Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 2568
September 8, 2010
The Point Of No Return
A reader writes:
I appreciate that you were able to disconnect for a little while during your vacation, but I must admit that I was looking forward to the more thorough and comprehensive response to Goldberg's Atlantic article that you hinted at prior to your vacation. With the fine show of peace talks now taking place, I do think it is important that some of these issues see the light of day.
Agreed. I'm working on it. I just need to absorb not just the piece but the varied critiques of it...
Quote For The Day II
"A gay relationship is like decaffeinated coffee, you do not wake up," - Father Gonzalo Miranda, a bioethics professor at Regina Apostolorum University.
Which makes celibacy sanka?
Bioethics - Decaffeination - Ethics - Coffee - Regina Apostolorum University
Quote For The Day
"This is an unusual problem. It's devastating. This is one of the more
creative and salient Google issues I've ever seen," - Michael Fertik, CEO of
ReputationDefender, which specializes in helping individuals maintain
a positive Web presence, on the slippery issue facing Rick Santorum's presidential hopes.
Google - Michael Fertik - ReputationDefender - Rick Santorum - Searching
God Hates The Quran For Being A Fag Day
Sometimes this is the only appropriate response to fringe Christianists like Terry Jones:
Terry Jones - Islam - Religion and Spirituality - Qur'an - Quran
Life At The Peak
Bradford Plumer describes the Environmentalist's Paradox: humanity doing better while the Earth does worse. Dave Roberts expands on that thought:
There's no contradiction in noting that coal is both bringing peopleout of poverty in China and insuring the suffering of future Chinese.Today the net welfare gains of coal use in China seem greater than thenet losses, but that's only because the gains are immediate and thelosses are deferred for a while. In our lifetimes, that will change --the...
On Burning Books, Ctd
Michael Cohen is on the side of Serwer:
I sort of hate slippery slope arguments, but it seems to me that this is the very definition of a dangerous slippery slope. For example, would people be comfortable if Petraeus characterized ananti-war march as a threat to the US mission in Afghanistan? Or what ifPetraeus condemned a Congressional vote to cut funding for a weaponsprogram as a threat to US soldiers in the field? Such behavior wouldalmost certainly overstep not just the letter of...
Castro As You Have Never Thought Of Him
Just read Jeffrey Goldberg's staggering little piece of reportage from Havana. Just stop now and read it. Strange, creepy, funny, and also in some way, if one can even think of the old commie in this fashion, humane. I note, as an aside, that Castro is not just suddenly anti-anti-Semitic (he's actually very moving on the subject) but also anti-anti-homophobic, in what appears to be some kind of senescent bid for absolution from a God in which he does not believe.
I find any respect for this o...
A Pessimist Manifesto
Karl Smith writes one. He believes that "badness is the natural state of the world" and that "our proper mission as easing pain, where we can, to the extent we can, the best we can":
I think it is that many modern Conservatives intuitively base
analysis of the world on a philosophy is that anathema to my
Their view is that if you take a responsible, measured
approach to the world things will work out. Failure is thus a sign
you have not done that.My sense...
Feisel Rauf Speaks
As the far right seems to relish a clash of civilizations, his op-ed strikes me as so transparently constructive, so evidently in the interests not only of domestic peace but of strategic victory against Jihadist terror that I'm again at a a loss to understand why so many have reacted so ferociously to this project. I can see only one way this multi-faith community center is offensive: if you regard the mass murderers of 9/11 to be the true heart of Islam and especially American Islam. I...
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