As I type this I am eating cheese.

Anyone who has ever been to a Jimmy Buffett concert (and, readers, you can count your correspondent among that number; I went to one in 1996) can attest to the presence of large numbers of socially conservative people who undergo a transformation into dead-drunk socially conservative people singing along loudly to "Why Don't We Get Drunk and Screw" and "Cheeseburger in Paradise," all the better to stick it to those stick-in-the-mud PC liberals who don't want you to eat meat, get drunk, or screw. Or so they imagine.

Perhaps memories of those summer evenings in the local amphitheatre are what drove the Weekly Standard to sail around the Caribbean on the good ship Westerdam. Or perhaps it was a desire to see Tom Delay's big plan—a lot of sunbelt Republicans in a cruise ship (as if that has never happened before)—at least partially realized.

I don't know which it is, if either. I invite the Standardized (or whatever you call yourselves) to email and tell me what the motivation was, and whether anyone sang "Boat Drinks" at a karaoke bar during the cruise. Also, did anyone say, "Man, we are putting the party in Republican Party!" at any point?

Jonathan Last demonstrated an unfortunate flair for nurturing the trans-Atlantic relationships the left holds so dear, coming dangerously close—I think Ann Coulter would agree—to treason. First, on Day 4, he reports:

The island is divided into two sections, one controlled by the Netherlands, the other by France. Since the French have a better reputation when it comes to fun in the sun, we settled on Orient Beach, a wide swath of white sand and warm, turquoise water about 30 minutes away.

Shocking. And somewhat ridiculous, considering the reputation that Amsterdam has among the drooling backpacking masses. Perhaps he is confusing the Dutch with the Belgian. Then, Day 5:

[W]e took a taxi to Frenchman's Cay.

I'm dismayed, if only because the solid ideological fault lines I rely on to organize my limited thoughts have been so utterly shattered.

That said, I am hoping that the fellows over there at the Weekly Standard will invite me along next time. The hope that they will shall keep me warm as the long northeastern winter wanes into a probably chilly spring.