Word: traces
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...recent years about the safety of some common types of plastics. We think of plastic as essentially inert; after all, it takes hundreds of years for a plastic bottle to degrade in a landfill. But as plastic ages or is exposed to heat or stress, it can release trace amounts of some of its ingredients. Of particular concern these days are bisphenol-a (BPA), used to strengthen some plastics, and phthalates, used to soften others. Each ingredient is a part of hundreds of household items; BPA is in everything from baby bottles to can linings (to protect against E. coli...
...growing cadre of participatory democracy sites gathered last week in New York City at the Personal Democracy Forum, a national conference on the intersection of technology and politics. They demonstrated an array of new tools that enable voters to annotate and edit prospective legislation, monitor congressional speeches and trace links between political contributions and voting patterns. Some of the still nascent tools blend the advantages of crowd-powered sites like Digg and Reddit with the social networking of Facebook and LinkedIn...
...Washington, where he gave a 12-slide PowerPoint presentation demonstrating just how confident they are. Plouffe identified 18 "battleground" states, all but four of which (Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Michigan and Wisconsin) voted for Bush in 2004. "Our strategic orientation now is to play offense," Plouffe said with a trace of a smile. He added: "The point is, we have a lot of different scenarios to get to 270" - the number of electoral votes needed...
Carlin's material grew increasingly dark in later years, to the point where he was cheerleading (with only a trace of irony) for mass suicide and ecological disaster. "I sort of gave up on this whole human adventure a long time ago," he liked to say, his cynicism at odds with a sweetly unpretentious demeanor that made him almost universally beloved in the comedy world. "Divorced myself from it emotionally. I think the human race has squandered its gift and this country has squandered its promise. I think people in America sold out very cheaply, for sneakers and cheeseburgers...
...patriotism both have defects. In a country where today's nativists are yesterday's immigrants and where change is practically a national religion, conservative patriotism can seem anachronistic. To be Spanish or Russian or Japanese is to imagine that you share a common ancestry and common traditions that trace back into the mists of time. But in America, where most people hail from somewhere else, that kind of blood-and-soil patriotism makes no sense. There is something vaguely farcical about conservative panic over Mexican flags in Los Angeles when Irish flags have long festooned Boston's streets...