Brian Gongol
Stephen Hawking says, "Don't talk to strangers"
And by that, he means we shouldn't be bothering to make too friendly with any kinds of alien life that might try to make contact with us -- or visit. If they're sophisticated enough to get here, they're probably sophisticated enough to destroy us all, whether intentionally or not. It's a subject quite amusingly addressed in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", but also a matter of very serious consideration when we talk about visiting other planets ourselves. If, for instance, we were to contaminate Mars with Earthly bacteria, we might not only cause ourselves to think there's Martian life when there really isn't, but also to accidentally kill off Martian life if it really does exist after all. Some people argue that we should damn the torpedoes and just terraform Mars anyway to make it suitable for human habitation. There are a handful of approaches we could try, and quite a bit of the math has already been calculated. But the Martian example alone shows how we might ourselves be responsible for destroying life on another planet, strictly in the interest of our own survival. After all, the Sun is going to destroy Earth sooner or later (probably much, much later), and if we want the idea of Earthly life to continue, we're going to have to start colonizing something beyond the pale blue dot we call home.
Police raid home of journalist tied to "prototype iPhone" story
The "prototype iPhone" discovery promoted heavily by Gizmodo really didn't seem to be completely above-board -- in fact, it sounded a lot like an Apple publicity stunt -- but now the police are involved, confirming that there really was something fishy about the whole operation. If you find stolen or lost property, you don't turn it into an exclusive story on your website -- you turn the property over to police. That's how a proper society functions under the rule of law.
Kenya might be vaccinating against malaria by 2015
Malaria kills almost no Americans, but it does destroy a million lives annually around the world, mainly in Africa. Stopping the dreadful disease shouldn't be beyond our reach.
Esquire thinks it has a few useful facts men should know about women
Where the "Growing Pains" cast ended up
Money flows into Ottumwa
