[T]he superstition that the budget must be balanced at all times, once it is debunked, takes away one of the bulwarks that every society must have against expenditure out of control. . . . [O]ne of the functions of old-fashioned religion was to scare people by sometimes what might be regarded as myths into behaving in a way that long-run civilized life requires.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Today's reading
According to the barmaid wisdom starts with knowing that you don't know.
Bush Prays, Jesus Pukes at the Rude Pundit.
Jon Swift hopes crypto-socialist John McCain can be stopped.
PhysioProf criticizes the myth that Obama will be immune to right-wing smear propaganda.
There's been a lot of good stuff at Orcinus lately. Sara has a two-part (so far) series on crazy dangerous extremist groups (most of them, quelle suprise, religious). Dave continues to hammer home the notion that if conservatives don't want to be called fascists, they shouldn't act like fascists.
James F. Elliott reports that some Orthodox Jews appeared to be annoyed that they've been been left out of the batshit crazy religious nutjob community. It's not a sin to beat up defenseless women, it's a sin to beat up defenseless women for the wrong imaginary friend.
Himself shows us everything we need to know about Ann Coulter.
Geoff Arnold efficiently demolishes mystical mumbo-jumbo and philosophical bullshit about consciousness dualism and "qualia".
Daniel Brooks attends an (un)Intelligent Design conference and demolishes their cargo-cult pseudoscience in gory detail (via Pharyngula).
More later.
1 comment:
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Actually, that "modesty patrol" beat her up for not doing what they think the imaginary friend wants her to do (i.e. To the back of the bus with you, woman!), not for having the wrong imaginary friend.
ReplyDeleteI'm all for getting down on Islam and all other cultures for their various and sundry forms of misogyny... but let's not ignore the misogyny that's closer to home, eh?