In a time of conflict, a group of unlikely heroes band together on a mission to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Empire’s ultimate weapon of destruction. This key event in the Star Wars timeline brings together ordinary people who choose to do extraordinary things, and in doing so, become part of something greater than themselves.
Speechless. Rogue One is not the prequel we got in 1999, but it is the prequel we deserved all along. Can’t wait to see it again!
The paper of record:
John Glenn, a freckle-faced son of Ohio who was hailed as a national hero and a symbol of the space age as the first American to orbit Earth, then became a national political figure for 24 years in the Senate, died on Thursday in Columbus, Ohio. He was 95.
Great Big Story:
On December 7, 1972, NASA launched Apollo 17, a lunar mission crewed by Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans and Harrison Schmitt. It would be the last time humans traveled beyond low Earth orbit, the last time man landed on another celestial body, and the last time man went to the moon. The Last Steps uses rare, heart-pounding footage and audio to retrace the record-setting mission. A film by Todd Douglas Miller.
The supermoon appears to balance on top of the St. Louis arch. Photographer David Carson shot with a Canon 1DX. The exposure was ISO 250, shutter speed 180, aperture f4.5.
We’ve known about anthropogenic global warming for decades and decades…
“The Unchained Goddess” (1958), produced by Frank Capra and the fourth film in the Bell Laboratories Science Series (1956-1964):
Even now, man may be unwittingly changing the world’s climate through the waste products of his civilization. Due to our release through factories and automobiles every year of more than six billion tons of carbon dioxide, which helps air absorb heat from the sun, our atmosphere seems to be getting warmer.
And by the way, the Earth’s population in 1958 was about 2 billion, or about 5 billion less than today…
Netflix:
Get a look at the sophisticated engines Russia designed for a Cold War-era moon landing and how a changing world led them to a strange fate.
Excellent film. Anything space-related, especially Mercury-Gemini-Apollo era, you can sign me up.
The banana is the world’s most popular fruit crop, with over 100 million metric tons produced annually in over 130 tropical and subtropical countries.
Edible bananas are the result of a genetic accident in nature that created the seedless fruit we enjoy today. Virtually all the bananas sold across the Western world belong to the so-called Cavendish subgroup of the species and are genetically nearly identical. These bananas are sterile and dependent on propagation via cloning, either by using suckers and cuttings taken from the underground stem or through modern tissue culture.
The familiar bright yellow Cavendish banana is ubiquitous in supermarkets and fruit bowls, but it is in imminent danger. The vast worldwide monoculture of genetically identical plants leaves the Cavendish intensely vulnerable to disease outbreaks.
Physician-assisted suicide will become legal in California under a bill signed into law today by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, making it the fifth state in the nation to give terminally ill patients a legal right to die.
As hard as it may be to believe in today’s ultra-political culture, my Mom–who was an RN–told me decades ago that there was actually a time when this was not a political issue, but rather a private issue between physicians and patients + spouses, and that as a private issue, so-called physician-assisted suicide, also known as compassion, for mentally competent terminal patients was routine and anything but controversial.
In 1999, college football superstar Ricky Williams — represented by rapper Master P’s No Limit Sports — signed one of the most infamous contracts in NFL history.
Fascinating.
Or, could it be that the board is using its regulatory power at the behest of private businesses who don’t want to compete with Project Belle?
That seems to be case.