I would presume that most people are familiar with Ben Goldacre by now, but just in case, here's a quick summary. He's a former doctor, now an epidemiologist. His main field of interest is the way to confirm what studies on health and medicine actually tell us. He's been a big critic of mainstream health and science journalism because such columns ( Read more... )

I've got a fair range of podcasts I'm following now:

1. Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo Film Reviews
This week the main feature is "Black Swan". I've only just start listening, but they've already done a review for a brand new John Carpenter movie! I am, of course, a big John Carpenter fan. I'd heard about John Carpenter's "The Ward", but with very ( Read more... )

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I'm very pleased to see that this includes the awesome David Schneider, who I first saw in various projects of Armando Iannucci such as "The Saturday Night Armistice" and "I'm Alan Partridge". (Armando more recently writes and directs "The Thick Of It".)

Another good video from the same guy.
Grey Guy Learns About The New World Order (other guy in ( Read more... )

"Get back to Russia!"

That's the phrase used by Eddie Izzard in his stand-up show "Unrepeatable". It's a jokey way of characterising the sort of attitude whereby people presume those who are different ought to be living somewhere else. (In his particular stand up show, he's imagining the comment being made against transvestites. No, that doesn't ( Read more... )

Ah, the Coens. Don't we love 'em ( Read more... )

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A case has recently gone to the UK supreme court that a school called the Jewish Free School (JFS) uses racial discrimination in its selection procedure. The BHA have intervened in support of the prosecutors, insisting that racial discrimination should never be accepted, even with religious reasons involved. Interestingly, this turns out to be a ( Read more... )

Lord Sacks blamed Europe's falling birth rate on a culture of "consumerism and instant gratification". He said the continent was "dying" and accused its citizens of not being prepared for parenthood's "sacrifices".

The 61-year-old, who took his seat in the Lords last week, said: "Wherever you turn today - Jewish, Christian or Muslim - the more ( Read more... )

This is my previous extra-long confused post, re-cut to make more sense and be FAR more readable:

Baroness Warsi and the National Secular Society

The BHA recently criticised comments by two prominent political figures: Tony Blair (for whom I feel no explanation is required) and Baroness Warsi (whose comments can be found here). Baroness Warsi is a ( Read more... )

The Times has reported on the new "Centre for Muslim-Jewish Relations" opening in Cambridge. However, the article headline randomly switches the order of the religions in question to Jewish-Muslim. Of course we can see why the newspaper might want to make Muslim less prominent in the title. After all, we wouldn't want anyone to get confused with ( Read more... )