The Meaning of July 4th,
Part Three

In my previous two articles on July 4th (1, 2), I said that the meaning of that holiday was gradually being lost. But on July 4th of this year, I participated in our local Monterey parade and found that some of it either hadn't been lost or was being rediscovered. My...

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Wrong Again!

Okay, it's another lemon, the second you've bought from the same used-car lot – and for $1,000 more than the first. The transmission is a mess; the muffler's clunking; smoke's seeping out of the dashboard; and you've only had it a week. You took it, grudgingly,...

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Notes From a Beach Blanket

It's awfully quiet around here: everyone, it seems, is on vacation. That's what normal folks do: they take vacations. They get on a plane and go live on a beach blanket for a week, in spite of the dollar's downward dive, and drain their bodies of the accumulated...

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False Prophets

A national newspaper recently ran an entertaining piece on some of the most wrong-headed predictions of modern times. There was Margaret Thatcher's 1972 claim that "there will not be a woman prime minister in my lifetime." And Ken Olsen's 1977 prediction that...

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Iraq: Al-Qaeda Escapes U.S. Assault

Air strikes have destroyed civilian homes rather than al-Qaeda targets under the U.S. military operation in Baquba, residents say. But signs have emerged of an al-Qaeda presence here earlier, and some residents speak of relief that al-Qaeda has been driven out of the...

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Excuses Keep on Coming

The evolution of excuses for blundering into and maintaining the Iraq War is becoming comical. The first excuse was weapons of mass destruction. Do you remember the constant talk about weapons of mass destruction, "the worst weapons in the hands of the worst...

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More NeoCrazy Media Sycophancy

According to Washington Post Staff Writer Joby Warrick, "intelligence agencies" and "nuclear experts" are "all asking the same question: Is Iran attempting to thwart future military strikes against its nuclear facility by placing key parts of it in underground...

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Don’t Delay: US Out of Iraq Now

I rise in opposition to HR 2956 which, while a well-intended attempt to reduce our nation's seemingly unlimited military commitment in Iraq, is in so many respects deeply flawed. I have been one of the strongest opponents of military action against Iraq. I voted...

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