First, a bit of Doomsday Astro-Porn: On February 15 (just a few months from now), Asteroid 2012 DA14 will whoosh between the Earth and our geostationary communication satellites. You read that right. Not between the Earth and the Moon, but below high Earth orbit. Current estimates have is blasting past at just 22,500km above the surface of the ( Read more... )

Y'know, checking my posting frequency really reveals how much time grading and teaching-related work consumes a teacher's life from mid-terms through the end of the semester. Sorry! Dropping in for a quick update before, yes, getting back to grading.

But first, I'm going to VOTE EARLY at the Burge Union at the University of Kansas! If you live in ( Read more... )

There's been lots of talk in the media about banning guns and so forth since the Colorado shooting. That's nonsense, even assuming we could collect every gun (and they likely outnumber American citizens) in this country, because the bad guys are certain to not turn in their weapons. But really, this is only a symptom ( Read more... )

Bad news: The US gov't just probed deeper into your private life.


( Read more... )

Have you been following the Doonesbury comics over the past week? Holy Relevant Politics, Batman!

Here's the progression so far:


( Read more... )

( Read more... )

"What's the Occupy movement all about? They have no agenda except to beat drums and bitch and stink up our parks with dirty hippies."You hear this a lot, especially from those who think that the banking system or Corporate Persons will save us; in other words, from peopel who forgot that those very institutions are the reason we're in the mess we' ( Read more... )

1) Asimov's Science Fiction magazine editor Sheila Williams writes a lovely editorial about my SF workshop and the Center for the Study of Science Fiction, including happy memories of riding on the back of my scooter ;-)

2) Excellent article examining the Occupy and T-Party movements - how they're really just two halves of the same thing:


( Read more... )

What is happening to this country?

I've been wondering this for most of my adult life, but it's come up a lot during the past decade, and the past few days of following the Wall Street protest news coverage - more to the point, the lack of news coverage - have made this question blow up once more ( Read more... )

So the country won't go into receivership today because the Congress happened to finish a bill that would raise the debt ceiling and the Senate approved it. Was anyone surprised? The only part that surprised me was that they somehow managed to create a 12-person crew to guide cuts and so forth that's half Dem and half Repub. Perhaps it's less ( Read more... )