I was sorta hoping that the death of Osama bin Laden might nudge a few people back to sanity, but it isn’t happening. I mean, I expected the 9/11 Truthers to claim that Osama didn’t do it and isn’t really dead, because they’ve been on the Crazy Train for some time.   But even the usual […]

If you’ve ever wondered why Iranian politics are so strange, perhaps the answer is now at hand.  It seems that the president’s inner circle has been relying for advice on “djinn, fairies, and demons.” We have this on no less an authority that Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, whose spat with President Ahmadinejad’s court has […]

We are spending the weekend in St. Augustine, the USA’s oldest European settlement.  (As a resident of the state with Acoma in it, I am resolutely unimpressed.) We arrived in late afternoon, and then had to deal at length with a mixup in reservations (not our fault), so all I’ve seen so far is the […]

Endeavor is waiting down at Launch Pad 39A. Waiting for me, among a few other people. I’ll be viewing the launch from the VIP area, as a guest of Col. Mike Fincke, with whom I had a brief conversation three years ago when he was commanding the International Space Station.  This year Colonel Fincke will […]