Great first sentences: Special blogosphere edition

Tbogg nominates this doubtful gem, although like the Bulwer-Lytton sentence that started it all, the example Tbogg cites is really two-part: A shorter tee-up, and a longer, more complicated follow-up.

Jonah Goldberg has lost his faith, not in God, but in what freedom can bring to a free Iraq and ultimately a more free Middle East. Nothing else is going to eventually lance the festering boil which is radical Islam.

Yes, I know it's hard. I know more people will die. And I know it's easy for me to say because I'm not one of them. But I also know how easy it is to lose faith when you set out upon a noble cause.

I hope for Jonah's sake he finds comfort while he meditates in the belly of the whale. And I hope one day he is regurgitated on the shores of a more free, more Democratic Iraq.

Bulwer-Lytton pulls it off in a single compound-complex sentence; Tbogg's nominee needs three paragraphs. And, of course, you may think B-W's first phrase was silly (I don't, but there we are), but at least it got to the point without making the reader take multiple runs at it.

Of course, while I might quibble with Tbogg about the merits of his nominee, his title was first-rate. Haven't heard "Technicolor yawn" for years.