Wednesday, 13th of June, 2007

In the Guardian’s “Comment Is Free” section, which I off-handedly slagged off (kinda) in the previous post, AC Grayling has some on-the-money comments about the incredible fuss that some half-dozen or so books on atheism have stirred up in the last year or so — essentially pointing out that there are hundreds (at least) of religious books published every year, and isn’t it funny how terribly insecure those poor religious folks must be that they get so het up about a few books advocating for the Case Against.

In a way I’m more intrigued by the agnostic and even atheistic folks who think the strident atheists ought to be quiet and not rock the boat. On a similar tack, here’s Jeffrey Shallit on the cliché of the militant atheist — a convenient and inappropriate bit of framing, that one. Fundamentalist Christians and Moslems (and indeed Jews) could easily be described as militant. Most atheists, even the most strident, are as un-militant as they come.

Tuesday, 12th of June, 2007

It seems Fairfax don’t have any qualms about hosting content on their site that hasn’t been through seven levels of subediting… I guess either you go all-out with blog comments (a la the Grauniad’s Comment Is Free) or you don’t bother.

Hence, on a “Mashup” (stupid co-opting of a term there!) post about privacy and Google Maps, we get this informed opinion:

You privacy people are unbelievable. Its people like you that are ruining this country, this is America, dont like it then leave,Morons. If i get a photo of me running naked down to my local store, oh well.
Posted by: RoDog on June 11, 2007 12:44 AM

Well, RoDog, maybe if you weren’t a moron (oh, sorry, a “,Moron”) you’d notice that teh intarweb doesn’t reside exclusively in the USA.

Yay!

Friday, 1st of June, 2007

US philosopher Martha Nussbaum has an excellent clear-thinking article in Dissent on the idiotic academic boycott of Israel.