The #Almighty Tweets Words of #Wisdom

February 19, 2011

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Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach Gets Good News

February 18, 2011

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I Want YOU - For The US Air Force!

On December 22, 2010, I posted this picture and a link to NOH8’s website where it and others of military men affected by Don’t Ask Don’t Tell could be found.

Now the latest news about the status of Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, the Air Force officer in this picture:

The South Bend Tribune reports that the Air Force has informed Lt. Col. Fehrenbach that he will be retired with his full rank and pension on October 1, 2011.  This effectively cancels the discharge proceedings that were in progress since he was involuntarily outed in 2008.

“It was a great sense of relief. I didn’t expect it,” said Fehrenbach, 41, a 1991 University of Notre Dame graduate, in a telephone interview with the Tribune Tuesday from Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho.

For nearly three years, Fehrenbach has been in a battle to save his career because of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy — a policy that was overturned in late 2010.

With no further explanation, the military in January sent Fehrenbach new orders: Effective Sept. 30, he will be retired from active duty at his current rank and with his pension. He’ll serve out the remaining months of his military duty at his current desk job at the base in Idaho.

Vacation Begins: Now

February 18, 2011

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Starts now. Ends March 13. Need suggestions on what to do in between.  Ideas?

Lunar Geek – Fox aired Moon Hoax show 10 years ago

February 15, 2011

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Captain Alan Bean, Apollo 12 Commander holding a sample container, Ocean of Storms, November 1969 Photo Credit: NASA

 

Ten years ago today, Fox aired a program called “”Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?” Bad Astronomy author (and astronomer) Phil Plait writes how this one program did more to advance his career than perhaps any other single thing.

The simple answer?  Yes, of course we went to the Moon. Six times, eighteen crew members, and twelve who actually walked on it’s surface.  The picture above is Apollo astronaut Alan Bean.  Phil says this of the photo:

This is a picture of Al Bean. It’s a man in a space suit. It’s a man in a spacesuit holding a sample container. It’s a man in a spacesuit holding a sample container on the Moon. Standing on the Moon. It’s a man standing on the freakin’ Moon!

And I watched every last one of them, live on TV! Or, as live as was possible back in the days of three networks and six channels, who didn’t always interrupt prime time for our “routine” lunar missions. Before NASA TV, the Internet, and hundreds of cable channels. But when it was on, I was there.

Mr. Deity and the Science Advisor

February 13, 2011

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PZ Myers and Mr. Deity discuss plans for creation.  Love the banana bit!

Galactic Geek – NGC 4921

February 13, 2011

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Meet NGC 4921.  An odd spiral galaxy, located in the Coma Galaxy Cluster, at a distance of about 320 million light-years from Earth.

When the light that makes up this image first started on it’s trip to us, the dinosaurs were still in Earth’s future.

What’s interesting to me, though, is not so much the galaxy, as cool as it is.  It’s that almost every other speck of light in that image is also a galaxy!  And they’re even farther from us than 4921.  They’re millions and billions of light-years away,  and they are countless.

It’s pictures like this that make me wonder…  if we could magnify these images, and zoom into this galaxy, or the ones beyond, what would we see?  Would we see other beings looking back at us?  Or rather, looking at the Earth as it was 320 million years or more ago?  And if we could see them looking at our primeval Earth, what would they be like?  What would they look like?  And what became of them in the intervening time?  Are they still there?  Have others risen up to take their place?  Is there a vast stellar Federation, with ships plying the star lanes?  Factions and wars?  Beings evolved beyond anything we can imagine?

Or could it be only inanimate matter there?  Perhaps nobody looking over at our rather average spiral galaxy, wondering if anyone is home here?  I hope not.  I hope there was/is someone out there, looking back at us.  Maybe someday we’ll be able to say “hi, neighbor”, and have them say hello back.

This image is from an iPhone app, Star Walk, astronomy picture of the day.

Visalia Couple Do The “Impossible” – for 35 years (via Queer Visalia)

February 12, 2011

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Visalia Couple Do The "Impossible" - for 35 years One of the most common untruths, especially in the religiously fundamentalist worldview, and even among many in the gay community, is that homosexual men are unable to form long term, stable, loving relationships.  “Studies”, using information from 50 years ago (and concentrating only on men – apparently lesbians are invisible in these “studies”), are used to support the lie that gay men are emotionally damaged, fragile, and unable to love.  Well … Read More

via Queer Visalia

The Most Important Video You’ll Ever Watch

February 12, 2011

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OK, I exaggerate.  It may be only the third or fourth most important video you’ll ever watch.  But it’s up there, I’m sure.  How could it not?  I mean, come on, it’s even got a special announcement at the end, that you really won’t want to miss.  And of course it stars yours truly, so it has to be Oscar-worthy, right?

 

 

Mother Nature and Her Plants (via JimmieJoe.com)

February 11, 2011

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She’s Back! Mother Nature is making her annual appearance in my yard.

Mother Nature and Her Plants Mother Nature.  What a gal…  You’ve got to give her credit, she’s quite the industrious gardener.  Leave a plot of ground unattended for even a short time, and she’ll dive right in and start working.  Even our lawns aren’t spared her loving touch.  She must not really care for the carefully manicured, smooth expanses that most of us like in front of our homes.  It takes no time at all for her to start her ministrations,  tossing seeds hither an … Read More

via JimmieJoe.com

Naked Man Running…

February 11, 2011

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Sometimes things just come out on the radio…

This started out as a deputy checking out a car parked in a rural field.  The car took off, through the field, refusing to stop.  The driver decides to dump the car and run, and this is what we hear –

Turns out it was a couple of 16 year olds trying to have a bit of fun.  Our young man might want to consider a new girlfriend, however.    He’s running through the countryside naked,  she gave him up without batting an eyelash, and her folks had to come pick her up.  Not a good night for him.  He’ll have a hell of a story to tell his grandkids, though.

Here’s a little longer version, with the Lieutenant chiming in on what is going on –

 

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