On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of November in 1918, ninety two years ago today, an armistice went into effect ending the fighting between Germany (the other Central Powers had already capitulated) and the Allies on the Western Front, finally ending the greatest war mankind then ever known, World War I ( Read more... )

Yesterday would have been Carl Sagan's birthday and in celebration some use the opportunity presented by this fact to promote science and especially astronomy. So in that vein I post another video, this one is from the chapter titled Wanderers, (which is the intro to his Pale Blue Dot bookIn brief Wanderers talks about the human need to explore, ( Read more... )

Really started this yesterday so I don't have too much to add except today would have been Dr. Sagan's birthday. I know that doesn't mean much to most folks and that's fine. For me though, he ignited my love of science in general and astronomy in particular; not to mention the courage to always be skeptical, to be willing to ask the hard ( Read more... )

Everyone has their heroes, or people they admire; people who inspire you or me in some deep way. For me personally there are a small group of people from history and contemporary society who heartened me profoundly enough I guess I could call them "heroes" for lack of a better word. These people inspire me every time I study, read, or listen to ( Read more... )

Really covering these two states as Wisconsin is where I live and Illinois is my home state and always will be (although I like where I live now).

For Wisconsin:

• Of our eight U.S. House of Representative seats, five are Republican and three are Democratic. Of the three close races (District 3, 7, & 8), two went Republican (Districts 7 & 8), and ( Read more... )

Well I have decided all the candidates who I want to vote for. Where I live, only three races really have any true significance for me: State governor, US Senate, and US House. Yeah the state assembly seat is up for election again, but every time (except for 2008), our representative, John Steinbrink (D), runs unopposed. Fortunately I don't have ( Read more... )

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Over in Britain, an environmental organization called 10:10 came out with an idea: Pledge and work to cut your carbon emissions by 10% in one year to help the environment; whether you’re a business, a school, a family, or an individual, you can “make a difference ( Read more... )