Wretchard's Great Lines.

Admittedly they're not all Wretchard's, but he certainly has some profound and true words to say regarding the current wave of terror that's battering the psyches of both the Russian and the French peoples.

I've only scratched the surface of the French existentialists, but Wretchard's quote from Camus helps me appreciate why people delve deeper:

"on the day when crime dons the apparel of innocence -- through a curious transposition peculiar to our times -- it is innocence that is called upon to justify itself."

Or, as Wretchard puts it, 'tranferrence of guilt is terrorism's greatest lie'.

Going from the negative to the positive, he says 'Civilization cannot hang back but must step forward, if not for love then for survival.'

These are great lines, worth mulling over.

At the sharp end, meanwhile, here's the latest from the BBC on the Russian crisis and the French hostage situation. Listening to Caroline Hawley earlier it sounded as if the BBC were gearing up to ask why the French were so much better at dealing with terrorism. The only response I could think of was 'we'll see'.