I just got a spiffy certificate in my employer's intra-office mail. (It's one of those employee-recognition things that they do in lieu of giving us anything of financial value.) Lest it sound as though I'm b*tching about it, really I'm not--when folks in this line of work get something like this, it frequently comes attached to something that's ( Read more... )

The much-delayed final launch of Discovery (note that this is NOT the last launch of the program, just of that specific Orbiter--the news outlets are all using highly misleading sentence structure) is scheduled for today. And it looks good for actually lighting the candle, this time ( Read more... )

I have been known to claim that there is a "Dummies" and/or "Idiot's Guide" book for ANYTHING. Obviously, that's not strictly true. I seriously doubt that "Cooking Meth for Dummies" is an actual published book, for instance ( Read more... )

Here in the Houston area, a school district is being threatened with violence, apparently by a parent of some unhappy students. A letter specifies "bleeding-heart liberals" as the reason, and phone text messages are following up with the statement that someone's going to start shooting middle-schoolers ( Read more... )

"Remember, remember, the 5th of November
The Gunpowder Treason and plot ;
I know of no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot."

But the Shuttle launch has been delayed (yet again), so you'll have to supply your own fireworks.

In case anyone is interested in an ACTUAL "fact-based" science-popularization article on the topic of one-way Mars colonization and the "Hundred-Year Starship" project, here's one that's NOT from Faux News:

This one is from Discovery Channel's online newsFeel free to read both articles, and see for yourself which one is more fact-based ( Read more... )

It's Election Day. But that's not what this post is about. (It is, however, arguably political.)

I keep hearing that while Fox News's editorial/opinion pieces have a "conservative slant", their straight news is top-notch.

This would appear to be a "straight news" piece from Fox. The name of the game: "Find A Fact".Here's mine: "35 million ( Read more... )

It occurs to me that the subject line may be misleading. This isn't one of those "life experiences" posts in which the author wists for the opportunity a "do-over" of their youth while taking advantage of lessons learned later in life. (I mean, let's face it...if *I* were to go there, the results would likely be...less than entirely pleasant for ( Read more... )

I appear to have been stymied by the quickly-shifting vagaries of fashion...and in a most unexpected area ( Read more... )

I've been engaged for the past couple months in one of my periodic orgies of all 5 years of Babylon 5. Every time I do this, I am struck by the physical appearance of President Clark. The first time I watched the series was some time around 2005, and at that time I was struck by his resemblance to Dick Cheney (albeit an alternate-universe Cheney ( Read more... )