The Silver State Chronicles

I wonder if this will catch on

Now, that’s a creative approach in this rough & tumble economy!  Sue your school!

The New York Post reports…

JOBLESS GRAD SUES COLLEGE FOR 70G TUITION
By KATHIANNE BONIELLO

She has given new meaning to a class-action lawsuit.

Trina Thompson gave it the old college try, but couldn’t find work. Now she thinks her sheepskin wasn’t worth her time, and is suing her alma mater for her money back.

The Monroe College grad wants the $70,000 she spent on tuition because she hasn’t found gainful employment since earning her bachelor’s degree in April, according to a suit filed in Bronx Supreme Court on July 24.

The 27-year-old alleges the business-oriented Bronx school hasn’t lived up to its end of the bargain, and has not done enough to find her a job.

The information-technology student blames Monroe’s Office of Career Advancement for not providing her with the leads and career advice it promised.

“They have not tried hard enough to help me,” the frustrated Bronx resident wrote about the school in her lawsuit.

“She’s angry,” said Thompson’s mother, Carol. “She’s very angry at her situation. She put all her faith in them, and so did I. They’re not making an effort.

“She’s finally finished [with school], and I’m so proud of her. She just wants a job.”

The mother and daughter live together, but are struggling to get by. Carol, a substitute teacher, has been the only breadwinner.

“This is not the way we want to live our life,” the mom said. “This is not what we planned.”

As if being unemployed weren’t enough, Trina’s student loans are coming due, saddling the family with more debt, the mom said.

“We’re going to be homeless, and we’ll still have a student loan to pay,” Carol said.

Monroe insists it helps graduates in their careers.

“The lawsuit is completely without merit,” school spokesman Gary Axelbank said. “The college prides itself on the excellent career-development support that we provide to each of our students, and this case does not deserve further consideration.”

The college’s Office of Career Advancement advertises lifetime free service for graduates, and boasts on the school’s Web site: “We have many resources available for students at any stage of their college career, and even after graduation.”

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Why So Serious?

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ABC’s 20/20 With Some Sobering Insights

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Cars For Clunkers Website Is Nosy

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The Apollo 11 Astronauts Return Home, Heroes!

On July 24, the astronauts returned home aboard the command module Columbia just before dawn in the Pacific Ocean 2,660 km (1,440 nm) east of Wake Island, or 380 km (210 nm) south of Johnston Atoll, and 24 km (15 mi) from the recovery ship, USS Hornet.

Initially the command module landed upside down but was righted in several minutes by flotation bags triggered by the astronauts. The first NAVY diver from the helicopter hovering above attached an anchor to the command module to prevent it from drifting. Additional divers attached additional flotation collars to stabilize the the module and position rafts for astronaut extraction. Though the possibility of bringing back pathogen from the lunar surface was considered remote, it was not considered impossible and NASA took great precautions at the recovery site. Astronauts were provided Biological Isolation Garment (BIG suit) by divers which were worn until they reached issolation facilities onboard the Hornet. Additionally astronauts were rubbed down with a sodium-hypochlorite solution and the command module wipped with betadine to remove any lunar dust that might be present. The raft containing decontamination materials was then intentionally sunk.

A second Sea King helicopter hoisted the astronauts aboard one by one where a NASA flight surgeon gave each a brief physical check during the half mile trip back to the Hornet. After touchdown on the Hornet, all crew existed the helicopter, leaving the flight surgeon and 3 crew. The helicopter was then lowered into hangar bay #2 where the astronauts walked the 30 feet to the Mobile Quarantine Facility (MQF) where they would begin their 21 days of quarantine, a practice that continue for the next 3 Apollo missions before the moon was proven to be barren of life and quarantine process dropped for Apollo XV through XVII.

President Richard Nixon was aboard the Hornet to personally welcome the astronauts back to Earth. He told the astronauts: “As a result of what you’ve done, the world has never been closer together before.” Years later, it was publicly revealed that Nixon had prepared a speech to be given if the mission resulted in death. The lunar module had not been tested to assess if it could launch from the moon surface. After Nixon departed, the Hornet was brought alongside the 5 ton command module where it was placed abord by the ships crane, placed on a dolly and moved next to the MQF. The Hornet steamed for Pearl Harbor where the command module and MQF were airlifed to the Johnson Space Center.

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The Eagle Has Landed!

Mission Commander Neil Alden Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, & Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Eugene 'Buzz' Aldrin, Jr.

On July 20, 1969 the lunar module (LM) Eagle separated from the command module Columbia. Collins, alone aboard Columbia, inspected Eagle as it pirouetted before him to ensure the craft was not damaged.

As the descent began, Armstrong and Aldrin found that they were passing landmarks on the surface 4 seconds early and reported that they were “long”: they would land miles west of their target point.

The LM navigation and guidance computer distracted the crew with several unusual “1201″ and “1202″ program alarms. Inside Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas, computer engineer Jack Garman told guidance officer Steve Bales it was safe to continue the descent and this was relayed to the crew.

When Armstrong again looked outside, he saw that the computer’s landing target was in a boulder-strewn area just north and east of a 400 meter diameter crater (later determined to be “West crater”, named for its location in the western part of the originally planned landing ellipse). Armstrong took semi-automatic control and, with Aldrin calling out altitude and velocity data, landed at 20:17 UTC on July 20 with about 25 seconds of fuel left.

Read more…

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Neil deGrasse Tyson does his part

The Mayan Calendar

Well, as we zero in on the year 2012, the usual suspects are up in arms, warning everyone gullible enough to listen that the magical Mayan calendar ‘ends’ on December 21, 2012.

From this starting point, they weave an amazing tale of how the world will somehow end on that date, and manage to rope in disparate (and very often erroneous) morsels of other information to support their claim.  Whether it is the arrival of the mysterious planet Niribu, or some kind of galactic alignment, they insist that cataclysms will consume the earth on that day.

This is all nonsense of course.  The Mayans didn’t have a magic calendar that could tell the future.  For starters, of they had such a calendar, they wouldn’t have been annihilated by a superior culture.  They also fail to consider that upon reaching the end of the the Mayan calendar, it might simply reset back to the beginning (much like December 31 is the end of each year on our calendar, but that fact doesn’t portend to the end of the world, we just start again with a new January 1).

The Planet Nibiru

If you listen to these gullible nuts, the planet Niribu will evidently have a close call with Earth, as our respective orbits will come too close for comfort.  Of course, if a killer giant planet was due to wreak havoc on our planet’s gravity in a few short years, chances are even modest telescopes would have been able to see and identify it years ago.

Some insist Nibiru is on the other side of the sun, making it impossible to see.  Well, if that’s true, we still would have seen it years ago as it zipped by Earth and moved toward the other side of the sun.  We would be able to measure its gravitational influence, in any case.  Of course, nobody has seen, measured, or recorded anything of the kind.

And then there are those who remark that somehow, the center of the galaxy will be perfectly aligned with the Sun and the Earth.  Don’t ask these people exactly what that means, though.  Of course, the sun is always aligned with the Center of the Galaxy (any 2 points will make a straight line, after all).  so anytime the Earth is perfectly aligned with the Sun, all three points will be aligned.

Which brings me to this great video by one of my favorite scientists on the scene, Neil deGrasse Tyson.  He discusses this celestial alignment, and its significance (or lack of significance) in this brief video.  Enjoy!

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The Human Adventure Begins!

It’s the 40th Anniversary of the greatest adventure in human history, The Apollo 11 Lunar Mission.

The Apollo 11 mission was the first manned mission to land on the Moon. It was the fifth human spaceflight of Project Apollo and the third human voyage to the Moon. Launched on July 16, 1969, it carried Mission Commander Neil Alden Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Eugene ‘Buzz’ Aldrin, Jr.

On July 20, Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon, while Collins orbited above in The Lunar Orbiter.

The mission fulfilled President John F. Kennedy’s goal of reaching the moon by the end of the 1960s, which he expressed during a speech given before a joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961.

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Bulls finally win one

One tradition I never appreciated was the Running of the Bulls in Spain.  Besides being cruel to the bulls, it seemed to me to be a very silly exercise on the part of the humans.

Well, every now and then, a bull catches up with a drunk human living out his Hemmingway fantasies and serves a little bit of wild justice.  I feel sorry that the guy died, but I honestly don’t feel very sorry for the fact that a bull caught up with one of his tormentors.

Read the whole story at CNN.com…

Man killed in Pamplona’s running of the bulls

A man died after being gored in the neck during the annual running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, the Navarra regional government said Friday on its Web site.

The death would be the first in the running of the bulls since a 22-year-old American was gored to death in 1995.

The latest victim was a Spanish man, Daniel Jimeno Romero, age 27, from the Madrid area who was vacationing in Pamplona with his family, CNN partner station CNN+ reported from the hospital, where authorities identified him.

He was rushed to the hospital in cardiac arrest and underwent surgery but died soon after, said the statement from the regional government, whose capital is Pamplona. Video Watch man try to scramble away from bull »

Amateur video footage showed the victim falling to the ground toward the end of race, just before the entrance to the bullring, and apparently being gored in the neck.

Three other runners were gored and suffered less serious injuries on Friday, and six others went to the hospital with bruises or other injuries, the Navarra government said. Emergency workers and ambulances line the route to quickly attend those who fall. Do you think this tradition should be banned?

The run in Pamplona started 400 years ago and became popular worldwide after author Ernest Hemingway wrote about it in the 1920s in his book “The Sun Also Rises,” also published under the title “Fiesta.”

The event is held July 7-14. Six bulls and a pack of tame steers run from the corrals, through Pamplona’s old town, to the bullring — where the bulls will die later in the day in a bullfight.

Including the recent death, 14 people have been killed in the runs since 1924, when record-keeping began.

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One of the dumbest ideas to come from Ireland this week

The Courier Mail reports…

Ryanair floats idea of stand-up airfares

A PENNY-pinching airline is about to dispense with seats and introduce standing room in a bid to pack more people on to flights and save money.

Passengers would pay less to huddle next to what have been described as “bar stools”, with seatbelts around their waists while they stand for the entire flight.

The Ireland-based cheap flight airline boss Michael O’Leary has already held talks with US plane manufacturer Boeing about designing a jet with standing room, reports The Sun.

A Ryanair spokesman said: “If (the Irish Aviation Authority) approve it, we’ll be doing it.”

Ryanair are not the first to float the “stand-by” tickets with Chinese airline Spring, putting forward similar plans.

The Chinese outfit believe they could pack in up to 50 per cent more passengers and slash costs by 20 per cent.

Mr O’Leary, who is no stranger to controversy, also unveiled plans for planes with just one toilet instead of three, which he said would allow six extra seats to be crammed in.

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