Ben Stein in an anti-evolution movie? I thought better of him. The Expelled movie isn’t yet out so we can’t make fun of it in its entirety, but as everyone knows by now, the filmmakers started things off rather badly by lying to the pro-science people they interviewed, making them think that it was an… Continue reading

Michael Barone points out some overlooked good news. How more and more US firms divesting Iran could bring pressure to bear on the goombahs mullahs: At the same time, divestment can hurt the targeted companies enough to persuade them to change their ways. We learned this 20 years ago from the divestment movement directed against… Continue reading

I don’t often come away from Harvard Book store with this good a haul. The good old days, as I’ve probably lamented here before, are long gone in Harvard Square. No more Wursthaus, no more Star Book Shop, no more Science/Fantasy Book Store, no more Macintyre and Moore book store; that great little diner where… Continue reading

Adam Gopnik makes a good point in his assessment of the work of Philip K. Dick (the best of which is now being issued in a nice volume by the Library of America): The trouble is that, much as one would like to place Dick above or alongside Pynchon and Vonnegut—or, for that matter, Chesterton… Continue reading

Ralph Alpher, one of the key contributors to the ‘hot’ big bang theory, the revised 1948 version of Lemaitre’s l’atom primitif that led to a prediction of the cosmic microwave background, has passed away at age 86. Dr. Alpher was awarded the 2005 National Medal of Science last month for his 1948 prediction that, if… Continue reading