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Exposing political corruption and championing feminism
Admit it, skeptics, you were hoping this story was going to be about Uri Geller. I know I was. The Independent reports that Lebanese TV psychic Ali Sibat will not be put to death after all. Saudi Arabia sentenced Sibat to death by decapitation for witchcraft after he was apprehended in the kingdom ...
I have good news and bad news on the JUNO front. The bad news is that my partner, Darcy James Argue, and Secret Society didn't take home the statuette for Best Contemporary Jazz Album for Infernal Machines. On the upside, drippy teen phenom Justin Bieber didn't win anything, either. Further ...
Today, I'm blogging from the JUNO Awards in St. John's, Newfoundland. The JUNOs are Canada's equivalent of the Grammys. The JUNOs honor Canadian musicians and ensembles. I'm here with my partner, Darcy James Argue, the bandleader of the steampunk jazz big band, Secret Society. Darcy is ...
In TIME, science writer Maia Szalavitz dissects a recent rat study that was reported as if it showed that junk food is "as addictive" as crack. Some rats were assigned to the equivalent of an all-expenses-paid cruise: nearly continuous access to a spectacular array of fatty delicacies including ...
A recent study on college students' preferences for dating vs. hookups is, unaccountably, generating national media attention. The authors found that a bunch of 19-year-old college freshmen in the South embraced traditional gender norms. The study is called "To Hook Up or Date: Which Gender ...
Politico reports that the notorious anti-choice congressman Bart Stupak (D-Mich) is retiring. Stupak claims that he abruptly announced his departure on a Friday afternoon for no particular reason. He told Politico that he'd been thinking of retiring for the last couple election cycles and, now that ...
Via Gawker we learn that a New York judge reaffirmed a guy's right to demand the ring back if the engagement breaks off for any reason. In the case before the court, a Long Island woman maintained that she should be allowed to keep the $19,000 ring because her former fiance cheated on her: On ...
An FBI Special Agent impersonated a representative of a real, legal anti health care reform group in order to positively identify a Washington man who allegedly left a series of anonymous death threats on the office voicemail of Sen. Patti Murray (D-Wash). The agent called up Charles Alan Wilson ...
At the New York Review of Books Blog, controversial Catholic theologian Hans Küng blames the celibate priesthood for the epidemic of child rape in the Catholic Church. (The term "rape" is mine and it's carefully chosen. When adults force sex on children, that's rape.) He argues convincingly that ...
My story in AlterNet about the Republican National Committee's creative expense accounting got picked up by Rachel Maddow last night. Watch the video: Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
When I read that Republican National Committee staffers had expensed nearly $2000 worth of "meals" at bondage-themed Hollywood nightclub specializing in simulated lesbian sex, I knew it couldn't be an isolated incident. No one would be bold enough to expense that unless they were sure they could ...
A few days ago, I posted about an unusual ad that appeared in my local subway stop. The ad featured a kid with a broken leg hobbling down a hospital corridor on crutches. The copy read: "Football? Nope. Broken sidewalks. Broken sidewalk stories won't win us a Pulitzer, but they could keep you out ...
In his latest op/ed Nick Kristof is lamenting the fact that girls are outperforming boys at school. Kristof is as ardent a defender of women's rights as anyone in the established media, so he gets a proverbial clitoral hood pass. That said, Kristof seems uncharacteristically oblivious to the ...
In March 2009, a federal judge ordered the Food and Drug Administration to reassess the arbitrarily imposed and scientifically unjustified age restrictions on access to emergency contraception (aka "the morning after pill" or Plan B). Nominally, EC is available over the counter, but only ...
Skeptic and magician James Randi has pulled off yet another daring escape. The famous debunker of scam psychics has emerged from the closet at the age of 81. Randi made the big announcement on his blog last Sunday. After all these years, Sean Penn's biopic Milk inspired him to finally go public ...