Snopes: How to Lose a Reputation in One Easy Step

When I was in high school, there was a joke that went thus: why is virginity like a balloon? One prick, and it’s gone forever. As schoolyard wit goes, that scarcely rises above even the low bar of its kind, nonetheless it contains a kind of rough truism: some things, when lost, are gone for …

Gaia Macht Frei?

“The disposal units ran night and day. We were that close to going out forever” - Kyle Reese, “The Terminator” The classic 1984 SF film The Terminator envisions a nightmare, dystopian future where the human species is all but wiped by genocidal machines. The artificial intelligence, SkyNet, decides that humans must be eradicated as a …

Just what is “eco-fascism”?

Caption: A common visual trope of eco-fascism is nature scenes combined with the "ᛉ" rune. This is quite an old article that I seem to have missed re-posting. Which is unfortunate, because it seems to me rather an important one. Maybe you'll feel the same – in which case, my apologies for the delay in …

Principled Media Stand or Last Gasp of Hypocrisy?

Recently, Australia’s newspapers took the unprecedented collective action of publishing their front pages entirely redacted. This, they say, is a united call for greater media freedom following a sustained attack on the rights of journalists to hold governments to account and report the truth to the Australian public. Are the nation’s newspapers really taking such …

Some Inconvenient Truths for the Climate Kids

In a way, you almost have to admire Al Gore’s chutzpah in titling his mockumentary which did so much to snowball the global warming panic, An inconvenient truth. Because there’s bugger-all truth in it. In fact, a British judge ruled that the film couldn’t be shown to schoolchildren without a disclaimer acknowledging its factual errors. …