YEAH, BLOGGING WAS A LITTLE LIGHT TODAY: I stored up some scheduled posts and then went to Nashville and back to attend a memorial service for my friend Bob Simms, who died earlier this week. Bob played guitar for a band called The Soul System, which got some regional fame back in the 1960s, went to Sewanee and Cumberland Law School, and then worked as counsel for the Tennessee Senate Judiciary Committee for over 3 decades. I met him when I interned for that committee in college and we kept in touch. Doug Weinstein and I saw him in the hospice last week and he wasn’t doing well, though he recognized us and seemed glad to see us. Still it’s a shock.

There was quite a turnout of Nashville notables — Sen. Doug Henry was the very first person I saw on the way in, and he seems largely unchanged from when I was in college — but what was most impressive was the turnout of extended family and childhood friends. Quite a few partners from his brother’s law firm turned out, too, which I thought was a very nice touch.

Bob was a terrific guy, and the world is diminished by his loss.

SOME NETROOTS UNHAPPINESS with the Greg Craig appointment.

GETTING IT WRONG: Heh:

Meanwhile, a lot of Utah Mormons are thinking “they’re boycotting Sundance? Sweet! Maybe Robert Redford will take it somewhere else from now on.”

Yes, that seems like odd targeting.

IF REPUBLICANS SAID THIS, IT WOULD BE McCarthyism.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RENEE: Kenneth Anderson emails: “My Kid turned 16 and to my surprise one of the things she asked for as a birthday present was a junior NRA membership. She would be tickled pink if you would consider posting a happy birthday note to her and congratulating her on becoming the NRA’s newest junior member … here’s a photo of her from a couple of years ago that would probably please the Instapunditry.” Happy Birthday and congratulations, Renee, and thanks for setting a good example to America’s youth!

TIGERHAWK REVIEWS BARACK OBAMA’S 60 MINUTES APPEARANCE: “The Obamas were dignified, modest, amusing, sometimes funny, apparently genuine and almost entirely non-partisan in tone. This will not persist, but it is what the country wants right now. Hell, it is what I want right now.”

UPDATE: Reader Greg Gransden writes:

I watched it, too. I would have been more reassured if the FDR book Obama says he’s been reading was Amity Shlaes’ “The Forgotten Man,” which painstakingly demonstrates how Roosevelt’s economic policies helped to prolong and worsen the Great Depression.

Unfortunately, the book Obama’s been reading actually lavishes praise on FDR’s economic management in the early months of his presidency – which seems to me precisely the wrong lesson to take away from that period.

Uh oh. More on FDR’s policies and the Depression here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Bill Quick is taking the not-a-dime’s-worth-of-difference angle.

“JUBILANT:” Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn.

THE TRAILER FOR Tomb Raider: Underworld.

WHY I LOVE KNOXVILLE: Yesterday, the World’s Fair Park featured both a pro-gay-marriage rally and the opening of the new Veterans’ Memorial, back to back. And nothing ugly happened at either one.

BLOGGER JOE LANCE IS RUNNING for Mayor of Chattanooga.

MORE ON THE POST-ELECTION GUN SALES BOOM, from SayUncle.

Plus, guns scare journalists.

INCENTIVES: Are you an idiot to keep paying your mortgage?

FASHION MAGAZINES ARE suffering from advertising cutbacks.

FUTURISTS, REJOICE: Lots of coverage of the Convergence ’08 conference at The Speculist.

LOOKS GOOD: A crab dip recipe from Tom Douglas.

IT’S NOT JUST FOR DEMOCRATS ANYMORE! Rand Simberg on “Republican Religiophobia.”

OBAMAMANIA not taking hold in Japan. “Japanese media seem concerned that officials there have few contacts with Obama or his advisers and that Obama doesn’t seem to know much about Japan.” Reader Paul Harper, who’s living in Japan and sent the link, adds: “Hope? Over here we have a different four-letter word to solve problems: w-o-r-k.”

Work? That’s unAmerican! Besides, who needs to work when Obama will be paying our mortgages?

STIMULATE CAR BUYERS, NOT CAR MAKERS: “Government rebates would do less harm than a bailout.”

PAUL MIRENGOFF on the GOP’s prospects: “The Democrats won’t be ousted from power when the Republicans develop great conservative policies with cross-over appeal; the Democrats will be ousted when the electorate concludes that they have screwed things up. . . . Consider this year’s election. The liberal Democrats did not return to power because of this or that domestic policy idea or because, more generally, they had conducted a sober reassessment of liberal dogma following prior setbacks. They returned to power, without having revised much of anything, because the electorate was sick of the Republican administration. This scenario is the rule in presidential politics, not the exception.”

SMALL WARS JOURNAL: How Should the U.S. Execute a Surge in Afghanistan? Michael Yon emails the link and adds: “Last time I was in Afghanistan, I mentioned an off-the-cuff number that we might need something like 50k more troops. . . . This 25-40k clearly will NOT BE ENOUGH. They pick that figure because that’s all they are likely to get in their wildest dreams. Let’s seal this in Iraq, and then we’ve got some troops!” How many troops can we support, logistically, in Afghanistan?