cedar sprig's blog

It's the only thing that explains our head of state's sudden interest in space travel.

I myself am all for giving NASA a boost and seriously considering new space missions. The pricetag isn't all that bad compared to other government expenditures. NASA gets a little under 1%, while military, for example, is to receive about 16% of the 2.77 trillion dollar budget for this year. Spaceflight is a good way to get people's minds off their political squabbles too, and gives scifi fans something to cheer about. I know I've read enough inspiring stories about life springing up on other planets to be delighted at the thought I might see some of it in my lifetime.  Read More »

The deal with the ports has turned into full-blown media storm overnight, it seems, although the result is a bit fuzzy. The suddenness with which this thing has sprung to life indicates that something's not right. But is it the credentials of the Dubai company? That's what the opposition to the deal claims. If the US has been so focused on national security, why are we selling off ports to an Arab company? The defense says Dubai Ports World has been checked out, UAE has been a good ally to the US, and the ports were already being managed by a foreign company, for goodness sakes.  Read More »

So the US has sold some of its ports to UAE, United Arab Emirate? But those ports actually belonged to a British company, and in fact most US ports don't belong to the US at all? I feel like I've missed something important, but I'm not quite sure what it is. It seems a little odd that there was nothing in the news about this Dubai thing until this week, even though the deal was set up in January.  Maybe it's just the media getting riled up about regular business practice. I wouldn't be surprised to hear money changed hands along the way, but that's how business is done these days.  Read More »

...is going to be bad. Why? Because in addition to the plethora of diseases out there just waiting to become the next big epidemic, the systems that are supposed to help out are also in trouble. I.e. the hospitals.

Clostridium difficile is a nasty bug, a bacteria that hangs out in hospitals and leads to diarrhea, colitis, and death. When the 1996-2003 study was done on it, the researchers had to break their data between 1999 and 2000 because the incidence of C. difficile Associated Disease (CDAD) went up too fast, too suddenly to fit on a neat line with the 1996-1999 data. That's a bit concerning.  Read More »

I admit, I am suffering from temptations of bad blogging.

A good blogger writes short, concise bites of information. He researches well, condenses it into a comprehensive summary and presents an opinion that has been thought out carefully. The finished piece is a crafted article worthy of a reader's attention. It carries weight, has a point, and if the blogger is especially talented it is fun to read too.  Read More »

A mishmash of comments cascaded in response to this post http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/19/143845/711. They can be split three ways.

1. The president talked to Michael Crichton about global warming? Great, let's name lots of writers for different government jobs, to show how ridiculous it would be to put a writer in any 'real' job.  Read More »

Think about all that science fiction out there, and wonder: Does it really have any impact on the world? Is there a point to science fiction--or fantasy, for that matter--aside from pure escapism? On the Beach warned of nuclear apocalypse and was very popular, but it was economics that saved the world from atomic kablooie. Reams and reams of sci fi from the Golden Age of the genre spoke to how desperately people wanted space travel, yet here we are, in a recession of the technology that can put people into space. The space station's a fingerhold.  Read More »

Remember the big controversy 16 years ago with the endangered spotted owls in pacific northwest forests? Well, no, you probably don't. Environmentalists who wanted to stop logging in the national forests latched onto the unutterably cute li'l owls as a perfect excuse to, well, stop logging. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal today, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has decided it is now time to go about recovering the declining species. The problem: The spotted owls have already declined most of the way, but not because of logging. No, this time it's because barred owls have moved in and are killing the spotted owls off. As far as anyone can tell, spotted owls don't actually care one way or the other about having classic old-growth forests.  Read More »