The planet is in distress and all of the attention is on Paris Hilton. - Al Gore

China has led the world in new tree planting; in fact, over the last several years, China has planted 40 percent as many tress as the rest of the world put together. Since 1981, all citizens of China older than age eleven (and younger than sixty) have been formally required to plant at least three trees per year. To date, China has planted approximately 100 million acres of new tress. Following China, the countries with the largest net gains in tress include the U.S., India, Vietnam, and Spain.

What happened at the prison, it is now clear, was not the result of random acts by "a few bad apples," it was the natural consequence of the Bush Administration policy that has dismantled those wise constraints and has made war on America's checks and balances.

"It is well documented that humans are especially fearful of threats than can be easily pictured or imagined. For example, one study found that people are willing to spend significantly more for flight insurance that covers "death from 'terrorist acts'" than for flight insurance that covers "death from 'all possible causes'". Now, logically, flight insurance for death by any cause would cover terrorism in addition to a number of other potential problems. But something about the buzzword "terrorism" created a vivid impression that generates excessive fear.

The flight insurance example highlights another psychological phenomenon that is important to understanding how fear influences our thinking: "probability neglect". Social scientists have found that when confronted with either an enormous threat or a huge reward, people tend to focus on the magnitude of the consequence and ignore probability."