onegoodmove

Thank you very much for the link to:

ON WHY AND WHEN FICTION WRITERS FIRST PUBLISH

Very useful to someone like moi.

-tgs-

That "Audience Heckles Matthews" video makes me hopeful that I may someday see a time when Americans, for all their flaws, might actually grow some balls. Legend has it that long ago, America used to set an example of how to call bullshit on fat rich authoritarians who thought they owned you.

Still, Hillary Clinton isn't exactly what I'd call the poster girl for such an America, but at least she's a far cry from The Shrub.

Dinesh D'Souza is a d'asshole.

What a childishly silly post. "We" have Newton, and "the atheists" have Darwin.

We all have the ideas that both Newton and Darwin contributed to all of us. Newton was great and his greatness derives from confirmation of his theory of gravitation by observations. Darwin was great and his greatness derives from confirmation of his theory of evolution by observations. Whether Newton believed that science and religion were entirely compatible or whether he was "convinced that science vindicates the central premise of religion" as D'Souza claims is of no relevance whatsoever in considering his greatness. Newton's dabbling in alchemy adds not one iota to his scientific reputation, but is generally not counted much against him either, since he lived in the 17th century and couldn't possibly have have known what is now known about chemistry, for example. Ask a typical serious Christian you meet on the street - what has Isaac Newton contributed to your understanding of God? Ask a typical serious scientist - what has Isaac Newton contributed to your understanding of science? The result of these polls will confirm the obvious: Despite the time Newton devoted to religious study, he left no significant legacy or significant new ideas - he wasted his time and talent.

Johann Hari's editorial is excellent. The last example he cites, Mark Steyn's vilification of Va. Tech massacre victims(!!!), is absolutely incredible.

Thanks for that link to the Waterloo video.

i really liked the lion/crocodile/buffalo video. to lefty, love, donny brasco. :)

It should be pointed out that while Newton was brilliant when it came to gravity and inertia etc., he was quite the idiot when it came to things related to chemistry. Newton was actually a full blown medieval alchemist and wrote several books on alchemy.

That's the thing about science: it takes in the good and rejects the absolute crap, even if the good and the crap comes from the same person.