David Cowan's Accidental Philanthropy

David started blogging last week. Prolific and witty, he combines insights on data security issues with personal musings about life in general.

I felt compelled to comment on his latest post Accidental Philanthropy.

This weekend I was a guest golfer at the prestigious Menlo Country Club in Woodside. It was a glorious day, with no one else in sight on this magnificently tended course (though I suspect that's because word had gotten around that a Jew was on premises).
(read David's entire post)

Here is a copy of the comment I posted on David's blog:

At 6:20 AM, Daniel Dreymann said... After the “I suspect that's because word had gotten around that a Jew was on premises” prolog, I was kind of hoping your money would go to AIPAC (much better than the ADL).

Americans United for the Separation of Church and State would have been a great choice as well (I’ll send them a check after my IPO :-) though you do fall in the trap Sharansky calls the west’s “lack of moral clarity” in his latest book The Case for Democracy: “It is why people living in free societies cannot distinguish between religious fundamentalists in democratic states and religious terrorists in fundamentalist states”.

One should also not confound bullshit and convictions. Prof. Frankfurt in On Bullshit writes about a Fourth of July orator, who goes on bombastically about "our great and blessed country, whose Founding-Fathers under divine guidance created a new beginning for mankind." This is not about promoting religion, it’s simply bullshit. As Frankfurt writes: “The orator does not really care what his audience thinks about the Founding Fathers, or about the role of the deity in the US history, What he cares about is what people think of him. He wants them to think of him as a patriot, as someone who has deep thoughts and feelings about the origins and the mission of our country, who appreciates the importance of religion, who is sensitive to the greatness of our history, whose pride in that history is combined with humility before God, and so on.”

And to end this too-long-already comment: I am amazed you, as a scientist, would support The Sierra Club, master users of junk science, brainwashers of innocent 5 year old kids…