Templeton Foundation hires anti-capitalist

Rod Dreher goes non-profit:

[At]t the end of this year, I'm leaving the Dallas Morning News, and will start a job as director of publications at the John Templeton Foundation in suburban Philadelphia. My primary job there will be to create and edit an online magazine called Big Questions Online. It's going to be a philosophically-oriented magazine that explores fundamental questions arising from science, religion, the free market and public ethics/morality -- Templeton's four big areas of focus.

Exactly what Dreher knows about science is a mystery, considering his long-time embrace of the global-warming hoax:

Our nation and our world have reached a crucible of near-cataclysm in our economy and -- with climate change -- in the environment, chiefly because we have refused to live within our means. . . .
"Given the cataclysmic disruptions forecast from climate change, in which humankind's carbon emissions play a role, and considering the informed forecasts of diminishing world oil supply, to continue to live this way amounts to 'national insanity.' "
-- Rod Dreher, Oct. 26, 2008

Dreher's ignorant hostility to free markets (inspired by anti-capitalist economist E.F. Schumacher) was the focus of my review of Crunchy Cons (see also Jonah Goldberg's evisceration.) Nevertheless let us be thankful for this news from Dreher:

This move is going to require a significant shift in my own writing. Templeton is not a sectarian or politically partisan organization. Therefore, my own political commentary will be drawing to an end at the end of this year.

Answered prayer.

Huckabee meltdown continues

The Arkansas coordinator for Mike Huckabee's PAC has resigned. From a Washington Times story yesterday:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's hopes for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination have been dealt a major blow by his 9-year-old decision to commute the sentence of Maurice Clemmons -- the man suspected of killing four police officers near Seattle early Sunday.
"It will be extremely damaging," said Diana Banister, a Washington-based publicist for Republican causes and candidates. "His GOP primary rivals will use it to their advantage against him." . . .
"It will be the Republican version of the Willie Horton issue that GOP surrogates used against Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, the unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidate in 1988," Ms. Banister said.

Just in case you don't remember, it was Al Gore -- one of Dukakis' rivals for the 1988 Democratic nomination --who first raised the issue of the Willie Horton furlough.

UPDATE: Allahpundit:

Kudos to Huck, I guess, for stopping short of calling his critics racist too.

Give him time, Allah. Huck might yet go totally Johnsonoid. Jim Geraghty:

It takes a particular bravado for a man in Huckabee’s circumstances to contend that his critics are the ones who should hang their heads in shame.

Meanwhile, Huck continues his blame-shifting campaign with a Human Events column:

I take full responsibility for my decision then.

But he doesn't. Instead, he points the finger of blame at others. If Huckabee wants to "take full responsibility," all he has to do is shut up -- which he most certainly should do (cf., Healey's First Law On Holes).

VIDEO: An Australian's tribute to America: Nick Adams speaks in Harrisburg, Pa.

Speaking at last month's Pennsylvania Tea Party in Harriburg, 25-year-old Nick Adams gives an inspirational speech:

"The questions and concerns that all of you have about the country you so dearly love are the same wherever you go: How do we save freedom and spread liberty? How do we protect American prestige? How do we defend American exceptionalism? How do we stop the country we love so much from becoming just another moribund European socialist state?"

Nick is returning to Australia this weekend after completing his most recent American speaking tour. His friends will have a farewell party tonight at Bailey's Pub & Grill at the Ballston Mall in Arlington.

Miss Argentina: Death by plastic surgery

Dan Collins called this to my attention:

Former Miss Argentina, Solange Magnano died at a Buenos Aires medical center last Sunday, after undergoing a plastic surgery procedure.
Solange, who won the Miss Argentina pageant in 1994, suffered a pulmonary embolism when liquid was being injected into her buttocks the day after she underwent a gluteoplasty (buttock implant). The liquid reportedly entered her lungs and brain, killing her instantly.
Solange was 38 years old. She is survived by her husband and seven-year-old twins.

Gluteoplasty? She died trying to get a bigger butt? I'm sorry, but why didn't someone tell her about the miraculous American butt-growth formula known as bacon double cheesburger?

A senseless tragedy . . .

UPDATE: Speaking of senseless tragedies, Alyssa Milano still hasn't re-Tweeted me.

A cocktail waitress? Dude.

The Tiger Woods saga continues:

A Los Angeles cocktail waitress tells the new Us Weekly (on newsstands Wednesday) that she had a steamy 31-month fling with Tiger Woods and has a voicemail recording and text messages to prove it.
Jaimee Grubbs, now 24, tells Us Weekly she began having an affair with Woods, 33, in April 2007.

How can this possibly be true? Tiger is married to Swedish super-model Elin Nordegren. An affair with a mere cocktail waitress presents a problem explained Saturday:

The Rod Stewart Celebrity Cheating Rule applies here: If you're going to cheat on a Swedish super-model, it's got to be at least an equal exchange . . .

Jaimee Grubbs is obviously no Elin Nordegren. My advice to Tiger remains: Plead insanity.

UPDATE: He issues a press release. (Also at his official Web site.) Alas, no insanity plea. Michelle Malkin puts it bluntly: "Tiger Woods is an idiot."

Enemy camp?

by Smitty (h/t Insty)

Come on, Matthews. We're talking about Hudson High School, here. Even though I might make fun of the Woops and their non-command of football, they are US citizens, fellows in arms, and, unlike yourself, contribute something of value to their country and humanity.

Update: Ed Driscoll has the best roundup thus far.

'Fanatical' Charles Johnson?

"All you need to know about this is to read what Johnson posted when the story broke that the Seattle cop killer suspect, Maurice Clemmons, had been granted clemency by Mike Huckabee. . . . I did not read of anyone on the left or the right attacking Huckabee's decision from a religious angle. Except Johnson. . . . This says it all."

And the 2009 'Strange New Respect' Award goes to . .

. . . Charles Johnson, for whom Andrew Sullivan performs the obligatory baptism-by-tongue-bath that initiates the Green One into the Obama cult.

This business of Andrew praising someone's "courage" as a way of celebrating his own heroic courageousness -- standing up to those homophobic haters! -- is an interesting thing to watch, once you learn to suppress your gag reflex.

If you can't stand to click to Sully's, try Ace of Spades HQ, where I'm sure they'll be rolling in the aisles over this one.

HOLIDAY BOOK SALE: Best. Reagan. Book. Evah!

For the past week, I've been spellbound by Craig Shirley's new book about the 1980 presidential campaign, Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign That Changed America. It's 650 pages, filled with so many fascinating facts that it prompted Mark Levin to comment: "I was part of the Reagan Revolution and I didn’t know 80 percent of this stuff!"

Craig Shirley explains that, as much as Reagan's 1980 landslide seems inevitable in retrospect, it sure as heck wasn't "inevitable" at the time. Thanks to the arrogant high-handedness of some of Reagan's advisors -- especially campaign manager John Sears -- Reagan nearly lost the GOP nomination to George Bush. However, as Shirley makes clear, it wasn't just Sears who was to blame for that near-disaster. Reagan himself was at fault, demonstrating his human weakness by being inattentive to the inner workings of his own campaign.

It was only due to the intervention of a dedicated few (including such previously unsung heroes as Jerry Carmen, Reagan's independent-minded New Hampshire state campaign manager) that Reagan staved off defeat. Shirley's book names names and tells shocking secrets, none as surprising as Chapter 28, entitled simply "Corbin." (Here's a hint: The Kennedy clan never cared much for Jimmy Carter.)

Honest, folks: As highly as I recommend all the books in our Holiday Book Sale, nothing you can read will improve your understanding of recent American political history as much as Rendezvous With Destiny.

COPS KILL COP-KILLER CLEMMONS

Seattle Times:

Maurice Clemmons, the suspect wanted in slaying of four Lakewood police officers, was shot and killed in South Seattle early this morning . . .

Via Memeorandum. More at Michelle Malkin.

UPDATE: More from the Seattle Times story:

Clemmons was standing outside in the 4400 block of South Kenyon Street when he was confronted by officers. He challenged the officers and was shot around 2:40 a.m. [i.e., 5:40 a.m. ET]
Police have said Clemmons received help since the Sunday morning shooting from friends and family who gave him places to stay, medical aid, rides and money, police said. Officers detained a sister of Clemmons who they think treated the 37-year-old suspect's gunshot wound.

That anyone would help a cop-killer is incredible. But Mumia Abu-Jamal is a hero to liberals everywhere, so why not?

UPDATE II: A long Seattle Times article provides background Clemmons' criminal history, and Dan Riehl calls it a "must-read."

Shocking as it may seem -- but not really surprising, given the vulgar antinomianism of the "No Snitching" culture -- Clemmons not only got help after his attack, but boasted to friends about his plans beforehand:

Clemmons has been getting help and shelter from friends and relatives since shortly after the Sunday morning shooting deaths of four Lakewood police officers, authorities have concluded.
"Basically, there's no way that he could be doing this by himself; he was shot in the abdomen," said Sheri Badger, Pierce County spokeswoman at the incident command center.
Also frustrating to law-enforcement officers is that Clemmons reportedly told acquaintances the night before the attack to "watch the news" because he was going to "kill cops."
No one reported his comments to police until after the attack, Badger said.

UPDATE III: Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:

[Police] would have preferred an uneventful surrender, but Clemmons apparently was determined to go out in a blaze of hatred and insanity. And so he did.

Indeed, this was a sort of "suicide-by-cop," and Clemmons thereby forfeited the opportunity to have his own NPR radio program, or to have famous liberals sign petitions to spare him the death penalty. How sad.

UPDATE IV: A timely reminder:

The anti-police bigotry of the Left
. . . Bill Ayers, whose door sports a picture of convicted cop killer Mumia Abu Jamal.

The Left foments hatred of police and then blames "society" for the predictable result of such rhetoric. But if conservatives complain about the Left's agenda, these monsters who celebrate cop-killers as heroes call us "anti-government" and claim that we are menaces to society.

Best Huckabee zinger yet

Pardoned Thanksgiving Turkey
Goes on Nine-State Killing Spree!

Yeah, stick a fork in that turkey. He's done.

Charles Johnson Parts Ways With Reality

UPDATE 9:15 a.m.: Cops have shot and killed Maurice Clemmons, so I must catch up with that breaking story. However, I would be remiss if I failed to note this by Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch:

It is interesting that Johnson's hate list appeared just hours after I spoke at length with a New York Times reporter -- excited by his move leftward, they're doing a big story on Johnson. Coincidence? Of course!

Heh. "Question the timing!" Spencer has been one of Johnson's numerous victims, and we may suppose that the NY Times will portray Mad King Charles as a courageous truth-teller.

PREVIOUSLY: So I woke up at 4 a.m. and the first thing I did was check Site Meter -- we ended November with more than 260,000 visitors for the month. The next thing I did was to check Twitter, where I saw this message from John Rambo:

@willwilkinson @rsmccain is a fascist? Coulter is a white supremacist? Sarah Palin is antiscience & homophobic? And he ignores lib. lunacy!

This was my first inkling that libertarian Will Wilkinson -- a notorious dope fiend! arrest him! -- was on Twitter. So I followed him, went over to his blog and saw his engagement with the neo-Keynesian madness of Brad DeLong. Hmmm. Worthy blog fodder.

OK, so now it was time to check the blog fodder motherlode, Memeorandum and . . . whoa!

Little Green Footballs
Why I Parted Ways With The Right
1. Support for fascists, both in America (see: Pat Buchanan, Robert Stacy McCain, etc.) and in Europe (see: Vlaams Belang, BNP, SIOE, Pat Buchanan, etc.) — 2. Support for bigotry, hatred, and white supremacism (see: Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Robert Stacy McCain, Lew Rockwell, etc.)

Exactly what prompted this? Why this? Why now? Your guess is as good as mine.

No, that's wrong. My guess is probably much better than yours, because I followed the whole thing -- LGF and the Madness of King Charles -- back to its roots. So far as can be determined, CJ's descent into madness began when Johnson attacked Pamela Geller for her attendance at the October 2007 Brussels conference.

CJ kept up the attacks, which expanded to include Jihad Watch, Gates of Vienna, Diana West and others -- serially throwing them under his Little Green Bus -- but the rest of the conservative blogosphere tried to ignore it. Shortly before the 2008 election, CJ declared Robert Spencer of JihadWatch unlinkable:

Paul Belien of Brussels Journal is deeply connected with the Vlaams Belang, and Robert knows this. The fact that he’s put them back in his blogroll speaks volumes about the choice he's made.
And Gates of Vienna has turned into a reeking sewer of racism. I'm done with Robert Spencer. And very, very disappointed in him.

You see the control-freak method here: CJ declares that a list of people and groups (in this case, Brussels Journal, Paul Belien, Vlaams Belang, Gates of Vienna) are unacceptable. Anyone who doesn't accept CJ's categorization is a "sympathizer" and therefore also unacceptable. Gates of Vienna quipped:

As the arbiter of membership in the Counterjihad, Charles Johnson has finally made it official: he’s a Counterjihad of One.

All of that happened before Election Day 2008. It wasn't until after Election Day that I finally spoke out:

Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs has apparently decided that the problem with the conservative movement is that it needs more purges, and Pam Geller at Atlas Shrugs seems to be his designated scapegoat. . . .
Pam is a good person and I would suggest that this guilt-by-association "urge to purge" is antithetical to the best interests of conservatism. You can't build a movement by the process of subtraction.

That was Nov. 5, 2008. In February of this year, I spoke out again when CJ attacked Ann Coulter and spoke out again in April when Johnson smeared Pamela Geller as a "Poster Girl for Eurofascists." Two days later, after CJ threatened Michelle Malkin (!) because she continued linking JihadWatch, I wrote:

Is there someone -- anyone -- who can stop this madness?

Apparently not. If the conservative movement would not acknowledge Charles Johnson's authority to decide who was and was not acceptable as a member of the conservative movement, then Johnson would not be a member of the conservative movement.

It would have been nice if he would have made his rules of engagement clear at the outset, or at least issued some kind of warning before he started denouncing people willy-nilly. But he has played the part of a scoundrel, and the damage he inflicted on the counter-jihad alliance -- those who, like Geller and Spencer, have dedicated themselves to fighting Islamofascism -- was quite real.

Giving us a glimpse at the bats that occupy his belfry, CJ randomly lumps in anti-war critics of the Bush administration -- Pat Buchanan and Lew Rockwell -- with Ann Coulter, et al. The nonsensical nature of his categorizations is exposed as he continues down his list of "reasons" for denouncing the Right:

4. Support for anti-science bad craziness (see: creationism, climate change denialism, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, James Inhofe, etc.) . . .
6. Support for anti-government lunacy (see: tea parties, militias, Fox News, Glenn Beck, etc.)
7. Support for conspiracy theories and hate speech (see: Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Birthers, creationists, climate deniers, etc.)

Wait a minute: Alex Jones? The 9/11 Truther guy? Is there any conservative blogger who hasn't taken a swipe at that particular punching bag? And how does Limbaugh merit inclusion in the same category? But never mind that -- "climate deniers"? After the CRU revelations, isn't that pretty much everybody?

The conclusive evidence that Mad King Charles has slipped into the zero-self-awareness zone occupied by Andrew Sullivan comes when he points the finger at his fellow bloggers and former allies in the counter-jihad:

8. A right-wing blogosphere that is almost universally dominated by raging hate speech (see: Hot Air, Free Republic, Ace of Spades, etc.)

(Vinnie the Jawa replies: "Translation: Anyone that criticizes Charles Johnson.")

9. Anti-Islamic bigotry that goes far beyond simply criticizing radical Islam, into support for fascism, violence, and genocide (see: Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, etc.)

(Vinnie the Jawa replies: "You left out 'Little Green Football Archives.'")

Bingo, Vinnie! Johnson spent years doing exactly what he now accuses others of doing. But that was back when "anti-Islamic bigotry" was what The Cool Kids did and, at some point, CJ decided The Cool Kids should do something else.

When The Cool Kids wouldn't let CJ make the rules? Well, they weren't The Cool Kids anymore.

End of story. Except that notorious hate-monger Ace of Spades has a few things to say. Heh.

UPDATE: Carl in Jerusalem is among the Legion of the Banned:

Once upon a time, I was a mere commenter on Charles Johnson's Little Green Footballs. Eventually, I posted so many well-received comments on LGF that I started this blog. I admired Charles Johnson as one of the righteous gentiles. Life was good.
But like more than 1,500 other people, when Charles turned Left in November 2008, I became expendable and was eventually banned from posting on LGF.

Admit it, Carl: You're a hate-monger. Just like Ace of Spades. And Pamela Geller. And Robert Spencer. And Ann Coulter. And . . .

UPDATE II: To theorize an answer to the "why now" question about CJ's denunciation, how about his mention of SIOE (Stop the Islamicization of Europe)? Just yesterday, Pamela Geller put up a post with this headline:

Atlas Urges Jews Worldwide to Support SIOE, Ignore Dhimmi "Jewish Councils"

This may have provoked Johnson's rage. So congratulations again to Pamela, whose knack for accidentally pushing CJ's buttons is commendable.

What obtrudes in CJ's hate-list modus operandi is that he cannot rationally prioritize dangers. Pamela Geller, creationists, Tea Party crowds, global-warming skeptics and Sarah Palin are, in the demented mind of Mad King Charles, as dangerous as al Qaeda. Or me.

Speaking of me, friends are jealous of my conspicuous inclusion in Johnson's demonology. It has been his evident intent to deprive me of my livelihood as a journalist: Why else did he bide his time before choosing to attack Pajamas Media for paying me to cover the 9/12 March on DC? (Roger Simon is a friend and I'd been contributing to PJM since May 2008, but after 9/12, PJM editor Rick Moran rejected all my offers for further contributions, which is why none of my coverage of the Bill Sparkman case or the NY23 campaign appeared at PJM.)

So I've enjoyed the laughter as Johnson (who pulled out of PJM in 2007, which some at the time suspected was due to Johnson's resentment of Michelle Malkin) has destroyed his own once-successful site and resorted to the blogospheric equivalent of "busking." Despite CJ's transparent malice, I have kept in mind the advice Andrew Jackson got from his mother:

"Never tell a lie, nor take what is not your own, nor sue anybody for slander, assault and battery. Always settle them cases yourself."

Whatever harm CJ has inflicted on me or anyone else, his "success" in turning Little Green Footballs into an unprofitable imitation of Daily Kos is as much vindication as any of his victims can expect.

Vindication, however, doesn't pay the bills. So if you feel an urge to hit the Big Tip Jar Of Hate -- hey, don't fight the feeling.

UPDATE II: Jules Crittenden provides the crazy-hating exegesis and adds this comment:

I would have preferred a detailed description of the moment when all that inclusive thoughtful concern hit him like a silver bullet, when the switch flipped on the bright shining light on the road to Damascus, when . . . enveloped by its warm, mentally balanced, nurturing embrace . . . he started frothing about the hateful craziness.

Of course, CJ hasn't traveled the road to Damascus, but the road to Bedlam. Rhetorical engagement might require us to stipulate, hypothetically, that perhaps not all liberals are insane. But Johnson's addition to their ranks undermines that hypothesis.

Dan Riehl has seen enough blog-wars to be war-weary. He observes, "When even tempered blogger James Joyner fisks you into ridiculousness, you know you've, well, jumped the lizard, I suppose," and further comments:

Chuckles isn't having an awakening, he's simply living out whatever the hell it is that passes for a reality of sorts in his cyber-induced dream-dementia of a world.

Dead on the money, Dan. My 8-year-old son just brought me an egg-salad sandwich and chips. He made the egg salad himself, from the brown eggs provided by the chickens in our backyard.

That's reality. My wife, my kids, my friends -- reality.

The abstract symbolism of ideological debate on the Internet? Well, at some point, if you start taking that crap too seriously, you can become detached from reality, and begin ranting at people as if they were merely symbols, projected visions of your own externalized fears.

Those who take the historical view of such things will be tempted to wonder: Is the fact that CJ first signaled his madness by lashing out at Pamela Geller entirely coincidental?

Merely a point to ponder while I remind you of my own reality, where people at the heating-oil company and the cell-phone company expect bills to be paid or they'll shut me off. Hit the Big Tip Jar of Hate.

'Bombshell From Brooklyn'

Paco went multicultural for Rule 5 Sunday with this rare Xavier Cugat treasure:

Bob Belvedere has photos of Lina Romay, the lovely singer in Cugat's band.

Cynthia Yockey offers an excellent reminder

by Smitty

She knew one of the victims of the Mumbai Massacre, and has a post at News Real Sunday which is worth your time.

Just a couple of weeks later, despite the overwhelming pain from her loss, Alan's wife, Kia, was calling for forgiveness. Earlier this month, the Synchronicity Foundation announced that Kia is co-founding the One Life Alliance to teach people that life is sacred and about the power of forgiveness to create world peace. The organization was officially inaugurated on Thanksgiving Day.

Forgiveness is giving up the resentment you feel toward someone who has hurt or wronged you, which frees you from being emotionally tied to them and stops them from being able to feed on your pain. It does not mean you condone the wrong. You just let go of the resentment it caused.

So forgiveness is, indeed, a great power — IF you can get people to do it.

Forgiveness is a vital function of the healthy individual soul. It's also easy to forget this point, in the middle of being a fire-breathing military type of fellow. I'm thankful to Cynthia for this crucial reminder.

Sorry about the metal, Stacy

by Smitty

As a peace offering to Stacy for the last post...

...I thought it might be casual to post Leslie Feist

...who has the most haunting voice I've heard in the last, oh, hour.

Mötley CR:Ü: Shout at the Data

by Smitty

What better answer to the Warmaquiddick hair ball than a hair band?
The artistic dreck that is Mötley Crüe is the perfect contrast to the scientific dreck that is the Climate Research Unit, and I expect this will be the first of many parodies.

---

Shout shout shout
Shout shout shout
Shout at the data!

ManBearPig screaming lonely in the night
Carbon footprint on the stay-yay-yage
Warming fear in your eye
Being taxed by his lies
He's the Cap on your back--he's rage
Occam's razor on your life
Oh, lonely are our wives
My head's spinnin' round and round
But when the seasons are bent
He stands, incontinent
We're strong and laugh and

[Chorus]
Shout shout shout
Shout at the data
Shout shout shout

They 'steal' the mail from the serv
Calls for blood at the nerve
And then have you crying at coh-oh-ode
Steals integrity from youth
With his Inconvenient Truth
The polar bear guilt mother lode
He'll be the Florida in the math
And maybe Michael Moore's wrath
Might run scared for the door
It's like M. C. Escher
Crossed with Fran Drescher
Were strong and laugh and

[Chorus]

[Repeat V1]

[Chorus]

Update: Pecunious Predator 'lanch

Update II: Rightofcourse goes Vaudeville.

Update III: Robert Gibbs. "No real scientific basis for the dispute of this." Oh, Robert, your lobotomy scar is showing.

Huckabee answers the wrong question

On his radio show:

"If I could have known nine years ago, looked into the future, would I have acted favorably upon the parole board's recommendation? Of course not . . ."

Isn't foresight one of those qualities that is essential to statesmanship? Haven't both presidents Clinton and Bush been excoriated for failing to anticipate and prevent the 9/11 attacks?

There was no shortage of evidence that Maurice Clemmons was a dangerous criminal. An Arkansas jury had convicted him and an Arkansas judge had sentenced him to 35 years in prison. And you set him free after barely more than 10. Nor was this an isolated act:

In fact, an Arkansas Leader study indicated that Huckabee helped free more prisoners from 1996 through 2004 than were freed in the six neighboring states -- Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas -- combined.

You failed in your duty to protect the lives of your fellow citizens. Enjoy your broadcasting career. Your credibility as a political leader died Sunday morning in that Lakewood coffee shop.

Video via Hot Air.

SEATTLE MANHUNT: Search continues for cop-killer suspect Maurice Clemmons POLICE: 'People are helping' suspect

UPDATE 12/2: CLEMMONS SHOT DEAD.

UPDATE 7:55 p.m. ET: Tacoma News-Tribune:

McDonald said investigators believe Clemmons, who was shot in the torso during the shooting, is getting help.
"It's apparent people are helping him," McDonald said. "Anyone helping him ... will be held accountable."

UPDATE 7:45 p.m. ET: According to the Tacoma News Tribune, police have found the Mazda belonging to Clemmons wife -- his ex-wife, they report -- and say it was not involved in Clemmons' escape. The News Tribune also reports that agents on the Canadian border have been told to keep an eye out for Clemmons.

Clemmons and his wife were married in 2004 by an Arkansas judge who wrote a letter in support of Clemmons' clemency appeal.

UPDATE 6:35 p.m. ET: More on the manhunt:

Washington state police are looking for the wife of the man suspected of killing four police officers near Seattle. They believe she may be headed to Arkansas, where her husband, Maurice Clemmons, had served prison time before former Gov. Mike Huckabee commuted his sentence in 2000.
Police are on the lookout for a green 1997 Mazda Millenia with Washington license plate 208-SSX, registered to Clemmons' wife, Nicole Cheryleen Smith, the Seattle Times reports.

UPDATE 6:20 p.m. ET: Michelle Malkin has a new post about the manhunt, linking an interview with one of the victims of Clemmons' 1989 crime spree:

Karen Hodge, one of Maurice Clemmon's robbery victims in Arkansas 20 years ago, said she was horrified by the Pierce County shootings.
"I'm flabbergasted," said Hodge, now 68, of Little Rock. "He should still be in prison."
Clemmons . . . was convicted in 1989 of aggravated robbery after he told Hodge he had a un, demanded that she give him her purse, and hit her in the face.
"He was a punk .... kid," recalled Hodge, who had just parked her car on a street.
"He said give me your purse, or I'm going to shoot you. I said, 'Hell no.' Boy, he knocked me half way across my car. That's about all I know about that little bastard."

Huckabee is still defending his indefensible decision to grant clemency to this vicious sociopath.

UPDATE 1:45 p.m. ET: The families of four slain Lakewood, Wash., police officers will no doubt be furious to learn how easily Clemmons fooled Mike Huckabee:

Documents released this morning by the Arkansas Parole Board show police slaying suspect Maurice Clemmons was supposed to remain in prison there until at least 2015, but won his release by claiming he'd changed while behind bars.
Clemmons' appeal for clemency was granted in May 2000 by then-Gov. Mike Huckabee, who commuted Clemmons sentence and made him immediately eligible for parole.
Clemmons wrote in an appeal to Huckabee that he'd been sent to prison after an extended crime spree that started in 1989 when he was a teenager — and that he was a different person now.
At the time of the crimes — which included aggravated robbery, firearms possession and burglary — Clemmons claimed he was 16 years old and had moved from Seattle to a high-crime neighborhood in Arkansas.
"I succumbed to the peer pressure and the need I had to be accepted by other youth in my new environment and fell in with the wrong crowd and thus began a seven (7) month crime spree which led me to prison," Clemmons wrote in his application to Huckabee.
Clemmons said he came from "a very good Christian family" and "was raised much better than my actions speak (I'm still ashamed to this day for the shame my stupid involvement in these crimes brought to my family name.)," he wrote.
"Where once stood a young (16) year old misguided fool, who's (sic) own life he was unable to rule. Now stands a 27 year old man, who has learned through 'the school of hard knocks' to appreciate and respect the rights of others. And who has in the midst of the harsh reality of prison life developed the necessary skills to stand along (sic) and not follow a multitude of do evil, as I did as a 16 year old child."

At First Things, Joe Carter writes about the limits of "compassion," and Doug Bandow at the American Spectator notes a 2007 report by ABC's Jake Tapper:

In fact, an Arkansas Leader study indicated that Huckabee helped free more prisoners from 1996 through 2004 than were freed in the six neighboring states -- Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas -- combined.

Kill Truck comments:

We just want Huck to accept his responsibility in this. We're waiting.

UPDATE 1:25 p.m.: In a press conference, Lakewood Police Chief Brett Farrar vows to "carry on," says: "In the face of adversity is where we triumph." There is a fund for the slain officers' families:

Lakewood Police Benevolent Fund
PO Box 99579
Lakewood, WA 98499

UPDATE 1:10 p.m. ET: Maurice Clemmons is now officially a fugitive suspect:

Troyer said warrants for first-degree murder have been issued against Clemmons in the killings of the officers from the Tacoma suburb of Lakewood who were gunned down in a coffee shop on Sunday morning at the start of their shifts.

That's the end of the "person of interest" language. BTW, Clemmons is believed to have been wounded in the abdomen, and may be dead by now.

PREVIOUSLY (11:52 a.m.): Associated Press:

The suspect in the slaying of four police officers gunned down in a coffee shop was not found Monday in the Seattle home where he was thought to have been holed up overnight, likely wounded from his bloody encounter with the officers.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

University of Washington police have alerted students to an unconfirmed report that the suspect in the Lakewood police shootings may have been sighted on or near the campus in Seattle.
Cmdr. Jerome Solomon says someone reported that Maurice Clemmons was seen getting off a bus about 7 a.m. Monday near the university's hospital. He says police are checking the area.

Michelle Malkin continues to update . . .

UPDATE 12:57 p.m. ET: Fox News reports "people who know Clemmons told investigators that he had been shot in the torso." The names of the slain officers have been released:

Those killed were identified as Sgt. Mark Renninger, 39, and officers Ronald Owens, 37, Tina Griswold, 40, and Gregory Richards, 42.

Dan Riehl is blogging the story. The Jawa Report and Gateway Pundit are also on the story.

More at Memeorandum. Will continue to update with latest developments.

PREVIOUSLY:

• Cops surround Seattle neighborhood
• 4 police officers ambushed

Non sequitur of the year

by Smitty (h/t NewsBusters)

"It was warming, John," Buchanan said. "It's not been warming since '98. Secondly, there's no known proof it's because of man and there's no known proof it's a great danger."

However, [Newsweek's Eleanor] Clift felt inclined to responded, rather emphatically. She said she believes U.S. policy should be proactive toward the issue. Her view is arguably indicative of the mainstream media's sentiment on the debate, and she equated it to blind faith when she told Buchanan there's no proof there's a God either, which didn't mean global warming wasn't a danger.

"It's no known proof there's God, either. How much proof do you need, Pat?" Clift replied. "Oh, it is a danger. It's a danger in many places."

There is also no conclusive proof that Pink Floyd wasn't channeling the Wizard of Oz when they recorded the Dark Side of the Moon. Their weak denials only underscore the shenanigans afoot.

But Can We Make it Stick, Professor Hanson?

by Smitty

Victor Davis Hanson has some great ideas about what needs to be changed. I fall short of confidence on his tax notions, however. Granted, this is a ransom note reply to a brief post of his, but the point I want to get at is this: the Iron Law of Bureaucracy calls for one mother of a smelter.

1. Pay as you go, balanced budget—whatever you wish to call a return to fiscal sanity. Conservatives need to stop talking about tolerable deficits in terms of GDP; and liberals should cease the charade that trillion-plus annual borrowing is great stimulus.
...
2. Freeze federal spending at the present rate, and let increased revenues balance the budget. The idea that we could ever cut outright the budget seems long ago impossible—given the culture of complaint and the melodramatic rants about starvation and murder if another entitlement is not granted. Still, some sort of leadership is required to remind the American people that much of what their government does is not just unnecessary, but counter-productive and they would be better off without it.
...
3. Some sort of fair or flat tax that ends the trillion-dollar industry of tax preparation, avoidance, and fraud. For about a quarter of the population April 15 is a spooky sort of Halloween. Instead, we need a tax system in which one can complete the necessary preparation in about 2 hours. Whose bright idea was it to excuse nearly half the American households from income tax exposure (Clinton and Bush, and now Obama?)—a fact that explains why in Pavlovian fashion recently Senators have been saying that we can add on a new war tax, a health-care surcharge, and a new high rate on “them”? The justification of a 40% income tax, 10% state income tax, 15.3% payroll tax, and new war and health care surcharge taxes can only be that one’s income was undeserved, ill-gotten, and thus better “rectified” by more enlightened federal redistributors.

These may be good, reasonable and attainable suggestions. But for how long? The attention span isn't going to last past the memory of economic hard times. While the US Constitution is a wonderful document, it offers scant hope for continuity beyond the dedication of the people to limited government. This dedication and ~$4.00 will get you some froo-froo at Starbucks, but not for long.

The discussion we need to have is about how we take away the whiskey and the car keys from the teenage boys, to re-work P. J. O'Rourke. As long as we have a Federal Reserve printing money at will, and a Sixteenth Amendment supporting Federal control over our wallets, the structural problems remain.

My suggestion is to strike the 16th Amendment, eliminate Federal peacetime borrowing, and let the Federal government bill the States. There can be an annual steel cage match where politicians fight for control over the formula for deciding percentages--could be a fundraiser.

If the reality of the Federal costs were presented to the States, the voters would be incentivized to elect responsible adults, an admittedly shocking prospect.

Ideas like those of Professor Hanson seem tactical in nature, and not the strategic re-direction required.

The lameness of Adam Lambert

Let's face it, he's boring -- which my latest column at The American Spectator is certainly not:

At some point, reasonable people might expect an end to these épater les bourgeoisie gestures, as the bourgeoisie have long since ceased to be shocked by such routine public exhibitions. . . .
More than four decades have gone by since Philip Larkin poetically joked about sex having been invented in 1963, "Between the end of the Chatterley ban/And the Beatles' first LP." Nevertheless, there stubbornly persists within the self-styled "artistic community" the assumption that middle-class Americans are a bunch of repressed puritanical hypocrites badly in need of the liberating influence that only pelvic thrusts, gay kissing and the choreographed simulation of sadomasochism can provide. . . .

Read the whole thing.

(Cross-posted at Right Wing News.)

BREAKING: Cops surround Seattle neighborhood; Clemmons cornered? LATEST: 'Bleeding,' says 911 caller MORE: Now SWAT Operation

UPDATE 11:45 a.m. ET: Maurice Clemmons is still at large. I got six hours sleep and woke up to this news on TV.

LATEST NEWS ON SEATTLE MANHUNT HERE

UPDATE 4:55 a.m. ET: More from KIRO at SWAT standoff in Seattle:

Several bangs, followed by sound of breaking glass, then a louder explosion from Leschi standoff scene.

Obviously, the police want to end this before dawn. They've got night-vision equipment; Clemmons doesn't.

UPDATE 4:50 a.m. ET: KIRO reports from scene of SWAT standoff:

After loud bangs, negotiator on loudspeaker: "This is one of the toughest decisions you'll make in your life, but you need to man up."

UPDATE 4:25 a.m. ET: Michelle Malkin:

KIRO TV in Seattle has detail . . . 4:15am Eastern 11/30…hostage negotiator on loudspeaker attempting to communicate with Clemmons . . .

Young folks, pay attention to how hard Malkin works. Best-selling author, Fox News star and yet here she is, awake in the pre-dawn hours, working to provide up-to-date coverage of a breaking news story. And beating me!

Meanwhile, via Seattle police scanner, we learn that a neighbor is heading to the police command post to report the interior layout of the home where Clemmons is reportedly holed up.

UPDATE 4:40 a.m. ET: KIRO reports police are warning people in the neighborhood to expect loud noise from flashbang devices in event SWAT has to assault. As of now, it's a standoff situation.

BTW, my guess is Malkin filed her 4:15 a.m. blog update after getting a call from Fox News telling her they'd want her on "Fox and Friends" this morning to discuss the case.

UPDATE 3:40 a.m. ET: Zack in Seattle:

BREAKING: SPD SWAT has started their tactical operations

Zach reportedly lives near the scene and is listening to a police scanner.

UPDATE 3:20 a.m. ET: The Seattle University student newspaper reports:

The person of interest in the slaying of four Lakewood police officers this morning may now be hiding in a home at East Yesler Way and 32nd Avenue South, about two miles from Seattle University’s campus.
Police responded around 8:45 p.m. [i.e., 11:45 p.m. ET] to the location because a woman told police Maurice Clemmons, the person of interest, was on the property and bleeding, reports The Seattle Times.

Also: Why was this Arkansas convict in Seattle? Apparently because his sister lives there. And there has been a reported "spurt of crime" in the area near the university.

UPDATE 3:32 a.m. ET: Twitter updates from Seattle resident Zach:

SPD issuing an APB for Eddie David, light skin black male 6'3" 170lbs, assassin's accomplice driving white 83 Buick LeSabre . .

Medics are being summoned to the scene of the police standoff . . .

one of those SPD armored assault vehicles just rolled by my place en route to the scene

PREVIOUSLY 2:42 a.m. ET: Just now reported:

Seattle police cordoned off a section of Seattle's Leschi neighborhood late Sunday night, believing they had located the person of interest in the shooting deaths of four Lakewood, Wash. police officers.
Police cruisers surrounded streets in the neighborhood of 32nd Avenue and Yesler Way in the search for Maurice Clemmons. Several law enforcement sources say they believe they have Clemmons pinned down in the neighborhood. . . .

Previously reported here. Michelle Malkin has been all over the story. More at Memeorandum.

UPDATE 2:53 a.m.: Via Seattle's Channel 5 Twitter:

Seattle Police ask people living in blocked-off area to stay inside/keep doors/windows locked

UPDATE 3:10 a.m.: Also via Twitter, Seattle software developer Buzz Bruggeman says police are searching near the home of his friend.

UPDATE: 4 police officers ambushed LATEST: Ark. man sought for questioning

MONDAY 1:20 p.m.: LATEST UPDATES ON THE SEATTLE COP-KILLER MANHUNT

MONDAY 4:05 A.M.: Clemmons now reportedly surrounded in Seattle neighborhood; SWAT operation underway.

PREVIOUSLY (SUNDAY 9:35 p.m.): Seattle Times reports:

Maurice Clemmons, the 37-year-old Tacoma man being sought for questioning in the killing of four Lakewood police officers this morning, has a long criminal record punctuated by violence, erratic behavior and concerns about his mental health.
Nine years ago, then-Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee granted clemency to Clemmons, commuting his lengthy prison sentence over the protestations of prosecutors. . . .
Clemmons' criminal history includes at least five felony convictions in Arkansas and at least eight felony charges in Washington. . . .
Clemmons had been in jail in Pierce County for the past several months on a pending charge of second-degree rape of a child.

UPDATE 10:11 p.m.: Michelle Malkin has details on Huckabee's clemency for Clemmons. As I said in the Greenroom, if Clemmons is the killer, this would make Huckabee a Republican Dukakis.

UPDATE 10:30 p.m.: Now a thread at Memeorandum. It appears Confederate Yankee was the first blogger on the Huckabee angle. Don Surber also comments. Thanks to Tacoma Mama for alerting me to the fund for the slain officers' families:

Lakewood Police Benevolent Fund
PO Box 99579
Lakewood, WA 98499

UPDATE 10:40 p.m.: Linked by Paco Enterprises and It's Only Words. Thanks.

UPDATE 10:50 p.m.: Gabriel Malor has more at AOSHQ. And we're linked by Dave C. at Point of a Gun. Thanks.

UPDATE 2:35 a.m. Monday: Excuse the delay in updates, as I had a deadline for the The American Spectator on another topic.

The Underground Conservative calls this "Huckabee's Willie Horton moment." In an update, Michelle Malkin makes reference to the bizarre case of Seattle cop-killer Christopher Monfort. He killed a cop and torched four police cars and was described by police as a "lone domestic terrorist." Monfort was apparently into child pornography and was a general weirdo with strange political beliefs:

Monfort didn't appear to have friends, a romantic interest or close ties to his family, [former supervisor Roxy] Hill said . . .
"You couldn't connect him to any human beings, not even his parents," Hill said. . . .
Monfort would get worked up at times about political issues, decrying things such as warrantless wiretaps under President George W. Bush, [former employer Lloyd] Lezcano said. . . .
He also displayed his political views at the juvenile center, Hill said.
When she walked by classrooms, Hill said, Monfort would always be talking about inequities in the criminal-justice system.
"He was turning it into a black and white" issue, Hill said.

That was evidently Monfort's motive for his (alleged) cop-killing terrorism. Police say a note Monfort left at the scene connected the attack to a case in which two sheriff's deputies were videotaped beating a 15-year-old arrested for car theft.

There is no reason to believe that Sunday's killing was in any way related to Monfort's attack. Maybe the Pacific Northwest has become a magnet for violent cop-hating weirdos or something.

PREVIOUSLY (8:52 p.m.): KOMO-TV in Tacoma:

Four uniformed police officers were shot and killed in a bloody Sunday morning attack at a Lakewood-area coffee shop, officials said. . . .
Troyer said investigators have learned that the gunman stood in line the Forza Coffee Co. outlet at 11401 Steele St. South as if he were there to buy some coffee. When he reached the counter, the barista saw him pull a gun our of his coat. She fled, thinking the gunman was about to target her. Instead, he turned and fired point-blank at the four uniformed officers as they were working on their laptop computers, then fled the scene. . . .
One officer was shot as he attempted to struggle with the gunman. Another officer fired off some shots toward the gunman as he fled, and may have hit him, Troyer said.
"We believe there was a struggle, a commotion, a fight . . . that he fought the guy all the way out the door," Troyer said. "We hope the suspect was shot, because that would tell us who it is. There aren't a whole lot of people running around with gunshot wounds."

I've posted video in the Hot Air Greenroom. Also more at the American Spectator.

I'm a lot like Tiger Woods

Spectacularly talented guy with a sexy wife is forced to make an embarrassing confession:

I'm human and I'm not perfect.

I can totally relate. Except that I don't have a mansion in Florida or a Cadillac Escalade and, unlike Tiger's golf game, spectacular talent in blogging hasn't made me rich. Yet.

Hit the tip jar.

How to blog Kate Beckinsale . . .

. . . if you must!

She has a lovely smile, don't you agree? Why, then, does the Classic Liberal feel the need to show Kate Beckinsale nearly naked? True, it is Rule 5 Sunday, but must Classic Liberal really give us Kate Beckinsale bikini pictures? Kate Beckinsale underwear photos?

Such a gratuitous display is unnecessary. Kate has a beautiful smile. Why should she wear anything else?

We await Dave Neiwert's reaction

More right-wing anti-government terrorism?

PARKLAND, Wash. - A gunman walked into a coffee shop and shot and killed four police officers Sunday morning in what sheriff's officials described as a targeted "execution." . . .
The officers were obviously targeted because they were in full uniform, their marked patrol cars were parked outside and no one else was shot at . . .

Read more. And in case you don't know who Dave Neiwert is.

UPDATE: Breaking news, as edited by Dave Neiwert:

Here's the most recent suspect description: blackRepublican man, mid-20s to mid-30s, 5 feet 7 to 5 feet 10, medium build, scruffy and wearing a blackFox News jacket over a gray hoodedGlenn Beck sweatshirt and blue jeans.

All points bulletin for this dangerous Tea Party extremist!

UPDATE II: The slain officers were from the Lakewood Police Department:

This morning a complete coward and threat upon all of society took the lives of four of my Guild members and your sworn protectors in a cold blooded assassination. As I write this I am numb. We were dealt a nasty blow, good men and women I have had the honor of knowing for years are senselessly gone. There is no way to comprehend it, to validate it, or to make sense of any of it. You cannot understand evil like this, as a community we must form a solid bond against criminals and hold them accountable. I know my members and can say with certainty that as a group we will remain professional and will continue to work to protect those of you we have taken an oath to protect. If you know a cop tell them how much you appreciate them, it truly keeps us going.
Please pray for these officers and their families. All of them had significant others and children who are left behind. As a Guild we will do anything we can. If you want to donate to the families our Guild has a benevolent account. Every penny will go to the families; if you want to donate to a specific officer you can write his or her name in the memo section. If the check is made out to LPIG Benevolent Fund at PO Box 99579 Lakewood, WA 98499. I will personally make sure it goes where it is intended. May God bless you four who are in a place so much better than this; you are some of the finest professionals I have ever known. God bless our community today.
Brian D. Wurts, President
Lakewood Police Independent Guild

The manhunt for the killer continues. $10,000 reward. The gunman may be wounded.

Let us indeed rally behind religious expression and freedom of speech

by Smitty

As Ace notes, the Swiss have banned construction of new minarets.

Stand by for the cacophonic outcry.

The ban should have been worded differently. For example:
"All mosque construction is on hold until after completion of the first house of worship of any non-Muslim stripe in Mecca."

The asymmetries in religious tolerance around the world take on the stench of global warming.

Update: Brussels Journal

There is a backlash on the way: at present it is showing itself in small ways, over minor matters such as minarets, but presently it will manifest itself on more substantial issues such as immigration and bogus climate change. It is no coincidence that the people most loudly bemoaning the ban on minarets in Switzerland are those who most vociferously applauded the prohibition on crucifixes in Italian classrooms. The consistent principle is an attack on European Christian civilisation, complemented by subservience to all the enemies of that civilisation, secular or Islamic.

'Trust us -- we're scientists!'

As our teachers used to say in math class, "show your work":

SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.
It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.
The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.

(Via Memeorandum.) My Catholic friend Pete at Da Tech Guy knows how to push my Protestant buttons:

Q: What do the "Global Warming" people have in common with some forms of Protestantism?
A: Apparently they also are making the argument that the salvation of Global Warming should be a question of faith and not works.

Right, Pete. While we await your Ph.D. dissertation on the physics of transubstantiation -- zing! -- let's agree that there have always been religious overtones to environmentalism. One reason that abortion is such a sacred right to some Baby Boomers is that they were deceived by the "Population Bomb" hoax of the 1960s and '70s, when neo-Malthusians warned that the alternative to draconian population control was a Soylent Green-style dystopia.

For decades, elitists have sneered at those of us who are skeptical toward the claims of what I describe as the Temple Cult of Scientism:

The High Priests perform their statistical rituals and the cultists genuflect reverently before their idol, Science.

The federally-mandated triumph of secularism in public education -- Engel v. Vitale, Abington School District, Epperson v. Arkansas -- has steadily enlarged the credulous congregation of the Temple Cult.

These landmark Supreme Court decisions stigmatized religion as unconstitutionally subversive of the educational process, ensuring that future generations of American youth would be inculcated with a sort of neo-Manichean worldview, wherein traditional religious belief had nothing relevant to say about science, history, psychology or any other realm of human inquiry.

Ideas Have Consequences, as Richard Weaver famously observed, and this legally-certified declaration that there was no overlap between Faith and Reason has not merely marginalized Faith, it has also undermined Reason. When we behold the religious fanaticism of the Temple Cult in regard to Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW), we must understand this irrational fruit as a natural product of the poisoned tree of Scientism.

Philip E. Johnson's Reason in the Balance demonstrated how Darwinism -- one of the bedrock tenets of Scientism -- inevitably perverts not only science but also education, law and many other intellectual endeavors. It is but one step from this sort of Scientism to the revolutionary terror of Jacobinism, for when men jettison the anchor of Faith, the selfish conceit of Reason makes them dangerous fools, as Edmund Burke explained:

A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper, and confined views. People will not look forward to posterity, who will not look backward to their ancestors. . . .
We know that we have made no discoveries, and we think that no discoveries are to be made, in morality; nor many in the great principles of government; nor in the ideas of liberty, which were understood long before we were born, altogether as they will be after the grave has heaped its mould upon our presumption, and the silent tomb shall have imposed its law on our pert loquacity.

This temptation to think that we are morally superior to our ancestors, you see, is the road to hell that Scientism paves. You need not be a Bible-thumping fundamentalist (like me) to notice how the adherents of Darwin tend to smuggle into their arguments a predisposition toward Whig history, wherein humankind is relentlessly struggling upward on the road of Progress. Here it is best to recall the brilliant aphorism of G.K. Chesterton:

"My attitude toward progress has passed from antagonism to boredom. I have long ceased to argue with people who prefer Thursday to Wednesday because it is Thursday."

Exactly. If everything is Progress and Progress is everything, then decline becomes an ontological impossibility and -- by logical extension -- today's Congress is morally superior to the Founders who gathered at Philadelphia in 1776 and 1787.

Anyone who doesn't understand how such a worldview undermines the Rule of Law and puts our rights at the mercy of legislators and bureaucrats has forfeited any claim to intellectual superiority that would qualify them to lecture the rest of us about Science.

Christopher Hitchens is both intelligent and an atheist, but intelligent men who suppose themselves smarter than God are ultimately defeated by their own syllogisms. Man dies and God endures, and if man's conceptions of the eternal and infinite -- the Alpha and Omega -- are sufficiently flawed as to be vulnerable to literary criticism or scientific dispute, then this is merely because, as the Apostle Paul said, "now we see through a glass, darkly."

There are no accidents, you see, and those who seek God earnestly and diligently will not forever be frustrated in the search. In checking my citation just now, I was directed to I Corinthians 13, which rather famously addresses the relationship between faith and works:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

Read the whole thing, as they say. Truly there are no accidents, and by his seeming joke about Protestantism, my Catholic friend Pete has directed me by the roundabout route toward the passage that justifies a Protestant creed: Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia.

We end, then, with Paul's meditation on love and charity. Considering the season -- especially Mrs. Other McCain's decision to be a one-woman stimulus program on Black Friday -- I am tempted to declare myself a fit object of charity.

However, I am merely a greedy capitalist blogger, and this is a fee-for-service operation, so if you wish to show appreciation for my services in vindicating Faith and Reason, $5 or $10 in the tip jar might do the trick. If your prefer even more shameless capitalism, we'll count this as the latest installment of our second annual Holiday Book Sale. And don't forget: What to Give Your Wife for Christmas.

Rule 5 Sunday

by Smitty

Rule 5 Sunday, statuesque model edition. Let's go.

• Daphne had some excellent nature shots and concludes with a bit of Rule 5.
• Adrienne's Catholic Corner has a roundup of blokes for the ladies.
• Smash Mouth Politics featured Alizee Jacotey. He was also first to grace the Reader with Eve, whose high heels seem a tad bit...redundant. But that recalled a video that some colleague showed me about the sun, featuring Yulia Stepanova. The music is rather heavy. Muting recommended.

• Dustbury also mentioned Eve, with some interesting statistical analysis. Then he played the Donny Osmond card. Then he features a purple high-heel with a blond strapped to it.
• The Pegu blog has a clip that of someone demonstrating bar equipment that "allows you to benefit from her vast...experience."
• Yankee Phil engages in Courtney Cox admiration. Also he had a news report of wives sending cheerful pictures to deployed husbands.
• Big Hollywood contributed to Rule 5's longstanding interest in women with artillery.
• Anorak featured Ashley Greene, who is in "Twilight". Like the economy, "Twilight" is about sucking, I guess.
• Instapundit reveals why his is a low-crime neighborhood.
• Track-a-'Crat featured a dish with a dish for Thanksgiving.
• Three Beers Later had Adrienne Barbeau. However, the clip of Denise Milani torturing a bikini is cause for a New York trial, in my legal opinion. He also has Mitzi Gaynor.
• Monique Stewart, the HotMES, featured a hot chick for Thanksgiving.
• House of Eratosthenes has a link to "Women with Books". Time for some literacy, ye knuckledraggers. Back over in his Alphabet of Pulchritude project, Pamela Hensley met Raquel Welch and, tragically, didn't last long.
• Fischersville Mike reports that Lance Smith is leaving CMT. The evidence of extreme pressure is all over the pictures.
• The Classic Liberal uses Kate Beckinsale to hold the attention while explaining the war on the poor. Cognitive dissonance at its finest.
• American Blogger mentions some dude with a cat name who might be doing something really stupid.
• Bombs and Dollars is the find of the week. Their Military Babe of the Day (MBD) feature is exactly what we're talking about.
• Proof Positive features Liv Tyler.
• Nation of Cowards calls Eve "Babezilla".
• Paco Enterprises features Lina Romay.
• Political ByLine had the first shot of "Teh Other Woman". Also, a turkey in a bedroom, for reasons that escape me.
• Makes My Brain Itch featured Brad and Angelina.
• The Daley Gator has really gone into Rule 5 this week.
• Support Your Local Gunfighter features Victoria Beckham.
• Berman Post has some Rule 5 Reebok commercials.
• American Glob features Angie Harmon.

Check back, as I need to go now, and Bob Belvedere has a major round of links.

Update: Thank you for your indulgence.

• The Indentured Servant Girl featured Jane Russell.
• Mulieris Dignitatem had another ladies Rule 5 installment, and then found a picture of Hannah Giles' father with game.

Belvedere went slightly crazy on us. I blame Eve.
Things were going fine through the week:

• Jean Shrimpton
• Belly Dancers
• Thanksgiving pinup, dress under duress.

Then Saturday, the storm:

• Amazon Eve
• Hooters girl seeking more wings
• Rachel Uchitel google bomb denial
• Christina Hendricks Rule 5 overdrive admission
• Paula Creamer golf relief
• Jackie Guerrido, global hotness source
• Lina Romay, inspired by the inspirational Paco
• Susan Hayward, in the normal mode

Update II:

HotMES features Marisa Miller

Some topics are best left to Ace of Spades

For example, the suicide of 52-year-old Mike "Christine" Penner, two years after the L.A. Times sportswriter wrote a column with these immortal words:

During my 23 years with The Times' sports department, I have held a wide variety of roles and titles. . . . Today I leave for a few weeks' vacation, and when I return, I will come back in yet another incarnation. As Christine. . . . I am a transsexual sportswriter. It has taken more than 40 years, a million tears and hundreds of hours of soul-wrenching therapy for me to work up the courage to type those words.

Many years to "work up the courage" -- and two years later, he/she kills him/herself. Over to you, Ace.