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…

James Skillen of the Center for Public Justice reviews three recent books on Christian political responsibility (via Byzantine Calvinist). He helpfully distinguishes someone like Jim Wallis as a “civil-religionist of the left” from the more counter-cultural stance of someone like Stanley Hauerwas. Skillen criticizes Wallis for essentially cherry-picking quotes from the OT prophets as though…

But he could do more, says Nicholas Kristof (who, I would think, has pretty good human rights cred with his reporting on sex trafficking and the genocide in the Sudan).

Kyrie Eleison

John Nichols has an excerpt from John Quincy Adam’s semi-famous Independence Day speech given in 1821 when he was Secretary of State (via Dappled Things): And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets,…

How thoughtless of me to forget my own blog birthday! Hard to beleive I’ve been at this for a year.