Her Grampa Saved Neil Armstrong!

"My grandfather had a lot of stories", writes Katie Mack, "but there was one that transfixed me: about how he worked with NASA and saved the crew of Apollo 11".

Really cool story. Mack's pride in her grandad is justified.

Update:
21/01/2016. "This is About - The Moon and Other Things", by Robyn Williams and Jordan Raskopoulos (14/01/2017) is an extended interview with Prof. Katie Mack (University of Melbourne page, personal website) about her grandfather, Apollo 11 and other things. She herself seems to be a very interesting young lady.

Dorman on Ideology.

One may learn something from Peter Dorman … in his better moments.

An example? "Taking a Stand on Standpoint" is a good post (mostly).

Prof. Dorman describes the relationship between one's position in the pecking order and one's beliefs system (ideology) in terms of proclivities or predispositions:

"Any differentiated social position, such as one’s national background, religion, subculture, age, etc., could be the basis for ideological proclivities. This wider conception of ideology begins to appear in Karl Mannheim and his program for a sociology of knowledge."

Calling the Election: the People Lost.

Two sides battled it out for nearly a year: the crook vs the unhinged, the loudmouth vs the liar, the grotesque vs the repulsive, the misogynist and racist vs the elitist warmonger, the self-declared billionaire vs the Wall Street puppet. In short: the deplorable vs the irredeemable. One side had to win.

And the winner is... Hillary Trump! No, wait! It was Donald Clint'n?!

Human kind dodged a bullet and the world, once again, was made safe for democracy.

----------

The older I get, the wiser this idiom sounds to me: same shit, different pile. To American readers: my sympathies.

----------

Wikileaks and Julian Assange have endured a lot of criticism from liberals for publishing information damaging to the Hillary Clinton campaign. Well, it's time Assange addressed this issue and it's only fair to give him the chance of explaining himself: "Assange Statement on the US Election" (November 8, 2016), by Julian Assange.

Bits and Pieces: Up Yours Edition.

The latest in Australian work relations?

source