Fear of heights? Visit the new Sears tower balconies

If you want to confront your fear of heights, consider visiting one of the new Sears Tower Balconies, which allow you to step out onto a Plexiglas floor and look straight down. Here's the full AP story. I know that this will not be for everyone. I once told a buddy about seeing how close I could stand to the edge of a cliff at the Grand Canyon until he tersely asked me to stop talking about it because he was getting nauseated. Actually, a few years ago, my wife and I visited the CN Tower in Toronto, and had the opportunity to stand on Plexiglas balcony to look straight down. Here's a photo I took: Image from CN Tower by Erich Vieth

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Woody Allen on raising secular humanists

Woody Allen discusses raising his children as secular humanists:

We've raised them, not in any particular religion, but as what we call secular humanists – meaning we've taught them to be honest and kind, and to have respect for human dignity and the rights of other people. And, apart from that, we're trying to keep their minds as open as they can be. We're trying to educate them by giving them as much information as we can, so that when they grow up, they will be competent to make their own evaluations about what they believe.

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Six years later, we’re starting to talk sense

Why did the U.S. invade Iraq? Nothing floated by the Bu$h administration made any sense. All of Bush's reasons have long been shot down. Now we learn of an April 2001 report, "Strategic Policy Challenges for the 21st Century," prepared by the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy at the request of then-Vice President Dick Cheney. Truthout discusses the report and the historical context:

Two years before the invasion of Iraq, oil executives and foreign policy advisers told the Bush administration that the United States would remain "a prisoner of its energy dilemma" as long as Saddam Hussein was in power.
I'm not suggesting that an oil grab was a legitimate reason to invade. I'm merely suggesting that it was the real (and unadmitted) reason for Bu$h to invade.

Continue ReadingSix years later, we’re starting to talk sense