Camino LS6

Wow! Very cool! One summer evening, I was at my parents' house when we heard a duck go berserk outside down at the pond. So I grabbed a flashlight and shined it at the noise. It was the coolest thing! There was a Great Horned Owl with its wings outstretched and its talons in the duck's back! Huge wingspan. Anyway, the light spooked the owl and the duck bolted for cover with about a dozen ducklings trying to keep up with her. The owl had attacked her right on her nest, and the ducklings were underneath her the whole time. Wish I had that on video. My family also once had a cat that came in with talon wounds one morning... after that, she was terrified of ceiling fans.

I never gave it much thought, but I don't play any card games at all.

It was pretty cool, but more of a stand-off than a fight. I think the prey had once been a squirrel...

To be a raptor requires talons, I don't think snakes qualify.

Yeah, but the feathered version is the original.

Today I watched a hawk defend its kill from a vulture - not something you see every day.

I'm afraid my "fight reserves" are all tapped-out at the moment.

Man, I'm glad to hear this! I've been starving for some good news. Congrats Z, all the best to you in your new home. +1 on the garage pics/plans.

I'm so tired of seeing all that is good in America being sacrificed on the altar of mediocrity. I just can't stand the thought of a least-common-denominator future.

It would seem that no one has a real handle on the economic nuts and bolts of the last 50 years of NASA. But, the net is that everything from cordless tools to life-saving heart tech stems from NASA research. The tech patents run into the tens of thousands, so extrapolate that to all of the possible applications. All of the economic stuff aside, I see the real value elsewhere. And I believe it is essential to the survival of the country as anything recognizable as such going forward. If we abdicate our role as leader here, China will be happy to take over.

I'm not much of a researcher on things like this, and there are hugely variable interpretations of the true ROI from Nasa, but this Wikipedia entry has some good information. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget Scroll way down for the ROI information. On your way to that information, stop at the breakdown of the NASA budget year-by-year. There you will find just how little we have spent on NASA relative to federal spending in general. It also clearly shows how NASA has been a punching bag for the idiots in Congress over the years. The villians become clear as well.

I just voted the few that I realistically would look at.

After the Columbia disaster, I wrote a little tribute and posted it to a website I frequented at the time. Another poster there was a NASA employee and she printed it out and placed it at the makeshift memorial outside the NASA offfices. Today she is expecting to lose her job after 13 tears.

It's starting to earn that title...

So it would seem. I really miss the Duramax. Had there been any other way...

Broke the truck again today - I think it's the transfer case this time...

Odd, it works fine for me - no scrolling.

Wait, now I'm confused. Are you talking about the link in my original post, or the one I just posted? The one I just posted works just fine for me.

Far more appealing than the sedan.

NASA holds thousands and thousands of tech patents that industry uses. How exactly the numbers are figured, I can't answer. But suffice it to say that for half a century NASA has been an ongoing, and successful "stimulus package" all by itself.

Don't click the links, just scroll down and read. It's all on that page.

Looks Looks normal for me.

A few reasons why NASA isn't a money pit, and why it matters. Read-up: http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html

If you believe that those things are important, then you should support NASA as that's where the tech for such things comes from. -NASA's budget is less than 1% of our overall budget. -The rate of return on our investment comes in at $7 for every $1 spent. -The technology you use everyday stems directly from NASA programs. -The administration is proposing to actually spend more money on NASA while at the same time gutting their autonomy and ousourcing to private firms and foreign governments. If that's not stupid, what is? -The Constellation program (return to the moon) that they plan to kill is already well underway and we have spent over 9 billion on it so far. Really want to toss all of that away? - And, let's consider the thousands of jobs that will be lost because of this. Do we really want to do that to our best and brightest? No, this is a mindless, pandering act - Hell, Gingrich has endorsed it! Think it over folks.

The '89 Chevy pickup.