Faith in the absence of Reason

One on WMD and one on the Republican convention. Frightening.

According to today’s New York Times, Brandon Mayfield, the American convert to Islam [I’m painfully aware that nationality has nothing to do with religion, but that’s the way it’s being reported], who was detained yesterday for involvement in the Madrid train bombings of March 11, may not in fact be involved. The relevant graf is: The law enforcement officials said they were afraid that Mr. Mayfield, who is originally from Kansas, might become a fugitive if he knew he was under suspicion. So monitoring that was just getting started was abruptly halted. Mr. Mayfield was arrested before investigators had fully…

Via a link on Loose Democracy, I found this article by Sen. John Kerry on his vision of the relationship of the US to Israel. It is not, in my mind, a commitment to reforming the Middle East. First, I find it problematic for Sen. Kerry to define America’s interest as the same as Israel’s interest. I do agree that Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia pose various threats to the US, but they are threats to the US; the challenges to Israel, European countries, Russia, etc., are different. By equating America’s and Israel’s interests, it makes it harder to…