Much amusement is being had over the story about how little believers know about their own religions (and less about anyone else’s) compared with atheists and agnostics.* Here’s my favorite line in the New York Times piece on the Pew study various blocs’ knowledge: “I have heard many times that atheists know more about religion [...]
Archive for September 2010
Atheists, Believers and Religious Illiteracy: Albert Einstein got there before Pew.
September 28, 2010Sunday Post — The Horror, The Horror: Mr. Spock, Bilbo Baggins, and the Worst Song Ever Recorded
September 26, 2010Unwatchable. Leonard Nimoy, singing “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins.” Once you watch it, no amount of bleach will wipe your mind clean. Your brain will explode. Grotesque. You have been warned.
Sunday Post on Crypto, Trust, and Political Action on the Web — Outsourced to David P. Reed
September 26, 2010I’m a lurker (mostly) on a listserv for MIT’s Center for Future Civic Media (C4), which pops up some fascinating discussions about news, social networking, and political life on and through the web. Recently, there was a flurry of posts on the announcement from the Haystack that work on the system designed to encrypt and [...]
David Brooks is Always Wrong Too: Why Does Brooks (And The Republicans) Hate Contracts So Much?
September 24, 2010DougJ over at Balloon Juice highlights this latest bit of sleight of hand from that genial con, David Brooks: Financiers send the world into recession and don’t seem to suffer. Neighbors take on huge mortgages and then just walk away when they go underwater. Now, I’ll have more to say about this column, as it [...]
Marty Peretz is a Disgrace — To Civilized Company and to the Tradition He Purports to uphold.
September 23, 2010Warning: no science, not much politics (directly) and some religion (even Bible!) below. Enter at your own pleasure. Even with my prior post, I am disgracefully late in weighing in on the ugly case of Marty Peretz. I felt, as James Fallows originally did, that the appropriate response for civilized people was obvious, had been [...]
Why We Don’t Have A Better Press Corps: Howie Kurtz, Helen Thomas, and Marty Peretz edition
September 21, 2010I’m preparing a belated longer post on Marty Peretz latest self revelation as a man no civil society should acknowledge. But for now, I just want to post w/out much comment the last graf from today’s Guardian article on objections emerging at Harvard to the notion of accepting the donatino that would create an academic [...]
Friday Stuff: xkcd to the rescue
September 17, 2010As I contemplate the contemplation of last year and next, with papers due by sundown tomorrow, no extensions, this old xkcd ‘toon struck me just right: Happy Friday, all, and to those thus embarked, an easy fast.
Megan McArdle is Always Wrong: On So Many Axes It’s Hard To No Where To Start/Outsourced Edition.
September 17, 2010Yes, this will be largely outsourced, but just to get everyone in the mood let me quote from the introduction to Andrew Bacevich’s important new book Washington Rules (about which I’ve been blogging a bit this week). That introduction channels (and explicitly cites) Henry Adams on the subject of education, which in both men’s tellings [...]
Pope Blames Atheism For Holocaust
September 16, 2010Really. He did, right up there on his hind legs in front of the Queen and England and all. Here’s the Guardian’s excerpt of the relevant remarks: “Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our [...]
Recent Comments