AdamSmith

"Supporters of Hillary Clinton have already started a 2016 super PAC on her behalf called 'Ready for Hillary.' And more cautious Democratic supporters have started another super PAC called 'Bracing for Biden.'" –Jimmy Fallon "Bill Clinton was being interview recently, and he said that despite all the speculation, Hillary hasn't said anything to him about running for president in 2016. Though in fairness, she hasn't said anything to him since 1998." –Jimmy Fallon "When asked if Hillary Clinton will run for president, Bill Clinton said, 'She's having a little fun being a private citizen.' And then he added, 'Not Bill Clinton fun, but fun nonetheless." –Conan O'Brien "Joe Biden said that Hillary Clinton's decision to run for president won't affect his decision to launch a campaign. While Hillary says Biden's decision to run for president won't affect her becoming president." –Jimmy Fallon "Republicans are already trying to paint Hillary Clinton as too old to be president. In fact, a new ad claims she's so old that she could be a Republican." –Conan O'Brien

Oldie but goodie... "Today Obama was in so much trouble he called Hillary Clinton and said, 'Could you start early?'" – David Letterman

Beautiful tumblr of images from medieval books: http://erikkwakkel.tumblr.com Medieval book historian at Leiden University, The Netherlands. I post images from medieval books. More eye candy on Twitter (@erik_kwakkel) and longer blogs on medievalbooks.nl. I found this from a CNN.com piece highlighting the delightful informal doodles often unrelated to the formal text: http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/03/world/medieval-doodles/?cid=homepage-ob-gc&iref=obnetwork

Well, I voted against Thom Tillis. If Hagan wins, it will less from people's love for her than loathing for him. This btw was our Libertarian candidate, a 53-year-old pizza delivery man. What, me worry?

Princess Diana and the Queen are driving down the lane when their car is forced off the road by masked thieves. "Out of the car and hand over your jewels." After the thieves rob them and steal their car, Diana begins to put her earrings, necklace, and rings back on. "Wherever did you hide those?" demanded the Queen. "Where do you think?" asked Diana. "Pity Margaret wasn't here," said the Queen. "We could have saved the Bentley." -- Joan Rivers

(Realizing that even my full intention to cast 15 or 20 votes for Kaye Hagan tomorrow will likely not stem the tide.)

Again: http://www.boytoy.com/forums/index.php?/topic/22546-initiation/#entry128386

You tell me.

The Lovecraft Engine Being a generator of descriptions most foul and corrupt... Horror author and all round great guy H.P.Lovecraft has often been accused of going a bit overboard in the terrifying description department. Click the button below to receive a randomly generated Lovecraftian description and make up your own mind. CTHULHU FHTAGN Click ye Button to begin... 409 Adjectives, 151 Nouns! Any actual Lovecraft quote, or indeed anything that even remotely sounds like a Lovecraft quote produced by this thing is probably coincidental http://www.wyrmworld.com/interactive/lovecraft/lovecraft.html

nerd An individual persecuted for his superior skills or intellect, most often by people who fear and envy him.

...confessing I still have an ancient Tom Baker Halloween getup consisting of long coat and four dimestore scarves stitched together.

Ferry Fairy at your service. ...the term escort takes on whole new implications. Or, perhaps, not.

We gladly accept the obolus.

Bit of a cheat to put this here but why not! Doctor Who neuroscience special: the brain of a Time Lord http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2014/aug/22/doctor-who-the-brain-time-lord-capaldi-science

This from the same article, if proven true, will also have been extraordinarily irresponsible of Virgin: Tomasso Sgobba, executive director of IAASS and the former head of safety at the European Space Agency, said that Virgin Galactic had refused to share information with industry experts outside the company and declined to have its rocket design peer-reviewed. A couple of business acquaintances who early in their careers worked at Rocketdyne on the F-1 engines used in the Saturn V described being responsibly paranoid at every turn, in effect, and it thus being a matter of course to seek input and review from as many external discipline experts as they could find, across the course of concept engineering, detailed design, simulation and testing.

From the Telegraph article linked above: It also emerged on Saturday that three senior Virgin Galactic executives -- the vice-president in charge of propulsion, the vice-president in charge of safety, and the chief aerodynamics engineer -- had all quit the company in recent months... ...In another email -- this time to the US Chemical Safety Board and sent on July 17 2013 -- Mr Daly wrote: "Sir Richard Branson, his two children, Justin Bieber [the singer] and one other will be the first passengers to fly into space during this coming December 2013, and everyone realises there is a problem, even the engineers ... have said so off the record." Of course there is too little yet known to form a judgment. But to say the above is not, at the least, eyebrow-raising is Pollyanna-ish. That management can push not only design performance goals but also unrealistic schedules, over engineers' objections, to fatal effect, was shown by the Challenger disaster, as indeed you reminded, not to mention the Apollo 1 fire and other examples. Anything that credibly suggests this may have been the case here is, even at this early stage, not irresponsible reporting, I think.

Eek. http://i.imgur.com/DxQsFBJ.jpg

P.S. NASA has not and almost certainly will not point fingers here. They desperately want this project, and commercial spaceflight in general, to succeed.

Concur with both your posts; don't think mine contradicts them. Nonetheless, it will be interesting to see if Branson's financial and PR resources give his project the same resilience as Congressional district patronage, and nationalistic patriotic sentiment, did when disasters struck the Apollo and shuttle programs.

If these allegations prove true, looks likely the end of the line for Branson's space venture. Too bad. Can only hope this does not too badly damage the prospects for private space vehicle development as a whole. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11203634/Branson-spaceship-explosion-The-missed-warnings.html

I plead guilty to depriving attorneys of opportunity.