Considerable evidence suggest that if we use an increase in our incomes, as many of us do, simply to buy bigger houses and more expensive cars, then we do not end up any happier than before. But if we use an increase in our incomes to buy more of certain inconspicuous goods - such as freedom from a long commute or a stressful job - then the evidence paints a very different picture. The less we spend on conspicuous consumption goods, the better we can afford to alleviate congestion; and the more time we can devote to family and friends, to exercise, sleep, travel and other restorative activities. On the best available evidence, reallocating our time and money in these and similar ways would result in healthier, longer - and happier - lives.

During pretrial hearings, Ron's behavior in the courtroom served to underscore his lawyers' contention that he was mentally incompetent. He appeared with a cloth sign attached to the seat of his prison jumpsuit that read, EXIT ONLY; his attorneys explained that he wore the sign to ward off the Mormon angel Moroni, who Ron believed was an evil homosexual spirit trying to invade his body through his anus. He believed that this same sodomizing spirit had already taken possession of Judge Hansen's body, which is why Ron made a point of shouting profanities at the judge and addressing him with such epithets as "Punky Brewster" and "f*cking punk."

Under the new rules, Matilda was no longer allowed to drive, handle money, or talk to anyone outside the family when Dan wasn't present, and she had to wear a dress at all times. The children were pulled out of school and forbidden to play with their friends. Dan decreed that the family was to receive no outside medical care; he began treating them himself by means of prayer, fasting, and herbal remedies. In July 1983, when their fifth child was born, a son, Dan delivered the baby at home and circumcised the boy himself.

They began raising much of their own food, scavenging the rest from dumpsters behind grocery stores, where stale, unsold bread and overripe produce were regularly discarded. Dan turned off the gas and electricity. No publications of any kind were allowed in the home, except Latter Day Saints books and magazines. Dan even got rid of all their watches and clocks, believing the should "keep time by the spirit." When Matilda disobeyed Dan, he spanked her.

Spank was the verb Dan used. According to Matilda, the blows he delivered felt more like "thumps". And when he thumped her, he often did it in front of Dan's mother, his brothers, and all their children. Afterward, he warned Matilda that if she continued to disobey, she would be forced out of the marriage without her children - who, according to the principles elucidated in The Peace Maker, were the father's property.

Dan also announced that he intended to engage in spiritual wifery at the earliest opportunity. And the first woman he proposed taking as a plural wife was Matilda's oldest daughter - his own stepdaughter.

hey, where's jesus and all his people.

you could hear the explosions on the mountains at night when you slept.

i knew there was trouble when the bodies started floating down the river.

my family hid in the forest for many months.

when i was caught they just kept pointing the gun at my head shouting "tell me why i shouldn't kill you right now. tell me why i shouldn't shoot you in the head. tell me why i should let you live."

there were hundreds of us in the prison and they didn't give us food or water. people were dying.

my father owned the sawmill and they didn't have anyone who could use the equipment so i got out of the prison to help them.

my family snuck into thailand.

i had to say that all of my relatives were dead so i would have a chance to come to the united states.

i said the only place i wanted to go was the united states and i didn't care where they sent us within the united states.

i was in san francisco for 10 days and then i came here (saint louis).

to feed my family i sold buckets of water for ten cents each.

we couldn't afford the meat so we just got the chicken bones and made soup from them.

i had to feed my family.

Welcome. And congratulations. I am delighted that you could make it. Getting here wasn't easy, I know. In fact, I suspect it was a little tougher than you realize.

To begin with, for you to be here now trillions of drifting atoms had somehow to assemble in an intricate and intriguingly obliging manner to create you. It's an arrangement so specialized and particular that it has never been tried before and will only exist this once. For the next many years (we hope) these tiny particles will uncomplainingly engage in all the billions of deft, cooperative efforts necessary to keep you intact and let you experience the supremely agreeable but generally under appreciated state known as existence.

Why atoms take this trouble is a bit of a puzzle. Being you is not a gratifying experience at the atomic level. For all their devoted attention, your atoms don't actually care about you - indeed, don't even know that you are there. They don't even know that they are there. They are mindless particles, after all, and not even themselves alive. (It is a slightly arresting notion that if you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you.) Yet somehow for the period of your existence they will answer to a single overarching impulse; to keep you you.

...

Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth's mountains and rivers and oceans, every one of your forebears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so. Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result - eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly - in you.

The Wart did not know what Merlyn was talking about, but he liked him to talk. He did not like the grown-ups who talked down to him, but the ones who went on talking in their usual way, leaving him to leap along in their wake, jumping at meanings, guessing, clutching at known words, and chuckling at complicated jokes as they suddenly dawned. He had the glee of the porpoise then, pouring and leaping through strange seas.

How the agent explained his plan to me was, we weren't targeting the smartest people in the world, just the most.

you could have heard a rat pissin on cotton.

The Flatirons present a bewildering maze of rock above and to the south of Boulder. Many famous rocks and routes grace this area. The First and Third Flatirons reign over downtown Boulder. A couple miles to the south, the Slab's squat mass dominates. Just north of Eldorado Canyon, the Devil's Thumb dominates the skyline. However, the true ruler of this area is the Maiden, unique among the Flatirons.

Viewed from the east, this crag is a nearly invisible blade of rock tucked in between other seemingly more substantial flatirons. However, while driving to Eldorado Canyon, the careful eye will discern the true nature of the Maiden. From the south, the Maiden is shaped like a dolphin leaping up the wave of the foothills. Climbers will immediately notice the imposing overhang on its west side as well as the vertical nature of its east ridge. No other summit in the Boulder area appears more improbable.

Up close, the effect is amplified rather than diminished. The east ridge terminates in the trees with a disturbingly narrow girth. The north and south faces are sheer, and the low angle west ridge terminates at a narrow vertical west face that leads to the amazing west overhang and the summit. Like Wyoming's Devils Tower and Utah's Ancient Art, the Maiden appears to be of otherworldly construction.

One of the highlights of any ascent of the Maiden is actually the descent. The rappel off the summit and over the West overhang is simply unbelievable. After completing this rappel for the first time, I couldn't believe that kind of excitement was both free and legal.

Christopher Columbus was the spearhead of the biggest invasion and genocide ever seen in the history of humanity.