Hot air. Helium is a scarce, non-renewable resource, while hydrogen has the Hindenburg Problem. Hot air, worse luck, is abundant . . .

Nukes on Mars?

It's absolutely true because I read it in the Daily Mail.

Mind you, it makes for an interesting backstory for ripping tales about lost Martian civilizations and stalwart explorers of the ruins... but given my limited understanding of the physics, I don't see this as a compelling answer for why Mars is red.

-- Steve thinks the Oklo natural reactor is about as "hot" a reaction as you could get. There's zero chance fissiles could spontaneously detonate... if it was that easy, the world would have a lot more countries with nuclear weapons.

Good teacher article. Thank you for posting the link.

Okay, who is the marketing genius who thought creating chimeric cows that produce human milk would be a good thing to sell to health conscious parents of infants? "Worried that your baby isn't getting the optimal nutrition for his needs from formula? Let me just show you this product I created from mutant cows. In my basement. Yum!" LOL.

This comment really did make me laugh out loud.

AotD: Balloon

Jay, thank you for posting the link to the article re: teachers. It's refreshing to read a positive article about the profession for a change.

The article among these links that caught my eye was the one about gay partner hospital visitation rights. The RNC site is using the issue as an example of how Obama is slowly increasing gay rights. While the site does not directly oppose the issue (it's intention is to oppose Obama) it is using this as a "wedge" issue.

A few years ago, one of my parishioners who was a gay man was dying of AIDS in a San Francisco hospital. The hospital allowed his partner to set up a cot in the room and he stayed with him nearly 24 hours a day until he died. It was a wonderful and beautiful thing.

After the man's death, his sister took his ashes back to Georgia for burial. The partner wanted to attend the service there, but the family would not even tell him when it was happening!!! I was never so angry at a family as I was over this. They did everything they could to keep the partner away. It was as un-Christian an attitude as I have ever seen.

On the other hand, we had a very wonderful service for the man here in California. His life was celebrated. His partner and his friends here were able to grieve. I was proud to be a part of it.

I still get angry when I think about what the family in Georgia did.

Dirigible, because you'll never complain if things go wrong.

Re: your links - I don't get why there are homosexual GOPers. Is being a conservative really worth supporting a group that hates them and wants to keep them, at best, second-class citizens?