This week Wrestlemania, the biggest event in the wrestling calendar with all of its accompanying functions, is in Arizona bringing with it Mickie James, one of the best-known women in the sport. Mickie is currently promoting her upcoming album, the release of which has been pushed back to April due ...
Read MoreHow a libertarian can (almost) welcome the health care reform bill
The health care reform bill signed into law this week by President Obama is significant and historic, but I’m having a hard time explaining to some of my more conservative friends why I’m not loudly denouncing it for its infringements on the market. Conservatives are up in arms … livid. ...
Read MoreMy “Public Apology” quiz
I host and produce a ‘news’ show, and once in a while I can turn the news into a game. With the popularity of the ‘public apology’ as a way for celebrities and politicians to attempt to recover from controversy affecting their careers (some faring better than others), and the ...
Read MoreUnfortunately I was right….
The case of Rom Houben, the Belgian man in a coma for 23 years who was reported to have been communicating, made a great Thanksgiving tale. At the time, though, I wasn’t convinced after seeing the videos of his finger being moved around a special keyboard by a ‘facilitator’, and ...
Read MoreThe fallacy of first impressions
On Friday, I had an on-air exchange that fascinated me. I had just replayed a portion of my interview with Dr. Nick Bostrom, an Oxford University professor and well-known transhumanist, on the subject of his Simulation Argument. This is the paper that spurred a serious academic discussion in 2003 on ...
Read MoreThings I found in my office desk
I cleaned out my desk today. Yikes. I’m not a hoarder – normally I’m a brutal junker of everything my family holds near and dear – but my office desk gets overlooked, so here it is, a list of items I’ve removed from the desk drawers today. 3 cellphones, chargers, ...
Read MorePat Robertson on Haiti
Televangelist and 700 Club host Pat Robertson is making news again with his controversial theory on why Haiti was hit with a devastating earthquake earlier this week. Here I take 2 minutes to react to his comments. Listen here.
Read MoreUganda anti-gay after visit by western evangelicals
This is my reaction to the news that Uganda was considering a bill urging the death penalty for homosexuals after a conference held by three evangelical speakers visiting the country. Thankfully the country appears to be backtracking on the bill after international outcry. Press play below to listen. (11 mins.)
Read MoreThousands gather to protest global warming
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Read MoreAvatar
Happy New Year! I first heard about Avatar 2 years ago. No movie could live up to a two-year hype, surely? In fact, this film in many ways surpasses my initial expectations. The trailers do not do justice to the results of this new paradigm in movie-making technology. This is ...
Read MoreMy top 5 reasons to lower the U.S. legal drinking age to 18
1) Alcohol education starts at home, and yet we have outlawed the act of learning in the average home (most people move out long before they turn 21 and therefore, under the law, parents have no chance to permit legal responsible drinking in the home). 2) When people learn from ...
Read MoreMerry Christmas!
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Read MoreHealth care systems good at different things
I’ve experienced life with both kinds of health care system. Living in the United Kingdom, I grew up with the ‘universal’ model: government health care, paid for by taxes and free at the point of use. And, for the past five years, I’ve been in the United States with its ...
Read MoreSomething to scare the crap out of you
Frightened yet?
Read MoreComa guy is NOT communicating!
Yes, it was a great Thanksgiving story: a Belgium man, thought to be in a vegetative state for 23 years, discovered to be fully conscious and communicating via keyboard. Except for the fact that the finger he’s using to type he’s not actually using at all: it’s being moved around ...
Read MoreNEW MOON: I don’t inhale
I have taken, but not inhaled. This is not a movie review. I am not qualified to write a review on New Moon, which I saw at the stroke of midnight in one of two packed screens at my local quadplex. The reason I say I’m not qualified is that ...
Read MoreGreatest Show On Earth
I’ve been reading Richard Dawkins’ new book The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence For Evolution. In the United States, a surprising number of people still don’t accept that evolution explains the origin of complex life. Dawkins wrote this book as a way of bringing science to laypeople who haven’t ...
Read MoreA wine tasting
Listen here as I taste another fine wine for your enjoyment, and describe in vivid detail – perhaps too vivid – what it tastes like. Three and a half minutes.
Read MoreSex-for-seats is illegal. Why?
Susan Finkelstein, 43, was arrested this week for allegedly offering sex acts in exchange for tickets to the World Series. She says she is innocent, having been misunderstood by the undercover cop who busted her. But if she really was offering ‘sex for seats’, is that really something that should ...
Read MoreSummary of Question Time with Nick Griffin
Last night’s controversial Question Time with BNP leader Nick Griffin went something like this: Dimbleby: “Good evening. I’d like to welcome our panel tonight. Well, all of them bar one of course” [audience laughs nervously] Griffin: “I ..” [audience boos, ecstatically] Dimblebore: “That’s really quite enough from you, Mr Griffin” ...
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