Dark Invasion (The Vampire Gabriella Book 3)

Mel Gibson slated to direct his first film in nine years, 'Hacksaw Ridge'

According to a Monday story in the Hollywood Reporter, Lionsgate is close to an agreement for the North American distribution rights to “Hacksaw Ridge,” a World War II epic starring Andrew Garfield and directed by Mel Gibson. The movie, which tells the story of Desmond Doss, the first conscientious objector in American military history to receive the Medal of Honor, will be the first movie that Gibson has directed since “Apocalypto” nine years ago. ‘Hacksaw Ridge” was co-written by Randall Wallace, who wrote Gibson’s “Braveheart.”

John Kerry for president 2016 boomlet faces mockery

According to a Sunday story in Politico, Secretary of State John Kerry appeared on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” Host Chuck Todd departed from the usual questions about ISIS, Iranian nuclear weapons, and Vladimir Putin to ask a question that was weighing on his mind. Would Kerry consider running for president in 2016?

A modest proposal to compel parents to vaccinate their children

The astonishing measles outbreak fueled primarily by the refusal of many hip, rich, liberal parents living on the west coast to vaccinate their children, has proven to be vexing, to say the least. USA Today reports that another old disease once the scourge of childhood, the mumps, has started an outbreak in Idaho and has spread west to Washington State. Both of these utterly preventable diseases are at best unpleasant, and at worst can be debilitating and even fatal.

Accusations of 'scandal' surround 'adjustments' of global warming data

A Sunday post at the Powerline Blog repeats a story that has been reported in multiple media venues that temperature data that has been collected at ground-based sensor sites have been systematically “adjusted.” The adjustments make temperatures in decades past appear to be cooler than the raw data suggests, and more recent temperatures appear to be warmer. Thus, the adjusted temperature data would tend to support the notion that human-caused global warming is taking place where the raw data does not support that finding.

NBC should drop the boring evening news format and hire Craig Ferguson as anchor

When the top brass at NBC finally decides to throw Brian Williams under the bus, it will also be burdened with the task of finding a replacement for the anchor desk at the NBC Nightly News. If it follows the model that evening newscasts have adhered to since the 1950s, the network will try to choose some older white guy with the air of authority. To be sure Katie Couric is said to be circling the job, but ever since the hash she made at the anchor desk at the CBS Evening News, no one is taking that prospect seriously.

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Brian Williams could cop an 'insanity defense' to save his career

Brian Williams, serial fabulist and the soon to be former NBC News anchorman, has taken a “temporary leave of absence” from the anchor desk at NBC Nightly News, according to a Saturday story in the Hollywood Reporter. According to Breitbart, he is contemplating using his time off to “clear the air” on the David Letterman Show, ironically one of the venues where he most conspicuously told the whopper about being shot down over Iraq. If he does so, he might be able to try an insanity defense of a sort if the science of false memories applies in his case.

San Francisco minimum wage hike kills iconic science fiction bookstore

As Borderlands Books, an iconic science fiction oriented bookstore in San Francisco noted on its website, the past few years have not been kind to brick and mortar bookstores. Between the economic malaise starting in 2008 and the rise of ebooks read on handheld devices, the sales of actual paper books have declined considerably. But, the last straw was the decision by San Francisco to raise the minimum wage in the city to $15 an hour. Borderlands cannot continue to stay in business under such conditions and, for this reason, must close. According to a Friday story in the Washington Free Beacon, many of the bookstore’s former customers are angry about this fact being pointed out.

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Does Vladimir Putin have Asperger's and does it matter?

Does Russian President Vladimir Putin have Asperger’s Syndrome? According to a Thursday report on Fox News, the Pentagon seems to think so. Not surprisingly, the Russian government disputes this conclusion, suggesting that it is “stupid” and unworthy of comment. However, Mark Lawrence Schrad, an assistant professor of political science at Villanova University, a Russia expert, and the father of a child with Asperger’s stated that he is “struck by how thoroughly the report and those who give it credence both demean people with Asperger’s and show a complete ignorance of Russian history and current affairs.

NASA confirms results for 'impossible' space drive that uses no rocket fuel

Last August, NASA’s Eagleworks, an advanced space propulsion lab located at the Johnson Spaceflight Center south of Houston, created a great deal of excitement when it announced that it had tested a prototype of something called a Cannae Drive. Using microwaves, the device seemed to exert a minute but measurable degree of thrust when mounted on a pendulum in a vacuum chamber. On Friday, NextBigFuture provided an update on the experiments on an engine that uses no fuel and seems to violate Newtonian physics.

Navy rail gun unveiled while laser cannon tests continue

Navy ships of the future are going to have the kind of advanced weaponry that was once considered the sole province of science fiction. The Navy has learned quite a lot from the laser cannon mounted on the USS Ponce, currently deployed in the Persian Gulf. In the meantime, according to a Friday story in the Washington Post, a prototype of the first electromagnet rail gun was unveiled publicly for the first time at the Navy’s Future Force Science and Technology Expo at the Washington Convention Center.

Star Wars VS Star Trek Epic Trailer

In 'The Big Bang Theory' a famous physicist is an internet troll

As Fox News reported, Thursday night’s episode of “The Big Bang Theory,” entitled “The Troll Manifestation,” was groundbreaking for a number of reasons. First, Amy Farah Fowler was revealed to be an author of science fiction romance stories. Second, Sheldon Cooper seems to have grown as a human being and has discovered the benefits of collaboration and credit sharing, at least with his friend Leonard. But, the big reveal was that a certain famous, celebrity physicist moonlights as an Internet troll.

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Ted Cruz's office hits back at mocking New York Times article

Ann Louise Bardach, an author of several books on Cuba, recently published an oped that has raised quite a few eyebrows. She slammed Cuban Americans as being “privileged" immigrants, Republicans as being hypocritical for being in favor of “amnesty” for Cuban refugees and not for other Latin American immigrants, and Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, both Cuban Americans, Republicans, and opponents of normalizing relations with Cuba, for being inauthentic Hispanics. Ted Cruz’s communications director Amanda Carpenter took umbrage in a Friday letter to the editor of the Times.

Keith Cowing goes after the Internet Rocketeer Club for bad manners.

Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw divided over Brian Williams and his false Iraq story

Brian Williams’ travails over his fantasy story of being shot down over Iraq continues apace. Most of his fellow journalists are somewhat reluctant to come down hard on him for lying about his experiences during Operation Iraqi Freedom, mainly because they have a personal relationship with the NBC News anchor and regard him as a friend. A case in point, according to a Thursday story in Politico, is Dan Rather.

Dark Sanction (The Vampire Gabriella Book 1)