Remember the Canadian hoax last summer that involved two straight guys, Bryan Pinn and Bill Dalrymple, who decided to try out Canada’s new fangled gay marriage law solely for the benefits that they would get from taking the plunge? Their’s was an entirely feasible plan because the law doesn’t require consummation in order to be […]

I noticed that John Derbyshire’s latest column was not posted at NRO. But, you can find it at his website. Also, here are his other two web pieces not posted, You can’t talk about that and the innocuously titled March Diary.

Amartya Sen has an interesting piece in The New Republic titled Chili and liberty: the uses and abuses of multiculturalism. Sen’s piece addresses the paradox in the interpretation of “multiculturalism” in some quarters where it implies separation of distinct cultures into a “plural monoculturalism.” That is, a nation where separate ethnic and religious groups live […]

This post is intended to provoke discussion on the aims of (recreational) drugs policy and law. As this is largely a political issue, I will put it below the fold for those who are interested.… I will start by proposing a few general principles. 1. First, I take the general pro-liberty position that sane adults […]

WFMU blog points me to the infamous Experiments in the Revival of Organisms (1940) propaganda video at the always fascinating Prelinger archive, featuring Soviet stooge/scientific genius J.B.S. Haldane as narrator to Stalinist Russia Frankenstein experiments in reanimation. Gasp as a life-supported severed dog’s head licks its chops and dodges various irritants. Marvel as other lucky […]

Starbucks says that they are “selling an experience.” I can buy that, after spending a week in New York City with crappy coffee Starbucks was a real godsend. One thing I realized is that when you are in a neighborhood you don’t know (eg, Park Slope in Brooklyn), it is important to be able to […]

Many of the posts over the past few years have been influenced by my dabbling in cognitive science. My interest in this field is three fold: I believe that modeling human cognition at its most basic level is a necessary precondition for genuine explanation and prediction in the human sciences. Cognitive science has helped me […]

If you’re interested in how the human imagination can create art from the most unlikely sources, cast your attention to this site which has collected an assortment of digitally created compositions which are constructed from the sounds emitted by failing hard drives. Check out this beauty.

Maybe Serbia needs to beef up its national health care system with a pharmacare supplemental, or this guy is a scientologist who doesn’t believe in polluting his body with chemicals: A Serbian man needed emergency surgery after sticking a pencil inside his penis to keep it stiff during sex. Zeljko Tupic, from Belgrade, told doctors […]

Let’s see if you can spot the bias (I’ll give you a hint) in the following report on Immigration Reform published in Newsweek: The Senate will debate three initiatives of a very different nature. First up is the so-called Sensenbrenner bill, already passed by the House of Representatives. Among other hateful features, the legislation seeks […]

E. O. Wilson interview over at meaningoflife.tv.

Diana of Letter from Gotham expresses some of what I’ve been thinking. I am rather uninspired by what I perceive as the relative silence on the Left and the swarming hysterics on the Right.1 Though I tend to sympathize with the suspicion of Islam evinced by many on the Right, I have commented on the […]

Three posts that might be of interest for GNXP readers over at my Science Blog: Darwin’s species and the One-True-PeakWhat genetics tells us about human psychologyBlondes have more fear Also, check out Genius Germs by Agnostic.

For all of the readers who were kept in the dark about this commemorative event, Interested Participant has dilgently collected reports about those who rang in the New Year in the spirit of celebration. From his January archive, here are the highlights (see if you notice a pattern emerging): 28-year-old teacher Traci J. Tapp was […]

This is the most breathtaking example of multiculturalism in action I have encountered in quite some time, as well as breaking news: The Swedish security police (SAPO) intervened last night against the site of far-right political party Sverigedemokraterna (sd), getting their Internet provider to shut down their site (www.sverigedemokraterna.se). As far as I have been […]

Norway, spotting an empty market niche, has decided to import 20 camels so that Norway’s Somalian community can develop a market for sub-zero camel herds: “Then we found out that many of the refugees here have nomadic backgrounds, and know a lot about camel farming. So we want to import camels, and employ the refugees […]

Someone appreciates us.

For those of you who have ever wondered about what tangible effects “structural discrimination” might have on disadvantaged groups, here is an excellent example. This racist (according to the US justice department, and the justice department doesn’t lie, no?) police academy admittance test is a major factor in ensuring that “about 85 percent of white […]

John Hawks on the Human Genome Project afterglow.

“The fool saith in his heart, There is no God” (Psalms 52:1), and so begins the ontological argument for the existence of God formulated by St. Anselm. In short, Anselm’s argument is that (list taken from Wikipedia): God is the entity than which no greater entity can be conceived. The concept of God exists in […]