• Separation Anxiety - Divorcees are bad for the environment. Do environmentalists care?
• The great fall of China - Revised GDP calculations show that Beijing isn’t the giant we thought it was.
• Dear Diary, I Think I’m in Love - The confessions of Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
• The Amateurs’ Hour - Is the Internet destroying our culture, or is it just annoying our snobs?
• Benazir Bhutto - Killed by the real Pakistan.
• The Résumé Factor: Those 8 Years as First Lady - Hillary Rodham Clinton seemed to learn more as first lady through osmosis than through decision-making.

• Senior Qaeda Theologian Urges His Followers To End Their Jihad - One of Al Qaeda’s senior theologians is calling on his followers to end their military jihad and saying the attacks of September 11, 2001, were a “catastrophe for all Muslims.”
• A Teenage Terrorist Tells His Story - Many of the insurgents building bombs and carrying out attacks in Iraq are hate-filled teenagers. Diya Muhammad Hussein, 16, is one of them.
• Bad Huck - The unhinged correspondence of Mike Huckabee

• A Reading Program’s Powerful Patron - Mary Landrieu’s earmark corruption
• Traffic jam mystery solved by mathematicians - Mathematicians from the University of Exeter have solved the mystery of traffic jams by developing a model to show how major delays occur on our roads, with no apparent cause.
• Baptists Not on Board - Because no Republican candidate since Pat Robertson in 1988 has depended so much on support from evangelicals, opposition by Huckabee’s fellow Southern Baptists is significant.
• Cruise into the Sunset, Saddam-style, with the Dead Dictator’s 269-foot, $34M Yacht - It’s absolutely perfect for the billionaire weirdo or budding Bush-hating autocrat on your holiday list.
• Lethal Weapon - Could Romney’s Gun Position Kill His Campaign?
• LA City Council Thinks Poor People Are Too Dumb to Make Food Choices - The council is moving ahead with a plan to ban fast-food restaurants: but only in the low-income parts of the city.
• The 50 Greatest Independent Films - Empire’s Ultimate Indie Line-Up
• Fertility rate in USA on upswing - The fertility rate among Americans has climbed to its highest level since 1971, setting the country apart from most industrialized nations that are struggling with low birthrates and aging populations.
• Regulators Clear Google-DoubleClick Deal - FTC Clears Google’s $3.1 Billion Purchase of DoubleClick
• Man of Letters - Dear Mr. Buckley, cancel my subscription.
• British Drivers who use mobile phones face jail - Motorists in the UK caught using a hand-held mobile phone while driving could be jailed for two years under tough new guidelines issued today by prosecutors.
• Congress’ energy bill phasing out traditional light bulbs - Newer bulbs cost more to buy but less to operate

Jim Moran, who while accusing American troops of ethnically cleansing Iraqis is also known for his anti-Semitic statements, is my Congressman. Yes, this is the type of idiot Northern Virginia sends to Congress.

• Mohammed now second most popular boys’ name in Britain -
• Twilight of the Books - What will life be like if people stop reading?
• A Tale of Two States - What sells to Iowa evangelicals may not necessarily sell to South Carolina’s.
• Pelosi?s Omni-Defeat - The Democratic legislative rout.
• Time is running out - literally, says scientist - A Spanish scientist suggests that the universe’s end will come not with a bang but standstill.
• Ground Zero memorial delayed 2 years - By 2010, the cobblestone-filled plaza surrounding the memorial pools would be “nearly complete.” The entire memorial, museum and pavilion would be finished by 2011.
• Extremist group operates openly in Pakistan - Jamaat ud-Dawa is listed as a charity, but the U.S. say it trains terrorists.
• The Case Against Ron Paul - Stephen Bainbridge on the Congressman from Texas
• Venti Capitalists - A look at Starbucks as a corporate juggernaut. Book review by P.J. O’Rourke
• Death Ray Replaced By The Voice of God - There are now rumors in Iraq of a devilish American weapon that makes people believe they are hearing voices in their heads.
• Edwardian Reality - The myth of the two Americas.
• Fat Chef, Thin Chef - We count calories in dishes from Batali and Keller — and compare both against a Big Mac
• I’ll have what she’s having - We all want to be stronger, fitter, leaner, brainier, more flexible and well balanced. But can a mass-produced, laboratory-enhanced diet improve on meat, veg and blueberries. Welcome to the superfoods of the future.
• The Perils of Huckaplomacy - Don’t know much about foreign policy.
• Instant Sex - And the sad demise of romantic love.
• Huckabuchanan - Mike is a kinder, gentler Pat?at a moment when populism is more potent than ever.

• The Top Ten Stupid Criminals of 2007 - A policeman?s job is never easy, but dumb criminals make it somewhat easier
• Cell Phone Spending Surpasses Land Lines - US Households Spend More on Cell Phones Than Land Lines for First Time in 2007
• This Is Not a Test - It’s perfectly reasonable to reject a candidate because of his religious views.
• Canada’s Thought Police - A ban on opinions - even disagreeable ones - is the very antithesis of the Western tradition of free speech and freedom of the press.
• Ex-Harding bodyguard involved in Kerrigan attack dies - Griffith, 40, changed name after ?94 incident that he and Gillooly planned
• Don’t take populism too far - If it is elitist to expect politicians to be able to see through glaringly false and stupid ideas — well in that case, call me elitist.

• The Legend of Will Smith - Who knew the Fresh Prince of Bel Air would make such a formidable foe to zombies, robots, and aliens alike?
• Iran says U.S. report a “declaration of surrender” - Ahmadinejad told a rally earlier this month that the December 3 publication of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate was a “victory” for Iran.
• Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms - Scientists in Maryland have already built the world’s first entirely handcrafted chromosome — a large looping strand of DNA made from scratch in a laboratory, containing all the instructions a microbe needs to live and reproduce.
• Alive and Kicking - Reports of the demise of social conservatism are greatly exaggerated.

Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s advertisements have been rather interesting this primary campaign. First there was “Believe” an ad that ran in both Iowa and New Hampshire. The ad caught the attention of the media because of the inclusion of the on screen title “CHRISTIAN LEADER” when it ran in Iowa, but not in New Hampshire.

In his most recent ad “What really matters” Huckabee pretends to get above the fray and issue a nonpolitical holiday greeting.

There are two problems with this. First, Huckabee’s political message has simply been that he is a Christian, and that is why you should vote for him. So in reminding you of ‘what really matters’ this season, be it holiday or political, he staying perfectly on message.

Second, there is a not so subliminal message:

In the ad the camera pans slowly from right to left, and for 19 seconds of the 30 second advertisement the brightly lit white shelves of a cabinet form a big white cross. You know who ever created this ad was well aware of this, as they added a neat pile of Christmas tree ornaments as to make it obvious that it is a shelf that just happens to looks like a cross, rather than a cross outright.

It seems to me the problem is that his ads are not political enough. We’re electing the next Commander-in-Chief, not Pastor-in-Chief.

Update: I see a few minutes after I posted this that Matt Drudge has a link to the video with the headline: “HUCKABEE AD FEATURES FLOATING ‘CROSS’… DEVELOPING…“

I guess I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

• The Cosmic Keyes Campaign - By his own count, Keyes has a total of 49 - yes, 49 - committed supporters in Iowa. But a candidacy is just a state of mind, isn?t it?
• Musharraf Lifts State of Emergency in Pakistan - The lifting of emergency rule will not resolve the tensions in Pakistan, in particular between the judiciary and the president.
• A Baseball Lover, Key to Tarnishing a Yankee Era - A former police officer from Queens linked Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte to performance-enhancing drugs.
• Iraqi City Poised to Become Hub of Shiite Power - Najaf is planning for the future. Yet more signed things are getting better in Iraq.
• Pettitte Admits He Used H.G.H. “for Two Days” - Andy Pettitte, who was implicated in a report on the use of drugs in baseball, apologized for “an error in judgment.”
• The Entitlements People - Deficits, obfuscations and trickeries that were once unthinkable are now the norm.

Every presidential election various media organizations rerun the same story: They find a Republican fed up with the GOP who is going to vote for a Democrat this time. (Oddly, they don’t ever seem to find any Democrats voting for a Republican.) The first such story I have come across this election cycle is from the New York Times:

Dee Vandeventer, 54, who owns an advertising firm (it does not accept political advertising) and lives in nearby Cedar Falls, was standing on a chair in the auditorium trying to take a picture of Mr. Obama after his speech. She was perched a little precariously up there, but she talked with us for a couple of minutes.

“We’re tired of being Republicans,” she said.

She said she and her husband, Dave, were keeping completely open minds this year and had no idea at this point how they’d vote in the caucuses on Jan. 3. Of the Republicans, they said they were most interested in Rudolph W. Giuliani, mainly because he is “moderate” and “was responsive” on 9/11.

But it took her 23-year-old daughter to get her to consider Mr. Obama in the first place. “I had said, ‘Obama doesn’t have any experience,’ and she said, ‘I have three words for you: John Fitzgerald Kennedy.’” That made Mrs. Vandeventer consider the possibility, she said, even though she voted for Richard Nixon (she was too young to vote in 1960, when Nixon ran against Kennedy, but she voted for him in 1968, when he won).

It is interesting that Katharine Q. Seelye, the Times reporter, could figure out that Mrs. Vandeventer was only 7 years-old in 1960, and unable to vote, but failed to realize that Vandeventer was only 15 years-old in 1968, when the voting age was still 21. It is rather impossible that she voted for Nixon, unless she lied about her age. It makes me wonder if she really is (was?) a Republican as well.