In the background of the Penn State drama, attorneys are flocking. Most seem interested in the civil liabilities, not the criminal ones. Schools are rich, very rich. How much of their wealth is at risk and is the Commonwealth at risk too?
China was responsible for 50% more greenhouse emissions in 2010 than the U.S.. The unspoken requirement of all atmospheric control is to control emerging nation economic growth. That will not be voluntary. Can anyone imagine a tough U.N. police force landing in Beijing with a pollution warrant?
In "State of Fear" Crichton argues that national leaders control their populations by giving them periodic problems--mostly fictional--that seem overwhelming. One wonders if they apply they same fiction to the solutions. We terrify ourselves about Iran's nuclear capacity and then soothe ourselves with the solution: Negotiations with Iran. Global warming: Stupid mercury laden light bulbs. Red menace: capitalism. It all sounds sometimes like the instructions one gets from the stewardess at the beginning of the flight about what to do during an unplanned water landing.
As heartless and cold as venture capital funds sound, there is a remarkably naive quality about many: They hate to miss out on something and are remarkably competitive and jealous. I've always thought it would be a great crime caper to have guys with a fake "hot product" show up in Silicon Valley and make the rounds, supported by cocktail party rumors that one or the other venture company was going to jump on it thus stampeding one guy to jump first. Then everyone skips out with the money.
Marcel Petiot, a physician who was an astonishing serial killer--maybe 150 people, Bundy level--, prowled occupied Paris at the end of the second war. People were disappearing all the time and no disappearance was investigated. He killed Jews, a group with fewer friends. It's a fascinating idea, the effort to investigate a homicide during a war in a country occupied by genocidal army.
It takes 14.5 seconds for the sun to provide as much energy to Earth as humanity consumes in a day. It takes 88 minutes for the sun to provide as much energy to Earth as humanity consumes in a year. But this is no gimme. Storage and the cost of non-ferrous metals will be the factor in how this promise is fulfilled.
There is a book about the Comanche called "Empire of the Summer Moon"; this was a small very violent group. After the Civil War they never numbered more than 4,000 people--men, women and children--in their entire 'nation' at any time. Yet, they ranged from the Rio Grande river west to what is now Colorado, north of present day Kansas and east to Missouri. After they got the horse they were called the finest light cavalry in the world.
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Hmmm, why would any doctor kill so many people for nothing?? She should be in a mental asylum as everyone thinks so!!!
He did it for the money he stole from them. It's a fascinating story. Petiot was thrown out of several schools in his youth, diagnosed as mentally ill in his teens, wounded in WWII and diagnosed as mentally ill again, elected mayor and embezzeled funds, convicted of 26 murders but believed responsible for many more.Guillotined.
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