There is so much that is wrong about rights; more specifically the way people speak and think about them. The topic is becoming pretty hot here in Northern Ireland at present with a Bill of Rights creeping ever closer. At its most basic a Bill of Rights will be a contract obliging the government to […]

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This certainly ranks among the strangest stories I’ve heard lately; a woman who went into the toilet of an Indian train, passed out and woke up to find that she’d somehow given birth to a baby who had fallen from her body through the toilet from the moving train onto the track below. The […]

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From October to February, Stephen’s ‘Virtue’ series provided thinking people with ample thought for their weekends each Friday. Now that he’s moved onto a series on ‘Vices’, here’s a handy collection of the ‘Virtue’ series for your bookmarks.
10/27/2007 - The Virtue of Rational Self-Interest (read)
10/29/2007 - The Virtue of Ultimate Fighting (read)
11/4/2007 - The […]

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The blushing bride was radiant in her 5 metre long sari, decked in flowers. The groom made his way to the temple amidst music, dancing and fireworks. Crowds flocked from all around to see these young love birds finally cement their relationship in marriage, and lavished gifts on each of them: including a gold necklace […]

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Aside from the Pullman interview, I’ve been interested in the following stories today.
2008 presidential candidate Barack Obama is either neurotic on the issue of gun control and the 2nd Amendment or he’s a pathological liar who’s trying to conceal his utter contempt for the concept of individual gun rights under the Constitution as we know […]

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I’ve been reading an article intended for the March 2008 print edition of Reason magazine, in which Cathy Young examines Philip Pullman’s ideology in His Dark Materials, the trilogy from which the first installment, The Golden Compass, was adapted for film last year (to some controversy).
Pullman is an interesting character, forming the third figure of […]

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It’s interesting to observe the political Left at this period in time. It isn’t just the state of fluctuating and redefining of leftist positions as they relate to 21st-century challenges, it’s also the fact that more and more liberal goals seem to be coming into conflict with each other.
This is a good example. […]

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Crawley reports that the economist Joseph Stiglitz estimates the war in Iraq to have cost the United States three trillion dollars.
“America’s annual aid contribution to the continent of Africa costs as much as ten days fighting in Iraq. Stiglitz estimates the US could end illiteracy in the world for the price of two weeks of […]

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The 80th Academy Awards ceremony yielded its highest honours to my favourite film of 2007, the Coen Brothers’ No Country For Old Men:
Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country for Old Men, considered the frontrunner going into the ceremony, lived up to expectations, racking up a leading four Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay […]

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I get a little nervous around vegetarians. They’re like people with Tourettes syndrome: you never quite know what nonsense they’re going to blurt at any given moment, and you can only hope it doesn’t happen in earshot of other people who might think you’re with them. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing a number of […]

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It sounds like a joke: A man walks into a betting shop, loses 2 million, and sues the bookmaker for allowing him to do so and breaching its “duty of care” towards him. But it’s happening.
Graham Calvert is a greyhound trainer who became “addicted” to gambling and lost over 2 million on various bets over […]

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I want to make this assertion: that five women of Ipswich, England would probably still be alive today if prostitution were legal.
Our American friends won’t be familiar with this story since it received virtually no press here, but every British headline is reporting that an Ipswich man, Steve Wright, has been found guilty of murdering […]

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Jonathan Rauch writes:
“The eclectic McCain is a handyman, not an architect. His skills and positions are well suited to fixing the Bush-era mistakes and getting the country to listen to Republicans again. But he is not a man of ideas like Reagan, Barry Goldwater, or Newt Gingrich. He could lead the party out of the […]

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Christian attitudes to sex are so entertaining that it’s become one of my favourite subjects. Consider Book 22, a website for Christian married couples offering a variety of sex enhancement products like oils, aids and toys.
I’ll say this: the site’s founder Joy Wilson is a brave woman. In her native land of […]

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Bonjour. Je m’appelle Stephen. J’habite à Belfast. J’aime jouer au ping-pong.
With the exception of the, umm, questionable phrases, “votre mère a de grands boobs,” “J’ai eu le sexe avec votre soeur,” and “votre mère suce des pénis” the above pretty much exhausts my grasp of French (a fact proven in a semi-drunken margarita fuelled conversation […]

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Ah, how I’ve longed to write those words. After Dog the Bounty Hunter made this error of judgement, I thought he’d be down for longer. Back in November when the incident happened, I made this bold prediction:
“This will be the last word from A&E on the subject for at least 6 months. After […]

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This is, singularly - patently - the best YouTube video ever.

Now didn’t that brighten up your Tuesday?

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Hey, it’s Monday.
Toshiba is still considering its options on HD DVD. Ken Miller asks what they could possibly need to consider? It’s over, dammit. “There’s really nowhere to go except the exit, and there’s little reason to walk instead of run that we are aware of.” Uhuh.  (UPDATE 2/19/2008: Toshiba admit […]

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At my sister’s wedding about 8 or 9 years ago an argument broke out between friends of my mum and dad about which of my parents I was most like. From the debate I learnt: I’m too tall to be like my Dad but I have his receding hairline. I have both my mum’s introversion […]

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For those interested in the format war between the next-generation high-definition video disc formats, Blu-Ray and HD DVD, it’s now almost inevitable. Before Christmas, I bought an HD DVD player (on sale for $99!), bought and rented a few titles from Netflix. Within the past few weeks I’d started seeing rumours that the […]

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