This one made me tear up (just like the launch). The Shuttle Close Out Crew is a group of people who make sure that the Astronauts are all situated and properly closed into the orbiter before launch. They strap them in. They close the doors. They are the last people to see the shuttle crew face to face before they go into space.

When it come to software on your computer, a web browser is probably the thing you use the most. Despite advances in things called Ajax, Java, or Flash, it is also one of the most basic pieces of software on your computer. It is usually a single window, and you decide what the window is filled with.

But for something so basic, it can do amazing things. A web browser  connects you, it allows you to communicate, gain knowledge, or remind you of things (and people) you may have forgotten.

This is an advertisement for, of all things, a web browser.

The Mackinac Center, a right-wing think tank in Michigan which has been in the press recently for, among other things, filing a Freedom of Information request to gain access to the emails of any labor professors at three public universities in Michigan who have used the word “Maddow” in an email.

Regular readers of this website know how much I like Rachel and her show. Heck, I have stated several times that I would love to work for her show.

Watching Rachel’s report on the Mackinac Center is chilling for public employees. I know several employees of the federal government, and you better believe I will be changing how communicate with them.

And while it did get a little colder in here, I own a really warm sweater (one made by indigenous people of South America), and refuse to be scared by Big Corpo-Government Conservatives.

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