“Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.”

Mark Twain had it right. It is easy to stop. The hard part is not to start again. I’ve decided to try again. But this time I’m better informed. According to Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point,...

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A speaker at a meeting I was at this morning, about agricultural biodiversity and nutrition, said that fortified sugar was now on the market. There was a knowing chuckle from some in the audience, which nicely hid my gobsmacked ignorance. First chance I got, I checked. And blow me if it isn't true:...

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Over at ongoing, Tim Bray takes time out to point to some slightly funnier religious cartoons. (No point echoing his links; go see for yourself.) And along the way he makes the not unreasonable point that ...

“a lot of people in Arab dictatorships genuinely have no notion that a press can be...

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Can we, please, stop fretting about which human vilenesses are, or are not, the product of religion? Neddie, as ever sensible (though not sensitive) gives Richard Dawkins full reign and allows him to explain the whole Devil's Chaplain bit. The Viscount Lacarte likewise. The point being that if s...

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Friends have suggested that this candid shot was snapped while I was “working” on my recent spell of “duty” travel. I have more hair than that.