Via reader Norm, I heard about this website that shows photos of houses that have been built using bamboo. What I had not expected was how spectacular they are. The accompanying article says that the houses are sustainable but what impressed me was that bamboo, something that I always thought of as a flexible plant, seems to be strong enough to support such large structures with plumbing, etc.
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I generally dislike talking on the phone. I can do it if necessary, and can talk for long times on occasion but it is always a relief to hang up. I don’t know why this is so but when I see so many people with their eyes transfixed to their phones, I assumed that I was in a minority. But it appears that that may not be the case.
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A mother left her 21-year son in a Philadelphia wooded area for over five days and went to visit her boyfriend in another state. Her son is a quadriplegic who also suffers from cerebral palsy. She left the boy with a blanket and a copy of the Bible. Fortunately a bystander found him and he is now recovering in a hospital under the care of others.
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Russell Berman describes yet another example of the old sleight of hand practiced by supply-side politicians, this time in the state of Kansas, where the governor Sam Brownback came into office promising that tax cuts would boost the economy of that state so much that it would more than compensate for the loss of revenue.
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I am not a foodie. I do not seek out gourmet eating experiences and am happy to eat pretty much a limited range of dishes cooked at home, do not watch any of the many cooking shows on TV, nor am I particularly interested in talking about food. But ever since I read the book Soul of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman that I wrote about here, I have been impressed with how rigorous the training is that chefs receive and the precision operation of restaurant kitchens.
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A state judge in Maine has rejected an effort by that state’s governor to impose a quarantine on Kaci Hickox, the nurse who treated Ebola patients in Liberia and then on her return was the target of a short-lived attempt by New Jersey governor Chris Christie to quarantine her for 21 days before pressure forced him to change his mind and send her to her home in Maine.
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The US is rightly criticized for being one of the most backward countries in the developed world when it comes to providing health care and social benefits. So I was surprised to read that at one time, it actually provided universal child care through what is known as the Lanham Act. The law was designed to fund war-related infrastructure projects but got reinterpreted when a new need arose in 1943.
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The Guardian reports that 43 members of Unit 8200, Israel’s equivalent of the US’s NSA or UK’s GCHQ, have refused to take part in what they see as surveillance of innocent Palestinians that was leading to blackmail and extortion and serving the personal agendas of Israeli politicians..
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The US Supreme court issued on its last day two decisions that went against women and workers. In one case, they asserted that certain classes of companies had the right to not pay for contraceptive coverage as part of their health insurance offering to their employees while in the other they limited the rights of people to form unions. In both cases, they were continuing the steady process of chipping away at the rights of women and workers.
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