The Oh My Gawd Particle

Oh, I don't know, Prof. I think you perversely have to admire Friedman for his titanic certitude that all events, I mean, literally, every single thing that transpires on this earth, in this universe, confirms the thesis of his most recent book. Spontaneous mass uprising? Poorly received Superbowl commercial? Cosmic background radiation? They all verify that the world is flat. The flat world is like his Higgs boson: never actually observed, probably more metaphoric than actual, a sort of clever abstraction that, we swears, is actually responsible for everything being the way that it is. One of the glories of the Friedmanian worldview is that unlike that hoary old Conservativismism, you know, about standing astride history and yelling STOP, it stands astride reality in order that reality may pass ceaselessly and without obstruction between its chubby legs.