All entries by this author

House Republicans Work to Cut Food Stamps *

Nov 4th, 2005 | Filed by

Must pay for upper bracket tax cuts somehow.… Read the rest



Cardinal Says ‘Faithful’ Should Listen to Science *

Nov 4th, 2005 | Filed by

But then demands that science listen to religion as ‘an expert voice’. Expert in what?… Read the rest



Guy Takes 15 Years to Start Questioning Moonism *

Nov 4th, 2005 | Filed by

Still, better late than never.… Read the rest



Quantum Mechanics Must be Wrong *

Nov 4th, 2005 | Filed by

Or maybe Mills got his math wrong, or maybe his critics did, or maybe not.… Read the rest



We Live in 2005, not 905 *

Nov 4th, 2005 | Filed by

Danish cartoonists dare to tease the prophet. Marches ensue. … Read the rest



Cass Sunstein Takes a Look at Alito’s Dissents *

Nov 4th, 2005 | Filed by

He is often more conservative than his colleagues.… Read the rest



Anomalies

Nov 3rd, 2005 7:20 pm | By

Catherine Bennett is amusing.

It is strange, isn’t it, to think that this fine-looking couple, recently seen experiencing spiritual ecstasy in East Grinstead, presumably believe in Scientologist founder Ron L Hubbard’s story of Xenu, the galactic tyrant who froze his victims and stored them in the Earth’s volcanos?

Yeah? I didn’t know that. I don’t keep up with Scientology (too busy keeping up with Feng shui, I guess), and I didn’t know that. The galactic tyrant! Froze his victims! Stored them in earth’s volcanoes. Very cool. Almost as cool as playing football in pyjamas with no goal and no crossbar and no hugging.

If, as Madonna says, she has been ridiculed for professing her beliefs, her best expedient would

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Jon Pike Reviews Ted Honderich *

Nov 3rd, 2005 | Filed by

‘book ought to have done very serious damage to his reputation as one of Britain’s leading philosophers.’… Read the rest



Eve Garrard Reviews Michael Ignatieff *

Nov 3rd, 2005 | Filed by

Rights are far more ethically significant than a useful device to ensure that executive power is not abused.… Read the rest



French Hijab Ban Widely Accepted *

Nov 3rd, 2005 | Filed by

Bizarre headline bears no relation to article.… Read the rest



Turtles? Red Bracelets? Xenu? Holy Water? *

Nov 3rd, 2005 | Filed by

Lionel Blue maundering on Thought for the Day looks like golden age of secularism.… Read the rest



E O Wilson: Can Biology Do Better Than ‘Faith’? *

Nov 3rd, 2005 | Filed by

Rapprochement between science and religion may be neither possible nor desirable.… Read the rest



McMartin Preschool Case: ‘I Lied” *

Nov 3rd, 2005 | Filed by

If he gave an answer they didn’t like, they asked again until he gave the right one.… Read the rest



Well Why Bother Then? *

Nov 3rd, 2005 | Filed by

Bush is widely expected to pardon Libby if he is convicted.… Read the rest



Emma Brockes Interviews Noam Chomsky *

Nov 3rd, 2005 | Filed by

Things get bad-tempered over Bosnia and Srebrenica.… Read the rest



Norm Geras on the Reductions of the Left *

Nov 3rd, 2005 | Filed by

Category of ‘imperialism’ so exhausts the thinking of part of the left as to lock it into regrettable positions.… Read the rest



Iran Fires Diplomats in Purge of Liberals *

Nov 3rd, 2005 | Filed by

Ambassadors to London, Paris, Berlin and UN mediated between Iran and Europe over nuclear programme. … Read the rest



Muslim Domestic Violence Cases are Different *

Nov 3rd, 2005 | Filed by

Or so police are told in Victoria, Australia. Muslim women not pleased.… Read the rest



Football Fatwa

Nov 2nd, 2005 8:11 pm | By

There must be a mole at the Guardian. Prince Charles would frown wonderingly in the manner of Ned Welch if he read this article – HRH would be most unamused. But that’s his problem.

As part of a government drive to eliminate frivolous fatwas, the Saudi newspaper Al Watan recently published a stone-cold sober one on football. If you can read it without collapsing in helpless laughter – I have bad news for you: you seem to be deceased.

International terminology that heretics use, such as “foul,” “penalty”, “corner,” “goal”, “out” and others, should be abandoned and not said…Do not follow the heretics, the Jews, the Christians and especially evil America regarding the number of players. Do not play

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Furtive Political Campaigns are the Wrong Kind *

Nov 2nd, 2005 | Filed by

A retreat into the mire of a furtive, grubby campaign of individual acts of anti-Semitic discrimination.… Read the rest