- but I think the idea of "rights" for animals is absurd. It sounds good at first blush - no-one likes the idea of cats and dogs suffering needlessly, but where does it stop? First of all, which animals? Only animals with brains? Or all animals? Animal rights activists say that the rest of us are drawing an arbitrary line between us and lower animals; accepting that argument, where is the line? Is there even a line at all? Do bacterium have the right to multiply inside my body, and is it murder to take antibiotics? What about plants? If it's wrong to kill and eat a chicken or a shrimp, why is it all right to kill and eat a plant? And if were going to extend human rights to animals, what about moral responsibility? Surely, if it is wrong for humans to kill, it is also wrong for animals to kill. Will we bring bears and alligators to court for murder when they inevitably attack and kill humans? And rights don't stop at who you are allowed to kill. What about displacing animals to build your house? What about pets?

I'm am not asking these questions to be flip; if you're going to take a the uncompromising position that hardcore, radical animal rights groups like SHAC adhere to, you have to explore questions like that seriously, especially when you break out the axe handles.

Read my letter more carefully.

The reason I use the phrase "serious terrorist threat" is because I think it's an important distinction. I'm not saying that what these people are doing is no big deal (I also say, right there, that they should be prosecuted for it), I'm saying that they are a terrorist threat, but not one that is truly serious.

I would define a serious terrorist threat as one that stages attacks that cause a great deal of damage and disruption. An example of a serious terrorist group would be the Baader Meinhoff group in Germany in the 70s, or the IRA during the Troubles. The SHAC is supporting the use of terror tactics, but they're really closer to the the UNAbomber in their effect on society; they target specific people for specific reasons. So far, they haven't even killed anybody (although they were lucky they didn't kill Brian Cass). Your average person is not going to be on his way to work wondering whether a SHAC planted bomb will blow up his bus. I know it's sexy to define everything as terrorism these days, but I stand by my statement; as a terrorist threat, it's just not serious. I really belive that keeping these problems in perspective is helpful in dealing with them.

The author does a good job pointing out that the intentions of the newspaper that published these cartoons were not particularly noble; this makes sense to me.

Of course, the motives of the paper are not the end of the road. There are always going to be jerks in the world who want to provoke people. A culture, a country, or a religion has to decide what is an appropriate response to such provcation. The Arabs are going to have to decide, at some point, if this is really what they want for themselves. In the long run, this is much more of a problem for them. If 12 cartoons cause all this trouble, how on earth are Sunnis, Shiites, secularists, and hardliners ever going to coexist?

Very soon, that Iranian newspaper is going to publish their cartoon series about the Holocaust. It will probably be twice as vitriolic as anything the Jyllands-Posten printed. If I were the editor, I would quietly shelve the whole project, because you can almost be certain that there will not be riots and mobs burning embassies over those cartoons.

I haven't read the piece yet, but I have an opinion about the press release that came out of Cheney's office. When you have a gun, it is your responsibility, first, to be safe. You are never supposed to point a gun at anything you shouldn't be shooting. When you're hunting, you should be aware of where other hunters are, and you should make sure they know where you are, but that doesn't mean that the person who decides to fire bears any less responsibility. If you shoot someone, it's your fault for pulling the trigger when you shouldn't have, not the victim's fault for getting in your way.

...like Dennet, but I can never quite put my finger on it. After reading this interview, I'm starting to get a sense for what that thing is. when asked this question:

Are you saying God is a product of our biology?

He answers:

I'm saying that if God does not exist, many of us would believe in him anyway because of the way we have evolved, both genetically and culturally.

Shouldn't he answer "Yes"? Based on what I've read of him, and the little that I've read by him, that's exactly what he believes. He's an atheist. I may be getting the wrong impression, but it strikes me as what the proponents of Intelligent Design do; instead of just saying "Evolution is bunk, God created the world" they construct a face on that belief that will be more palatable to the average person. As we talk about the difference between religion and science, a fact of life is that hucksterism is a part of religion. This is not true about science; when willfull imprecison and falsehood enter the picture, what you're doing is no longer science. It's pretty clear that Dennet has already decided that religion is a biological phenomenom, like everything else we do. Why can't he just come out and say it?