Charlie Hebdo addresses the American election.

"Obama — an ordinary citizen once again."

IN THE COMMENTS: Mid-Life Lawyer said:

Thanks to Obama led leftist agitators, this probably is the impression of the USA that many citizens of other countries have of us. 

The New Yorker badly botches the juxtapostion of cartoon and text.

This is what I'm seeing at The New Yorker right now:



The article is a valuable, interesting piece by Patrick Radden Keefe called "The Worst of the Worst/Judy Clarke excelled at saving the lives of notorious killers. Then she took the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev." Seventeen of the Boston bombing victims are now amputees.

From a local news report on the trial:

"I heard 'please' and 'Martin' being uttered by Denise Richard," said Steve Woolfenden, who was lying on the pavement next to Martin and his mother after the second bomb exploded. "Just pleading with her son."...

Woolfenden's left leg had been sheared off below the knee. He described frantically trying to get his 3-year-old son, Leo, out of his stroller after he heard him screaming and saw he was bleeding from the side of his head. As he lay helpless on the pavement, he spotted Martin and Denise Richard.

Questioning the sincerity of Althouse's religion.

From the comments on my post "You know what's weird about all the pushback I'm getting on the Biblical reading I provided?," Mid-Life Lawyer said:

For many of us it is offensive when those who do not properly respect the scriptures or give them their proper authority, pull them out and use them out of context to make a political point....

I have read your site for several years, commenting occasionally, and I feel pretty confident that you don't take much stock in the whole Christianity thing.

The Godfather said:

I get the feeling that some Christian commenters don't think your citations of scripture are sincere. They think you're being a smart ass. It doesn't really bother me: You're a law prof, and my experience leads me to conclude that all law profs are smart asses.

And Jon Burack said:

As to Mid-Life Lawyer who is "offended" by people pulling Bible quotes out and not giving them the take approved by "proper authority," I think Martin Luther let that cat out of the bag a long time ago. Or maybe it was the printing press. The proper authority long ago went up in a puff of smoke.

That's all very interesting and fair, because just 2 days ago I blogged "I am pervasively skeptical that people actually believe the religion they profess to believe," linking to my own comments in an earlier thread:

Reading the Gospels, I see Jesus as challenging people about their beliefs, perceiving that they do not truly believe, and holding them to a much higher standard of what real belief is.

When I look at what purportedly religious people say and do, I question whether they are what they claim to be. Religion is used to serve human interests on earth, and all of that is pragmatic and social.

Show me the true believer. What would the true believer do and say?