The Learned Pig

The New Republic: Aqualypse Now "Eating a tuna roll at a sushi restaurant should be considered no more environmentally benign than driv...

It's often argued - by people who feel their beloved superstitions are under threat - that atheists are people without a moral compass, ...

Notes on the "arguments" (I use the term loosely) made by protesters at today's "tea party" in Washington: "Fas...

As an extension of my last post, here are two actual, verbatim quotes: "Insurance executives don't do this because they're bad ...

Obama: This plan is NOT government-run healthcare. The public option will be a self-sufficient competitor within the PRIVATE insurance ind...

On the Woodside Employment Consultants website , they advertise themselves as follows: Certified Small Woman Owned Business Enterprise This ...

We've already seen conservatives shift their position on criticism of the president: formerly an anti-American, terrorist-abetting sin u...

On July 4, 1776, the Congress of the United States of America formally adopted the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. But the a...

CNN: Iranian women stand up in defiance, flout rules A young Iranian woman named Neda is gunned down in one of the most iconic images of the...

BBC: Sarkozy speaks out against burka French President Nicolas Sarkozy has spoken out strongly against the wearing of the burka by Muslim wo...

Through technology or genetic mutations, a man acquires special powers. He uses his powers to defeat his enemies. But then, he must face h...

CNN: Google Street View blacked out in Greece These uproars over Google Street View "invading privacy" seem like so much self-impo...

You know that hideous joke about why the woman had two black eyes - because her man had to tell her twice? In Saudi Arabia, that's not j...

A hundred days into the new administration, Obama-related headlines had stopped carrying the punch they used to. People were also becoming ...

They’re marching us to a brand of non-violent fascism. Or to put it another way, they’re marching us to 1984. Big Brother … Like it or not, ...

For months, opponents of the Obama administration - from top Republicans, to jowlsey radio hosts, to participants in modern-day "tea pa...

BBC: Mecca mosques "wrongly aligned" Some 200 mosques in Islam's holiest city, Mecca, point the wrong way for prayers, reports...

Kurt Vonnegut's novel Mother Night is the fictional memoirs of an American, Howard Campbell, who works as an Allied spy in Goebbel's...

The current headline on the CNN website reads, " Giant lizards kill unsuspecting fishermen ." By contrast, the current headline on...

"The proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind." - Rene Descartes, ...

BBC: Vatican backs abortion row bishop A senior Vatican cleric has defended the excommunication in Brazil of the mother and doctors of a you...

After Buddha was dead, his shadow was still shown for centuries in a cave—a tremendous, gruesome shadow. God is dead; but given the way of m...

Because most people do not read philosophy, a philosopher's popular reputation - if he or she has one at all - is usually based upon one...

BBC: US chain smoker's widow gets $8m A US jury has ordered tobacco giant Philip Morris to pay $8m (£5.6m) to the widow of a lifelong sm...

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with t...

BBC: Free Trial as a Monk Religious orders are advertising for people to try being a nun or a monk for a weekend in an attempt to slow the d...

Rush Limbaugh in 2006: "I'm getting so sick and tired of people rooting for the defeat of the good guys." Rush Limbaugh in 200...

BBC: Obama lifts ban on abortion funds For the eight years of the Bush presidency, the global gag rule was in place. No federal funding was...

"Let me say it as simply as I can. Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency. Our commitment to ope...

New York Times London Journal: Atheists Send a Message, on 800 British Buses LONDON — The advertisement on the bus was fairly mild, just a p...