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Jillian lands a big one at skippy and hopefully this will be a wake up call to all of the “Economic Redevelopment Agencies: What corporations want.

The basic story line: the tax breaks and give-aways that states and cities keep telling people will attract businesses are not as important as an educated workforce and the cost of healthcare.

Remember: with tens of millions of Americans without coverage the US spends twice as much per person for healthcare with worse results than other industrialized countries.

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Sleep researchers are trying to figure this out: No shut-eye for newborn dolphins, orcas.

Baby dolphins and orcas [killer whales] are awake and swimming full time for weeks after their birth, which contrasts with the pattern for all other mammals.

Current guesses are that the behavior protects them from predators, maintains their body temperature until they can put on body fat, and gives them time to develop their internal flotation sac.

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In case you were wondering how to create your own: The scientific flash behind the fireworks.

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Deep Impact probe hits comet. Just to rub a little salt into the wounds of the missile defense crew: nyah, nyah, nyah – other people can do it.

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Vimy arrives safely in Ireland:

Two American adventurers have flown a Vickers Vimy biplane replica across the Atlantic, re-creating the first non-stop transatlantic flight, made in 1919.

Millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, 60, and co-pilot Mark Rebholz, 52, landed on the eighth hole on a golf course in Clifden, Ireland, on Sunday about 18 hours and 15 minutes after taking off from St. John’s on Saturday evening.

Fossett does these things, which is nice, but it would be better if he would spend his money on something that mattered more than another stunt. He could have sent a number of kids through college for what this cost and it had already been done 84 years ago.

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The Declaration of Independence

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security…

Independence wasn’t really achieved until September 3, 1783 when Britain signed the Treaty of Paris, and, to be factual, our current government only dates from March 4, 1789 when the first government under our Constitution was installed.

Liberty was not extended to all men until December 6, 1865 with ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery, nor were women given the one of the most important rights of men until August 26, 1920 with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment recognizing their votes.

In truth, until July 2, 1964 when Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Bill into law, there was no mechanism to force government to recognize the rights of all American citizens.

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