I imagine many of my friends would qualify for others. I hope they list them. Richard, for example, would probably get most of ‘em. Jane would get to design her very own badge. If she had her own blog she’d tell you about it. Hmmm, maybe I should accept guest bloggers. It would be worth it to make sure Jane’s story gets a wider audience.
The Tampon Taser Gun. For when the lady in your life needs a little extra protection.
The tampon taser/stun gun is the latest in portable and personal security systems. The beauty of this taser/stun gun, aptly named The Pink Stinger, is its ingenious design and ability to be concealed nicely and unassumingly into any purse for ultimate stealth. The taser’s gentle glide zapplicator easily fits in the palm of your hand for incredible comfort and protection and ready for honorable discharge at a moments notice. In addition, its fresh floral scent helps eliminate the smell of fear, not just cover it up.
According to Ann Coulter, author of the book Treason, hypocrisy is the one sin that liberals can’t forgive.
“For the majority leader of the United States Senate, in the time of war, with soldiers dying on the ground, announcing that we have lost the war, is very close to treasonous. I looked it up while we were driving over here, what the definition of ‘treason’ is. It’s the betrayal of trust.”
– Tom DeLay, 2007
“I cannot support a failed foreign policy….President Clinton has never explained to the American people why he was involving the US military in a civil war in a sovereign nation, other than to say it is for humanitarian reasons, a new military-foreign policy precedent. Was it worth it to stay in Vietnam to save face? What good has been accomplished so far? Absolutely nothing.”
– then-House Majority Whip Tom Delay, 1999, a month into the US mission in Kosovo
I was not looking forward to Hitchens’ book because I feared it would be (how should I say this?) less than temperate. But if this snippet, from a preview in Slate,
Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.
or this one
We are not immune to the lure of wonder and mystery and awe: we have music and art and literature, and find that the serious ethical dilemmas are better handled by Shakespeare and Tolstoy and Schiller and Dostoyevsky and George Eliot than in the mythical morality tales of the holy books. Literature, not scripture, sustains the mind and—since there is no other metaphor—also the soul. We do not believe in heaven or hell, yet no statistic will ever find that without these blandishments and threats we commit more crimes of greed or violence than the faithful. (In fact, if a proper statistical inquiry could ever be made, I am sure the evidence would be the other way.) We are reconciled to living only once, except through our children, for whom we are perfectly happy to notice that we must make way, and room. We speculate that it is at least possible that, once people accepted the fact of their short and struggling lives, they might behave better toward each other and not worse. We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion.
is at all representative, I should just order my copy right now.
All the recent polemics have been from scientists. It would round out my education to hear what a non-scientist has to say to get a balanced view.
He and Kaka are the sort of players who prompt comparisons with other forms of art. Music, most obviously. Ronaldo’s mode is allegro molto vivace, with a pronounced fondness for bursts of staccato phrasing via those quick-stepping feet, his unorthodoxy extending to the fearless introduction of techniques that others might unveil only in rehearsal, for the amusement of their colleagues. Kaka plays at a permanent andante cantabile, with a sweetly flowing grace, his devastating sprint a thing of seemingly unhurried beauty, his body swaying as one change of direction blends seamlessly into another.
My Hope-O-Meter was at close to zero for this game. It will droop even lower for the second leg but, if it is half as good as this one was, I’ll enjoy it immensely even if, as I fear, we don’t win.
Apparently, Matthew, your ‘fascination’ with Christianity does not stretch to exploring, discussing or even considering the historicity of its core event - the resurrection from the dead of a corpse. If this happened, it warrants the teaching of the greatest man who ever lived, and you simply can’t then dismiss him or what he said as irrelevant. If not, then I agree that the whole thing is a sham.
So weigh the evidence. At least it might give you some cause for respect for people like CS Lewis and countless scientists the world over who find, like me, that Christianity and science gel because they are two views of reality, the one from God’s standpoint, the other from ours.
David White, Northampton, UK
and it struck me that I have never heard a Christian put the question in such stark terms. Was there a resurrection, or wasn’t there?
It’s striking because it is the kind of question an atheist would ask.
I liked Matthew Parris even when he was a Tory MP and it was unfashionable to like Tory MPs…
I hate ending up in scraps with nice Anglicans and thoughtful Catholics because the Church of England and intelligent Catholicism are not the problem. They are the best kind of Christians, but the best lack all conviction. It is the worst who are full of passionate intensity. Look at the evangelical movement in America, and to some extent, now, here. Look at the Religious Right in Israel. Look at fundamentalist Islam. What they share, what drives them, the tiger in their tanks, is an absolute, unshakeable belief in an ever-present divinity, with plans for nations that He communicates to the leaders, or would-be leaders, of nations. They are the very devil, these people, they could wreck our world, and their central belief in God’s plan has to be confronted. Confronted with passion. Confronted because, and on the ground that, it is not true.
Re “A Sharp Turn for the Supreme Court on Abortion” (letters, April 20):
I am a rheumatologist caring for a patient whose lupus nephritis is flaring. Her creatinine is rising as her platelet count falls, and she has failed to improve with pulse methylprednisolone and intravenous cyclophosphamide. I am contemplating using rituximab. I would like to refer this case to the United States Supreme Court for its guidance.
Richard Zweig, M.D.
Santa Rosa, Calif., April 20, 2007
