Is the U.N. Really Coming to Take Our Guns?

To hear some people on the Right tell it, the United Nations is going to be sending troops with light blue helmets door to door to confiscate your guns. But is that even remotely true? Well, I did start this post with “To hear some people on the Right tell it…” so that should be a clue. The answer is a simple “No,” but if you want something more complicated than that, then “No, and can I have some of what you’re on?” The United Nations is not about to do anything of the sort. In fact, it would be just as accurate to say that the Wicked Witch of the West is sending her flying monkeys to everyone’s house to confiscate the guns of law-abiding citizens and to fling poo at them. Let me be as clear as I can be: The United Nations is

Perchance to Dream

As happens to everyone at one time or another (or several others, for some people), this hasn’t been a good week for me. I wasn’t feeling great last weekend, and as I headed into work this past Monday morning, I could tell I was only getting worse. I left work early on Monday in the hopes of getting some rest and staving off this cold, but, alas, not only did I awake Tuesday morning to several inches of snow on the last full day of Winter (thank you very much, Mr. Very Old Man Winter), but my cold had worsened and I needed to stay home for the day. So I did. I couldn’t have gotten much work done that day because I was sneezing or coughing violently approximately every other minute. I’m a serial sneezer. I don’t usually just sneeze once, I sneeze many times in a row. In fact, it’s very rare that I

At The Speed of Light

In an interview with StarTalk Radio host Chuck Nice, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson explained why photons (the particles that carry light) exist outside of time. “…As you increase your speed, time ticks more slowly for you than it does for anyone who is watching you,” he said on StarTalk Radio. “This is the relativity of time. This is well known. We have measured this. It is not just your clock that is clicking slower, your metabolism is unfolding more slowly, your brain synapses are firing more slowly, everything about you is

The Spring Forward Position

“Spring Forward, Fall Back.” It seems we learned that one before we learned the Lord’s Prayer. (Some of you may have learned that one faster than the rest of us.) But why do we do it? Wasn’t Daylight Savings Time something Ben Franklin thought up? Wasn’t it supposed to be for the benefit of the farmers, so they would have more daylight to harvest their crops and work their fields? Don’t they have alarm clocks now? Can’t they just let the rest of us sleep?

The answers are: To save energy. Yes. Yes. I’m sure they do. No.

Not going along with it may defeat the point, to save energy. You see, the theory goes that

Bull Hannity

By now, you’ve probably heard about the heated exchange between Fox “News” Channel host Sean Hannity and Rep. Keith Ellison (D, MN-5) on Tuesday night last. Hannity’s inner bully was on display that night, from his arrogant way of asking the congressman to repeat what he said (in an attempt to intimidate him into not repeating it), to his condescending tone of voice, and then to his talking over his guest in an effort to silence him. In case you missed it, here’s as full a clip of the segment as I can find. What’s important to note is the context in which the interview took place. You’ve probably heard all about the things Ellison said to him, but what you probably didn’t hear is