You know Chuck Norris: martial-arts-film-star-bloke-turned-right-wing-commentator-and-walking-internet-meme. Yep. Him. Well, he’s identified exactly what’s wrong with Obamacare. It might mean publicly funded terminations of pregnancy. And imagine what state the world’d be in if the Virgin Mary had had an abortion. Go on. Imagine it. [A]s we near the eve of another Christmas, I wonder: What would have […]
Category: Uncategorized
The Good of Small Things
A few nights ago, I went out for a curry with a doctor friend who’s just returned from a year working in Africa. She was telling me all about the experience and about its difficulties. Some of these difficulties are straightforwardly down to poverty; others are down to mismanagement or – if not exactly mismanagement […]
Conference report: Conscientious Objection Workshop
By David Hunter On the 23rd of October I attended a workshop at Keele University (where I am based) focused on the topic of Conscientious Objection. This is a topic which I have some interest in (in 2001 I wrote a short dissertation on the topic within the context of euthanasia) however this workshop interestingly […]
David Hockney, up in Smoke
David Hockney has been talking to the BBC about the UK’s smoking ban: he’s not a fan, and suggests that there ought to be “smoking rooms” available. It’s not the first time that he’s gone public in his opposition to the ban – a few years ago he was interviewed on the Today programme and […]
Mental Illness – even if it’s Gordon Brown’s – is not Interesting.
Dependably right-wing blogger Paul “Guido Fawkes” Staines has been circulating the idea that Gordon Brown may be taking anti-depressants – specifically, Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors – under the touching and understanding heading “Is Brown Bonkers?” and making some sniggering schoolboy allusions to Malcolm Tucker-like tantrums. This allegation – and quite why it’s an allegation is beyond me […]
In Memory of Kerry Anne Stapleton Hunter
By David Hunter This year marks the tenth anniversary of my first wife’s death. Kerry Anne (KAS to her friends) had cystic fibrosis and passed away after a good hard fight on the 12th of September , 1999 a year and a half after we married. Kerry taught me many things and was really my […]
Knowing You, Knowing Us
It’s all very well to vanish off to a conference and put faces to names… but that can’t help with the important questions, like What does the internet think of you?. Fortunately, this little app can tell you. Type in your name, and it’ll do the Google version of a genetic fingerprint. In the interests […]
Quick Update from Germany…
I’m currently at the ESPMH conference in Tübingen – and having found a cybercafe, I’ll try to make the odd post about what’s happening if I get the chance. In the meantime, have some of this: I went to see Hegel’s house in Stuttgart on Monday. It was closed. Then open. Then somewhere in between. […]
Internalising Incentives
I’ve recently been reading some work on health incentives – the kind of incentive that may be used to encourage people to pursue ostensibly desirable courses of action in return for some kind of reward (frequently monetary). Some schemes are aimed at promoting a vague healthy lifestyle, as when people are rewarded for losing weight […]
A Request… and a Warning
Image courtesy of Bela Lugosi’s Dad We get spammed. Of course we do. It’d be lovely if we didn’t, though… so please stop it. A particularly egregious example from a source I’d’ve expected to know better arrived yesterday – I’ve decided to let it through for the sake of setting an example. Most spam, of […]