MARK BENNETT: Indiana cops get the keys to the castle. Your castle. This won't happen too often in places like Williams Creek or Golden Hill, Indianapolis. Home invasions by the police, like taxes, are for little people.

READER MICHAEL ZYCHAUS WRITES:

Ever noticed that a man who smashes icons is considered a hero by the bien pensant left? So why is it that a man who burns crosses is considered a terrorist?

Indeed.

FASTER, PLEASE: A simple blood test can predict longevity above 60.  When it comes to telomeres, size does matter.

HECKUVA JOB, BROWNIE: "One Huntsville woman is using her professional skills to help volunteers assist those affected by the April 27 tornadoes.  Alice Brown has set up a website, www.keepvolunteering.org, to provide information about volunteer efforts in areas hit by the tornadoes. People can also ask for help on the site."

Web intervention while FEMA dawdles?  Somebody should write a book about this kind of thing!

LENORE SKENAZY on a rare victory for common sense.  Among the political class "common sense" is all too often misnomer, else why would we value it so highly?

I JUST MAKE THEM GO UP: "I don't care where they come down.  That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun.

"THESE TWO GENTLEMEN PROBABLY DON'T SPEAK A WORD OF ENGLISH, but they're about to receive a lesson in the universal language: Pain."

I SEE THAT ANN ALTHOUSE is far from the only professor with complaints about Blogger. When people say that "you get what you pay for", that's a polite way of saying that you get what you deserve.

SAY UNCLE: Illinois continues, in the wake of McDonald v. Chicago, to insist that the right to keep and bear arms doesn't actually mean the right to, you know, carry arms. And in the wake of District of Columbia v. Heller, that arms do not include handguns. Presumably, Illinoisians are expected to protect themselves from criminals by keeping and bearing their hunting rifles in a combination-locked safe.

PHOTOBLOGGING, FROM LAST THURSDAY'S VACATION in eastern North Carolina.

Signpost: The First Baptist Church of Soul City.  Something tells me these Baptists do not condemn dancing.  And a hundred miles to the east:

The Higher Plain Cowboy Church, Bladenboro North Carolina.  They're Baptists as well, albeit with bigger hats, and cowgirls. Readers ask what sort of camera I use to take these photos, and where they can get one.  I used a Droid X, which coincidentally happens to be on special this week.

DEAR POPEHAT:

Sony Online Entertainment has not put up a “not today” message since Thursday.  I’m not sure if that is a bad thing or a good thing.

If you're not sure, it's probably a bad thing.  Of course, if you're not sure at this point whether patronizing a Sony gaming network that requires credit card information is a good idea or a bad idea, I can't help you. I wouldn't play an online game from Sony even if the only personal information Sony required was the email address I use for trolling and dealing with spammers.

WHY DO ONE IN FIVE AMERICAN VOTERS BELIEVE OSAMA BIN LADEN IS ALIVE? An interesting question, not as easily explained by stupidity and paranoia as the LA Times would have us believe. While the operation to catch Bin Laden was a masterwork, our political leaders, with their conflicting leaks, Hamletesque agony over releasing the photos, and deference to the feelings of people who danced in the streets when Bin Laden became a household name, have handled the aftermath rather poorly.

WAIT!  YOU MEAN I CAN GET ONE OF THE FINEST "OPEN ROAD" ALBUMS EVER RECORDED, and support Popehat?  Sign me up! Remember, all purchases made through this site help defray our bandwidth expenses, and cost you nothing extra.

"Resources exist to be consumed, and consumed they will be.  If not by this generation, then by some future. By what right does this forgotten future seek to deny us our birthright? None I say! Let us take what is ours, chew and eat our fill."

– CEO Nwabudike Morgan, "The Ethics of Greed"

Despite the  ideological slant, the false choices, and the utter economic ignorance of the Center for American Progress drones who wrote this quiz, I still scored 140, "Very conservative". And yet I am not a conservative.  Figure that one out.

Via Skippy.

THE MORGANZA SPILLWAY was last opened in 1973.  This is what it looked like at the time:

Whether or not Louisiana dodges a bullet this time, you could do worse than to donate to the affected area's greater Habitat for Humanity.