In her latest Nation column, Katha Pollitt implores her readers to get together this holiday season and help excise religion from…well, from Christ-mas, for starters. Some compelling reasons: Just think of the damage religious mania (combined, as it tends to be, with nationalism and patriarchy) has wrought around the globe this year, the first of the new millennium–the World Trade Center attack, the Taliban, suicide bombers in Israel versus yet

Ken Layne, drawing on this ABC News report detailing “missing sections” from the UBL tape, says it’s time to take the battle to The House of Saud. So, let’s get this straight: A Saudi millionaire from one of Saudi Arabia’s richest families plotted a massive attack on the United States using 15 Saudi citizens as hijackers, and this attack was praised by members of the Saudi Arabian government’s religious council

Lots of bloodsoaked bloggers in Cyberville tonight, having invested a lot of time this afternoon and early evening eviscerating this report by New Hampshire-Durham’s Marc Herold, professor (or, as the MediaFile site has it, “Progfessor”) of Economics and Women’s Studies. Herold’s “research” (yawn) purports to expose the “true number” of civilian casualties in Afghanistan. Left unanswered, of course, is how a professor of Economics and Women’s Studies is qualified for

Lots of bloodsoaked bloggers in Cyberville tonight, having invested a lot of time this afternoon and early evening eviscerating this report by New Hampshire-Durham’s Marc Herold, professor (or, as the MediaFile site has it, “Progfessor”) of Economics and Women’s Studies. Herold’s “research” (yawn) purports to expose the “true number” of civilian casualties in Afghanistan. Left unanswered, of course, is how a professor of Economics and Women’s Studies is qualified for

…Just heard Johnny bin Walker being interviewed by CNN. Is it just my imagination, or does he sound a li’l bit like a later Kathleen Turner (y’know, after she began affecting a vaguely Austrian accent)? Hmm. ‘Dunno. Could be I’m thinking of Max von Sydow in Three Days of the Condor… Alsace Lorraine, maybe?

The Weekly Standard’s David Skinner puts a worldclass whompin‘ on Harper’s editor Lewis Lapham, who in a series of recent essays has located American culpability for the September 11th attacks in everything from Nieman Marcus to Steven Spielberg to …well, potholes. Skinner deftly distills the position taken up by many in the intelligensia — of whom Lapham is but a prominently placed and particularly squeaky representative — and then dismisses

The Weekly Standard’s David Skinner puts a worldclass whompin‘ on Harper’s editor Lewis Lapham, who in a series of recent essays has located American culpability for the September 11th attacks in everything from Nieman Marcus to Steven Spielberg to …well, potholes. Skinner deftly distills the position taken up by many in the intelligensia — of whom Lapham is but a prominently placed and particularly squeaky representative — and then dismisses

Reason’s Nick Gillespie replies to Jonah Goldberg in the latest round of the libertarian v. conservative internet-inspired pissing contest. A sample: One of the defining characteristics of contemporary America and the modern world writ large is that more individuals have the means and motivation to insist on a “culture” that reflects their particular needs and sensibilities. Jonah ridicules this as underwriting such apparently clear absurdities as “Buddhists for Jesus” (as

Reason’s Nick Gillespie replies to Jonah Goldberg in the latest round of the libertarian v. conservative internet-inspired pissing contest. A sample: One of the defining characteristics of contemporary America and the modern world writ large is that more individuals have the means and motivation to insist on a “culture” that reflects their particular needs and sensibilities. Jonah ridicules this as underwriting such apparently clear absurdities as “Buddhists for Jesus” (as

Peter Wood, associate provost, Boston University, has this to say about the latest chapter in the increasingly tedious story of convicted Cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal: “[…] we owe Judge Yohn’s decision [to vacate the death sentence] to Antioch College, to NPR, and to all those well-meaning idiots who think it enlightened to doubt that a black man can get a fair trial in America. In fact, anyone can get a