Our afternoon guest columnist is Drummond Pike, CEO and founder of the Tides Foundation.

Dear Fox Advertiser,

I am writing to ask your company to take a simple step that may well save lives in the future. And it is not unimportant that taking this action will remove your company and its products from any connection to what could very likely be an unpleasant tragedy, should things remain as they are today. On behalf of my organization, and many others like it, I ask that you cease advertising on the Fox News Channel.

This is neither a hollow request, nor one rhetorically made. There is an urgency to it born of our own direct experience as the target of a would-be assassin inspired by Fox’s Glenn Beck Show.

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How to manufacture an NYT bestseller: “Asking that hosts buy books is also a standard feature of book tours. But Romney’s total [speech] price — $50,000 — was on the high end, and his publisher, according to the document from the book tour… asked institutions to pay at least $25,000, and up to the full $50,000 price, in bulk purchases of the book.” [Politico, via Political Wire]

Yesterday we posted a 1994 memo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, explaining the options a President has when faced with enforcing a law he considers unconstitutional — or, as we’re addressing here, defending an unconstitutional law.

Like say, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Or the Defense of Marriage Act.

The Obama Administration’s defense of its defense is straightforward: Their hands are tied. As long as the law is on the books, they’re obligated to defend it, all the way to the Supreme Court. The President reiterated this defense Thursday on MTV:

Congress explicitly passed a law that took away the power of the executive branch to end this policy unilaterally, so this is not a situation in which with a stroke of a pen I can simply end the policy.

This is not quite the case.

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“First lady Michelle Obama appears to have violated Illinois law — when she engaged in political discussion at a polling place! [After voting] she let voters including electrician Dennis Campbell, 56, take some photos. ‘She was telling me how important it was to vote to keep her husband’s agenda going,’ Campbell said.” [Drudge]

Just as the final miners were being rescued yesterday, angels began appearing in the skies above Manhattan, thanking America for the miracle provided by free-market capitalism.

Hey, makes as much sense as this:

Not long after the first sightings, messages began appearing on Twitter linking to a month-old press release announcing the publication of a book by a retired NORAD officer predicting that UFOs would buzz the earth’s major cities on Oct. 13.

Proof that intelligent life exists in the universe: the UFOs took one look at Earth and got the hell out of here.

Mystery shiny objects floating over Manhattan spark UFO frenzy [Daily News]

“So should state workers be able to vote in state elections on matters that would benefit them directly? The same question goes for federal workers in federal elections. I’m not suggesting that public employees should be denied the right to vote, but that there are certain cases in which their stake in the matter may be too great.” [NRO]

“Harry Whittington is too gracious to say it out loud, but he doesn’t dispute the notion, either. Nearly five years on, he’s still waiting for Dick Cheney to say he’s sorry.” [WaPo]