What the World Needs Now

A bumper sticker that deserves much wider distribution here in Texas:

A Dirty Word

It's good to see Congress finally do the thing that it was created for: Compromise. That dirty word was the whole principle our Founding Fathers had in mind when they decided the best way to run a government was to cram 535 people in one room, 100 in the other, and let them fight it out. They ran the entire revolution this way, remember. No President, no Supreme Court. If you look back through history most of Congress' glory moments were compromises, most of it's low points came when it was paralyzed by blowhards digging in their heels.

Ronald Reagan, the supposed rabid right-wing ideologue, knew this well. And why not? He was once head of a union and negotiated labor contracts. "As governor," he once said, "I found out that if I could get half a loaf, instead of stalking off angrily, I'd take it!"

It's also worth noting that notorious social engineer and liberal, Franklin D. Roosavelt, compromised away most of what he wanted in Social Security and Unemployment Insurance in order to keep the core of his programs.

With the world's economic systems so tightly bound together as they are these days it would be nice if they wouldn't wait to the last possible minute. But that's part of the system, I guess. It sure makes the rest of the nations jittery though.

Quick! To the Battlestars!

Looks like trouble!  A Swedish research team found a flying saucer at the bottom of the Gulf of Bothnia, says Space.com. They're not sure exactly what they've got but I've seen its like before.

This is none other than an MK.IX Raider, the Cylon Empire's ship of choice for exterminating all humans!

Commander Adama was right!

The New Normal

As the final Space Shuttle circles the Earth, it's time to reflect on the many advances this program has brought us. Sure there's the Hubble Space Telescope and the first un-tethered, jet pack-powered space walks. Also, our freeze dried camping food is worlds better than it was 30 years ago. But what impresses me most as I step back and survey these 30 years of dramatic space accomplishments is how totally it has normalized astronauts...

Space Squid



Celestial Squid

As a follow up to my post last week on all the many animals that have entered risky government service (except for cats -- but, as you can see from the comments, I sort of got raked over the coals for pointing out that inconvenient truth), I need to add one more to the roster: Squids.

When the Endeavour shuttle blasts off next week it will carry the first ever crew of squid to explore outer space. Though they are just babies, these intrepid mollusks will risk their squishy selves to push the boundries of arcane space knowlege.



Scooby in a rage over her rejection
by NASA

 My normally sedentary cat Scooby volunteered for this mission because, as she put it, "I gotz de' warm, friendly spotz in my stomach for de' squidz." However NASA rejected her application because their tests ostensibly showed she had, "...partaken a bit too freely of Little Friskies over the years."

We wish these brave, gelatinous spacefarers well, and hope this mission will open the door to more opportunities as squids take their rightful place with dogs, fruit flies, and monkeys in performing dangerous, peculiar jobs dreamed up by humans.

Benefits From An Old Job

Back when I was trying to save up money for college, I spent a year working 10-hour night shifts at the Waffle House in Columbus, Mississippi. Waffle House is something of an institution down south. As a transplanted Yankee I had never heard of the place until I was applying for jobs all up and down Highway 45.

There were several attractions to working there. For one, during your breaks they let you eat as much as you wanted of everything they had, making it the perfect job for a bottomless teenager...

Stealth Dog

As facts trickle out of the clandestine corridors of power it was disclosed yesterday that, in addition to the NAVY Seals and Army stealth helicopter pilots that took Mr. bin Laden down, there was also a highly trained dog. Reporters are fanning out through the land as we speak trying to glean information on this mysterious canine. Perhaps President Obama will shake his (or her) paw when he congratulates the members of SEAL Team Six in a secret ceremony later today.

The Pentagon retains the services of over 2000 dogs to guard the country and defeat the forces of evil. Police departments, drug enforcement agents, and disaster recovery teams all use dogs. Although we preferred monkeys in the early days of space exploration, the Soviets blasted many a brave dog into orbit.

And it's not just dogs we trust. Plenty of other animals are used for special governmental assignments, such as dolphins, mice, pigeons, and even fruit flies.

Felines
But have you ever noticed? There is one animal we never depend on to accomplish a crucial assignment: The cat. That's right, although cats are America's most popular pet today, they are never the animal of choice for top secret missions, let alone deployed against the world's most feared terrorist. They don't fly stealth bombers or land on far-flung beaches in the middle of the night. We don't have bomb-sniffing cats protecting our airports or cadaver cats searching for crime victims.

I know what you're saying: "Sailors love having a cat or two among their hearty crew." But that's only because our interests happen to coincide with theirs. If cats didn't enjoy torturing and eating things, they'd never win a berth on any tug boat or trawler. Besides, aren't they all too well known for jumping ship at some obscure port where a curious object catches their eye?

Back in the late '60's the French bravely sent a crew of cats into space, having put them through rigorous training to learn vital tasks for feline astro-research. But once having slipped the surly bonds of Earth, the highly trained cats abandoned their mission and spent the time mewing pitifully, eating freeze-dried Little Friskies, and batting at critical switches with cute gloved paws, sending their ship spinning wildly out of control. French Mission Control was able to return the kitties safely to Earth only with the utmost difficulty. Their space program was set back at least 5 years and the dream of showing Russia and America up by landing a cat on the Moon was never realized. Even today, if the French send anything up on their Ariane rockets, it's a couple of lab mice.

Alright, that last part was a riff on this real thing that happened.

At any rate, be proud of all the many animals that stand between us and the forces of chaos. And also be grateful for the ones that cause chaos. Just don't let them on the International Space Station.