Here's the message we need to send back

FT.com / In depth / Terror - Text of statement delivered by Mayor Ken Livingstone

“This was a cowardly attack, which has resulted in injury and loss of life. Our thoughts are with everyone who has been injured, or lost loved ones. I want to thank the emergency services for the way they have responded.
Following the al-Qaeda attacks on September 11 in America we conducted a series of exercises in London in order to be prepared for just such an attack. One of the exercises undertaken by the government, my office and the emergency and security services was based on the possibility of multiple explosions on the transport system during the Friday rush hour. The plan that came out of that exercise is being executed today, with remarkable efficiency and courage, and I praise those staff who are involved.
I’d like to thank Londoners for the calm way in which they have responded to this cowardly attack and echo the advice of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair - do everything possible to assist the police and take the advice of the police about getting home today.
I have no doubt whatsoever that this is a terrorist attack. We did hope in the first few minutes after hearing about the events on the Underground that it might simply be a maintenance tragedy. That was not the case. I have been able to stay in touch through the very excellent communications that were established for the eventuality that I might be out of the city at the time of a terrorist attack and they have worked with remarkable effectiveness. I will be in continual contact until I am back in London.
I want to say one thing specifically to the world today. This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful. It was not aimed at Presidents or Prime Ministers. It was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old. It was an indiscriminate attempt to slaughter, irrespective of any considerations for age, for class, for religion, or whatever.
That isn’t an ideology, it isn’t even a perverted faith - it is just an indiscriminate attempt at mass murder and we know what the objective is. They seek to divide Londoners. They seek to turn Londoners against each other. I said yesterday to the International Olympic Committee, that the city of London is the greatest in the world, because everybody lives side by side in harmony. Londoners will not be divided by this cowardly attack. They will stand together in solidarity alongside those who have been injured and those who have been bereaved and that is why I’m proud to be the mayor of that city.
Finally, I wish to speak directly to those who came to London today to take life.
I know that you personally do not fear giving up your own life in order to take others - that is why you are so dangerous. But I know you fear that you may fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society and I can show you why you will fail.
In the days that follow look at our airports, look at our sea ports and look at our railway stations and, even after your cowardly attack, you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential.
They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don’t want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.”

Saving Fundamentalists from Fundamentalism

Read David James Duncan's "What Fundamentalists Need for Their Salvation". All of it.

I should confess, I almost never read past the jump on a Web page. If it doesn't have a printer-friendly or single-page version (or, in my geekier moments, succumb to disabling style sheets), I don't go past page one, if I even make it to the bottom. I have a much softer heart for those who respect my time and convenience But this is worth reading past the jump, and the first two sentences of the second page is among those I have most identified with in at least a year, maybe five.

Each of these crusader groups has seen itself as fighting to make its own or some other culture "more Christian" even as it tramples the teachings of Christ into a blood-soaked earth. The result, among millions of non-fundamentalists, has been revulsion toward anything that chooses to call itself "Christian."

For expressing a single thought each, as all good sentences do, they encapsulate much of the despair I have felt as good Christians, like my mom, get thrown in with Dobson et al.
Everyone, of every faith, even the faithless and the faith-averse, should read this. Even if you don't subscribe to Christian belief, allowing a dangerous group to usurp its words and its power can not but bring suffering into the world.

What he said, and more

From Billmon:

I know that the freest and fairest societies are those with a free press . . . publishing information that the government does not want to reveal. If they can do that, surely I can face prison to defend a free press.
Judith Miller

Even under the best of circumstances, that would have been a repulsive exercise in shameless pandering. But coming from Judy Miller -- the Pentagon's favorite pre-war pipeline for feeding WMD bullshit to the American public -- it's enough to induce projectile vomiting. ...
When I read Miller's little speech, I'm afraid something snapped. Fuck journalistic principles. I was glad Judge Hogan locked the bitch up -- I only wished he'd thrown the key away. And since we're dealing with a critical national security threat here -- after all, there's a traitor running around the White House making things easier for nuclear terrorists -- it occurred to me that a few stress positions might be in order for a high value detainee like Miller, or maybe a little of the Fear Up Harsh approach -- with a nice lemon chicken dinner afterwards, of course.

Pierce says: You know, if I needed any other evidence that this is just another episode of Judith Miller's persecution complex theater, this little speech would be it. But she's dragged far too many journalists on stage with her, and it's time to stop enabling her sad act.
Note to Ms. Miller: I don't know exactly why you're going to jail, whether it's pure obstinance or protecting one of your pimps, but it sure the hell isn't as a staunch defender of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. I have a strong feeling it's much more about not being seen as the obvious tool you've been, not to mention part of the fine New York Times tradition of admitting error only when it doesn't do anybody much damned good; and to try to hide behind the soldiers you helped put in harm's way for a shitload of lies is crass beyond measure and unforgivable. If you're a journalist, call me something else; I would hate for anyone to conflate myself and my work with you.
It's a damned shame so many people in journalism, both individually and collectively as professional organizations, feel they must stand by this useless, self-important hack who's using the First Amendment as a damned toreador's cape to distract and distort. I'm all for defending the First Amendment, even on principal alone in cases where the speech (or speaker) is repugnant, but that's not what is happening here. Miller's defenders are merely aiding a serial liar.

Missing the Larger Truth in the search for "Truth" About Iraq

Salon.com has a teaser for its article The "Truth" About Iraq" claiming that right wing talk show hosts "are headed to the war zone to report what they already know: U.S. Troops are winning...."
The problem here is that we're winning our way into a Vietnam-style exit; it's not that our troops can't defeat insurgents in open battle, it's that we can't (or won't, in many cases) protect them from the tactics used by the insurgents, whether with enough armor or enough people. But I suppose they have to bring a straw man to the Green Zone, or it wouldn't be right-wing radio.