A COUNTERTERROR FARCE in New Jersey.

BLOOD-BLOGGING: I donated blood again for the Blue/Orange blood drive. (This picture is actually from last year because — yes, it’s humiliating to admit — I didn’t have a digital camera on me. But it looked about the same, except that I was wearing a Tennessee Law Review t-shirt this time.)

As I’ve noted before, the extremely strict rules on blood donation nowadays mean there’s often a shortage of donors. I try to give whenever I can to help make up for that, and I encourage you to do the same if you’re eligible to give blood.

A LIST OF THIS YEAR’S hottest toys and games.

COULD TIM RUSSERT please be more boring? Call me crazy, but I think he could rise to the challenge.

But hey, if candidates want gotcha-free, expository, Brian-Lamb style questioning they can always come to The Glenn and Helen Show! Now on XM, too!

QUESTIONS ON LAW AND RELIGION: “If the state can get into the institution of ordination, and regulate credentials of ministers, what’s to stop it from getting into the credentials of journalists, and regulate online journalism? I better ordain myself as an online journalist fast, before they close the ‘loophole.'”

Plus, Santa as Satan?

LINUX BEATS OUT WINDOWS, in Nigeria.

CHINESE-MADE HARD DRIVES with Trojan-horse malware preinstalled? More damage to the brand . . . .

TREASURE DIVING near Key West.

PLEASE SUPPORT Project Valour-IT.

KISSING COUSINS: The latest Ask Dr. Helen column is up! Plus, do you need to marry young if you want to have six kids?

IN THE MAIL: Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins’ The Nuclear Jihadist: The True Story of the Man Who Sold the World’s Most Dangerous Secrets…And How We Could Have Stopped Him.

GINA ELISE AT PINUPS FOR VETS is putting out a new calendar for 2008. Money goes to help wounded veterans. [Pic of Gina removed because it was big, and there are better ones at her site.]

AN UNDERGROUND SOCIETY OF HOLLYWOOD CONSERVATIVES? No doubt studios will force people to name names so that they can ensure these people don’t further pollute the culture . . . .

WOMEN GATHERING AT HOMES FOR . . . TASER PARTIES? “Events Called Tupperware Parties Of 2007.”

Hey, you can get them in pink. And they do seem to work.

MORE SPITZER SCANDALS: He’s really managed to run up an impressive degree of chicanery in short order. Normally, you have to wait ’til the second term for this kind of thing, except maybe in Louisiana.

UPDATE: More here: “The Governor has some explaining to do.”

ON FAST FORWARD RADIO, an interview with cancer-proof mouse inventor Zheng Cui. Plus, a print interview here.

A LOOK AT MUSA QALA’S terror university.

A FAILED CONGRESSIONAL PLOY: “The ploy had been hatched behind closed doors by Democratic leaders of both houses. A pork-laden appropriations bill filled with $1 billion in earmarks would combine with veto-proof spending for veterans. Instead, the two measures were decoupled in a Senate party-line vote last Tuesday. The Democratic scheme to present President George W. Bush with a bill that he could not veto seemed a clever strategy, but it was based on presumption of Republican ignorance and cowardice.” So you can see why they thought they had a shot . . . .

CAPT. ED ON CNN, talking about Hillary’s question-planting problems.

WALTER SHAPIRO: Obama goes for the capillaries.

A REAL DA VINCI CODE:

An Italian musician and computer technician claims to have uncovered musical notes encoded in Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Last Supper,” raising the possibility that the Renaissance genius might have left behind a somber composition to accompany the scene depicted in the 15th-century wall painting.

“It sounds like a requiem,” Giovanni Maria Pala said. “It’s like a soundtrack that emphasizes the passion of Jesus.”

Read the whole thing.

GEORGE WILL: Peru, and other menaces. Apparently, some people are scared of Colombia’s economic might, too. I’m told that union opposition to the Colombia free trade deal — which is very important for foreign policy reasons — stems not so much from the merits as from a desire to show that they can stop something.

“IGNORE AL GORE, but not his Nobel friends.“

SO WHAT’S YOUR POINT? “This is what happens when you hand your camera to a guy and ask him to take a picture.”

NBC DIRECT: Could it suck more? “Did we mention the shows are only good for 48 hours after download?”