Personal Blogs

The Idiocy of Modern Culture... ...is

Posted on January 14, 2011
The Idiocy of Modern Culture... ...is explained by the fact that the same people who believe that a crazy person was influenced by stuff he didn't see or hear on television and the radio don't believe that teenagers might be influenced by things they do see and hear on television and radio...

Why Modern Culture Sucks. This

Posted on January 14, 2011
Why Modern Culture Sucks. This review of "The Spiritual History of English" prompted me to make an impulse purchase of the book for my Kindle. The author, Andrew Thornton-Norris, bases his argument on T.S Eliot?s premise that saw the ?culture of a people as an incarnation of its religion?...

The Dust Bowl of the 21st Century. Reason

Posted on January 13, 2011
The Dust Bowl of the 21st Century. Reason magazine has been doing yeoman's work documenting how government policy has turned the Central Valley of California, the most productive agricultural area in the world into an economic basket case. California's Central Valley is a 450 mile long stretch of flat and fertile land that produces much of the food that we enjoy every day...

Review - "The Aryan Jesus." Susannah

Posted on January 13, 2011
Review - "The Aryan Jesus." Susannah Heschel's "The Aryan Jesus" makes a nice complement to other recent books on the Nazi Christian phenomenon, such as The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945 by Richard Steigman-Gall and "Catholicism and the Roots of Nazism: Religious Identity and National Socialism" by Derek Hastings...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Confirmation Bias - Storyline first,

Posted on January 12, 2011
Confirmation Bias - Storyline first, facts later, maybe. Matt Welch at Reason Magazine does a "compare and contrast" with the sedate and measured - or non-existent - response when lunatics clearly associated with Environmentalism or Anti-Globalism commit acts of violence and the hair trigger accusations that spew from media sources, including the LA Times which is continuing the meme of linking

"True Grit" Considered - A meditation

Posted on January 12, 2011
"True Grit" Considered - A meditation on justice and mercy. Father Barron points out the religious significance of the Coen's production of "True Grit": Finally, Mattie frees herself and shoots to death her father?s murderer, but the recoil on the gun is so strong that she is pushed into a snake pit, where she receives a bite on the hand...

Well, that's reassuring.  "Study:

Posted on January 12, 2011
Well, that's reassuring.  "Study: If aliens exist, they probably want to destroy us."

Speaking of disengaged from reality. NRO's

Posted on January 12, 2011
Speaking of disengaged from reality. NRO's Jonah Goldberg debates liberal talk show host Nancy Skinner on whether "anti-government rhetoric" was a cause of the Arizona massacre. The Left's newfound realization that "ideas have consequences" and its apparent willingness to restrict or chill political speech is something to behold.

Review of Walter Jon Williams "Implied

Posted on January 12, 2011
Review of Walter Jon Williams "Implied Spaces." At Amazon: Walter Jon Williams' "Implied Spaces" is kind of a "throw-back" science fiction novel. The overall story is big - the risk that the protaganist faces is nothing less than the enslavement or death of every human being...

As I tell some clients, they don't

Posted on January 11, 2011
As I tell some clients, they don't hate you because of your race/gender/disability/sexual orientation.  They hate you because you're you. Vox Day answers a self-identified atheist's question. The question: Why are believers so hostile toward atheists? Is there anything atheists can say about our atheism -- or even just about our lives -- that won't make people look at us with revulsion?The

Church Membership - 2010 Edition. In

Posted on January 11, 2011
Church Membership - 2010 Edition. In a few years, there are going to be as many Greek Orthodox in America as Episcopalians. From the Washington Times - Total church membership reported in the 2010 Yearbook is 147,384,631 members, up 0.49 percent over 2009...

Question of the Moment: Why do

Posted on January 10, 2011
Question of the Moment: Why do Progressive Pundits think that it is irresponsible to suggest that Islamic extremism might have something to do with Islamic extremists.... ...but don't have a problem with associating a nutjob listening to orders from Jupiter's atmosphere with Conservatives? In the wake of the Tuscon shooting of Arizona Congresswomen, plus the murder of a 9 year old child, and

Religion of Peace Update. Alternative

Posted on January 06, 2011
Religion of Peace Update. Alternative title, "This is absolutely nuts." Wintery Knight posts an entry on how 500 Muslim clerics have endorsed the murder of the Pakistani Governor who dared to oppose blasphemy laws. And, in a scene reminiscent of Weimar judges apologizing to Hitler for having to give him a lenient sentence for his failed attempt to overthrow the government, the killer - who was

Revisionist History - The Dark

Posted on January 06, 2011
Revisionist History - The Dark Ages weren't Dark. Here is a post of an interview with Nancy Marie Brown, author of "The Cross and the Abacus" which is about Pope Sylvester II.  It turns out that at the end of the first millenia, the Catholic Church was headed by a man who was just about the greatest scientific mind of his age...

Something good. Egypt Muslims

Posted on January 06, 2011
Something good. Egypt Muslims to act as "human shields" at Coptic Christmas Eve mass: ?Although 2011 started tragically, I feel it will be a year of eagerly anticipated change, where Egyptians will stand against sectarianism and unite as one,? Father Rafaeil Sarwat of the Mar-Mina church told Ahram Online...

Gag - 3 minute news report on the

Posted on January 05, 2011
Gag - 3 minute news report on the few remaining cute and cuddly Nazis in New York. The get together and play poker and provide news analysis you don't hear on television.  They have the works of Hitler and Mussolini on their bookshelves.  And there seems to be an upturn of interest in entering into the discussion because of high unemployment rates...

Perhaps this explains the Irish. Study

Posted on January 05, 2011
Perhaps this explains the Irish. Study shows link between alcohol consumption and monogamy: Ron Bailey points to new economic research noting that ?across the world the main social groups which practice polygyny do not consume alcohol? and, conversely, ?a positive correlation between monogamy and alcohol consumption (and especially between monogamy and drunkenness) across societies...

Good Reasons not to federalize

Posted on January 04, 2011
Good Reasons not to federalize state law. Mark Shea observes: Compare and contrast The Obama Administration's DOJ refuses to prosecute a "slam dunk" voter discrimination case against the New Black Panther Party, but deems this case of a dismissed misdemeanor against a pro-lifer as viable and worthy of bringing all the weight and resources of the federal government to bear...

Cool Dialect Map. Patrick Madrid

Posted on January 04, 2011
Cool Dialect Map. Patrick Madrid provides a cool dialect map so that we can see all the places where people talk funny. For example, in many parts of the world, "dawn", "on", and "Don" do not rhyme, notwithstanding the fact that they do.  Apparently, San Francisco is one of those places...

From the "Hope and Change" File. Powerline

Posted on January 04, 2011
From the "Hope and Change" File. Powerline blog relays this extract from Bobby Jindal's book about his meeting with the President: Schweizer recalls Bobby Jindal's bizarre encounter with President Obama at the height of the Gulf oil spill crisis: In his recently released book Leadership and Crisis, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal recounts an exchange with President Obama during the Gulf oil

I suspected something like this. The

Posted on January 04, 2011
I suspected something like this. The subtitle to the next "Pirates of the Caribbean" is "On Stranger Tides," which happens to be the title of one of Tim Powers fantasy meets history novels, aka "On Stranger Tides." According to Wiki, the Disney movie draws its "inspiration" from the Powers' novel...

No, theists are not atheists. Just

Posted on January 04, 2011
No, theists are not atheists. Just Thomism makes thinking easy for those who worship reason but can't be bothered to use it: The following argument is popular: ?I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours...

Man faces charges for reading wife's

Posted on January 03, 2011
Man faces charges for reading wife's e-mails. The only reason I'm posting this is because this issue came up with my partner last week, and I said the idea was "ridiculous."

Hidden History. Check out this

Posted on January 03, 2011
Hidden History. Check out this website on the historical sites and sociological oddities under the feet of New Yorkers.

New Years Eve Attacks.... ...on

Posted on January 03, 2011
New Years Eve Attacks.... ...on Christian churches deserve more expressions of outrage.

Pedophiles and Priests. My review

Posted on January 03, 2011
Pedophiles and Priests. My review on Philip Jenkins' "Pedophiles and Priests" has started a little debate.

The Truth - It can surprise you

Posted on January 03, 2011
The Truth - It can surprise you sometimes. How many individuals have claimed to have been raped by Catholic priests.  Based on the publicity of the issue you might be excused in thinking - as did the Mormon troll at Theology for Dummies - that the number is "tens of thousands...

Witch-hunt unravelling? Witch-hunts

Posted on January 03, 2011
Witch-hunt unravelling? Witch-hunts seem to go through clearly identifiable stages.  There is the initial stage where accusations are made that seem incredible and unbelievable, but in some way seem to fit a popular trope or anxiety.  The next stage follows with corroboration from disparate sources...

Report from Western Appalachia. I've

Posted on January 03, 2011
Report from Western Appalachia. I've known since I was in high school that the true division of California is not North and South, it is East and West, with Eastern California playing the role of provincial satrapy to the Coast.  At that time the clue was the fact that apart from U...

There are more people alive today

Posted on January 02, 2011
There are more people alive today than have ever lived in the history of the Earth... ...well, not exactly. Or to be more precise, not even close. This site crunches the numbers on this extremely long-lived and wrong canard: (Population Today, November/December 2002) The question of how many people have ever lived on Earth is a perennial one among information calls to PRB...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.