Month: February 2006

"The pope has used the term ‘relativism’ to describe not only non-absolute standards, but also uncertain ones. The alternative to certainty, however, is not nihilism but the recognition of fallibility, the idea that even a very reasonable belief is not beyond question. If that’s all relativism means, then it is hardly the enemy of truth or morality," – Austin Dacey, New York Times today.

The argument, made by atheist liberals and born-again conservatives alike, that our only choice is fundamentalism or relativism is one of the great lies of our age.

Like smoking, it can damage your spouse’s health. I’ve now clocked 3,350 hours on my sleep apnea CPAP machine. My fiance is as grateful as I am.

This is the perfect response, it seems to me, to the intimidation of the press in Europe.It describes what Islamism is trying to do: threaten those who want to discuss and debate the intersection of fundamentalism and politics, the clash between freedom and faith. That the leftist paper, Le Monde, would publish this could be a sign that Europe is beginning to stand up again for the principles for which the West stands: tolerance, sure; faith, yes; freedom of speech: non-negotiable. If you don’t read French, the words say: "I must not draw Muhammed."

Islamists and Muslims are in a violent uproar about the publication of truly conventional political cartoons featuring the prophet Muhammed. Here are some other cartoons recently printed in the Arab, Muslim press. They are no different than Nazi propaganda in their unvarnished anti-Semitism. And I would defend the right of every one of those papers to publish them. Why, then, cannot Muslims return the favor? What is it about contemporary Islam that seems to make it clearly incompatible wih Western freedom of speech? In that may lie the answer to the most pressing question facing the West today: the illiberal, fanatical religious enemy within.

Here’s an essay that helps elucidate Tony Kushner’s influence on the politics of Steven Spielberg.

I’m not an expert on what we could realistically do to reduce our reliance on petroleum, but I found this essay on methanol and ethanol interesting. Is there a catch?

Three words I never thought I’d write. Thus gay culture staggers on. Yay!

A reader writes:

Here’s my question:

President Bush worked in the oil industry for years. So did his father. So did many of his close friends. He obviously knows (I hope) that if new technologies were to reduce our total oil consumption by something like 5 million barrels a day by 2025 that no one can simply choose, on a country by country basis, where that savings is going to come from. Yet clearly this is what he implied; that the decrease would all come out of our Middle East imports. If anything, we’re liable to get a greater proportion of our oil from the Middle East. Simple economics tells us that if we reduce our demand for oil imports the country that is likely to suffer most is Canada, as they have the highest costs of production. The cheapest oil comes from the Middle East.

So we’re left with yet another ‘lesser of two evils’ conclusion here: either President Bush spent years in the oil industry (not to mention Harvard Business School) and yet failed to absorb even the most basic knowledge about that industry, or that he knows full well that what he’s saying isn’t true, but is willing to say it anyway if he believes it benefits him politically."

Bottom line on this question of telling the truth: "We do not torture."

So what’s new?

"While America has been run by one of the most doltishly ineffectual governments in history, it has forged ever further ahead of Europe in terms of wealth, science, technology, artistic creativity and cultural dominance. Why does America’s prosperity and self-confidence seem to bear so little relationship to the competence of its government?" РAnatole Kaletsky, telling Europeans what they need to hear.