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!

On this day in 1980: 350 million people around the world tuned in to the TV series Dallas to find out who shot J.R. Ewing.

Welcome to our daily (except Sundays) open thread, where you, the commenters, choose the topics of conversation.

Click here for a look back at the news of the week, colorfully illustrated by some of the best editorial cartoonists in the business: Pulitzer Prize-winner Steve Breen, Michael Ramirez, Scott Stantis, 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.

Whether it’s about trees, parades, festivals, displays, or greetings, the outcry this time of year usually involves someone deciding to call something “holiday” rather than “Christmas.” Not so in the community of Patchogue on New York’s Long Island. Last year, the town and the local chamber of commerce were concerned about a popular annual event not being inclusive enough so they rechristened it the “Holiday Boat Parade.” However, the number of spectators dramatically dropped off last year, so the Patchogue Riverfront Committee, which assumed sponsorship of the event this year, has renamed it the “Christmas Holiday Boat Parade”

Here are some highlights from the Dec. 5 issue of WORLD Magazine:

COVER STORY Homegrown terror: Experts say the threat of domestic terrorism is growing. But are officials ready to call it what it is? WORLD’s Lynn Vincent reports.

HEALTHCARE Non-buyers beware: Mandates in current healthcare bills to buy insurance–or face jail time–are raising prospect of civil disobedience and constitutional challenges.

MOVIE REVIEW Is everybody fine? WORLD’s Marvin Olasky says the two-dimensional focus of Everybody’s Fine limits a good film about an aging father.

MINDY BELZ Wasting the honeymoon: So far Bush has a better record for closing Guantanamo.

Good morning!

On this day in 1620: Peregrine White was born aboard the Mayflower in Massachusetts Bay—the first child born of English parents in present-day New England.

Welcome to our daily (except Sundays) open thread, where you, the commenters, choose the topics of conversation.

WORLD’s Washington Bureau chief Edward Lee Pitts is closely following healthcare reform activity on Capitol Hill, and this afternoon he reports the latest on Harry Reid’s Senate version of the bill, including how it treats abortion:

The Senate bill also does not include strict limitations on taxpayer-funded abortions. It rejects language in the House healthcare bill that pro-life Democrats secured after successfully pressuring House leaders.

Rather than containing tight exclusions against federally funded abortions, the Senate version adopts an approach that could lead to the inclusion of abortion coverage in the bill’s public option. It mandates the inclusion of at least one plan with elective abortion coverage in each state’s health insurance exchange.

While wrapped in legal language, the intent of the eight pages in the bill devoted to abortion can be discerned by the way pro-abortion advocates have praised it while pro-life groups have attacked it.

“Reid has sought to please the militant minority that demands funding of abortion through federal programs, even though substantial majorities of Americans believe that abortion should be excluded from government-funded and government-sponsored health programs,” said Douglas Johnson with the National Right to Life Committee.

At Thursday’s rally, Reid said the bill’s abortion provisions are “in keeping with what the traditions have been in our country for more than 30 years.”

But his bill also empowers the Health and Human Services secretary to perform periodic updates of a qualified plan’s essential benefits. Such a review could lead to a major change: the eventual inclusion of abortion as an essential benefit.

Read Lee’s report in its entirety here.

After a vote in September to spend a year considering the formation of a new denomination, Lutheran CORE (Coalition for Renewal) has shifted into high gear to distance itself from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The move is in reaction to a vote taken in August by the ELCA to allow practicing homosexuals in committed relationships to serve as clergy, a move that Lutheran CORE members say directly contradicts Scripture.

Ryan Schwarz, who is leading the organizing effort, said a committee would begin work immediately on drafting a constitution and building a budget for the new denomination, which CORE hopes to launch by next August.

“Many of us have spent years now struggling to call the ELCA to remain faithful to the Orthodox Christianity of the last 2,000 years,” Schwarz said. “While this is of course a wrenching decision, there is also a sense of hope in refocusing on our true mission, which is evangelizing the Lutheran faith.”

Lutheran CORE is urging supportive congregations to stop paying support to the ECLA, and for those opposed to the denomination’s liberal policy but don’t want to leave the ELCA, CORE will continue in its efforts to try to create a free-floating synod within the ELCA.

Good morning!

On this day in 1863: President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address.

Welcome to our daily (except Sundays) open thread, where you, the commenters, choose the topics of conversation.

When WORLD senior writer and book reviewer Susan Olasky first picked up Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue at the bookstore yesterday, she didn’t have high expectations. She writes:

Most political autobiographies are boring because the candidate is afraid to write anything that might lose a vote, so I was pleasantly surprised to find the first half of the book to be vivid and revealing. Palin (helped by WORLD senior writer Lynn Vincent) describes her Alaska childhood, her teenage years, meeting Todd, working her way through college, eloping (and rustling up a couple of witnesses from a nursing home), and having babies. Meanwhile, she was developing her Christian faith and a libertarian-leaning political philosophy that eventually led her into local politics.

Susan goes on to talk about the other half of the book, which relives the 2008 presidential campaign:

I understand why she felt she had to defend herself from anonymous attacks, but that part of the book seems old, although she does include some weird tidbits: For example, McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt was apparently concerned that Palin was on the Atkins diet and told her to stop, adding that the campaign was going to bring a nutritionist on board to teach her how to eat.

Read Susan’s review in its entirety here.