Warning: Boring personal sidebar ahead.

In 2002, I began working for a large, publicly-traded company. I did this because I believed (and still do) that it gives me the opportunity to do the right thing, and at a big scale. My situation has made me think about the following type of question quite a lot:

Does big always mean bad? The Starbucks Paradox.

Partisan gerrymandering, drawing district lines to favor one political party, has reached a crisis point. Because of increased partisanship and improvements in the technology used to determine district lines, legislators now regularly create districts that all but ensure victory for the party that controls the redistricting process.

During the 1990s, many communities in Colorado championed controls on growth. These communities were viewed by many, along with Portland, Oregon and a handful of other cities, as foreshadowing policy that could likely occur all around the county. However, a slow economy has made these cities re-think growth control, and now everyone is watching again.

William L. Anderson and Candice E. Jackson on "Washington’s Biggest Crime Problem."

Thirty spokes are made one by holes in a hub, by vacancies joining them for a wheel's use;

The use of clay in molding pitchers comes from the hollow of its absence;

Doors, windows in a house are used for their emptiness.

Thus, we are helped by what is not;

We use what is.

Ah, the time has come to say good-bye to our beloved sitcom Friends. I just have one thing to add: Don't let the door hit ya...

The American Civil Liberties Union today released an item-by-item rebuttal to a slew of false claims that President Bush made in Buffalo this week about the controversial USA Patriot Act.

Earth Day.

More bad ideas from Texas... paying for education with "sin taxes." Why is this bad? Because these taxes are regressive (they hurt poorer people more in a proportional sense). Note the line in the article saying how this shift will allow lower property taxes on the most wealthy, too. Also, what the hell is the government doing taxing things on a "sin" basis? Heck, you can find plenty of studies showing that beer is good for you, so it should have reduced taxes, not subject to alcohol and sin tax.

Perhaps the Earth's most curiously-named natural preserve: 'The Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge'.

"Americans continue to move from the Northeast and Midwest to the South and West, but the truly historic migration is from the inner suburbs to the outer suburbs, to the suburbs of suburbia. From New Hampshire down to Georgia, across Texas to Arizona and up through California, you now have the booming exurban sprawls that have broken free of the gravitational pull of the cities and now float in a new space far beyond them."

Funny: Goats Being Used To Prevent Fires

Greenland's massive ice sheet could begin to melt this century and may disappear completely within the next thousand years if global warming continues at its present rate.

...the global surface temperature increased 0.6° Celsius (1.8° Fahrenheit) in the last century. Oceans have become warmer, too, expanding while storing heat. This has caused sea levels to rise 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) in the last hundred years.

Gravity Probe B will test Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Cool...

My favorite topic to beat-up on lately: In a time troubled by fanatic fundamentalists spanning all the world's religions, I regret that this simplistic film purports to present a religion supposedly based on love as a masochist sect in a fanatic world. Whether this was done on purpose or not is another question.

Congress is considering legislation that could hold DJs, bands, bartenders, promoters, venue owners and others liable if a patron uses drugs at a nightclub or concert.
Is this not insane? Holding band members or promoters responsible for the action of one of their 20,000 fans at a concert?
If you think it is as crazy I do, do something.

The nation's largest retailer has recently announced that it will begin shifting its operations from mega stores on the edge of town to small, downtown stores with independent owners. He he.