Our amazing run of luck continues

David Brooks is still on vacation! While he's gone, a couple of Brooksian tidbits:

First, from an article on whether or not conservative thinkers believe in evolution (a stupid question, really, as one can't really "believe" in a scientific theory):

"David Brooks, The New York Times (via email)

Whether he personally believes in evolution: "I believe in the theory of evolution."

What he thinks of intelligent design: "I've never really studied the issue or learned much about ID, so I'm afraid I couldn't add anything intelligent to the discussion.""

Well, at least he's willing to admit it for one topic.

Also, we learn from Liquid List that Brooks is approximately five feet tall. Not that this is really relevant to anything, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Finally, Brooks's absence has, surprisingly, failed to improve the tone of the NYT editorial page. Thomas Friedman's neo-liberal bullshit is now completely unreadable, John Tierney is really stepping up his efforts to displace Brooks (and I don't mean that in a good way), Kristof is succumbing to sensible-liberal syndrome, Dowd's replacements continue to range from ludicrously vapid to vomit-inducingly bad, Bob Herbert's latest column on the need for more fathers in the black community was below his usual standard and even Krugman's latest series on obesity fails to grip me. Not that this means that I want Brooks back, of course. Remember, things can always be worse.