“Australia — the rugged land of the Outback, famously shark-infested waters, and an inscrutable version of football whose basic point seems to be inflicting physical punishment — is now threatening to become the free world

Adrian Melott, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Kansas in Lawrence and a founding board member of Kansas Citizens for Science, writes, “Intelligent Design Is Creationism in a Cheap Tuxedo.” In Physics Today. [via Arts&Letters Daily]

Well, here’s a shocker*: An EU study concludes that Globalization reduces poverty. From Reuters: Far from creating poverty as critics claim, rapid globalization of the world economy has sliced the proportion of abject poor across the planet, according to a controversial new study released on Monday. It says that freer commerce, epitomized by the cutting of tariffs and the lifting of trade barriers, has boosted economic growth and lifted the

Here’s a thoughtful bit from Jay Nordlinger’s latest NRO “Impromptus” column: One thing the people around John Ashcroft will tell you is that we are in an uncertain new world, and we are sort of feeling our way around, as far as rights, reactions, and protection are concerned. Those most knowledgeable about the law have the greatest sympathy for what the Justice Department is facing. Those who are ignorant simply

Charles Krauthammer says should MLB players strike again, he ain’t coming back to the game this time. As a baseball nut (and an addicted fantasy leaguer), I’m not sure I could stay away — though another strike would go a long way toward pushing me toward permanent withdrawal. Writes Krauthammer: The players have it made. And they’re ready to strike to keep it that way. They think that the fans

See? Now here’s a violation of civil liberties….

“Radical vegans — who avoid any product that comes from animals — are now buzzing about the evils of honey. They claim its production uses the labor of oppressed worker bees, according to a Time magazine report on the growing numbers of American vegetarians. And kiss a carnivore? Never. The survey revealed that 29 percent of committed vegetarians would refuse to kiss someone who just wolfed down a meal containing

“The daughter of baseball great Ted Williams says she is fighting with her half-brother to keep her father’s body from being frozen in a cryonics lab. “Bobby-Jo Ferrell, Williams’ daughter with his first wife, said she plans to ‘rescue’ her father’s body from an Arizona cryonics company,” the AP reports. Ferrell said over the weekend that someone at Hooper’s Funeral Home in Inverness, Fla., told her that Williams’ body had

Here’s a snippet of conversation I overheard at one of the July 4th holiday cookouts I went to this weekend: First Guy: “If the U.S. really wanted to win this so-called war on terror, it’d begin by joining the I.C.C. and by signing that Kyoto whatchamacallit. The protocol.” Second Guy: “Does this pasta salad have cucumbers in it? Who puts cucumbers in a pasta salad?” First Guy: “And you can’t