The medical journal which originally published the discredited research linking autism and MMR has now issued a full retraction of the paper - and how many children have died as a result?

The only hope you have of ever seeing another pay raise is if Congress passes health care reform. Without health care reform, the increasing cost of your health insurance will swallow this year's raise. And next year's raise. And pretty soon it won't stop with just your raise. Without health care reform, the increasing cost of your health insuranc…

It is not without some mixture of mortification and regret, that I now look back on the number of hours which I have consumed, and the number of pages which I have filled, in vindicating my literary and moral character from the charge of wilful Misrepresentations, gross Errors, and servile Plagiarisms... I am impatient to dismiss, and to dismiss F…

A run through the historical record, staring with Tacitus on Nero's blaming the Christians for the Great Fire, then Pliny on his administrative problems in Bithynia, then a long section on Cyprian (who I think gets more coverage than any other non-emperor); then a period of relaxation, which however is abruptly reversed by Diocletian (though that …

The Gulf Stream has gone west; will it come back?

the growth of Christianity "was most effectually favoured and assisted by the five following causes: I. The inflexible, and, if we may use the expression, the intolerant zeal of the Christians, derived, it is true, from the Jewish religion, but purified from the narrow and unsocial spirit which, instead of inviting, had deterred the Gentiles from …

How likely is it that your flight will be attacked? Roughhly one chance in 10 million, according to Nate Silver.

Pete Birks makes a good point about how Eurostar's problems demonstrate that the public are increasingly gaining access to mass media as producers

Diocletian's system does not long survive his abdication. His four succesors squabble among themselves, and at one point there are six mutually recognised rulers of different bits of the Roman Empire. But one of them, Constantine, defeats all the others, through superior statesmanship and military skill. "The successive steps of the elevation of C…

the Dalek nativity

Another very long chapter, but an excellent read, full of incident and character. Diocletian comes over as one of the best emperors so far - a slave from Illyria who rose to the top, managed it well, and retired in time to enjoy his later years plating cabbages by the Adriatic. In the meantime he puts down Carausius' rebellion in Britain, wins a w…

If you can't stand the cold, stay out of the kitchen...

Ten years in which at least five emperors reign (Tacitus, Probus, Carus, Carinus and Numerian), with the usual litany of war and murder, though in fairness most of them are relatively good generals and administrators. But we finish with the ascent of Diocletian, of whom we will hear more.

A chapter full of thrilling incident. The catastrophic Gallienus is replaced by Claudius II, and he in turn very quickly by Aurelian, who conducts a series of successful military campaigns - against the Goths, reconquering Gaul and then also defeating the fascinating Zenobia of Palmyra - before being in turn assassinated.

Almost entirely about the barbarians - mainly the Goths - with the deadly succession of shortlived emperors mere background detail. And this seems right - the real story is not the politics of the Empire's leadership, but the story of how the empire catastrophically failed to maintain the physical security of its inhabitants, the first duty of any…

This chapter does what it says in the title, giving us an account of the Germans largely (and occasionally critically) based on Tacitus, and ending by wondering why they did not make more effort to attack Rome between Varus [9 AD] and Decius [251 AD] (the explanations given being lack of metal technology, and too much internal dissent). But Gibbon…

Fair comment

Couldn't agree more!

I had been looking forward tothis, but it sounds like it was pretty terrible. One comment that caught my eye: "A few days ago, I would have been willing to watch Sir Ian McKellen read the phonebook in a genial but vaguely menacing manner. Now I feel like I already have."

"It is hard to convey to outsiders the narcissistic parochialism of Brussels at the moment."

Charlotte Moore talks sense.