Tomorrow, Americans across this great country will join together in remembering those American warriors—throughout our storied history—who gave their lives in defense of freedom. From the blood-soaked beaches of France to the bombed-out back-alleys of Fallujah, the American G.I. has fought—and died—opposing that which is evil and oppressive, and defending all things good and free.

Memorial Day is about one thing: remembering the fallen on the battlefield and passing their collective story to the next generation. These stories, and the men who bear them, are the backbone of this American experiment and must never be forgotten. As John Stuart Mill once said, “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse.” The minute, excuse me—the second—we believe our freedoms "inevitable and/or immutable," we cease to live in history, and have soured the soldier's sacrifice. He died in the field, so we can enjoy this beautiful day (and weekend). Our freedoms—purchased on the battlefield—are indeed “worthy of war.”

And this day, with America still at war, it is also fitting that we remember the soldiers currently serving in harms way. Because, as any veteran can attest, just one moment, one explosion, or one bullet separates Veterans Day from Memorial Day. Soldiers currently in Iraq and Afghanistan are fighting for our freedoms today, knowing it’s possible they may never see tomorrow. These troops—and their mission—deserve our support each day, and our prayers every night. May God watch over them—and their families; May He give them courage in the face of fear, and righteous-might in the face of evil.

- Pete Hegseth

My wife and I are now the proud owners of two mini-vans. (OK, go back and strike the word "proud.") We traded in my Mazda 626, and bought a second minivan.

OK, now to my point. The Mazda I traded in... was a standard transmission. Yep. You read that right. A stick shift. Every primary car I've ever driven was a stick shift. I learned to drive on a stick shift. I freaked out in driver's ed when I put the car in "drive" and it started moving on it's own because I had never driven an automatic before.(My left foot kept kicking the floor looking for a clutch.)

Anyway, when I traded in this car last week, the salesman told me that 99% of all cars made now are automatics. Whoa. That means I would have a hard time getting a standard if I tried. Nobody drives standard anymore.

It made me kind of sad. Nostalgic maybe. I was thinking, "Wow. I am now the possessor of a dying skill." My kids won't be able to learn standard because there won't be any. I was thinking how sad that was, but hey maybe it's OK, because they'll never need it.

I prefer driving standard. I prefer doing something as a part of driving. I prefer feeling like I'm driving. I like the power and control of deciding when to shift, and how many RPM's I want. I like riding the clutch. I like coasting in, with the clutch pushed in. I like the challenge of having to start going from a stop when I'm on an incline without rolling into the car behind me. I like the fact that I CAN!!!! (And I'm quite good at it by the way.)

And now, it's a skill not valued anymore. So I began to wonder. Maybe this was what it was like when drivers didn't have to get out and crank the handle on the front of model T's anymore. Maybe this is what it was like when women stopped having to teach their daughters how to wash laundry in the tub. Did those people mourn too? Did those people think that society was going to pot because their kids didn't need to learn or even care to learn the skills they had to have to survive?

Is it such a loss when technology changes? I mean, that's just progress right? So maybe I should just get over the fact that I will never drive a standard again, and that with few rare exceptions, no one will.

OK, maybe automatics aren't as fuel efficient as standards. And they break down more than standards, but aren't I forgetting the main thing? Progress! Technology! Ease of use. Driving an automatic is easy.

Maybe I'm just mad that I had to work so hard to learn how to drive. (It is hard learning to get going without stalling.) And now, no one else has to. Maybe I feel like if I had to do it, everybody should. But that's not fair, is it? That's like saying that just because I had to learn to type on an actual manual typewriter that everybody should. Or that just because my grandfather had to build houses without power tools that everybody should.

I guess we should just put standard transmissions in the scrap heap with manual typewriters, human-powered lawnmowers and rotary dial telephones.

What other "skills" are dying out? Tell me under comments.

Still makes me sad though. Farewell, standard transmission. We had some good times together. You will be missed.

Take a look at these pictures if you can. The Bride was beautiful.

Katie Kirkpatrick, 21, held off cancer to celebrate the happiest day of her life. Katie had chased cancer, once only to have it return-to clog her lungs and grab hold of her heart. Breathing was difficult now, she had to use oxygen. The pain in her back was so intense it broke through the morphine that was supposed to act as a shield. Her organs were shutting down but it would not stop her from marrying Nick Godwin, 23, who was in love with Katie since 11th grade.

Five days later, Katie died. She did not let sickness stop her from living, take away the hope or faith that made her believe she had a future. She had a lovely wedding and she had love and she gave love and love doesn' t die. And that is how Katie beat cancer.

[H/T: Challies]

Nestor Carbonell has been all over TV. (Cane, Suddenly Susan, The Dark Knight) He's probably best known around these here parts as "Richard Alpert", immortal, semi-leader of the others, a yoda-like character.

But not to me. I first met him as "Batmanuel" on "The Tick", a brilliant, but ill-fated TV show.



Just like Don Knotts in any other role was still Barney Fife in another role, whenever I see Nestor/Richard/Guyliner, I only see "Batmanuel"



Go here for an abridged 5 minute Tick episode to see how brilliant it was.

Here's the 50 second clip I really wanted you to see, but I can't find it in English, but you know, it may actually be funnier in French.

God Bless You, Batmanuel. You can run around on other shows, but nothing can make us forget the coolness that is Batmanuel.

Many thanks to the Spyglass for reminding me that today is the 200th birthday of my favorite President.

I'm reprinting below a portion of his second inaugural address, one of the greatest speeches ever delivered. You can read the whole thing at the Spyglass.

Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said: "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether."

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

John Updike died today, at age 76, from lung cancer.

This seriously bums me out. I was a late adopter to Updike's writing, but I quickly became obsessed. He easily supplanted Paul Auster as my favorite contemporary novelist, and he might have been America's greatest living novelist. Until today.

I remember reading Rabbit, Run, the first in Updike's four Rabbit novels, and being blown away. I've been reading novels, including literary novels, since I was a kid, but in my late twenties I had no idea someone could write like that. And by "like that" I mean "apparently just for me."

Since then I've rather quickly been making my way through the rest of his works. Updike's stories are mythic in weight but highly specific and relational in content. He wrote about lots of marriages, each of them Adam and Eve in the broken garden, and lots of affairs, each of them as ridiculous to us as they are sensible to the adulterers.

Updike wrote ecstatically but not chaotically. I think that's what got me every time: the controlled way he seemed to open a vein on the page.
He was uninhibited and wrote with zero pretension, despite his snooty upbringing and the pretensions of lots of his characters. He somehow managed to capture the curious national blend of sex and religion and American dreaming. I don't know of any other Christian writer (or, Christian who is a writer, if you prefer) who was as frank about total depravity (and called it that).

Bottom line, though: He told stories. And Updike could just flat out write.

Gonna miss him.

I had a dream once, too, Dr. King, and you
Were in it–only, and here is the miracle,
That early morning, April 4, had never happened,
And you had lived on to a venerable old age,
A silver-tongued, silver-haired preacher of peace.

And here’s the thing: You walked into Cricket’s
With all those Southern gentlemen you wrote from your
Birmingham jail, just like the beginning of a bad joke
My subconscious was telling me (some preachers
And a rabbi walk into a bar, and…)

And even though you were all men of the cloth
I brought you a round of drinks and proposed
A toast unsolicited but welcomed: “Here’s to the
End of all things not eternal.”

Then all you old men dreamed your dreams and
Saw them come to pass–every gesture of
Reconciliation, every brown-skinned boy with
A blue-eyed girl–no longer apathetic, no longer
Afraid of what was behind your fences.

So I brought around the bread and wine like you asked
And you feasted the feast of deliverance.
Then I woke up–winter morning, January 15,
and I remembered, and gave thanks.

- Amanda McClendon

Reprinted with Mander's permission

They take our stuff to the store and we cut them off in traffic.

Think about it. Pretty much everything you have got there on a truck: the food you buy, the chair your sitting in, the computer you are looking at, the ipod you listen to, the car you drive, the clothes you are wearing.

Everything.

Truck drivers keep America moving and functioning. They have a tough job. They drive for hours, days, weeks on end. Some of them are away from their families for long periods of time. You get in your car, get there and get out. They've been driving all day. Sitting for long hours and dealing with selfish drivers zipping around in their small cars who take extreme risks around a truck that could kill them in an instant.

Yet we're in such a hurry to cut in front of them, with no thought about how much longer it takes them to slow down to avoid rear ending us.

We get so frustrated when we are stuck behind a truck, but give no thought when one of them is stuck behind us.

Those people driving those big machines are probably better drivers than most of us. They certainly had to pass extra tests and get extra training. And they put in a week's worth of your driving every single day.

Be kind to those men and women who work hard and keep America moving. Smile and wave at them on the road. Go ahead and let them enter the road ahead of you. And certainly be sensitive to the fact that it's harder for them to accelerate, slow down and turn. And remember they're not out there on the road to make your life miserable. They're out there to earn a living for their families...and they're doing it for you.

You may have already seen this, but a number of blogs have joined in what is being called the Victory in Iraq celebration, and have declared yesterday, 11/22/2008, as "VI Day". From Zombietime:

Who gets to decide when it's over?

Indeed, everywhere you look, someone has highlighted yet another detail which, cumulatively, demonstrate that "peace has broken out all over" Iraq.

Each person has their own criteria as to when the war was won: Some say we won the war long ago when we defeated the Iraqi Army in three weeks. Some say we won when the Iraqi government tried and executed Saddam Hussein. Some say we won when Iraqis voted democratically to elect their own leaders. Some say we won when we established control over the entirety of the country last year, eliminating the last remaining insurgent strongholds. Some say we won six months ago when the last remaining organized resistance evaporated.

On the other hand, there are those who are saying (in response to this essay) that we have not reached that magical benchmark. The Iraqi parliament may have passed the security agreement solidifying Iraq's post-war stability, but some people say we should wait until the U.S. Senate approves it before we declare victory. Others say that the war won't be won until casualty levels literally drop to zero. Other say we haven't won until all troops are gone from the country. Others wait in vain for an official announcement.

There is no consensus. And there never will be. Still, the cut-off point between "war" and "not war" has to be drawn somewhere, and if we don't draw the line ourselves, I guarantee it will NEVER be drawn. Because the Left and the media want to make sure that even ten years from now, when perhaps one US soldier is killed per year in an otherwise completely stable Iraq, that still won't qualify as "victory." Because their overarching goal is to to make sure that the war goes down in history as a defeat, no matter what.

My opinion is: This is as good a time to declare victory as we're ever going to get. All signs point to "Yes." If you don't agree, that's perfectly fine, you can ignore this essay. But if you think this is long overdue, then climb on board.

Read the whole thing.

I'm interested in your thoughts on this. For my part, I think a declaration of success is way overdue, if for no other reason than to thank our soldiers for a job well done. They have persevered bravely and with expertise through some of the most trying conditions imaginable. All that being said, I can understand why some are loathe to declare victory. Aside from people who simply don't want to see or admit to the success in Iraq for political or moral reason, a number of people have valid concerns about ever assuming success when it comes to the middle east.

Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments thread. I would ask that we avoid pointless arguments about whether we should ever have gone to Iraq in the first place. This thread is concerned with whether we can consider this a win or not. If you hated the war from the start and hate the fact that we're even talking about this, please post your thoughts on your own blog. If you'd like to discuss whether or not declaring victory is a reasonable response to current events, please feel free to express your thoughts here. All opinions that are on topic with this post are welcome.

[Hat Tip: The Anchoress]

Today marks Yesterday marked the 45th anniversary of the passing of the incomparable C.S. Lewis, the greatest Christian writer of the 20th century and The Thinklings' patron saint.

(It's also the 45th anniversary of the passing of JFK and philosopher Aldous Huxley, who both died the same day.)

Read last year's tribute to Jack.

On this Veteran's Day, from About Last Night:

On October 9, 1918, an HMV sound engineer named Will Gaisberg set up a primitive piece of recording equipment immediately behind a unit of the Royal Garrison Artillery stationed outside Lille and recorded a British gas-shell bombardment. His purpose in doing so was to preserve the sounds of war before the coming armistice caused them to vanish forever from the face of the earth.

According to HMV's catalogue, the recording, which was commercially released, consisted of

the actual reproduction of the screaming and whistling of the shells previous to the entry of the British troops into Lille. It is not an imitation but was recorded on the battlefront. The report of the guns and the whistling of the shells is the actual sound of the Royal Garrison Artillery in action on October 9th, 1918. No book or picture can ever visualise the reality of modern warfare just the way this record has done...it would require only the slightest imagination for one, by means of this record, to be projected into the past, and feel that he is really present on the battlefield witnessing this historic chapter of the war.

Here is Gaisberg's own account of the making of the recording:

Gradually we came within the sound of the guns, and eventually, when only a short distance from Lille, we pulled up at a row of ruined cottages, in one of which the heavy siege battery had made its quarters. In the wrecked kitchen we unpacked our recording machines and made our preparations before getting directly behind a battery of great 4.5' guns and 6' howitzers, camouflaged until they looked at close quarters like giant insects. Here the machine could well catch the finer sounds of the "singing," the "whine," and the "scream" of the shells, as well as the terrific reports when they left the guns.

Dusk fell, and we were obliged, very reluctantly, to pack up our recording instrument and return to Boulogne--and to England; but we brought with us a true representation of the bombardment, which will have a unique place in the history of the Great War.

You can listen to the two-minute recording here.

It is one of the most haunting and disturbing documents of the past that I know--one made all the more haunting by the knowledge that Gaisberg accidentally inhaled some of the gas from the attack, which damaged his lungs irreparably. In London he fell victim to the international flu epidemic that was then ravaging the city, and died on November 5, six days before World War I came to an end.

To all veterans, everywhere. Thank you for your service.

From Sky News:

The video portrays the Republican as a hero but the message may be tarnished as he is filmed smoking a cigarette.

In the footage an emotional and shirtless McCain passes a message to his wife saying he will get well and loves her.

He also describes being shot down over Hanoi in 1967, and parachuting into a lake.

At times, when speaking of his family, McCain's lower lip trembles and his voice breaks.

As a side note, I think the first sentence of the article is ridiculous: "The video portrays the Republican as a hero but the message may be tarnished as he is filmed smoking a cigarette." First off, the video just portrays McCain as he was at that time, a man struggling through pain, loneliness and, I would imagine, great fear and doubt, and it doesn't appear to me to be making a statement one way or another regarding his heroism. The cigarette comment is an anachronism from our more finicky culture. The guy's a POW, for crying out loud.

The ending of the video is heart-wrenching, especially when you realize he will be in prison for another five years. As everyone knows, McCain later divorced his wife under less than honorable circumstances, but you can tell that his love for her and longing for her at this point is genuine.

Regardless of your political persuasion, this is worth watching, especially when one realizes that along with John McCain there were many, many other men suffering similarly.

[H/T Drudge]

On this day the two quotes below resonate strongly with me.

One is from the pen of a great lion of a statesman from the twentieth century. The other is from a former Secretary of Defense, spoken at the Pentagon this morning.

The first:

I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all....Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder....

Silly people — and there were many, not only in enemy countries — might discount the force of the United States. Some said they were soft, others that they would never be united. They would fool around at a distance. They would never come to grips. They would never stand blood-letting. Their democracy and system of recurrent elections would paralyze their war effort. They would just be a vague blur on the horizon to friend or foe. Now we should see the weakness of this numerous but remote, wealthy, and talkative people. But I had studied the American Civil War, fought out to the last desperate inch. American blood flowed in my veins. I thought of a remark which Edward Grey had made to me more than thirty years before — that the United States is "a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate." Being saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful.

— Winston Churchill, The Grand Alliance

The second:

Here, beneath the sloping fields of Arlington National Cemetery — fields that hold our nation’s fallen — this building stands as a silent monument to the resolve of a free people. And so too this Memorial in its shadow will stand not only as a symbol of a nation’s grief, but as an eternal reminder of men and women of valor who saw flame and smoke and stepped forward to save and protect the lives of their fellow Americans on September 11th.

Let it also remind us of each of those who have volunteered to serve in our nation’s Armed Forces, before and every day since. Our nation’s military has stood guard in this new age of peril, determined that what happened here, seven years ago, must not happen again.

We have been “acquainted with the night.” We have taken its measure. In the darkest of times, we have stood together. In defiance, our nation has pressed on toward morning. With resolve renewed, and with the certain strength of the American people, our nation will force the dawn.

My constant prayer is that God will bless the families of those we remember this day. And that the good Lord will bless all of those who have lost loved ones in the long struggle that has followed. We are deeply in their debt. And each of us will remain so for the rest of our lives.

- Donald Rumsfeld, The Pentagon, 9/11/2008

[H/T The Corner]

The voiceover master died. (Link)

Don LaFontaine, the voiceover king whose "In a world ..." phrase on movie trailers was much copied -- and much parodied -- has died, according to media reports. He was 68.

I admit it. I felt like "the voice" was a friend of the family. Every time I heard a movie trailer start with "In a world", I expected it to be good. Even though I knew the following was true:

His favorite work was one he did for the 1980 film "The Elephant Man," he said in interviews, but whether the film was Oscar-caliber or a bomb waiting to blow, he handled every assignment equally.

"My philosophy is that you have to really believe what you're reading, even if you think the film's a piece of junk," he told Swindle magazine. "Even the worst picture is someone's favorite film, and that someone is the fan I am always talking to."

I'll miss him. Man, who else is there? Aren't there only like 2 movie trailer voiceover guys?

Alexander Solzhenitsyn -- Christian, Russian, writer, survivor -- died yesterday.

Here's a bit from John Piper's stirring tribute:

No one did more than Solzhenitsyn to expose the horrors of the failed communist experiment in Russia. Hitler’s purge would pale, if such things could pale, when compared to ten times the carnage in Stalin’s gulags.

Solzhenitsyn inspired me because of the suffering he endured and the effect it had on him. Here is the quote that I have not forgotten. It moves me deeply to this day. After his imprisonment in the Russian gulag of Joseph Stalin’s “corrective labor camps” Solzhenitsyn wrote:

It was granted to me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts.... That is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me: “Bless you, prison!” I...have served enough time there. I nourished my soul there, and I say without hesitation: “Bless you, prison, for having been in my life!”

(The Gulag Archipelago)

O that I would be done with murmuring against my tiny prisons. Lord, grant me greater faith to live in the coming day when I will say, “Bless you, all hardship and pain! You have cut me off from the death of prosperous idolatry again and again.”

Thank you, God, for the life and work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

OK, you know it, and I know it. Jared deserves to be published. He should have been published already. But here's the deal. Publishers need to know that they can sell books. Makes sense to me. Here's what I'm thinking...

Jared's probably got quite a few fans around here who would love to read his book. And, no offense, but everybody loves free books. But if we all think that Jared's gonna be able to send us free copies of his book when it comes out, we got another think coming. It's time to put your money (or at least your future money that doesn't exist yet) where your mouth is.

Under comments please say how many copies you'll be buying when his first book comes out. That way Jared can say to a prospective publisher, "Hey, I can guarantee you that more people than just my mom will be buying copies." (Of course, if anybody deserves a freebie, it's Jared's mom.)

Now is this a petition that matters? OK, so it may not ACTUALLY give weight to a prospective publisher. But it will send a message of support to our very own Jared.

So here's the challenge: if you will promise to buy at least one book or better yet two copies, one for you and one to give away...

please say so under comments. Step up people. Let your voices be heard.

Mary and Martha were sisters, and friends and followers of Jesus.

Now and then I'll hear a message about Mary and Martha, generally focusing on Luke 10:38-42. You may recall the corrective Jesus offered Martha when she was busy getting dinner ready and was irritated at Mary for not helping (Mary was sitting at Jesus' feet, learning):

“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” - Luke 10:41-42

This is, of course, something that Martha needed to hear. We all need to hear it.

But some of the messages I've heard about Martha (thankfully, my current pastors never do this) have been outright slander. I once heard a gentleman who had built an entire theology on the statement "God doesn't have favorites, but He does have intimates", and his message was one of praising Mary and completely slamming Martha. Mary was, in his opinion, the way we should be. His portrayal of Martha was of an abrasive, complaining, unspiritual battle-axe.

Years ago, I heard a guest student pastor deliver a message on Mary and Martha, focusing on John 11. He was something of a comedian, and he did a really funny rendition of a Type-A Martha dressing Jesus down because He had not arrived in time to save her brother Lazarus. We all laughed as he imitated Martha screeching at Jesus "if you had been here, my brother would not have died!!!"

I kind of bought into the Martha-bashing for awhile, until I actually read John 11 carefully for myself.

So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.” John 11:20-27 (Emphasis mine)

Oh my gosh, Martha rocks. Ladies and gentlemen, Martha goes hard! What a statement of faith, delivered in the midst of gut-wrenching grief.

I appreciate both Mary and Martha. I don't think I'm worthy to wash their dishes. But in John 11, I stand amazed by Martha. Yes, Martha is practical (read verse 39), yes Martha is more of a "doer" than one to sit at someone's feet and just soak it in.

But Martha believed, and showed an amazing faith in the character and power of Christ, and for that I applaud her.

I'll never make fun of Martha.

"Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus." - John 11:5

(If you're interested, you can also read about why I don't make fun of Simon Peter)

Croc eats shark.

(HT: But I'm No Expert)

I found this fascinating.


The dude is so likeable. And funny. And brilliant. This guy needs to continue this. Get out there. Explain and defend the "originalist" perspective.

It's amazing to me how many people don't get it, even after he explains it. People actually said he defended torture after watching this. He doesn't. He's just a rigid originalist, even when it goes against his personal views.

"What makes a principle a principle is one's willingness to apply it to one's own disadvantage." - Stephen L. Carter, Yale Law School

Scalia is a principled man...oh, and did I mention, HE'S COOL! I nominate him for honorary thinkling.

Go watch all four parts.
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

This is love.



If you don't think that there is any way that suffering through the tragedies of life can glorify God, watch this video. It's absolutely beautiful. There's a heartbreaking joy in this, and a deep Christ-likeness in this young couple expressed in their love for their baby.

I'm overwhelmed.

[Grateful hat tip to The Anchoress]