Anna Nicole Didn't Make This List

The Agitator's Radley Balko points to a new Foreign Policy/Prospect (the English one, not the insipid American Prospect) list of the 100 top intellectuals in the world. FP/P asks readers to pick their top 5, writing in up to one person if necessary. Here's Balko's list:

Mario Vargas Llosa
Bjorn Lomborg
Steven Pinker
Gary Becker

And my write-in candidate:

David Friedman.

If I could have more than one write-in, I'd have probably substituted Milton Friedman for Lomborg, and Randy Barnett for Vargas-Llosa.

(I'll be up front and admit I am not familiar with all 100 people on the list.) I'm down with Balko's choices of Vargas Llosa, Becker and, though he's only 40, Lomborg. I'd substitute Barnett for David Friedman as my write-in (even though the former -- actually because the former -- mis-spelled "Wildcats" in signing a copy of his Restoring the Lost Constitution for me). And I'm not familiar with Pinker and love Hernando de Soto, so I'd make that swap.

So where am I? One, two, three, four... plus my write-in. I've got one selection from the list left. I'll cross off all philosophers and religious "thinkers" because I have no use for them. I'll cross off all activists, because they tend to be leftist, and any art critic (or any critic), political scientist, policy expert, journalist or novelist.

I'll cross off Tom Friedman, Chris Hitchens, Naomi Klein, Paul Krugman and Paul Wolfowitz, because their inclusion on the list is obviously the result of sabotage, and Camille Paglia because she doesn't deserve to be on the list and wouldn't (publicly) want to be included anyway.

I like that Florence Wambugu made the list, but I can't rightfully vote for a "plant biologist" any sooner than I could a "polemicist". And I'd love to have Bill Bryson on the list, but he's not.

So who does that leave? For me, it's Vaclav Havel. And it should have been an easier choice.

Cast your vote here.