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Varmint Vexations

Wildlife must be doing quite well, judging by the volume of roadkill I've seen lately. There seems to be a season for each species to commit highway hara-kiri. For instance, a month or so ago skunks were the prevalent source of roadside gore. Most of the stinkers appeared to be fairly young, ...

A foreseeable and dire munitions crisis

During the 1979-1980 hostage crisis, a defiant Iran starkly demonstrated the limits of American power. Forty-five years later, it is doing the same thing, although in vastly different circumstances. Back then, when the post-Vietnam military was at a low ebb, we didn't strike Iran, and a ...

Chronic pain

Everyone knows that pain is a signal that there is something wrong with their body. It may be the result of some type of injury, an illness, or it may accompany a surgical procedure. The pain is supposed to go away as the body heals. On occasion, the pain may last longer than expected, longer ...

We’ve been here before

Sitting in the Fairmont City Council work sessions last week, I had feelings of Deja Vu. Haven’t we been here before? Are we not repeating conversations that have already taken place? With the roughly $12 million in Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) that council has available, it’s looking to spend about $10 million on an all seasons rec center. It was first referred to as a community building and then settled on as all seasons rec center. It was largely agreed upon not to call it a community center as there are sore feelings associated with that exact phrase. Call it what you want, ...

Talking ourselves into failure

There are a couple of stories that seem unrelated but are very related. They show the story of a country that used to build things and has decided, without ever quite admitting it, that building is too hard. Start with the missiles. Rep. Mike Turner was on television last week talking about ...

The normalcy of American wars

The war in Iran is unlawful and unconstitutional, but in post-World War II America, it is normal. Here is the backstory. When President Donald Trump decided to begin bombing Iran last June, he did not state a coherent or lawful reason for doing so. His director of national intelligence and ...