Monthly Archives: January 2009

The Vatican’s Abu Ghraib?

I thought that conservative essayist Christopher Buckley (at the DailyBeast.com) had the clearest and tartest response to Pope Benedict’s lifting of excommunication on Holocaust denier, Bishop Richard Williamson: What—the fuck—were you thinking of, Your Holiness? This repugnant episode is surely … Continue reading

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Pope Benedict HEARTS Holocaust Denier, Bishop Richard Williamson

Pope Benedict’s recent lifting of excommunication on Bishop Richard Williamson, a Holocaust denier, raises the question of whether Holocaust denial is a position that a reasonable person can simply arrive at by a dispassionate survey of the evidence, or whether it … Continue reading

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Pope Benedict HEARTS Bishop Richard Williamson: If a Catholic Bishop Denies the Holocaust for “Intellectual” Reasons, Does That Make It Okay?

The short answer is NO. The basic facts around the Holocaust have been so thoroughly documented by historians that for someone with reasonable intelligence to deny those facts, and the convergence of those facts, is evidence of gross anti-intellectual prejudice … Continue reading

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New and Improved Republican Memes!

What the Republican Party urgently needs now is (drum role, please) . . . new and improved message memes! Translation: Sell the same shit in different verbal packaging. In other words, just say things like this (and the Republicans will … Continue reading

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The Internet v. Newspapers (in 1981)

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Quote of the Day

Andrew Sullivan today: [D]oubt can never be a danger. Banishing doubt is the danger.

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Is the Republican Party in a Self-Reinforcing Cycle of Ever More Extreme Right-Wing Marginalization?

If Nate Silver (at FiveThirtyEight.com) is right, Republicans may be in even worse shape electorally in two years than they have been this past year: [T]he Republicans, arguably, are in something of a death spiral. The more conservative, partisan, and … Continue reading

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Ongoing Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial in the Catholic Church

Salon.com has an excellent essay today on the tone deafness of the Catholic Church with regard to the Holocaust and Antisemitism. It comes in response to Pope Benedict rescinding the excommunication of Bishop Richard Williamson, an outspoken Holocaust denier, Antisemite, and Freemasonry conspiracy theory … Continue reading

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The Obama Era

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Nothing is Real, and [There’s] Nothing to Get Hung About

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Don’t Walk, SPRINT?

Physorg.com, a science website, reports that cardiovascular fitness can be improved, and the risk of diabetes reduced, by brief, high intensity workouts: A regular high-intensity, three-minute workout has a significant effect on the body’s ability to process sugars. Research published … Continue reading

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Do Scientists Need the Ten Commandments?

Where do the ethical sensibilities and VALUES of scientists, in doing their work, come from? In other words, why do scientists (for example) value such things as VIGOROUS DEBATE and SEEKING OUT CONTRARY LINES OF EVIDENCE? In a science essay in the NY Times … Continue reading

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Weird But TRUE: Flying Spaghetti Monster Sighting in Germany

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The Makers of South Park Illustrate an Alan Watts Anecdote on “Life as Music”

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“The problems of the human heart in conflict with itself, which alone can make good writing”: Audio of William Faulkner’s Nobel Prize Speech

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“In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits”: See Here John Updike, in a 1995 Interview, Discussing His Short Story, “A & P”

Part one: Part two:

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John Updike Died Today

According to the AP: An old-fashioned believer in hard work, he published more than 50 books in a career that started in the 1950s.

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“I call it, ‘The Torment of Existence Weighed Against the Horror of Nonbeing'”: A Calvin and Hobbes Cartoon to Cheer Up Gloomy Existentialists

There is a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon that I especially like. Calvin has just made a decidedly non-traditional SNOWMAN that looks, with his gaping mouth and look of agony, akin to Edward Munch’s The Scream, and says to Hobbes: I call it, “The Torment … Continue reading

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“We’re a nation not just where you are free to believe or not to believe; we’re a nation founded for Him”: Rick Warren, Kathryn Jean Lopez, and the Theocratic Temptation

Kathryn Jean Lopez, of the National Catholic Register, offers a theocratic spin to the meaning of America (and Obama’s inauguration prayer): Rick Warren reminded us why all eyes were on the Capitol steps that Tuesday afternoon: “in His name.” We’re a … Continue reading

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If You Want to Know What is Really Going on With GLOBAL WARMING, Here is the WEBSITE To Follow

It’s called RealClimate.org. And here’s the kicker: It is a site that talks about climate science in accessible, lay terms—even though all eleven of its contributors are CLIMATE SCIENTISTS. Imagine that. Informed adult reflection and discussion on GLOBAL WARMING. Who would have … Continue reading

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