Comic MasterpieceI didn’t realize until just recently that Jim Broadbent’s satirical masterpiece, A Sense of History, is online. Mike Leigh directed it, and no doubt added his own touch, but Broadbent, one of the treasures of modern British comedy, wrote and starred. It’s as merciless a send up of the WASP sensibility as you can… Continue reading

As usual, Hitchens finds the words that few others can: And it’s not as if anybody is looking for coded language in which to say: “Health care—who needs it?” or “Special interests and lobbyists—give them a break,” let alone “Dr. King’s dream—what a snooze.” It’s more that the prevailing drivel assumes that every adult in… Continue reading

Hat tip to Jay Fitzgerald, for suggesting the best piece to remember William F. Buckley by….

Um, about those transitional fossils creationists are always getting so worked up about…

Was Adelard Channeling Richard Dawkins?One of the early medieval scholars to emphasize the use of Reason was Adelard of Bath (d. 1152). Mike Flynn read an amusing quote from him during our medieval science panel at Boskone two weeks ago, and it’s worth quoting in full: [from Adelard’s Quaestiones naturales] “[T]he natural order does not… Continue reading