Editors' Note  —  Earlier this morning, we posted a letter that was signed by Bertrand Delanoe, the mayor of Paris, sharply criticizing Caroline Kennedy.  —  This letter was a fake.  It should not have been published.  —  Doing so violated both our standards and our procedures in publishing signed letters from our readers.

With most ballot challenges settled, Franken leads by 48  —  With most ballot challenges settled, Democrat Al Franken holds a 48-vote lead over Republican Sen. Norm Coleman in the U.S. Senate recount, according to a Star Tribune analysis of a draft report from the Secretary of State's office.

The Choice Is Ours Now  —  This is a message for my brothers and sisters who have fought so long and so hard for gay rights and liberty.  We have spent a long time climbing up this mountain, looking at the impossible, changing a thousand year-old paradigm.  We have asked for the right to love …

Paparazzi Photog Gets a ‘Pec-tacular’ Obama Shot  —  HONOLULU — More than a dozen photographs of a bathing suit-clad President-elect Barack Obama surfaced online Monday showing the shirtless Chicagoan accompanied by his wife, Michelle, and their two young daughters on the white-sand beach in front of their vacation home.

Putting a CAP on Yglesias  —  It's been awhile since there's been a good, old fashioned “you can't do that in the blogosphere” controversy, but this morning Memeorandum brings us one in the form of a public rebuke to nomadic Center for American Progress (CAP) blogger Matthew Yglesias by CAP interim chief executive Jennifer Palmieri.

Sarah Palin: Conservative of the Year  —  Sarah Palin wins HUMAN EVENTS' prestigious “Conservative of the Year” Award for 2008 for her genius at annoying all the right people.  The last woman to get liberals this hot under the collar would have been ... let's see now ... oh, yeah: Me!

5 men convicted of conspiracy in Fort Dix plot  —  CAMDEN, N.J. - Five Muslim immigrants accused of scheming to massacre U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix were convicted of conspiracy Monday in a case that tested the FBI's post-Sept. 11 strategy of infiltrating and breaking up terrorist plots in their earliest stages.

A Special Note Re: Hummus  —  This is James Bennet, editor of The Atlantic.  —  Most readers know that the views expressed on Jeffrey's blog are his own and don't always reflect the views of The Atlantic.  Such is the case with regard to Jeffrey's comments on the relative merits of hummus and baba ghanoush.

Bush v. Gore Still Influencing Court Decisions  —  The Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore, issued eight years ago this month, was widely understood to work like that tape recorder in “Mission: Impossible.”  It was meant to produce a president and then self-destruct.

Pope likens “saving” gays to saving the rainforest  —  VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict said on Monday that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behavior was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.  —  “(The Church) should also protect man from the destruction of himself.

Bush at Walter Reed: Between Chicken and Egg, I'll go with Chicken  —  Today's headline news, in all its various establishment media permutations, was full of stories about Still-President George W. Bush paying a visit to wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center this morning.

Arabs lavish jewels on Secretary of State Rice  —  Featured Topics: - Barack Obama - Presidential Transition  —  WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush's foreign policies may be unpopular in the Middle East, but Arab leaders showered his top diplomat with jewelry worth far more than a quarter of a million dollars last year.

Saudi court tells girl aged EIGHT she cannot divorce husband who is 50 years her senior … A Saudi court has rejected a plea to divorce an eight-year-old girl married off by her father to a man who is 58, saying the case should wait until the girl reaches puberty.

Washington Is Killing Silicon Valley  —  Entrepreneurship was taken for granted.  Now we're seeing a lot less of it.  —  Even as economic losses and unemployment levels mount, America's most effective engine for wealth and job creation is being dangerously — perhaps fatally — compromised.