What with the pro-legalization movement gaining ground in the US and Latin America, it can feel like the war on drugs is almost at an end. And maybe it is…if you happen to live in Uruguay or Colorado. Look to some other parts of the world, though, and it’s clear that drugs are still unwelcome.…
Author: Morris M
In 1936, the film Reefer Madness depicted the terrible consequences of just a single toke of marijuana; a psychotic rampage that can only end in murder, suicide, or lifelong incarceration. Well, we better be ready for a whole lotta killer sex rampages in the near-future. Pot is starting to become big business. Multiple states and…
In the ongoing Netflix-worthy primetime series that is world politics, the CIA is the overarching Big Bad. Over the years, the Agency has got up to so much spooky stuff that it’s tempting to see them as akin to X-files’ Cancer Man, pulling all the strings from behind the scenes. Doubtless, you’ve heard about the…
We’ve all been there. You’re driving along at the head of your armed forces, minding your own business, when all of a sudden you accidentally drive into another country and de-facto invade your neighbors. Whoops! What a hilarious mistake, huh? Hard to believe it could actually happen in real life. Well, hold onto your backsides,…
Assassination is so ingrained in American culture that it’s practically a national pastime. Every single president since Lyndon Johnson has been the target of an assassination attempt; with plenty more before LBJ also finding themselves on the wrong end of a bullet. That’s before you take into account the lower-ranking politicians attacked, the civil rights…
Quick: what’s a scary date for you; one that seems filled with foreboding and bad luck? We’re guessing a whole lotta people just plumped for something with a 13 in it, or maybe Halloween. Well, common sense has got news for them. Disasters don’t happen when we expect them to. Instead, they have a habit…
Our world is chock full of amazing places. Seriously, go out your front door, start walking in any random direction, and chances are that you’ll probably hit something interesting within a few hours. It could be a meadow, a groovy street you’ve never visited before, a windswept stretch of coastline, or even just an all…
Not so long ago, the best way to become president was to join the army and serve your country with distinction. A bit later, it was to work your way up the ranks of elected official, governor, Senator, and then into the White House. These days, the best route seems to be becoming famous and…
Did you know there are only 19 true democracies on the planet? According to the Economist’s Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) yearly ranking, fewer than 10 percent of all the countries in the world are “full democracies.” That means you’re statistically likely to be reading this from a place which didn’t make the hallowed top 20. Bummer.…
Imagine the world is a high school. You’ve got the big, jock countries like Australia, South Africa, and the USA. You’ve got the self-consciously old-fashioned intellectuals like Britain and France, and then you’ve got the cool kids everyone wants to hang out with (yeah, Italy, we’re looking at you). But what about the brainboxes? Who…
Let’s start with a quick game. Hands up everyone who’s been to the Czech Republic! OK, great. Now… keep your hands up if you went to literally anywhere other than Prague. Wow. That’s a lotta hands that just dropped down. Yep, Czech Republic (officially called Czechia, but known as Cesko at home and Czech Republic…
We’ve all felt it. That desperate, cloying urge to escape. That semi-primal need to flee our home country and all its madness and never look back, and instead devote ourselves to relaxing on distant beaches / becoming a kung fu master (it’s a tough call). And we’ve also all felt its accompanying feeling: that sad…
The season one Big Bad of the ongoing blockbuster series known as America’s Endless War on Terror, Osama Bin Laden was once the face of Islamist terror. Before ISIS popped up and stole his crown, the bearded zealot behind such crowd unpleasers as 9/11 and the 7/7 bombings spent his days as the most wanted,…
In 1936, the film Reefer Madness depicted the terrible consequences of just a single toke of marijuana; a psychotic rampage that can only end in murder, suicide, or lifelong incarceration. Well, we better be ready for a whole lotta killer sex rampages in the near-future. Pot is starting to become big business. Multiple states and…
In 2007, the Small Arms Survey estimated that there were 650 million civilian-held guns in the world. Unless we all fell asleep and somehow missed a coordinated global melting down of guns, that number has certainly risen. Yep, our planet is awash in guns for all uses: from sport, to hunting, to recreation, to personal…
Slavery is bad. That’s the sort of massively uncontroversial statement we can probably all get onboard with (if not, maybe it’s time to re-examine your life, Mr. “I still live in the 18th Century”). No matter who is enslaving whom or what they’re doing with all that concentrated human power, it’s almost guaranteed to be…
The old saying goes that justice is blind. Experience tells us she’s also as unpredictable as a drunken horse on roller skates. Over the course of legal history, there have been a number of seemingly open-and-shut cases that have ended up not with convictions, but with the accused swanning out of court into the bright…
We’ve all been there. It’s the last Thursday of the month, you’re slowly looking from your paycheck to the stack of bills beside the fridge, and feeling your soul curl up and weep at how financially screwed you are. Yup, it’s a common feeling for many of us, especially if our postal address happens to…
Assassination is so ingrained in American culture that it’s practically a national pastime. Every single president since Lyndon Johnson has been the target of an assassination attempt; with plenty more before LBJ also finding themselves on the wrong end of a bullet. That’s before you take into account the lower-ranking politicians attacked, the civil rights…
When it comes to high speed travel, Asia is the future. Compared to the slowly-chugging automotive dystopia of the USA, the region of Asia-Pacific is a fast paced wonderland. The Usain Bolt of this endless race? China. By an extremely fast country mile. Starting in the early years of the 21st Century, China began to…
In 1936, the film Reefer Madness depicted the terrible consequences of just a single toke of marijuana; a psychotic rampage that can only end in murder, suicide, or lifelong incarceration. Well, we better be ready for a whole lotta killer sex rampages in the near-future. Pot is starting to become big business. Multiple states and…
America. It’s one of the biggest countries on Earth, both in terms of population and sheer size. It’s the planet dominating superpower; the heaviest hitter where culture is concerned; a place known by nearly every single human on the planet… and, to all but the 4-5% of humanity who live there, it makes absolutely no…
It’s a nightmare all of us occasionally have. As the plane taxies down the runway, as it starts to lift off into the air, as the ground drops further and further away… the faint, unstoppable fear that the next thing you feel might be gravity grabbing hold and dragging you down to a fiery grave.…
Do you ever find yourself just looking at the stars and wondering “why…? Why haven’t evil intergalactic aliens come swooping down and killed us all in an orgy of Michael Bay explosions?” Yep, it’s one of the Big Questions in life and, like most questions so big they need to be capitalized, its logic can…