Thoughts & Musings

Dark Energy Camera — Science Rocks!!

The highest-resolution camera ever built has begun its quest to pin down the mysterious stuff that makes up nearly three-quarters of our Universe. The Dark Energy Survey's 570-million-pixel camera will scan some 300 million galaxies in the coming five years. via BBC...

College Suspends Obama Pledge Professor

UPDATE:  Last week we heard about the college prof. who made her students pledge to vote for Obama. A college professor has been placed on leave after she allegedly forced her class to sign a pledge to vote for President Obama in the upcoming elections. via Campus...

‘Warp drive’ May be Feasible

A warp drive to achieve faster-than-light travel — a concept popularized in television's Star Trek — may not be as unrealistic as once thought, scientists say.  ... Now physicists say that adjustments can be made to the proposed warp drive that would enable it to run...

Did Joe McGinniss Condemn an Innocent Man?

MacDonald signed a contract giving McGinniss exclusive rights to his life story, and so McGinniss was given unprecedented access to the defense team – living with them, working with them, eating with them. But when the guilty verdict came down, McGinniss did a...

CTU Deal Will Lead to School Closings & Layoffs

Four years of up-to-the-limit property tax increases for Chicago homeowners and businesses. Closing scores of under-enrolled and underperforming schools. Thousands of layoffs of teachers and other school staff. More cuts to the central office. That’s what could await...

Professor Makes Class Sign “Vote for Obama” Pledge

  A citizen, whose nephew attends Brevard Community College, reports that he brought home the below bookmark pledging to vote for President Obama. The bookmark and pledge was handed out during a mathematics class taught by Assistant Professor Sharon Sweet. This...

Chicago Teachers Fear Wave of School Closings

Striking Chicago teachers fear that once they approve a new contract with the school district and end their strike, Mayor Rahm Emanuel will go ahead with dozens of school closings because of falling enrollment and poor academic performance. via Reuters. Really?  Well...

Lou Prichett’s Letter to President Obama

Lou Pritchett is a former vice president of Procter & Gamble whose career at that company spanned 36 years before his retirement in 1989, and he is the author of the 1995 business book, Stop Paddling & Start Rocking the Boat. In April 2009 he wrote the follow...

‘Patent Trolls’ Get Biggest Piece Of Patent Pie

So-called patent trolls – which don't actually make anything – in recent years received significantly larger damages awards on average than those won by companies that make things, a new report found. Critics of "trolls," or nonpracticing entities, claim they hold...

For Self-Defense a .22 beats .45

An excellent video (ok, it's a tad annoying) about why a .22 beats higher caliber handguns when it comes to self defense. via WND. Bottom line is you can't stop what you can't hit.

Several Stabbed At NYC Subway Station

Three people were injured in a stabbing on the escalator of a subway station in Queens Wednesday morning. An MTA spokesman said that Dina Saint-Fleur, 25, slashed at least two people after getting into a dispute on a J train around 8:45 a.m. Earlier reports indicated...

Where I Agree With the Teachers

On the fourth day of the teachers’ strike, protesters targeted school board member Penny Pritzker, whose family owns the Hyatt hotel chain. At 3:30 p.m., thousands of demonstrators dressed in red gathered outside the Hyatt Regency Chicago, at 151 E. Wacker Dr.,...

Obama Admin Warned of Embassy Attack, Did Nothing

The killings of the US ambassador to Libya and three of his staff were likely to have been the result of a serious and continuing security breach, The Independent can reveal. American officials believe the attack was planned, but Chris Stevens had been back in the...