Thanks to Aaron Lewis, who saw my praise for Hilary Mantel’s Booker-Prize-winning novels about Thomas Cromwell and sent me a link to a review of her Wolf Hall by the late Christopher Hitchens. He may have been an atheist, but he was an atheist who supported
The war in Iraq is pretty much over and the war in Afghanistan is winding down, bringing to an end our wars sparked by 9/11–right? Well, not exactly. It turns out the drone war may go on for at least another ten years. The Obama
Luther is not the only one that gets credited for quotable lines that he didn’t really say. (E.g., the principle of voting for “wise turks,” as we discussed.) St. Francis of Assissi gets the same treatment. Here a Franciscan priest, Father Pat McCloskey, responds to
The third-party candidates also had a debate. Here are highlights: Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party nominee, earned the loudest applause during the debate’s opening moments. He railed against the domestic and foreign policy proposals both major party candidates have put forth, and called for the
One possibility in the election: Both candidates get 269 electoral votes, resulting in a tie. From Napp Nazworth: In a Thursday blog post, University of Virginia political scientists Larry Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley point out that a tie in the electoral college, 269-269,
The San Francisco Giants did to the St. Louis Cardinals what the Cardinals had been doing to everyone else, coming back from near certain elimination to advance to the World Series. They are playing the Detroit Tigers, a team that has the thanks and admiration
From Methodist minister Chris Brundage at Christian Century: I have a new name for God, at least new to me. The old three-letter word “God” is worn out. Words only last so long before they need to be retired for a season. The word “God”
Democrats are calling attempts, usually led by Republicans, to try to prevent voter fraud as racist attempts to suppress the vote. Democrats complain that voter ID laws and similar proposals are tackling a non-existent problem. But John Fund and Hans von Spakovsky say that the
The presidential campaign will cost some $4 billion. We worry about so much spending and what special interests contribute so much money. But another question, Michael Wolff points out, is who gets all of that money? The answer: Television stations, despite the way this flies
Thanks to everybody who live-blogged the debates with me. As has been said, “that was fun.” The instant back-and-forth in real time made for a lively online conversation. We’ll have to look for other opportunities to do that sort of thing. (Any ideas for that?
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