Sagan, Feynman, deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye sing that there is much to be learned
Impressive technology and creativity were used to present the wise words of these four scientists in a brand new way:
Lots of other planets
Scientists now have evidence of about 400 planets outside of the solar system, including 32 new ones:
European astronomers have found 32 new planets outside our solar system, adding evidence to the theory that the universe has many places where life could develop. Scientists using the European Southern Observatory telescope didn't find any planets quite the size of Earth or any that seemed habitable or even unusual.And this is the tip of the iceberg. Though not yet established, any reasonable extrapolation would suggest that there are many billions of other planets out there, and that at least some of them would be hospitable to life. Which makes it all the more amazing that out of all of those available planets God chose to send his "only begotten Son" toour planet: Earth. Or is that the point that Carl Sagan was opposing in this video?
How to worship a loving God away from female priests and gays
Are you tired of worshiping the God of Love under the same roof as uppity women priests and gay people? Look no further, says the Vatican, because the Roman Catholic Church wants you. Come let us give you a safe place to worship, says the Church famous for harboring at least 4,000 pedophile priests.
Microsoft Stabs FireFox
I've long been an advocate of the FireFox browser. I've used it since it was first announced, and rarely use IE for anything but testing web designs and browsing Microsoft's own non-W3C compliant web pages. One of my reasons is that Internet Explorer has major vulnerabilities via its ability to directly run ActiveX code on the machine of users without asking permission. That is, it is a hacker's pipeline into your operating system. Well, a few weeks ago, a Microsoft Update quietly installed the .Net Framework assistant into any FireFox browser it found. Shoved that narrow shiv of vulnerability right into the heart of the generally more secure FireFox core. When it was noticed, the savvy segment of FireFox users were outraged. Not just because it was done, but because it was done in such a way that it couldn't be easily removed! Sure, it would let FireFox users see those rare sites dependent on ActiveX, but it would also let hackers run ActiveX on your machine! When I found out, I first Googled to find a way to remove it using regedit and about:config (two dangerous powerful tools). But a week later, updates by Microsoft and FireFox made it easier to remove. If you have it, remove it. Here's one of the articles about it from ZDNet, a generally Microsoft friendly environment. This article also contains removal instructions that assume you have recent updates. btw: If you didn't know. FireFox spell checks all blog entry fields as you type. And you can add nifty customizable Make Link tools for easy creation of links in comments to blogs and such. Just highlight text on a page, rt-click and Make Link to copy complete link code, ready to paste.
Elizabeth Warren: Nothing much has changed
Elizabeth Warren has lots of bad news, the "stabilized" economy and the huge Wall Street bonuses notwithstanding. Warren is the Chair of the Congressional TARP Oversight Panel. Good for her, hammering on Henry Paulson's enormous bait and switch. Most of that TARP money was supposed to be used for loans for small businesses, not more gambling and bonuses, which is where it appears to have gone. Yet, according to Warren, there will "never" be a meaningful accounting of that money.