Book Club of the Christian Authors Network

re: "Ever wish you could "test drive" a book before buying it? CAN's new online book club, "You've Got Books!" lets you do just that!/ Here's how this free service works. Once you subscribe to the CAN book club, you will receive a two minute sample of a book by great Christian authors via email each weekday. By the end of the week, you'll have read a chapter or two of the book. By then you should have a pretty good idea if you'll enjoy the rest..."...

We CAN! promote our books

re: a Christian Authors Network blog on book promotion...

Amazing Grace-land: God's Money-Back Guarantee?

re: looking past 'Prosperity Theology' for what the Gospel actually says, and pondering what it means to trust God...

Betsy's Page: I thought secret ballots were a good thing for democracy

re: "Thomas Bray highlights one of the top legislative goals that Big Labor has this year. They want to get a federal bill allowing unions to hold votes on whether a business be unionized through a card checkoff system and to repeal the law now in place that mandates a secret ballot vote about unionizing..."...

Joust The Facts: The Wisdom Of Gerald Ford

re: excerpts from Gerald Ford speeches, and what he really said about the Iraq War...

A Gracious Home » Christmas at the Frederik Meijer Gardens

re: visiting a world class garden park decked out for Christmas with a 'Christmas trees from around the world' display...

VOA News - Former US President Ford Remembered as Political Healer

re: a look at Gerald Ford's presidency...

Gerald Ford funeral begins with simple ceremony at family church - USATODAY.com

re: "PALM DESERT, Calif. (AP) — Military pallbearers carried the flag-drapped casket of Gerald R. Ford past his widow and children Friday afternoon and into the church where the late president had attended services for years and had his own "President's Pew."/Former first lady Betty Ford, 88, stood at the top of the steps of St. Margaret's Episcopal Church to receive the casket, then followed it inside as a Marine Corps band played "Ruffles and Flourishes" and the hymn "O God Our Help in Ages Past."..."...

Buyer's Remorse - Acton Institute PowerBlog

re: a climatologist wonders if ramping up the rhetoric on global warming hasn't created a monster...

Article - Opinion - The gift

re: Fr. Robert Sirico discusses gift giving (and day-to-day exchange)...

hat tip: Acton Institute for the Study of Religion & Liberty

Betsy's Page: A victory for freedom of speech

re: A federal appeals court found in favor of Wisconsin Right to Life, which ran issue ads in 2004 which the FEC tried to quash/regulate as election ads...

Betsy's Page: The truth about small farmers

re: "The Washington Post takes a look at farm subsidies and reports that government subsidies are actually driving small farmers out of the business. The arguments for farm subsidies are often based on the need to protect the small farmer. Somehow, we still seem to have a Jeffersonian admiration for the small yeoman farmer and to envision our country being fed by millions of such noble family farmers. However, now farming is big business and government subsidies to the supposedly small farmer are part of that transformation by driving up the price of farmland and pricing the family farmer out of the market..."

The Scotsman - Business - It's ane end of ane auld sang and the times they are a-changing

re: Fordyce Maxwell looks at some changes in 40+ years of farming in Scotland...

The Scotsman - Business - Man with a mission has ambitions for Scotland

re: CBI Scotland chairman Melfort Campbell, OBE, former "school dunce," rises above dyslexia, insecurity, to become high-profile business leader in Scotland...

OpinionJournal - Taste: The Gifts of the Season

re: "...There are centuries of literature on the moral way to practice philanthropy, but too many modern moralists ignore it. Mr. Brooks says their belief is that "charity is merely evidence of a failure of government." And to the extent that charity interests them in itself, they want it to be an admission of guilt, as if Westerners are obliged to assuage their consciences by helping orphans in Africa. But charity need not be so narcissistic. The basic human impulse to do good may properly lead many to help those in need, especially those nearby./ Timothy Ogden, an officer at Geneva Global, a consulting firm that advises wealthy donors about how to spend their charitable dollars most effectively, says that the best giving "doesn't come from guilt, but from honest desire." Mr. Ogden observes that many clients come to him suffering "not from donor fatigue, but from donor futility. It's not that they are tired of giving. They're tired of giving and not accomplishing anything."..."...

OpinionJournal - Wonder Land: Dogma Without God

re: Daniel Henninger essay, "...Atheists and the unchurched undervalue the extent to which they are getting a free ride on the social strength that religious-based virtue provides. It's one thing to write in a book that we don't need them. But I'd rather not run the real-world experiment of navigating without them. And this is why this weekend so many will spend an hour with virtue's originalists..."...

The Question Of Christmas - Prison Fellowship

re: from Alan Sears, "...Interestingly, even those disinclined to defer to the divinity of Jesus Christ concede that He was a remarkable man—that his teachings were unusually profound and that His life personified those teachings more consistently than anyone else ever has. So what’s wrong with recognizing His birthday as His birthday? /Either Jesus truly is the Son of God, and Savior of the world—in which case we surely should celebrate His advent. Or else He was not. In which case, what harm is there in honoring such a magnificent life? Surely if we’ve cause to commemorate the national impact of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr., we have more than ample reason to celebrate the international import of the greatest teacher and philosopher the world has ever known. /
Put another way: to what aspects of Jesus’ character and teachings—brotherly love, personal sacrifice, self-denial, kindness, generosity, concern for the poor, courage in the face of death, etc., etc.—do groups like the American Civil Liberties Union so vigorously object?..."...

Dec15ChurchPrisonMinistry (Dec 15 Church Prison Ministry Case)

re: from Liberty Legal Institute, "Plano, TX- The Texas Supreme Court announced it will hear the case, Pastor Rick Barr & Philemon Homes, Inc. v. City of Sinton, the first case at the high court interpreting the Texas Religious Freedoms Restoration Act (RFRA)..."...

hat tip: The Alliance Alert

Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | News: Education

re: Several Catholic schools in Texas will be closed Feb. 7 to allow teachers and students the chance to attend a rally in favor of school vouchers...

Townhall.com::Jellyfish of the year::By Jonah Goldberg

re: Time magazine wimping out on its Person of the Year award this year...

Townhall.com::School Assignment: Prepare a Christmas Ornament Without a Christmas Reference::By Jay Sekulow

re: another absurb school policy, permitting anything but Christianity for Christmas...

Cheat Seeking Missiles: The Fish Guys And The Bear Guys

re: "...Humans so grossly and egotistically over-dramatize their impact on critters, and this egotism spawns regulations that impose extreme restrictions on our activities..."...

hat tip: The Paragraph Farmer

AgapePress : Virginia Churches Commended for Leaving ECUSA

re: "(AgapePress) - Evangelical activists are voicing their support for the Episcopal churches in Virginia who, over the weekend, voted strongly in favor of leaving the American branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion. And even though the combined average attendance of the eight churches exceeds that of many entire Episcopal dioceses, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church USA says the congregations' departure doesn't threaten the denomination's survival..."...

AgapePress :Are Pastors to Blame for the Divorce Epidemic?

re:Matt Friedeman notes, "...We pastors, and the churches we represent, are not to be "blessing machines" -- throwing out words and sacraments willy-nilly to anyone who asks. For in the end, by adopting a low view of the Church, of the institution of marriage and of the pastoral office, we haven't really blessed but most assuredly have cursed the people we intended to help."...

Aliens Cause Global Warming

re: Michael Crichton lecture from 2003, in which he traces the slide of science from 1960 and SETI down to current bad science getting intertwined with policy, and in which he makes some suggestions for restoring science's reputation and standing...

hat tip: Rush Limbaugh

OpinionJournal - John Fund on the Trail

re: Why Barack Obama may not run for President this next election...

Betsy's Page: France and the Middle East

re: Mark Steyn review of David Pryce-Jones' book Betrayal: France, Arabs and the Jews...

Brandywine Books: Evil in Fiction and Ukraine

re: links to article about insights into evil in Lord of the Rings, and to a BBC article which covers allegations of healthy newborns being snatched and killed in Ukraine, which styles itself the stem cell capital of the world...

BBC link: Ukraine babies in stem cell probe (Matthew Hill, BBC Health Correspondent, Dec. 12, 2006)

A fox-y hazard on golf course

re: video of a fox that steals golf balls...

KRT Wire | 12/18/2006 | Richard Carlson, author of `Don't Sweat' books, dies at 45

re: author dies on book tour for "Don't Get Scrooged"...

Oregon State Defense Force History

re: the state militia from pre-statehood to the present day...

Phi Beta Cons: "And I Thought I'd Seen it All"

re: David French finds Michigan State's Student Accountability in Community Seminar (SAC) to be very Orwellian, not to mention unconstitutional...

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today

re: more "responding to Rangel" messages. Includes one letter from a man named Michael Reeseman, which states (in part), "...I thought my window of opportunity for military service was forever closed with my final discharge from the Army Reserve in 1999. After 2001, like so many others I tried to find a way back in despite a lengthy list of medical disqualifiers. If I've learned anything about the government, it's that there's always a loophole. Eventually I found it in the State Defense Forces. /Over half of the states have State Defense Forces, which are duly authorized uniformed services under Title 32 of the U.S. Code. All states can have them, but only 26 (plus Puerto Rico) have set them up. These military units serve entirely within their home state, cannot be federalized, and answer to the governor (usually through the office of the adjutant general). Since they cannot serve overseas, these units do not train for combat but to prepare to aid civil authorities and back up the National Guard. In practice this usually takes the form of emergency response, logistics and security duties. I am given to understand that there are also quite a few specialty units such as JAGs, medics and chaplains..."...

OpinionJournal - Taste: Harvard Loses Its Edge

re: John Schmalzbauer of the Religious Studies Department at Missouri State University notes that many universities (but not Harvard) have been seeing a renewed interest in religious scholarship and spirituality courses in recent years (although he doesn't specify if they are orthodox, or not, etc.)...

My Vacation Letter to President Bush

re: in an undated letter, talk show host Lars Larson asks President Bush to arrange for the President of Mexico to give the Larson family the equivalent benefits in Mexico that Mexicans get when they come illegally to the U.S....

The Scotsman - Business - Biofuels: a new dawn or business as usual?

re: "AFTER more than a decade of falling prices, declining margins and shrinking investment, there is a growing optimism in agriculture that we are entering a new era of rising demand and better prices, driven by biofuels./ Are these predictions likely to be true? Or will we find that we are entering just another commodity market where price pressures will soon return?..."...

The Scotsman - Business - HSBC targets firms that need no branch

re: in Scotland, the competition is on for business customers who don't need/want bank branches to do their banking (i.e., such as so-called knowledge-based businesses that don't involve a lot of cash transactions)...

Fernnook Farmgirl: Daily Lit

re: a site that will email you a portion of a book every day (classics, it sounds like)...

Vatican refuses to sign U.N. landmark convention over right of disabled unborn to life - Catholic Online

re: "UNITED NATIONS (Catholic Online) – The Vatican has refused to sign the just-adopted United Nations landmark treaty to promote and protect the rights of the world’s 650 million disabled people over a clause that may be used to deny the right to life of disabled unborn persons./ In Dec. 13 remarks to the U.N. General Assembly on the occasion of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that took five years to shape, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, apostolic nuncio of the Holy See’s permanent mission to the U.N., stressed that the protection of “the rights, dignity and worth of persons with disabilities remains a major concern for the Holy See.”..."...

Advent and the Christian Year

re: Presbyterian minister Mark D. Roberts has several posts on Advent, a season he has come to love...

Human Life of Washington

re: Washington state pro-life organization, with several affilitates...

Get The Award Ready III « Expat Yank

re: second part of this post notes Somaliland has established itself as a thriving anomoly in Africa without foreign aid...

Telegraph | News | Full text of Blair's multiculturalism speech

re: Tony Blair takes on the idiocy of PC multiculturalism; demands that people who move to UK adopt British values...

hat tip: Rush Limbaugh

Hobo spider

re: brief overview and photo of hobo spider...

NWCN.com | Christmas trees return to Sea-Tac

re: Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky decides to not play grinch after all. Says won't sue Sea-Tac airport, whether they put up his giant menorah or not. Airport officials, rather than deal with his threats, had taken Christmas decorations down. Employees had countered by bringing in small trees of their own...

Update: Captain Ed over at Captain's Quarters has a bit more background, which makes the rabbi look less like a grinch than earlier news accounts.

FIRST THINGS: On the Square

re: a tribute to Jeane Kirkpatrick by Michael Novak...

The Conservative Oregon Blog Network

re: site for conservatives in Oregon...

RedState Blog Project | Redstate

re: "...right of center bloggers that focus on the politics of a particular state or location within a state. Not all local bloggers have been listed here. We've only listed the ones we have reviewed and found to be regularly updated, focused on politics, and right of center..."...

Constitutionally Correct : Congratulations! Your Baby is Handicapped!

re: these days, some mothers have the lab cook them up an embryo with a specific disability, like dwarfism or deafness...

American Thinker Blog: Baker Commish gives Dems cover for sanity

re: James Lewis has a different take on the Baker-Hamilton Iraq report, saying it gives Dems political cover to move away from the fringe Left...

American Thinker: Whither Bolton?

re: Ed Lasky dreams of John Bolton going to work for Rudy Giuliani (and along the way notes some of the accomplishes of both men)...

America and malaria | Finally clearing the air | Economist.com

re: finally asking for accountability, looking for better ways, rediscovering DDT...

TKS on National Review Online : Will Decency - and taking a shot at Daily Kos - help Barack Obama?

re: Jim Geraghty notes that Barack Obama isn't catering to the fringe Left, and he seems to making inroads with some evangelicals, particularly Rick Warren's crowd...

And Another Thing . . . on National Review Online

Mark Levin links to Go Right Ahead – Tread On Us, an editorial at Investor's Business Daily.

The Corner: The Black Watch

re: Scottish snatch team grabs terrorist godfather and some of his henchmen in Iraq...

Brandywine Books: Romper Room wonks

re: Lars Walker on adults who are still mentally back in grade school, trying to impress the teacher by giving him his favorite answers on what to do about current events...

Brandywine Books: The quest for Grandma's Donuts

re: Lars Walker on his brother, trying to create donuts like his Grandmother used to make, and surviving after a feminist walked out to go do her own thing...

ADF: ADF allied attorneys contact nearly 11,500 school districts regarding Christmas expression - Alliance Defense Fund - Defending Our First Liberty

re: pushing back against the disinformation campaign that has people/schools/cities needlessly afraid to celebrate Christmas publicly (the law is on the side of Christmas)...

Townhall.com::Reflections on the prospect - reality? - of a third great awakening::By Ross Mackenzie

re: Ross Mackenzie wonders if the schisms in 'mainstream' (my scare quotes) Protestant denominations are triggering a Third Great Awakening in America. He provides historical background...

Let's Say Thanks

re: Xerox-sponsored site to send free printed postcard to someone serving in the U.S. military overseas...

FIRST THINGS: On the Square

re: William Saletan, author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War, is calling on Democrats to capture values voters, i.e., to go back to being 'the party of responsibility,' but Elizabeth Powers has her doubts...

Here in the Bonny Glen: Hanna and Me

re: the story behind her book Hanna's Christmas, now out of print...

Stones Cry Out: Ten Ways Media Leaders Can Keep Media Ethics from Becoming an Oxymoron

re: suggestions for ways the national media could restore its reputation...

Power Line: The ISG Report: Still A Mystery

re: wondering why Syria and Iran would change their policies in line with what the Iraq Study Group wants...

Betsy's Page: How an advisory commission should have been conducted

re: "Eliot Cohen, who wrote a superb book on civilian leadership in wartime, Supreme Command, puts his finger on exactly what was wrong with the Iraq Study Group..."...

Phi Beta Cons on National Review Online

re: David French on the University of Georgia trying (unsuccessfully) to shut down a Christian religious fraternity...

...In reality, universities are not interested in protecting students from religious discrimination (if they were, they would seek to protect the hundreds and sometimes thousands of Christian students who belong to Christian organizations from the disruption and harm of derecognizing their groups). Instead, they are striking at the heart of what these Christian groups teach and believe. The universities want to “protect” their student bodies from dissent — especially on matters of personal morality. And it is so much easier to silence dissent when that speech and the groups that support that speech are branded as “discriminators.”

Tornado hits London

re: A twister roared through north-west London streets...

Get Involved in the Conservative Movement by Nathan Tabor

re: suggestions for websites to visit, groups to join...

At A Hen's Pace: Virtual Prayer Books

re: online Christian resources...

Charis Connection: Ask the Authors: Wednesday

re: "Do you have a special process for naming your characters?"...

Strand Magazine:: Interview with Michael Bond

re: undated interview. "Since 1983 mystery fans have enjoyed Michael Bond's series of detective comedies featuring retired Sûreté member Monsieur Pamplemousse and his dog Pommes Frites, and since 1958 children have been delighting in Bond's books chronicling the very funny adventures of Paddington Bear—one of the most beloved children's characters of all time./ The Monsieur Pamplemousse series is a unique blend of comedy and mystery. As an inspector for the prestigious restaurant rating directory Le Guide, Monsieur Pamplemousse (along with Pommes Frites) travels around the country sampling the finest cuisine and wines at the best restaurants in France, while stumbling into one hilarious mystery after another. Mr. Bond has recently completed another novel, Monsieur Pamplemousse on Probation. He spoke to us about his early writing career, the inspiration behind his two most famous characters, and the state of writing in general..."...

HUGE Anti-Chavez Rally In Venezuela « Daily Inklings

re: November 26 post showing crowds as far as the eye can see...

Books & Culture Corner: Mr. Wilson's Bookshelf - Books & Culture Magazine

re: "The Top Ten Books of 2006 and the Book of the Year"... John Wilson's list... "Still, it's worth saying that these are simply the titles that came most readily and insistently to mind over the last couple of weeks as I thought about the books I've read this year..."...[snip..."And now to the Book of the Year: Crisis of Doubt: Honest Faith in Nineteenth-Century England, by Timothy Larsen (Oxford Univ. Press). You know the familiar story, according to which virtually every thinking person in late-Victorian England either lost his faith or maintained a pale simulacrum of genuine belief. While Timothy Larsen acknowledges that there were of course plenty of instances of deconversion, in his new book he draws attention to a counternarrative that has been widely overlooked, embodied in the experience of men and women who moved from doubt or resolute skepticism to Christian faith. In chapter after chapter of brilliantly condensed biography, he tells the stories of individuals whose lives followed this second course. This is a book that will force honest scholars to reconsider what they thought they knew."...

NWCN.com | Amazon adds new presses for on-demand books

re: will use HP Indigo presses at fulfillment centers and BookSurge to improve quality in POD offerings...

NWCN.com | Oregon sailor pleads guilty to espionage charges

re: Salem man has pleaded guilty to several charges related to passing classified information to a foreign government...

FLW Outdoors - Leader in bass, walleye, redfish, kingfish and striped bass tournament fishing.

re: July 20, 2006 press release "Wal-Mart FLW Series forms divisions, eight $1 million televised events for 2007"...

FLW Outdoors - Leader in bass, walleye, redfish, kingfish and striped bass tournament fishing.

re: a history of the Wal-Mart FLW Tour, through the lead-in to the 2005 professional bass fishing season...

Kids don't get building blocks of learning from high-tech play - The Boston Globe

re: interaction builds social skills - and compassion - so don't swamp the wee ones with electronic toys...

NWCN.com | Story of survival shared in Boise

re: Aron Ralston, the man who cut off his own arm with a pocket knife after being pinned by a boulder in a remote area of Utah, now gives inspirational speeches around the country. He recently spoke at a fundraiser for the Idaho Youth Ranch...

Top Stories | NWCN.com | Family missing on return from Seattle trip

re: family of four last seen Nov. 25, last heard from when they told a Gold Beach motel they'd be arriving late and asked for key to be left for them...

Top Stories | NWCN.com | Drug bust nabs 26 in Skagit County

re: Mexican based drug ring run mostly by Mexican nationals in the U.S. illegally...

The Dynamo and the Jeweler by Stefan Kanfer, City Journal Autumn 2006

re: George and Ira Gershwin, Fred and Adele Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Danny Kaye, music, theater, movies...

CNN.com - The Marquee: Why DO we care?

re: the fascination with celebrities, etc. "...But there's also the matter of what writer Maureen Orth calls the "celebrity-industrial complex," the endless machine made up of the news media, entertainment companies, performers, handlers, advisers and consultants (and, yes, consumers) that's dependent upon such stories for its daily fuel -- and, like any capitalistic enterprise, only exists as long as interest continues. Which means there's a great deal at stake to keep the machine running..."

Includes recommendations for these books: "The Image" by Daniel Boorstin, "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman, and "Life: The Movie" by Neal Gabler.

hat tip: Kay S. Hymowitz/ CJ in the News/ City Journal

OpinionJournal - Taste: Single Mothers, Many Problems

re: unwed motherhood and unstable families, with a nod to the book "Marriage and Caste in America: Separate and Unequal Families in a Post-Marital Age" by Kay Hymowitz ...

OpinionJournal - Taste: The Limits of Tolerance

re: Naomi Schaefer Riley on a talk given by liberal priest Andrew M. Greeley, in which he let a few things slip in the Q & A: "...Then a middle-aged woman in the back of the room asked Father Greeley about the changing face of the Catholic Church. The greatest growth in the world-wide Catholic population, she noted, has been coming for some years from new believers in South America and Africa, and the trend shows no signs of abating. What effect would this have on the church? / "We will depend on them for vitality," Father Greeley predicted. "But they will continue to depend on us for the ideas."...

List of Classics

re: book list for people who want to understand conservatism...

Iraq is Dems’ tar-baby

re: David A. Keene has been watching Democrats come to grips with the fact that now that they've got a majority, they'll be held responsible for what they do about Iraq, etc...

hat tip: Best of the Web Today

After surprisingly dull hurricane season, experts debate why they were wrong | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

re: forecasters didn't come close on predicting this year's mild hurricane season, and they didn't see El Nino coming either...

A Different Kind of Christmas Poem « A Rose By Any Other Name

re: a soldier's gift...

Mater Magistra: Library Day

re: tips for getting kids and library books - choosing a wider selection, not letting the books get overdue or lost, etc...

hat tip: Rocks in My Dryer

Braille Institute of America | Home

re: "Braille Institute is a private non-profit organization whose mission is to eliminate blindness and severe sight loss as a barrier to a fulfilling life."...

open book: Your read of the day

re: link to (UK) Times article by Simon Barnes on being a father of a boy with Down Syndrome...

FIRST THINGS: On the Square

re: another parent, a father this time, writes in defense of raising a child with Down Syndrome...

abc13.com: Fight brewing between mosque and pigs

re: man in Texas being shoved by people planning to build a mosque shoves back by scheduling Friday night pig races on his property...

hat tip: Rush Limbaugh

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today

re: more responses to Rangel's disrespect for people serving in the military (see halfway down post). Also has links to earlier responses...

The Common Room: Good Stewardship Does Not Mean What She Thinks it Means

re: more on Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church Katharine Jefferts Schori's ideas of stewardship (in which she tries to explain away the declining membership of her denomination by noting that Episcopalians are 'better educated' and are encouraged to not use up the Earth's resources by having children). Includes Mark Steyn commentary...

Plymouth Adventure (1952)

re: cast list, etc., for the movie starring Spencer Tracy, based (loosely, to all appearances) on the Ernest Gebler novel. The movie's lead romance storyline is manufactured out of thin air, but it is a Spencer Tracy movie...

Plymouth Adventure (1952)

re: Elsie W. Hamel, Graduate Student at Lehigh University, briefly compares Ernest Gebler's book The Plymouth Adventure and the movie based on it. Includes this short note about the novel: "This, it seems to me, is the truest picture that we could have of the Plymouth adventure, the more remarkable in that it was written by a man of mixed Czech and Irish ancestry who has never been in this country." Chicago Sun Tribune (April 30,1950): 3

The Gift of Language by Theodore Dalrymple, City Journal Autumn 2006

re: attacking the silly (and harmful) notion that language skills don't have to be - or in some cases shouldn't be - taught...

hat tip: Bookworm

Mesohippus 1

re: Florida Museum of Natural History page on the "middle horse" in horse evolution...

NASA - Historic Volcanic Eruption Shrunk the Mighty Nile River

re: major eruptions in Iceland in 1783-84 might have contributed to record low water levels in the Nile, plus other examples of how high latitude volcanic eruptions might have significantly affected monsoons, droughts, etc...

NASA - CALIPSO

re: "...one of NASA's newest satellite missions. CALIPSO, or Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations, seeks to reveal the secrets of clouds and aerosols, tiny particles suspended in the air, enabling scientists to study how they form, evolve and interact and how they affect our air quality, weather and climate..."...

How the media loses the war « Bookworm Room

re: the media passing along false stories spun by America's enemies...

OpinionJournal - Featured Article: New York, New York

re: a series of books on New York City's architecture and history, by architect and historian Robert A.M. Stern...

Robin Hood

re: information on the 1950s television show The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Richard Greene...

The Scotsman - Business - At 30% cheaper, self-build is on the rise

re: more people are buying land and building homes in Scotland. Also notes that a lot of the cheap housing from the 1960s and 1970s is being bought and demolished by people who want to start from scratch rather than renovate...

Fossil research suggests 'mass dying' triggered teeming oceans | The Guardian | Guardian Unlimited

re: discovering the obvious, scientists 'discover' that the mass extinctions at the end of the Permian not only caused - but made possible - the rise of new and vastly different ecosystems...

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Wheat's lost gene helps nutrition

re: after research pointing to which crosses to try, plant scientists are crossing domesticated wheat with wild wheat to boost nutrition...

OpinionJournal - Taste: Funny Money

re: Preston Sturge's romantic comedies of the 1940s are now available in a DVD boxed set, and provide a nice contrast with most of today's romantic comedies...

I’m not the only grammatical voice in the wilderness « Bookworm Room

re: fighting the notion that people don't need to be (or shouldn't be) taught to communicate well...

The Point: Sage words

re: ..."Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you yourself shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come to you by the grace of God. -- Phillips Brooks"

The Blessing of a Father's Grace - washingtonpost.com

re: Sally Quinn on saying grace, even if you're an atheist...

hat tip: Gina Dalfonzo (The Point)

Minnesota Mom: Happy Anniversary! (I think)

re: a nice essay on how blogging has changed her life, etc....

hat tip: Here in the Bonny Glen

The first remarkable close-up pictures of animals in the womb | the Daily Mail

re: elephant, dog and dolphin babies in the womb...

hat tip: Best of the Web

OpinionJournal - The Desolate Wilderness

re: annual reprinting of Nathaniel Morton's descriptions of what the Pilgrim's saw in 1620...

OpinionJournal - Extra: The Stuff of Democratic Life

re: Allen Guelzo writes about Lincoln, Gettysburg, Thanksgiving, and the fundamental challenges of democracy...

Gardeners cultivate hope in battered New Orleans | In Depth | Reuters.com

re: thousands of people living in FEMA trailers after Katrina have planted gardens...

Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Arts & Entertainment

re: AP story on cancellation of OJ project. Some Fox affiliates had refused to carry show, Borders had announced it would donate profits to charity, etc...

Captain's Quarters : Hydrogen Isn't Green

re: BMW's new hydrogen-gasoline car, the Hydrogen 7 or H-7, gets poor mileage and its fuel goes bad in a matter of days... The first one hundred are reportedly going to be sold to "celebrities"...

Captain's Quarters: Read Between The Lines (Updated and Bumped)

re: the hurricane season disappointed the global warming folks, bigtime (plus info on the global cooling scares of a couple/three decades ago, plus scientists who are currently predicting a little ice age soon)...

Joust The Facts: Milton Friedman Passes At 94

re: more on Milton Friedman (and his wife Rose)...

BrothersJudd Blog: O HOLY NIGHT, INJUNCTIONS FLY THROUGHOUT YOU

re: Muslim leaders in UK stump for public Christmas celebrations, and somebody else noticing that PC drives not just religion but history and heritage from the British public sphere...

CNS STORY: Peruvian parish fights malnutrition with high-protein cookies

re: Catholic parish won government bid to fight malnutrition high in the Andes by baking and distributing high-protein cookies (sometimes by truck, but some places by mule)...

hat tip: Open Book

poultryOne.com Guide to Raising Poultry | The Ultimate Resource for Raising Chickens and Poultry Care - Chicken Articles, Links, Tips, and More!

re: online community for chicken hobbyists...

Keeping Chickens or Poultry at Home, Backyard Poultry Keeping and Laying Hens

re: uk look at dreams of smallholding, getting an allotment, battles with local council over whether poultry was allowed...

Tsunami hits Crescent City / Series of 5- to 6-foot surges wrecks docks, sinks ship hours after 8.1 quake in Japan

re: "A tsunami generated by a powerful earthquake in Japan struck the small Northern California fishing port of Crescent City Wednesday, destroying docks, sinking a boat and fraying nerves./Bill Steven, a commander with the Del Norte County Sheriff's Department, said the tsunami was "more a series of big surges rather than waves," but he said the damage to the town's harbor was significant. /The surges were reported at 5 to 6 feet high. /"The water surged back and forth like a river, and our docks aren't designed to handle swift water," Steven said. "About 50 percent of the harbor was affected. There's a lot of torn-up foam, wood and concrete. We know at least one boat was sunk, and we had to round up about 12 more that were torn from their moorings." /Steven said no fatalities or injuries were reported.
Crescent City residents are particularly sensitive to tsunami threats. The town was struck by a 21-foot-high tsunami in 1964 that killed 11 people and destroyed most of the town center. /Steven said Del Norte County officials received a notification from the National Weather Service Wednesday morning that a 3- to 5-foot surge resulting from an 8.1 magnitude quake in Japan would hit the Crescent City region at about 11:40 a.m. "We did have a very small surge at that time, and then everybody went back to business as usual," Steven said. /Then at around 2:30, Steven said, residents noticed an ominous sign -- water started running out of the town's harbor, a classic indication of an approaching tsunami. /"You don't like to see that," Steven said. "It looked like a very fast river." /But instead of a large wave, Steven said, the tsunami was manifested as another large surge flowing back into the harbor./"It went on like that until about 5 p.m., maybe later," Steven said. "Just like a big river surging back and forth. It really hammered our docks. Pieces had to be tied off, whole sections disappeared."..."...

CurryPilot.com: TSUNAMI CAUSES DAMAGE AT CRESCENT CITY

re: "A tsunami caused damage in the Crescent City harbor this afternoon, but apparently no injuries, according to initial reports from the newsroom at the Daily Triplicate in Crescent City. /The wave was reported by national authorities as 35 inches, larger than any other reports on the Pacific Coast of the U.S., according to the National Weather Service Tsunami Warning Center's Web site. The reported height at Port Orford was 15 inches. The Web site is available at http://WCATWC.ARH.NOAA.GOV /Witnesses said boats were broken loose from their moorings, rammed into docks and even toppled onto each other. /No reports of initial damage were reported in the Port of Brookings-Harbor, Gold Beach or Port Orford. There were no warnings or evacuations in Curry County, according to the Curry County Sheriff's Office. /Brookings-Harbor Harbormaster Mike Blank said he noticed "unusual tidal occurences" just after 2 p.m., but had no reports of any damage or problems caused by the wave. /The wave was generated by an earthquake overnight near the Kuril Islands, off the northern coast of Japan. /The Triplicate is preparing a full report for its Web site, www.Triplicate.com, later this evening. A full report and photos will be published in the Thursday, Nov. 17, edition of the Triplicate and the Saturday, Nov. 18, edition of the Curry Coastal Pilot..."...

AP Wire | 11/16/2006 | Crescent City harbor suffers up to $700K in damages from tsunami

re: "CRESCENT CITY, Calif. - Two docks were destroyed after a five-foot surge rolled into the Crescent City Harbor on Wednesday afternoon and caused up to $700,000 in damages. /The surge was the result of an undersea earthquake with a magnitude of 8.1 that struck earlier in the day near Japan, prompting tsunami warnings for Japan, Russia and Alaska, according to the National Weather Service...[snip]...In California, the weather service reported ocean surges as high as 6 feet and waves gusting up to 30 mph but did not call an official tsunami warning or watch. /Surges were observed from Port San Luis on the Central California coast to the Oregon border, but were too small and concentrated to prompt a tsunami warning, said Sten Tjaden, an NWS forecaster in Eureka. /"They don't want to put a warning out if the impact is going to be so localized," Tjaden said. "And I haven't heard of damage elsewhere. The only place I've heard of damage is at Crescent City at the harbor." /Harbor workers at Crescent City - about 20 miles south of Oregon's state line - noticed a fast-moving current around mid-afternoon that harbor master Richard Young described as a "river within the ocean."/As the surge rushed out of the harbor, workers noticed that two floating docks in the inner basin were destroyed, Young said. Another surge followed, severely damaging a third dock, he said. The harbor can accommodate up to 200 boats up to 75 feet long. /No injuries were reported, and the surge did not sink any boats. But several vessels attached to the destroyed docks bobbed away from their anchorage and likely received dings and possibly greater damages, the harbor master said. /Young said the replacement costs of the docks could range from $300,000 to $700,000. /Rain pounded the harbor after the surge, but crews were able to secure the loose boats and stabilize the damaged dock and the six remaining floating docks in the inner harbor.
"We're secure for the night, and we're going home after a long day," Young said Wednesday after sunset. "We've done our best to stabilize things." /Small surges of 1 to 4 feet continued to hit the California coast into the evening, and boaters, beach goers and others near the shore were advised to use caution, according to NWS...."...

MercuryNews.com | 11/15/2006 | 6-foot wave surge damages Crescent City harbor

re: "Wave surges related to the magnitude 8.1 undersea earthquake near Japan, the largest of them six-feet high, caused ``extensive damage'' this afternoon at the Crescent City harbor, according to the National Weather Service. /The surges were so powerful that docks and boats were damaged, forcing police to close it down. Several boats broke loose from their moorings, but no one was injured, Crescent City police dispatcher Julie Shafer said..."...

The Kitchen Madonna: Culinary Quote #33

re: "'Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be." Clementine Paddleford"...

Sovereignty Blog » HUMANS MATTER LESS THAN THEY’D LIKE TO THINK:

re: 22 of the world's 50 most forested countries have been increasing the amount of woodland...

Has excerpt from Planet 'winning the battle against deforestation' (The Scotsman, Nov. 14, 2006)...

ADF: Federal appeals court upholds federal protection for pro-life medical professionals - Alliance Defense Fund - Defending Our First Liberty

re: "WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court today upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by a pro-abortion group challenging the “Weldon Amendment.” The Weldon Amendment is a federal statute that prohibits the federal government or state and local governments receiving certain federal aid from discriminating against medical professionals who refuse to perform or refer for abortions. /“Doctors and nurses should not be forced to participate in abortions against their religious beliefs or conscience. Under the banner of ‘choice,’ the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association asserted a supposed right to do this, but the court didn’t buy it,” said Casey Mattox, litigation counsel for CLS’s Center for Law & Religious Freedom. “This decision turns back the effort to enshrine abortion as a right above even the First Amendment.”..."...

WorldNetDaily: Ten Commandments stunner: Feds lying at Supreme Court

re: "...Todd DuBord, pastor of the Lake Almanor Community Church in California...[snip]... was most disturbed by what appears to be revisionism in the presentations given to visitors at the Supreme Court. There, he said, his tour guide was describing the marble frieze directly above the justices' bench. /"Between the images of the people depicting the Majesty of the Law and Power of Government, there is a tablet with ten Roman numerals, the first five down the left side and the last five down the right. This tablet represents the first ten amendments of the Bill of Rights," she said..."...

hat tip: The Alliance Alert, Nov. 14, 2006

Shielding Our Children

re: Emuna Braverman on the virtue of learning to not rescue or shelter a child too much. Book mentioned in passing: "The Blessing of a Skinned Knee" by Wendy Mogel...

OpinionJournal - Federation: Moral Purification

re: Josh Manchester discusses 'why intellectuals love defeat'...

FIRST THINGS: On the Square/ Elizabeth Powers

re: finding a neglected war memorial in Central Park, and comparing Americans of the World War I era with Americans of today who make pacts with the party of the safety net...

Brandywine Books: Call me Cassandra

re: Lars Walker featuring in his near-future novel Wolf Time a news reporter proud of having pushed the idea that nothing is worth dying for and America can't afford honor...And Walker wanting to be proved wrong, but feeling his prediction has held...

Brandywine Books: "If a conservative order is to return . . ."

re: the need to learn tradition attached to conservative ideas, plus books that shaped America's Conservative Renaissance (list courtesy isi.org)...

lines... in pleasant places: Lake Martin

re: a book about the history of the reservoir Lake Martin in Alabama...

Mom 2 Mom Connection » Blog Archive » Starting the Novel Writing Journey

re: NaNoWriMo update, plus info/links on bestselling Christian fiction author Brandilyn Collins and her years-long road to first publication...

Allthings2all: Let's Dance!

re: living in a place with different cultural traditions, such as when and how to dance...

magistramater's Xanga Site - Fine Art Friday - Briton Rivière

re: three dog-with-person paintings...

The Golden Road to Samarqand: :The Age of Homespun

re: "The Age of Homespun: Objects and stories in the Creation of an American Myth by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich has to be one of the most interesting books about early American history that I have ever read. I like it even more than A Midwife's Tale..."...

hat tip: The Saturday Review of Books

Power Line: Three reviews

re: reviews of Mark Steyn's America Alone, Michael Lewis's The Blind Side, and Art Buchwald's "deathbed memoir" Too Soon to Say Goodbye...

Related: Art Buchwald column from Sept. 21, 2006

The Scotsman - Business - Parents splash out to fill void after children flee nest

re: noticing the obvious, i.e. parents tend to make changes - sometimes drastic ones - after their kids grow up and go away. The news is that today's empty nesters are collectively spending more, and more. "...Dr Hodson's comments were echoed by analysts at Datamonitor, which said empty-nesters spent £38.4 billion on consumer goods in 2003, but were forecast to splash out as much as £46 billion by 2008. It said their annual disposable income is expected to have risen 8.5 per cent to £17,872 from less than £14,000 a year ago, and that sudden increase in wealth often sparked some highly indulgent spending on everything from travel, new homes and new cars, to high quality food, fine drinks and pampering personal care..."...

Betsy's Page: Will the House increase?

re: Nancy Pelosi is supporting a bill that would increase Congress from 435 to 437 by adding a seat from D.C. and a statewide seat for Utah (never mind that an at-large seat in Congress isn't supportable)...

Captain's Quarters: Still not biting

re: advising fellow Republicans to be a good example of "the loyal opposition"...

Episcopal parish, diocese reach accord - The Washington Times

re: "...The leaders of All Saints, a 500-member congregation, announced Thursday they will cede the church's property to the diocese, which will pay the remaining $188,000 mortgage. /Then, All Saints will rent the property from the diocese for $1 a year for five years while it builds a new 800-seat church on a $2.7-million piece of property it bought in 2001. The site is on 28 acres near the Potomac Mills shopping mall in Prince William County. / "This is very, very encouraging for us," said the Rev. John Guernsey, rector of All Saints. "It helps us move forward." /Although Virginia Bishop Peter J. Lee has said that he will sue any church trying to leave his diocese, this agreement releases All Saints from further legal obligations. / The congregation will vote Dec. 10 on whether to ratify the agreement. Its vestry, or leadership council, is unanimously recommending the church adopt the agreement and separate from the diocese..."...

Update: Nov. 9, 2006, news release from the Diocese of Virginia

Marines, Bush dedicate museum - The Washington Times

re: "President Bush yesterday attended the dedication ceremony for the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Va., an event nearly 20 years in the making..."...

Portrait: The Girl From Schindler's List | Europe | Deutsche Welle | 27.01.2006

re: Stella Müller-Madej, who was a Jewish girl saved by Oskar Schindler during World War II, wrote a book about her family's ordeal and rescue...

American Battle Monuments Commission

re: "The American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) was established by Congress in 1923 to commemorate the service, achievements, and sacrifice of U.S. armed forces where they have served overseas since 1917, and within the U.S. when directed by public law./ The ABMC commemorative mission is reflected in 24 overseas military cemeteries that serve as resting places for almost 125,000 American war dead; on Tablets of the Missing that memorialize more than 94,000 U.S. servicemen and women; and through 25 memorials, monuments and markers./ We invite you to explore the information and databases available on this web site, and to visit our cemeteries and memorials..."...

hat tip: Expat Yank

Memorial Dedicated to the "Oskar Schindler of China" | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 08.11.2006

re: "John Rabe was an ordinary German businessman in China when the Japanese invaded Nanking in 1937. Nearly 70 years later, a memorial was dedicated to the "Good German" who saved thousands of Chinese lives...[snip]...A member of the Nazi party in Germany, Rabe sold turbines and telegraph equipment for Siemens, and rose to become the German company's chief trade representative in the Chinese wartime capital of Nanking, now called Nanjing. /His career in China from 1908 to 1938 would have been unremarkable, except for one thing: the meticulous 1,200-page diary he kept that chronicled daily life during a nearly forgotten chapter of the second Sino-Japanese war.../ During the Japanese occupation, however, Rabe did something else that influenced more lives than a journal ever could: He used his Nazi credentials to rescue thousands of Chinese from certain death..."...

Memory of Spiritual Leader in German Resistance Lives On | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 21.10.2006

re: Father Laurentius Siemer, a spiritual leader of the German resistance movement during World War II...

Defining the Issues -- A Methodist Witness

re: defining the issues that divide the church...

Jesus Christ is "Our Vehicle to the Divine?" The Episcopal Church is in Big Trouble

re: Albert Mohler looks at some of what the new presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church USA, Dr. Katherine Jefferts Schori, has been saying in interviews...

open book: Wha' Happened?

re: in a post about Pope Benedict, Amy Welborn says, "...But I have to say, when I read items like this, I don't see pessimism. I see optimism that eventually, when presented with the truth, people will eventually find their way to it. Don't you think that has marked almost every talk that has come from Benedict? A conviction that, first of all, God is real, human beings are made by God, in his image, and find their peace in Him. (yes, Augustinian, indeed.) All of the competing voices and temptations out there will eventually fail us, individually and collectively, and we'll eventually figure out that what God is offering us is not a prison sentence, but a key to unlock the prison in which we've locked ourselves..."...

Independent Women's Forum: And We’re Not Threatening to Move Out of the Country, Either

re: "Mark Shea points out a crucial difference between Republicans and Democrats: The former don’t sign up for psychotherapy after they lose an election..."...

Independent Women's Forum: Will we be humiliated in Iraq?

re: "Liberals see Iraq as Vietnam Redux. But now in the (London) Spectator, Charles Moore compares the possible effects of a U.S. stand-down in Iraq to the effect of England’s failure of nerve at Suez—an idea both so striking and so distressing (especially in light of the midterm elections) that I am breaking Inkwell’s unofficial ban on discussing articles that require registration to mention it..."...

Germany Divided | Deutsche Welle

re: special section with articles on Germany during the Cold War, and on efforts to reunify since then...

Katarina Witt: The New Queen of German TV | NEWS | Deutsche Welle | 10.11.2006

re: former ice skating champion hosts a celebrity reality show called Stars on Ice...

Eastern Europe Draws Veil of Silence Over Communist Past | Europe | Deutsche Welle | 03.03.2006

re: "...The pervasive presence of informers and collaborators during the communist era is an issue that has never been addressed at a political level in Hungary. Even so, it's a skeleton in the closet of public consciousness that refuses to go away...[snip]...Political observers believe that not only former communists have a vested interest in keeping the files under lock and key -- they believe that parliamentary parties across the board see the Hungarian people's reluctance to banish the ghosts of the last few decades as a natural turning away from the past. / But given that some 150,000 Hungarians are thought to have collaborated with the secret police, it seems likely that those ghosts will catch up with the public soon..."

Now the GOP Is For Affirmative Action? by Harry Stein, City Journal Autumn 2006

re: the fight for the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) had to be done without Republican leaders...

Supreme Court Debates Best Method to Execute a Baby by Matt Bowman

re: notes from someone who was at the Supreme Court's hearing on partial-birth abortion...

Decent Films Guide - Search

re: movie reviews of five Zorro movies, 1920-on...

Touchstone Magazine - Mere Comments: What Katharine Jefferts Schori Does Not Say

re: "...I think no one on “Mere Comments” has commented yet on the sermons preached by the Episcopal Church’s new Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori at her investiture and installation on November 4 and 5, 2006. Maybe they're not worth much comment. They do not include predictably controversial statements (such as her reference to "Mother Jesus" at General Convention 2006) but the sermons are more remarkable for what they do not say:/Bishop Schori’s sermons make no mention of the cross, nor of Jesus' death, nor of His rising again. Neither sermon uses the word "Gospel" (or the phrase "good news"). Neither sermon mentions Father, Son, or Holy Spirit (though the word "Spirit" does appear.) Jesus is not called Lord in either sermon; and somehow in her November 5 All Saints’ Day sermon, she managed to avoid saying “Christ” or “Christian” altogether..."...

Touchstone Magazine - Mere Comments: Hungarian Cardinal a Communist Informer

re: "The Hungarians did not start releasing the files of the Communist secret police until 1997. Historians are going through them and discovering unpleasant things. The American press has not mentioned anything about the discoveries, but Der Spiegel has a long article, “Verehrter Verräter,” and there are additional articles here, here, here, and here. /Cardinal Paskai, who was primate of Hungary until he retired in December 2002, was publicly a “peace priest” (the darlings of the left) and secretly an informer for the Communist Secret Police from 1965 to 1974. He had the code name Tanár, Teacher. During that time he wrote reports on priests and religious..."...[snip]..."Not only was Paskai informing on his fellow priests, the majority of the Hungarian delegation to the Second Vatican Council were in fact secret police informers, and in 1977 alone 421 priests informed on their fellow Catholics..."...

The Paragraph Farmer: Tiptoeing through the tulips

re: looking at the book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, by Francis Collins...

MI5: 30 terror plots being planned in UK | Special Reports | Guardian Unlimited Politics

re: "MI5 has identified 30 major terrorist plots being planned in Britain and is targeting more than 1,600 individuals actively engaged in promoting attacks here and abroad, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of the agency, warns today. /The 30 plots are the most serious of many more planned by some 200 British-based "networks" involved in terrorism, she said in a speech seen by the Guardian. In a gloomy assessment of the home-grown terrorist threat, MI5 says most of those involved are British-born, and most are connected with al-Qaida..."...

News from Agape Press: Silver Dollar City -- Where Management Makes a Difference in Employees' Lives

re: some of the story behind a longtime family friendly tourist attraction in Branson, Missouri...

OpinionJournal - Extra: End of the Revolution

re: Dick Armey says, among other things, "I've always wondered why Republicans insist on acting like Democrats in hopes of retaining political power, while Democrats act like us in order to win."...

Power Line: Forum Post of the Day

re: more thoughts on the election and where we go from here...

OregonLive.com: Election Updates from The Oregonian

re: "Kulongoski presses his agenda for a bluer Oregon/SALEM - Gov. Ted Kulongoski said Wednesday he plans to take full advantage of Oregon's new political order and his resounding reelection to push an agenda that includes spending a record $6 billion on public schools over the next two years and raising taxes on corporations and smokers. / "I look upon the election as affirmation of the direction I want to go," Kulongoski said at his first post-election news conference..."...

Wright American Fiction (1851-1875)

re: "This is a collection of 19th century American fiction, as listed in Lyle Wright's bibliography American Fiction, 1851-1875. There are currently 2,887 volumes included (1,763 unedited, 1,124 fully edited and encoded) by 1,456 authors. See this page for more information. Collection last updated on September 3, 2005. MARC Records are available for the entire collection."...

DigitalBookIndex: Search by Author (eBooks, eTexts, On-Line Books, eDocuments

re: entry on John Townsend Trowbridge 1827-1916...

Scotsman.com Heritage & Culture - World War II

re: articles on World War II, and its legacy...

Scotsman.com Heritage & Culture - Scotland's People - An Edinburgh real-life James Bond hero

re: a Scotsman who helped the Danish Resistance in World War II...

Lonely, Flickering Light - Prison Fellowship

re: Kristin Wright writes about Adoniram Judson and the church in Burma, and the persecution today of Burmese Christians...

The Resurrection of Pearl Buck

re: Pearl Buck has become popular in China, even at the higher academic levels...

Petrona: Meaning of life

re: links to "Two articles on the unfashionable but essential characteristic of taking responsibility for one's actions..."...

Brandywine Books" Let's Cultivate Simplicity and Solitude

re: Phil shares some good suggestions from A. W. Tozer...

Eject! Eject! Eject!: MAKE A CHOICE

re: "...My friends, this is time to make a choice. We have suffered a very large defeat tonight, and there is nothing now that we can do about that except decide on how we wish to face it. We have been given an opportunity to show what losing with honor should look like. Do not wail and cry. Do not shout CHEATERS! or whine about media coverage. And most especially do not blame the American people. They are not idiots and they are not sheep..."...

hat tip: Lars Walker

A different campaign: Orthodox congressional candidates bring Jewish text study techniques to campaigning

re: two Republican candidates in Maryland set out to make a difference this year...

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today

re: a mostly glass-half-full look at the election results...

OpinionJournal - Leisure & Arts

re: John O. McGinnis, professor at Northwestern University's School of Law, discusses the books "Does American Democracy Still Work?" by Alan Wolfe and "Our Undemocratic Constitution" by Sanford Levinson...

No Left Turns : Occidentalism and the Intellectuals

re: John Moser on the book Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of its Enemies, by Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit. He pulls the quote: "Where the free market dominates, as in the United States, intellectuals feel marginalized and unappreciated, and are inclined to be drawn to politics with grander pretensions. Taking their freedoms for granted, they become easy prey for enemies of the West."...

An Overdue Reckoning

re: Dean Barnett makes some suggestions on how to deal with the Republican losses (graciously) and how to go forward. He also isn't buying some of the excuses people are putting out...

Bridget Johnson on California on National Review Online

re: Bridget Johnson says it's time to let up on the California bashing, because California, overall, is not that different from the rest of the country...

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Bangladesh hails 'messiah' Zidane

re: former rags-to-riches football star receives a hero's welcome in Bangladesh...

The Scotsman - Business - BBC regional TV news network to benefit local press, says chief

re: "THE BBC plans to buy news and content from local papers across Britain for its planned network of local TV stations, the corporation's director-general said yesterday. / Mark Thompson proposed a partnership with local newspapers to avoid a head-on collision as television and newspapers moved into broadcasting on the web..."...

Intrepid gets stuck in the mud

re: the plan to move the USS Intrepid from its pier to a shipyard for refurbishing was derailed by muck in the river. Museum officials say they might try again at the next full-moon tide, Dec. 8...

In the shadow of the noose, Saddam softens - Los Angeles Times

re: "BAGHDAD -- A subdued Saddam Hussein, already sentenced to death in a human rights trial that concluded Sunday, walked into a courtroom again today and called on warring Iraqis outside to let bygones be bygones. "I call upon all Iraqis, Arabs and Kurds, to forgive, reconcile, and shake hands," the former dictator said after recounting tales of how both the Prophet Mohammad and Jesus Christ both showed forgiveness to their enemies..."...

FIRST THINGS: On the Square

re: Richard Stith writes, "Why do many pro-choice people find our arguments against early abortion not just unconvincing but absurd?...[snip]... I submit that pro-life arguments seem absurd to any listener who has in the back of the mind a sense that the embryo or fetus is being constructed in the womb..."...

FrontPage magazine.com :: American Mourning by Jamie Glazov

re: the book America Mourning: The Intimate Story of Two Families Joined by War, Torn by Beliefs, by Melanie Morgan and Catherine Moy, about the families of friends Casey Sheehan and Justin Johnson, both of whom died in action...

Michelle Malkin: John Kerry: Uniting the armed services

re: another banner, this one displayed at the Army-Air Force Game. It reads (all in caps in original): We support those not as smart as John Kerry. On the left it has Go Army and what looks like a coat of arms. On the right, it has Go Air Force and what looks like another coat of arms...

Professor's Bigfoot Research Criticized - Examiner.com

re: "...Jeffrey Meldrum holds a Ph.D. in anatomical sciences and is a tenured professor of anatomy at Idaho State University. He is also one of the world's foremost authorities on Bigfoot, the mythical smelly ape-man of the Northwest woods. And Meldrum firmly believes the lumbering, shaggy brute exists.

That makes him an outcast - a solitary, Sasquatch-like figure himself - on the 12,700-student campus, where many scientists are embarrassed by what they call Meldrum's "pseudo-academic" pursuits and have called on the university to review his work with an eye toward revoking his tenure..."...

NTSB: Wind Blew Lidle Plane Off Course - Examiner.com

re: "A light wind was cited by federal investigators Friday for blowing a small airplane carrying Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle off course and into a New York City high-rise on Oct. 11....[snip]...The report issued Friday said the airplane was flying along the East River between Manhattan and Queens when it attempted a U-turn with only 1,300 feet of room for the turn. To make a successful turn, the aircraft would have had to bank so steeply that it might have stalled, the NTSB said in an update on the crash..."...

N.J. Landing Error Worries Experts - Examiner.com

re: last week a Continental Airlines flight carrying 154 people from Orlando, Florida, landed on a taxiway at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey instead of the runway to which it had been assigned. Both pilots have been grounded by the airline...

Danielle Bean: This 'n That

re: several subjects, including "...the FDA wants to know how you feel about about vaccines manufactured using aborted fetal cell lines..." Has link...

National Novel Writing Month - FAQs

re: it's NaNoWriMo time again...

Elephants in Academia: "What's your plan?"

re: stump speech by President Bush, pointing out that Democrats offer criticism but no plan...

The Anchoress » NY Times out-and-out lies on Kerry (& costs us plenty) - Updated

re: I'd missed this. The New York Times story on the Kerry kerfuffle didn't include what he actually said???? In fairness, there is a November 3, correction at the bottom....

Penn: Office of University Communications

re: home page for University of Pennsylvania communications office - news releases, links to articles that reference Penn or its people, contact info for media looking for an expert, more...

Barbaro Trainer Ponders What May Have Been - washingtonpost.com

re: The Breeders' Cup Classic this weekend prompts some daydreaming about races that couldn't happen after all...

Penn: Office of University Communications: University of Pennsylvania Professor Re-Writes History of U.S. Saudi Relations

re: "Robert Vitalis, associate professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, rewrites U.S.-Saudi history in his new book"...

Democracy Project: Penn President Poses with "Suicide Bomber"

re: University of Pennsylvania president Amy Gutmann threw a Halloween costume party, and let a guy dressed as a suicide bomber ham it up for the cameras, including mock executions of 'hostages' (she also posed smiling beside the kid)...

hat tip: Hugh Hewitt

The Dilbert Blog: Good News Day

re: Scott Adams figures out how to remap his brain to restore his speech...

hat tip: JollyBlogger

Murder, Arson Charges For Wildfire Suspect, Raymond Lee Oyler Accused In Calif. Blaze That Killed 5 Firefighters - CBS News

re: man suspected of setting multiple fires in the area over a period of months, possibly years...

New Frontier Lures Detroit Autoworkers, As Employees Lose Their Jobs, Booming Energy Industry In Wyoming Calls - CBS News

re: Wyoming has 6,000 more jobs than people, is looking for workers from other states...

BostonHerald.com - Herald Columnists: Massachusetts’ botched joke

re: Jules Crittenden takes a sober look at Kerry's 'botched joke'...

hat tip: Gateway Pundit

OpinionJournal - Featured Article: Climate Non-Conformity

re: trying to keep the global warming debate open...

OpinionJournal - Extra: Stern Review

re: Bjorn Lomborg argues that more good will come from addressing some issues (like clean drinking water, sanitation, basic health care and education) directly instead of plowing money into attempts to get carbon-emission cuts...

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today

re: various links to follow up... (also includes, in ref to a story on increased birthrate in Iraq: As the 19th-century Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore observed, "Every time a child is born, it brings with it the hope that God is not yet disappointed with man.")...

Winter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

re: cultural differences, folklore, science, historical footnotes, starting dates for winter...

Last thoughts on John Kerry « Bookworm Room

re: coming at Kerry's 'get a good education or get stuck in Iraq' gaffe from a different angle, Bookworm notes that the Left seems to equate academic smartness with intelligence (an assumption that doesn't always hold up), and also generally doesn't acknowlege that other experiences, such as service in the military, can provide an education...

Voila! A Car Powered By Air, French Duo Says No Combustion, Zero-Emissions Vehicle Runs For Pennies Per Mile - CBS News

re: work continues on a vehicle run by compressed air (pull quote: “The beauty of this concept is air is everywhere and it doesn't generate pollutions. The main problem is the technology to make use of air." - UCLA professor Su-Chin Chow)...

Author Courts Book Clubs And Boosts Sales

re: Romance novelist John Shors put his email in a letter at the back of his paperback edition, offering to make personal calls and visits to book clubs. He's talked with 200-ish so far, reportedly has sales up to about a thousand books a week...

Petrona: Autumn books: battlefield between the ears

re: the book "Mind Wars: Brain research and national defense" by Jonathan D. Moreno, reviewed by Charles Jennings...

OpinionJournal - Taste: Saints Misbehavin'

re: Thomas J. Craughwell, author of "Saints Behaving Badly" (Doubleday, 2006), tackles the commonly held (and quite erroneous) myth that saints are people who lived their whole lives in holiness. Far from it, in many, many cases. Includes info on push to name French cop-killer and thief Jacques Fesch a saint, based upon his conversion and contrition after being put in jail...

Integration Is Helped When Everyone New Doesn’t Move In At The Same Time « Expat Yank

re: a look at the current push to force religious schools in the UK to accept students who don't belong to their faith, plus a consideration of the less obvious reasons this represents muddled thinking...

Shipbuilders by Arthur Stanwood Pier. William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. 1922. Anthology of Massachusetts Poets

re: poem calling for earnest action against the Germans. Last stanza:
Come, gather at the shipyards,
And toil with healthy hate,
For only you can save the world,
The Hun is at the gate.

Scribner Chronology

re: an illustrated chronology of the publisher Charles Scribner's Sons...

VDH's Private Papers::Free at Last

re: review of the book The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq, by Fouad Ajami...

¡No Pasarán!: A Surplus of that Vision Thing

re: Ségolène Royal, a candidate for President of France, is campaigning to a large extent on environmental policies, social protection and research, which blogger Joe Noory notes: "Ironically, 3 things that market can provide more efficiently without having to shove it down peoples’ throats."...

Townhall.com::Blog: Mark Halperin, Unplugged

re: Hugh Hewitt shares some of his favorite exchanges from an interview with ABC News' political director...

Shame on Michael J. Fox - Orlando Sentinel : Opinion

re: Parkinson's patient Gary Loftis covers some of what works already for people with the disease, and what's on the horizon for possible treatments that don't involve harming embryos...

hat tip: The Paragraph Farmer

Wittingshire: Michael J. Fox

re: focuses on more civilized approaches to dealing with Michael J. Fox's misleading and ill-informed 'stem cell' ad...

Deadly Hezbollah chess match - Commentary - The Washington Times, America's Newspaper

re: James G. Zumwalt details one way Hezbollah set up ahead of the Israeli-Hezbollah war to use civilian homes for military uses, with or without consent of the residents...

TNA Home

re: info on and support for people with trigeminal neuralgia and other face pain...

Miller Center — Franklin D. Roosevelt Speeches

re: the Fireside chat from September 11, 1941...

MercuryNews.com | 10/28/2006 | Reward at $500,000 as fire rages

re: still looking for the arsonist/s in the deadly Esperanza fire in southern California, which continues to burn wildly...

TorontoSun.com - Michael Coren - I sympathize, but Fox is still wrong

re: why Michael J. Fox is wrong about the embryonic stem cell research he's promoting...

British Psychologists: Abortions Cause Women Mental Health Problems

re: a few folks noticing that abortion seems to have psychological consequences...

Article | Casual reaction to criminal brutality

re: Theodore Dalrymple discusses crime and its effects on New Zealand...

What Rush REALLY Said About Michael J. Fox

re: audio, transcripts, links, background, to counter the Dems and media activists who are trying to misrepresent what the argument is about...

SignOnSanDiego.com > News > State -- Crews fear wind could push Calif. wildfire toward more homes

re: four firefighters dead, one critical, and the situation is very bad, with Santa Ana winds, drought- and beetle-killed trees, residents forced to flee...

Bishop Henry on Why He's Not Afraid to Speak out on Homosexuality, Abortion

re: fighting erosion of adherence to Catholic teaching...

The Dawn Patrol: Welcome to Planned Parenthood's 'Nightmare'

re: (words fail me)...

EDITORIAL - Cowardly Schiavo Stalking Congresswoman Musgrave

re: Michael Schiavo is apparently showing his colors, again...

Dear Divine, From Oprah by Judy Gruen

re: a dead-on look at a culture so skewed that Oprah has more sway in many lives than G-d (note: some content isn't family friendly)...

Suzanne Fields: Saints, sinners and bigots

re: column on how religion is, or isn't, integrated into daily life, now versus then...

Mona Charen: 13 reasons to vote Republican on Nov. 7

re: Republican versus Democrat achievements and plans...

Eugenics,Then and Now

re: article by Ken Concannon, "...Inherent in this country’s concerns about overpopulation, in the growing euthanasia movement, and in the “unwanted child” rhetoric of the abortion industry, is the eugenic concept that the world would be a better place if the most unfortunate among us were not in it. That is a very unfortunate worldview."...

LifeEthics.org: Frankenbunnies, non-brain dead organ donation, cloning, and PVS guinea pigs

re: "Isn't it amazing how many of the most controversial news and public policy issues revolve around bioethics and medicine?

I've noted before that all of the controversies (like those mentioned above, from the days surrounding the weekend of October 8-9, 2006) are actually only one: which humans will receive society's protection of the inalienable right not to be killed, enslaved or robbed..."...

the evangelical outpost: She's Having a Fetus

re: fictional conversation between two pro-choice women, using the euphemisms common to their cause...

Censored! - Charlotte Wyatt Blog :: Euthanasia :: ProLifeBlogs

re: a blog about a little girl with severe medical problems was ordered closed by court order???...

Breeding and Believing -- Linked?

re: an article in the British magazine Prospect on a rise in religious belief and growth of more orthodox groups...

JS Online: The right vs. the rite of marriage

re: dead-on op-ed piece about the referendum on marriage in Wisconsin...

JS Online:Patrick McIlheran: Right On: Voting no means permitting yes

re: New Jersey courts have shown why there need to be marriage-protection clauses in state constitutions... "...But the key is that while families can fuse, fission and reblend as many ways as people can imagine, marriage isn’t about who people want to kiss. It’s about what combinations society will be made to give its approval to by law..."...

ScrappleFace » Outrage Over YouTube.com ‘Michael J. Embryo’ Ad

re: Scott Ott hits a home run with an ad that neatly points out who will get hurt if embryonic stem cell research gets a big push in Missouri...

OpinionJournal - Federation: Getting the Numbers Right

re: "To avoid charges of "racism," we disciplined black and white students differently"...

Butter Cake Troubleshooting - Joyofbaking.com

re: common cake baking problems and their causes...

JS Online:Crocker Stephenson: Meeting Baby Doe

re: newspaper blog. "Join Crocker Stephenson behind the scenes as he pieces together the story of a young man, Tim Krahling, whose birth 19 years ago sparked a headline-grabbing debate over the rights of parents and society to care for a child born with severe abnormalities. Watch, even participate, as Stephenson gathers the facts he will use to tell Tim’s story, and explore with him the ethical, emotional and moral issues that inevitably arise when a reporter journeys deep into the lives of private people to make public their most personal stories."...

Even More “Multi-faith” Than One Might Think? « Expat Yank

re: in the 2001 UK census, 390,000 people listed their religion as Jedi Knight...

Karen Edmisten: In His Hands

re: musing on motherhood in general, and becoming the mother of a teen in particular...

The Common Room: Poems for Boys

re: poetry urging honesty, hard work, integrity, spirit, nobility...

The Common Room: Tragic

re: grandparents urging abortion of their grandchild, because it might be born retarded...

Manliness -- The Forgotten (and Forbidden) Virtue

re: looking at recent writings on manliness, including the book Manliness, by Harvey C. Mansfield...

Dawkins and The God Delusion Revisited

re: Albert Mohler links to and discusses reviews of Richard Dawkins' new book...

Seraphic Secret: Woe to Live On

re: on obscure but great novels, including The Moonflower Vine, and on literary types who no longer read stories but deconstruct texts...

Seraphic Secret: French Blood Libel

re: more on the staged French television reports that helped flame the intifada...

Dove Campaign for Real Beauty

re: includes film "evolution" about going from real model to computer enhanced ad...

hat tip: Danielle Bean

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Uneasy for a Reason

re: Michael Barone compares 1967 (when American population was at the 200 million mark), and today (along with a brief look at the holiday from history mindset)...

hat tip: Julie Ponzi at No Left Turns

New Book Levels Playing Field, Wheat Life

re: May 2002 write-up on Earl Roberge, photographer and writer, on his 2001 book "Those Snake River Dams" and on his ideas about the overzealous faction of environmentalism...

One Hand Clapping » Blog Archive » Can atheism be justified?

re: quoting from and expanding on a Dinesh D'Souza article...

Article: God knows why faith is thriving (SFGate.com, Sunday, October 22, 2006)

Army Times - Hawaii hospital beset by malpractice claims

re: from February 2006, background on several malpractice claims at Tripler Army Medical Center, including that for baby Izzy Peterson, who in January 2005 was hooked up to carbon dioxide instead of oxygen right after being born...

Troubling Government Argument - PalmTree Pundit

re: the U.S. government, fighting a malpractice suit, arguing that a baby with severe brain damage isn't aware of his existence...

The Wide Awake Cafe » Why Would I Sit at Home?

re: her son and brother just deployed to Iraq for a year. No way is she sitting home instead of voting...

Scrooge On The Playground

re: an editorial at The Caledonian-Record about school districts that have banned all unsupervised chasing games...

hat tip: The Club For Growth

The Club For Growth - http://www.clubforgrowth.org

re: network of people dedicated to promoting economic freedom...

hat tip: Michele

Captain's Quarters: Was Star Trek Fascist?

re: reflections on the culture of the Star Trek fantasies...

The Little Marine Meets Her Men « A Rose By Any Other Name

re: the girl who decided to meet her troubles like a Marine got a visit from some of them...

Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

re: blog I stumbled across, want to check out...

ScrappleFace » Democrats Offer to Let GOP Keep Some Seats

re: satirical look at Democrats (and Republicans) in the run-up to an election...

Brandywine Books: Lewis link

re: link to a couple of C.S. Lewis broadcast recordings...

Betsy's Page: The Democratic Agenda

re: some of the bills and constitutional amendments put forward by Democrats recently...

The Book Den: Caring For, Culling Out and Cashing In On Old Books

re: the "Rare Books and Manuscripts Section" of the Association of College & Research Libraries web site...

The Little Marine « A Rose By Any Other Name

re: story of 11-year-old girl who has decided to face her medical problems and other challenges like a Marine...

More on the numbers game « Bookworm Room

re: the recent Lancet 'study' on the number of deaths in Iraq is based on very few cluster points, which renders it invalid, plus it's based on interviews, and "Middle Easterners have a cultural bias towards telling the listener what they think he wants to hear"...

November 1997, ParlorSongs second issue, updated

re: a feature on old sheet music...

Liberty Bell Sheet Music

re: Liberty Bell Sheet Music Written for the 1926 Sesquicentennial International Exposition in Philadelphia...

John Philip Sousa (1854-1932)

re: website hosted by the Dallas Wind Symphony, on famous composer/band leader. Has MIDIs, MPEGS, RealAudio, and clips of original Sousa Band 78 rpms, plus info, links...

CMA Doctors: South Dakota Abortion Law Parallels Scientific Understanding

re: "The nation's largest faith-based association of physicians today affirmed the medical and ethical principles contained in South Dakota's Referred Law 6, which voters will decide in November..."...

William C. Duncan on Marriage 2006 on National Review Online

re: "State marriage amendments will not ban private contracts..."...

OpinionJournal - Extra: The Hamas Network

re: what should the response be to broadcasters that spread terrorism?...

In a Free Society, Campaigns Matter: The GOP Must Give Voters a Clear Choice by Newt Gingrich - HUMAN EVENTS

re: campaign advice for Republicans...

hat tip: Carol Platt Liebau

Carol Platt Liebau: Never, never, never give up.

re: includes great Reagan quote, "I don't believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing."...

Dependency as Independence? by Theodore Dalrymple

re: "...the girls regarded pregnancy and the resultant baby as an answer to existential problems. The young women came from broken, violent, chaotic, and loveless homes; they hated school because it seemed pointless; their only employment prospects were in the lowest-paid and most monotonous jobs.

A baby, then, answered all their prayers. It was a constant focus of interest and an object upon which they could lavish their hitherto thwarted desire to love and be loved. They also found that, thanks to welfare, their financial position actually improved after having given birth, provided only that the child’s father did not live with the mother or work to earn his living—whereupon, of course, all state benefits stopped, casting the young family into poverty.

The young mothers also reported that having babies fulfilled a desire for “independence,” a word used without irony in the report. This language is evidence that the British character has changed utterly in the last 60 years. Where once even the poorest people would have thought it a disgrace and humiliation to depend on public welfare, such handouts of taxpayer money by the state now constitute the very conception of independence for a considerable proportion of the population..."...

The Common Room: Notes and Quotes

re: "The utopian underestimates the degree to which human problems are the result of human nature. An individual governed by utopian imagination doesn't see moral problems, he sees technical problems." From Why Johnny Can't Tell Right from Wrong, by William Kilpatrick...

The Paragraph Farmer: 300 million and change

re: "...as the population of the United States approaches 300 million, the calculated indifference to that demographic milestone ...is inherently interesting..."...

The Paragraph Farmer: Too late in the year to call it a beach read

re: thumb's up review of The Keeper's Son by Homer Hickam (c. 2003)...

Constitutionally Correct : ADF Opposes Counterfeit Marital Institutions, Not the Granting of Benefits to Unmarried People

re: some advocates of 'same-sex marriage' are using fallacious arguments to scare people into voting against protection of marriage measures. "...The proposed amendments prohibit only counterfeit marital institutions such as civil unions or domestic partnerships. Alternative legal avenues exist to grant benefits to unmarried people without basing those benefits on a counterfeit marital institution that will be used to undermine the definition of marriage. The distinction between these counterfeit marriage institutions and benefits is vital. And, again, it is also one that many voters do not understand. Same-sex "marriage" advocates are capitalizing on this confusion. They need to be rebutted..."...

AMERICAN FUTURE » Eugenics Is Alive and Well in North Korea

re: The Times reports that North Korean women suspected of getting pregnant by Chinese men are forced to have abortions, and that disabled or racially-impure babies are killed after birth, as part of the cult of racial superiority...

Has excerpts from Nation under a nuclear cloud by Michael Sheridan, Far East Correspondent

300 million Americans, and counting

re: Gary Rotstein of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has fun with the news that the population of the United States is expected to hit the 300 million mark this week...

SFO Mom: Halloween Frustrations

re: Catholic mother asking for suggestions for a Halloween costume for a ten-year-old girl...

Considerettes - Conservative commentary served up in bite-sized bits » Codependency on the World Stage

re: "...The world is acting like the wife of an alcoholic man..."...

Britannia: British History & Travel

re: American-based website on things British, past and present...

Betsy's Page: Commemorating the Battle of Hastings

re: Sunday was the anniversary of William the Conqueror's victory in 1066, and thousands gathered for the biggest ever reenactment...

Betsy's Page: Here's another reason for the Muslims to riot

re: The London Olympics in 2012 overlap Ramadan...

The Road to Nowhere—Middle Church

re: Albert Mohler read Bob Edgar's Middle Church: Reclaiming the Moral Values of the Faithful Majority from the Religious Right, and finds, among other things, "...We must always be willing and ready to read what our own critics have to say. This is especially true when the critic is fair, intelligent, and thoughtful. Unfortunately, Bob Edgar has written a book that fits none of those categories. Instead, his book appears to be nothing less than a parody of mainline Protestantism--a cartoon reflection of what the ecumenical movement really represents. Middle Church is a roadmap to nowhere except further decline in influence and relevance for liberal Protestantism."...

Captain's Quarters: The Taboo Has Lifted

re: "...The Japanese haven't yet come to the point where anyone will overtly support going nuclear -- not yet. Nakagawa framed this very carefully. Japan will remain non-nuclear ... but only after we discuss it a while. The topic will advance incrementally until the Japanese feel comfortable discussing it in real terms..."...

God’s Paint « A Rose By Any Other Name

re: photo of hillside covered in wildflowers...

Elephants in Academia: Some thoughts on what makes history: Documenting Bob Woodward's State of Denial

re: comparing what's in Bob Woodward's book to the transcript of the Rumsfeld interview on which it's supposedly based...

Global Catholic News - The Danger of a New Selective Eugenics

re: text adapted from "a text prepared by Friars Minor Father Hyacinth Ennis for a videoconference of theologians Sept. 27 on bioethics"....

BBC NEWS | UK | England | London | Woman to sue BA in necklace row

re: "A Heathrow Airport employee has said she plans to sue British Airways for religious discrimination in a row over the wearing of a cross necklace..."...

Ban on BA worker's crucifix 'loopy', MP | The World | The Australian

re: "LONDON: A British cabinet minister has slammed British Airways for banning a Christian employee from wearing a cross around her neck, describing the decision as "loopy".

Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain said he "didn't understand" the airline's ruling to suspend check-in worker Nadia Eweida, 55, for wearing a necklace with a cross to work, even though it allows Muslims and Sikhs to wear headscarves and turbans..."...

The NDSU Libraries

re: North Dakota State University's Germans from Russia Heritage Collection...

NWS Rapid City, SD - The Rapid City Flood of 1972 > Historic Black Hills Floods

re: list of floods from 1878...

Old West

re: more photos of Dakotas, etc...

Dakota Territory

re: photos from Dakota Territory...

Foodgeeks.com: Recipe for Awesome Apple Bread

re: recipe...

I have to say...: Friday Stuff

re: various links, including craft links and a site on bread baking...

The 'view from Stonewater: "Stranded" by Lorena McCourtney at Title Trakk

re: review of fourth book in a mystery series published by Christian publisher...

hat tip: Saturday Review of Books (Semicolon)

TheDenverChannel.com - News - Hawaii Governor Declares Emergency Amid Quake

re: more on quake...

Strong Quakes Rattle Hawaiian Islands

re: hit on north of Big Island...

FIRST THINGS: On the Square

re: Ryan T. Anderson writes, "The truth about the technical challenges and scientific hurdles for embryonic stem-cell (ESC) therapies is finally getting out. The truth, of course, is that there are no human embryonic stem-cell therapies even in clinical trial, let alone ready for therapy, and there have been no major treatment models in animals, either. Adult stem cells, however, have already been successful in treating more than seventy different diseases in actual human beings.

Readers of First Things are well aware that the main objection to current methods of embryonic stem-cell research is that they involve the destruction of living human embryos, that is, human beings at the embryonic stage in their lives. This is a principled objection to the direct and intentional killing of human beings.

There is no principled objection to stem-cell research, not even to embryonic stem-cell research, provided that methods that do not destroy embryos are pursued..."...

David's Daily Diversions: Making (Christian) Faith Invisible

re: British Airways allowing employees to wear symbols of faith - except crosses...

David's Daily Diversions: Dragged to Democracy

re: looking at the Sark change of government from a different angle...

A Constrained Vision: Dems and college kids

re: Jay Nordlinger had a thought..."And the old thought is this — one that I had even when I was in college: Aren’t Democrats ever embarrassed that their best and most enthusiastic audiences are the most stupid people in America — I mean, the most inexperienced, least knowledgeable, and least mature? I mean, doesn’t it ever bother them to know that, if they really want or need an adulatory audience, they can always go to a college campus (as opposed to, say, a chamber of commerce)?"...

The next generation of wusses « Bookworm Room

re: "More from the public school front. My daughter today told me that, during P.E., she got a special commendation for the fact that she didn’t care if she won at kickball or not. Apparently the modern notion of good sportsmanship is no sportsmanship at all..."...

OpinionJournal - Peggy Noonan: The Sounds of Silencing

re: "Why do Americans on the left think only they have the right to dissent?..."...

No Truth in Beauty by Benjamin A. Plotinsky

re: fauxtography in the news, and in 'documentaries' too...

OpinionJournal - Federation: Too Controversial for Columbia

re: Ross Kaminsky notes decades of bad behavior at Columbia University, when a speaker with which the leftists disagree is invited...

The New York Times pish-tushes European fears « Bookworm Room

re: The New York Times fusses about people in Europe who are wondering out loud if multi-culturalism has been a mistake or if Islam can be reconciled to European values...

Want to Save the Environment? Have a Baby! - Prison Fellowship

re: Anne Morse challenges the war on babies waged by environmentalists, and its underlying myths. Includes reference to the book The War on People, by Steven Mosher...

New York Cops: Still the Finest by Heather Mac Donald, City Journal Summer 2006

re: a look at why Gotham's crime rate keeps dropping, and why bad neighborhoods turn around...

OpinionJournal - Taste: Under the Microscope

re: "...it is always dismaying when scientists--of all people--suggest that on some subjects there must be no questioning because debate is closed. And on one level, at least, this would seem to be the implicit message of the newly formed 527 political organization called Scientists and Engineers for America, or SEA. / In announcing its launch last week, the group said that it is concerned about how the Bush administration has "compromised the integrity of science" with, among other things, its policies on global warming and stem-cell research and its (alleged) support for nonscientific "intelligent design" theories of evolution. SEA members have also cited a delay in making the "morning-after" pill, sold under the name Plan B, readily available over-the-counter as another example of a sustained government "assault" on science and scientists..."...

OpinionJournal - Leisure & Arts: The Page-Turner as Polemic

re: Joshua Marquis, the district attorney in Astoria, Oregon, and vice president of the National District Attorneys Association, takes aim at John Grisham's book "The Innocent Man"...

Wittingshire: All our scattered leaves

re: John Donne, with a quote in which God is both bookbinder and librarian (in a manner of speaking)...

Bountiful Blessings

re: blog to consider adding to blogroll (found through comment at Rosetta Stone)...

By Their Books We Shall Know Them

re: "Jay Parini, a poet and professor of English at Middlebury College, has written an elegant essay for The Chronicle of Higher Education, noting his penchant for looking at personal libraries of friends and acquaintances./In "Other People's Books,' Parini writes..."...

AMERICAN FUTURE - Trying to make sense of a world in turmoil » Multiculturalism Under Fire in Britain (and France) — Part II

re: primarily excerpts from Melanie Phillips' on Jack Straw's comments about full-face veils, and on the police claiming intifada being waged in France...

AMERICAN FUTURE - Trying to make sense of a world in turmoil » Multiculturalism Under Fire in Britain

re: "reports that the Church of England has launched an "astonishing attack on the Government's drive to turn Britain into a multi-faith society."...

Liberal Blinders by Howard Husock

re: a book review that takes to task Alexander Polikoff for his book Waiting for Gautreaux: A Story of Segregation, Housing and the Black Ghetto (Northwestern University Press), about taking people from ghettos and scattering them about in nicer neighborhoods, but in subsidized housing...

Semicolon: Books Shaping Evangelicals

re: discussion of a recently published list of "Top 50 Books That Have Shaped Evangelicals"...

Antiabortion Campaign Waves Feminist Flag - Los Angeles Times

re: South Dakota anti-abortion campaign leaders highlighting the toll abortion has had on women, to the confusion and dismay of pro-abortion activists...

Captain's Quarters: I Love Canadian Troops, Too!

re: Democrats use photoshopped picture of Canadian serviceman to accompany claims that the GOP is breaking promises and hurting our troops...

lgf has more, and notes that the Dems might not have done the altering themselves...

The New Atlantis - Shop Class as Soulcraft - Matthew B. Crawford

re: long essay on manual competence, craftsmanship, etc...

Mental multivitamin: Manual competence

re: "...Political theorists from Aristotle to Thomas Jefferson have questioned the republican virtue of the mechanic, finding him too narrow in his concerns to be moved by the public good. Yet this assessment was made before the full flowering of mass communication and mass conformity, which pose a different set of problems for the republican character..." (from Shop Class as Soulcraft, The New Atlantis, Summer 2006)...

ABC News: Family Christens USS George H.W. Bush

re: "NEWPORT NEWS, Va. Oct 7, 2006 (AP)— Spraying the bubbles from sparkling wine across the enormous gray bow of the USS George H.W. Bush, the Bush family on Saturday christened the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier named after the 82-year-old former president..."

Not that it matters, but I didn't know a U.S. military ship could be named for a still-living person...

Press Releases - Evangelical Leaders Exploited by Global Warming--Population Control Lobby

re: "What the publicity surrounding the ECI failed to disclose was that the initiative dangerously connects an Evangelical “creation care” ethic to those groups that are lobbying for population control and abortion-on-demand. Such efforts, if successful, would give anti-Christian ideologies unmerited moral and theological cover that they now lack..."...

Flash Point: Teen Mother Choices

re: "Teen Mother Choices is a non-profit organization that is probably one of the best examples of being God-with-skin-on to girls between the ages of 13 and 23 who find themselves pregnant and choose to keep their babies."... plus... "...Nigel Cameron was the guest speaker and it is really something he shared that night that I wanted to share with you. He spoke about the fact that if you were pro-life in the 20th century, you need to be pro-human in the 21st..."...

archden.org

re: the Archdiocese of Denver launched a new website this year on the Feast of St. Francis Assisi...

Telegraph | News | Muslims are waging civil war against us, claims police union

re: trouble in France, which some are saying is criminals defending their turf, but others think is radical Muslims waging intifada, and others...

hat tip: The American Thinker

The Cafeteria Is Closed: Archbishop Chaput Quote

re: ...“We need to drill it into our heads that defending the sanctity of the human person and serving the common good can’t be separated,” he said. “Stuffing our Catholic faith in a closet when we enter the public square or join a public debate isn’t good manners, and it isn’t political courtesy. It’s cowardice. And we’ll be judged for that cowardice by the God who created us.”...

Here in the Bonny Glen: Our Backyard Gave Us a Going-Away Present

re: monarch butterflies (and where to get milkweed)...

A Circle of Quiet: A little of this and a little of that

re: games, and a great quote from a Wendell Berry essay on the disintegration of communities and the disintegration of persons and the disintegration of language...

NWCN.com | News for NW Cable News | Northwest Backroads

re: Mary Jane Butters, the simple life, and a million-dollar-plus two-book deal...

MercuryNews.com | 10/06/2006 | Growers Express puzzled by FBI's 'spinach' raid

re: agents sweep into food firms...

Students at Hundreds of Campuses to Join Day of Silence Against Abortion Oct. 24

re: students in Canada, the United States, and elsewhere will show solidarity with those silenced by abortion...

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Abortion Chic

re: Kathleen Parker discusses the Ms. Magazine "We Had Abortions" cover story and campaign...

Musings of a Lady: Five years ago

re: another good 9/11 anniversary post that I missed when it came out...

FOXNews.com - CBS News Allows Conservative Point of View and All Hell Breaks Loose - Bill O’Reilly | The O’Reilly Factor

re: Brian Rohrbough, whose son was killed at Columbine, goes on CBS to say that he thinks that the country is in moral freefall, that schools contribute to it, and that some things are always wrong - like killing children, including abortion - and a few folks on the left come uncorked...

FOXNews.com - Hazardous Waste Plant Fire in N.C. Forces 17,000 to Evacuate

re: but rain and time seem to be helping matters considerably...

Mrs. Happy Housewife - Peter Pan Book Sequel

re: there is an authorized sequel, now available...

Nobel Wish-List

re: William Kristol thinks Donald Westlake should get the Nobel Prize for literature...

The Constitution, Writ or Wrong

re: "The habeas corpus debate illustrates a dangerous trend in legal ignorance..."...

hat tip: Bookworm

Considerettes - Affecting the Culture

re: "What would your church do to make an impact on our culture, if it had $100,000 at its disposal? One Baptist church decided to make a movie; a high-quality movie [Facing the Giants] with a good message that is competing favorably against Hollywood’s offerings..."...

The View into the Womb is "Extraordinarily Dangerous?"

re: a doctor in the UK frets that the public might look at pictures of a baby in the womb and think it's human at 12 weeks...

Victory for marriage in California - Alliance Defense Fund - Defending Our First Liberty

re: "A ruling today by the California Court of Appeal reversed a lower court’s 2005 decision that would have redefined marriage to include same-sex couples..."...

Television Reality - Prison Fellowship

re: John Fischer was minding his own business in a coffee bistro, when folks with a 'reality show' swung in for some filming...

BrothersJudd Blog: INCREASINGLY DUBAIOUS:

re: more on Airbus and its latest troubles...

Study: Switzerland Tops in Preventing Bribery | Business | Deutsche Welle | 04.10.2006

re: corruption watchdog agency study on how well different exporting countries do on preventing firms from bribing...

German Government Urged to Intervene in Airbus Crisis | Business | Deutsche Welle | 04.10.2006

re: "...News that Airbus is facing an uncertain future due to the delayed roll-out of the A380 super jumbo jet by at least a year, and the proposed shifting of operations from Hamburg to cheaper sites in Russia, India and China, has angered politicians and industry officials in Germany..."...

Control Room and Driver to Blame for Transrapid Train Crash | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 04.10.2006

re: initial investigation on the Sept. 22 crash that killed 23 people finds human error on the part of the driver (who died in the crash) and two control room operators (both of whom are still reported to be in a state of shock) for letting the train start down a test track that still had a 60-ton maintenance vehicle on it...

That Was Then . . . This is Now? A Nazi Nightmare

re: doctors killing people with handicaps or other problems...

Heresy in the Church of High Art

re: another writer pointing out the ugliness and worldview of 'high art'...

The Common Room: Books read in September.

re: includes some books I hadn't heard of that sound interesting, like Rachel Calof's Story: Jewish Homesteader on the Northern Plains...

Betsy's Page: The new Medicare plan

re: grudging praise for how the new Medicare prescription drug benefit program is doing so far...

Betsy's Page: More attacks on freedom of speech

re: 'campaign finance reforms' being used to punish plain old talk...

A Little Social Experiment by Theodore Dalrymple

re: On a London street, the difference between private property and "social" (i.e. public) housing shows up in the gardens. "What is clear from the distribution of litter in the street is that it is the private that is social, and the “social” that is not so much private as solipsistic, egotistical—and antisocial."...

Danielle Bean: Your Turn: Clutter Control

re: more advice to get rid of clutter (it's only stuff)...

Patrick Lee on NRO Books

re: Patrick Lee and Robert P. George counter charges made against them and others in the book Challenging Nature, by Lee Silver. Includes technical info on embryonic stem cells, embryos, etc., ...

Books and Culture's Book of the Week: A Canonization of Subjectivity - Books & Culture

re: Mark Gauvreau Judge reviews Andrew Sullivan's new book, The Conservative Soul, and finds it full of misrepresentations ("Sullivan quotes George Weigel and Richard John Neuhaus out of context, but his real botching is with Pope Benedict"..."He touts his Catholicism... but can't be bothered to tackle John Paul II's Theology of the Body"), plus much nonsense in general. He suggests "A Canonization of Subjectivity" might have been a good title...

CatholicMom.com Interview with Tarek Saab, Lionheart Apparel

re: promoting masculine Christians, in a variety of ways...

Bruggie Tales

re: an Australian homeschooling family's blog...

TheDenverChannel.com - Irresistible Headlines - Toddler's Survival Alone In Woods Called Miracle

re: "ALVARADO, Texas -- For three days, 2½-year-old Kevin Brown's chubby bare feet took him through acres of rugged pastures of grass taller than his head and around ponds where bobcats and coyotes roam..."...

The Common Room : Children and Shakespeare

re: taking children to see Shakespeare (and a three-year-old's triumph)...

The Daily Star - Opinion Articles - Saying goodbye to your grandfather's Arab world

re: a different, and more upbeat, look at changing views in the Middle East, especially among the rising generation, from an English-language paper based there...

hat tip: Real Clear Politics

RealClearPolitics - Articles - The Dark View of Islam and the American Street

re: Thomas Lifson, with a theater-based illustration of the global fight...

RealClearPolitics - Articles - What We Are Up Against

re: Ed Koch on Islamists, and Chavez, and the UN, and more...

VDH's Private Papers::Islamic Fascism 101

re: Victor Davis Hanson on why there should be no apologies for the use of “Islamic fascism”...

FIRST THINGS: On the Square

re: Richard John Neuhaus corrects an article's claim of what he said about radical Muslims, and goes on to discuss the jihadists and the threat they pose. References Mary Habeck’s Knowing the Enemy (Yale) and Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower (Knopf)....

FIRST THINGS: On the Square

re: Ryan T. Anderson writes on embryonic stem cell research, and gives us The Parable of the Good Soccer Mom to illustrate a few points...

Karen Edmisten: The abortion milieu

re: those who are pro-choice because they can't face the idea they or a friend or family member is capable of killing, therefore it wasn't killing...

Stones Cry Out: A Story of Forgiveness from Africa

re: healing in the aftermath of war and slavery...

Stones Cry Out: Sanitizing the Veggies

re: Veggie Tales on television isn't going to be the same product as on the videos...

Stones Cry Out: The Calm Before the (Next) Storm

re: UN peacekeepers in Lebanon are only allowed to do what they are asked to do by the Lebanese Army, which apparently isn't authorizing them to do much (if anything)...

TheDenverChannel.com - News - Community Says Goodbye To Emily Keyes

re: update on Bailey, Colorado...

Bakercityherald.com: The mountains get him first, but hunter finally gets his goat

re: Jayson Jacoby recounts the saga of Gary Martin's goat hunt - an ordeal that included collapsing from altitude sickness up in the Elkhorns and his truck breaking down in John Day, and other problems...

Heather Mac Donald’s Conservative Crack-Up by Joseph M. Knippenberg

re: from August 2006, a skeptic tries to appeal for a big tent in conservatism, but does so without seeming to understand the religious people she wants to sit next to, or natural law, or ...

Betsy's Page: Charter schools are part of the American tradition

re: Betsy pulls excerpts from "How Much is Tuition?": Charter Schools Defined by Terrence Moore (Ashbrook Center editorial, September 2006)...

Global South Anglican

re: "This website is both a news site and a theological forum for issues of concern to Global South Provinces. Apart from official releases, the views of contributors here do not necessary represent that of the GSA Steering Committee..."...

Archbishop John Chew: Some Points of Clarification on the Kigali Meeting and Communique

re: "Clarifications from the Hon. Secretary of the Global South in light of the Sept. 24 Statement by Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane (Cape Town) regarding the Kigali Communique..."...

AAC Commends Bold Kigali Communiqué Issued by Global South Primates

re: "Global South Primates pledged bold intervention to address the crisis within the Anglican Communion at their meeting Sept. 19-22, 2006 in Kigali, Rwanda..."...

La Shawn Barber’s Corner » Black Homeschooling on the Rise

re: it's not a matter of 'the rich' but of intact families (and there's a difference between married people with children and unmarried people with children)...

OpinionJournal - Outside the Box: What Do You Know?

re: Pete du Pont looks at a recent survey, which finds college students sadly uneducated in American history and constitutional understanding...

TheDenverChannel.com - News - Plane Carrying 140 People Missing After Collision

re: airliner disappeared over Amazon jungle, after colliding with an executive jet (which landed safely). The airliner took off from Manaus, a jungle city about 1,800 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro....

Jonah Goldberg on Iraq on National Review Online

re: if it weren't for Iraq, terrorists would find another excuse of the day. "...If you live your life calculating that it’s a mistake to do anything that might prompt murderers and savages to act like murderers and savages, you’ve basically decided to live under their thumb and surrender your civilization in the process..."...

TheDenverChannel.com - News - School Gunman Leaves Rambling Suicide Note

re: updates on the Bailey school hostage investigation (various links)...

Mexican drug gangs take root in S. Oregon

re: organized crime increasing in Oregon, much of it with foreign ties...

Danielle Bean: Humiliation: Now Available in a Convenient 6-Pack

re: on being carded when you're obviously over 21 (and the clerk blowing a chance to be charming)...

Here in the Bonny Glen: Unearthed: The Notebooks

re: Melissa was at the hospital with her cancer-stricken daughter, when the book deal came through...

Brandywine Books: German Opera Cancelled Due to Outrage Forecast

re: Phil Wade has a different take on the cancellation of a German opera because of fears it might offend Muslims...

The Anchoress » Our instincts serve us well…

re: on the benefits of only having one television in the house, and not watching it very much. Also, "...In our house supper was (and remains) the one time of the day when brakes were applied to everyone’s own busy concerns, and we checked in with each other..."...

FIRST THINGS: On the Square

re: Jordan Hylden reports on various bits of good news for Anglican conservatives...

FIRST THINGS: On the Square

re: Robert T. Miller patiently explains the Catholic moral doctrine on abortion, as well as "a confusion regarding two different kinds of moral norms recognized in Catholic moral theology"...

Writing and Living: You Don't Know the Half of It

re: nice story about a bad day...

BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Clinton gives glimpse of the future

re: 'analysis' of Tony Blair's possible future, but with the focus on Bill Clinton (what's that saying about the Clintons being able to suck all the air out of a room?)...

ESPN.com - GOLF - Rosaforte: Nelson was more than a good golfer

re: a nice tribute to Byron Nelson from Tim Rosaforte of GolfDigest.com...

Mozart sacrificed to Muslims | The World | The Australian

re: "...For fear of Muslim anger, the bosses of the world-renowned Deutsche Oper in Berlin have cancelled performances of Mozart's Idomeneo..."...

TheDenverChannel.com - Entertainment - Mama Lisa? Mona Lisa May Have Been Pregnant

re: researchers have been doing detailed scans of the painting, and, among other things,

"Thanks to laser scanning, we were able to uncover the very fine gauze veil Mona Lisa was wearing on her dress. This was something typical for either soon-to-be or new mothers at the time," Michel Menu, research director of the French Museums' Center for Research and Restoration, said Wednesday on LCI television....

TheDenverChannel.com - News - Thousands Pay Tribute Slain Officer

re: Mike Thomas, apparently killed at random, will be missed...

OpinionJournal - Federation: Regime Change

re: a stinging, disapproving review of Bruce Ackerman's book The Failure of the Founding Fathers, plus a discussion of why the Electoral College has merit...

Dallas Morning News | Golf legend Nelson dies

re: Byron Nelson has died at age 94...

hat tip: Brothers Judd

RealClearPolitics - Articles - What Did the NIE Really Say?

re: some points to consider about the partisan leak and the New York Time's handling of it...

In From the Cold: When an Expert's Not an Expert

re: Dr. William Gray is the go-to guy on hurricane season prediction, but his views on global warming are shunned by the media...

The Pioneer > The Pope is not alone

re: the Pope's recent observations about Muslims and violence are similar to what Mahatma Gandhi said in 1926, and what other religious leaders of today are saying...

hat tip: The Alliance Alert (September 26, 2006)

Soccer Dad: Blogging notes

re: links, and a discussion on 'what sort of blogger are you?'...

The Idaho Statesman - Harris Ranch resident wins fight over political signs

re: fighting for the right to have a political sign in your own front yard...

Bakercityherald.com: Unlearn what you think you know about the Plains Indians

re: "Michael Bad Hand Terry wants people to unlearn much of what they know about American Plains Indians..."...

Cafe Hayek: Bastiat vs. Krugman

re: what reformers do when they begin to destroy the individual...

Corpus Christi, TX - KRISTV.COM - U.S. happily untouched by hurricanes so far, but season not over

re: surprisingly mild hurricane season so far is from a combination of several factors, including a shift eastward of the "Bermuda High" that's steering hurricanes away from American shores, El Nino winds that tear storms apart, and cooler ocean temps...

OpinionJournal - The Chosen People on the Sceptered Isle

re: Naomi Schaeffer Riley writes about the history of Jews in England, the 350th anniversary of the resettlement of Jews in England, and converses with John Gross, a former editor of the Times Literary Supplement and author of the memoir Double Thread (2002)...

Radical conversion

re: the Orange County Register is running a three-part feature on a family that has gone in three generations from a Jewish man known for his humanitarianism to a grandson aligned with al-Qaida...

hat tip: Cheat-Seeking Missiles (content warning: website not always family-friendly)

Thousands attend 'Wear Red Friday' rally on Parliament Hill

re: rally to show support for Canadian troops...

Power Line: Another Reason to Vote in November

re: another federal judge sworn in...

How Joseph Ratzinger sees Islam

re: "Pope Benedict's record shows that he wants dialogue with the Islamic world - not about theology but about basic human values and freedoms..."... (Via Robert.)

Expat Yank: Compared to what it was before

re: comparing Iraq today to Europe following WWII or the security situation in South Africa, which has had longer to establish democracy...

Captain's Quarters: Edsall's Retirement

re: "Hugh Hewitt has a fascinating interview posted with Thomas Edsall, who recently retired from the Washington Post and most recently held the position of senior political writer. Edsall has a new book in the stores, Building Red America, as well as new gigs at the Columbia School of Journalism and the center-left The New Republic. Edsall discusses politics and the media in a surprisingly forthright way, at one point asserting that Hugh underestimates the ratio of Democrats to Republicans in newsroom across America..."...

Captain's Quarters: Let's Give It A Rest

re: another call to put the pre-9/11 past behind us, and let it slip into history while we concentrate on what we do from here...

One Hand Clapping » Linkagery

re: various links, many with Iraq or Afghan connections...

OpinionJournal - Wonder Land: Can We Talk?

re: "Who says the world lacks leaders? After again expressing his "respect" for Islam, Pope Benedict XVI at his weekly Vatican audience two days ago moved one of his knights forward on the global chessboard of Islamic politics..."...

Exultate Justi: Of short-term memories, and shorter attention spans

re: another 9/11 anniversary post worth archiving...

Joust The Facts: Eligible Receivers

re: another 'I just want to be treated like an illegal alien' post...

Expat Yank: The UN and a film will do it?

re: today is supposedly "Peace Day"...

Jen Robinson's Book Page: Literacy Day: September 18th

re: includes, among other things, the news that "...Central Florida's One Book One Community literacy campaign has selected the book Mr. Popper's Penguins for the 2007 community reading program..."...

How to treat our current crop of enemies « Bookworm Room

re: why the Gandhi mode of non-violent resistance only works if you're up against something like the England of Gandhi's day...

Plighting Their Troth—or Whatever - Prison Fellowship

re: modern secular weddings that are "style over substance." Includes references to the books To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife by Caitlin Flanagan (Little, Brown, and Company, 2006), and Marriage Savers (Word Publishing, 1995) by Michael McManus...

Amtrak - Hot Deals

re: weekly deals, online booking only; plus advertised specials (for instance, kids ride free on the Auto Train, deal expires Sept. 30; or, travel in groups of three to six and get discounts in the Northeast if purchased by Dec. 11)...

ENEMIES - Nation/Politics - The Washington Times, America's Newspaper

re: excerpts from the book "Enemies: How America's Foes Steal Our Vital Secrets -- And How We Let It Happen" (Crown Forum), by Bill Gertz, defense and national security reporter for The Washington Times...

A Constrained Vision: Stupid application questions redux

re: Katie provides a good comeback to her university's repeated request for her ethnic origin...

BrothersJudd Blog: NOT YOUR GRANDFATHER’S PEACEKEEPERS

re: Canadian forces take on, take out, Taliban forces in Afghanistan. Big time....

Joee Blogs - a Catholic Londoner

re: medical student blog, with pictures of recent Muslim demonstrations outside Westminster Cathedral...

hat tip: Expat Yank

The Editors on Federal Election Integrity Act on National Review Online

re: "The next time you buy something at the mall with your credit card, you may well have to show a photo ID first. So why not when you vote? This is the question the House will take up today when it considers HR 4844, the Federal Election Integrity Act. It would introduce two modest and commonsensical regulations. First, that a person provide proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote. Second, that a person show some form of photo identification at the ballot box..."...

Kathryn Jean Lopez: Nippin’ Away at Abortion

re: the risque show Nip/Tuck had a character refuse to abort a disabled baby in the season premiere...

Nightly Business Report . THE GREEN OPTION | PBS

re: three-part series on ethanol's potential, pros, cons. Has links to transcripts and videos, plus several external sites...

Phi Beta Cons: Let's Try It Again

re: Mark Bauerlein notes that Princeton is expanding its black studies program bigtime. And calls this addressing the most profound challenge facing America...

ABC News: First Female Space Tourist Arrives at Space Station

re: Anousheh Ansari spent $20 million for her dream trip into space, and seems to be enjoying it...

Cafe Hayek: Frugal Google

re: the founders of Google are setting up a for-profit philanthropy...

Cafe Hayek: Costly Regulation: The Case of Gasoline

re: a scholarly paper looking at gasoline markets in the United States...

Brandywine Books: Garrison Keillor to Open Bookstore in St. Paul

re: the humorist plans to open a bookstore Nov. 1. (Comments so far worth a giggle.)...

Archbishop Yong Ping Chung of South East Asia Visits Canada

re: Orthodox Anglicans working together...

Diocese of Quincy Special Synod Approves Alternative Primatial Oversight Request

re: another diocese unwilling to accept the current Episcopalian leadership...

David French on Military Service on National Review Online

re: why he left a law career and joined the United States Army Reserve, four and a half years after 9/11...

FIRST THINGS: On the Square

re: Richard John Neuhaus on the book Artificial Happiness: The Dark Side of the New Happy Class, by Ronald Dworkin...

FIRST THINGS: On the Square

re: Richard John Neuhaus on the Pope and Islam, what he said recently (and before that), more. Includes recommendation for Mary Habeck’s book, Knowing the Enemy...

TIME.com: A Mother's Choice -- Sep. 25, 2006 -- Page 1

re: looking at 'safe haven' laws which allow mothers to abandon their newborns at approved locations without penalty. California lawmakers have passed a bill extending the grace period there, and it is on the governor's desk...

hat tip: The Alliance Alert (Sept. 18, 2006)

Popular Mechanics - Healing Hardwood: Turn Your Wood Floor Into A Showpiece

re: care and refinishing of a hardwood floor (care tips include what not to do or use that might ruin refinishing efforts later)...

The View From The Foothills » Determination Day

re: good point about September 11...

A Gracious Home » Bits and Pieces - September 15, 2006

re: links on homemaking, simple living, finding the words to worship songs, activities for children...

No Left Turns : Bob Casey on the common good

re: Joseph Knippenberg takes a look at what Bob Casey says about reducing abortions, and notices that, among other things, there's no mention of personal responsibility...

SFO Mom: How Did I Miss This?

re: recommendation of a G.K. Chesterton book on St. Francis of Assisi...

The Anchoress » Oriana and Rosie - two women of the left

re: essay on Oriana Fallaci, with round-up of other coverage. (Content warning.)...