I recall an essay I read years ago talking about how movies always do this, when characters find themselves in survival situations or the proverbial "last humans alive" situation their thoughts turn to sex.

The essay examined real-life parallels: shipwrecks, natural disasters, wartime, the bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki, even the Holocaust. It turns out that sex is almost always the LAST thing on everyone's mind in those times. Survival, privation, starvation, severe unfathomable depression.... all those things tend to shut down the body's desire to procreate/rut around for ol' times sake.

Anyway, that piece always stuck with me, so much so that whenever I see the cliche in the movies or TV nowadays, I call bullpuckey on it.

:-)

Replaced it with a french door, freezer on the bottom fridge.

Within a *day* I was wondering why I hadn't done that sooner. Things actually... *fit* in there, the stuff I use 90% of the time is within human height, it costs less to operate, and it looks better, too.

The only downside is that my house's galley kitchen was too small for most french door designs, so I had to get one too narrow to have the door ice maker, instead using the ice tray in the bottom freezer drawer. I can see below that a lot of owners don't like that; can't say it's ideal, but hey-- FRIDGE THAT WORKS GREAT.

(Oh, another downside: the stupid cat LOVES trying to climb into the freezer drawer when he hears it open.... always have to make sure I'm not crushing the thing when I shut it. Although, that's a convenient excuse to the GF if I ever do.... )

Except the last one.

Please?

Nope, nothing alike at all, no m'am.

(Trolling for effect....)

I have no issue with electing scientists to public office-- just as I have no issue with electing lawyers, academics, plumbers, or housewives. We live in a democracy, ALL citizens should have a voice-- and responsibilities.

That said, there is a clear, STARK difference between wanting the *input* of scientists in government, and having a *scientific government*.

Science is about truth and the quest for truth. There are correct answers, and incorrect answers.

Life, in all its messy glory, is impossible to reduce to a scientific equation. Even the best social sciences still fail to achieve anywhere near the utility as do the "hard" sciences in the world.

To return to my first statement: because democracy is so "messy," many people want to avoid it. All these politicians fighting, all these annoying arguments that never end. How much better would it all be if we had some non-partisan leaders, people who could rise above these petty squabbles-- men and women of science who would know the answers, experts who just know better than all those stupid voters who can't think for themselves.

That's not democracy, that's dictatorship. It's not fear of elites telling us rubes what to do-- it's a realization that elites of ALL stripes get things wrong for ALL SORTS of reasons: vanity, ego, hubris, dumb bad luck, etc.

I mean, it's not like scientists have ever been known to be wrong before, right?

I don't want rule by the techno-cratic elite any more than I want rule by the communist nomenklatura or the hundred dumbest kids in shop class.

Team effort, guys. It works, remember?

And we're still broke.

Now what?

Great idea, I agree! We can cut all the biggest items in the federal budget, like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security...

In other words, the amount of money being cut from Mars exploration is equal to what we were spending on the War on Terror in just 15 hours.

Oh. Right.

It's the entitlements, and the culture that enables them. All else-- whether NASA or even the "War on Terror"-- is a rounding error when compared to that.

You want NASA funded? Write AARP and tell them to stop lobbying for national bankruptcy.

And before anyone thinks this is bragging, it's not-- the societal view that says men go fast and women take a lot of time (if ever) can easily dominate how couples approach their relationship in bed. When the opposite is in effect-- the women go fast and the men take a lot of time (if ever) to climax-- it creates a COMPLETELY different set of pressures.

Believe me, there have been plenty of times I've heard about premature ejaculators and thought, "Damn lucky bastards."

As for updating the storyline, the best thing they can do is simply this: we have our moonbase, we discover an alien artifact on the Moon, alien artifact has an annoying habit of teleporting the entire freakin' Moon to new and interesting places of the week. No more "nuclear waste explosion" ludicrousness.

Series spends time trying to figure out how to get the Moon back to Earth in time to save what is surely a screwed-up Moonless Earth.

Hilarity ensues!

I want a laser pointer.

And a water gun.

And a paintball gun.

And a video camera with wireless video.

And a motion sensor (that activates the firing action).

And a audio speaker.

And a saddle for G.I. Joe figures.

And a fishing pole (for the cats, you know).

And a GIANT CLAW!

And a beer holder.

[www.filmbuffonline.com]

[aicn-prod1.elasticbeanstalk.com]

At the time, Lucas said the change was made because he didn’t want Han to appear so ruthless. This seems an odd statement from someone who claimed to be heavily influenced by the writings of Joseph Campbell and his study of myth when creating his fictional universe. What’s even more puzzling is a statement he made at a recent appearance at UCLA where he claimed that Greedo was always supposed to shoot first and that the original version was "an editing error!" Not many fans believe that claim.

Was it stupid revisionist history then? Sure-- but it's nothing new.

An older neighbor/friend of mine bought me the book on the eve of the release of Lynch's movie, I wasn't even ten years old. I tried reading it, couldn't get through more than a few pages-- the book had a freakin' glossary!

But I kept coming back to it.

Read dozens, even hundreds of books, but never finished Dune. A few pages here, a few chapters there. Had long since seen the movie, just never could motivate myself to read the book.

It wouldn't be until my senior year of *college* that I finally sat down and read the book, start to finish. For some reason, at that particular moment in time, I simply DEVOURED the book. Loved it, everything about it.

I immediately read Dune Messiah. Loved that too.

Started Children of Dune... and dropped it. I just couldn't get over losing the character of Paul. Nothing else interested me. I read synopses of the other books, couldn't grasp the insanity (wait, Duncan Idaho comes back? Leto Junior turns into a *sandworm*?!).

Frankly, I was happy with a Dune that ended with Dune. Maybe I'll read the rest of the series one day, too.... but I'm cool right now having stopped when I was ahead.

[www.fas.org]

THEN THERE WILL BE BLOOD.

And bees. Bees, too.

Indeed. It was a sad, sad day when I finally broke down and brought home that shelter kitten for my girlfriend.

I don't care if the little effer is "cute"-- BRAIN PARASITES.