World Magazine -- the news-weekly that covers world news with wit and insight from a Biblical worldview -- started a blog about a week ago. The effort is headed by Editor-in-Chief Marvin Olasky. World had previously introduced a regular "BlogWatch" column, reporting on the blogosphere.

In introducing the blog, World makes the point that many of the main voices in the blogosphere are either left-leaning or libertarian, so in coming from a socially conservative perspective they'll be filling a niche.

They appear to be using Movable Type, which is good, and unlike most corporate media blogs, they have comments open -- we'll see how long that lasts.

(I have considered opening comments on this site, but I don't have the time to play comments policeman. Instead, I encourage discussions about Tulsa issues to head over to the forums at tulsanow.org.)

One of the items they cover that escaped my notice: Planned Parenthood has had trouble finding a general contractor for their new building in Austin. They got the story from WSJ's James Taranto's Best of the Web, but World linked to the current day's column, rather than to the permalink containing the story of interest. A common beginner's mistake.

My only gripe is that this appears to be a group blog, but there is no indication of authorship on the entries. Part of the fun of other group blogs, like National Review's The Corner and the Dallas Morning News editorial board blog, is the give and take between different perspectives. Hopefully we'll see some of that on World's blog as well.

Speaking of the Dallas Morning News blog, editorial board member Rod Dreher, formerly of National Review, is going on vacation, and Ann Coulter is taking his place as guest blogger. Should be worth watching.

Just to be clear, World Magazine has no connection with the Tulsa Whirled, and they don't share the Whirled editorial boards whirledview at all.