O Ziggy, will you ever win?

Lawsuits be damned! I love Ziggy!

The Big Picture

This is the Deep Field shot from Hubble. There are a few stars in this picture (they'll have four points), but for the most part, everything you see here is a galaxy, completely separate and far away from our own.

Our own galaxy (medium sized in the galactic scale) has approximately 200 Billion stars; current estimates put the number of observable galaxies over 100 Billion, half of which would have more stars than our own.

Think about this for a moment, the scale of it. And that all of the matter that makes up Earth and everything on it is no different than the matter that makes up all these galaxies.

In relation to this scale, and the homogeneity of everything that exists within this scale, what, precisely, is our role in it? If a role we have at all.

Teleprompters!

If you're one of my many thousands of regular, loyal readers, you're probably don't need any convincing. But if you just happened to stumble upon my place here on the intertubes, let me state this is as clearly as I can:

The Republican Party is insane. They offer nothing but mockery and lies. They are, at the moment, not worthy of being called a minority party or the "loyal" opposition, as they have no sincerity. They've ruined this nation and its place in the world, and yet still, they seek nothing but destruction.

I hope saner minds can prevail, because there are certainly parts of "Conservative" thinking which are valid and need to be articulated. But not by these clowns, minions and disciples of the Atwater/Rove School of Republican Politics, which, in its purest form, is nothing but post-modern bullshit.

Keep fighting in any way you can these truly dangerous fools.

2 Big 2 Fail

See what I did there? Witty, huh?

Undercover Putin

Can you believe known SPY and former COMMUNIST Vladmir Putin was able to get this close to St. Ronnie, without St. Ronnie even knowing who he was?! We better watch these Ruskies - they're sneaky!

Math is Hard!

Sometimes. Other times it's quite tasty!

The Adventures of OctoMom (future) and Dungeon Dad

That's not OctoMom of course. Don't know who that is. That's Dungeon Dad though. What a superhero team they could make....


But seriously, dude is sick. Can you be sick AND Evil?

Spring!

Awww part 2;


Enjoy the equinox everyone!

Awwww.....

Imprinting is an amazing thing - Dogs and Duckies living in happy family harmony? Crazy!

BSG

If you haven't watched Battlestar Galactica by now, it is far too late for you to watch and appreciate the finale, which airs this Friday night. However, there is always DVD, which in many - most - ways is the far superior viewing experience.

But if you have been watching, no doubt you are a'quiver on how this crazy story will end. It seems to me the show has consciously chosen to be depressing whenever able, so I'm betting on a downer of a closer, with of course the seeds of hope - the next circle - planted and taken root.

Great episodic storytelling is something TV can do extremely well, when done right. And BSG has been done it right from the first episode. Does not happen very often in television, to be sure.

Without pause, here's Redshirt's 5 greatest TV series in history (nerd universe):

1. Angel
2. BTVS
3. Lost
4. BSG
5. DS9


Finally, won't you spare a laid off Cylon a dollar?

He's Dead, Jim

Odds are, you're not the Captain or the Doctor.

Inevitablity

There is an approaching crossroads we will face, which briefly is: Our technology grows ever more powerful - exponentially so - yet our minds remain mostly that of tribal creatures, ever on the lookout for "Others". This tribal mindset - which we share in large part with the rest of the animal kingdom - is the major reason for our wars, violence, hate, etc.

But we're so very much better at expressing this hate, this fear. We've been living under this new danger since the invention of the nuclear bomb, but now, with nuclear technology in reach of almost any dedicated people, what's to keep that genie in the bottle for much longer? What's to prevent our technology from killing us?

Not much. A wing and a prayer. We are well underway now into the next paradigm - robotic warfare. Does anyone think this will in anyway improve the human condition?

Or, is it more likely with the horrors of war a step removed, we'll find ever more reasons to fight?

Laugh now....

While you can. Cuz our future robotic overlords won't be so tolerant of your jokes.

I didn't do it!

It was the cat, I swear!

Dem monkeys is smaht

Word from the frontiers of science:

According to a report in the journal Current Biology, the 31-year-old alpha male started building his weapons cache in the morning before the zoo opened, collecting rocks and knocking out disks from concrete boulders inside his enclosure. He waited until around midday before he unleashed a "hailstorm" of rocks against visitors, the study said.

"These observations convincingly show that our fellow apes do consider the future in a very complex way," said the author of the report, Lund University Ph.D. student Mathias Osvath. "It implies that they have a highly developed consciousness, including lifelike mental simulations of potential events.

This is but the penultimate step before we are forced into full scale war versus the Simians -- hear me now, Apes: We will not let you catch us unawares!

Of course, the last step is fire: If them monkeys ever start making and managing fires,we must engage in a preemptive War of Human Freedom against said monkeys. Don't wait until there is a mushroom cloud over every human city!

Go Johannes!

This is really big news from the Redshirt corner. This here satellite based telescope, named after that swell fella Kepler, is designed to spot exo-planets.

To date, we've found approximately 350 exo-planets, but all were inferred to be present, either through observing a gravitational wobble in the parent star, or in periodic dimming of the star's light as the exo-planet passes in front. Better than nothing, to be sure, but these inferrences are limited, and only would discover rather freakish planets of Jupiter size, yet also close to their sun -- that is, nothing like our Solar System.

I believe this is only due to our lack of tools, not because there are no other solar systems out there like ours. Kepler will add to the ongoing revolution in astronomy since Copernicus, which can be summarized as such: We're not the center of anything.

Each new astronomical discovery makes it ever more clear what our true place in existence is -- a dust mote - and with each discovery, I hope, the God Squad and their myths are knocked ever further back into the ignorant shadows.

Because, when Kepler finds a planet similar to ours, orbiting a sun similar to ours, with similar elements in its atmosphere, it will be another new chapter in this ongoing story of humanity understanding our place in existence. A great new chapter, the first one that has real potential for awesome discoveries (to wit: Life, everywhere).

Stay tuned!

Such sweet hypocrisy

The Repuglican party, apparently, is the party that represents, supposedly, family values, pro-life, drug free life choices, and so on and such.

So who better to lead the Repuglican party than a thrice divorced drug addict who's fond of sex tours in the Domincan Republic? Given the recent roster of Republican "stars" (Craig, Foley, Vitter), it makes sense.


But really, is there no level of cognitive dissonance that will throw a fuse in some of these Repubtard brains?

The Real OctoMom

Forget about that Jolina wannabe; never forget our true multi-limbed Mother, yeah?


It's Cthulhu, for you heathens out there.

ALL HAIL!

Dictatorship Over!

If you care, you already know: The USA was for all intents a Dictatorship from 9/12/01 to about 12/31/08.

If you don't care, you'll never admit this, and instead engage the usual bullshit Republican lies. But, in the interest of engagement, here's a link:
GLENZILLA

To wit: Our Constitution was mostly suspended due to some nifty memos -- memos! - and we've all been surviving by the Grace of our now departed Dear Leader.

For no other reason then preventing this from happening again (even with my man Obama), all the secrets need to come out, and people have to be held accountable. Otherwise, what is a society of laws? Nothing, that's what.

For example, Karl Rove flat out ignores Congressional subpoenas, and walks and talks on Fox news all the while. How's that work?