Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others,
are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
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Autumn Equinox & Hobbit Day 

Tomgram: Michael Klare, Energy Xtremism -- TomDispatch.com

Talk about roller-coaster rides: the price of a barrel of crude oil, which was still under $20 the week after September 11, 2001, made it to $147 in July 2008, just before the global economic meltdown, only to hit a low of $32.40 early this year. And yet, in recent months, hardly noticed, it's crept back above $70 -- and this with "recovery" barely on the horizon and global industrial demand still muted at best. And that's the good news.

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Bicycles, books and beer -- High Country News

How a man with no plan built a community around literature and social activism.

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America, the beautiful (America, the ugly) -- Salon

You could do a lot worse with the next 220 days of your life than to begin each one by reading an entry from the freshly published "A New Literary History of America" -- the way generations past used to study a Bible verse daily. You could do a lot worse, but I'm not sure you could do much better; this magnificent volume is a vast, inquisitive, richly surprising and consistently enlightening wallow in our national history and culture.

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What a fat tax really means for America -- Slate Magazine

Not long after the attack on Pearl Harbor, in the winter of 1942, physiologist A.J. Carlson made a radical suggestion: If the nation's largest citizens were charged a fee -- say, $20 for each pound of overweight -- we might feed the war effort overseas while working to subdue an "injurious luxury" at home.

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Smoking bans cut heart attacks by a third: study -- Reuters

Smoking bans in public places can reduce the number of heart attacks by as much as 36 percent, offering fresh proof that the restrictions work, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

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Tiny technologies could produce big energy solutions -- CNN

Forgot to charge your cell phone last night? Imagine that you could power it by walking. Weirder still, you might be able to just spray a new battery on.

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