Day: October 12, 2009

Stupefyin’ fowl

What a stupendous dinner Catherine cooked us.  In no particular order, fresh free range turkey larded with herbed sweet butter and lemon zest; roast carrots and parsnips; home made gravy; home made cranberry chutney; smashed potatoes; mixed fungus lightly sauteed in butter; spinach; bread rolls; two different kinds of dessert, one being bread pudding (walnut and raisin bread) and the other scratch made pumpkin pie which is really squash pie and you should have smelled the kitchen when Catherine was grinding the spices, both dishes with a side of whipped cream, did I mention gravy?, three beers (over the course of the evening), and an amazing squash and saffron rice casserole, except the squash was the container, and it looked like it had dropped in from Mars for the evening.  No stuffing; Catherine said that it was a food safety issue, but I still think I’ll stuff my next turkey because I do make good stuffing if I do say so myself.

In a pleasant state of repletion, I now seek shelter in my comfy bed.

Dear Anti Science, anti space program, crank

But if we didn’t have the space program, we wouldn’t have velcro for bondage gear. Or telemetry for hospital monitors.  Or an image of the planet taken from the moon.  What’s with the and/or?  It isn’t science that rapes women or starves children, it’s people.  Science is merely a set of concepts in the human toolbox; it can be forced to experiment on human beings or it can feed the world. It can support elites and distort our relationship to our planet or bring cheap desalination to thirsty peasants.

The biggest reason I support the space program has nothing to do with the benefits to science, and everything to do with how I feel about the pictures that we get.  I feel the pulse of pure curiosity.  I cried when I saw the video of an explorer landing on a moon.  My humans did this amazing thing, and I’m proud of them.

Violence to self and others is part of the human toolbox as well.  I don’t believe for two seconds we can eradicate it – I’m not even sure if we can channel it.  I hope that science can help us with that.  If you have eradicated violence in yourself, please remember that to be consistent in all this, you might want to consider abandoning any advances from the space program that have benefited you personally to teach the peace that you appear to believe is injured by the space program misallocating the resources of our finite planet.

Here is a partial list.  http://techtran.msfc.nasa.gov/at_home.html

Less politely, sex travel & death.  You were probably on a wireless internet connection when you wrote your tragic screed, and if you are immune to irony you cannot make yourself proof against mockery.

http://www.stevey.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/50-years-exploration-huge.jpg