Delicious LiveJournal Links for 8-31-2011

  • Ten years on, Osama bin Laden’s caliphatist dream is not one step closer to being realised, and his nihilist vision of Islam never gained support from anything more than a miniscule fringe of his intended audience. Muslims were simply not interested, and by the time he was killed in his hideout in Pakistan, the Arab world was too busy pursuing positive goals, like fundamental freedoms and democracy, to notice. In that, there is a lesson in humility for the international community.
  • The great Irish novelist Flann O’Brien’s debut, At Swim-Two-Birds, should have sealed his reputation as the equal of Joyce and Beckett. At long last, in the year of his centenary, the world is catching up.