Wandering Elder

As we move forward as a country, we have to consider the danger that groups such as ISIS represent and the fact that groups such as this don't just pop up.  They ferment to foment.  ISIS becomes the next step from a group that, say five years ago, was considered radical, which sprang from another group that was, perhaps 10 years ago, radical.  But the rise of ISIS represents the escalation in radicalism and the direction unwavering fundamentalism inevitably leads.  With each iteration of radicalism, the fundamentalism gets tighter and the reprisals against those who do not share such sensibilities increases.  They are a violent group because they have the belief that they are so abundantly correct that whatever they do is justified.  Violence is a matter of course and, in their opinion, their morality cannot be gauged by anyone outside the fold. This is a different kind of enemy than we are used to.  We fight them in much the same way we would fight ...

I found that as I was about to write something profound (I am sure), that there was this e-mail awaiting me.  I paste it in its entirety: In 2011, we announced the retirement of Google Friend Connect for all non-Blogger sites. We made an exception for Blogger to give readers an easy way to follow blogs using a variety of accounts. Yet over time, we’ve seen that most people sign into Friend Connect with a Google Account. So, in an effort to streamline, in the next few weeks we’ll be making some changes that will eventually require readers to have a Google Account to sign into Friend Connect and follow blogs. As part of this plan, starting the week of January 11, we’ll remove the ability for people with Twitter, Yahoo, Orkut or other OpenId providers to sign in to Google Friend Connect and follow blogs. At the same time, we’ll remove non-Google Account profiles so you may see a decrease in your blog follower count. We encourage you to tell affected readers (perhaps via a bl...