Steak 'n Shake: a panegyric

Roger Ebert on the Midwestern glories of Steak 'n Shake, via Nancy Nall.

Amanda and Josh

My cousin Mike's daughter Amanda got married just after Christmas in Tampa Bay - here are wedding photos from Missy Duncan of Tampa Bay, who does great work.

For you compulsive wedding-photo junkies, here's a slideshow of all 603 photos.

Two more down

The diocese of Peoria has lost two more priests. Fr Jerry Pilon seems to have been laicized over an allegation of sexual misconduct with a minor (which he denies), and Fr Jeffrey Lawrence seems to have left the priesthood to become the publisher of a magazine called Presbyterians Today. Here's a bit from his interview with Presbyterian News Service:

“The last four or five years I’ve felt pretty battered by all the stuff going on in the Catholic church and have been pretty put off by increasingly exclusionary dogma,” he said. “I wanted to continue to contribute to the Lord’s service but didn’t know how.”

Lawrence said he also thought he could always “fall back” on his previous experience in law, advertising, and publishing, but then the Presbyterians Today opportunity offered him the chance to combine his business skills with ministry. “Suddenly, I no longer feel like a square peg in a round hole,” he said.

UPDATE: the diocese says Fr Lawrence is on a personal leave of absence.

UPDATE: here's a background piece on Fr Pilon from the Champaign News-Gazette.

A beautiful monospace font

After reading about it in a blog post this evening I installed Inconsolata by Raph Levien, and it's been a great comfort to my old tired eyes. If you're running ubuntu just do "sudo apt-get install ttf-inconsolata" to install it.

Obama's ferocious pro-life position

After that long campaign I had no idea he was one of us!

We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

Strong words against the abortion mafia. A tip o' the hat to Ellyn of Oblique House.

Stay healthy, Barack

My wife takes a look at the presidential line of succession and hopes President Obama doesn't pull a William Henry Harrison on us.

Moloch returns

Rand Simberg describes what's really going on in Gaza as civilization tries once again to defeat evil.