To the moon

A real gee-whiz moment: the Virtual AGC and AGS project has put the source code for the Apollo 11 lander and orbiter computers online, together with an emulator for running them. (The comments on Lambda the Ultimate are more interesting than the source code itself.)

Now, about that planet Mars ...

Condolences

We're awfully sad to hear that Saad bin Laden has passed away. If anyone knows how to reach his father, please let the nearest US embassy know so that we can send him our condolences.

The Wizard of Oz

I'm glad I'm not a lawyer, but I'm even gladder that I'm not on jury duty.

Freedom: use it or lose it

Forty years ago yesterday, Buzz Aldrin became the first man to serve holy communion on the moon. I wasn't aware of this until I read David Water's column this morning:

Aldrin's brief and private Christian service never caused a flap, but it could have. Aldrin has said that he planned to broadcast the service, but NASA at the last minute asked him not to because of concerns about a lawsuit filed (later dismissed) by atheist Madelyn Murray O'Hare after Apollo 8 astronauts read from Genesis while orbiting the moon at Christmas.

Don't think that there are worse things than censoring national heroes while they are actually in the process of risking their lives for humanity? Think again! Australian historian Roel Van Leeuwen had his thesis, Dreamers of the Dark: Kerry Bolton and the Order of the Left Hand Path, a Case-study of a Satanic New-Nazi Society removed from the University of Waikato's library for 8 months because, and I'm not making this up, there was concern that he was not being fair to the Nazis. After suppressing the thesis for the better part of a year, Waikato's Chancellor, and again I point out that I'm not making this up, told reporters that his insitution "was a place of academic rigour which did not shy away from tackling controversial research."

Ugh. Thank goodness we still have freedom to speak and write in the United States, huh?

Thank goodness you can't believe a politician

Before going to Cairo last month, President Obama told the world that the United States is a "Muslim Nation."

Thank goodness that this is just another one of his empty promises.

Scary pictures

Here's a quick personality test. Which of the following pictures do you find to be the scariest:

or this:

or this:

Tough to decide, huh?

Tough to be a girl today

... especially when men act like pigs when you threaten them

... and when other women act like fools when you disagree with them

... or when being a girl sucks in its own right.

Our European friends

Our German allies in Afghanistan are no doubt brave and well-meaning. But they are only a token force, and furthermore their leaders have nevertheless allowed them to do almost no fighting during the course of the war.

Now it seems that German forces consumed 90,000 bottles of wine and 1,700,000 liters of beer in Afghanistan alone. In a single year. (Most other countries' soldiers aren't allowed to consume alcohol in the war zone.)

Germany has only contributed 3,300 soldiers: so if they drink this much it may very well be that it's a good thing that they aren't doing more fighting.

A confession

We're commanded to love everyone, but I have a lot of trouble feeling sorry for

• Gregory McCalium, who tried to rob an elderly man at knifepoint. The elderly man turned out to be a retired boxer and, well, you can guess the rest
• Ruth Madoff, who has been reduced to living on a measly $2,500,000
• Any parent selfish enough let a pet python into their home
• Married men who have "tragic love affairs"
• Anyone who doesn't like Mollie Sugden.

Who am I kidding? I feel sorry for them all.

Hug your family this weekend

Michael Jackson's family is going to charge admission for his memorial service.