All entries by this author

Baptist Seminary on the Godly Woman *

Nov 3rd, 2007 | Filed by

Lecturer Ashley Smith laid out the biblical basis for what she calls ‘the glorious inequalities of life.’… Read the rest



No Constitution, No Law *

Nov 3rd, 2007 | Filed by

Soon after independent tv stations went blank, dozens of cops surrounded the Supreme Court building.… Read the rest



Telephone Services Cut in Islamabad *

Nov 3rd, 2007 | Filed by

Musharraf declared a state of emergency just before a crucial Supreme Court ruling on his election.… Read the rest



Musharraf Imposes Emergency Rule *

Nov 3rd, 2007 | Filed by

Troops in radio and tv stations; Supreme Court held; detention orders served; constitution suspended. … Read the rest



Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Nov 3rd, 2007 | By Tim Goot-Brennan

At universities today, the most popular potential US presidential candidate is smart, young, black, good-looking, likeable. His events draw frenzied crowds (a bad sign); pundits say he’s a rock-star (another bad sign).

Why is Senator Barack Obama so popular? His healthcare plan is pedestrian; his foreign policy outlook is interchangeable with Hillary Clinton’s, or Mitt Romney’s for that matter. It’s partly to do with his image as a young charmer and partly because he opposed the Iraq War “from the beginning”, as he likes to remind people. But his position on Iraq is not as hardline as Bill Richardson’s, for example. And laying claim to being the most charismatic Congressmen is really only like claiming to be the most open-minded … Read the rest



Submit, and what’s for dinner?

Nov 3rd, 2007 10:55 am | By

Oh the joy of learning at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. How the world opens up before the eager student, how the riches of human knowledge spill out before her excited gaze.

It offers for instance ‘classes in homemaking.’

The academic program, open only to women, includes lectures on laundering stubborn stains and a lab in baking chocolate-chip cookies. Philosophical courses such as “Biblical Model for the Home and Family” teach that God expects wives to submit graciously to their husbands’ leadership.

So that all female students will realize they mustn’t get married? Does it work? What are the stats?

Seminary President Paige Patterson and his wife, Dorothy – who goes by Mrs. Paige Patterson – view the homemaking curriculum

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Aznar and Bush, February 2003 *

Nov 2nd, 2007 | Filed by

Bush: I am an optimist, because I believe that I’m right. I’m at peace with myself.… Read the rest



Evidence for Nonhuman Primate Language *

Nov 2nd, 2007 | Filed by

The point here is not to deny Kanzi’s achievements but to quantify them correctly. … Read the rest



What is Debate Really For? *

Nov 2nd, 2007 | Filed by

Plato, Rousseau, Mill, Arendt and Habermas discuss with Cmdr Taco.… Read the rest



Murder of Uzbek Reporter Condemned *

Nov 2nd, 2007 | Filed by

CPJ urges a thorough inquiry into the murder of outspoken journalist Alisher Saipov.… Read the rest



Katha Pollitt Skeptical of Horowitz’s Feminism *

Nov 2nd, 2007 | Filed by

Ayaan Hirsi Ali gets bad press on the left. Why?… Read the rest



The Eye of the Storm is in sub-Saharan Africa *

Nov 2nd, 2007 | Filed by

The largely unnoticed collision of HIV and TB has exploded to create a deadly co-epidemic.… Read the rest



Co-epidemic Spreading in Sub-Saharan Africa *

Nov 2nd, 2007 | Filed by

Half of all new TB cases in sub-Saharan Africa are now HIV co-infected.… Read the rest



Pik and Ab

Nov 1st, 2007 1:13 pm | By

A pleasing fantasy.

[I]t would be a simple matter to send out for professional reinforcements, thus demonstrating to King Abdullah that, whatever the Prince of Wales may have told him in the dunes, our shared values do not, currently, feature male supremacy. Instead of Prince Charles fawning on the airstrip, one pictures, say, Sandi Toksvig, heading a welcoming party composed of adulterers, gays, Jews, Catholics, apostates, immodestly dressed women and a variety of other law-abiding sinners who would be dead, or at least severely incapacitated, if they lived in King Abdullah’s country. After inspecting a battalion of beautifully turned out slags (replacing the Welsh Guards), he and his companions would be driven – by women drivers of Filipina extraction

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Science Pursues Truth, not Consensus *

Nov 1st, 2007 | Filed by

Good science involves open debate, in which dissents are sharpened and clarified, not smoothed over. … Read the rest



Mearsheimer and Walt *

Nov 1st, 2007 | Filed by

They acknowledge that realist theory fails to explain the outsize influence of the Israel lobby.… Read the rest



Anthony Giddens on Debating Diversity *

Nov 1st, 2007 | Filed by

Facts should be brought out in the open, not dismissed for ideological reasons. … Read the rest



Catherine Bennett on ‘Shared Values’ *

Nov 1st, 2007 | Filed by

Is it because only half its population is oppressed that we share values with Saudi Arabia but not with Burma?… Read the rest



Plato’s Nephew

Nov 1st, 2007 | By R. Joseph Hoffmann

Skepticism is a funny thing, even among the Greeks – especially among the Greeks. The “original” skepticism would have been completely palatable to modern religionists, because it challenged pre-Socratic efforts to attain a true picture of the world and stoic claims to have the map to true knowledge. To the early practitioners of skepticism Thales’ notions just didn’t hold water, and if Heraclites was right today, he might well be wrong tomorrow. “‘What I may think after dinner is one thing,’ returns Mr. Jobling, ‘my dear Guppy, and what I think before dinner is quite another thing.’” A little healthy skepticism never hurt anyone, except those with fixed and final positions, those who claim to possess the whole and unvarnished … Read the rest



Just ask a pundit

Nov 1st, 2007 10:12 am | By

So as part of this here ‘Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week’ the very scholarly and thoughtful Ann Coulter spoke at USC.

“There’s always a conflict of interest when people who hate America are asked to lead it,” Coulter said about the Democrats’ midterm election victory…Organizers of the week, both at USC and across the country, said the goal of such speeches is to increase discourse on an issue of national importance.

By inviting Ann Coulter? She’s a (bad) stand-up comic; she doesn’t do discourse, she does silly trash-talk.

Though organizers praised Coulter for her brash personality and bold, attention-grabbing statements, some critics say these characteristics are a detriment to promoting thoughtful discourse on controversial issues…Some attendees said Coulter’s polemic remarks are

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