Author: Heather Meadows

I’m not even going to say anything. I’m just giving you a link. Feel free to speculate about why I think this is disgusting.

Somehow, I didn’t know that the Blue Grass Army Depot in Madison County is storing

two nerve agents: GB, better known as Sarin, and VX. Both are contained in projectiles and rockets. It also stores mustard agent in projectiles.

Nor did I know that

According to an assessment prepared for Congress, Madison’s stockpile will pose the highest risk for terrorism in the nation two years from now because incineration will have been completed at other sites. It used area populations and the nature of the weapons stored at each site to calculate the risks.

That’s just great, terrorist bait in my family’s backyard…

(I’m supremely unsurprised at the left-leaning Herald-Leader‘s transparent attempts to blame this on the president, but it’s still annoying.)

And apparently Augusta had some earthquakes yesterday! Funny, I didn’t notice anything :D

There are some stories linked about the train wreck and chlorine leak in Graniteville, too.

Topix.net looks to be a great resource for local news!

He was a Scottish professional golfer in the 19th century but he predicted bullet trains, driverless golf carts, televisions and digital watches.

In a book published in 1892 with uncanny echoes of 16th century French seer Nostradamus, golfer Jack McCullogh also predicted that women would start dressing like men and do all the work while their menfolk took to the golf courses full-time.

So, obviously, he traveled through time. My only question is…

…we have driverless golf carts?

Lots of furor over the California INDUCE bill. Cory Doctorow’s rant is the funniest, as usual.

An extremist California Senator called Kevin Murray has introduced a Californian version of last year’s Federal INDUCE Act, a law that proposed to make the very Internet itself illegal, for it bans producing, selling, offering, descirbing [sic] or building a network that can be used to share files unless “reasonable care” is taken to ensure that the files shared won’t infringe upon copyright.

Today, while sitting at my desk fuming, I suddenly realized that the solution to all my problems is: real estate.

That isn’t going to make any sense to most of you. But it occurred to me that part of my plan depends on something that someone I know already knows how to do. So I can concentrate on a different part of the plan. I can make a list! Assuming he’s willing to work with me, things could really start coming together.

Vague, vague, vague! But it’s good, I promise.

I’m in the mood to write something that could get me dooced. Obviously I’m not going to, but I wanted to let you know ;P

Ahahahahahaha!

Seriously, the two pairs of pants were really helpful. I think I could have done with boots rather than sneakers. I had some snow boots at one point, but I think they got smushed and partially melted in my car and I threw them away. My ears were nice and cozy due to the toboggan, and my hands were fine with the gloves. My legs started to get a little chilly towards the end of the ride. My nose, though relatively unprotected, was okay because I had my coat zipped up all the way, and it actually reaches up to my nose, meaning my warm breath was trapped there to keep things cozy. It didn’t even matter that my hair was wet; I didn’t even really notice it until I arrived, took off the coat and toboggan, and thought, “Did I really sweat this much?” Then I remembered that I took a shower ;>

And I wasn’t late! Yay!

I am now wearing two pairs of jeans, two pairs of socks, and a sweater, and I’m about to put on a toboggan, gloves, and my coat. Bring it on.

I’m also going to be late if I don’t hurry up and leave already…

Sam has a great post up, covering two completely different subjects. The first bit is a response to the article I linked earlier today about Aubrey de Grey. It is the most interesting part of Sam’s post to me; in fact, it made me think of this post I made this morning about eliminating extreme poverty. I wondered, after I posted it, if it could ever really happen, if the richer nations would take responsibility and give what they needed to. It made me seriously want to write a letter to my president, and I may yet do that. Sam’s discussion of ethics broadens that topic to a general responsibility for our actions that many feel is lacking in the world.

The second part of his post is a nice discussion of issues of masculine and feminine roles in our society, and is also well worth reading. For me a lot of it seemed to be common sense. What’s interesting (and a little irritating) is that that sort of opinion may not be all that common.

Clark: You know, I was wondering…what if Chin is the hooded robber?

Lois: …a mild-mannered reporter, really a superhero? Clark, please.

Is it the air pressure?

…when you’re humming along to a new piece of music, and you’re doing the harmony, and suddenly the melody does exactly what you’re humming.

I typically have good instincts for stuff like this, but when it’s exact like that, it’s kind of spooky.

(I suppose I should disclaimdisclose that this piece isn’t exactly “new”; it’s “The Steward of Gondor” from Return of the King. But I really haven’t listened to it all that much, and I was fully expecting the melody to continue as it was going…)

Saw this alignment test over on Chris’ blog. Damn, the html it spits out for you is ridiculous.

As you can see, I tied Neutral and Lawful Good. It says I’m Neutral because I said that doing the right thing is more important than never stealing in the tiebreaker question.

Slashdot has an interesting roundup today entitled “Dancing Robots Help Preserve Japanese Culture“. Lots of links! From the Yahoo! article:

Katsushi Ikeuchi, a professor of engineering at Tokyo University, said the robot, which is usually used at construction sites, was taught traditional Japanese dance to preserve the art for the future.

The slow-paced dance, which is performed in groups and accompanied by lutes and other Japanese instruments, is rapidly losing ground in 21st-century Japan, with many young people only encountering it at local festivals.

Unfortunately, the articles don’t say what the dancing is called in Japanese.