News
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What enlightenment?
While I was out last night planning the overthrow of religion with my fellow amoral atheists, the BBC was broadcasting a documentary in which it presented a poll showing that nearly 40% of Britons thought Intelligent Design or Creationism is the best explanation of life on earth. So it appears that Britain, too, is being…
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New Orleans: Alex Chilton missing — found!
Among all the tragic stories coming out of New Orleans, the devastation of families and homes, I’ve learned that Alex Chilton is among the missing. Chilton was, first, the teenage singer of the Box Tops who had a late-60s blue-eyed-soul hit with “The Letter. In the 70s, Alex formed Big Star, one of those obscure…
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Nil Desperandum
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On September 11, having just moved to the UK about 10 days before, I was on a train up to a meeting in Durham, in the North of England, when news started filtering in via mobile phones (I didn’t have one myself at the time) and passengers coming on and off the train. With only…
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All ok.
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For anyone who might be checking, everything is OK with me amidst the chaos in London. Now I have to work out how to get back to Oxford, where I live. Echoing Gia’s sentiments: Londoners Rule. We are not terrorised.We are just annoyed. Update: Made it home, finally. I need a beer.
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Update: Academic Union – Israeli boycotts revoked
Update — AUT – Israeli boycotts revoked: AUT’s special council … voted to revoke all existing boycotts of Israeli institutions. AUT council has decided to base its policy on providing practical solidarity to Palestinian and Israeli trade unionists and academics, by agreeing a motion committing the union to having a full review of international policy,…
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More wrongs from the right
From the Wall Street Journal, James Taranto on “Why I’m Rooting for the Religious Right“: One can disagree with religious conservatives on abortion, gay rights, school prayer, creationism and any number of other issues, and still recognize that they have good reason to feel disfranchised…. In the past three elections, the religious right has helped…
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UK Election Day – Ballots, not Bombs
Dateline: New York. As a briefly-repatriated expat, I expected to be largely spared the onslaught of election coverage here in the UK. However, I woke up this morning to hear about a small explosion outside the British Consulate in New York. This hits home — the consulate is on Third Avenue and 52d Street, about…
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Numbing numbers
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As the horrid death toll from the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami continues to rise, we are confronted with a barrage of numbers: many tens or even a hundred thousand dead, nine on the Richter scale, ten-meter waves. Do we really know what these figures mean? Part of the problem is simply definitions: who knows…
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