Been a lot of talk recently on the net about the damage to the Space Shuttle; anti-environmentalists have been bringing up old BS about the CFC-free foam used in insulating the main tank. Here's something I posted to Slashdot on the topic:

environmentalist groups got their way and now we have a riskier space program.

This point about how the foam insulation process was changed has come up many times in discussions about the damage to Endeavor. And it's wrong.

It has its origin in one of Rush Limbaugh's lies.
As it turns out, the foam that dealt Columbia the death blow was the
old-style CFC foam. The problem was in the hand-spraying application method
used on that area, which left gaps and voids in the foam.

Yes, when they first started using the CFC-free foam in 1997 there were
some problems seen. Changes were quickly made to improve the adhesion.

There were also plenty of problems with the CFC foam - "popcorning" from
trapped air bubbled was noted in 1995, while in 1992 Columbia was
struck by a large piece of foam, ripping a 12cm gouge in the tiles. Both of
these were before the switch to CFC-free foam.

Shoot, wish I'd know about this in advance. Have to watch for it next year. From the Baltimore Sun:

Yesterday marked the second "Manly Arts Day," said Ranger Victor Markland, an event he launched last year to draw attention to a niche not often explored.

Held on the estate of the wealthy Ridgely family, whose iron was used to make weapons during the American Revolution and whose generations fought in the War of 1812 and the Civil War, the day focused on skills once considered essential to being a man. Along with riding and dancing, the well-rounded, well-bred man knew how to fence, said Rockefeller, a Loyola College history professor.

"It was considered an absolute necessity... to know how to fence, or at least a minimal use of a sword." Markland said. While Rockefeller channeled an 18th-century man with a waistcoat, breeches and stockings, Markland mimicked a Napoleonic War veteran who opened a Baltimore fencing academy in 1814, sporting a black top hat along with his outfit.

Came down to the Judge's Bench for the open mic. Just hanging out now,
finished reading and taking notes from the Alan Watts book (Zen and the
Beat Way) I borrowed from Robin.

I was in here Saturday night when I ran into a friend of mine. No names, to
protect the innocent, so let's call her X. X is a lovely lady whom I've
known for several years, almost hooked up with when we first met but she
changed her mind, and we've had this ongoing friends - maybe more? no -
well, maybe yes after all - thing going on ever since.

Friday, I was hanging out at Bean Hollow for a while, had lunch and was
getting some work done on the book (making notes from Watt's Zen and the
Beat Way, working on my own first chapter - I've decided the "I love being
religious!" story is perfect). Over two hours, I saw four or five couples
with young children come through, and in all but the last, the man seemed
miserable, the couple bickering.

In a strange, almost schadenfreude, way, it was heartening. Lamenting being
single? Look at how many people in relationships are absolutely miserable,
and remember that being alone and being lonely are two different things.

But it was also heartening to see that one non-bickering, indeed maybe even
happy, couple, with their baby. So much so that I had to speak to the
woman, give her my thanks. (It's interesting that when they walked in, the
man was carrying the baby - no stroller, no car seat/baby basket, just a
guy carrying his kid.)

the lies we tell the children about love

"and they lived happily ever after"

but no one lives for ever after

"when true love comes your way, you'll just know"

but tales of divorce and heartbreak put the lie to that...

Zelda's exercise:

make up your own mythological god/goddess/creature, and write a poem
about them or from their point of view

that goddess of unrequited love, Saphira

Aphrodite's lesser known, but much busier, half-sister

sits on a stool in a singles bar

and smites poor innocents with unrealistic crushes

One need only read the first few words of this Reuter's story: "Food stalls attached to Beijing's public toilets..."

EEEEEEEEEWWWWWWW! Now that's just gross.

Zelda's Interno writing exercise: write two pieces, one expressed
directly and one indirectly, mirroring each other. I didn't quite follow
the instructions, but here's what I got:

the story:

At Fletchers a few weeks ago, I'm writing, this guy sits down next to me, asks if I like to watch hockey, or football, on the TV. When I say no, not so much, he asks where I'm from - not what city, but what country...France?

why am I surrounded by

idiots

I just want to sit here and drink my beer and write

Posted on Slashdot in response to this bit on the "Fermi paradox", the assertation that we should basically be tripping over extraterrestrial intelligent life:

Indeed, as TFA notes, there is "something wrong with our thinking", or at least with that of the author.

First, interstellar colonization? Unlikely. It makes nice SF, but there's no good economic basis for it. A civilization that survives long enough to reach the technological level necessary for interstellar spaceflight will have stabilized its population and learned how to use local resources to make their home world a paradise. Why go anywhere else? The expense is enormous, the payoff non-existent. (They're working on stellar engineering, of course, so there's no worry about their sun going nova.) Childish species who still imagine faster-than-light loopholes might dream of going swashbuckling across the galaxy, but grown-up races are content to follow more mature pursuits. TFA's claims about "intelligent life's ability to overcome scarcity, and its tendency to colonize new habitats" are simply handwaving, generalizing from one species of half-bright monkeys into sweeping statements about all intelligent life.

Times of transition...I feel - just a gut feeling - that one phase is ending for me, starting to roll into something else.

Of course a big part of that is the end of my relationship with Cathy,
but more than that, now I think I will start to see the fruition of the
career shift into shiatsu, with my work with The Well; now my karate
program is established, if not yet thriving; now I have changed my
relationship with place, become a traveler, "always roaming with a hungry
heart." Of course the whole balancing and self-knowledge from acupuncture
and my study and practice of shiatsu. Now the book is underway, starting to
gel - which means my ideas of a whole approach to life, a whole philosophy,
are starting to crystallize.

Another Starwood moment I want to make sure to note, in fact that might make the opening of the book:

Opening ritual. Maybe 100-150 people, elders and children, men and women, some in various interesting regalia, some men in kilts or sarongs, some in simple t-shirts and shorts. We've invoked the directions, honored the ancestors and the gods and the spirits of the land, and now, laughing, we join hands in the spiral dance, running and leaping together and swinging each other, sort of a giant game of "crack the whip", until we all fall into a glom at the center.

In front of me is Lady Sue, who I met at my first festival, an older feisty redhead. She looks back over her shoulder at me and, smiling, says "I love being religious!"

Obviously this is a different sort of "religious" than the Catholicism I was raised in...and that's what I want to explore in the book.

Ah, Starwood. How to explain? Maybe the last night's bonfire...one of the biggest bonfire events in the country. Think a pile of flaming logs the size of a small house (the House of Fire! I must use that next year..."Welcome to the house of fire") with hundreds of people dancing around it and drumming, all night.

The moon is almost full, and hangs above the fire. I am wearing a lovely Chinese silk jacket that I just got, looking damn good if I do say so myself...this festival I have been manifesting the archetype of the Lover a fair bit (and more on that later), but tonight I pulling down a blend of the King, the Magician, and the Holy Goof, dancing around, coming up to people and telling them "Now don't tell anybody, but the moon...is beautiful." I am the King bestowing blessings; I am the Magician, teaching my secret knowledge. I have a hope that for someone, this will be the moment, the exact thing they needed to hear. But mostly I am the Holy Goof, for the whole thing is ridiculous, I am for some reason I cannot explain talking in a Tom Waits gravel voice.

I am dancing all night, the sun comes up and there are fewer but still many of us, some dozing off on the sides or wrapped in embracing couples or trios. A bunch of people in ridiculous superhero costumes come changing in and bring an infusion of energy - how can you not be joyful at the sight of a tall thin man in an American flag jockstrap waving an inflatable toy sword? A pretty girl - an old Starwood fling with whom I have, perhaps, reconnected - gets me to hula-hoop for a while.

Some of our fearless leaders, America's top alternative spirituality
leaders, arrive and start a bocche ball game in and among and dancers. I
overhear Ian Corrigan, Archdruid Emeritus of the neo-Druid group Ar
nDraiocht Fein, and Reverend Ivan Stang of the href="http://catb.org/jargon//html/H/ha-ha-only-serious.html">ha-ha-only-serious Church of the Subgenius, talking about how they have no idea how to score such a game.

Jugs of "Discordian Juice" - some fruit juice and alcohol mix - get passed around. Rev. Stang produces a jug of "Subgenius Antidote" for the Discordian Juice (it seems to have the same active ingredient) and a hot blond girl grabs me by the hair and makes me drink some. I do not complain.

Around 8am I am exhausted, feel my work is done, start to gather my things. In one of those moments that means nothing to anyone but those involved, I find that my karma is still tangled with that of the only ex-lover with whom I am not on good terms, she is coincidentally standing right where I left my bags, talking to someone seated nearby. We do not speak (the last time I did that, she spat on the ground - yes, the energy remains that toxic) as I pick up my bags and start up the hill, only to be called back to the fire by perhaps my favorite magickal ritual.

A few years ago our good friend Brian Jefferson realized that the chorus from an old soul song makes an excellent chant. And now a bunch of sleep-deprived and intoxicated freaks and seekers dance around and embrace and sing to each other, "I want to thank you / for lettin' me / be myself, again..."

And this is your brain on Starwood.