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A combination of re-decorating, tidying, and assembling flat-pack furniture has prevented me from writing my usual articles this week. It’ll be business as usual next week, but for now I thought I go for some light relief for you all to enjoy at the end of a hard week’s work. ...

I’ve heard from a lot of people about ‘Super-Size Me!’ and, although the film is now a few years old, a lot can be learned about a person by observing how they respond to it. The film by Morgan Spurlock deals with issues of responsibility, of personal liberty, health, capitalism ...

A great article today from Rob Johnston on cannabis: “The argument about cannabis and schizophrenia reflects the modern view of children. In the memories of the 1968 generation, the ‘mild and gentle weed’ they smoked and made them mellow has been replaced by ‘skunk’ which turns today’s children into aggressive ...

Well, I started to write this yesterday, but got sidetracked by a virtually impromptu wedding – my sister-in-law got married quietly and casually last night after much drama. I had a horrible headache all day yesterday, my Jeep’s been in repairs for 4 weeks (when I get it back, it’ll ...

Dear Douchebags, Last year you pursued (and last week convicted) Deborah Jeane Palfrey (pictured), a Washington DC escort service operator for several crimes including running a prostitution service. An hour ago, police announced that she hung herself in a shed near her mom’s house. Those of you who made, uphold ...

Meet Broderick Lloyd Laswell. Broderick has been an inmate in an Arkansas prison for eight months. Like most prisoners he is isn’t entirely content. Now, we might imagine all manner of complaints that an inmate might have about their prison: like being there at all when they are “innocent” (nudge-nudge-wink-wink) ...

Life is like a game of Tetris: it throws down difficult conditions sometimes, it gets faster and faster until you feel you’re going to throw up from stress, and it never ends happily. …. Okay, I don’t really mean that. I was playing Tetris on my phone a few minutes ...

There are issues over which libertarians disagree: abortion, capital punishment, roads, and children being amongst the things that can set brother against brother in a fight of biblical proportions. And sometimes it might look like libertarian ideals clash. Libertarians believe in religious freedom. This is simply an extension of the ...

“Pain at the pump” has become the most overused headline of the past year as the cost of gasoline has skyrocketed to Friday’s US average of $3.59 per gallon. Our British readers may feel that this is cheap, since Friday’s average price in Britain was $8.20 per gallon, making UK ...

For libertarians freedom is central: to act in whatever way we so desire as long as we do not infringe the fundamental rights – to life and property – of other people. Choosing to act one way or another requires freedom of the will: which means, contrary to determinism, that ...

A 31 percent rating at Rotten Tomatoes is not impressive. It seems the critics didn’t like it. But I was interested in the story of the MIT Blackjack Team as told in the movie ’21’. Although I’ve never gambled much, I’ve been intrigued by casinos and table games and odds ...

There’s nothing quite like a good put-down. For a polemicist the put-down is a vital tool of the trade, and can win hearts and minds just as well as a good argument: putting both together can amount to a powerful tool of persuasion. Some might regard put-downs as nothing other ...

Another week, and three stories of interest to me this Monday. First, I’m happy to report that Stern sidekick Artie Lange is back on the show today following a week of intense speculation about his future on the show. This comes after Artie’s on-air meltdown and resignation on April 10th ...

There’s something about the creationism-versus-evolution debate that makes me want to poke my own eyes out just so I have something to throw at the opposing sides. A plague on both their houses! Now, let me clarify my view that the basic theory of evolution is generally correct. I’m not ...

Earlier this week I was amazed to discover that I had never written about the BBC licence fee, and I immediately remedied that. To keep with the theme of plugging gaps in my blogging catalogue I also discovered I have never written a critique of anything written by Guardian columnist ...

I’m being surrounded on all sides now by friends blogging about Ben Stein’s new film Expelled, a pro-creationist anti-evolution documentary which attempts to legitimise creationism by appealing to its status as the underdog in the science world (see Crawley’s piece here and Ronald Bailey’s Reason piece here for good examples). ...

Coke from a glass bottle poured into a cup full of ice: beverage heaven. I reckon my teeth will be falling out long before time due to a serious addiction to Coca Cola. For me there’s only one beverage that compares: a well brewed coffee. At the moment I’m enjoying ...

…and it’s all due to global warming.

Happy Tuesday, punters. Since upgrading our software we’ve been having a few problems with the RSS feed on the site; I know many of you subscribe to the articles using RSS and we apologise for the issues. So far, there are no timescales for a fix, but I’ll post again ...

I was amazed to discover from my blog back-catalogue that I have never written about the television licence fee, quite an oddity given how much it pisses me off. For those of you who live outside Great Britain you may well be amazed to discover that we must pay a ...