And so it begins...

SpaceX succesfully launched their rocket into orbit today. So begins the end of the U.S. Government's stranglehold on orbital launches and spaceflights. Look for the Federal government to pass legislation to put private spaceflight out of business now that they've had their nose bloodied. This will likely happen even though they are "working" with private industry by providing launch support.

Japan Not Taking Any Chances

The Japanese seem to be hedging their bets that North Korea will continue with the development of nuclear weapons and delivery systems. How much of that was just an attempt by the U.S. to get the NK's attention remains to be seen. It's getting intresting over there. China has suddenly become strangely quiet now that the Olympics have ended and North Korea seems to be dealing with some internal troubles of their own.

All will be revealed.

A sad day

Richard Wright, a founding member of Pink Floyd has died. As my friends know I was really in to Pink Floyd back in my youth so this is quite a blow. My thoughts go out his family.
.

They're Done

I can't believe this. They're done. They've taken the first step to losing their national identity. They're even further along than the French and I always thought that France would be the first one to fall to the Muslims. The face of Europe is changing and not for the better.

More Trouble Brewing

Here we go again folks. This time it's Texas' turn on the bullseye. This one is predicted to be a Category 4 storm when she makes land. Once again, to all our friends on the Gulf Coast - duck!

Large Hadron Collider

They fired it up and we're still here. The world didn't end. We weren't sucked into a black hole. All particle motion didn't stop and explode at the speed of light. I think we're going to be fine. Now, that was just the test run. The really intresting stuff won't start coming until they get her up and running at full song about a year from now.

All sorts of intresting things going on that I haven't been able to keep up with. Go over to D.W.'s Connecting the Dots for a full update. A link to that can be found on this page.

One of the more intresting things that has come about this week is the U.S State Department's belief that my friend and yours Kim Jong Il has had a stroke. To make it more intresting, this guy says that Jong-Il is dead and a body double has been running around the country acting as him for the last five years. That country just gets crazier and crazier. I saw a documentary the other night (I don't remember the channel or the title) about North Korea and it was just bizarre.

I also saw something on KET last night that I just about couldn't get through. It was called "Objects and Memory" and it talked about physical objects involved in some form or fashion in a traumatic, violent event and why those physical objects become so important to how people remember those events. The events they showcased were the events of September 11, 2001 and the Oklahoma City bombing. I had hard time getting through that. That show is a poignant reminder of why the world must fight against religious extremists of all types. Especially those whose ideoligies call for the deaths of those that refuse to worship like them.