NEW VOICE COLUMN UP, about the John Derbyshire thing. I'm sorry they fired the old bastard -- his was a clarifying, overtly racist presence among the more milquetoast race-baiters of National Review. I liked to imagine him at their parties, drunk and going "nigger" this and "faggot" that, with all the Lowrys and Yorks and Lopezes giggling about how wonderfully incorrigible and English he is while Mark Steyn bellows GOOD SHOW DERB! and vomits up a flagon of Rhenish.

We could pore over my collection of Derb reminiscences, but let us not be too valedictory; Derbyshire will certainly re-emerge, perhaps on This Week With George Stephanopoulos.

UPDATE. Look who's been inspired to do his bit for racial discord: Mark Judge -- nee Mark Gauvreau Judge, culture-warring, trend-setting swing-dancer for Christ. He had his bike stolen in a DC neighborhood from which all the black residents have not yet been chased by gentry-waves. Judge must be over 30 by now, but apparently he's never been robbed before, because this has caused him to turn against all black people, and to relinquish the "white guilt" that once made him watch Norman Jewison movies.

Perhaps sensing that even ordinary racists would be disgusted with his whining, Judge invents wimpy liberal friends beside whom he can look butchly Politically Incorrect. Unfortunately, this is how the gentleman essays to roll:

Hearing the kumbaya song from my liberal friend, I immediately thought of a phrase Piers Morgan had recently used...

I think Jesus just carried his Smirnoff Ice into the next room.

I'll leave the last word to an especially astute Daily Caller commenter:

I stole your bike. I only did it because you're a wanker. I didn't actually want it, or want to sell it for drugs or beer or anything. I just wanted to throw it in the river. So I threw it in the river.

Respect.