Category: The Dish

A blogger cri de coeur responding to the online exposure of Jenifer Love Hewitt’s cellulite:

Like you, Jennifer, I speak up now not for myself, but for all the bloggers out there who may be struggling with their body images (and if you’ve spent any time on the internet, you know that’s most of ‘em). I speak up now to add my voice to those decrying the pernicious manner in which blogger’s bodies are relentlessly scrutinized, every perceived “flaw” in our soft, doughy forms dissected and analyzed — and heaven forbid if our less-than-perfect blogger bodies fail to meet the rigid standards society seeks to impose on us! Finally, I speak up now to call out publicly those supposed internet wits and wags who would seek to attack us bloggers in the most base and disrespectful manner — in particular one commenter going by the name of skippingjay352, who had the temerity to call my black bikini bottoms in the above photos “whale canvas” and “jumbo butt floss” and “supersized stink string.” Well, Mr. Skippingjay352, you can have back your shame and your unrealistic body images; the Kamper doesn’t need them anymore.

Jennifer and I are moving on.

The photos I could have done without.

This burst of Hewittism made my morning:

Mitt Romney’s "Faith in America" speech was simply magnificent, and anyone who denies it is not to be trusted as an analyst.  On every level it was a masterpiece.  The staging and Romney’s delivery, the eclipse of all other candidates it caused, the domination of the news cycle just prior to the start of absentee voting in New Hampshire on Monday – for all these reasons and more it will be long discussed as a masterpiece of political maneuver.

Sister Wendy speaks the truth through hope:

You’ve spoken out about gay marriage. How do you balance what you believe with what you have sworn to uphold?

I believe in loyalty. We should respect our church, but never believe that the church has the last word. The church is saying "this", but I believe that sooner or later "this" will change. "This" is not the mind of our Lord. God is all love. It’s a delicate balancing thing. The Church has changed its position over the years, and because the spirit is with the Church, in the end the Church will always get it right. But in the end. The spirit of the Church is the meaning of love, which hasn’t yet, perhaps, been fully understood.

She also has this beautifully simple response to what prayer should be, which is the subject of her new book:

How do you pray?

I go about it as I think everyone should go about it. I look to God and let him love me. Prayer is God’s business, not everyone’s business. That’s where mistakes are made: people think they’re responsible. Just be quiet and let God draw you into his peace.

His surge in the polls is caused by the same forces that allowed Jesus to feed the five thousand. Well: what else is he going to believe?

This gets it about right:

Bainbridge thinks it made a difference.

Huckabee gets a Family Research Council macher to join his campaign. The first of many, surely.

"Moreover, after the Earl of Clarendon imprisoned numerous political prisoners offshore, Parliament responded with the Habeas Corpus Act, 1679, 31 Car. 2, c. 2 (1679 Act). The 1679 Act expressly clarified that the writ did extend overseas, including to Jersey and Guernsey where Clarendon and others (including Cromwell) had sent prisoners. Id. § XI; Administration of Justice During the Usurpation of the Government, 5 Corbett’s State Trials 935, 942 (1810) (“divers commoners of England had, by illegal warrants, been committed to prison into the islands of Jersey, and other the islands belonging to this Commonwealth”).

The 1679 Act also made it illegal to send detainees to “Parts, Garrisons, Islands or Places beyond the Seas, which are or at any time hereafter shall be within or without the Dominions of his Majesty.” 1679 Act, § XII. Parliament thus foreclosed detention in places where the writ may have been practically unenforceable, while confirming that it remained legally available in territories under the Crown’s control," – from the case LAKHDAR BOUMEDIENE, et al., Petitioners, v. GEORGE W. BUSH, et al.

And Huckabee is its tribune. Lowry:

The Huck surge makes it harder, not easier, for Rudy to win the nomination. Now that many evangelicals have a horse in this race, it would be very hard to tell them that not only will their guy not get the nomination, but they’ll have to settle for a pro-choicer.

Who can blame them?