New reports suggest that Hezbollah has been taking advantage of the chaos in Syria to smuggle advanced anti-aircraft and anti-ship weapons into Lebanon. As the WSJ notes, however, the key player is Iran, which backs Hezbollah and appears to be behind these shipments. For those in Western capitals making the case that Iran is ready for a real reconciliation and change of policy, life just got a little bit worse.

The first generations of MOOCs have serious problems and critics are right to be concerned. But it’s far too early to count them out.

The flawed human race, trapped in a cycle of cascading pain and wrong is what, and who, God is bound and determined to love; the question is how can he do it?

The New York Times has a long piece out today calling Bill De Blasio’s mayorship as the cutting edge of a new wave of liberal progressivism sweeping through American cities, yet manages to completely avoid talking about the pensions crisis roiling most blue municipalities.

The Christmas story suggests that we can somehow try to both be loyal members of our nations, our families, our tribes—and also to reach out to the broader human community of which we are also a part.

That little baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying so cutely in the manger is the biggest trouble maker in world history, and the shocking claims that Christianity makes about who he is and what he means irritate and antagonize people all over the world.

Chicago’s attempts to address its pension crisis show an ugly picture of blue failure and the fracturing of the coalitions that so long gave the blue model political dominance. Blue pols who rose to power on blue principles are now increasingly alienated from the blue constituents who put them in power. But even more importantly, the constituents themselves are now divided against each other, because the pension crisis pits the interests of providers of government services against the recipients of those services.

The world is getting used to horrendous bomb attacks and tens of millions of people now live in countries where terror aimed at innocent civilians has become almost a normal tool of politics. It is easy to become callous and indifferent to daily reports of dozens killed by these methods, and to accept the unacceptable as the new normal. That tendency needs to be fought against, and whether the murders take place in Bagdad, the Sinai, Syria or Volgograd, we should fight the tendency to turn the victims into statistics.

Theists and atheists are different. While both groups think life means something, they understand that meaning in different ways.

Team Obama is making moves against disability fraud, which has ballooned under its watch during the recent economic downturn. This weekend, the Social Security Administration will improve oversight over 1,500 administrative law judges who had been awarding or denying benefits as they liked. A smart move, but a sign of serious trouble for Social Security.