Never mind the space elevator idea, fix the “close door” button! Just when you think all the great ideas have been thought of, scientists dream up a concept so radical, and so innovative, that you wonder if they’ve been smoking reefers the size of Yule logs.Such is the case with a group of scientists from […]

KHALDIYAH, Iraq – Is Iraq another Vietnam?After three weeks in the country, I’d say, “Not yet.” But that could change if U.S. policy continues along its current path.Iraq is not South Vietnam, where much of the population quietly supported the Viet Cong. So far, most Iraqis do not back the forces attacking U.S. soldiers.From the […]

“It is a gross canard,” says Bryan Garner, “that beginning a sentence with ‘but’ is stylistically slipshod. In fact, doing so is highly desirable in any number of contexts …”Who, you may ask, is Bryan Garner? At 44, he is the wunderkind of American dictionary-making, the author and sole proprietor of “Garner’s Modern American Usage,” […]

for dummies OK. You’re one of those who have ignored – or at least tried to ignore – the lengthy debates, the rhetoric, the yipping of this year’s campaigns. You’ve seen the ads, the signs and some headlines, but haven’t paid close attention.But now it’s time to vote. It’s two nights before the test. To […]

BAGHDAD – Around the corner from Monday’s car bombing in the district of al-Khudra, where the bomber missed the police station but incinerated 16 cars along with several shoppers, a woman was screaming.Elegantly dressed under a modest black cloak, in this district of wealthy one- and two-family homes, she cried, “I put the responsibility on […]

Generation watchers see different characteristics in each group. Ours is a four-generation family. I am a Silent or a Mature, born before 1946 (“duty, tradition, loyalty” are the watchwords to professional generation watchers, who like to find three nouns for each group). My esteemed spouse is a Baby Boomer (“individuality, tolerance, self-absorption”), our first two […]

What we have here is a real nut story, as in a story about nuts, of all kinds. I have here a news item that alert reader Diane Moore clipped out of the Oct. 21, 2002, issue of the Pana, Ill., News-Palladium (actual motto: “Containing More News About the Pana Trade Area Than All Other […]

NEW YORK – In the spring of 1798, Napoleon was assembling a naval fleet off the South of France, ready to sail for battle against the British.The British, under the command of Adm. Horatio Nelson, had one question: Where was he headed?Turkey, Ireland, Malta and Britain itself were all possibilities. But before the invention of […]

WASHINGTON – Here’s how area members of Congress were recorded on major roll call votes in the week ending Oct. 31. HOUSE Database on immigrants Voting 231 for and 170 against, the House on Oct. 28 failed to reach a supermajority for passing a bill (HR 2359) that would expand to 50 states a six-state […]

SEATTLE – What happened to the weapons of mass destruction? “The intolerable reality is that they blatantly twisted intelligence information to fit preconceived policies,” said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. “They lied to promote public relations, from the Jessica Lynch ordeal to the president’s campaign landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln – and about what war […]