Alan Alda really likes science. Like a lot. Who knew? I caught up with him electronically ahead of the World Science Festival to talk about loincloths, physicists and Paris Hilton.

1) Can I call you "Hawkeye"?
Sure. Just not to my face.

2) If I can't...

Morehouse College had its first white valedictorian this year, and that's the kind of story FOX News loves: The kind that exposes the past intolerance of the black establishment with the help of the impossibly-tan-yet-exceedingly-white Shepard Smith. Unfortunately, all that was really exposed was FOX's inability...

FOX News is trying very hard to give you the advice you need to win, Barack Hussein Obama, so heed their advice: flag pins...everywhere...no such thing as too many. Also, if you could figure out how to get the little spotlight they use here to follow your flag pin around,...

Dear 2008 Primaries,

I hate to do this, but we have to talk. When we first met it was exciting and new--you opened me up to so many new experiences with so many new people. (I'd never done this with a woman or a black man before--much...

Ed note: this was supposed to be a two person live blog, but one of the participants spent the who movie sobbing and was therefore not useful.

1:25p Hungover liveblogger #2 (aka Nick) says he doesn't want to see this movie, I explain that no one does, but it is...

When my sister gave birth to her first daughter last Thanksgiving, I immediately thought about plastic surgery. Was it worth buying all these gifts and wooing my new niece if I was considering having large amounts of plastic surgery that could make me unrecognizable to a small child?

Thankfully,...

Yeah, okay, we get it, it's St. Patrick's Day and even though no one would don mouse ears for a foreign policy speech on Halloween, or wear a yarmulka on Good Morning America during the high holy days, people trot around with bows and scarves and ties and...

When I caught up with Amy Sedaris at the New York premiere of Snow Angels she looked like she was ready to take the whole press corps over her knee and tell them to stop asking her so many goddamn questions, but she graciously agreed to answer mine...

FROLIC

verb (frolicked, frolicking)
• (of an animal or person) play and move about cheerfully, excitedly
• play about with someone in a flirtatious or sexual way: he denied allegations that he frolicked with a secretary.

noun (often frolics)
• flirtatious or sexual activity or actions: her...

So the Today Show found a zaftig lady who rides the bus with a fake book cover reading "Fat Is Contagious: How Sitting Next to a Fat Person Can Make YOU Fat," to make people realize they treat her differently because of her weight. They plopped...