Stephen Kastner

Do you have any idea how small Gaza is? Martin Kramer illustrates the size of Gaza by overlaying a scale outline of Gaza on maps of the cities of London, New York and Paris. While Kramer posted his January 12, 2009 article in response to exaggerations of the population density made by Gaza sympathizers, the [...]

Just when you thought it couldn’t get much worse… Operation Change for the Better!

“It is often hard to be a person on the planet Earth. It can be scary, overwhelming, fraught with obstacles, and most of all, inescapably lonely.” – The Rino and the Buddha “Are You Out There” Words and music by Dar Williams Perhaps I am a miscreation No one knows the truth there is no [...]

A recent study by the New America Foundation “places the United States at the top of the list of the world’s leading arms-selling nations in 2007, accounting for more than 45 percent of all global weapons transfers.” The Bush administration “signed arms sales agreements…worth more than $32 billion last year, including with one or more [...]

It’s about 4 pm and we are expecting to get more than a foot of snow in the next 24 hours – a perfect time to start a project on my life’s work.

Ever wonder why it is that humans have only 46 sets of chromosomes while ALL other primates have 48? It seems that we have two sets of chromosome pairs that are fused together. I wonder how that happened? It doesn’t seem to fit the Darwinian model of evolution. The nine brightest stars of the Pleiades [...]

As of Tuesday June 03, 2008 New York state had the highest cigarette taxes in the nation. Seems like a pact with the devil… or the perfect marriage between corporate profits and state revenues. Meanwhile, more than 30 other states, including Vermont, have enacted laws banning smoking in certain publicly-accessible places like bars, restaurants, and [...]

The list of books Sarah Palin attempted to ban in Alaska: A Clockwork Orange by Anthony BurgessA Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’EngleAnnie on My Mind by Nancy GardenAs I Lay Dying by William FaulknerBlubber by Judy BlumeBrave New World by Aldous HuxleyBridge to Terabithia by Katherine PatersonCanterbury Tales by ChaucerCarrie by Stephen KingCatch-22 by [...]

Reviewing a Brief History Of Chicago’s 1968 Democratic Convention 40 years ago, brings to mind how chaotic the world must have appeared to me at 21 years of age. Having grown up in Chicago under the cloud of the “last of the big city bosses,” the Democratic Party under Daley’s rule was accepted as a [...]

That’s the number of Americans who still think that Congress is doing a good job… 9%. This weekend (July 17–20, 2008) there are two simultaneous political blogging conventions taking place in Austin, Texas. The 3rd annual gathering of what was originally the YearlyKos Convention, now known as Netroots Nation, is broadcasting live and archiving the [...]