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(Update courtesy of my local gas pump video screen.) In other news... The Earth is Round! Ice is Cold! Fire Burns! (Sadly, all of the above probably IS news to Tea Party politicians.) 

I grew up fascinated by our space program… in love with the idea of space exploration and the possibilities inherent in that notion. Star Trek was my grail, and the Apollo astronauts were the heroes of my day. The interest, and hero worship, waned over time… not incidentally as NASA's agenda was redirected from space exploration to near-earth exploitation (I don't mean that with any negative connotations… but as the shuttle system was intended to be a "space truck" to ferry goods and personnel from earth to orbit and back, exploitation seems the right word.)

I refer, of course, to our inestimable President and his moronic comments, quoted here: Va. Governor Calls For Day Of Mourning Allow me: "One of the lessons of these tragedies is to make sure that when people see somebody or know somebody who is exhibiting abnormal behavior, you do something about it, to suggest that somebody take a look… I would make the case that, if you don't know what you're talking about, maybe you should keep your mouth shut, but a President that doesn't say a word for his entire Presidency would hardly be practical (though think of all the problems we'd have avoided). Somebody, somewhere along the line, probably should have told the President that people DID try to do something about it, but that nothing could be done… he hadn't broken the law and, as he's an adult. Unless someone could make a viable case for committing him, you can't lock him away. I know GW doesn't give a rat's ass about privacy, but this isn't one ...

In one of Robert Heinlein's later novels (The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, I believe), he posits a suggestion as to how to deal with the violently anti-social… the mass murderers and spree killers amongst us, for instance. His conceit is that these creatures are driven by a need for recognition and feel that any notoriety is better than going through life unnoticed. They are acting out in order to get the attention of the world. And they are inspired by the fame and notoriety that those that have preceded them have achieved. (The Virginia Tech shooter's reference to the Columbine shooters as "martyrs" would seem to support this notion.) His solution to the problem is the you "erase" these individuals from the collective consciousness. Instead of 24-hour coverage of the event, debating the nature of the killer, his background, what could have driven him to this extreme, etc., you focus on the victims and their families. You put a human face on the tragedy that d...

If you pay any attention to gaming, you had to know that it was only a matter of time after the Virginia Tech shootings before somebody was going to blame it all on videogames. But even I was surprised by how fast Dr. Phil jumped to this conclusion. (I am NOT however, surprised to find that Jack Thompson came to the same conclusion first. I'm sure he sits around waiting for news like this, a boilerplate press release at hand, ready to plug in the names.) As I write this, the suspect has been ID'd, but the police are not ready to confirm that he's the shooter. But this hasn't stopped Dr. Phil from pushing his agenda that videogames are to blame for all the ills in our world today. We know next to nothing about the kid involved (we know his age, his name, his nationality) nor what set him off. Could he be an avid videogame player, desensitized to violence thanks to years of first person shooters? Sure, it's possible. He could also be a lovelorn loner, dumped by his gi...