The immaculate conception refers not to the virgin birth of Jesus, but to the conception of Mary without original sin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immaculate_Conception

No kidding. The show had a ways to come back after starting on that note.

I stayed at the Breakwater Lodge in Cape Town, SA. They were charging ~$10/hour.

My 3 year old and 11 month old were both diagnosed with atypical chicken pox, today. The doctor told me that the 3 year old's vaccine prevented them from being about 50 times worse (in terms of number of rashes, severity of symptoms & fever, etc). He also immediately ordered the vaccine for the younger one, as it has a proven benefit if given immediately after diagnosis. So I'll go ahead and recommend that you give your hypothetical kid the vaccine.

As an aside, the doctor was asking about where they could have picked it up. I mentioned that they had recently started at a new daycare. The doctor immediately remarked that it was probably an un-vaccinated classmate. So, once again, I recommend you vaccinate your hypothetical kid. If not for your own kid, then for everyone else's.

This is incorrect. Saturn's rings are clearly visible in my 2.5" telescope. Banding is visible on Jupiter if the moon is down and seeing is good. Also, the brightest moons will be clearly visible for both planets.

Not mentioned in the summary or the first two linked articles is what ACTA actually is. It stands for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement

I'd guess it uses a spinning mirror. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FiR2rGv7i4

From the article, they acknowledged that this would be unsuitable for cargoes sensitive to high G-forces. They suggested that rocket fuel would be a suitable payload.

I'm less than certain. Intersecting with the Moon would only require changes in ellipticity, whereas causing the satellite to become unbound would require a considerable increase in the satellite's kinetic energy.

That's a neat thought, but how are you planning on communicating with your experiment once it gets out into deep space?

There's a nice bit of software called PUFF that was written at Caltech. It is available as an MS-DOS binary, which you can run on XP or Mac through DOSBox. Also, on the PUFF website they report that the source code comes with the program, and some have had success in compiling it for Linux. Unfortunately, you can't buy the software directly. Some textbooks come packaged with it, though. I can recommend the Rutledge book as a nice overview of lab electronics.