GOP Home shopping network That most lamentable duct tape suggestion last week by a Homeland Security official — which drove countless panicked citizens out to buy the product — has been widely derided as useless and pretty crazy. But maybe not so crazy. Turns out that nearly half — 46 percent to be precise — of the duct tape sold in this country is manufactured by a company in Avon, Ohio. And the founder of that company, that would be Jack Kahl, gave how much to the Republican National Committee and other GOP committees in the 2000 election cycle? Would…

Inexperience hurt shuttle analysis, engineers say The engineers at Boeing's plant in Huntington Beach, Calif., say they had done these analyses for 20 years. But this year, they were not asked to. The reason, they say: Boeing transferred shuttle jobs to Houston in a consolidation that cost the company scores of its most experienced shuttle engineers in the past two years – including some of those who invented the methodology for debris damage and thermal analysis. Of 1,300 jobs in Boeing's shuttle program nationwide, 500 were transferred last year from California, officials said. Only 100 people actually made the move;…

This is a very interesting article on popularity, nerds, and the subculture of Jr. High and High school.

For those of you who hate the pressure to be coupled that February brings, I offer this: Be my anti-valentine… Me, I may be happily attached, but I won't be told when I have to be romantic, or show my feelings to those I love. It's just another made up holiday.

The Unseen Gulf War

Testing protected entries to see what they do embedded. Move along now, nothing to see here…

(And to our pathetic, pandering, insult to “figurehead,” weasel-faced, broken bobble-head doll of a leader, I say this: Thanks ever so much for turning what should have been a simple acknowledgement of tragedy far beyond that of seven people losing their lives into a fucking full-on sermonette. Have another pretzel, you sorry, sanctimonious gasbag.) :::standing up and applauding!::::