Who Will Save the World Now, If Not America?

By Tom Kando

I was just re-reading the history of World War One. It’s clear that from 1917 onward, the world took a new turn, due to America’s entry into that war.

Until then, history was largely the history of Big Power Politics. These were primarily European. the UK, France, Germany, Austro-Hungary, Russia - plus two newbies: the USA and Japan. Most other countries were either colonized, or otherwise less powerful.

For some reason, the Big Powers decided to commit collective suicide. It was largely Germany’s fault, but that’s irrelevant here.
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Who Needs the Post Office, DMV and All the Other Services?

By Tom Kando

This picks up where I left off a year ago: Then, I questioned the near-universally accepted cliché that the private sector does everything better than the public sector. The perception that government is the problem, not the solution; that government is exceptionally corrupt; that public pensions with defined benefits are ruining the country, and that everyone should switch to defined contributions instead (i.e. stock market-based) retirement plans; that unions are much too powerful.
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Kando's 2012 NFL Playoff Prognostications

By Tom Kando

Dear Readers: Now that the regular NFL season is over, I offer you Kando’s 2012 post-season predictions:

1. Wild-card round (Jan. 7-8)
Houston vs.: Cincinnati: Houston.
Pittsburgh. vs. Denver: Pittsburgh.
New Orleans vs Detroit: New Orleans.
Atlanta vs. Giants: Atlanta.
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Pragmatism and Idealism

by Madeleine Kando

Ever since my oldest daughter’s visit last week,I have been obsessed with the concept of ‘pragmatism’. If I had to choose one word in the English language to describe her personality, that would be it. My husband likes to describe her personality as ‘Dutch’, as if she was a piece of cheese, but that does not do justice to her OR Dutch cheese. There are hundreds of types of Dutch cheeses, just as there are many flavors of pragmatism and calling someone pragmatic is just as vague as calling someone 'Dutch', but for lack of a better word I will stick to that description. Read more...

Astronomy is about BIG things!

By Tom Kando

Nowadays, cosmology and quantum physics are moving into unfathomably mysterious directions.

The Higgs Boson, which is supposed to be the means by which things in the universe obtain mass, is said to maybe have been observed for the first time recently - at CERN’s large Hadron Collider in Geneva. And scientists there, together with the “OPERA” team in Italy, are said to have detected faster-than-light (muon) neutrinos - maybe.
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HAPPY NEW YEAR

Dear readers:

We wish you all a happy holiday season and a Happy New year, in many interesting languages:

Happy New Year
Bonne Année
ka Hauʻoli Makahiki Hou
Gelukkig Nieuwjaar
शुभ क्रिसमस (Hindi)
Felice Anno Nuovo
наступающим Новым Годом
Danistayohihv & Aliheli'sdi Itse Udetiyvasadisv (Cherokee)
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Theism or Atheism: Does it Matter?

by Madeleine Kando

Christopher Hitchens died last week. His book 'God is Not Great' was a best-seller and put him on top of the list of a hand-full of famous Atheists that include three of my favorite authors: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Steven Pinker. He was passionate in his attacks on religion and his wit and gift for words made him an incredibly fascinating debater.

He did not shy away from stepping into the lions' den of the Intelligent Design community where he debated people like William Lane Craig, a particularly aggressive theologian. Because of Craig’s eloquently distorted views on issues such as morality and 'scientific' proof of the existence of God, it was not an easy task. Read more...

The European Disunion

by Madeleine Kando

"Once upon a time there was a large family with lots and lots of children. They were always fighting with each other and causing a lot of trouble. One of the children, whose name was Gertrude, was a little bigger than the others and quite aggressive by nature. She wanted all the other children’s toys, so she broke into their respective rooms, beat up the children and stole their toys.

A distant uncle by the name of Sam, didn’t like what was happening in that family and decided to put an end to it. He went over there and kicked some ass until Gertrude had to run back to her room with her tail between her legs, so to speak. Read more...

The End of Europe (again)?

By Tom Kando

The European sovereign debt crisis is becoming scary. The dominoes are falling. The contagion has spread from Greece to Italy and beyond. Even France’s credit-worthiness has begun to crumble. No one is safe any more. Even Germany does not have the limitless resources required to bail out the rest of the Continent. There is a vicious cycle of increasing borrowing costs for everyone, a decrease in the availability of credit, a slowing down of the economy and a decline in the governments’ solvency.
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The Best and Worst Cities in the World

By Tom Kando

The annual 2011 Quality of Living Worldwide City Rankings by Mercer (London) has just come out.
The Mercer survey ranks 420 cities of the world. The report I saw lists 221 of them. These cities are ranked in terms of overall quality of life. This is based on several dozen factors, such as physical health, environmental pollution, standard of living, education, housing, crime, etc. Here are some of the results that were of greatest personal interest to me:A. Best city in the world: Vienna. Read more...