R C Metcalf, PhD, knows the erotic power of a polysyllabic adverb and harnesses it to denounce the “diversionary tactics” of public unbelievers, and to, er, divert their attentions to those damned Muslims: The new atheists are a tumescent bunch, unquestionably articulate, yet consummately misguided. Their incendiary rhetoric can’t help but stir the emotions of the […]
Damian: [T]he impression I get is that Norm is more forgiving of Eagleton’s errors of reasoning than he should be Norm: Damian leaves an impression about my viewpoints that I feel I have a right to comment on. Damian: I’d happily place a bet with Norm on which of the two of them will be considered worth […]
I caught up with wongaBlog this morning. I enjoyed this post about Jonathan Edwards’ reflections on his conversion from Christianity to atheism. It’s all downhill from here, Jonathan. Believers might be wrong, but believing often makes for happier and more successful people; and I enjoyed this marvellous rant about anti speed camera campaigners. My apologies […]
Last Friday I found myself stuck in a room in a Cambridge college waiting to do a photo job so I took Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations down from a shelf and, as an intellectual dwarf perched on Hindsight the Giant, sneered at it. Certain things he said appear absurd in the light of certain experimental […]
By PooterGeek
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Also posted in Academia, Biology, Blogs, Cambridge, Language, Magazines, Media, Philosophy, Physics, Psychology, Science
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Go here [requires Flash video]. Skip the intro by clicking on “SKIP” in the bottom right-hand corner. Then click on “Video” and choose the first example: “Don Lewis demonstrates…”
The 80-year-old Bavarian, who has suffered a number of strokes, believes himself to be God’s representative on Earth and participates daily in what he and his followers claim is a cannibalistic blood ritual, during which they eat the flesh of a centuries-dead carpenter and travelling quack doctor. Officers have returned him to the high-security accommodation […]
Thank you to everyone who spoke at, helped with, and attended the Euston Manifesto Conference yesterday. Every seat was taken and then some. It was a superb meeting with some of the most interesting and thoughtful lectures I’ve heard in years—and that includes the stuff I thought was wrong. One of the best things about […]
There’s a movie called The Ring about a video so frightening that anyone who watches it dies. Here’s a link to a post at Drink-Soaked Trots.
Tom Hamilton’s blogging has been particularly good lately, ranging from the Devil’s Chaplain to the Devil’s Kitchen. I recommend his excellent posts about Richard Dawkins—oldie and goodie—and his fine, if less taxing, fisking of the most superfluous blog in existence not written by someone called Brittany: hoisting out the middle wicket and scooping up an […]
Last week, I noticed a registered Brighton & Hove taxi parked outside the Muslim community centre. Prominent on the dashboard was a hardback copy of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. A couple of days later I saw the car (and the book) again. This time the vehicle was being attended to by two of B&H’s […]
Friends have told me that my obsession with freewill and my belief that there is such a thing as evil are products of my Catholic upbringing. They are, in fact, products of personal experience and of a long, dull training in human biology. I know people who simply do not believe in evil. They are […]
Jeremy Paxman gets hate mail from BBC viewers who incorrectly believe him to be Jewish. Christopher Hitchens claims to be Jewish, but his brother Peter claims not to be. Most people assume Nick Cohen is Jewish, but he says he isn’t. Several of my best friends are Jewish. If I keep fixing their computers for them […]
Thursday evening, last week: I’m standing at the bar buying my round in a not-gay pub in Brighton when a man I’ve never met before starts talking to me in a way I am reluctant to categorise as “forward” until he moves in close, starts rubbing his hand up and down my chest, and tells […]
Thanks to the Anonymous Economist for sending me a copy of a New York Times article that highlights some of the monumental point-missing of the current debates about (for example) Iraq and the War on Terror simply by asking a dumb question. CAN YOU TELL A SUNNI FROM A SHIITE? By JEFF STEIN FOR the past several […]
During our Keira-frenzy, I forgot to draw attention to the photoshoppery that accompanied one of her earlier “historical” movie romps. Check out her amazing inflating chest [safe for work]. Also on Defamer you can watch Mel Gibson’s TV confession. What he did was wrong and he doesn’t pretend otherwise. It’s toe-curling stuff, but you can’t take […]
Yet another constituent is excluded from Jack Straw’s surgery.
Thanks to Gur Hirshburg for pointing out that music on the site I linked to a couple of days ago is track number 15 on Chava Alberstein’s Songs Of My Beloved Country, the poignant Ballad Of The Horse With A Spot On His Forehead.
www.iiiiiiii.com [requires Flash and a noisy office]
The original blog post was okay, but read on to enjoy the knocking out of James C in the comments beneath it by the flying fists of Tim Worstall and dearieme. I’m late to this, I know, but via Drunkenblogging, I read another example of inverted bigotry, even more extreme than James C’s: Muhammad Abdul Bari, […]
In the small ads of a musicians’ magazine I subscribe to this month I read the following: Gospel music like you’ve never heard it before! Totally FREE full song downloads. www.dalestrand.com Having listened to it [MP3, 3.3 Mb], I’d say the description is accurate.
At 11:28 BST the top two headlines on UK Google News were: The Daily Mail: THE POPE MUST DIE, SAYS MUSLIM The Guardian: MIXED RESPONSE TO NEW POPE APOLOGY
From The New York Daily News: “According to the incident report obtained by TMZ.com, [Mel Gibson] embarked on a belligerent, anti-Semitic outburst when he realized he had been busted. “F—–g Jews. The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,” Mee’s report quotes him as saying. “Are you a Jew?” Gibson asked the deputy, according […]
One of PooterGeek’s current side projects is The New Uxbridge Encyclopedia Of The Classical World, a vital and relevant guide to what has often been dismissed as a dead discipline, specifically designed to appeal to comprehensive school pupils. Just like the compilers of the OED, the staff of the NUECW welcome submissions from the general public […]
“I also have a problem with the discourse of planned/unplanned pregnancy in this context. Planned/unplanned assumes young women have agency, that they can choose what happens to them, that pregnancies are either accidents or overtly desired. In fact, for these young women, pregnancy will be one more in a string of things that just happens […]
Marvel at this unintentionally revealing Guardian story about the lengths middle-class parents go to to get their children into church schools. It opens with a Jewish mother admitting that she feels hypocritical attending Church of England services so that her two kids can get into the local church school. At least she is honest about […]
It’s the 6th day of the 6th month of 06. My name is Damian. Here’s my nephew and godson getting exorcised: [click to enlarge] [Hello, Beardsleys and Counsells. I’ve only just picked up the scans from the lab. You’ll get your prints later.]
Further to the ongoing debate in the comments here about street evangelism, Fark links to the anti-preachers.
No, not about the Euston Manifesto again, this is just some bog-standard fundamentalist religious craziness. You’ll need to have broadband and Macromedia Flash installed and you’ll probably have to lie—click in turn on “HIGH SPEED” and on “YES [I am a Christian]”—to enjoy the full glory of “The Way Of The Master”. It’s truly creepy, […]
Today, 13Apr06, we—bloggers, academics, campaigners, writers, scientists, journalists, citizens—launch the Euston Manifesto. With this document we hope to publicly assert our progressive, democratic, egalitarian, internationalist principles in the face of recent attacks upon them from the Right and, to our dismay, the Left. Many of us are of the Left, but we come from across the […]
By PooterGeek
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Also posted in Blogs, Law, Philosophy, Politics, Race, Science, Society, Technology, Terrorism, The Web, Warfare
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How politically correct is Brighton? I’ll tell you. This local Gospel choir’s Website carries the following warning to those aspiring to join it: Although we are a non denominational [sic], some of the songs taught do include religious references i.e. Jesus/Lord. However we wish to emphasise our aim is merely to celebrate the style of Gospel singing. Non-denominational […]