Geronimo!

Nicholas Schmidle, in the New Yorker, has produced a work of utterly gripping narrative journalism in such a way that leaves little room for doubt, even though it is of the vaguely-sourced approved access variety, that almost all of it is absolutely true. Top marks.

Jamie Kirchick, in the New York Daily News, presents what I could happily call a thoroughly reliable compass heading to get you through all the weird recrimination, smearing and hysteria that has followed upon the savagery in Oslo: Why Islamist Terror Dwarfs Breivik's Brand.

It would be missing Kirchick's point to cite Fareed Zakaria's take as a counterpoint, and Zakaria wastes time on a sophomoric exposition on the Knights Templar, if you don't mind, before he gets to his case, which rests on a dubious resort to certain statistics. Still, very much worth the read, and a good point he makes regardless.

Meanwhile, total journalism fail at the Toronto Sun: Sheep slaughtered in "some sort of religious rite to ensure good fortune"? Ramadan, the Muslim version of Lent (sort of) just started. Sometimes Muslims slaughter and feast on a sheep right about now. Either the reporter doesn't know this (and thus failed to report it), or does know this and didn't report it, and chooses instead to make it sound totally weird. They did it in a park at night when no one was around (somebody call PETA!), and the reason? We're left to guess (another massive journalism fail); we're told that maybe it's illegal (fail again). Every Ash Wednesday moy payple emerge from darkened cavernous temples with our faces smeared with ash in order to frighten Protestants. My Muzzie homies are weird? Back the hell off.