… Which I’m not quite undertaking yet. I thought (for once) I would consult with the readership for once and/or at least take it a little less hastily before committing to something (as much as I want to get other postponed blog items posted and out of the way). Read more »
“Political correctness”. Colloquially, the term is used to denote the adherence to some political orthodoxy, or the converse, “politically incorrect” is applied to ideas outside of a perceived (or imagined) orthodoxy, often to claim that the free thought of the proponents of these ideas is being oppressed, repressed or suppressed. Read more »
It’s a long time since Jesse Helms was at the frontline of politics, retiring back in 2003, an unreconciled paleo-conservative amongst the neo-liberal vanguard. After all this time, MC Hawking has got his wish (circa 2001). Jesse Helms has died. Read more »
Thanks to Jeremy (and NIC in the comments) for raising these amendments to the World Youth Day Act 2006. Read more »
A lot has been made of the fact that the corpse of a dead Catholic priest will be guest starring at World Youth Day. Sure, to a lot of us (myself included) it’s weird. Indeed, perhaps very weird.
Aside from the weirdness, what can be taken from the phenomena that is this corpse veneration. Read more »
“The Ugly” being the section of the website dedicated to the nasties that come in the form of trolling posts and hate mail. One almost gets the impression that someone thought up a new name for Ann Coulter, who features on the banner thanks to a rather dubious quote from her book “Godless”.
This billboard in Ballarat was recently snapped by Bridgit Gread of GrodsCorp.
(Source: Bridgit Gread) Read more »
I’ll be in exam preparation mode for the next couple of weeks and I really want to have my head down for it. Lots of squiggly things wrapped around letters of the Greek alphabet and all that (it’s a mathematics subject). Read more »
My tone with other people that is. I keep coming off as offensive when I have no such intent.
Apparently when I’m mulling something over, I make this face that scares the crap out of some people. Read more »
Recently, following a rather longer than intended post on the demonising of Atheists by parts of mainstream UK theism, I received an unsolicited email from a web publicist from the Hachette Book Group.
Sadly, they weren’t offering to promote my blog. Perhaps sadder still was what they did have on offer. Perhaps. I really can’t decide as of yet. Read more »
As anyone who’s been reading this blog for the past couple of months knows I’ve been in a protracted move of residence. Inevitably, this has meant moving furniture.
I write the following somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
I’ve moved quite a bit ever since the first half of the 1990s, my longest stay being in Norwood for just over three years. Read more »
“I guess I just don’t see why wafer rights should outweigh human rights.”
(AV, 2008 )
I of course expect the Pope to step in and do something. I do recall him citing Ernst Bloch on the importance of humanity as central to the ethical concerns of Christendom. Read more »
A chap (or chapette) writing at the “Mates Network” forum (and Australian forum I’ve only just come across) under the name “Joy To The World” writes…
“The cringe factor of this event for your usual, everyday Catholic is tremendous. And I cringe every time I turn on the news.”
And… Read more »
You can probably tell by the title that I’ve been drawn into reading this blog. It’s addictive. Thanks for helping me pick up the habit, Ed, The.
Anyway, it’s well past Friday, and “LaVallette” has failed to even attempt to substantiate his allegation that I’m somehow anti-Catholic… Read more »
Six days ago, I received an email with the subject “Bruce, a Press Release for: The Thinkers’ Podium“. Normally, people release press releases on their own websites, so you can imagine my surprise that an unfamiliar book from an unfamiliar author on an ambiguous topic, had a press release for my blog.
It started off with a somewhat benign explanation of why I was picked out.
“Greetings Bruce,
Read more »
There is a quote by Popper that I’m quite fond of using that illustrates my utilitarian position on liberty in discussion.
“If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.” - Karl Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies.
Read more »
I’m just doing a wee bit of a security check, in a similar vein to what was done to check up on (rubbish) identicons a while back. Posts on this thread won’t be on any particular topic, so feel free to use it as an open thread (within reason).
~ Bruce Read more »
Okay, thanks Mikey.
The instructions as I can gather go; repeat instructions so the next clod in-line can repeat them when you tell them to repeat them (you didn’t tell me to repeat them did you Mikey!); turn to page 123 of the nearest book to you (I’m assuming with 123 pages in it) and write out the 5th sentence. Read more »
I haven’t posted anything for just over a week, so I thought I’d give you a blog/behind-the-blog report and to be frank, myself a break from the monotony of exam revision.
I still have drafts in the work for the last two in the much belated “Atheism and Theory of Justification” series, a draft of the “The Political Correctness Conspiracy” post and a very skeletal “A Priori Concept of Harm” draft, all of which I hope to spit and polish up for release in July. Read more »
I’ve just had reason to recall something that I witnessed at the University of South Australia quite some time back. Given that it’s on a topic that has had much discussion, I thought someone may be interested.
I won’t name the academic or the subject that this occurred in and indeed, it didn’t even take place in one of my classes, but rather a class a friend was enrolled in. It just happened to be in the same room I was going to have a lesson in, in the next session. Read more »
Islam isn’t a race. So what?
You’d think with the amount of times we’ve all probably heard this that the statement would at least be meaningful. Of course it isn’t. It’s just stating the obvious and stating it in retort to an assertion nobody ever made (i.e. that Islam is a race). Read more »
It’s all getting a bit old really this culture war business, at least in as far as theism versus atheism, and sectarian versus secular is concerned. Read more »
I’m short on time, so I’ll try to make this short. The Beeb has reported on xenophobic rabbling from the rural city of Camden where locals have rallied against the establishment of an Islamic school. Read more »
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