Louis C.K., a comedian I used to think was brilliant, has circulated a really stupid open letter asking people who support Donald Trump to stop doing that. Someone needs to write a similar letter to Louis C.K. telling him not to write open letters like this.

His premise is that Trump is Hitler. Okay, right there he loses me. Since before we were all writing on and reading the Internet — back when we were on computer bulletin boards via 300 baud modems — I have maintained that you shouldn't liken anyone to Hitler unless the person was actually responsible for mass genocide. If someone was killing lots of Jews (or any ethnic or religious group) to achieve world domination, fine. They're Hitler. But if they were just being dangerous or treacherous or offensive, the analogy was a cheap shot. Trump is not quite there yet.

And it's silly to say we should elect a conservative as president just because it's their turn and it will give us some balance. That might be so if you can flip the Congress and the Supreme Court but the way they're structured — especially thanks to gerrymandering of the House — that doesn't happen so easily. So all you'd be doing is giving conservatives total control of the government for a while and there's no corresponding opportunity for liberals to have that.

I also really don't think John Kasich is okay. His agenda isn't very much different from any current Republican candidate — even Mitt Romney, who seems to be trying to find an opening. Kasich is just better at not sounding like a crazy person right now.

And when John McCain urges everyone to "think long and hard about who they want to be our next Commander-in-Chief and leader of the free world," he's not talking about electing a saner person. He just wants a different person to do most of the same things. John McCain is the guy who still insists Sarah Palin is good for this country. If Trump's the nominee, McCain's going to support him or at least not oppose him. (That's the problem with all these politicians. Rubio says Trump is "the most vulgar person to ever aspire to the presidency" and that he's a con artist…but he's still pledged to back him if he gets the nomination.)

And C.K. goes on from there about how Hitler wasn't such a bad human being. What exactly do you have to do to be a bad human being in this man's eyes? But you can read the whole sorry attempt at logic and poke holes in it for yourself. I wish I thought it was all a parody but if Louis C.K. was writing a parody, it would be a lot funnier than this.

Over at the Washington Post, Paul Waldman reports that to the disappointment of many who hoped it would kill or at least impair her presidential run, the matter of Hillary Clinton's e-mail server is not resulting in any sort of criminal charges.

Something might turn up, of course. But as noted here, as long as the Clintons have been in the public eye, their foes have always insisted there was incontrovertible proof of crimes that would send one or both to the pokey within weeks. And the fact that that never happens is then offered as evidence that they're so slippery, they can even escape when someone has them dead to rights. Because it couldn't possibly be that any of those accusations (Filegate, Travelgate, Whitewater, Vince Foster, et al) were bogus in the first place. Maybe someday one of them will turn out to have something to it but I think I'll wait for actual mug shots before I believe, as Ben Carson announced, that Hillary would never be president because she'd be in prison.

Bob Beerbohm has been a comic book dealer and historian about as long as I've been a historian. A lot of folks in our field are rallying to aid him in a moment of crisis.

His daughter Katy has had to undergo five (5!) brain surgeries since 2010 and the medical bills have mounted up to well over half a million dollars. Bob is a good guy and Katy is a charming, lovely lady and there's an auction via which you might be able to help them and help yourself. The list of goodies being sold includes art by, among others, Neal Adams, Jim Steranko, Kevin Eastman, Mike Kaluta, Patrick Block, Brian Kane, Bill Morrison, Gilbert Shelton, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Walt Simonson, and there are other items you might be proud to have in your collection.

Bidding closes March 10. You can browse the items up for grabs at this site and place a bid. You'll get a treasure and you'll help out a couple of most deserving people.

Here's an excellent interview with Stephen Colbert done for a religious program…but there's plenty in there about the TV comedy business. It was conducted last year on April Fool's Day, placing it neatly between the time he shut down The Colbert Report and started The Late Show and there's also some interesting things said about his character on the former. It's long but you may feel it's worth 45 minutes of your life…

David Glanzer is the chief communications and strategy officer for Comic-Con International, which means he's greatly involved in the ongoing debates over whether that annual event will remain in San Diego. He just penned this article for an S.D. newspaper in which he asserts that it's better for Comic-Con — and probably for the city — if the Chargers don't get their wish-dream of a big, new multi-use stadium facility unconnected to the current convention center.

I have two prejudices operating in this discussion. One is that I think team owners everywhere — not just in San Diego — should be told, "You want a new stadium? Fine. You buy the land for it and you build it wherever you like. You're a profit-making organization that makes huge profits so don't expect taxpayers to buy you a palace that will make you even richer just because you threaten to move our home team to another city home!" Not many cities will say that but they all should.

And secondly, I think Comic-Con is just fine for San Diego and vice-versa. I'd like to see it stay there forever — and if the city isn't foolish, they'll make that possible and it will. For reasons I've explained elsewhere here, I don't think the con would work anywhere near as well at the convention centers in Los Angeles, Anaheim or Las Vegas, which seem to be the only three present options. It certainly wouldn't be as important to any of those cities as it is to San Diego. Comic-Con takes over San Diego in a way it could never take over L.A., Anaheim or Vegas.

I dunno how this will all play out. It feels like the Chargers are demanding what they're demanding as something of a bluff, pitting their needs against Comic-Con's so the city, trying to keep both, will give the football team an even plusher, more expensive facility away from downtown. If that's the way to resolve this, I'd like to see the city give 'em what they want just so Comic-Con can flourish where it is. But what I'd really like to see the town do is to tell the Chargers to go find another city to extort.

Just back for a second to link to this: David S. Bernstein explains the challenge ahead for Donald Trump, assuming he is the Republican nominee. The core group that will support him is white male voters and they represent a diminishing percentage of the population. It wasn't such a good idea to attack Hispanics and to talk about women the way he has.

For those of you who have joined this blog recently, the mushroom soup can is a declaration that Mark is swamped today and may not be posting much. That's to save you the trouble of coming back to this page every twenty minutes, as so many of you do, to see if there are any late-breaking bulletins about tomato soup, Frank Ferrante or baby pandas.

The G.O.P. Friars Roast last night was kinda stunning. I couldn't sit through it all but just the sound bites here and there were enough to put the Springtime for Hitler look on the face of anyone who recalls when grown-ups used to run for president. The thing that's amazed a lot of us about this election is how the old disqualifiers no long disqualify.

Used to be that if any candidate had made even a vague reference to the size of his own penis — or anyone's for that matter — he might as well get out of politics and go get a job refilling propane tanks at a Home Depot. And it was injurious if he said something that his opponents could argue was an out-and-out lie…like Bill Clinton saying he'd never inhaled or Al Gore saying something that could be spun as "I invented the Internet!" Now, twenty such statements an hour do not alienate supporters who used to decide that one proved a candidate was unfit for public office.

But you know, I can't shake the feeling that things Trump said last night are indicators that his act is running out of material; that by Election Day or even by the time Republicans convene in Cleveland at the Quicken Loans Arena (appropriate, given all the candidates' tax plans), he'll have either drastically changed his approach or he'll have a helluva time passing himself off as a winner. Any comedian knows you save the dick jokes for the end and you only haul them out early when you're getting into trouble.

Which reminds me. I don't know if anyone has noticed this but we have an interesting marathon of conventions in July. The Republican one is July 18-21. This year's Comic-Con International is July 21-24. That means that while Donald or Somebody Else is making his acceptance speech, a whole lot of us are going to be in San Diego, attending a much better convention. The Democratic gathering is July 25-28 in Philadelphia.

So it's three conventions back-to-back. Which one do you think will have the greatest connection to reality and the fewest freaky creatures roaming about? Gee, that's a tough one. Think about it until I finish my script and resume normal blogging.

Several of you have sent me links to this demonstration of the Wintergatan Marble Machine. Watch and be amazed…

What do I think of Mitt Romney's attack today on Donald Trump? Pretty much the same thing Daniel Larison thinks of it. Romney's right that Trump is a dangerous charlatan but Mitt is hardly one to talk.

• I'm tempted to watch the Republican debate tonight just to see if anyone notices Ben Carson isn't there.

• Chris Christie says "I was not being held hostage" at that Trump event. But how do we know he wasn't being held hostage when he said that?

• Donald Trump is not beholden to special interests. Donald Trump is a special interest.

I suppose anyone who'd come to this site knows who Jack Kirby was and how awesome were his achievements. Still, it's nice to hear it said so here's a great video about him from the folks at Comics Alliance…

Two minor quibbles: When Jack left comics for animation, he worked briefly for Hanna-Barbera and DePatie-Freleng, then for a long time for Ruby-Spears. Ruby-Spears wound up being affiliated with Hanna-Barbera but he worked on Thundarr the Barbarian and Turbo Teen for them, not for H-B. And Thundarr was before the H-B connection, when Ruby-Spears was a wholly separate company.

Also, someone who saw this wrote to ask me how the look of his character Big Barda could have been inspired by the mother in My Big Fat Greek Wedding when that movie came out in 2002 and Barda debuted in 1971. The folks who made this fine video meant that Barda's looks were inspired by a 1970 Playboy layout on actress-singer Lainie Kazan. Much later, Ms. Kazan appeared in that movie. That is all my quibbles. Just two.

I'm going to do some posts here which in no way reference Donald Trump but here's something that's on my mind. I keep hearing folks who want to stop him from getting the Republican nomination — and these are mostly Republicans saying this — that either Cruz or Rubio should drop out so that the other one can pick up most of their votes. This sounds backwards to me.

According to Nate Silver, who counts these things as well as anyone, Trump is "just barely" on target to rack up the 1,237 delegates he needs to have to lock up the nomination before the convention. Silver estimates that at his current pace of winning about 46% of them, Trump will wind up with 1,276.

That's enough but it's not a landslide. It's 52%. Not a lot of safety margin there.

It seems to me that neither Cruz nor Rubio stands much chance of topping Trump in delegate count. The most likely scenarios whereby he doesn't become the nominee all involve him falling slightly short of 50% plus one. Are you with me so far?

Now let's say either Cruz or Rubio drops out and most of their followers flock to the other guy. I'm thinking some of those voters would go to Trump, especially if he looked unstoppable. Remember that part of his appeal is this "I always win" mantra he chants. There are Republicans who after eight years of Barack Obama just want someone in the White House who is "one of them."

So if either Cruz or Rubio drops out, doesn't Trump pick up some voters and therefore some delegates? And might those some delegates be enough to push him over the 50% mark?

There's a lot of "opposition research" (i.e., mudslinging) coming his way before the convention, even before Democrats take their best shot at him. Suppose it drives his total down to, say, 1230. That still makes him the frontrunner and some will argue that he deserves the nomination because of it. But that's not the same thing as if he shows up with 1,237. And if Cruz or Rubio withdrew, don't you think Trump would pick up some more votes? Enough to get seven more delegates? What am I missing here?

By the way: As you may have heard, Ben Carson is apparently out of the race. Last night, I captured this Tweet and forgot to post it. It made me chuckle…

Matt Taibbi writes about how Republican leaders who were fine with George W. Bush in the White House are panicking over the possibility of You-Know-Who getting the job. I think Taibbi is a little harsh on G.W.B., which is an odd thing for me to be saying since I think he might well have been the worst president of all time. Nevertheless, I think Taibbi is onto something when he says, as others have, that the problem the G.O.P. establishment has with Trump is not that he's dangerous to America but that he's dangerous to them.