While looking over the latest from our friend The Stiletto (who, by the way, has just been chosen as a Webby Awards Official Honoree for her “tart” political commentary), I ran across a story about Arizona’s efforts to deal with its enormous influx of illegal aliens. I was struck by one passage in particular: [E]nough […]
As a paternalistic and morally deficient bigot, I of course have a collegial interest in the ideological shortcomings of others — an interest that is not limited to my own species. So I was gratified when a recent item over at Dennis Mangan’s place led me to an engaging and informative piece about the extent […]
I must apologize to the reader for the lack of variety around here lately; our little clash of civilizations has occupied me almost exclusively in recent days. I’m afraid that this post will not interrupt the streak, but it will be brief: I just want to call attention to an outstandingly informative series of posts […]
As long as I am to be pilloried as a racist and reactionary xenophobe anyway, I might as well carry on. Here’s the latest cave-in, this time from Britain.
No matter what your reaction — snarling in defiance, as are the conservative voices of the West, groveling in awe, as are the liberal governments of Europe, or exulting, with growing confidence, as in the mosques and madrassas — radical Islam is rising. Those who see it, rightly, as a potentially lethal threat to all […]
In a recent post, Silence!, we remarked upon the indictment of an Austrian politician, Susanne Winter, for her having suggested that there might have been a whiff of sexual impropriety in the Prophet Mohammed’s taking of the six-year-old Aisha as his wife (though to his credit, he did not consummate the marriage until she was […]
I’m sorry to have been off the air yesterday; I spent a long day with the promising young band Bulletproof Soul at Avatar Studios, mixing some of the material we recorded a few weeks ago. I am also working at the office all day today, so can’t write at length now either — but it […]
Christopher Hitchens weighs in, with customary acerbity, on Hillary Clinton’s audacious Tuzla whopper. Here.
I have often, in posts having to do with foreign policy, expressed the sentiment that it is in our interest to foster “democracy”. It has occurred to me, however, in the course of a recent conversation, that the essential point is to promote regimes that rule with the consent of the governed. I’m not sure […]
For the crime of expressing dissatisfaction with his government, Chinese freethinker Hu Jia has been sentenced to prison, despite an international chorus of protest. His wife remains under house arrest. Meanwhile, when not distracted by its ongoing bludgeoning and suffocation of Tibet, China preens in the global spotlight as the host of the impending Olympics. […]
We’ll all sleep a little better knowing that monsters like these are off the streets. Story here.
Although I am not a theist myself, and sympathize broadly with the current crop of prominent atheist authors, we obviously cannot ignore the central role that religion has always played in the organization and cohesion of human groups. I think, along with Sam Harris and others, that it ought to be possible for human societies […]
My friend Salim Ismail, with whom I have just enjoyed a delightful lunch, has introduced me to a marvellous website that I must share with you all. It’s called Idle Words, and features the writings of one Maciej Ceglowski, who seems to get around a bit. You can find it here, or from today forward, […]
With a hat tip to Baron Bodissey at Gates of Vienna, we offer yet another frightening example of the withering of essential Western liberties under the steady pressure of Islamism. The latest gesture of craven appeasement comes from Austria, where a politician has been indicted for expressing an unfavorable opinion of Mohammed’s having married a […]
One of the little advantages of living in the pre-Internet world was that it was far easier to flatter myself, in my cleverer moments, that I’d had an original idea. It now requires only a trivial exertion to confirm that I haven’t.
As long as we’re on the subject of spineless capitulation to religious extremism, here’s a relevant post over at Gates Of Vienna.
March 31, 2008 – 11:42 pm
On the opinion page of today’s New York Times was an insightful essay, by business editor Eduardo Porter. In it Mr. Porter makes the case that to the extent that societies are fragmented along ethnic, racial, linguistic and religious lines, they are less inclined to support public spending for social programs. While this may be […]
March 31, 2008 – 11:06 pm
I have often expressed the opinion that the United Nations, though an appealing notion, is so feckless and corrupt, and so utterly devoid of any real power to inhibit the ambitions of scoundrels and tyrants, that the civilized nations of the world might simply be better off without it. Certainly the United States would; at […]
March 31, 2008 – 12:35 am
Like may others I am an admirer of Winston Churchill, and have lately been reading an excellent book by the managing editor of Newsweek, Jon Meacham. It’s called Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship, and as you can imagine from the title, it chronicles the enormously important friendship between Churchill and […]
I tend to be a fairly hard-nosed naturalist, as readers may have noticed. This arises from an inveterate intellectual conservatism: I think that the most parsimonious approach to understanding the world around us is to try to explain the phenomena we observe — the “phaneron”, to use Charles Sanders Peirce’s lovely word — in terms […]
By now you have probably heard the tragic story of young Madeline Neumann, a home-schooled girl who died of easily remediable diabetic ketoacidosis because her parents thought it better to pray for her recovery than to seek medical treatment. Her mother, who says that said that she and her family “believe in the Bible and […]
Debating philosophical or religious questions in the blogosphere can be awfully unproductive; it shows you why some of the same questions that vexed the ancients are still confounding us today. People with different fundamental assumptions live in inner worlds that are quite irreconcilable: words mean different things to different speakers, and often serve only to […]
March 28, 2008 – 12:12 pm
Once again I pause to mark with sorrow the anniversary of the death of my mother, Alison Calder Pollack, a truly extraordinary woman who left us two years ago today. Time softens grief’s sting, but not its ache.
March 28, 2008 – 10:23 am
The Dutch politician Geert Wilders has released his short film Fitna, which is harshly critical of Islam. If you are interested you can watch it online here.
March 27, 2008 – 11:41 pm
The lawyer, actor, writer, economist, professor, former Nixon speechwriter, and game-show host Ben Stein is starring in a new movie, called Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, that challenges the Darwinian account of life’s history. It was given a screening in Minneapolis on March 20th, and among those attending were Richard Dawkins, who had actually consented to […]
March 26, 2008 – 11:55 pm
Today’s Times carried a front-page story about Muslim families who, wishing to maintain control over their children so as to prevent their exposure to decadent Western notions, have taken to withdrawing them from the educational system. In most instances it is, unsurprisingly, the daughters who are kept apart.
March 25, 2008 – 12:35 pm
From our friend Jess Kaplan comes news of a new breed of bank robber. Story here.
March 25, 2008 – 10:47 am
In what may mark, depending upon your perspective, either the zenith or nadir of Western civilization, the makers of South Park have now put every episode on line for your viewing pleasure. Or the irrevocable corruption of your eternal soul. Whatever.
March 25, 2008 – 10:36 am
From today’s CodeProject newsletter, here is an assortment of useful software that you can get for nothing.
March 24, 2008 – 11:28 pm
In a recent post, Kevin Kim offers a rebuttal to Sam Harris’s argument that religious moderates are in fact an impediment to progress toward a more rational world.
Now that you’ve joined me on a vigorous early-spring hike to Cape Cod Bay, it’s time to reward ourselves with a scrumptious local delicacy: some of our famous Wellfleet Oysters. Here’s how it’s done.
March 23, 2008 – 12:57 am
Friday, March 21st, was the first full day of Spring, and here in the outer reaches of Cape Cod, it was more lion than lamb. The temperature hovered in the thirties, and all day a steady wind roared out of the West. But the sun was shining in a cloudless sky, and after weeks cooped […]
March 21, 2008 – 10:44 pm
I normally spend at least ten hours a day at the computer; I’m taking a little break today. Back shortly.
I’ll be on the road this evening, so won’t have any time for writing. Meanwhile, though, reader Andrew Staroscik has brought to our attention an interesting discussion about consciousness over at Sandwalk. We’ll take a closer look here when we are back in harness.
March 19, 2008 – 11:21 pm
From our friend Jess Kaplan comes a link to a critique, by the British philosopher John Gray, of the “New Atheism”. It is an engaging piece, but it makes a lot of familiar and rather weak arguments, and some that are quite strange indeed. I suggest that you go and read it — it is […]
March 18, 2008 – 11:35 pm
In a recent post, The Maverick Philosopher imagined a possible world in which he might have blogged about Schopenhauer under the banner The Scowl of Minerva (a play on the owl as the symbol of Minerva, the goddess of wisdom and philosophy). Things like this always set my own mental wheels in motion, and I […]
March 17, 2008 – 10:01 pm
There are a great many roadside oddities in America, often associated with equally odd people. One such dyad I’ve only just learned of is the Coral Castle, in Homestead, Florida.
Dennis Mangan presents one of the most brilliant little video clips I’ve ever seen. Go and see for yourself. (P.S. Confused? Cheat-sheet here.)
March 17, 2008 – 10:07 am
My lovely wife Nina has alerted me to a TED-conference video I might otherwise have missed: a talk by neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor on the astonishing effects of a debilitating stroke: her own. This is an extraordinary presentation, with profound implications. Have a look here. I have a few things to say about it all, […]
March 16, 2008 – 11:41 pm
Having come finally to the final hour of a far-from-restful weekend (I call them “TGIM” weekends), I’m far too pooped to post. So I offer instead an interesting look at what I am sure will be a transformative technology, still in earliest infancy. Here.
March 15, 2008 – 12:09 pm
Our commenter Peter K., a.k.a The One-Eyed Man (he actually has binocular vision), asks the following question about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in the comment thread to a recent post: If you are a Palestinian, what do you do? The “peace process,’ such as it is, has gotten them nowhere. In any event, there is a […]
March 14, 2008 – 10:51 pm
From a friend of a friend in the mysterious East comes a pair of links to some videos featuring a Bahraini Shi’ite by the name of Dhiyaa al-Musawi. In the first clip he is being interviewed, in Arabic, and he is saying some extraordinary things.
March 13, 2008 – 10:52 pm
I got home quite late tonight, and serious scribbling is not in the cards. So go to this website, install Silverlight if you haven’t already, and have a look at where we’ve got to in the presentation of visual data.
March 12, 2008 – 10:46 pm
We’ve added a new link to our sidebar: the website Brains, which describes itself as “a forum for discussing the philosophy of: mind, neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science.” We’ve neglected the subject a bit lately in favor of political and cultural topics, but as you know this is right up one of our alleys. Do […]
As long as we are tilting at cultural relativism, here is a pithy account, by a former Muslim, of why we should not be shy about saying that post-Enlightenment Western culture is arguably humanity’s best effort yet.
March 12, 2008 – 11:37 am
We thank Kevin Kim once again, this time for calling our attention to a gratifying piece by David Mamet about a road-to-Damascus event regarding the standard liberal worldview.
March 12, 2008 – 10:26 am
We note with sadness the death of bassist Dennis Irwin. I didn’t know Dennis well, but I had met him on many occasions, and did record him once or twice. He was, in addition to being an outstanding player, a wonderfully sweet-natured man. Dennis died soon after having been diagnosed with cancer late last year, […]
I’ve often expressed my distaste for the Clintons: how anyone in his (or, yes, even her) right mind could want to send those Travellers back to the White House is beyond my comprehension. Lots of others feel the same way, of course; with a hat tip to our friend the Stiletto, whose pointed insights and […]
March 11, 2008 – 10:36 pm
I won’t have much more to say about the Eliot Spitzer debacle, as it’s not especially interesting, and certainly nothing new. But I wouldn’t want readers to think that when big stories like this come along, all I can do is jeer and snigger, so for tonight, let’s set aside the japery for a moment […]