America's most lovable atheist interviews Anglo-America's most irritating on Pope Benedict's cover-up crisis, and though it pains Andrew Sullivan to say it, "he's right, isn't he?" Moneyquote: Suppose you and I are having a martini...

27 March, 2010

Displaying customary humility, atheist showboat Christopher Hitchens takes a stab at re-writing the Ten Commandments in the current Vanity Fair and on YouTube. Andrew Sullivan responds by recalling a parallel attempt by Walt Whitman, in the prose preface to Leaves of Grass: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any...

14 March, 2010

Contrarian amused himself yesterday by seeing how long a non-sports fan living in Canada without television and with the radio turned off could avoid learning the outcome of the Canada-US hockey game. Answer: Until a 6:59 p.m. AST email bulletin from the New York Times. Herewith some of the very few Olympic nuggets that actually tweaked my interest: What a difference a second makes: Amanda Cox of the New York Times uses a musical interactive graphic to illustrate the extent to which elite athletes cluster near the winning time in various events. When you "play" each event, a staccato musical tone represents each contestant...

01 March, 2010

On January 1, a new law in Ireland bans publication or uttering of material grossly abusive or insulting to matters held sacred by any religion and thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion. The law carries a 25,000 Euro fine and permits some defenses. The website blasphemy.ie declares it "both silly and dangerous." It is silly because medieval religious laws have no place in a modern secular republic, where the criminal law should protect people and not ideas. And it is dangerous because it incentives religious outrage, and because Islamic States led by Pakistan are...

03 January, 2010