FUN FROM THE ARCHIVES: My prayer for Stanley Hauerwas from 2002. Further thoughts here.

MEGAN MCARDLE: How Can Republicans Take Back The Majority? I Have A Few Little Ideas Right Here.

EVERYBODY’S GOT ADVICE: Barbara Yaffe: Republicans need to take a page from Stephen Harper’s playbook. Well, to be fair, following that playbook requires that Ed Morrissey bring down the current government.

And I somehow missed this during the election: “Romney, in his campaign, was forever jabbering about protecting religious groups’ rights not to fund contraceptive pills for their employees, closing Planned Parenthood, restricting abortion.”

I believe, actually, that it was the Democrats who were jabbering about those subjects. Romney’s error was letting them set the narrative. Next time, the GOP will want less Karl Rove, more Lee Atwater.

AT SOME POINT, YOU’VE RAISED ENOUGH MONEY: IowaHawk: Let tax cuts expire on $250k+ income, get $50-$60B in revenue. Confiscate endowments of Harvard, Stanford & Yale, get $70B.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Sex Robot ‘Longevity Orgasms’ May Help Extend Human Life Spans, Futurists Suggest.

Hey, kids: Don’t date robots!

Futurama – Don’t date robots from John Pope on Vimeo.

MICHAEL MOYNIHAN: From Katrina To Sandy, FEMA Rumors and Failures Keep Swirling.

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: IRS Flunks GAO Audit . . . Again.

A GLOOMY TAKE ON THINGS FROM DAN GIFFORD:

Romney lost because he refused to provide an alternative for fear of being labelled a warmonger, flint-heart or social reactionary. He refused to engage with any of the issues that made this Presidential election so truly momentous. Up against the bullying of the totalitarian left, he ran for cover. He played safe, and as a result only advertised his own weakness and dishonesty. Well, voters can smell inconsistency from a mile away; they call it untrustworthiness, and they are right …
like Britain’s Conservative Party, the Republicans just don’t understand that America and the west are being consumed by a culture war. In their cowardice and moral confusion, they all attempt to appease the enemies within. And from without, the Islamic enemies of civilization stand poised to occupy the void.

Well, I think we’ll get someone different next time.

UPDATE: Oops. It’s from Melanie Phillips. Dan Gifford just emailed it to me. Sorry — insufficient coffee.

DEAR MATT DRUDGE: Please stop drawing attention to things that might inconveniently excite the rabble.

JIM TREACHER: Petraeus resigns, and it definitely has nothing to do with Benghazi.

Plus, blog comment of the day:

Okay. Just so we’ve all got our history right:

1990’s: Use an ill-timed military exercise to divert attention from the botched handling of an extramarital affair.

2010’s: Use an ill-timed extramarital affair to divert attention from the botched handling of a military exercise.

I would say “heh,” but it’s not exactly funny.

AT AMAZON, new Digital Deals.

WAR ON MEN: “Mommy, Why Would You Write a Book with Such a Mean Title?” The Insta-Wife reviews Hanna Rosin’s The End of Men And The Rise of Women, but the quote is from Rosin’s own young son.

OLIVER STONE: “I find Obama scary.”

A NEW BLOG INSPIRED BY THIS WEEK’S ELECTION: TrumpetOfReason.com.

MICHAEL WALSH ON PETRAEUS: David and Bathsheba. “He needs to be called before the Intelligence Committee and to testify about the truth of what happened in Benghazi, including the real reason that ambassador Stevens was there — which, if the rumors of a gun-running operation to Syria are true (shades of both Fast and Furious and Iran-Contra) could be highly deleterious to the administration, and which might have had an effect on the election had they been publicly known. Petraeus should welcome the opportunity, and in fact insist on it. It would be his final act of patriotism — and should he be prevented by the administration and its Democratic allies in Congress from testifying, then his forced silence will speak almost as loudly and even more eloquently.”

UPDATE: Ralph Peters: “Timing is just too perfect.” “Just as the administration claimed it was purely coincidence that our Benghazi consulate was attacked on the anniversary of September 11th. Now it’s purely coincidence that this affair — extra-marital affair — surfaces right after the election, not before, but right after, but before the intelligence chiefs go to Capitol Hill to get grilled. As an old intelligence analyst, Neil, the way I read this — I could be totally wrong, this is my interpretation — is that the administration was unhappy with Petraeus not playing ball 100% on their party-line story. I think it’s getting cold feet about testifying under oath on their party-line story. And I suspect that these tough Chicago guys knew about this affair for a while, held it in their back pocket until they needed to play the card.”

CHANGE: Modern male friendships. “The report argues the evolution of friendship has moved from the reserved 19th and 20th century model, in which men were more independently minded, to a 21st century interconnected world of the kind depicted in films such as ‘Wedding Crashers,’ in which two friends openly profess their emotional reliance on each other.”

Actually, such friendships were common in Victorian times. Things changed because of growing awareness of homosexuality, and resultant fear of looking gay, which has now abated since nobody cares.

KATRINA ON THE HUDSON: A Storm-Ravaged Neighborhood Struggles To Survive.

ENDING COFFEE CONFUSION with language reform. “Instead of the tall, grande or venti sizes favoured by big-name shops such as Starbucks, customers in Debenhams can now simply ask for a cup or mug.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Welcome to Star Scholar U., where professors are the credential.

IT’S TIME TO REALIZE what you voted for.

AT AMAZON, pre-Black Friday deals in Home, Kitchen & Garden.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 5 New Uses For Bubble Wrap.

GENERAL PETRAEUS RESIGNS OVER AN AFFAIR, BUT . . . “Is the resignation really about the affair… or is it connected to Benghazi?”

Who was the affair with? That would seem to matter. He was scheduled to testify on Benghazi next week.

UPDATE: Moe Lane: “Seriously, Is there a single member of this administration that has a better public reputation now than when he or she started?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: “If only Petraeus was president instead of head of the CIA then sleeping around wouldn’t be an issue.” That depends. Is he a Democrat?

MORE: So extramarital affairs are now “get of of testifying free” cards? Good to know.

MORE STILL: Stephen Hayes: If David Petraeus was truly “looking forward to testifying” about Benghazi, as his friends claim, what’s stopping him from doing so?

Also: “The way to defuse every single conspiracy theory is to testify, as planned.”

NEGATIVE REVIEW: Spielberg’s Boring Lincoln Like Cramming For the Oscar Final. “Lincoln won’t win any Oscars, and doesn’t deserve any. It’s a hopeless bore that, in an attempt to humanize an icon, turns him into a mere politician. The film has a couple of very strong points but otherwise it’s a near total write-off and a waste of your time.”

AT ABOVE THE LAW: Departure Memo of the Day: Parenting Gets The Best Of One Biglaw Associate. It’s true. You can’t “have it all.” But you never could, and it was never just a problem for women. They’re just the ones who complain about it most loudly. I remember one bigshot partner at my old firm — a huge success, but when his five-year-old drew a family picture in Kindergarten, he left him out of it. That caused him to do some soul-searching and change his approach to work, and undoubtedly his career suffered as a result.

As David Lat Elie Mystal observes: “A lot of people have trouble keeping friendships while working Biglaw.” That’s why these jobs pay a lot. They’re hard.