I still crack up every time I see the episode of Family Guy where Peter tries to summarize the story of Jesus and mixes it up with the intro to Quantum Leap... Some thing like "He was a good guy. He went around forgive sins, leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong,...

I wonder then is a victim of a "hate crime" then assassinated because the murderer killed them for what that victim represented. For example, Matthew Shepard was targeted, lured, beaten and left to die because a few good ol' boys wanted to target one gay man to terrorize other gay men, but...

Interesting question. John Lennon is often refered to as been assassinated, but his killer simply wanted to be famous. So his motivation didn't have anything to do with John Lennon's political and social activism. We refer Ronald Regan being shot as an assassination attempt, but the shooter did it t...

I love this one woman show and it's been playing lately on Showtime. It's so funny and deeply personal. I got more out of this program than reading Barker's Godless. What I love about Sweeney is is that she isn't an expert on biology, but she demonstrates that science need not be intimidating. All o...

Hi Trish, these are really good questions. Yes Avatar is a white-guilt fantasy, but then white people have a lot to be guilty about so there is a therapeutic dimension to the modern inversion of the morality of the frontier. By making a US Marine the hero of Avatar, the movie neuters its revolution...

Thanks for the detailed review. I can't wait to see the movie myself. To the people who have seen it, what do you all think about the criticism that the movie is "Dances With Wolves" in space? What I mean by that is it a white-guilt fantasy? The hero, belonging to the oppressive culture, a...

Thanks Kevin. I haven't been able to log on in a few days, but I agree with what you said completely. I believe the estimates are 10 billion animals are used for human consumption per year for roughly 350 million people in the U.S. This is not a sustainable rate as it takes about 10 pounds of grain ...

I'm not saying there aren't wacky representatives by any means. I wrote that out of frustration. Every time I sit down to read the news, some piece of legislation like a gay marriage bill passes state houses and gets killed in their senates.

It just seems like the Senate is where legislation goes to die. Do we even need a bicameral state and federal legislature? Would things be better or worse if we just had a House?

There's another factor in that equation. Play the victim. Pretend it's the scientists that discourage intellectual freedom. Pretend it's not about ideas and evidence, but really about modern day martyrdom. Nothing butters their bread like fancying themselves martyred for their beliefs.