The Supreme Court has spoken in Ricci v. Stefano, the New Haven firefighter's case. An employer developed what it thought was a purely job-related exam and said that they would promote the people who did well on the test. Initially it seems reasonable that advocates for groups that did poorly on an exam would advocate against an exam culture. But thinking about it a bit more, I found myself surprised.

Or at least, it may feel that way to one Harry Mason Reid, currently Senate Majority Leader. With the election -- at last -- of Al Franken, the Democrats have the "filibuster-proof supermajority" of which much has been said. However, I think such things as the recent House vote on Waxman-Markey (the "climate change bill") show that there is no such thing as party unity within Team Blue.

The number of hungry people in the world is projected to reach an all-time high of 1.02 billion this year, according to a report published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The report blames this latest spike in world hunger chiefly on the global economic recession, which has increased unemployment and reduced incomes among the poor, leading to greater food insecurity.

Whenever I needed a light moment in last year's interminable campaign it was to contemplate the "new" politics of a possible President Obama going forward by a "new" Democrat, disdainful of ugly boomer cultural fights and political spats.

Today it came out the Sanford actually had encounters with more females then he admitted during his "shocking" press conference last week. During an AP interview he said that he "crossed lines" with other women. He also stated that it never went too far and that he actually loved Maria Belen Chapur.

With their new advertising campaign. Scientologists are using a Joe Camel strategy to get their message across. Is it appropriate for Scientology to use sexuality and teenage girls (or at least teenage-looking girls) to market their religion?

Years ago, I sat in a quiet Italian restaurant with Kurt Vonnegut (the story of how I was fortunate enough to sup with him is a bit long for this format), laughing about the stock questions people ask authors when he said (paraphrasing, its been twenty years), "Most people who tell me my books 'changed their life' can't really explain what that means. All they know is that they had an emotional connection to my writing. It didn't really change them at all." "Oh, no," I replied. "You changed me in several ways."

North Korea, Kim Jong-Il specifically, is known for its blustery antics in the world theater, and the past few months have not been unique. The anti-Western rhetoric and threats of war tend to come at times when North Korea needs something it can't provide for itself: food, money, or other forms of aid. Less than a week remains until July 4th, where actions will speak louder than words -- will North Korea launch a weapon, targeting a region within the borders of the United States?

I've been living in Norway for just over 3 years now, and have already acquired a lot of experience with the way the national health scheme here works. I thought I would write a bit about how the system here has worked for me. My experiences with the public health system in Norway have been nothing but positive. No worrying about whether some essential item is covered or not, or whether I can afford to treat some problem or other. That said, it's not entirely problem-free, on the large scale.

Last week a new interactive book anthology was published by the Union of Concerned Scientists and Penguin Classics. Thoreau's Legacy: American Stories about Global Warming is unlike any publishing project I have seen because it is literally a book built from submissions from Americans of all walks of life.

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