Well, after more than a decade of heavy use and pushing their certified load limits, it's finally happened: I've broken the backs on all my expletives. They're in traction, up at Lingua Franca University Hospital, in Esperanto.
I blame the current GOP-created-and-sponsored government shutdown as much as I do the amount of overwork my profane and explicit oaths and exclamations have been subjected to, ever since Reagan slipped through the cracks of the founding fathers' notions of a wise and informed populace, and a watchdog press, keeping a close and good eye on its leaders and their use of power.
Alex Baer: On Exhausting All of One's Possibilities
Majority of US executions come from just 2% of counties, report finds
The arbitrary nature of the death penalty as practiced in the US is laid bare in a new study that shows that just 2% of counties across the nation have generated most of the executions in the past 40 years.
A new report from the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington shows that of the 1,348 executions that have taken place in the US since the death penalty restarted in 1976, more than half originated in only 2% of counties. Under the US judicial system, the decision to launch a capital case lies with district attorneys at the county level.
Shutdown keeps 10 children with cancer from clinical trials
Ten U.S. children with cancer won't be able to begin their clinical trials due to the government shutdown, officials at the National Institutes of Health said.
John Burklow, a spokesman for the NIH, told ABCNews.com more than 1,400 ongoing clinical trials will continue at the NIH Clinical Center, which is the largest research hospital in the world, but it won't be able to add new patients or start any new trials during the shutdown.
Vietnamese Americans, Exposed to Agent Orange, Suffer in Silence
After his eighth round of chemo, Trai Nguyen is exhausted, his body ravaged. The 60-year-old has a rare and aggressive form of cancer that he believes resulted from his contact with the defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.
His doctors believe his cancer may now be in remission, but that is little comfort. “My hands shake violently. I can’t do anything,” he says, sitting on a mattress in the two-bedroom apartment he shares with relatives.
Ikea Will Start Selling Solar Panels In All British Stores
British consumers will now be able to buy solar panels at their local Ikeas.
Ikea, known for cavernous stores, mail-order furniture, odd names, and wordless assembly instructions, is testing sales of panels in the British market “because it has the right combination of mid-level electricity prices and government-sponsored financial incentives that make investing in solar energy attractive to consumers,” according to the AP.
Justice Department to challenge North Carolina voter ID law
The Justice Department will file suit against North Carolina on Monday, charging that the Tar Heel State’s new law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls violates the Voting Rights Act by discriminating against African-Americans, according to a person familiar with the planned litigation.
Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to announce the lawsuit at noon at Justice Department headquarters, flanked by the three U.S. attorneys from North Carolina.
Israel increases rate of home demolitions as peace talks chug along
Burhan Bisharat lost his home last week to an Israeli army bulldozer, but he retains the Palestinian ethos of hospitality, pressing his interviewer to drink more tea as he recounts how he has slept amid the ruins of the dwellings of this tiny village in the occupied West Bank.
''Living on the ground with no cover is hard,'' says the father of eight who, like a dozen other men from Makhul, has been sleeping out in the open because the army blocked them from receiving humanitarian relief tents after the demolition.
Bomb detonated at bazaar in Pakistan; 40 killed, 100 injured
A car bomb detonated at a bazaar in Peshawar, Pakistan, Sunday killed at least 40 people and injured about 100 others, officials said.
So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Pakistani Taliban, Tehrik-i-Taliban, has denied any involvement, CNN reported.
"We are targeting the government machinery and the law enforcement agencies but not general public," said Tehrik-i-Taliban spokesman Shaidullah Shaid.
Experts set threshold for climate-change calamity
The world's leading climate scientists have for the first time established a limit on the amount of greenhouse gases that can be released before the Earth reaches a tipping point and predicted that it will be surpassed within decades unless swift action is taken to curb the current pace of emissions.
The warning was issued Friday by a panel of U.N.-appointed climate change experts meeting in Stockholm.
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