Letters to the Editor
zzz05
Published Letters: 413 Editor's Choice: 9
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love among the animals
[Read the article: The chimp who thought he was a boy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"I don't think animals are capable of human-style love. '
Depends on your definition, I guess.
I figure, love is absolutely written into your genes by evolution. Any mutant shrew-like primitive mammal who didn't "love" her little bitty offspring didn't get those genes passed on. As we learn more, we see that this behavior appears even further down the evolutionary tree; once upon a time we thought dinosaurs and reptiles would just drop their eggs and leave, now we think they are devoted caring parents. Even poison dart tree frogs whose little puddle dries out on them will pack up their tadpoles before they move out to find another. Our intellectual capacity or language or anything else that comes into play is just in the service of this overwhelming absolute, not driving it. Similar for love of your "mate" except that it's more complicated for species who stay paired for long periods of time. Based on the same hormones, though.
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the plot is exposed
[Read the article: Why al-Maliki attacked Basra]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"The US is the next target of the tribe of Abraham"
darn. oh well, plan B: Canada.
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"Can anyone direct me to a link that can explain the situation more clearly?"
[Read the article: Why al-Maliki attacked Basra]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's simple, really.
The most pro-Iran Shiites, who the US supports as the elected government, attack the most anti-Iran Shiites; Bush tells us this is "a defining moment in the history of a free Iraq," because the regime is standing up to thugs. Things go badly for our side, but luckily, the Iranians step in and broker a deal between the two sides. This is, of course, an example of what Bush describes as the Iranians fomenting terrorism and violence within Iraq, which we are luckily there to prevent.
Hope that's clear; if not, consult a Bush partisan. Reaching one is as easy as picking up your phone and speaking into it.
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is it possible
[Read the article: E. O. Wilson gives soccer moms a bum rap]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]that being biologically literate requires both handson experience with the world, and some familiarity with the progress made in understanding it over the past 10,000 years? just a thought.
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we all like a cool drink of water on a hot day
[Read the article: Rape is like force-fed chocolate cake?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]therefore waterboarding is not torture.
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great
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]great great great great.
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put your finger on it
[Read the article: Randi Rhodes calls Hillary Clinton a whore]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]the supporters of the "healing america" uniter candidate are more than happy to resort to swiftboating and karl rove tactics. not that they're the only ones of course; i just think at this point in america's history, it's like asking the palestinians and israelis to stop the silly bickering and make up.
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starbuck's a cylon too
[Read the article: Beyond belief]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]wouldn't that explain her back from the dead? (along with the cancelling of bionic woman, of course)
and bush is absolutely some kind of cylon mole.
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wishful thinking
[Read the article: Randi Rhodes calls Hillary Clinton a whore]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]wouldn't it be nice if we could get the democratic candidates and their supporters to, maybe, concentrate their attacks on McCain and the Republican party?
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say what?
[Read the article: Can Stephen Colbert save America?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Stewart's pretty biased himself
I haven't heard him make fun of McCain, yet, and Obama seems pretty safe as well. "
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we're through the looking glass now folks
[Read the article: Can Stephen Colbert save America?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]the daily show, colbert, and maher (who always was content driven, not sheer humor) are wherer you go for insightful analysis, fact checking, etc.; the mainstream news is where you go for something silly.
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and of course, good old efficiency
[Read the article: Ask Pablo]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]about 56% of the energy in the US is wasted. a lot of it can be prevented. pays for itself, as they say.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/06/weekinreview/revkin-650x1075.jpg
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the sun shines everywhere
[Read the article: Ask Pablo]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]just checked with my buddy who put the solar panels on the roof; they generate almost all the electricity he needs. in Connecticut.
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mccain-rice
[Read the article: A McCain-Rice pairing is unlikely]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]seems perfect. she's black, he's white. she's a woman, he's a man. she's rice, he's steamed.
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lemme get this straight
[Read the article: "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" kicks off]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]so this week i'm supposed to send flowers and candy, or at least a card, to all the islamofasicsts I know?
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god stuff
[Read the article: "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" kicks off]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]" Rick Santorum told a Penn State audience, "Islam, unlike Christianity, is an all-encompassing ideology. It is not just something you do on Sunday."
Bill Maher called it, years ago. Islam's big problem is that they take their religion seriously.
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silly liberals
[Read the article: More on Michael Mukasey's false 9/11 and FISA claims]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Oh you folks of the reality-based community and your insistence that your actions must conform to reality. How can you just do whatever you want whenever you want to do it, if you have to worry about truth, and budgets, and responsibility, and guilt, and all that stuff? After all, we're Good People so you can trust that we won't do anything wrong; and this is the Land of the Free, and freedom means not being constrained by anything, including reality.
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it's still the first oil shock
[Read the article: The oil seesaw]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]we never really recovered from the first oil shock of the early 70s. we've more or less staggered back to our feet periodically, but just keep getting knocked over again.
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chinese consumption
[Read the article: The oil seesaw]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]the difference between the chinese appetite for oil and ours, is that the chinese are going to use all that oil they're consuming, and all that coal they are burning now, to get them over the hump to a fossil-fuel free economy; and at the end of it, we'll still be complaining that that damned $100 a gallon gas is making us think that maybe we need to think about cutting back some, but dammit it it would take a lot of time and money and energy.
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funny
[Read the article: Bill Kristol, great man of sacrifice, on the duties of Passover]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]when i read the hagadah every year, what i am struck with is how so much of the wording of the plight of the jews in egypt can be used to describe the plight of the palestinian arabs. and i say that with full knowledge of the great achievement of so many palestinian arabs in gaining this status of unending victimhood for their people, and without a twinge of portraying the widely diverse but unanimously baffled opinions of the Israeli public regarding what to do to get out of this mess, as some sort of monolithic Pharoah.
i just hope that 2000 years from now, the israel will be more than just the long-dead hisotrical oppressor who served as the anvil on which the vigorous palestinian nation was forged. (a parallel to the role of egypt in today's hagadah, i unfortunately have to point out to the many who are technically literate but in practice not so much so. apologies to the rest of you for the inadvertent insult to your powers of analogy and induction).