Alex R. Berezow informs us that not the American ‘red states’, but Italy, have become a troubled land for science. Some scientists were sent to prison for six years for failing to predict an earthquake; and I thought some of […]
Christianity
Islamist Hypocrisy on Free Speech: Suppose They Got What They Wanted?
Eric Posner, legal scholar and son of the scholar and judge Richard Posner, declares in Slate that free speech is overrated and that internationally, even to a small degree in Europe, it needs to take a back seat to order. […]
The New Spirituality of ‘Connectedness’
Most of us nowadays can probably recognize what this spaghetti of wires that I have photographed here is. Without it, my laptop, my iPad, and my phone will be useless pieces of metal in a day or two, though my […]
Prison not the Answer: the Veterans-Only Court and Brother’s Keepers
What these war veterans do for each other models what the Body of Christ, especially in smaller groups, is supposed to be like. These vets are “moving from a highly disciplined environment where violence is normal to an unstructured environment […]
St. Paul, Bad Words, and Greed
In a recent post, the one on the fire pits [which turned into a website and a Facebook page, I’m told] I used an eight letter b-word which pushed the Kennel Kode to the limit. I thought it justified in […]
SAUCE FOR THE CHRISTIAN GOOSE, SAUCE FOR THE MUSLIM GANDER?
Recently it was revealed in a column by Mustafa Akyol, a Turkish liberal Muslim, that Newt Gingrich is a fan of none other than Mustafa Kemal Atatuerk. Say what? Kemal Atatuerk was one of the most radical secularists of the […]
Some Vice-Presidential Speculation, Already
Obama’s recent attempt to force Catholic institutions to act contrary to their beliefs if they serve the public at large has tempted me to cross party lines and vote Republican for President this fall. So I might as well speculate […]
Who is the Santa Claus Party?
After the 2004 election, in which the states that went for Bush formed a relatively neat geographical unity and in all the states that went for Kerry maps and T-shirts were circulating labeling the Republican states as ‘Jesusland,’ I thought, […]
Christmas and Steven Pinker’s Decline of Violence
A few months ago biologist Steven Pinker released a paper (Article 1, Article 2) and a book claiming that despite 9/11, Rwanda, and other such events, violence is actually declining in the world. He rebukes the myth of the ‘noble […]
9/11, Ten Years Later
When the 9/11 attacks happened, ten years ago, we knew that we didn’t like it. But we in the Western World were forced to think about the delicate question of, if we were against this, what were we for? Were […]