Build Date: Tue Oct 22 17:50:11 2024 UTC
Everything was working fine an hour ago, and I didn't break the Internet, honest.
-- Tjames Madison
Stop Prohibition in Space NOW!!!
2000-11-01 16:07:55
Today marks the first day of the permanent occupation of the International Space Station (ISS) as one American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts move in for a planned 115 day stay.
It is likely that over the 15 or more years that ISS is operational, it will always have someone in residence. And hopefully, when it becomes time to retire ISS there will be a multitude of other human occupied space stations. That means it is possible that yesterday, Oct 31, 2000 was the last day EVER that a human being was not in space.
Which is a cool thought, but not what this article is about.
It seems that NASA has decided that alcohol is bad and much like the U.S. Navy has on its ships since the early 1900's, has banned booze in space.
Not that I'm surprised about this. NASA is one of the more conservative departments in the federal bureaucracy. "No Fun", seems to be their motto. But their Puritan policy are not only grating, but as far as I'm concerned, blatantly unconstitutional. States and not the federal government control alcohol - and there are no states in space. So as far as I'm concerned, outlawing liquor is space in a civil rights violation against anyone in a 400 mile orbit.
As an unabashed and unrepentant drinker, I find this policy to abhorrent and demand that NASA not only immediately rescind this policy, but also send up a large case of vodka in the next Progress resupply mission. And, I also demand that they immediately begin work on a bar/pub section for the space station that will serve a variety of mixed drinks, wine and beer.
And while I hate to be a single issue voter, I'm letting all the politician running know that I'll vote for whomever has the best Booze in Space policy.
I think everyone reading this article would like to visit space someday. But if NASA has its way, after a hard day's work in space, come 5 o'clock, you can forget about Miller Time. And that's just wrong!!! Write your Congressman folks and let them know that you find prohibition in space as unacceptable as you find it down here.
T O P S T O R I E S
Another Nobel Prize-Winning Author Describes Drunkenness
This book won a Pulitzer Prize. Here's its famous paragraph on getting drunk... (More...)
'Why I'm pretty sure JD Vance had sex with a couch'
True or false? The answers await us in that magical land where all truths are revealed -- the internet. (More...)
In 2010 Dr. Cheng-Huai Ruan discovered a way to cause a patient with an abnormal heartbeat to get back into a normal rhythm by sticking a finger up the patient's ass. (More...)
WKRP in Cincinnati aired from 1978 through 1982. Howard Hesseman played Dr. Johnny Fever, a DJ from Los Angeles who was fired from his previous job for saying the word "booger" on the air. In the show Hesseman would do some dialogue, introduce a song, and start the song. You'd hear a few notes, but never the whole song. (More...)
SF Hippies Can't Get Their Act Together
The annual 420 Hippie Hill event in Golden Gate Park, where large crowds of hippies, wannabe hippies, and hippie poseurs drape themselves in tie dye t-shirts and gather on a hill on 4/20 to smoke weed, was cancelled this year because the organizers couldn't get their act together. (More...)
Mozart to be inducted into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame
Joining such hard-rocking inductees as Abba, Chet Atkins, Nat King Cole, and Neil Diamond, the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame is proud to induct Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
The Deep Dark Underbelly of the Star Wars Myth, or Ramayana Remembered
It's a fact: Star Wars is a blatant plagiarism of an ancient Asian legend, and the long lines of devout Star Wars freaks are really unscrupulous Asian copyright busters. From Indonesia to Thailand to Nepal, videos are available for sale or rent before they're even released in the US and UK due to this nerdy camcorder-clutching bunch. (More...)
During a magnificent sunny day in a fast receding autumn, the Spock Science Monitor reporters once again blew the playa dust off of their computers and covered the 2002 Burning Man Decompression – held every year just east of Portola Hill in beautiful San Francisco. Both an afternoon and evening issues were released to the unsuspecting crowd of freaks attempting to in some small way experience the euphoria of the playa – if but for a brief afternoon far from the desolation of Northern Nevada. (More...)
Patient Joab's scientifick editorial discusses aspect of the space-time-beer continuum never before processed by sub-bush-robot minds!!! Too fabulantastic to contempulate! (More...)
Johnnie Royale's Guide to Wakes
Wakes can present problems for Bad People of the Future. (If you don't know what a BPotF is, you need to read more of the PDJ.) Sure, your friend is gone and you miss him and that really sucks; it does, I know. But all Bad People of the Future are gonna die, and they have all accepted that fact. They do deserve, however, to have one final kickass party to celebrate all the bad things they've done in the past, present and future. And you, as a friend, have to make sure that their desire for a final send off is well executed (sorry for the pun). That's just the way of BPotFdom. (More...)
A Blast from the Past! Pao Tzu goes over and under the crucial variables in the production and consumption of Salvia Divinorum. A must read for psychonauts of all stripes. (More...)
40 Acres, a Mule, and a Crummy 90-Second Spot on Weekend Update
Consider the plight of the Black Man. The Black Man on "Saturday Night Live," I mean. Has there ever been a more pathetic thing than a token unredeemed for 28 years? Where is the NAACP when you really need them? (More...)