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Apple’s iPhone 3G is stunning. It’s twice as fast at half the price, replacing your GPS, your PDA, your mobile phone, your iPod, even your laptop computer in many cases, with a ton of practical genius within the most beautiful package… and it’s coming to you for as little as ...

A few things worth mentioning today: The FCC loves the idea of giving companies the frequencies in which to operate wireless internet services. They’d auction off the frequencies, like the good custodian of the public airwaves that a government agency in charge of those frequencies should. But the frequencies come ...

If you can read this, congratulations: you’re one of the minority today! Our hosting server has been having problems this week as some of you have noticed and have let me know; I don’t have any timescales on a fix but I’m becoming increasingly irritated about it and will move ...

Conservatives who oppose marijuana legalization typically hold similar reasons for their opposition: the fear that everyone will be potheads if the stuff is legalised, the ‘slippery-slope’ arguments, the grouping of marijuana with more dangerous drugs, the linking of drugs to crime, the linking of drugs to those who are society’s ...

Many of us would be tempted to think that business leaders are rational, intelligent and swayed by good reason and their own business interests. But apparently not. A survey of UK businesses has revealed the secret to winning clients and clinching deals. Is it good service? No Is it a ...

This is a tough time, economically, that’s for sure. An LA Times op-ed today asks if it’s the end of the road for SUVs, and quotes some data derived from Power Information Network and published in the Wall Street Journal, data which reports that 36% of those who tried to ...

I wrote last week in defence of motorcycle road racing after Robert Dunlop, a road racing legend, died at Northern Ireland’s North-West 200 event. Belfast Telegraph columnist Barry White commented “I join the clamour for a [circuit event] to overtake road racing. Bikes are too fast and too deadly to ...

Welcome back, friends; June it is, and the first Monday thereof. Summer begins! The UK government has published yet more desperate plans of yet further efforts to try to curb binge drinking, part of which is advice they’ll give to parents on when they should allow their kids to drink ...

Friends, Thanks for checking back even as we take an unscheduled blogging hiatus for a few days. Sometimes life gets busy, news gets slow, our interest is occupied elsewhere; it seems so far this week we’ve been on blog vacation (which fits, given Memorial Day weekend and the holiday chaos ...

This Monday is Memorial Day, a 3-day weekend which has come to mark the beginning of summer. Its status as a day to remember members of the armed forces killed in action protecting American freedoms isn’t lessened, in my opinion, by the fact that most Americans will use this weekend ...

Dear God. How should pupils be taught to cope with the pressure and stress of examinations? The most recent and most novel suggestion comes from the Church of England: pray your way to a stress free examination season. To this end the Church has published prayers that nervous pupils can ...

I’m so irritated by this story. You people living in the United Kingdom who are under the impression that you’re living in a free country are grossly mistaken. When I was in my mid-teens I’d already wanted to be in radio for a few years. I took great interest in ...

Robert Dunlop, from Ballymoney Northern Ireland, was one of the best motorcycle road racers in the world. I say “was” because he no longer “is,” after dying in a practice lap for Northern Ireland’s top racing event – the “North West 200.” After hitting around 150 miles-per-hour a technical fault ...

Christian Aid is one of those horrible organisations with an implied claim to moral superiority over us lesser mortals, pontificating how the rest of us should live our lives. Of course, they’re entitled to do so, after all isn’t God on their side? Bring on the Inquisition. This week this ...

…is nothing new. Think Al Gore for a prime example, or Sheryl Crow. Now Paul McCartney is being accused of hypocrisy: “The former Beatle has long been an outspoken advocate of environmental causes and animal rights. He is a vegetarian who won’t even wear leather shoes. But now he’s being ...

Michael Stone. If you’re from outside Northern Ireland that name will probably mean very little to you. But to those versed in Northern Ireland’s rather murky past that name will conjure up images of one of the most notorious terrorist episodes of “the troubles.” In 1988 a man few had ...

Penn Jillette has given an excellent response to a viewer on the issues of drugs and suicide, speaking as a ‘sensitive libertarian’ on the matter (watch it for yourself

Rob Lyons has an excellent response to the comments of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay today in Spiked. We like Ramsay and he’s found favour on this blog before, but these latest comments – in which he says it should be illegal for restaurants to offer food shipped from other parts ...

Only a few weeks ago no-one knew who Josef Fritzl was, except, obviously, his friends, family and neighbours. But now we all know Josef Fritzl, or least we all know he is an Austrian who locked his daughter up for years and fathered 6 or 7 kids by her without ...

Another week! Minette Marrin is back on my radar this week with an article about waste, echoing my own thoughts On Waste but in a, er, superior way. While she starts practically speaking, “Flexible catering cannot be entirely frugal, nor can serious cooking,” she doesn’t disappoint: “The real truth is ...