Pawprints From Space

Before anyone gets all up in arms over the "Xmas" in the title of this post, here is a little background for you: The "X" comes from the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word Χριστός, translated as "Christ" and the New Testament was originally written in Greek - the symb ol below is the labarum used since 312 A.D. (starting with the  Emperor  Constantine) to represent Christ ans uses the first two letters of His name in Greek Chi (X) and Rho (P) This symbol can also be found on the walls in the catacombs in Rome. The Vatican uses a version to this day wherein the X is the crossed keys to the kingdom of heaven as given to St. Peter and the Pope's "hat" (miter) sits atop where the Rho is here.  Okay, so that said Xmas is an abbreviation of Christmas that does NOT cross the Christ out of Christmas. Actually you aren't supposed to say "X - mas" you really should speak the word properly as Christmas. Eur...

Once again Discovery's mission has been put on hold ( click here ). As mentioned earlier, I find this worrisome. If we are not going to fund the space program properly the ext discoveries will go to other nations, or perhaps to the private sector. Is that what we want? We are already losing ground in so many other ways (e.g. manufacturing) and our children do not measure up in the sciences with the rest of the world. Will we be the next (last?) "great" power to fall? While not an "empire" on the scale of England, let alone China or Rome the United States has been an influential "empire" across the globe for quite some time which isn't bad for a relatively young nation but... is that time ending? Is the step back from human space exploration a symptom of a larger ailment?

Beginning to wonder if the shuttle Discovery should fly again.  So many delays, so many potentially awful problems found and (hopefully) fixed. The launch date is now December 3, 2010.  http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html These remaining spacecraft are not aging gracefully. Due to budget cuts over the years new craft have not been funded and you can only repair the old vehicle so many times before it just isn't workable any longer. And with the dangers inherent in space flight are we really willing to risk lives for a few final missions? I'm not sure we should. And I am a huge supporter of the space program. I think it is a shame the program is dying. I think there is so much left to learn. And while I adore the rovers tooling around Mars I think the real value in knowledge gained is through human exploration. But I do not think that risking lives in an aging space craft is a good idea. With apologies to Princess Leia: "They went up in ...

If you are looking for something different to do with cranberries for Thanksgiving (or Christmas) try this: 1 tablespoon unsalted butter 2 tablespoons freshly grated ginger 16 ounces cranberries (fresh or frozen NO CANS!) 2/3 cup sugar 1 cup fresh orange  juice 1/2 cup apricot preserves In a saucepan, over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the ginger and cook, stirring for 2 minutes. Stir in the cranberries, sugar, orange juice and preserves. Cook, stirring occassionally  until  the cranberries burst and the sauce thickens, about 20 minutes. Transfer to bowl and serve warm. You can make this up to two days in advance without distorting the flavors