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Climate change is real. Democrats knew this 30 years ago.

Just for the record: Climate change is accepted as a dangerous reality by all reasonable people. Democrats and Republicans alike. In 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its summary report on the climate emergency, warning that our climate is now changing rapidly almost everywhere and that immediate and massive action is necessary.…

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Love your job.

An 18-year-old hacker from Oxford has been sentenced to indefinite confinement after a series of astounding cybercrimes. While on bail for hacking Nvidia and the phone company, the hacker’s laptop was confiscated, and he was placed under police protection in a Travelodge hotel. While there, he used an Amazon Firestick, a mobile phone, and the…

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Smoking going away

A student asked me, “Why would anyone start smoking? It just means you’ll have fewer friends.” It’s a good point. Though smokers and nonsmokers don’t always segregate themselves from one another, it’s often the case. None of my friends, as far as I know, smoke. I was going to tell my student, “Smokers also have…

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Sucker-punched

I was punched in the face – twice – in a dream last night. Both times, I argued that I had been sucker-punched, but in both cases, my combatants disagreed. They claimed that since we were already arguing and clearly facing each other, the punch would not qualify as a sucker punch. They claimed that…

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A pie for a baby

Years ago, a principal was running my school, and he was a monster. A narcissist of the highest order. We had no affection for each other, and we made it abundantly clear, both in action and words. Happily, he made the mistake of asking me to lie on his behalf about a financial mishap early…

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Toilet for the win

Years ago, on the way to Florida, my best friend and I played the “Best of All-Time” game, in which competitors must argue for the best of all time in a variety of categories: Movies. Books. Dictators. Handheld kitchen appliances. Pick-up lines. You name it. Anything goes. When it came to “Best Invention of All-Time,”…

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Cinemetic quandaries

When Darth Vader is chasing Luke Skywalker down the trench of the Death Star in Star Wars: A New Hope, he notes that “the Force is strong with this one.” Shouldn’t he be more alarmed with this observation? Less than twenty years earlier, Vader slaughtered every Jedi youngling in the Jedi Temple, effectively ridding the…

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Resolution update: February 2024

Every month, I report the progress of my yearly goals to monitor progress (or the lack thereof) and hold myself accountable.   The following are the results from February 2024. PERSONAL FITNESS 1. Don’t die. Still alive. 2. Lose 10 pounds. I weigh exactly the same amount today as I did on January 1. That…

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Teach people how to deal with you

I was speaking to a business associate last week. She and I exchange a great deal of work regularly. We have quite a few ongoing projects at the moment. Amid the conversation, she said, “Is it better if I send you an email containing a link to each project or one large email containing all…

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JD Salinger: Bullets, bombs, and a book

A client recently told me that he can only write at a particular time of the day and only on certain days. This was not the result of a tight schedule or the demands of work or parenting. His brain simply doesn’t function well at specific parts of the day. I told him that J.D.…

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