A Hasidic newspaper slices the Secretary of State out of that photo in the Situation Room. Nobody here but us guys.
Author: Ophelia Benson
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Hitchens on losing his voice
One can become quite used to the specter of the eternal Footman, like some lethal old bore lurking in the hallway at the end of the evening, hoping to have a word.
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Simon Leys on Orwell in diaries and letters
“I know from experience that once I have met & spoken with anyone I shall never again be able to show any intellectual brutality towards him, even when I feel that I ought to.”
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Australia: teachers protest goddy comic
Shows a callous teacher ignoring bullying, urges prayer instead – on the website of Access Ministries, which runs 96% of RE classes in Victorian primary schools.
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BHA on Nadine Dorries’s abstinence bill
Teach girls to keep their knees together because boys will be boys.
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“An expert weighs in” on bin Laden’s afterlife
The moment martyrs die, they’re given new bodies in paradise and enjoy a blessed existence, “expert” says. -
Debating creationism, ID and Holocaust denial
Creationists and Holocaust deniers require a rejection of overwhelming scientific/historical evidence and thus rule themselves out of any serious discussion.
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Ralph Steadman on bin Laden
That’s the guy.
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Why don’t the British love their intellectuals?
John Naughton doesn’t know.
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Pseudo-historian David Barton has a good week
The New York Times treated Barton and the world of scholars who’ve devoted their lives to disciplined historical analysis as though their analyses are of equal weight.
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“Progressive” Xian group rejects LGBT ad
Sojourners said “we don’t want to take sides.” Progressive my foot.
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Apology for Spanish Inquisition executions
Thousands of “heretics” were burned at the stake after Ferdinand and Isabella set up the Inquisition to root out remnants of Islam and Judaism.
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Templeton buys whole Oxford colleges? Srsly?
Ah Templeton Templeton Templeton, how it does creep in everywhere, like mildew.
There’s this Oxford professor saying why thenewatheists are stupid and wrong. Guess where he comes from.
While “new atheists” Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have been grabbing headlines with their bold claims that modern science has killed off God, an Oxford professor has been quietly chipping away at the ground they stand on. John C Lennox, Professor of Mathematics and Fellow in the Philosophy of Science at Oxford’s Green Templeton College, has been popping up at debates around the globe to take issue with the most prominent new atheists.
At what? At Oxford’s what? Oxford’s Green what?
Can’t be, I thought. Must be just a coincidence of name. Some Admiral Green who showed Napoleon what’s what and some Viscount Templeton who carried the chamber pot for George II. Must be.
So I hastened to look it up…and no. It’s not Viscount Templeton of Steeple Magna, Hampshire. It’s not Georgiana Templeton of Ladbroke Grove, founder of hospitals. It’s not gallant Captain Templeton, protector of women and children during the Siege of Jenkinsabad. It’s just same old same old John moneybags Templeton of Pennsylvania.
1965 Oxford Centre for Management Studies established under the Chairmanship of Sir Norman Chester…
1983 Major benefaction received from Mr (later Sir) John Templeton.
1984 Name changed to Templeton College and first students are matriculated…
2008 Merger with Green College.
2011 Professor publishes book saying why thenewatheists are stupid and wrong.
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Science hasn’t buried god so ha
A professor at Oxford’s Templeton-Green College (yes) finds lots of gaps for god to sit in.
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Cairo: Salafists attack Coptic church; ten dead
Salafist groups have become more assertive in the post-Mubarak era.
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BBC1: See You in Court
Simon Singh v the BCA. Nick Cohen, Ben Goldacre and Dara O’Briain on libel law and freedom to criticise bad ideas.
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Ajita Kamal on women’s rights in India
Superstitions such as goddess worship are cultural impediments to realizing true gender equality.
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Massimo Pigliucci on NPR on the Rapture
More bad uncritical reporting by Templeton “fellow” Barbara Bradley Hagerty.
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Saudi Women Revolution
If you’re on Facebook – like the Saudi Women Revolution page. They want numbers, numbers, numbers. CNN reported the Facebook page likes.
The Saudi Women Revolution was started as a Facebook page and a discussion topic, or hash tag, on Twitter in February, by Nuha Al Sulaiman…The Facebook group now has more than 3,000 “likes” and a core of the women have met in person to discuss their campaign.
Well it’s more than 4,000 now; do your bit and make it more again.
Their chief aim is ending male guardianship, which means Saudi women often need permission from their husband, father, brother or even son to work, travel, study, marry, or access health care, according to Human Rights Watch.
They also want to be allowed to drive, which is forbidden for women in the Kingdom.
And they want to vote. Imagine that.
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Jackson Lears on Sam Harris and “positivists”
Positivist reductionism, reductionist positivism, positivistic fundamentalism, fundamentalist positivism – it’s everywhere. Be afraid.