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In their latter years, Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007), and some of his fellow famous authors, each showed, I think, something of his outlook on life with a little story or a quip. For instance, Vonnegut told about an uncle who often asked a certain rhetorical question: One thing which Uncle Alex found objectionable about human beings […]

Global warming climate change is happening.x20 A major cause of it is the burning of fossil fuels. The effects of it will be severe and damaging. We are already seeing some effects in extreme weather events, melting glaciers and rising seas. Those are the facts. But ExxonMobil did not like the facts, and funded a […]

“In August, I think it was … [National Intelligence Director] Mike McConnell came in and said, we have some new information. He didn’t tell me what the information was …“ (2007-12-04)x60 President Bush uttered that statement last week, claiming ignorance about the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) finding that Iran has had no nuclear weapons program […]

“I do not wish to Bush bash,” said Professor Walter Murphy in his speech at Princeton University last September, “but I do see that we are in the midst of a very severe [Constitutional] crisis01.” Murphy, a top constitutional scholar02, said that change in the U.S. Constitution, which occurs mostly through interpretation and usage, is […]

The Speed-Up “I wanted a union not so much for the money,” said line worker Peter Schmitz, “I wanted a union … to have a little say so about the speed of that line. Like I say you couldn’t do quality work, it just wasn’t possible that you could do quality work the way you […]