Dear sweet Jesus, the world has gone mad.

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The Boston Globe, which is one of the most interesting papers out there today, has an article on Iran’s national pride in their scientific research - and how that affects our attempts to curb their nuclear program. This provides a context I didn’t read anywhere else.
I was also fascinated to learn about their cutting-edge stem-cell [...]

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You’d think people were smarter than this, but sadly, no!

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Juan Cole compares the saturation news coverage of Jon-Benet Ramsey with another case:
But although I mind this pollution of the air waves with something that is not, whatever it is, news, the main thing I mind is the racism.
The case of Abeer al-Janabi, the little fourteen-year old Iraqi girl who was allegedly raped and killed [...]

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Ah, if only people took governing our nation with the same degree of interest they show for Monday Night Football.

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Yes, Osama bin Ladin roams free, but our crack national security apparatus is right on top of serious threats like this:
On July 25, Jim Bensman of Alton, Ill., attended a public meeting on the proposed construction of a bypass channel for fish at a dam on the Mississippi River. Less than a week later, he [...]

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I actually see this trend as a good thing, because it will eventually lead to us examining our unrealistic expectations about public figures:
Like many 21-year-olds, Jared Watts gripes in his blog. He rails against his boss, his job and the misery of dealing with customers at the Cingular Wireless store where he works.
“Enter Middle Aged [...]

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The beat goes on:
For decades, many scientists have theorized that the universe is made up of nearly undetectable mysterious substances called dark matter and dark energy. But until yesterday there was no proof that the subatomic matter actually exists.
After studying data from a long-ago collision of two giant clusters of galaxies, researchers now say they [...]

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I once told my ex his songs were really about him - because, on some level, all songs are about the writer. He, of course, denied it. He said (sarcastically, as was his wont), “So you think it’s like John Lennon, saying he wrote “Help!” about himself even though he didn’t realize it at the [...]

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Glenn Greenwald cuts to the chase:
Jonathan Turley (who, for those with the new law professor fetish, is one at George Washington University) puts his finger on why there is so much desire to focus on the “quality” of Judge Taylor’s written opinion while all but ignoring the fact that a federal court just declared that [...]

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These drugs are dangerous. I don’t say that because I’m against medication - I’m happy as can be to take a pill that fixes a problem. It’s when the pill causes more harm than it fixes that I have a problem:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline Plc has said it will add a strong warning about possible [...]

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Katrina Vanden Huevel in The Nation:
The latest Time magazine poll has Al Gore at 41%, right behind Hillary Clinton at 46 percent. (The poll also shows that Clinton remains a polarizing figure–surprise!–among Republicans and a good number of Independents.)
Al Gore has warmed up, (see our cover story last June) and is speaking inconvenient truths [...]

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Part 1 of Spike Lee’s HBO documentary about the Katrina disaster in New Orleans is on right now. Mesmerizing…

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Cos and her husband (a union theatrical tech who does a lot of stage rigging) came over to help me tonight, because every time I pushed one end of the shelving unit into the other (in an attempt to close the dowel gap), more shelves would drop down as a result. We drilled some holes, [...]

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So who killed Kennedy?
LIVERMORE - More than four decades after his death, John F. Kennedy’s assassination remains the hottest cold case in U.S. history, and the clues continue to trickle in. Now Lawrence Livermore Laboratory scientists say a key piece of evidence supporting the lone gunman theory should be thrown out.
A new look at clues [...]

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Eric Alterman:
The news in the Times Hillary poll here IMNSHO is the fact that her negatives are so high with independents and that Edwards’ negatives are so low with everyone. That’s his “electability” argument right there. I’m internally divided about whether Gore’s high negatives would stay high negatives if he ran. If he ran as [...]

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I got all the shelf pieces in place, but every time I try to pull them together to put the top piece on, several of them fall off. That’s because so many of the dowel holes chipped when the damned thing fell.
I used to wonder why they sold wood putty in black. Now I know: [...]

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You know, I haven’t read all that deeply about the effect genetically-engineered food has on your body, but from what I’ve read, it’s not good. Of course, here in the Multi-National Agricultural Land of the Free, we shouldn’t worry our pretty little heads about such silliness:
Japan has suspended US long-grain rice imports after supplies were [...]

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Josh Marshall:
The lying just never ends. Did anyone in the Bush administration ever suggest that Saddam Hussein might be behind the 9/11 attacks? The president today: “Nobody’s ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attacks.” This despite the fact that various members of the administration — especially the vice president — have [...]

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I met Ani diFranco years ago after her afternoon performance at the Philadelphia Folk Festival. (The Fest is was this weekend, by the way.) I helped her carry CDs to the sales tent after I saw her struggling up a steep hill in the heat; she was a tiny little thing. I told her I [...]

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We have always been at war with IKEA.
Despite our best efforts to deal in good faith, we will always be at war with IKEA. There is always a missing part - a screw, a tool - or a missing hole (if we wanted to do our own woodworking, we wouldn’t have gone to IKEA). The [...]

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I’m sure our crack FAA will get right on this.

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Looks like BushCo’s plan to invade Iran will be moving right along:
TEHRAN, Aug. 20 — As Iran fired 10 short-range missiles on the second day of a large-scale military maneuver, officials on Sunday reiterated Iran’s stance that it did not intend to halt its uranium enrichment program.
The statement comes two days before Iran’s self-imposed deadline [...]

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Today, in fact. Apocalypse now, as it were. I’ll be at Drinking Liberally. What will you be doing?

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The Hazzards performing their cult classic, “Gay Boyfriend.”

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That’s our Joe:
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, seeking to slip out of a perceived White House embrace, insisted on Sunday he was a loyal Democrat and criticized the Bush administration’s post-invasion Iraq war policy.
Lieberman, who according to a poll released last week now leads the Senate race in the Democrat-leaning state, said in an interview on [...]

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I’m sure every day, the people of Iraq thank God they no longer live under Saddam Hussein:
BAGHDAD — Gunmen took aim at multitudes of Shiite Muslim worshipers marching through this besieged capital Sunday, killing at least 22 and leaving hundreds injured in a vivid illustration of the sectarian violence driving Iraq toward open civil war.
Panicked [...]

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So I just finished putting the final piece into my new IKEA shelves and stood back to admire my work. That’s when I realized the bottom part was on top and I had to flip it. No problem!
How many IKEA stories begin with that cocky sentiment?
I very carefully angled the unit onto its side [...]

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And it’s really important that we sweep them from power:
Reuel Marc Gerecht, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a member of a small group of analysts who were asked to discuss their views on the Middle East with President Bush at a private lunch this week, said this morning on ABC’s This [...]

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Of attacks on gays in Iraq, who are being tortured, killed and dismembered.

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