For most Americans, the Fourth of July is a day for fireworks, concerts, parades and all manner of patriotic displays. It's as American as barbecue ribs and apple pie.
The House recently passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), an important step toward protecting our environment and building a clean energy economy.
There are those rare moments that, in one fell swoop, remind us all of the ephemerality and fragility of life and, generally speaking, those moments come after a loss. We have all just experienced one of those moments - only this time it dragged on for days. In the span of one week, we lost Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson and Billy Mays. All of them American icons and, now, all of them gone.
Like a bad version of "The Blair Witch Project," amateur video of riots and protests in Iran fill CNN's airwaves. Covering the turmoil in Iran has become en vogue, and publicly declaring one's alignment with Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the emblematic opposition candidate who lost in the last Iranian rigged election three weeks ago, has become as culturally trendy for some as a Free Tibet bumper sticker.
Just like the Corleones and the Tattaglias.
One of the more ignored side effects of a recession is the toll it takes on friendships.
Every summer we realize that another year has passed. We inch closer and closer to that terrible moment when we have to move beyond UF and figure out something to do with our lives.
I sure hope that Minnesota can get used to being a congressional amputee.
Abdul-Azim Mohammed was providing a play-by-play of the Iran Election early Sunday morning. Azim first reported that local police stations had been forced to burn ballot boxes filled with votes for Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidential challenger. A few minutes later, Azim declared that Internet access and phone lines had been cut off. Later, Azim's reports of people filling the streets of Tehran were verified with BBC footage showing legions of angry young Iranians chanting "Death to the Dictator" in the streets.
It seems like every year, when the graduation fanfare has subsided and the confetti has reached the floor, graduates turn their eyes to the piece of paper standing in for four years of trial and tuition and ask the rather pressing question, "What did I just put myself through?"
You probably missed the budding war between humans and machines.
Thanks to the recent downturn, the U.S. economy is often defined in purely mathematical and financial terms.
Well, I thought I had it in me, but I don't.
As President Barack Obama took the stage in Cairo, Egypt, on Thursday, millions of people tuned in to watch him give his highly anticipated speech to the Muslim world.
President Barack Obama fulfilled another campaign promise last week after visiting Cairo, Egypt, and beginning a public dialogue with the Arabic world about the peace process. The president's speech in front of the Cairo University audience ran nearly an hour and evoked applause, shouts of adoration and a few awkward silences.
Politicians and the business press are looking for signs that the economic crisis is over, and we'll soon be back on track. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke speaks of "green shoots" of recovery. President Barack Obama sees "glimmers of hope."
Perhaps you've been too immersed in one more summer of undergraduate bliss before facing that life-defining LSAT or MCAT this fall. Or perhaps you've been debating the merits of Kobe Bryant's legacy if he fails to win a title without Shaq, or why all Hollywood seems to do now is remake old films instead of write new ones, to notice. If so, you are missing a show far more embarrassing than Kris Allen winning American Idol. This show is the hapless efforts of conservative activists to paint President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor as a liberal ideologue unfit for service. With figures such as Rush Limbaugh admitting the chances of stopping her nomination are minimal, the question must be asked: Why the rabid opposition in the first place?
Recently, I read a letter to the editor of my hometown newspaper. The author had worked himself into a tizzy over President Barack Obama and the entire democratic leadership in Washington and their push for universal health care. He declared that any attempt at a universal health care system was an attempt at socialism and should be protested with equal zeal as one would protest Stalin's Red Army coming down the road.
Lately, and between reading entries on the Rotten Library, I have turned my attention to the criminal justice system.
In these heady times of global awareness and eco-knowledge, it seems the bad eco-news comes at you from every angle. Nobody is safe from the onslaught of negative press if even Google is under eco-scrutiny. A researcher this year claimed that a single Google search is worse for the environment than driving a car, mostly because of the way Google's "cloud computing" uses clusters of servers together at once to achieve superfast results for every single search.
Solutions by The State News
