Newspapers face extraordinary challenges these days, as so many people continue to point out. But they have chronicled the history of this country as it unfolded. So this is very cool:
Google News is getting a sense of the past to balance out its relentless focus on the present.
Yeah, sure, as long as the military action lasts only a few days and doesn't involve anything messy like destruction or deaths that might make it look like an actual war:
Most French and Americans would support military action against Iran as a last resort if other means fail to stop it acquiring nuclear weapons, a major transatlantic opinion survey showed on Wednesday.
Look, I know what President Bush was trying to say:
Five years after the September 11 attacks, the United States is safer but "we are not yet safe" from a significantly degraded but still dangerous al Qaeda threat, the White House said in a report on Tuesday.
I missed this the first time around, but on Sunday night I caught Andy Rooney's screed on "60 Minutes" about ugly utility poles and lines:
How can the American economy be doing so well while people think it's so horrible? Because journalists for major institutions such as The New York Times and The Washington Post are either economically ignorant or have an agenda that requires them to twist the facts. Take your pick:
In fiction, we have Javert hounding Jean Valjean for his whole life, all over the theft of a loaf of bread, the great literature of "Les Miserables." In real life, we have this:
It's the lore of the North that allows a traveller caught in a blizzard to break into a cabin for food and warmth in order to keep body and soul together.
More reaction on the great "Survivor" diversity experiment. GM has withdrawn its ads but says it has nothing to do with the controversial content. Wellll, OK. There's this fascinating quote in defense of the show:
Show creator Mark Burnett said Tuesday that many of those criticizing the new approach haven't ever seen the show and don't understand how it works.
It's time for the weekly "another brilliant study" post:
An analysis of poverty rates and health published in the September issue of The American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that people living in extreme poverty tend to have more chronic illnesses, more frequent and severe disease complications and make greater demands on the health care system.
Just one of the ways the human population could be all but wiped out:
What could cover the globe in ash, plunge Earth into an ice age and end life as we know it?
