"Taylor Hicks, the mop-topped manic dancer who wooed TV audiences with his raw singing style and boisterous personality, was named the new "American Idol" Wednesday in a pop star-filled finale that included Prince and Mary J. Blige.

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"More than 63 million votes were cast, "more than any president in the history of our country has received," ( Read more... )

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You know, one of the more bizarre qualities I've found in myself as of late is that while in many ways, I'd very much like to use this medium as a sounding board, I find I'm generally too apprehensive to do so for two main reasons. Firstly, I don't have much need to really 'deload' these days, and in some ways, that strikes me as being very odd. ( Read more... )

Consciousness, Experience, and Meaning

Downer: Don't execute AustralianTuesday, October 25, 2005 Posted: 0352 GMT (1152 HKT ( Read more... )

An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare StateIt took four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can't blame them, because it also took me four long days to figure out what was going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if ( Read more... )

"End of the Wild" by Stephen M. Meyer

The extinction crisis is over. We lost.For the past several billion years evolution on Earth has been driven by small-scale incremental forces such as sexual selection, punctuated by cosmic-scale disruptions-plate tectonics, planetary geochemistry, global climate shifts, and even extraterrestrial asteroids. ( Read more... )

Math Proves Christ's Resurrection ( Read more... )

HARRY POTTER: A 'Half-Blood Prince' Revealed ( Read more... )

The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem.SPIEGEL: Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to ( Read more... )