1. Richard Dawkins receives the Deschner Prize

Comment #78865 by trillian on October 15, 2007 at 6:13 am

Dear Nick,

Nich Good: "Previous awards have gone to 'Mother Teresa', Yasser Arafat and Henry Kissinger. The committee even shortlisted Adolf Hitler...as late as 1938!"

I caertainly agree that the Nobel Peace Prize commitee has picked a few bad apples, occasionally. Sometimes they make simply bad choices, and sometimes they take risks in an effort to "push" the recipients in a desired direction. It clearly failed with Arafat, but it worked in other cases, e.g. when Hume and Trimble received the prize. Also, it is fair to say that overall, they have done a very good job over the years.


Nich Good: "I do wish Professor Dawkins would be less crazy lefty - not being able to refer to the US President as such, because he - Dawkins - doesn't care for GWB's politics."

Again, I agree. I don't like GWB either, but he was elected President (at least the second time around) and it shows disrespect of the democratic process, not to refer to him as President. To be fair, this is not an 'error' (IMO) exclusively by Professor Dawkins, but by wide segmwnts of the 'liberal' and 'left' spectrum. It's unfortunate that he's the president, but he IS the president. Also, I do not agree that secularism/atheism should be exclusively associated to the political left. In fact, I hope there would be more reasonable conservatives who 'came out' as atheists.

Regarding the Deschner prize: Congratulations Professor Dawkins. It's a great achievement to be able to cross language barriers as a public intellectual. There are not many who can claim that honor.

2. NEXT MONDAY: Bill O'Reilly interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #34426 by trillian on April 24, 2007 at 2:54 am

That was a very good interview. O'Reilly had the usual questions, and was polite. RD did a great job and didn't come over as a zealot.

I've seen some interviews of O'Reilly, and while he sometimes can become obnoxious and rude, he usually is hard but respectful. In contrast to many posters here, I was not concerned at all.

I think RD did great

3. Blasphemy Challenge on FOX

Comment #19673 by trillian on January 29, 2007 at 7:45 am

Great job by Brian ! The cause of Blasphemy Challenge got a lot of publicity, and the more unreasonable and angry the interviewer got, the better Brian looked.

The interviewer was ridiculous ("you give the kids DVDs !!!!") and as UNfair and UNballanced as an interviewer can get. Having said this, I do not appreciate comments like "Ruppert Murdoch is a cancer on the earth" (implicitly suggesting that the cancer be "removed") and over-the-top rantings about FOX. They're a conservative news channel, very often they suck, but hey: so what ! It's not the end of the world, it's freedom of speech, if you like it or not !

4. Noam Chomsky Interview on Faith

Comment #19154 by trillian on January 25, 2007 at 8:15 am

well, the interview got really strange at the end & Chomsky may be right at some points but his rantig about the "evil USA" and the "evil west" is really crazy at times.

The question about "Anti-Islam" being a "new religion" is really stupid. Granted, regretably, there are racists and xenophobes who use the discussion about islamic fundamentalism as a disguise for their racism. At the same time, it is really disturbing that otherwise secular and reasonable people (often from the political left ) bend over backwards to praise Islam in ordr not to appear racist, and even go so far as to blame other secular and reaonable people of racism and "the religion of anti-Islam" who have legitimate concerns about islam(ism). They completely freak out when the individuals pointing out shortcomings in countries that are predominantely islamic are young, intellectual women originating from these countries, and who actually really appreciate the secular liberties in the "west" we sometimes forget as beeing worth defending.

Also, while Chomsky may (sometimes) have a point in attacking US and Israeli politics and politicians, he would be much more credible if he didn't make friends with the Hisbollah and Hamas facist murderers who intentionally kill civilians and give a s**t about human rights and secular liberties. The USA and Israel are at least democracies, which may make mistakes at times, but where the democratic system works to change those mistakes. For example, Chomsky is free to live in the USA and he enjoys the right to harshly critizise the government (the way it ought to be in a good democracy), while his islamic fundamentalist friends put their critics to jail or kill them, if they can..

cheers everybody,
trillian