Seriously, WTF?Summary for the lazy - individual says that men don't pay attention to women lecturers in university classes, thus proving that women should not teach men. I say that I've never seen that, it must be an artifact of their culture and not a good one. She says I'm insulting Southern culture, I say that if that's Southern culture, it ( Read more... )

This is a post that I've been mulling over for, oh, at least a good 6 months. Possibly longer. I'm still not sure that I'm going to be expressing well what it is I want to say, so buyer beware, OK?

The surge, in recent years decades, of pagan, wiccan, neo-pagan and modern "Gaian Earth Mother", as well as more controversial views of Mary, Mother of ( Read more... )

"One cannot ask whether a theory reflects reality, just whether it agrees with observations."
-Professor Stephen Hawking

That was from an interview with Professor Hawking broadcast by the BBC on Thursday (hear the whole thing as an mp3 download here, it's fascinating). He was talking about the prospect of other dimensions, not really relevant here ( Read more... )

I'm not a fan of Pope Benedict XVI at the best of times, but that said, the current fracas over his recent comments on Islam probably deserve to be mentioned. The Muslim world has errupted into criticism over a lecture he gave at the University of Regensburg on September 12. Here are the offending remarks:Show me just what Mohammed brought that was ( Read more... )

Well, today's optimistic news story:Almost four in ten [Americans], 39%, advocate that Muslims here should carry special I.D. That same number admit that they do hold some "prejudice" against Muslims.
I have a vague memory from history class of something similar in humanity's recent past.


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I'm watching 30 Days right now, and really, I feel like tearing my hair out. Today's episode is an atheist spending 30 days with a family of Christian fundamentalists. My feeling really is that we have people who I respect - I know there are a good few atheists on my friends list here - seem to be extraordinarily bad at expressing precisely what ( Read more... )

From the Jerusalem Post (hardly a bastion of leftwing antiwar sentiment, you know):Defense officials told the Post last week that they were receiving indications from the US that America would be interested in seeing Israel attack Syria.
What was that about paranoia? Anyone? Thankfully, by the looks of things, Israel's government is not completely ( Read more... )

Via wingsrising, we get this wonderful Richard Cohen diatribe. wingsrising makes the point that we still seem unable to have conversations about Israel and criticise that country without lapsing immediately into the language of antisemitism. You criticise Israel, you're antisemetic. It's a quick and simple slur, it still seems to hold sway with some people too. I won't ( Read more... )

Better late than never, I suppose ( Read more... )

The Senate vote of the Federal Defense of Marriage Act will take place on 6-6-06. I kid you not.

In other news, what sort of supposedly Christian news source could say this with a straight face?:[Bush] lied when he said: "Massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic - it's just not going to work." Not only will it work, but one can easily ( Read more... )