Joe Carter

From the AP : The son of one of Hamas’ founders served as a top informant for Israel for more than a decade, providing top-secret intelligence that helped prevent dozens of suicide bombings and other attacks against Israelis, a newspaper reported Wednesday. Mosab Hassan Yousef, dubbed as . . . . Continue Reading »

In your post , Jody, you mention that, “You could elect 86 senators with a minority of the population, as the bottom 43 states have fewer people, in total, than the top seven states.” If the always-reliable Wikipedia is to be believed, it has always been possible to elect a majority of . . . . Continue Reading »

What is the reason we educate children? Because of the role of the state and the support of schools with public funds, the most commonly accepted answer has become, “to create an educated citizenry.” Christopher Tollefsen acknowledges that this can be part of the purpose but pushes back . . . . Continue Reading »

In his latest New York Times column, Stanley Fish reviews The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse. The new book by law professor Steven Smith argues that there are no secular reasons, at least not, as Fish summarizes, “reasons of the kind that could justify a decision to take one course of . . . . Continue Reading »

Yesterday I linked to Rich Lowry and Ramesh Ponnuru’s excellent article on American exceptionalism , in which they say: To find the roots of American exceptionalism, you have to start at the beginning — or even before the beginning. They go back to our mother country. Historian Alan . . . . Continue Reading »

According to the Washington Times , last week the Supreme Court set oral arguments for April 19 in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez , a case in which the University of California’s Hastings College of Law denied official recognition to the Christian Legal Society. The school refused to . . . . Continue Reading »

R. R. Reno laments the civic failure of American higher education : Colleges and universities today manifest a paradoxical combination of remarkable success and abject failure. Vast resources and extensive funding for research have made our system of higher education the envy of the world—but . . . . Continue Reading »

At National Review , Rich Lowry and Ramesh Ponnuru have a valuable essay on “the Obama administration’s assault on American identity”: What do we, as American conservatives, want to conserve ? The answer is simple: the pillars of American exceptionalism. Our country has always been . . . . Continue Reading »

First Things and Encounter Books Invite You To An Evening With Wesley J. Smith To celebrate the publication of A Rat Is a Pig Is a Dog Is a Boy: The Human Cost of the Animal Rights Movement Date: Thursday, March 4, 2010 Time: 6:00 PM Location: First Things Editorial Offices 35 East 21st Street, . . . . Continue Reading »

A temple complex in Turkey —older than both Stonehenge and the Pyramids—may overturn many of the assumptions of modern archeology and anthropology: Standing on the hill at dawn, overseeing a team of 40 Kurdish diggers, the German-born archeologist [Klaus Schmidt] waves a hand over his . . . . Continue Reading »