gdp's Comments

Wonkette : Thomas Sowell: Dead Kid, Gun, George Zimmerman’s Confession 'Insufficient Evidence' To Prosecute G

Tue, 16 Jul 2013 19:32:59 +0000

As a Brit I'm just totally gobsmacked by this. Zimmerman would be seen for the cowardly bully he is anywhere else on the planet. I hope the civil suit happens. It would be nice for the victim's family to get some sense of closure, if not justice.

Heresy Corner : Maggie the moderate

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 09:02:12 +0000

'Unfortunately, the people she emancipated sold their shares at the first opportunity and invested the proceeds in drink and cheap holidays'. A coldly snobbish remark worthy of the woman herself in full 'we are a grandmother' mode.

Frontpage Magazine : The Dishonest Campaign Against Richard Littlejohn

Mon, 1 Apr 2013 11:07:31 +0000

'They parade this poor women around the country. She can barely stand or speak and they are making a fool out of a brain injury victim just to push an illogical agenda.' LEAVE SARAH PALIN ALONE!!!

Wonkette : Worst Psychiatrist Ever Keith Ablow Blames Gun Control Agenda On Sad Orphan Obama

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:22:13 +0000

'“His solution runs psychologically in the direction of disempowering the individual every single time,” Ablow said'. And here's me, a silly old Brit, thinking that blowing a little girl's brains out disempowers her 100 per cent. Rather like getting drunk,, getting into a car and then running her over. Perhaps this 'doctor's' mind is too highly trained to see the parallel, though.

Heresy Corner : Satanic Savile

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 10:05:00 +0000

It might save everyone a lot of time and money if newspapers simply had to carry an official truth warning on the cover. 'This publication is under no legal obligation to present accurate, complete, or unbiased coverage of any news item'. Less costly that Leveson, anyway.

Wonkette : Sundays With The Christianists: The Sun Never Sets On This ‘World History’ Textbook For Home-Sch

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 19:10:36 +0000

Pity the poor Irish, who failed to benefit from Christianity or representative government, probably by being TOO CLOSE to Britain, in a sort of moth-flamey way.

Heresy Corner : The Timeless Innocence of Page 3

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 13:16:35 +0000

Page 3, with its simple message that teenage girls exist for the sexual gratification of older men, is a relic of more innocent times, when the likes of genial Uncle Jimmy could molest anyone's daughter any time he liked. Yes, long may it prosper.

Heresy Corner : Time limits, gender and abortion

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 16:11:51 +0000

Regarding sincerity, check out this Tea Party congressman pressuring his mistress to have an abortion. The idiot actually taped himself... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/10/scott-de...

Heresy Corner : Time limits, gender and abortion

Mon, 8 Oct 2012 12:57:49 +0000

H, a couple of questions. Do you think a minister who has given his support to homeopathy on the NHS is likely to have any legit science to back his stance on abortion? And don't you think it odd that that same minister should proclaim, very loudly, that his Christian faith has nothing to do with his stance? The whole thing has a distinct odour of Christians v. the rest of us, which is some way from scientific or indeed libertarian debate. Surprised you took a different angle, really. Was a bit of feminist-bashing really just too tempting to resist?

Heresy Corner : Obama\'s greatest speech

Sat, 29 Sep 2012 20:04:49 +0000

I agree - the 'drone war' is simply wrong morally, and it's not politically winnable either - any more than the 'War on Drugs'. The problem is that Obama can't stop doing it without handing a propaganda victory to the rabid right, for whom killing foreigners - especially 'ragheads' - is always right and glorious. I have a gut feeling that, when he's re-elected, he might end it or at least drastically dial it down. Wish it was more than a feeling.

Heresy Corner : Who should pay for the news?

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 18:08:11 +0000

Not sure I follow you, H. In the heyday of dead-tree journalism - possibly the Fifties/Sixties, due to rising disposable incomes and relatively few TV channels? - most people bought one local and one national paper, if that, plus a Sunday, if that. Competition was quite ferocious because to win a reader to your paper you had to get him to stop reading another. So shouldn't an advocate of free enterprise propose competing paywall combines, each offering the same basic range of services with varied knobs on (more sport here, more smut there, obsessively detailed royal gossip in some suitable loonybin like the Express), and perhaps a legal obligation to offer everyone a few free items a month? I'm also a bit baffled by the one-nation perspective you offer. Would the New York Times or South China Daily be behind the same paywall as the BBC or the Daily Mail? How can this kind of system work in a global e-village?

Heresy Corner : Obama\'s greatest speech

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 17:58:57 +0000

If Obama resorted to passionate oratory rather than considered, cerebral rhetoric, he would suffer even more racist abuse than he does at the moment. Every single thing he says has to to be couched to avoid offering his enemies the stereotype of the angry, uneducated black man ranting against whitey. Once seen in those terms Obama's speeches become even more remarkable.

Wonkette : The Daily Caller Will Take Its Pulitzer Now: Obama Gave Speech 14 Years Ago Calling Republicans 'Bad

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 15:07:02 +0000

'Moderate conservative betrays America by being black Democrat.' Oh, the humanity.

Heresy Corner : Mohammed in the 18th century

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 09:29:37 +0000

An interesting post. I read Gibbon in an abridged, one-volume edition a long time ago, and I suspect the stuff about Arabs v. Byzantines was skimmed or left out altogether. Mohammed seems to be have been very much a prophet in the Old Testament tradition - charismatic, able to think on his feet (or 'just make shit up about God'), and keen to get everything in skirts on her back. But I suppose that's not the accepted theological definition of 'prophet'... I didn't know about Voltaire's play, either. Our French cousins, eh? The original noisy neighbours.

Heresy Corner : Tom Holland: In the shadow of a sword?

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 07:52:58 +0000

As I didn't see the programme in question, I Googled about and found this - which gives more than a hint of the problems Tom Holland is facing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMKU_tXDATM

Heresy Corner : Tom Holland: In the shadow of a sword?

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 07:51:32 +0000

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/09/was... Jesus' wife - real or not? Who knows? At such a remove it's unlikely we'll ever get a clear verdict (i.e. one that convinces most experts in the field). But I love the idea of Jesus having a mother-in-law, so I'm accepting the hypothesis. 'Turning water into wine? What kind of job is that?'

Heresy Corner : In defending Christian England, Eric Pickles is the modern Disraeli

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 06:49:31 +0000

Indeed - the paradox of religion in a genuinely tolerant society is that it has to provoke and/or invent 'attacks' to keep its dafter followers bristling, while at the same time forging links with heathens and heretics. I can't imagine the early Protestant reformers or indeed all those fine Victorian Nonconformists cheering on Baroness Warsi.

Heresy Corner : In defending Christian England, Eric Pickles is the modern Disraeli

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 06:45:18 +0000

Or I might as well claim that we human beings are complex creatures whose motives are not always well understood, by others or indeed by ourselves. But who said anything about denial and repression? Gladstone was not a fool - he knew damn well that sexually available women sometimes arouse sexual desire in men. He wouldn't be the first Christian to put himself in the way of temptation to test his fortitude. That's all - nothing Freudian about it. Sorry for any confusion caused.

Heresy Corner : In defending Christian England, Eric Pickles is the modern Disraeli

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 13:17:06 +0000

Gladstone may well have had mixed motives in 'saving fallen women', but in a way that makes his efforts all the more laudable. If he'd been indifferent to their charms, taking a moral stance against prostitution would have been a lot easier. Still, it's easy to see all that wood chopping as a way of coping with the inner turmoil. I really think you should face the central problem of religion in a free society - that most people are happy to be free from religion. It might not be palatable, but facts aren't required to be.

Heresy Corner : In defending Christian England, Eric Pickles is the modern Disraeli

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 13:13:02 +0000

Me too. I love old churches - I just got back from excursions to Cambridge and Dorchester, and had a lovely Betjemanian time. But I find that as soon as a modern priest starts up the beauty fades. The words seem so poor and shopworn, and the congregation is invariably old and sad. The last thing a fine old church needs is a sermon preached in it.