My two favorite moments of the debate:

• Mike Huckabee proposing a sales tax on prostitutes, pimps, and drug dealers.

• Rudy Giuliani proposing to balance the trade deficit by selling health care to China.

There were other moments of hilarity (and a little insanity). Here are a few:

• Giuliani, on another topic: "Well, I think we're on a verge of going in one direction or another."

• Thompson, as noted by Metulj: "I don't buy the concept that any reduction in taxes is lost revenue to the government."

• Huckabee said that if necessary he would invade Iran without approval by Congress "in a heartbeat" and suffer the consequences.

• Tom Tancredo said that if California won't allow oil drilling off their coast then they shouldn't be allowed to use oil drilled off the coast of Louisiana.

• Huckabee says we need ethanol because "we're in a race for our lives against people who want to kill us."

• Thompson says the free market works for everything except ethanol. We need government subsidies for ethanol. But he also says there's "plenty of oil out there for the indefinite future."

• John McCain: "I have a glass of ethanol every morning before breakfast."

• Sam Brownback: "Leave my mother out of this."

• Romney: The debates are like Law and Order. There's a huge cast, the series seems to go on forever, and Fred Thompson shows up at the end.