Surprise, surprise: Oprah supports Obama.

For my own part I hate and distrust reactions not only in religion but in everything. Luther surely spoke very good sense when he compared humanity to a drunkard who, after falling of his horse on the right, falls off it next time on the left...

A thing does not vanish - it is not even discredited - because someone has spoken of it with exaggeration. It remains exactly where it was. The only difference is that if it has recently been exaggerated, we must now take special care not to overlook it; for that is the side on which the drunk man is now most likely to fall off.

- C. S. Lewis

Some positive thoughts on Ron Paul from the Democrat side:

If I were watching a debate between Obama and Ron Paul, my stomach would not be churning inside me. I would not be nervously cheering on one of the candidates and booing the other, as if the last and only hope for our country was that one of them would "win" the debate. Rather, I would actually be listening to the debate and making up my mind.

(Instapundit)

Only in America could you put together a roundup on fluorescent bulbs:

• Instapundit wants to change a billion.
• LVMI thinks they're ugly.
• Some technical details from a Tennessee blog.

Pretty boring, I agree.

I may get some thoughts posted soon on the recent GOP Debate, but for now, here's a piece on Ron Paul from Reason.

EDIT: Paul won the MSNBC post-debate poll; perhaps his showing wasn't so bad after all.

The pacifism debate continues.

The inevitable implosion of the Islamic worldview?

(HT: Instapundit)

The Evangelical Outpost comments, with some welcome sanity, on the new Milblog restrictions:

Instead of criticizing the addition of common sense restrictions, my fellow conservative bloggers should be asking why this change wasn't implemented years ago. How many times do we have to read about the enemy being an "adaptive, cunning, and learning adversary ... unlike most previous experiences" before we figure out where the terrorists are getting their information from? The question that should be asked is how many soldiers lives had to be lost do to poor OPSEC before the generals realized they needed to tell milbloggers to "button your lip!"

Glenn Reynolds on the subtleties of barelinking.

Step aside Gideon, there's another guru in town.

Predictably, Gene Redlin is disgusted.

WORLD comments on the decline of the book review.

I'm trying to do my part!

VOM, Turkey:

The Protestant Church in Smyrna is requesting Christians to pray for the families of the three believers killed on April 18, 2007, in Malatya, Turkey. According to a press release, the church urged Christians to pray that someday the perpetrators of the gruesome murders would receive Christ and for God to use the testimonies of the martyred brothers to draw others in the knowledge of Him.

The harsh realities of military chaplaincy. This is the work that killed Oswald Chambers.

A new blog that just appeared on the radar. Looks good.

The Evangelical Outpost on the global war against baby girls.

VOM, Indonesia:

More than 40 Christian leaders were arrested after a video recording of them praying for Muslims was leaked to Islamic organizations. Muslims claim the Christians blasphemed the Koran by placing it on the floor and praying for millions of people that had been deceived by it. The Islamic organizations consider the video's content abusive and have released the video to the media. Among the imprisoned were parents of young children. According to sources in Indonesia, some imprisoned women and the elderly have been released. The Voice of the Martyrs is working to assist families. Pray for those in prison and their families. Ask God to give them boldness and wisdom as they face these difficult challenges.

It seems incongruous to take a video you consider blasphemous to your faith and release it to the media. Does this action not blatantly reveal the true motive behind this attack?

Disastrous disaster relief:

Federal disaster relief denies people the opportunity to live cheaply in exchange for living dangerously. That opportunity is particularly valuable to the poor.

To put this another way, federal disaster relief essentially forces people — most of them poor people --- to buy insurance they'd rather not have. The premiums are hidden in their housing prices, but they are none the less real...

Poor people, more than most, value cheap housing. A policy of disaster relief makes cheap housing hard to find. Therefore a policy of disaster relief is likely to impose a particular burden on the poor. If you want to help poor people, eliminating federal disaster relief is a good place to start.

(Instapundit)

This is truly disgusting. (WMB)

The unraveling continues.

Another dispatch from Michael Yon:

Gunshots ring out at three in the morning as I write these first sentences.
Gunshots, providing muse and meter for this dispatch home to America.
Gunshots, three of them. The war is close.

Looks as if Giuliani is already playing hardball.

Exposing North Korea's hushed and ignored policies of mass starvation. (PJM)

In 1999, while children were starving, Mr. Kim's government treated itself to 40 MiG-21 warplanes purchased from Kazakhstan.

Wikipedia has some skeletal information. Reading between the lines, it looks like the floods simultaneously accentuated and provided cover for gross Government mismanagement.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems sort of counter-productive to throw away a billion perfectly good light bulbs in the name of saving energy.

Reviewing The Children of Hurin. (A&LD)

LVMI warns against subsidized health-care:

I am convinced that deregulation of healthcare would only improve the system. Break the healthcare guilds that exist all the way from medical education through licensing, reduce government interventions, and watch the healthcare system improve at Intel speed. Please do not advocate for a government-run healthcare system, or even its predecessor, universal coverage. Think Walter Reed or the Soviets before going that route.