1. We Urgently Need Your Help Now!!

Comment #196289 by AlmostCertain on June 19, 2008 at 3:34 pm

I sent an email via the specified website.

Hope it helps, but I'm not holding my breath. I saw Jindal on Face the Nation and he seemed to genuinely believe that ID should be taught. Unbelievable.

2. Richard Dawkins lecture at ASU's Tempe Campus

Comment #185334 by AlmostCertain on May 27, 2008 at 1:57 pm

Adult: Are you an atheist?
Child: What is an "atheist"?
Adult: Well, do you believe in God?
Child: What is "God"?
Adult: never mind...

Indeed, like cats, dogs, wolves and oak trees, all children are atheists and will remain so unless they are brainwashed by someone, or accept some false meme as being true.

3. Richard Dawkins' US Tour begins this week

Comment #138326 by AlmostCertain on March 4, 2008 at 7:45 am

Please include the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) on a future tour. The bay area (Berkeley/Stanford) is 500 miles from here.

4. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #92519 by AlmostCertain on November 30, 2007 at 5:13 pm

Professor Dawkins,

I'm a huge fan of your work. I started with God Delusion, and now I'm going from the beginning. I savor a few pages of the Selfish Gene every night. I can't wait to read the Ancestor's Tale.

Anyway, I appreciate your clarifying that you did not mean to endorse lying under oath.

But your comments still seem out of context. The Clinton/Monica context was a civil case in which a woman was trying to show there was a pattern of behavior in the area of sexual harassment. There is no argument that Paula Jones and her lawyers did not have a right to ask about Bill Clinton's private life with respect to whether he had sex with people chosen at random. But they were asking whether he had sex with a subordinate, an intern, in the White House, for which they had some evidence that he had. Are you (or anyone else) suggesting that asking this question about his sexual behavior with subordinates is not appropriate in that legal context? Are you suggesting that it should be acceptable for men (or women for that matter) in position of power to use that power in return for sexual favors from subordinates? Hopefully not. But if it's not acceptable, then should it not be appropriate to allow women (and their lawyers) to force suspects of such behavior to speak truthfully about their relevant behavior, under oath?

5. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #91994 by AlmostCertain on November 29, 2007 at 5:02 pm

And the reason he was asked, was because the askers were puritanical hypocritical fuckwits.

That may well be true, but even the puritanical hypocritical fuckwits had the legal right to ask, and he had the legal obligation to answer truthfully in that context, and he knew it, but he lied anyway.

For better or for worse, that is the legal system, and the president, of all people, should respect it. There have been no efforts to change that aspect of it, so far as I know, probably because no one can think of a change that would be an improvement.

6. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #91976 by AlmostCertain on November 29, 2007 at 4:24 pm

Well if abuse of power was the issue then the Clinton affair would fall under sexual harassment or rape. But that was not how it was framed. As far as I am concerned it was purely between Bill, Hillary (and Monica) and it was no business of the congress. As RD puts it, public morality such as lying about Iraq should be a much bigger concern.

Don't forget Paula Jones. She claimed she was sexually harassed by Bill Clinton. It is was in the deposition for that civil case that Clinton lied about his private life that was relevant to the civil case.

He also knew he was legally obligated to answer which is why he chose to quibble about the meaning of the word "is" rather than refuse to answer.

7. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #91965 by AlmostCertain on November 29, 2007 at 4:11 pm

Officially, Bill Clinton was impeached not for sexual misconduct but for lying about it. But he was entitled to lie about his private life: one could even make a case that he had a positive duty to do so.

When a court, presumably legitimately, decides that a private life issue is pertinent to a legal case, then you are no longer entitled to lie about it, much less do you have a positive duty to do so.

8. Response to My Fellow 'Atheists'

Comment #77149 by AlmostCertain on October 8, 2007 at 3:24 pm

If we are to have a label, perhaps it would be better to have one that is not defined in terms of that which we oppose.

I found Bill Maher's recent use of rationalist to be quite effective.

Aren't all atheists rationalists?
Aren't all theists not rationalists, by definition?

Rationalism - that's what we support, is it not?

9. Christopher Hitchens on BookTV

Comment #67746 by AlmostCertain on September 4, 2007 at 3:36 pm

It will be rebroadcast on CSPAN this Saturday morning at 9am (I believe that's eastern time).

See this website:

http://www.booktv.org/program.aspx?ProgramId=8532&SectionName=In%20Depth&PlayMedia=No