What bugs me is that I have to walk all the way to my front door to get my mail. I would be much happier if the postman would just bring it to me in front of the tv, but I do not want to walk to my porch.

Inconceivable!

The US would be a lot better off it were more like Canada.

Ultraviolet light with wavelengths blueward of about 300 nanometers does not get through the atmosphere. If we want to see it, we have to go to space. And the ultraviolet is where some of the most exciting astronomy is happening right now.

The design is somewhat similar to the ultraviolet/optical telescope on Swift. Swift's original cost was about $70 million, but it has a gamma ray telescope and an X ray telescope in addition to its UV/optical telescope. They can probably build the spacecraft and instrument fairly cheaply if they use off the shelf components. The expensive part is going to be the launch vehicle and the continuing ground support after launch. One million dollars is not going to be enough, but a few tens of millions of dollars may be.

This is what happens when you don't have unions.

Try Paris, or Moscow. Manhatten driving is for wimps.

The Conservatives have a majority government in Canada. Unless a significant number of MPs break party ranks, which would be political suicide for those MPs, and vote against the bill it will pass. It is possible that the Senate will delay it until the current session of Parliament ends, but given the track record of the current Group of Senators that is unlikely. And even if they do show that much political courage and insight the Conservatives would probably just reintroduce the bill with a few token changes. Unless if there is a significant public outcry it is very likely that this bill will become law.

If you drive to New York you are not hip enough for Google Glass.

That's a boatswain.

Heidi Hammel, (en. wikipedia. org/ wiki/ Heidi_Hammel), has been posting updates on facebook.

The best estimate, as of about an hour ago, is that the explosion was about 0.5 megatons, give or take a factor of about two. Of course, this is still a work in progress.

You are one sad, pathetic little person.