Sunday/Monday blogs round-up - 05/06 December 2010

Ten topics from around the net blogosphere for this week. As ever, I may totally disagree with any single one blog post cited here.

Chris Mooney and then separately Sheril Kirshenbaum, both of the Intersection blog, describe at length just why the plan from House of Representatives Republican Congressman Adrian Smith of Nebraska is such a bad idea. Smith is a member of the House science committee, and wants to have members of the public scrutinize research grants looking for ones they can have vetoed in Congress, or in other words he's pushing yet another way for Republican pressure groups to twist science to their own agendas.

Again the Intersection blog, but this time, Chris Mooney, David Silverman (president of American Atheists) and Hemant Mehta (of the blog "The Friendly Atheist") have a mild argument about The Future Of Atheism: Beyond The Question Of God. You can read about it in very small detail on the Intersection, or you can listen to the whole thing here. I listened to it all, and I wanted to smack heads and show them all how a truly heated discussion goes, and bring up all the points they all missed out on, being myself an atheist very interested in the future of atheism and humanism.

The (Jewish) Mah Rabu blog gets really technical about the Overton Window effect with regard to schools and yom tov. The blog post was in October, but hey, I only found it now. Frume Sarah's blog (again Jewish) blogs about her son with Asperger's. Rabbi Goldie Milgram wants to reframe Hanukkah (Chanukah) and Christmas.

The Islamicate blog, a group blog by American Muslims, have an interesting bit of news on campus life for USA Muslims.

Bishop Alan Wilson blogs skeptically on yet another new scheme for British secondary (high) schools.

Rev'd Lesley Fellows gets skeptical on the British government's Big Society plans and its attempts to get the churches to make up for governmental budget cuts. And maybe you should see this video too.

Bishop Nick Baines makes it really clear, skeptically, that Christians are not persecuted in Britain; and the comments thread under his blog post is worthwhile reading. Fr. David Cloake of The Vernacular Curate reinforces the skeptical point. Adding to the skepticism is Rev'd Lesley Fellows.

The blog Clerical Abuse Watch blogged on Friday about the report released that same day, the day before yesterday, on the scandal revealed in a report commissioned by a German Catholic archdiocese, Munich and Freising. You can read much more about that report on my own blog.

The i-Church blog has a post up, all quite artistic, one by Marilyn Ann, which also leads to her own blog.

Everyone's talking about what is learnt from the Wikileaks affair; the Memex blog has a good post up on it.

Bonus: Mark Vernon has an excellent blog post up comparing Dean Colin Slee, recently deceased, with Christopher Hitchens, who is dying. Both Colin Slee and Christopher Hitchens were and are unscared. Another unscared man, Dean Jeffrey John, gave the sermon for Colin Slee's funeral.



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