Seeing his carefully nurtured negotiations melt into the hell of rocket and artillery barrages, then-U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher flew to Damascus to mediate a ceasefire.

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We also explored several pressing environmental issues as record levels of radiation were found in fish near Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant and we delved into the Gates of Hell -- a burning gas crater in Turkmenistan that has been ablaze for 41 years.

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Instead of a probabilistic world where we are comfortable making decisions according to, say, the odds of thunderstorms ruining a picnic, we are thrust into binary hell, where the choices and chances are only two: win or lose, white or black, benign or malignant.

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That led me to deeper questions like, Why the hell did you get into the fan business in the first place?

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