Hil, what if I got Alan Rickman to personally ask you to stay? Would that work? Maybe we can find some African readers to plead with you during vacation. (Help me, Rwanda!) I'm going to pretend that you won't be able to stay away: there are too many things that need to be said that no one else can say as persuasively and even-temperedly (?). (I love Glenn Greenwald's constant state of outrage, but, as a steady diet, it can grind me down.) I hope that, after a nice long rest, you won't be able to resist and will let your comments postings develop into something sustained, whether here or...wherever. (Would I love to see you jump on the sinking ship of the NY Times as an op ed columnist? Please don't take it as a curse that I would.) But don't keep your brain to yourself.

The word "funambules" shows up in the wonderful, relatively recent film "Man on Wire," but film buffs are more likely to remember it as the theater where Jean-Louis Barrault's mime performs in the even more wonderful, not so recent "Children of Paradise."