Sam Graves

There are 12 million illegal immigrants in this country - drawing welfare benefits, sending their children to public schools, and pushing down wages for American workers - but the problem extends well beyond amnesty and open borders.

Bringing buyers and sellers together through a single platform is not a new idea - most of us know about eBay's success - but with advancing technology comes new innovative methods for businesses to connect customers with those who want to offer services.

Finding a 'sacrificial lamb' on whom to tag blame for complicated problems is an important instrument in the toolkit of politicians, because it deflects blame for the nation's economic woes away from their own regulatory lapses, economic mismanagement and coddling to labor unions.

The historical novelist has to consider what has actually happened, while the SF writer is dealing in possibilities, but they are both in the business of imagining a world unlike our own and yet connected to it.