The New Republic

In his interview with the Washington Post yesterday, Barack Obama emphasized his distinctly un-Hillarylike prospects for healing the country's partisan divide, telling Dan Balz, "I think it is fair to say that I believe I can bring the country together more effectively than she can." Obama's desire to remake American politics also runs throughout our beloved Ryan Lizza's excellent new READ MORE >>

The Dutch Catholic bishop about whom I posted yesterday wants to replace the word "God" with "Allah" so that comity between religions will be mankind's peaceful future. READ MORE >>

I don't know whether this Associated Press dispatch has actually gotten around. But it is a report at once idiotic and, coming from a Dutch Catholic, naturally self-abnegating. Bishop Martinus "Tiny" Muskens, from the southern diocese of Breda, has called on Catholics to call God "Allah" and to pray to Allah. This is reducing theological and philosophical differences, that is, to their bare minimum. In fact, to READ MORE >>

'Take off your veil!" the Somali soldier shouted at the woman in the mostly empty street. Steadying his assault rifle with his right hand, he ripped away the woman's black niqab with his left. "Why are you coming so close to us? You have explosives?" He leveled the muzzle of his gun against the bridge of her nose. Her mouth, suddenly embarrassed and exposed, broke into a jester's forced grin. READ MORE >>

I agree with Andrew that it's disappointing, to say the least, that David Petraeus would go on right-wing partisan shill Hugh Hewitt's radio show. That said, after reading the transcript, I thought Petraeus acquitted himself fairly well. READ MORE >>

Tel Aviv has had a facelift. Actually, its facelift was begun about a decade ago. And it has made an enormous difference. The city is not quite a hundred years old. But its integrated design was not finished until 1925 when Sir Patrick Geddes delivered his city plan to the town guardians. Geddes, a botanist and biologist who will be remembered in history as a prophet of the "garden city" movement, heavily influenced Lewis Mumford of whom, alas, not many of you heard. Check him out. READ MORE >>

One other consequence of the London and Glasgow incidents is that leading Muslims in the United Kingdom have been stirred to act. Even the Muslim Council of Britain felt able to condemn the attacks, doubtless having been relieved that the would-be terrorists had not been "born and bred" in Britain. The MCB and its ilk never spoke for all British Muslims even if it sometimes seemed as if they did. Regardless, new voices are piping up. READ MORE >>

One of the consequences of the unfortunate developments in Iraq is that intervention anywhere else anytime in the future is going to be a tougher thing to sell. Many will welcome this of course. Still, there is one small country where at least some people would welcome the arrival of the Royal Marines: READ MORE >>

Islamabad--Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the strategist and brains behind the Taliban-inspired movement that has taken over the Pakistani capital in recent months, may have overplayed his hand. On June 23, just after midnight, a squad of Islamist vigilantes set out from Ghazi's Lal Masjid, or "Red Mosque," in the direction of a Chinese massage parlor across town. READ MORE >>

From Matt Continetti's Weekly Standard piece on Giuliani: READ MORE >>