Small Arms Fire

No Room in the Inn.  David Pryce-Jones writes in the Corner at National Review:

Corporal Tomas Stringer is a Welshman (hence the spelling of his Christian name). A paratrooper, he’s serving in Afghanistan, and he has one arm in plaster because he’d broken his wrist jumping from a truck when a roadside bomb went off. Back in Britain to recuperate, he was helping organize the funeral of a friend killed in action. He’s made a reservation at the Metro Hotel in Woking, a quiet and somewhat suburban town in Surrey, where incidentally in the nineteenth century the first mosque in Britain was built. Corporal Stringer arrived at the Metro in civilian clothes, but when he checked in the reception desk turned him away because company policy did not allow Armed Forces personnel to stay at the hotel. It was already late and Stringer therefore spent the night in his car. The hotel is owned by American Amusements Limited, a company based in Woking but, it seems, under British management.

Church of England Apologizes to Darwin.  Cranmer comments:

Apparently, the apology is ‘for misunderstanding his theory of evolution’. Apart from the fact that the Church has historically ‘misunderstood’ far more important things, the Church of England did not actually ‘misunderstand’ Darwin’s theory at all, not least because (as always) it was divided on the issue. The bishops understood completely the significance of the nexus of the theory (and theory it remains) – that man is the progeny of apes. It really is so simple that even a bishop in the Church of England can comprehend it. Looking at the similarity between Mr Darwin and Dr Williams, it may indeed be adduced that they have a common hairy ancestor. But believers were and are divided into those who perceive this theory to be anti-Scripture and profoundly evil, and those for whom it is but another possible explanation of how God created, totally consistent with Scripture.

Cranmer adds:

Some scientists dismiss the gesture as ‘ludicrous’; Mr Darwin’s descendants describe it as ‘pointless’, and Ann Widdecombe wonders why the Italians aren’t apologising for Pontius Pilate.

Framing Palin.  Here’s a new blog by an anonymous Hollywood director.  He describes the technique for making people seem small and how it was applied to Charles Gibson’s interview of Sarah Palin.

Praying for Sarah. From SunSentinel.com:

At the Broward Democratic Party‘s monthly meeting Tuesday night, it started right at the beginning — with the invocation, delivered by Mike Moskowitz, the state committeeman for the county.

He called for a “blessing on the elk and moose in Alaska who have been decimated by Sarah Barracuda” and included a prayer that Palin doesn’t turn her sights on the squirrels in Washington, D.C.

“We pray that her journey takes her across the bridge to nowhere,” he said.

As they say at Kraalspace: “Great plan – get the Almighty’s attention, and then treat him to a comic monologue!”