This Magazine's Offices Got Firebombed

It says "100 Lashes if You Don't Die of Laughter"

Take it and Post it. They can't firebomb all of us.

Flat-Out Moronic: The Intellectual Pretensions of the Sub-Literati

Galileo was not brought before the Inquisition for saying that the earth goes around the sun. I'm going to repeat that in large font:

Galileo was not brought before the Inquisition for saying that the Earth goes around the Sun.


The Church punished Galileo for an error of theology: for stating that the observations of the eye were superior to the Revelations of Scripture. Also, for claiming that heliocentrism had been proven true when it had not, and mocking others who argued the contrary (including the Pope of the time) in print. His offense was relatively minor and possibly unintentional, so his punishment was light. But you cannot claim to be historically literate on the subject if you insist on repeating the old farcical lie.

And if you do so while mocking others for essentially, knowing more than you do, then you're claim of literacy is driven down to Kindergarten levels reserved for people who thought that the Boston Tea Party was in 1776.

Meanwhile, the Slapfight Over Evolution Continues

Carthago Delenda Est linked this amusing insistence that the Grand and Complex Theory of Evolution can be reduced to the tautology "Survivors Survive." The knife-point:

Richard Dawkins asserts that Darwin's theory allows one to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. As an example of the deep scientific insight provided by Darwin's theory, Myers notes that more successful replicators relatively more successfully replicate, and that birds that are better able to get food during famine are better able to survive.
Myers is an intellectually fulfilled atheist.

Atheism is a small cup.

I should mention that I don't really have a dog in this fight. I'm a Catholic, and the Catholic Church has for the most part wisely refrained from getting drawn into the weeds about evolution. The last Pope said the theory was "credible," and so long as the theory is not used as a springboard for atheism, the Church teaches it in its schools. So I don't really have anything to say on the ins and outs of evolutionary biology, and as long as the Grand Inquisitors of High Atheism leave it alone, so will I.

Christian Fundamentalist Behind Norway Attack

Because nothing is more Christ-like than "I'll Kill You All!"

The Other McCain has the skinny.

91 Dead. Jesus wept.

Bill Maher Pretends to be Above it All...

For a guy who "doesn't care" about religion, he can't seem to shut up about it.

The worst thing about religious debates is the way people (of whatever camp) act like they know what they're talking about when they don't. The Cosmos is too large to be conntained in anyone's head. This is all conjecture with hand-selected facts. None of us "knows" anything about what drives the universe.

Arguing with people, making claims of knowledge that do not stand up to dispassionate observation, this is all a waste of time. People are not reasoned into faith or apostasy; faith is a gift of the Spirit. We respond to religion on a spiritual level or don't. I did not arrive at the Truth of Catholicism by argument and then drag my heart to church. Rather, my heart from boyhood loved it, and I sought for ways to bring my intellect to line with it.

To atheists, this is the antithesis of reason, "magical thinking" and the like. I submit that they are more subject to it than they know. Did they really abandon God because they examined the evidence dispassionately? Or did they want to abandon Him all along, and jumped at the first boat they thought would carry them?

In any case, we shall one day discover who is lost at sea.

Nancy Pelosi is Incredibly Stupid

In other news, Generalissimo Francisco... you know the rest. (h/t: The Other McCain)



Just for the record, this is what Job suffered:

• Reduction to poverty
• Loss of his workers
• Death of his children
• Boils and Sores
• His wife's nagging

This is what Obama has suffered:

• Having to listen to people who disagree with him
• Having to take seriously the suggestions of people who disagree with him
• Having to meet with people who disagree with them and treat them respectfully

In other words, Barack Obama has had do do things that come with the job description of being President of the United States. What's next? Does Obama get compared to Elijah for taking trips on Air Force One?

Hopefully, it was a snack flight

Most of the Book of Job, in fact, is Job arguing with his three friends about God's justice and mercy. If St. Nancy of the Catholic Cafeteria had actually ever read it, she'd know that comparing someone required by dint of his office to listen to opposing viewpoints with Job is not merely an egregious exaggeration; it's spectacularly inapt.

And If We Don't Give the Palestinians What They Want....?

When I was 16 years old, I believed that Israel and Palestine could come to some kind of agreement and just drop everything. I believed that this was about a homeland. I no longer think so, because I became convinced of the reality that Mark Steyn is talking about:

“That’s why there was no peace in 1948, no peace under the British mandate in the 1930s, no peace at the time of the 1922 partition because one party to the dispute wants to kill the other. So, if they are wedded to that, then you got to put pressure on the party that doesn’t want to kill each other, to make concession – to keep throwing concessions in the face of the beast that wants to devour it and I think that’s – if you look at where he’s applying the pressure, I think that tells you a lot about the fundamental fraudulence of these negotiations.”

Now it could be that all this talk of wanting to drive Israel into the see is so much bluster. But if you were an Israeli Jew, how much would you want to bet on it? Palestine could have had peace in 1999, when Israel offered them more or less the same deal that Obama wants them to offer now. Palestine chose war, instead. Because war is what they want.

So war is what Palestine gets. And so long as Israel refuses to surrender anything to an enemy they have no reason to trust, it's a war they will slowly lose.

Thoughts on Bin Laden

1. It's obviously true and totally irrelevant that Al Qaeda and the Taliban will continue just fine in his absence, just as Iraq continued bloodily after Saddam was caught and hung. It matters not. This man declared war on us, and now he is fodder for worms. The message is clear: you may run, and you may hide, and the long years may seem to stretch on, but one day you will turn around, and one of ours will be behind you, and he will put two in the back of your head, and we will take your gangly corpse and display it to the four corners of the realm. Sleep tight.
2. Teleprompter hiccups aside, Obama looked presidential last night. He's milking this win for his own political capital, and there's no reason he shouldn't. As he said, he gave the order, and it redounds to the Commander-in-Chief's credit. Democrats are going to use this as evidence that The Shadow Way, the Non-Invasion Way, is the better way to defeat terror. After all, Bush missed Bin Laden for eight years, and Obama got him in two. But there's no way we would have done so without the assets that Bush put in country. Obama relentlessly praised the men and women, military and intelligence, who made this happen. We should not pretend that they started in January 2009, whatever Double Secret Probation that the President ordered then.
3. On a religious note, I don't really care all that much about Bin Laden's Final Judgment. If he should be barking in Hell, so be it. If I should run into him in Purgatory, and we stare dumb-foundedly at one another as the last of our wickedness is scorched away from us, so be it. Bin Laden's death means that he is no longer a problem for me and my countrymen. That is enough. The Almighty has His own purposes.

Koran-Burning in Iran.

From what I'm given to understand, these are two Persian boys who consider the Koran a document foisted on their people by Arab invaders. I'm guessing this makes them Zoroastrians, some other religious minority. But non-Muslims make up just 5% of the population, according to the CIA World Factbook, so maybe they're just  Muslim apostates.

They don't get it lit until about the 4:50 mark, but when they do, it burns quickly. Notice that they throw their prepared speech into the flames as well: a necessary precaution in a religiously-minded state.



I'm of mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, there's something indescribably sad about a book burning; the poetry of the Koran does not deserve to be treated this way.

On the other hand, it's worth noting that antipathy to radical Islam is as broad as the wide world, even in what an American considers the dark heart of enemy territory. So there it is: watch it if you've the stomach.

Bill Maher Gets Something Right.

It was bound to happen.

“What it comes down to is there is one religion in the world that kills you when you disagree with them and they say, ‘Look, we are a religion of peace and if you disagree, we’ll fucking cut your head off,’ and nobody calls them on it. There are very few people that will call them on it. You know, it’s like if dad is a violent drunk and beats his kids,” Maher said. “You don’t blame the kid because he set dad off. You blame Dad because he’s a violent drunk.”

He even quotes Bush approvingly:

“Bush used to talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations,” he said. “That’s what this is. When you say, ‘Well this is what the Muslims are going to do, you burn a Quran, they’re going to fucking kill the people – that’s bigotry.”

I do, George. I do.

Richard Dawkins Struggles With the Whole Logic Thing

Via Carthago Delenda Est, this:

Because a university science department would be justified in turning down holders of these beliefs, Dawkins wishes us to think, it follows that UK was justified in rejecting Gaskell. Dawkins's illustrations are three cases of Biblical literalist YEC belief and three fantasy beliefs the likes of which no one you'll ever meet actually holds, certainly no one who could rise to a level of scientific achievement where hiring him to teach at a university would come up for practical discussion.

I don't necessarily buy ID, but I have noticed a similarity between ID-opponents and AGW-proponents: the willingness to malign and conflate their opponents.

If an Inquisition existed today, Dawkins would run it with glee

Nifty.

Pope John Paul II to be Beatified May 1.

For those non-Cat'licks, Beatification is the half-way point to being declared a saint. Afterwards it will be customary to refer to him as Blessed John Paul II.

You may return to your pedophilia jokes now.

But Don't Call it "The Ground Zero Mosque"

The fact that they've applied for 9/11 rebuilding funds means nothing. NOTHING.

In the end, Park51’s application is likely to be unsuccessful financially while mobilizing a new round of opposition. It’s a lose-lose proposition put forward by a tone-deaf organization that seems determined to alienate allies and embolden opponents.

I think that the true source of the outrage: the complete gob-smacked dumbfoundedness that anyone would be offended. "What, we're just applying for public moneys set aside to aid redevelopment of the lands our co-religionists laid waste to, so we can spread the good word of Islam. What's the big?"

It's like trying to explain table manners to a fifteen-year-old.

Mahmoud and the Pope

The things one does for Holy Spirit:

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sent a letter to the pope thanking him for opposing a Florida pastor’s threat to burn the Quran and calling for cooperation against secularism, the Vatican and the Iranian presidency said Saturday. 

Because a Florida pastor was going to burn a Quran out of respect for secularism.

The Vatican said Pope Benedict XVI had received the letter during a brief meeting with one of Iran’s vice presidents at the end of his weekly general audience Wednesday.
Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi did not release the contents of the message.

Actually, George, it Means "Submission."

I am eagerly awaiting an explanation of how this is NOT using the public schools to spread religion.



But just try to lead some kids in an "Our Father" within 200 feet of a school. Waitin' for the ACLU on this.

Waitin'.

What. The. Fuck.

The Ayatollah, Sharia and Sex:



I was perfectly content to believe that Khomeini was simply a Pharisee, a legalist, a Raging Medieval Intolerant. I did not need to know that he raped a 5-year-old girl in order to dislike him. To know that he did, and that he justified it under the flimsiest of pretexts (as though rubbing your penis between someone's thighs is not a sex act), does not augment my dislike, but rather morphs it to a horrified nausea.

Please tell me that isn't the Q'uran that's being quoted. Tell me it's the Haditha. Whatever difference that might make.

Mosque or "Cultural Center"?

Salomatic.com, which bills itself as "the Worlds Most Comprehensive Guide to Mosques and Islamic Schools," refers to the Cordoba House as a mosque. There's even a picture of Friday prayers going on right now.

I feel soooo welcome.

The Ground Zero Mosque Solution

I have my doubts about whether the builders of Cordoba House -- aka the Ground Zero Mosque -- are really interested in bringing about dialogue between Islam and the West. But if they wanted to prove it too me, there's a simple thing they could do.

Rebuild the Church of St. Nicholas that was destroyed on 9/11. First. And just as tall.

If they can do it in Bagdad, they can do it in New York.

Update: Bill Whittle works himself into a fine lather. I don't disagree.

This is a Picture of Mohammed:

Be Offended!

Unclean! Unclean!

I'm trying to figure out why I should care that an Arab-American is now Miss USA. Apparently there are some people on the Right worked up about this.

But having examined the issue, the only thing I can think of saying is "Meow..." Which may not be the remark of a gentleman.