We are not going to reduce energy capture unless catastrophe forces us to—which means that the only way to avoid running out of resources, poisoning the planet, or both, will be by tapping into renewable, clean power.
Can you ever "solve" disease, unemployment, war, or any other societal herpes? Hell no. All you can hope for is to make them manageable enough to allow people to get on with their lives. That's not cynicism, that's maturity.
[He] believed both love and hate to be irrelevant. To him, they were "impediments of the human condition," and, in his words again, "imagine what could be accomplished if the human race would only shed its humanity.
This practically unlimited supply of advertisers in a fluid marketplace appears to be a new economic model that may insulate Google from some of the dynamics of an economy built on mass and scarcity. Google has its own economy.
Perhaps walking is best imagined as an 'indicator species,' to use an ecologist's term. An indicator species signifies the health of an ecosystem, and its endangerment or diminishment can be an early warning sign of systemic trouble. Walking is an in...
Many people nowadays live in a series of interiors...disconnected from each other. On foot everything stays connected, for while walking one occupies the spaces between those interiors in the same way one occupies those interiors. One lives in the wh...
Cities have always offered anonymity, variety, and conjunction, qualities best basked in by walking: one does not have to go into the bakery or the fortune-teller's, only to know that one might. A city always contains more than any inhabitant can kno...
In great cities, spaces as well as places are designed and built: walking, witnessing, being in public, are as much part of the design and purpose as is being inside to eat, sleep, make shoes or love or music. The word citizen has to do with cities, ...
The truth was, neither the Central Intelligence Agency nor any of the other official and unofficial U.S. intelligence organizations have ever been some kind of all-seeing, all-knowing, global illuminati. For starters, we never hand that kind of fundi...
Perhaps the most important thing I learned was about democracy, that democracy is not our government, our constitution, our legal structure. Too often they are enemies of democracy.
A great gift would be a cheap pen, mounted on a wooden plaque, with the accompanying label that reads, “This is the pen that was first used to write down these words. This is history. This happened. Now, go write your own history. But use another p...
It was an odd situation. For a century and a half, men got rid of their own hair, which was perfectly comfortable, and instead covered their heads with something foreign and uncomfortable. Very often it was actually their own hair made into a wig. Pe...
Vitamin B proved to be not one vitamin but several, which is why we have B1, B2, and so on. To add to the confusion, Vitamin K has nothing to do with an alphabetical sequence. It was called K because its Danish discoverer, Henrik Dam, dubbed it "koag...
The phaenomena afforded by trades, are a part of the history of nature, and therefore may both challenge the naturalist's curiosity and add to his knowledge, Nor will it suffice to justify learned men in the neglect and contempt of this part of natur...
Well, let's see. There's—of course in the great history of America there have been rulings that there's never going to be absolute consensus by every American, and there are those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade, where I believe are best held on a ...
The Philippines and the U.S. have had a strong relationship with each other for a very long time now. We have a shared history. We have shared values, democracy, freedom, and we have been in all the wars together in modern history, the World War, Sec...
Ace Rothstein: [talking about Don] The guy is history as far as I'm concerned. History. Phillip Green: You can't just fire him. Webb's his brother-in-law. He's County Commissioner. Ace Rothstein: So what? Everybody out here with cowboy boots is a fuc...
Carl Fogaty: [pointing a gun at the wounded Tom] You have anything to say before I blow your brains out, you miserable prick? Tom Stall: [gruff voice; as Joey Cusack] I should have killed you back in Philly. Carl Fogaty: [smiles] Yeah, Joey... you sh...
Seth: Who do you hate, Danny? Danny Vinyard: I hate anyone that isn't white Protestant. Seth: Why? Danny Vinyard: They're a burden to the advancement of the white race. Some of them are all right, I guess... Seth: None of 'em are fucking all right, D...
Lamont: [When Derek doesn't respond to his question, he laughs] Okay, I know your kind, right? Bad ass peckerwood with an attitude. Well, let me tell you something, man. You better watch your ass 'cause you're in the joint. You the nigger, not me.
Does that have to go in?” Lada asked. “What do you mean?” Wistala said, brought back to the dictation. “The battle. Betrayals. Incompetence, even cowardice. Boats falling, mud everywhere, blood running from balconies, carrion birds poking mar...