Here's a few things rattling around my brain.
Columbia
It was sad and horrible, but I think I'm suffering from disaster fatigue. So many big, bad things have happened on the Dubya watch that I think I'm starting to get burned out on them all. That seems like a bad thing, but I'm not sure why. I still feel compassion, but I feel indifferent to disaster now. Maybe it's just a question of scale. I mean, more people died in the first 60 seconds of the World Trade Center attack than died over Texas.
But what I don't get is this debate about whether we should even go into space at all. I mean, how stupid, honestly. I can see these idiots standing around King Charles after Magellan's expedition came back...
Charles: I commend you, sirs, on your achievement of circumnavigating the globe. Pray, where is Magellan?
Sailor: Dear sir, he hath perished, killed in battle upon an island in the Pacific.
Skeptics: SEE? SAILING IS DANGEROUS!!! WE SHOULDN"T RISK OUR LIVES WHEN WE COULD SEND ROBOTIC SHIPS TO TAKE PICTURES OF FAUNA, SEARCH FOR GOLD, AND CONVERT THE HEATHEN TO CHRIST!!!
Humans want to know what's over the next hill. Sending a robot with a camera to take some nice pictures and conduct some nice experiments is the death of science itself. Computers can do deductive science, but they are terrible at inductive and intuitive reasoning. I'd like to suggest to the writers of these editorials that, perhaps, their columns and screeds can be written by machine. I mean, what's so hard about inputing an idea and letting the algorhitim spit out an article? It'd save a lot of money, and it means fewer risks of getting sued for libel because your columnist, in a burst of creative energy, called someone an ass.
Music math
Ben Folds = Dave Matthews + Billy Joel.
Ben Kweller = Ben Folds + Beck.
Dave Matthews = Grateful Dead + James Taylor.
Ben Harper = (Bob Marley / Jimi Hendrix) + James Taylor.
Nectarines
Kat wants a fresh nectarine. So do I. Heck, I'd even take a fresh peach that didn't taste like it was picked green two weeks ago.
