Insight: “Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.” —Michael Crichton (1942-2008)

Belly laugh of the week: “I … confess that I’m a bit curious to learn if I am correct in thinking that Heaven will look a lot like Kansas. And to see, like others who have gone before me, if I will still be able to vote in Chicago.” —Bob Dole’s farewell letter

“What’s happened here over the last 20 years, since China was admitted to the World Trade Organization, is our economy and many of our most important companies have become heavily dependent on China. … We have American investors and we have people in this country who invest in companies that are building weapons designed to kill American soldiers in the future. And they do not care, because when forced to choose between billions more dollars in profits from China or the well-being of the country they live in and supposedly call ‘home,’ they choose the profits. And that’s incredibly damaging. And I think the Chinese played it that way. They understood that it’s a vulnerability and they continue to exploit it.” —Senator Marco Rubio

A blind squirrel finds a nut: “The NBA is up to its neck in China. China is a huge sports market. Basketball is especially popular there. But they will put up with not even the slightest criticism. … By the way, a lot of Nike’s goods that benefit the likes of Colin Kaepernick and LeBron James is made in China. And those outspoken individuals … are conspicuously mum when it comes to China, and no matter what the issues are here, and they are serious issues, they pale alongside what’s going on there.” —sports broadcaster Bob Costas

“Biden: Boycott Atlanta! Also Biden: Beijing 2022 totally fine!” —Liz Wheeler

Good riddance: “The darkness on the edge of town has spread to the main roads and highways and neighborhoods. It’s now at the local bar, and the bowling alley, at the school board, and the grocery store. And it must be acknowledged and answered for. Grown men and women who swore an oath to our Constitution, elected by their constituents possessing the kinds of college degrees I could only dream of, have decided to join the mob and become something they are not while hoping we somehow forget who they were. They’ve decided to burn it all down — with us inside. That should scare you to no end as much as it scares an aging volunteer fireman.” —Brian Williams in his his final episode of MSNBC's "The 11th Hour"

Grand delusions: “To me we have the strongest economy perhaps I have ever seen.” —CNBC’s Jim Cramer

Race bait: “Bitcoin surge was a windfall for white supremacists, research finds.” —NBC News

And last… “If ‘temporary’ provisions in the Build Back Better Act become permanent, US national debt will increase by 24%! There is a lot of accounting trickery in this bill that isn’t being disclosed to the public. Nothing is more permanent than a ‘temporary’ government program.” —Elon Musk