Science triumphant: Yes, it’s Pluto!

Who ever thought, even a few years ago, that we’d ever have anything as cool as a detailed photograph of Pluto’s surface?  Hell, even the Hubble was only able to give a picture that wasn’t more than a whitish smudge! Truly, we live in extraordinary times.  This is, quite possibly, the best time in human history to be alive….
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Greece: Back to the Drachma

When I was taking a college course back in the late 80s, the professor asked us to write opinion pieces for publication in “a European newspaper” arguing either for or against the introduction of a common currency before the introduction of a common government. I argued that the expert on monetary, customs, and postal unions…
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Uh oh.  I’m evolving.

What, me vote for a Republican? Maybe, maybe Rand Paul.  There are a lot of ‘ifs’ — if  he repudiates the anti-environmentalism of the GOP if  he makes it clear that there is no role for religion in politics if  he supports federal investment in railroads — Well, I guess I won’t be voting for a Republican after all.

Good book

Year Zero: A History of 1945 by Ian Buruma My rating: 5 of 5 stars This was a tremendously enlightening book. Most of us know that 1945 was a pivotal year in world history; that it marked the end of the biggest human catastrophe the world had ever witnessed; and that it marked the start…
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Stick to the Core.

Since I wrote this (five months ago as of this writing) more arguments have been added to the four I here enumerate.   The opposition is metastasizing, grabbing headlines like nobody could have predicted in December.  I will include those new arguments — and my counter-arguments — in red.   There are four main arguments against the…
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Minimum wage?

Emmett J. Hoops· Minimum wage laws rigidify urban poverty. Picture this: You get $8.50/hr. in a town where you can buy a house for $60,000. You’re middle class, almost. You get $8.50/hr in Brooklyn, where the house next door just sold for $2,000,000 and your rent is going up to $2,000 a month. You’re homeless….
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This Pope

Pope Francis isn’t a bad fellow at all. I know that today we’re expected to dissect every public figure to find out what isn’t all-good (such as today, the day after Nelson Mandela died, and the first voices reminding the world of Mandela’s cooperation with exploitative capitalists) but I still think this Frankie is okay….
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Well, this certainly stinks.

Pine beetles have been destroying the Pine Barrens of New Jersey.  Of course, they didn’t just recently develop an appetite for pines: they are called pine beetles, after all.  Unfortunately, our very love of trees is leading to their destruction.  Fire is a natural friend of the forest — and it’s hard for us to imagine…
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