Free Republic

Do we have any prayer volunteers for Christopher Hitchens? He’s the self -proclaimed “atheist/anti-theist,” and stunningly clever wordsmith. He leapfrogged puzzled agnosticism to a pledged rebellion against God. He’ll be a tough turn-around, so thick is his iron-clad ignorance of the divine. In a recent Newsweek he cynically dissects Mother Teresa’s dark theological struggles, a postscript to his derisive 1995 book, “The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice.” A week ago he was a featured speaker for an Atheist Alliance conference in Washington DC. Hitchens’ latest book, “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything,” maligns the devoted,...

Statistical analyses of relationships between SAT scores, Republican Party affiliation, spending on education, ethnic compositions of towns, and tax rates reveal that among those factors (that is, excluding financial components) the ones that matter most in driving comparative and competitive home sales prices (by town medians over time, and over the long-run) are those related to CULTURE -- SAT scores and Republican Party affiliation (and all the value choices that such affiliation incorporates). You may have had a gut feeling that it pays to own a home in a town with high SAT scores and strong republican values. Now here's...

It appears that Joan Walsh of Salon.com thought she was a pretty smart cookie, parading her Scholastic Aptitude Test score of 1200 as proof. Like many of her media colleagues she considered President Bush’s intellectual level far below her own. It came as something of a shock for her to learn that the 17-year-old Bush’s SAT score was the same as hers – 1200 – and scored at a time when that was a very hard level to reach. In his new book, "Bush Country: How Dubya Became a Great President While Driving Liberals Insane," widely acclaimed New York Post...

Hollywood IntellectBy Doug PattonMarch 10, 2003My last column, "Loony Clooney and the Hollywood Left Dishonor the Memory of Those Who Served" (www.gopusa.com/dougpatton/dp_0224.shtml), must have struck a nerve with readers, because I have received more mail on it than any other column I have written in the last two years.The feedback on the piece was entirely positive. In it, I highlighted the distinguished service records of Hollywood stars during World War II.One reader wrote to thank me for the column, then suggested I write a sequel, which would contrast the academic achievements of President George W. Bush with those of...

As he edlivers the State of the Union, don't belittle the state of the President There is an anecdote in the most recent book about the Bush White House which neatly captures how Europeans misjudge the President, and why they are wrong to do so. Written by a former speechwriter, David Frum, it tells of Bush’s style in editing proposed drafts of speeches. In one of his early efforts, Frum included the phrase: “I’ve seen with my own eyes ...” The words “with my own eyes” were circled, and a teenage “DUH” added in presidential scrawl alongside. For the man...

Trentino was reciting the second stanza of Donne's Go and Catch a Falling Star. Lovely stuff. "If thou be'st born to strange sights, Things invisible to see, Ride ten thousand days and nights, Till age snow white hairs on thee, Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me, All strange wonders that befell thee, And swear, No where Lives a woman true, and fair." "I remember the third stanza, too," said Trentino, smiling, "but it's far too bitter." ...more

"Knowing that Baku is the capital of Azerbaijan is trivial. But it's good to know. You certainly would want to know that London is the capital of England, Paris, of France, and so on. You want to know facts. You want to know as much as you can. How do you know things unless they're in your memory?" "I've heard you inveigh against John Dewey and Progressive education, Maestro," said Ian, "but I read in the Spectator that the U.K. Secretary of Education is bound and determined to sweep away the old pedagogy, teachers teaching facts and subjects. As near...

In our capacity as political scientists, historians, or philosophers we all have had occasion at one time or another to engage in debate with ideologists – whether communists or intellectuals of a persuasion closer to home. And we have all discovered on such occasions that no agreement, or even an honest disagreement, could be reached, because the exchange of argument was disturbed by a profound difference of attitude with regard to all fundamental questions of human existence – with regard to the nature of man, to his place in the world, to his place in society and history, to his...

The Captain Kirk Principle Intuition is the key to knowing without knowing how you know By Michael Shermer   1   2   next » Image: BRAD HINES Stardate: 1672.1. Earthdate: October 6, 1966. Star Trek, Episode 5, "The Enemy Within." Captain James T. Kirk has just beamed up from planet Alpha 177, where magnetic anomalies have caused the transporter to malfunction, splitting Kirk into two beings. One is cool and rational. The other is impulsive and irrational. Rational Kirk must make a command decision to save the crew, but he is paralyzed with indecision, bemoaning to Dr. McCoy: "I...