Using your credit card to pay rent: A good way to earn more miles or a dangerous financial trend?

"We now see that the major shift in human evolution is from behaving like an animal struggling to survive to behaving like an animal choosing to evolve. In fact, in order to survive, man HAS to evolve. And to evolve, we need a new kind of thinking and a new kind of behavior, a new ethic and a new morality. It will be that of the evolution of everyone rather than the survival of the fittest. . . . If we can be courageous one more time than we are fearful, trusting one more time than we are anxious, cooperative one more time than we are competitive, forgiving one more time than we are vindictive, loving one more time than we are hateful, we will have moved closer to the next breakthrough in our evolution." - Jonas Salk

The Pulitzer Prizes

The New York Times won a record seven Pulitzer Prizes, "including the public service award for A Nation Challenged, a daily stand-alone section on the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the war in Afghanistan," the Washington Post reports. Thomas Friedman won a well deserved Pulitzer for commentary and John Adams by David McCullough won for biography. The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America by Louis Menand won the history award.

Concerning The Middle East Crisis
A non-paritsan attempt to understand the crisis in the middle east. This piece addresses the horrros and fears and wrongs of both sides without offering a solution. Well worth reading for those who are partisan so that some complexity might shake up overly simplistic positions. Is there a solution?

Want more and better milk? then buy your cow a waterbed.

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Study: Aspirin Lowers Cancer Risk


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NY to have a new daily paper New York Sun

Powell Begins a Crucial Trip to the Mideast
Colin L. Powell took off for the Middle East on Sunday on one of the most urgent and challenging attempts at American peacemaking since the 1970's.

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Study Says 38 Percent of Adults Are Sedentary in Leisure Time
Nearly 40 percent of American adults are sedentary in their leisure time, basically never exercising. In contrast, about 30 percent exercise on a regular basis, either vigorously several times a week, or even more often at lower intensity. The rest do something in between. I fall somewhere in between the 30 and 40 percentile.

The BBC reports that the Nobel committee would like to take back the Peace prize they awarded to Shimon Peres. But while blasting Peres for not doing enough to stop violence as a member of the Israeli cabinet, they don't say anything about also taking back Arafat's award.

Socialism is without doubt the most popular political idea ever invented. It is also the most drenched in blood, leaving perhaps 100 million dead in the last century. Why?... Robert Kimball explains

I've noticed an insiduous trend infecting our speech patterns - The silent "g". The "g" that I speak of is the one that follows i and n .

Listen to your neighbor, your coworker, your boss, your favorite presidential candidate, your friends: They're dropping the "g" as if it's the right thing to do. Here are the kinds of "English lite" assertions that, in the name of linguistic lazyness, we could hear:

Boss to worker: "Sorry, but we're layin' you off."

Wife to husband: "Honey, I'll be sleepin' with another guy tonight."

Teacher to truant pupil: "You're failin' school."

Judge to convicted murderer: "I'm sentencin' you to death. By hangin.'"

Dubya to Osama: "We're droppin' the bomb, Buster."

Ray to friend: "What's happenin' dude"

Actually, I'm beginnin' to fall into the trap. I'm deformin' my own verbal "ing" so that I too can be popular. Should I feel like a snob when I use the "g"? is this G-less delivery a new or old trend. I'm not sure but I'll be listeningggg out.

The social Psychology of Modern Slavery
"Contrary to conventional wisdom, slavery has not dissapeared from the world. Social scientists are trying to explain its persistence." Slavery is both evolving in form and increasing in raw numbers. It permeates the world, hidden in dark spaces of the economy...

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Remember the Digital Divide, the vast gulf between computer haves and have-nots? This threat to democracy turns out to have been a fiction... [More]

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Police will now be required to warn local residents when a Catholic church moves into an area, under a new law designed to protect minors... [More] Funny stuff (via SatireWire.com)