I read X-Men comics for a lot of years, but I would have never guessed that this was Wolverine’s secret past. (Although his Canadian roots may have been a hint.)

YouTube – X-Men-3:The Last Standing Ovation Trailer

Novec 1230 is almost water.  They tell me that the damage from a fire comes in thirds.  One-third from the fire, one-third from the smoke, one-third from the water.  Novec 1230 is a water-looking liquid at room temperature that doesn’t damage electronic equipment (or hardly anything else) while putting out fires.

Sure iPods and XBOXes are cool, but I’m more interested in living in a future where buildings don’t burn down.

OK, there are new, cool things happening all the time.  Scientists slow light down until it goes backwards, for example.  But this is definitely futuristic.  A robot in Italy (monitored by a PC in Boston) performed surgery on a heart patient.  Yes, the machine repaired the human.  This is a turning point in robo-human relations.

So the question is which robot would you want to operate on you?  CP3O might have a good bedside manner, but R2D2 is more discrete.  Robbie the Robot seems like he’d panic, where the Terminator is calm under pressure.

While aimed at our secular friends, this primer of Christian terms contains a few facts some of my fellow Christianists might not know. Such as:

• The first Baptist was John the Baptist, who was said to eat locusts and honey, although contemporary Baptists generally prefer barbecue.
• The Bible was so successful that God wrote a sequel, “Bible II: On to Rome,” now generally called “The New Testament.”

From holyoffice: The Interpretative Dance Theocrats:

An article called “Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens: A radical explanation for a conundrum about extra-terrestrial life, and what it means for the future of humanity” attempts to answer Fermi’s paradox: If there is intelligent life among the stars, there should be a lot of ETs running around and so we should have met one by now.  Where are they?

Most bright alien species probably go extinct gradually, allocating more time and resources to their pleasures, and less to their children.

Note: “Most species”. The rest?

Heritable variation in personality might allow some lineages to resist the Great Temptation and last longer….Christian and Muslim fundamentalists and anti-consumerism activists already understand exactly what the Great Temptation is, and how to avoid it.

Is this good news for my lineage, or bad news?  It does sound like the lead-in to a joke, “The Pope, Osama, and Ralph Nader walk into a bar?”

From The Cato Institute’s blog, a short post titled Repeat After Me: “We Are All Individuals” that had a fun quote:

The sooner we overcome the Stalinesque notion that educational excellence can be pursued through more or better central planning, the better off our kids will be.

I use the term “socialized eductaion”. It helps me keep the public school system in perspective. It also helps me answer the question, “Aren’t you worried about socialization?”

No, I’m not a socialist.

The HeadMistress over atThe Common Room has a great post on the basic tools to start homeschooling. I encourage all to check it out!

A great post on the lessons jerks can teach us. (The lessons are bold, the irritating implementation follows.) Here’s a couple:

They are almost incapable of being embarrassed. They bounce back from setbacks that would send the rest of us to bed for several days. They are willing to be obnoxious until they get what they want. They know the power that comes with caring less.

They let upper management know about their accomplishments. They advertise every minor accomplishment while those schmoes who believe that hard work is its own reward don’t.

As the rate of technological changes increases (and we approach the Singularity), I’m fascinated with the world my children will accept as normal. Growing up, the 21st century was the future. For my kids, the 20th century will be before their time.

My children think it’s normal for TV programs to be paused and commercials to be skipped. That movies and music should come on shiny metallic discs. (They have never seen a vinyl record and are suspicious of audio tapes.) That you can make a phone call from anywhere. That news and weather information are always available on the computer. That there is a computer in the living room!

On Gizmodo today, I saw the end of something kids have “always” had to endure. I’m certain GyroBike, or something like it, will replace training wheels.

What typical things did you grow up with that kids today have no concept of? And what’s normal today that 21st century kids will see as icons of the past?

No, not the NerdFamily. We’re more of a Ain’t You Glad You Joined the Republicans family, and we hate Liberals just as much as anyone else on Dick Cheney’s payroll. But what bothers me the most about “democrats and progressives” is that my end political goals (freedom from tyranny, minimization of poverty and its effects, fair treatment for all) are the kinds of things that the Left swoons over.

However, ideas promoted by the Right are attacked as motivated by evil, rather than discussed on their merits. Does a capitalistic marketplace for healthcare actually provide better, cheaper medicine or is it just there so the rich can be heathier? Would tighter borders raise wages and create better working conditions for laborers, or does it just keep “those people” out?

That’s why I’m very interested in The Euston Manifesto, a statement of beliefs of a few liberals put out today who are able to see past minor political squabbles and look to the end results. It’s primarily focused on foreign policy, but I think it moves the discussion a direction that can really be fruitful. Here’s a few samples:

No apology for tyranny.
We decline to make excuses for, to indulgently “understand”, reactionary regimes and movements for which democracy is a hated enemy — regimes that oppress their own peoples and movements that aspire to do so. We draw a firm line between ourselves and those left-liberal voices today quick to offer an apologetic explanation for such political forces.

Opposing anti-Americanism.
We reject without qualification the anti-Americanism now infecting so much left-liberal (and some conservative) thinking. This is not a case of seeing the US as a model society. We are aware of its problems and failings. But these are shared in some degree with all of the developed world. The United States of America is a great country and nation. It is the home of a strong democracy with a noble tradition behind it and lasting constitutional and social achievements to its name. Its peoples have produced a vibrant culture that is the pleasure, the source-book and the envy of millions. That US foreign policy has often opposed progressive movements and governments and supported regressive and authoritarian ones does not justify generalized prejudice against either the country or its people.

Now I’m not ready to become a Euston Manifesto signatory (frankly, there are parts of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights that leave me a little queasy) but I do support the idea of looking at our core beliefs first, and making political judgements later.