The Carnival of the Vanities just keeps getting better and better!

Boi from Troy hosts it this week, with a genuinely West Hollywood theme -- because he's right there in the thick of things.

What's more, he was nice enough to link my very late post on Islamic fashionism, and I owe him one. (Maybe two!)

All the posts are excellent, and made better by the expansive LA wit of the excellent host. I'll try to highlight a few without spoiling it for anyone.

First, although I'm quite fond of examining conspiracy theories, I try to do so in a logical and dispassionate manner, and I must take issue with Harvey over Glenn Reynolds' alleged plot to destroy Easter. (The InstaPundit site died for three days and didn't come back to life until Sunday, which if anything proves he's a true believer. Harvey's specter of "children who want candy but can't get it" is just plain conspiracy talk, which I refuse to take seriously.)

And meanwhile, Snooze Button Dreams demonstrates the nonsensical nature of such conspiracy thinking!

Quibbles and Bits debunks the (barely flying) Air America conspiracy.

On a serious note, Michele Catalano's Easter post compares Jesus, the Phoenix and Iraq, which offers hope at a time when cynics like me could use some, while Solomonia reports on an important lecture by Bernard Lewis.

Whatever you do, don't look for hope in the Myers-Briggs Personality Test! The Smallest Minority confirms my deep distrust of these psychological inventory tests. And Dissecting Leftism's dissection of socialized medicine vindicates the free market.

Oddly, I found a bit of personal vindication ("a man who is not sexually active is mocked and ridiculed!") via Charles Hill, who reflects on "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" and the sexual revolution.....

A different type of musical conflict is analyzed by Andrew Ian Dodge.

And an excellent cultural post by Josh Cohen on "Exurbia" -- "an example of what's not quite right about America."

Something's also rotten in the state of post hoc 9-11 analyses, which, as The Smarter Cop demonstrates, might just as well be handled by psychics.

And that's just a taste! Go to Hollywood for the real deal!

The Hollywood pictures alone are worth the visit. Check out the Viper Room:

where my greatest memories involved a first man-woman kiss, among other things...most people remember at the place where, ten years ago on Halloween, River Phoenix passed away