From Simon Blackburn in his new book Truth. He compares skeptics, who suspend judgment on undecideable questions, with relativists.

Today’s relativists, persuading themselves that all opinions enjoy the same standing in the light of reason, take it as a green light to believe what they like with as much conviction and force as they like. So while ancient scepticism was the sworn opponent of dogmatism, today dogmatisms feed and flourish on the desecrated corpse of reason. Astrology, prophecy, homeopathy, Feng shui, conspiracy theories, flying saucers, voodoo, crystal balls, miracle-working, angel visits, alien abductions, management nostrums and a thousand other cults dominate people’s minds, often with official backing. ‘Faith education’ is backed by the British Prime Minister, while Biblical fundamentalism,

So someone has finally told France – psst, Freud kind of got things wrong. Tiens! Sans blague?

A war of words has erupted among French psychiatrists after the publication of a “black book” that lambasts the teaching of Sigmund Freud and blames his followers for setting back mental health care in France by decades. In a country that is one of the last redoubts of pure Freudian psychoanalysis, the book has been like shock treatment for many in the white-coat establishment who accuse the authors of grovelling to the “Anglo-Saxon” trend towards behaviour-based mental therapy. The news magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, which published extracts of the 800-page work last month, was bombarded with letters charging it with “fascist rhetoric”

Some more bottom.

Belatedly reading the comments on Michael’s piece on Bush’s swell money-saving plan I see that I’m not the only one who experienced genre-confusion. I thought it was all sarcasm, other people thought it was all news. One commenter objected to the mix and to the sarcasm, saying the news is so disgusting that jokes don’t quite play. Michael’s answer is interesting.

OK. I’m sorry to be so expository, but here’s the deal. First: I don’t think this post is funny. It wasn’t meant to be funny, and I honestly didn’t imagine that anyone would laugh at it. I did not laugh while I was writing it, for what that’s worth; I wrote it in a cold gray

There’s an interesting news article at Michael Bérubé’s place.

The President’s mother, Barbara Bush, pointed out that no-wage contracts can be extremely popular for people devastated by Hurricane Katrina: “What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary,” she remarked on National Public Radio, “is that some of them are singing with happiness. And many of them were idle anyway, so this could work out very well for them.”

President Bush did not say which industries would be eligible for the contracts, but one White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, remarked that the affected areas were ideal for growing cotton, and “cotton is a really great fabric in all kinds of weather—light, comfortable, versatile. I think we’ll need