Hammer Mill Days

We'll be home for Christmas? Only in your dreams. Yes, I know... we should do the decent, right? Be with our families, etc. Alas, technology makes clueless monkeys of us all. This horrible rust-bucket leftover from some forgotten interplanetary invasion we rented as transport during our interstellar tour has blown yet another gasket or some such thing, per our mad science advisor Mitch Macaphee. He used a lot of big words, none of which I'd ever heard before (though Matt was familiar with several of them... strange...). The upshot is, we're chugging along at subnormal speed, making our leisurely way back to Earth from the Kuiper Belt - last stop on the ENTER THE MIND: THE ULTIMATE BIG GREEN EXPERIENCE interstellar tour. So... like my cat Macky, we're making the best of it. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has fashioned a Christmas tree out of whatever was available. The mansized tuber has been coaxed out of his terrarium to serve as the aforementioned "whateve...

After a whirlwind lame duck session for the 111th Congress, it appears as though gays will soon be able to serve openly in the military. I must emphasize the modifier "soon", as it is not yet safe to make your sexual orientation known in the service, and it won't be until the Administration and the Pentagon completes their review process. None the less, his was a long time coming, and I am glad for those in uniform for whom the repeal of DADT means a kind of liberation. DADT was implemented before we started asking way too much of our military - multiple deployments to multiple simultaneous occupations, heavy fighting over stretches of months at a time, high casualty rates, etc. - and it has simply outlived its mandate, in addition to being dead wrong from the start. That's all good, but it's just a step in the right direction. Gay Americans are still second-class citizens, barred from full civil rights as of this moment. As of now, there is an institutional neces...