While disasters like hurricanes and floods are better remembered, heat waves cause more fatalities annually than all other natural disasters combined. Close to 800 people died in Chicago alone during a searing heat wave in 1995. As our fossil-fuel orgy drives the earth’s temperature upward, extreme-heat events will become more common, say researchers. A study […]

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Ten years from now I’ll be payin’ still. (while Whitey’s on the moon) —Gil Scott-Heron, “Whitey on the Moon” (1970) It’s been exactly forty years since “Whitey” last set foot on the moon. It’s harder than ever to pay those bills. On the other hand, there are no more “Whiteys” on the moon. Happy now? […]

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Described as “a National Public Interest and Law Foundation Organized for the Purpose of Defending Human Right to Life From Conception to Natural Death,” AUL was founded in 1971 by a group of activists including zealous right-winger and media censor Brent Bozell. In the past few years, its growth has been metastatic. According to AUL’s […]

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Partly, it was a bait and switch. Much of the Tea Party was always the Christian right rebranded; according to the Public Religion Research Institute, three quarters of Tea Partiers consider themselves Christian conservatives. Among those who made their way to Congress with Tea Party support were Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY), a former spokesperson for […]

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The Church has not softened its stance against contraception or the “Obama compromise,” which requires the insurer rather than the religious institution to provide contraceptive coverage. Republican members of Congress have not retracted their defense of the Church’s position. They vow to keep employer health plans from covering contraceptives for hundreds of thousands of employees of all faiths working in religious institutions. The contraception […]

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