While most of us were sleeping last night:

A massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck Chile early Saturday, collapsing buildings, killing at least 16 people and downing phone lines. President Michele Bachelet declared a “state of catastrophe” in central Chile and said the death toll was rising. (AP)

As a result of the earthquake, there is the possibility of a tsunami striking Hawaii, with the first waves hitting around 4 EST.

A tsunami warning – the highest alert level – was issued for Hawaii, where emergency officials planned to wake residents with sirens alerting them to the impending waves. Even before daybreak, lines formed at supermarkets with residents stocking up on water, canned food and batteries. Cars lined up 15 deep at several gas stations.

…A tsunami after a magnitude-9.5 quake that struck Chile in 1960, the largest earthquake ever recorded, killed about 140 people in Japan, 61 in Hawaii and 32 in the Philippines.

–UPDATE (7 EST)– Hawaii was spared from a tsunami.

Here it is, Rants! & Raves!, your weekly opportunity to sound off about the week past.

Remember the rules:

1. A Rave! is something that happened during the past week that you’re pleased about and is signified by the word “Rave!” and/or an appropriately peppy emoticon (see Website Help to learn how to use emoticons, aka “smileys”).
2. A Rant! is something that happened during the past week that you’re ticked off about and is signified by the word “Rant!” and/or an appropriately grumpy emoticon.
3. You may Rant! about something a person said, did, or wrote, but you may not Rant! about generally disliking a person. IOW, no personal attacks allowed.

Have fun!

Good morning!

Random question of the day: What’s the first thing you think about when you wake up in the morning?

Answer to yesterday’s question: With a million dollars I would donate 70% to missionaries in Kyrgyzstan and with the rest I’d save some, go travel the world, and buy a bike.

Remember: This is our daily (except for Sundays) open thread, where you can 1) answer my question, 2) talk about something else, or 3) say something truly encouraging to the commenter before you.

Click here for a look back at the news of the week, colorfully illustrated by some of the best editorial cartoonists in the business: Chip Bok, Steve Breen (winner of last year’s Pulitzer Prize), Steve Kelley, Michael Ramirez, and Gary Varvel.

This creative cadre of cartoonists offer a unique, colorful, often humorous, and sometimes poignant perspective of politics, the economy, world events, and more.

James Dobson gave his last broadcast today as the host of the “Focus on the Family” radio show, a role he has had for the past 33 years.

Dobson has been planning on stepping down since 2003 and will be succeeded by Focus on the Family president and CEO Jim Daly.

“I have carried that baton for many years,” Dobson said to Daly on the program. “And now I am handing it off to you.”

A family psychologist, Dobson began Focus on the Family in 1977 to help heal the brokenness in families and communities through Christ.  The organization has grown to encompass not only a daily radio show that reaches 220 million people, but also magazines, books, counseling, websites and much more.

Dobson, 73, will now begin a new radio show called “Family Talk with James Dobson” with his son Ryan and senior producer of “Focus on the Family” radio, LuAnn Crane. Dobson does not see this new ministry in competition with Focus on the Family, but sees it as a way to expand his ministry.

“How silly to think one organization will meet the [family needs] of the whole country. There is plenty of work for all of us,” Dobson said.

Tony Woodlief may not be writing for WORLDmag.com at the moment, but we can still get a taste of his insight this morning thanks to The Wall Street Journal. In a column in today’s edition, Tony takes a look at a century’s worth of Boy Scout handbooks:

While the Boy Scout Law (”A Scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful . . .”) has scarcely changed, the Boy Scout handbook has seen numerous revisions since that first volume made its way into eager young hands. In addition to the 1910 original (it was a temporary guide until the 1911 “first” edition could be produced), there are 12 handbook editions. Nearly 40 million copies of the handbook have been sold since its inception

The latest edition is an eco-friendly version that boasts recycled paper and clean production. To some this is faithfulness to the Scouts’ conservationist roots. Others consider it proof that the Boy Scouts of America organization has bowed to politically correct exigencies. Is the BSA committed to God and “traditional values” (as Oliver North asserts in his foreword to Hans Zeiger’s “Get Off My Honor!: The Assault on the Boy Scouts of America”), or is it “immoral” and “self-righteous” (as charged by Scouting for All, which urged President Obama not to accept the traditional title of honorary Scout president), or are Scouts something altogether different?

Read Tony’s column in its entirety here.

After the emergence of the abuse scandal Emily blogged about yesterday, the beleaguered New York Gov. David Paterson may end his campaign for reelection, sources say. The New York Times reported today that even allies and friends “said his political standing had been irreparably damaged” and that he cannot handle the scandal, a campaign and governing at the same time. Sources told New York Daily News that Paterson will announce his campaign’s end today, although another source warned that it is Paterson we’re talking about:

The governor has a reputation for being wildly mercurcial and changing his mind at the last minute – particularly if he feels he’s backed into a corner.

Paterson earlier ignored Obama’s request that he not run in the next election.

A news item on the radio recently caught my attention: A billboard company in Colorado Springs, Colo., decided, of its own accord, not to display a particular ad it thought the community would find offensive.

Say what?

You read correctly. Lamar Advertising chose not to put up a particular poster for the musical “Avenue Q,” which will be playing in Colorado Springs next month. The Broadway show uses several puppets in the show, one of which is called “Lucy the Slut.” It’s Lucy’s picture—featuring a larger-than-life bosom barely contained by a tacky brassiere—that won’t be seen on bus shelters and billboards around the city.

Hal Ward, vice president and general manager of Lamar Advertising, explained the decision this way: “It’s our billboard and we’re particular about what we display on our billboards and we like to display what is acceptable to the community.” A different poster will be used to advertise the show.

An account executive for Lamar explained to a local newspaper that he uses a simple test to determine whether something’s appropriate or not: “If I have to explain it to my 4-year-old or my grandmother, we don’t put it up.”

Imagine that: A community with moral standards, and a local business sensitive to them.

The story has caused at least one not-so-traditionally-minded blogger to describe Colorado Springs variously as a home to “tax-despising neocon Republicans,” “a city teeming with conservatives who would impose their strict Christian morals on the rest of the nation if they could,” and as a “Mayberry-esque paradise.”

Wow. I wish someone had told me sooner. Colorado Springs sounds like my kind of place.

In perhaps the biggest drama of the Thursday healthcare summit, President Obama interrupted a rant by Sen. John McCain against the “backroom deals” behind much of the current healthcare legislation:

“We’re not campaigning anymore,” the president told his Republican opponent in the 2008 election. “The election is over.”

But the day did seem to be mostly about campaigning as lawmakers lobbied viewers regarding the best way to move forward in this yearlong debate.

Early on, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, largely silent to this point, interrupted Obama to inform him that Republicans so far had spoken for 24 minutes while Democrats had taken 52 minutes. Obama relented he had forgotten to count himself on the Democratic side because he is the president.

Well, Republicans kept a time track of the entire roughly 7-hour day and here is the final tally:

• Republicans: 110 minutes
• Democrats: 114 minutes
• President Obama: 119 minutes

Obama and Democrats spent their minutes trying to tell America that the two parties really aren’t that far apart when it comes to healthcare. Republicans countered with repeatedly using the phrase “start over” in unsuccessful attempts to get the Democrats to scrap the current bills in favor of a clean sheet of paper. Translation: the two sides really are deeply divided on this issue.

Still, Obama, in his final lecture at the end of the session, warned that Democrats are willing to go at it alone when it comes to healthcare. He said ultimately voters would decide if this is the best course of action.

“That’s what elections are for,” the president said.

Well, why wait until this November to render judgment? WORLD web readers, what are your thoughts on Thursday’s summit? Who won? Who lost? What should happen next? Let’s hear from you.

The last days of a nation in its death throes tend to make things clearer. Men become more who they are, as the press of events sharpens what was amorphous and draws out what was latent.

I wince even to read about King Zedekiah. I know it is because I see too much of myself. We learn from the book of Jeremiah that he does not give heed to the words of the Lord (37:2). But even this he does with no character, but as someone slouching half-conscious into sin. We want to shout, with Martin Luther, “Sin boldly!”

When his courtiers are not around to feign bravery before, he sends a lone messenger to Jeremiah asking for prayer. We are reminded of other weak men: John the Baptist’s Herod (Mark 6:14-29) and Saint Paul’s Felix (Acts 24:1-27), also effeminate leaders who forfeited their moment of salvation.

Jeremiah does pray and God gives answer. (It is the same answer as before, but Zedekiah keeps hoping for something different.) The silence you hear in the ensuing verses is the sound of vacillation in the king’s response, and the next scene sees the politically anathema Jeremiah cast into prison by princes (Do they even respect the contemptible king enough to have asked his permission?), who name him traitorous for preaching surrender to Babylon.

Jeremiah—like John and like Paul and like the Lord they follow—never looks more noble and courageous than in his prison cell, against the black backdrop of the cowardly Zedekiah. The one figure flails desperately for his life but will lose it; the other cares nothing for his life (John 12:25; Acts 20:24) but God will save it.

The king now springs him from jail “secretly” (Jeremiah 37:17), which is his typical modus operandi. The motive is his motive for every act he commits: craven self-interest and fear of man. He is desperate for better news from God, even if he has to pose the same question a hundred times. Think Balak.

Jeremiah replies unflinchingly to the man who holds his life in his unstable hands: “You shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon.” But this is a mercy, not a final sentence. It is a last hopeful shaking of the monarch to his senses, to the purpose that he might obey and avert disaster—for the Lord is always ready to relent of the disaster he has decreed when a man repents (Jeremiah 18:8).

The prophet follows a terse pronouncement of unpopular truth with a request for release from prison. The king, always pandering to the last person who has breezed through throne room, obliges. But now, in trot the princes, who call for Jeremiah’s execution. Mr. Pillar of Jello replies: “Behold, he is in your hands, for the king can do nothing against you” (38:5). Indeed.

The Lord, never lacking humor even in the extremities of human pathos, produces an Ethiopian eunuch to be the king’s foil, the courage to his cowardice. Thinking, perhaps, as Esther thought when she screwed up fortitude to enter the royal presence unannounced (Esther 4:14), Ebed-Melech tells the king that the men he has surrounded himself with are “evil.” He succeeds in persuading the ever-persuadable monarch to allow him to fetch Jeremiah from a slimy pit. This is nice for the king, since he would just as soon not have Jeremiah’s blood on his hands, just in case God is really on his side.

Newly extracted from yet another incarceration, the prophet is hauled off to the king, who once again asks “secretly” for word from the Lord (Jeremiah 38:16). Perhaps at this point any prophet would be grateful for a little black bag of oracles, just for variety sake. The message from the Lord, however, is the same boring truth: If you surrender, you can still save yourself.

Both Jeremiah and the Lord know they have to deal with Zedekiah as befitting a coward. The man in a king’s suit is reduced to this: “I am afraid of the Judeans who have deserted to the Chaldeans, lest I be handed over to them and they deal cruelly with me” (38:19).

Since he will not do right for the sake of doing right, since he is not that kind of man, Jeremiah must stoop to appealing to him on the basis of his own safety, not the best interests of the kingdom of God. God deals with the brave as brave, and with the weak as weak. The prophet paints two scenarios, of personal well-being or personal disaster. The king makes Jeremiah swear to not tell the princes of their conversation.

The sequel: The kingdom of Judah is conquered by Babylon. Zedekiah dithers to the end and is carried off to his death—though he has died a thousand times. Jeremiah is shown mercy and finishes his life among the remnant in the Promised Land. Oh, for leaders of valor.

To hear commentaries by Andrée Seu, click here.