Interesting

What happened to The New York Times?

Inheriting the Earth

Not so good news from John Derbyshire

Looking into the future, what is doubly astonishing, if Kaufmann is correct, is that the religion dominating the world of our grandchildren will not be the subtle intellectualism of Christian seminaries—of a Tillich, a Niebuhr, a Küng. It will be the literalist-fundamentalist obscurantism of Muslim Salafis, Jewish “Ultras,” Young Earth Creationists, and Mormon splinter sects. In a world dominated by these closed-minded babblers, what place will there be for literature, science, free inquiry, or freedom of any kind?

The Roots of Obama Worship

Auguste Comte’s Religion of Humanity finds a 21st-Century savior.

The conflicting demands of the Religion of Humanity and the presidency of the United States have become most apparent in the administration’s approach to dealing with the threat of Islamic terrorism. The Religion of Humanity, by its own reckoning, admits to facing challenges from two quarters: from those who have not yet fully entered the age of Positivism, which includes the terrorists, and from those who are part of the advanced world but who refuse to embrace it, which includes the likes of George W. Bush. In the present situation, these two groups are understood to have a symbiotic relationship. The existence of the terrorists is regrettable, not only because of the physical threat that they pose, but also because, by doing so, they risk strengthening the hand of those in the West who reject the Religion of Humanity. Supporters of the Religion of Humanity therefore believe they have good reason to deny or minimize the danger of terrorism in order to save the world from the even greater danger of the triumph of the retrograde forces. This is the dogmatic basis of political correctness, and Obama and his team have gone to considerable lengths by their policies and by their use of language to hide reality. But reality has a way of asserting itself, and it is becoming clearer by the day that being the leader of Humanity is incompatible with being the president of the United States. No man can serve two masters.

See much more in James Ceaser’s article in The Weekly Standard.

The global-warming priesthood and nuclear power

Mona Charen makes some interesting points in her column at National Review Online.

Global-warming priests, while sermonizing about the need to spend trillions on new energy sources, almost never have a kind word for nuclear power — casting doubt on their motives. If the goal were really to reduce our carbon output (and not to recast our way of life), clean, efficient, affordable nuclear power would be the obvious choice.

There’s much more.

Robert George Answers Doug Kmiec's Questions on Life Issues

BuzzNet Tags: abortion,stem cell research

This guy has the answers.

Science has important things to contribute to ethical reflection, but by itself it cannot resolve ethical questions. Science cannot tell us whether there are such things as dignity and rights, or whether all human beings or, for that matter, any human beings have them. Science cannot tell us whether slavery or segregation or rape or torture is right or wrong. It cannot tell us whether mentally retarded individuals or victims of senile dementia have the same fundamental dignity and right to life as the rest of us possess. It cannot tell us whether it is unjust to kill infants or mentally disabled people to harvest their vital organs to use in transplantation surgery. It cannot tell us whether it is wrong to kill blacks to save whites, or Jews to save gentiles, or human beings in early developmental stages to save those at later stages. Science can confirm that blacks, no less than whites, Jews, no less than gentiles, and embryos, fetuses, and infants, no less than adolescents and adults, are living individuals of the human species—human beings. The questions that then must be faced are ethical, not scientific: Do all human beings, or only some, possess inherent dignity?

C. S. Lewis on progressivism

If you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

What’s wrong with the phrase “the anti-war movement”?

LOPEZ: What’s wrong with the phrase “the anti-war movement”?

LEAF: All of the most important leaders of the “anti-war” movement — Tom Hayden, Bill Ayers, Mark Rudd, Abbie Hoffman, Katherine Boudin, et al. — were very much in favor of violence and war. It’s just that they wanted our Communist enemies to win. Their love for violence was possibly best indicated when Bernadine Dohrn announced at a national SDS convention that the group should adopt a new salute — of forked fingers — to honor the Manson murderers who ate and then stuck their forks into the belly of the dead but pregnant Sharon Tate.

From an interview with Jonathan Leaf about his book The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Sixties.

I’d like to see a citation of that Bernadine Dohrn comment but I am inclined to believe it.

Technorati Tags: politics,dohrn,left