CRAZY FROM THE HEAT: InstaPundit Paris Correspondent Claire Berlinski emails:

I feel that I should say something insightful about the heat wave, but really, there is just no way to blame Jose Bove for this one. Besides, I just walked out to get a sandwich and nearly perished of heat prostration, so I don’t have the energy. You know those guys at Alcor who pickle human heads in liquid nitrogen? I used to think they were just completely nuts, but now I’m now wondering if I can afford it. If your readers buy a few more of my books, maybe I too can be cryogenically frozen: Berlinski.com. It would be a mitzvah, gentle Instapundit readers. Yesterday it reached — literally, I am not at all exaggerating — 114 degrees in my apartment, which is on the top floor of my building and facing due south. When the Pope called upon the world’s Catholics to pray for rain, I swore that if it worked, I would convert. We had a pathetic excuse for a thunderstorm the other morning, and it is still just as hot, and now humid as well. Do your readers think I’m obliged to convert, or might I get off on a technicality, seeing that the Lord Jesus clearly replied only to the letter but not the spirit of my prayers? This is one for the Cardinals to decide, I suppose. Oh, and in other news, my pet bonsai Toshiro expired, another casualty of the weather. I did everything I could to save him. It was to no avail. He was meant for more temperate climes.

A haiku in loving memory of Toshiro:

Once you were florid
My floor is strewn with your leaves
You were a swell plant.

Perhaps it’s not too late to have Toshiro frozen.