Image via Wikipedia...From the point of view of rational analysis the weight of evidence is still on the side of the skeptics who assure us that all crop circles are made by artists and lovable, jolly old men like Doug and Dave. But there are facts that don't quite fit, and the alternatives are worth considering. They lead into very disturbing areas, not all of which have to do with physics. In a concluding (fourth) post, I plan to come back to the initial issue raised by the crop circle problem, which is that of the construction and … [Read more...]

Image via Wikipedia"America was called into being by a journalist. When Virginia plantation owners who would become presidents were still pondering petitioning to King George III, when a Boston lawyer who would also be president was fretting about the excesses democracy might unleash with the replacement of colonial rule, good Tom Paine argued in the Philadelphia Journal that Americans had a right to govern their own affairs. Within weeks of his arrival on American soil in the fall of 1774, months before the "shot heard round the world" was … [Read more...]

To the Editor:The top 25 hedge fund managers took home an average of $1 billion each last year (Business Day, April 1). The same day I read that the global community has pledged $9.9 billion over the next three years for disaster relief in Haiti ("Billions of Dollars Are Pledged for Haiti, but Skepticism Remains" news article, April 1).Something is terribly wrong here.Anthony RogersCambridge, Mass., April 1, 2010(NYTimes, April 7) … [Read more...]

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