Very interesting interview with Robert Pape, University of Chicago political scientist and author of Dying to Win: The Logic of Suicide Terrorism: The American Conservative: Your new book, Dying to Win, has a subtitle: The Logic of Suicide Terrorism. Can you just tell us generally on what the book is based, what kind of research…

Here’s an excerpt from the book Bono in Conversation (via Bunnie Diehl): Assayas: Appalling things seem to happen when people become religious at too early an age or when their experience of life is nonexistent. Don’t you think? Bono: Zealots often have no love for the world. They’re just getting through it to the next…

Will discusses Matthew Scully’s essay “Fear Factories” (via Marcus). The rhetoric of animal “rights” is ill-conceived. The starting point, says Scully, should be with our obligations—the requirements for living with integrity. In defining them, some facts are pertinent, facts about animals’ emotional capacities and their experience of pain and happiness. Such facts refute what conservatives…

I’ve never quite been able to make up my mind whether the Clash’s London Calling is truly one of the greatest rock albums ever, or if it just misses being so by overreaching a bit. I mean, you’ve got, what, twelve songs in a row that are just killer, but once you get toward the…

I’ve never gone out of my way to “brand” myself as a “Lutheran blogger.” For starters, my Lutheran identity isn’t rooted very deeply, having been attending Lutheran churches for only about four and a half years. Secondly, my “religious identity,” such as it is, has been formed by a lot of non-Lutheran influences – mainly…

For some time now the loudest voices in the debate over how best to respond to the threat of terrorism have tended to be on the extremes. On the one hand, the Bush administration and most conservatives have taken the general line that the terrorists are simply evil nihilists who have no discernible political goals.…

Here’s an interview with political scientist John Mueller that is free of much of the cant we tend to hear from both right and left. Some samples: Reason: You were opposed to the invasion of Iraq. All day today we’ve seen ghoulish opportunists on both sides of that debate making the claim that this proves…

Bystanders fight off a crazed knife-wielding maniac, saving a young woman’s life. (via Gene Healy)

An interview with Kenyan economist James Shikwati who says “If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid.” (via Siris) Differing reflections on the London terrorist attacks from Timothy Burke and Caleb McDaniel (via Cliopatria). UPDATE: More thoughtful stuff from Prof. Burke here. Jonathan at The Ivy…

Long-time readers (both of you) may know of my checkered voting history – I voted for Bush in 2000, but, mostly because of disgruntlement with the Iraq war I voted for David Cobb of the Green Party in 2004. Which has led me to wonder, is there any Republican I could vote for now?Well, 2008…