Some items that caught my eye this morning.
-- The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics discusses the supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy, which weighs in at 4.3 million times the mass of the sun:
The Milky Way's supermassive black hole.
-- Popular Mechanics brings us instructions on how to build your own solar oven. Perfect for when you don't want to bake in a kitchen that's already hovering around 85 degrees:
Who needs a grill? Build a hot-box solar oven.
-- Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) believes the government should end testing on primates, for both economical and ethical reasons:
Stop using chimps as guinea pigs.
-- Also from the New York Times, editorialist Timothy Egan wonders if perhaps God is deliberately ignoring the secessionist who would be president, Texas Gov. Rick Perry:
Rick Perry's unanswered prayers.
-- The American Family Association is one of Perry's backers, having contributed more than $1 million to his recent prayer rally. Their views on the First Amendment are what you might call "unorthodox":
Islam and the First Amendment: Privileges, but not rights.
-- Foreign Policy's P.W. Singer puts forward points on how to smartly cut defense spending:
Think before you cut. Last I heard, military bands were set to lost more than 60 percent of their budgets in the next fiscal year.
-- Speaking of bands, U.S. Air Forces Central reports on the breakout hit by the Sidewinder band, which covered Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" for a small audience in Southwest Asia:
U.S. Air Forces Central Command Band goes viral. Maybe this can reverse the seemingly popular opinion that the bands should go away.
-- Interestingly, while the original video has reached more than 300,000 views, the website links to a re-uploaded copy -- presumably because
the Airman who originally posted the video is
gay and
outspoken about
Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
So what's caught your attention lately? :) Feel free to share!