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OPINION: For anyone with an I.Q. above seventy, the Drudge Report is a wasteland of filth, bile, lies, and dreck. So when it was reported that a former writer for that site published an expletive-riddled story equating conservatism with cancer, a great many people took note.

OPINION: The seven core positions of conservatives pose a very real threat to democracy in the United States. You have undoubtedly noticed some of their more onerous activities, but it might be instructive to examine their seven subversive doctrines all at once. Hold your nose and let's start wading through the muck of the Seven Pillars of Perfidy.

OPINION: After Mexico became No. 1 in obesity and diabetes in June, their new President Pena Nieto surprisingly recommended as a solution the no-carb herbal sweetener stevia discovered by the South American tribes. And while soda lovers criticized Mayor Bloomberg’s campaign to reduce the size of sodas, most fit Americans and Mexicans cheered on their bold interventions.

BOOK REVIEW: How much humor do you expect from an astrophysicist? How much passion? What should be the ratio of fact to fancy in the essays of a scientist? With Neil deGrasse Tyson, you get an enjoyable mixture of levity and reality on a subject that might hold the key to your future.

BOOK REVIEW: Every presidential election is deemed crucial to America but with the choice of Obama versus the obviously unqualified Mitt Romney, it was more than crucial; it was imperative. In the detailed yet fast-paced 'The Center Holds,' author Jonathan Alter takes you inside the campaigns and reveals some of the evil forces backing the GOP.

OPINION: On this 4th of July, wouldn’t it be a dream come true for the U.S. and many World Citizens if President Thomas Jefferson, the author of our Declaration of independence and Bill of Rights, came back at this pivotal time to coach us on getting our Grand Experiment in Democracy back on course?

BOOK REVIEW: The deterioration of our country during the past three-and-a-half decades makes for a broad canvas but author George Packer provides insightful detail and hits some emotional high points. There was an incredible battle in the United States from around 1978 until right now, a conflagration that did not emphasize armed conflict but which decimated large chunks of the basic goodness of our nation.

COMMENTARY: Do not get too excited about the good news for marriage rights because the troglodyte half of the Supreme Court has gutted a...

OPINION: New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg(D), a phenomenal champion of American Children and Nature, passed on last week at 89. At his NY funeral he was deeply honored by half the Senate on both sides of the aisle, plus NJ Governor Chris Christie (R), Hillary Clinton and Vice President Biden for his passion and foresight in saving millions of Americans through his No Smoking law, raising the drinking age to 21, and fighting for women’s rights and gun control.

BOOK REVIEW: Want to know how and why Washington is such a mess? Two respected analysts of governmental policy, one from the progressive Brookings Institution and the other from the troglodyte American Enterprise Institute, demonstrate that the GOP is at fault.

ARTICLE: In 1977, fellow Olympic skier Billy Kidd and I had an adventure of a lifetime, skiing with Iranian Queen Farah Diba Pahlavi in their fresh "Persian Powder." It was to promote skiing and goodwill with Iran, made possible by two visionary friends, the popular TV host Barry ZeVan and Iran’s Ambassador to the U.S., Ardeshir Zahedi.

BOOK REVIEW: When you're at work, you have some idea of the product or service your employer provides. Not so for "The Girls of Atomic City." They had no idea they were helping create Fat Man and Little Boy, the bombs used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII.

BOOK REVIEW: Malcolm X is still controversial nearly 50 years after his assassination. In examining his life from a multitude of perspectives, author Manning Marable brings the reader close to Malcolm's thoughts, deeds, leadership, struggles, conflicts, contradictions, and presence -- which even today seems to have been larger than life.

ARTICLE: The National Ski Areas Association’s NRDC study said that Colorado and Utah would be losing its snow by the end of the century unless there is an intervention - the East likely earlier. Fortunately, a consensus of the UN's 192 countries in 2012 identified the key to regenerating Earth: a combination of science/green energy and Ancient Wisdom, especially through the tribes.

REVIEW: When the United States of America was just a gleam in our founding fathers' eyes, the country faced some fascinating dichotomies, including human equality versus inhumane captivity and popular will versus monarchal rule. These battles and several others play out in intimate detail in Jon Meacham's excellent "Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power."

BOOK REVIEW: As science reveals more about our place in the universe, sentient beings are ecstatic about Sean Carroll's "The Particle at the End of the Universe" and its view of what might be called the blueprints of reality.

OPINION: For the last two hundred million years up until 1970, our 'home' looked like this beautiful blue planet from Apollo 17 with three satellites orbiting it. Today, earth is shrouded with about 1,100 satellites, most for cell phone companies, and a half a million pieces of trashed ones, and most dangerous of all, some dumped nuclear waste. Together they are blocking the critical sunlight that Man and Nature need to happily thrive.

REVIEW: A newcomer to American politics would write off the Republican Party as a gang of xenophobic, racist, theocratic, misogynistic, fiscally irresponsible war-mongers. In "Rule and Ruin," Geoffrey Kabaservice explains how and why this happened.

OPINION: What if we had the power to reduce the roots of violence by 50% – including one in three women raped world-wide -...

ARTICLE: Wendell Potter, formerly a propagandist for various avaricious and venal corporations, 'fesses up and reveals the prevarication, lying, deception, and obfuscation of the industries that pick your pocket every day. His 'Deadly Spin' opens the playbook used by corrupt companies, insufferable industries, and the GOP.

OPINION: People around the world have recently mourned the passing of Whitney, Amy Winehouse, and First Lady Betty Ford, exemplified by the touching New Years Tributes and Grammy Salute to Whitney. With the help of doctors Drew, Phil and Gupte these (celestial) shooting stars left us with priceless lessons to prevent or recover from alcoholism.

OPINION: People see the GOP as an out-of-touch, uncaring, heartless, backward, ignorant, and dangerous group of people who drape themselves in the flag as they pursue an ugly and vicious form of anti-Americanism. The GOP can't figure out why.

OPINION: “Some good must come of this,” has been the cry after one of the worst mass killings in U.S. history at Newtown’s Sandy...

ARTICLE: Sense, sensibility, sarcasm, and spot-on skewering of political blowhards and buffoons: welcome to the writing of Molly Ivins. Beginning as a staff writer for the scrappy Texas Observer before moving on to the major-market New York Times, Molly Ivins enjoyed a brilliant career that raised the collective consciousness about US politics.