One hour into “Brokeback Mountain,” Amy Jo Remmele began to cry, and not just for the woman on-screen, standing in a doorway in Riverton, Wyo., watching her husband embrace a man. “When I saw that look in her eyes, I thought, ‘Oh, yeah.’ Even though I never saw my husband with another man, I knew exactly how that woman would have felt,” said Mrs. Remmele, a respiratory therapist in rural Minnesota. On June 1, 2000, Mrs. Remmele, then 31, discovered her husband’s profile on the Web site gay.com. The couple stayed up all that night weeping and talking. Soon afterward, 10 days before she gave birth to her second child, Mrs. Remmele’s husband went off to spend a couple of nights with his new boyfriend. “I tried to talk him out of it, and he left anyway,” Mrs. Remmele said. “I was devastated.” Three months later the couple divorced. Mrs. Remmele now married to a farmer who raises cattle, corn and soybeans is one of an estimated 1.7 million to 3.4 million American women who once were or are now married to men who have sex with men. The estimate derives from “The Social […]
WASHINGTON – The number of illegal immigrants in the United States has grown to as many as 12 million, and they now account for about one in every 20 workers, a new estimate says. Efforts to curb illegal immigration have not slowed the pace, said a report Tuesday by the Pew Hispanic Center. Instead, the report’s author said, those efforts are having an unintended consequence: People who illegally enter the United States from Mexico are staying longer because it is harder to move back and forth across the border. “The security has done more to keep people from going back to Mexico than it has to keep them from coming in,” said Jeffrey Passel, a senior research associate at the center. It is difficult to accurately measure the number of illegal immigrants in the United States, but most public agencies and private groups had settled on a figure of about 11 million. The Pew Hispanic Center used Census Bureau data to estimate that the United States had 11.1 million illegal immigrants in March 2005. The center used monthly population estimates to project a current total of 11.5 million to 12 million. The report estimates […]
At long last, the tipping point is nigh: For the first time in modern history, clean-energy technologies are becoming cost-competitive with their “dirtier” counterparts. While oil and natural gas prices remain stubbornly high and frustratingly volatile across the globe, and as nuclear and coal-based energy remain dogged by environmental and safety concerns, clean-energy prices continue their near-relentless downward march. Consider wind power. In certain regions, it is now one of the least expensive and most easily deployed sources of new generating capacity. Or ethanol, which has gained favor for vehicle use in both in the U.S. and abroad. Or biodiesel, made from a wide range of animal and vegetable oils, whose price is within striking distance of petroleum-based diesel. Even solar, still relatively expensive without subsidies, competes favorably in some places and is often the cheapest choice for power in remote regions. Suddenly, so-called “alternative” energy technologies are looking pretty mainstream. The growth of clean-energy markets reflects its growing acceptance. Global wind and solar markets reached $11.8 billion and $11.2 billion in 2005 — up 47% and 55%, respectively, from a year earlier. The market for biofuels hit $15.7 billion globally in 2005, up more than 15% […]
CHICAGO – Years of radioactive waste water spills from Illinois nuclear power plants have fueled suspicions the industry covers up safety problems and sparked debate about the risks from exposure to low-level radiation. The recent, belated disclosures of leaks of the fission byproduct tritium from Exelon Corp.’s Braidwood, Dresden, and Byron twin-reactor nuclear plants one as long ago as 1996 triggered worries among neighbors about whether it was safe to drink their water, or even stay. How’d you like to live next to that plant and every time you turn on the tap to take a drink you have to think about whether it’s safe? asked Joe Cosgrove, the head of parks in Godley, a town adjacent to Braidwood. Cosgrove and some scientists and anti-nuclear activists who monitor health issues related to nuclear power say the delay in reporting the spills is indicative of industry and regulatory obfuscation bordering on cover-up. We don’t know what else has been leaked from that site. When they close ranks, you can’t believe them, Cosgrove said, referring to the plant owner and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees safety at the nation’s 103 commercial reactors, including 11 in Illinois. […]
China’s economic boom has dazzled investors and captivated the world. But beyond the new high-rises and churning factories lie rampant corruption, vast waste, and an elite with little interest in making things better. Forget political reform. China’s future will be decay, not democracy. The only thing rising faster than China is the hype about China. In January, the People’s Republic’s gross domestic product (GDP) exceeded that of Britain and France, making China the world’s fourth-largest economy. In December, it was announced that China replaced the United States as the world’s largest exporter of technology goods. Many experts predict that the Chinese economy will be second only to the United States by 2020, and possibly surpass it by 2050. Western investors hail China’s strong economic fundamentalsnotably a high savings rate, huge labor pool, and powerful work ethicand willingly gloss over its imperfections. Businesspeople talk about China’s being simultaneously the world’s greatest manufacturer and its greatest market. Private equity firms are scouring the Middle Kingdom for acquisitions. Chinese Internet companies are fetching dot-com-era prices on the NASDAQ. Some of the world’s leading financial institutions, including Bank of America, Citibank, and HSBC, have bet billions on the country’s financial future by […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
