Month: March 2010

A meta-analysis of 55 independent studies published in Personality and Social Psychology Review finds that religious devotion has a positive correlation to racist sentiment. John Shook is not surprised:

Let's read that conclusion again: "Only religious agnostics were racially tolerant." Why would religious agnostics be more humanistic and less racist? Religious agnostics would be people who combine a religious/spiritual attitude in living life with a humble admission that they don't know if their approach is the only right way. Religious agnostics are pluralistic — they have no problem admiring how different people can enjoy different religious paths. And it is precisely this lack of dogmatism which permits humanistic values to shine through.

(Hat tip: Dan Savage)

"Most Israeli settlement announcements, including this one, are pure symbolism: No ground will be broken anytime soon, and even if the homes are eventually constructed they won’t stand in the way of a Palestinian state. By that measure, Biden flunked. Interrupted in the middle of what was supposed to be a day of love-bombing Israelis with speeches and other demonstrations of U.S. support, he kept Netanyahu and his wife waiting for 90 minutes into a scheduled dinner before issuing a statement that harshly criticized the interior ministry’s announcement. Biden chose to use a word — “condemn” — that is very rarely employed in U.S. statements about Israel, even though he and his staff knew that Netanyahu himself had been blindsided by the settlement announcement. So much for love bombs," – Jackson Diehl, deputy editorial page editor of The Washington Post.

Check out his columns here. One of his recent beauts: a diatribe against the "unlovable" Iranian Greens. Another: a dissent on any notion that the US should seek a moratorium on all new settlement construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

A bleg: can anyone find me a regular Washington Post columnist – not op-ed author – who supported the Obama administration against the Netanyahu government on the question of a temporary total freeze on all settlement construction?

Lisa Russ Spaar is a reluctant sleeper:

Like many insomniacs, I always feel a bit of bully pride in getting by on a few fractured hours each night while others complain if they don’t get a full, conked-out eight. For the insomniac Vladimir Nabokov, I think that sleep, which he called “the most moronic fraternity in the world, with the heaviest dues and the crudest rituals,” meant turning off, even for a few hours, his quicksilver, voracious consciousness. The daily nocturnal rest that presages the ultimate big sleep of mortality was for him a price both vexing and insulting, a “nightly betrayal of reason, humanity, genius.”

“Message from America to the Israeli government: Friends don’t let friends drive drunk. And right now, you’re driving drunk. You think you can embarrass your only true ally in the world, to satisfy some domestic political need, with no consequences? You have lost total contact with reality. Call us when you’re serious. We need to focus on building our country,” – Tom Friedman, NYT.

A blistering editorial from Israel:

There is one reason for the crisis: Netanyahu's persistence in continuing construction in East Jerusalem, in placing Jews in Arab neighborhoods and evicting Palestinians from their homes in the city. This is not a matter of timing but substance. Despite repeated warnings and bitter experiences, he stokes the flames over the conflict's most sensitive issue and is bound to get himself in trouble. Netanyahu has made it clear by his actions that American support for Israel, especially essential now in light of the Iranian threat, is less important to him than the chance to put another few Jews in the

Sheikh Jarrah or Ramat Shlomo neighborhoods.

Even if Netanyahu's adversaries in the U.S. administration have exploited his misstep to push him into a corner, as his "associates" will certainly argue, a statesman as experienced as he should have been especially careful.

Clinton made clear to Netanyahu that it was impossible to expand Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and also enjoy America's friendship. Netanyahu's flip-flopping games have come to an end. Even at the price of risks involving domestic party politics, he should opt for what is in the national interest and act to strengthen American support for Israel.

Here’s the beginning of my talk on the politics of homosexuality at Princeton. It’s in two parts, one just below, and continued after the jump. It’s an attempt to take the arguments of both Protestant Biblical literalists and Catholic adherents of natural law on their own terms and to show how they make no internal sense; how they are internally incoherent even on their own terms. My same dissections on the delusions of the queer left, middle-of-the-road moderate conservatism and Human Rights Campaign liberalism, will be posted in the next few days. The entire speech, if you have the time this weekend, can be seen here. But here’s my case against the Biblical fundamentalists: I tackle the natural law arguments here: And here’s the clincher against the prohibitionist position that holds sway across much of the world today:

Tom Jacobs passes along some research:

According to one school of thought, this tendency to exaggerate the strength of our adversaries serves a specific psychological function. It is less scary to place all our fears on a single, strong enemy than to accept the fact our well-being is largely based on factors beyond our control. An enemy, after all, can be defined, analyzed and perhaps even defeated.

(Hat tip: MR)

National Geographic goes all out:

People dressed in all white literally act out the role of sperm in the race to become one with the egg, running through valleys, squeezing through spirals, battling Leukocytes and much more. The impressive undertaking was completed with helicopter-mounted cameras, world-renowned scientists, CGI and over-the-top reconstruction of the sperm’s journey played out in real life by humans.

It airs tomorrow. More info here.