Conservation and environmental groups think there will be an unprecedented assault on environmental laws in the congress, now that they have a Republican majority. Greg Wetstone, of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), says, “In the absence of any clear, aggressive Congressional oversight we will see a more vigorous, escalated attack that includes new efforts to promote more air pollution, more water pollution, more clear cutting in the forests and more drilling, mining and logging on public lands. These actions are broadly out of step with the overwhelming consensus of the American public, and it is quite evident that this administration is fully aware of that.”
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There’s evidence that burglars are buying huge lists of e-mail addresses, and sending mass-mailings in the hopes of receiving auto-replies from people saying they’re out of the office (and even giving the dates they?ll be away). Once they find out you’re on vacation, they burglarize your home or apartment.

“You wouldn’t go on holiday with a note pinned to your door saying who you were, how long you were away for and when you were coming back, so why would you put this in an e-mail?” says David Roberts of the U.K. technology company Tif.

Mark Rasche, of cyber-security firm Solutionary, says, “Some people leave a very detailed out of office message with notes like ‘I will be in the Philippines for two weeks.'”
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Everyone’s wishing you a Merry Christmas, but is Christmas the holiday you wish you could avoid? Do you always fight with your relatives and have to cope with whining, disappointed kids? You need help from a psychiatrist like Graham Lucas, who specializes in the study of holiday stress. He says, “Christmas magnifies interpersonal tension. A laid-back person can exasperate an anxiety-prone person because they leave everything till the last minute. Some people do their Christmas shopping in May. They’re the same people who’ll arrive three hours before the airport opens if they’re going on holiday.”
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Was the Star of Bethlehem described in the Bible real? Using new knowledge about old astrological beliefs as well as computer planetary tables, astronomers have speculated that it could have been a group of planets, a meteor or comet, or a supernova. One problem is the uncertainty of Jesus’ birth date?the only thing scholars are sure of is that he WASN?T born on December 25th (no shepherds in the fields then).
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