The McBournie Minute: Finish the space station already

With a space shuttle landing yesterday and the Discovery Channel’s three-part documentary about NASA, When We Left Earth, space has been in the news a lot lately. Of course, space is all about cooperation and brotherly love these days. But for the first 40 years of space flight there was more of an “eff you, we’re going to beat you there” mentality. Perhaps we need to go back to that, if for no other reason than to get things done.

I remember first hearing about the International Space Station when I was in fourth grade, this was 1993 One of my teachers put on the overhead projector a snapshot of how the ISS would look when it was completed. A couple years later, I remember stumbling across it in an encyclopedia, I was probably looking for the definition of “isthmus” or something. There again was a computer-generated model of the huge structure orbiting the Earth. The caption underneath it said it would be completed around the year 2000.

It’s 2008 and the damn thing still is not finished. Continue reading The McBournie Minute: Finish the space station already

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Spiders–sometimes they create superheroes, but most of the time, they are evil, especially in the War on Animals. They have attacked our space shuttles and even made us have forced sexual relations with another person.

But despite all this, spiders might actually be doing some good for us. It turns out they are killing off those pesky songbirds we all know and hate. According to a recent study, spiders, which are eaten by some types of birds, collect a lot of mercury and in turn end up with high mercury content in their blood (which leads to other health problems, including osteoporosis).

This blog really isn’t sure where to stand on spiders. They cause so much harm, but they are helping us rid the world of the avian menace. For now, we will stay neutral on them.