Suddenly, no-one’s named after Saddam anymore
From the International Herald Tribune:
The country’s Sunni-Shiite bloodletting is driving many Iraqis to bury the very essence of their identity: their names.
To have to hide one’s name is considered deeply shameful. But with sectarian violence surging, Iraqis fear that the name on an identification card, passport or other document could become an instant death sentence if seen by the wrong people.
Could I have a little less Islamofascism in my coffee?
Deltoid takes a few more whacks at his favourite pinata, Tim Blair. Tim Lambert channels Monty Python’s Spam sketch in response to Blair asking his fanboys whyowhy couldn’t ABC science wonk Robyn Williams write a book on the flaws in fundamentalist Islam instead of on the flaws of Intelligent Design “theory”?
Indeed, to get all subeditorly as Blair so likes to do (inserted obligatory cliches start here in bold), what unmitigated gall from Williams, writing about anything other than The Greatest Threat to Western Civilisation Evah(TM).
I’m shocked-diddly-ocked I tell you!
If a dad freaks out after his six-year-old innocently says the word ‘pen*s’ when reading a sign some teenagers have pranked, experience tells me that said six-year-old might just think it was enormous fun to say that word over and over and over again just to make daddy’s eyes bug out. Working out whether when his face changes colour like that it matches the crimson or the magenta crayon more exactly might be considered enormous fun as well.
But apparently, Bryan Flynn thinks such a reaction from his six-year-old indicates a “traumatized” child, and requires channelling Ned Flanders:
This has shaken the bedrock of our family. I made an emergency call to our church’s pastor about this bombshell in my daughter’s life and he is unsure how it will affect her future.
Number of the Beast = AntiChrist (but does it really?)
There is so much ink and electrons spent on the question: who is the AntiChrist revealed by the Number of the Beast? Type “antichrist” or “666″ into a search engine and watch the sponsored links to any number of sites theorising the matter appear. So who can the AntiChrist be? He snorted cocaine … He [...]
Daddy Dearest
Look at the man with his young daughter at the Father-Daughter ball. And all the other dads dancing there with their daughters. They look kinda sweet, don’t they? I would have thought that these two girls were a bit young for a ball, although they do look very excited. This dad made a special effort [...]
Am I being too much of a snob?
Am I saving myself as much time and possible grief as I think I am when I refuse to read their blog if I click on a commenter’s profile and find that they’ve listed The Da Vinci Code as a favorite book? Maybe there are some perfectly perspicacious people who nonetheless love this book that [...]
You keep using that word – I do not think it means what you think it means
Pick either word: theory or evolution – creationists don’t have a clue what they mean. A theory in science is not a guess or speculation, despite how the word has been bastardised in sloppy general usage – a theory in science is a rigorous testable model of an observed phenomenon. And the creationist misconceptions of [...]
No! Don’t look at the meme behind the cartoon!
I’d hate for a new reader to think that this blog was all-abortion all the time (that’s just a current Parliamentary issue of the moment). I do actually have other political and personal concerns. I had difficulty writing about the whole cartoon riots situation, because I’ve been too appalled at my children’s fear that someone [...]
Intelligent? Really?
Designing men and women by Adam Ferber at Fanatical Apathy. I think I’m one of many natural skeptics who came up with the idea of our universe as a long-forgotten school science experiment long before the Simpsons episode or reading Golden Age SF that informed me many others had thought the same decades earlier. Natural [...]
Two steps forward, three steps back
In Dover, Pennsylvania, the school board elections ousted the Republican fundevangelicals who want intelligent design taught in high school science class. In Kansas, a different lot of fundevangelicals voted to change school science standards to include be more critical of evolutionary biology theory. I feel very sad for the people of faith who accept science [...]
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