I still think it's pretty funny.

NASA said Friday it had discovered water on the moon, opening "a new chapter" that could allow for the development of a lunar space station.

The discovery was announced by project scientist Anthony Colaprete at a midday news conference. "Indeed, yes, we found water," he said.

I love space. After reading Kim Stanley Robinson's "Mars Trilogy" I have a secret desire to colonize Mars and retire there.

I also believe that Stephen Hawking was right when he argues that in the interest of survival of humanity we need to get off this rock and spread ourselves out a bit.

Finding water on the moon seems like a good first step to all that.

In 1967, 50% of American men had been arrested. Since then, arrests made in connection with domestic violence and illegal drugs have pushed the number to 60%, estimates Alfred Blumstein, a criminologist at Carnegie Mellon University. The annual number of arrests for possession of marijuana more than tripled to 1.8 million from 1980 to 2007, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

... and with background checks getting easier and cheaper, arrests from the it's hurting job candidates, even when those arrests are more than thirty years old.

The article is well worth a read!

I was moved by the Adams biography. Having seen the mini-series last year, I enjoyed the re-tread of his life and the greater detail. I thought he was a fascinating man, and his stamp on the country rather large.

He nominated George Washington to lead the army (apparently Hancock wanted it); he wrote the Massachusetts constitution, in many ways a preliminary document for our own; he negotiated and won a loan from the Dutch at an incredibly important time to keep the revolution afloat; then negotiated peace with the British; he kept us out of a war with France despite the popular support for it (McCullough notes here that had we declared war, Napoleon almost certainly would not have sold us the Louisiana Purchase. So in addition to avoid a war we almost certainly would have lost, we were set up to more the double the size of the nation).

Certainly not a perfect man or politician, I came to really respect him and Abigail alike.

I do want to quote a letter to John Quincy that I thought was a call to arms for anyone who wants to see change in a participatory republic like ours: "Public business, my son, must always be done by somebody ... If wise men decline it, others will not; if honest men refuse it, others will not."

Well said. He had many great zingers, too, but I'll let this one stand.

A very good book.

You know I could totally do this if I wanted to, right?