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The news media has been calling Hurricane Sandy a ‘superstorm.’ It is not that, not yet. It is not as intense as storms that will form later in the process of climate change. We have already passed the point of no return on this issue. It is going to happen. In part, this is because the interglacial during which human population has expanded to cover the earth is ending, and in part it is because mankind does not have planetary institutions that are sufficiently robust to enable widespread agreement about this issue. So the developed country most able to reduce its CO2 emissions, the United States, has remained divided.read more

On:

Let me start by saying that I am not advocating either candidate. Unknowncountry is a website for people of every political persuasion, so we keep our political views to ourselves. However I want to discuss an issue which I feel is the first one we should consider when we decide which candidate we are going to chose, each of us by his own lights.

This issue has not been discussed with adequate clarity. It has come up in the debates, but not with the amount of importance that it actually has. And, for once coming from me, I’m not talking about climate change. It is not health care or the economy, either. It is Iran.
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On:

I have just come past the most fearsome experience of pain I have ever known, and one that counts among the most profound agonies a human being can experience. I endured this agony for three weeks, until finally I got my surgery. The pain is still there, but it is tolerable and manageable, and will fade over time.
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On:

One of the great blessings of being human is that we walk upright. I don’t think it’s something that evolved over any length of time; we just started doing it. As a result the human back is kind of thrown together. Or maybe if somebody designed us, they were too busy with other things or at war or whatever, and just didn’t get the back done right.
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