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Friday, March 12, 2004 |
Friday Five
1. What was the last song you heard? It Ain't Me, Babe from the Chicago, 3/7 concert.
2. What were the last two movies you saw? Barbarian Invasions and A Mighty Wind.
3. What were the last three things you purchased? Gas, National Lampoon's High School Yearbook, lunch, a bath for the dog.
4. What four things do you need to do this weekend? buy groceries, mow the lawn, return library books, finish reading that Joe Gores novel.
5. Who are the last five people you talked to? Ken, waitress at Wilman's Catfish Kitchen, Genevieve, Richard, Margaret
6:02:48 PM Permalink
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People Don't Care What Happened 13 Billion Years Ago
Bob Park shows how out of touch NASA really is, in this post about Hubble and the shuttle.
There was brief joy among astronomers
yesterday when they heard the news that NASA had agreed to have the
National Academy of Sciences consider the decision to cancel another
Hubble repair mission on safety grounds. But later in the day, Sean
O’Keefe, the NASA Administrator, punched a hole in their canoe. He made
it clear that while he was willing to have experts look at the
decision, there was nothing they could say that would change his mind.
I called Ann Thropojinic, a veteran astronaut at NASA Headquarters, to
help me understand this. "You scientists just don’t get it, do you?"
she sighed. "People don’t care what’s going on 13 billion light years
away. They want to know how you eat spaghetti in zero gravity. You
should have thought about that before you let Hubble go up without a
permanent crew."
Don't these people surf the net? How many times in the last few days
have you seen posts on that fantastic Hubble deep space exposure? How
many water cooler conversations have you had? Heck, I don't even work
in an office, and I've had several. Now compare that with the number of
conversations you've had abut how people eat spaghetti in space: zero
in my case. So this veteran astronaut things that eating spaghetti in
microgravity is more interesting than the beginnings of the universe.
What contempt that shows for everyone.
Pah.
3:58:48 PM Permalink
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Atheist Group to Assume Role as Political Power Broker.
Washington, D.C., March 12, 2004 Special to The Raving Atheist Seeking
to capitalize on the rapidly-growing popularity of atheism in America,
a group of nonbelievers has formed an organization to endorse
candidates and lobby lawmakers. Created by American Atheists president
Ellen Johnson, the National Atheist Media/Business Lobbying
Association, or NAMBLA,... [The Raving Atheist]
11:36:41 AM Permalink
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Some recent reading
I've been doing a lot of book reading lately, a mixed bag. I'm
finishing fewer books than I used to, I think; I seem to have less
patience with some things that I don't think I'll end up caring for.
Anyway, here's a rundown of some books:
Absolute Friends:
Since I usually like Le Carre's work, I was looking forward to this
one. But I dont' know what it was, I just couldn't get past the first
chapter or two. (Actually, I got interrupted by wanting to read the new
Elmore Leonard.) But something in the tone of the first couple chapters
put me off. I could tell the main character was going to be a good/bad
guy, maybe, and felt maybe I had been down this road before. I probably
should have stayed with it.
Mr. Paradise:
This is the strongest of Elmore Leonard's recent novels; very
entertaining, with the patented Leonard dialog. I like his novels that
have strong women, and strong love stories. This one has a wealth of
interetsing characters, and is at times laugh out loud funny. Slight,
plot-wise, as Leonard often is, but well worth the read.
The Stranger at the Palazzo D'Oro:
Several friends have told me they liked Theroux's last collection, so I
thought I'd give this one a shot. Lots of interesting stuff in these
stories, but they all ended up delivering less than the promised. The
title story is strongest, yet somehow the biggest failure. I love it's
first lines.
Lost in Space:
Greg Klerkx writes a damnng account of how NASA has failed us all in
the post-Apollo years. Instead of a "right stuff" organization, it's a
bureaucracy seemingly intent in protecting its own bailiwick. So
instead of private enterprise in space and a fleet of different tools
for space exploration we have a space shuttle that doesn't go anywhere,
and a space station that doesn't do anything. Though it's a bit
disorganized, I highly recommend this book to anyone who wonders where
we've gone wrong so far in space. I'm also looking forward to reading a
more detailed book about the Columbia disaster; I assume several are
forthcoming.
Simple Twist of Fate:
Kevin Odegard, who played on the Minnesota sessions during which Bob
Dylan re-recorded much of Blood on the Tracks, tells the story of those
sessions, and also has interviews with other players from those and the
New York sessions which preceded them. Good stuff, though the first
chapters, "setting the scene" are discouraging beginnings to the book.
Odegard knows Dylan and his brother, and this is the first book to
really discuss his brother in much detail. The original interviews with
the musicians are very good, though much of this material has been
discussed before, notably in Clinton Heylin's biograpys. Still, worth a
read.
11:14:07 AM Permalink
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A Natural Progression. Brayden King is in Depression, Stage 4 of the Five Stages of Blogging. Characterized by morbid feelings that your blog may somehow get you into trouble, this stage follows Denial (“I don’t really have a blog, it’s just a webpage I update sometimes”), Anger (“Why the hell isn’t anyone reading my blog?”), and Bargaining (“I’ll only post once a day, I promise”). Fortunately it is usually followed in short order by Acceptance. [Crooked Timber]
10:09:11 AM Permalink
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A religious right inspired bill to destroy wireless broadcasting and crush free speech is starting to work its way through Congress. The concept of "indecency" can be stretched to apply to anything that the dominant party in Congress doesn't agree with. Time to end this dangerous farce.
The Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2004, which passed 391-22, would give the Federal Communications Commission the ability to levy fines of up to $500,000 per violation, up from the current $27,500. Because many shows are syndicated and played on numerous stations around the country, fines could run into the millions of dollars. [John Robb's Weblog]
9:53:06 AM Permalink
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Scandal du jour. Remember the flap when the Bush administration surprised us with the news that their Medicare program was going to wind up costing at least $150 billion more than they admitted when they were trying to get it passed in Congress? Yesterday Knight-Ridder broke the news that Richard S. Foster, the chief actuary for Medicare, had come up with accurate estimates long before the bill came up for a vote, but was threatened with dismissal if he disclosed those estimates. A crooked bunch of liars indeed. [rc3.org Daily]
9:46:33 AM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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