The strongest radiation storm since 2005 is raging on the sun. You know things have been ominously quiet up there, but that is over. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded a monster ultraviolet plume on Sunday, a colossal jet of “coronal mass ejection”  from sunspot 1402. The charged particles will strike the earth this […]

  Gentle Readers, We screwed up here at The Daily yesterday. Not unusual, as I am sure you will attest, but I got caught this time by two senior intelligence officials and I need to explain. Typing quickly, I noted that the ship from which my pal Mac acquired the “small” battle flag- the mighty […]

So, the Speaker trounced Mr. Romney down in South Carolina, and the circus appears set to continue into the slightly less dark month of February. I don’t know what is next. I suppose I should go and check. I used to see the Speaker around town, the last time on the sixth deck of the […]

(West Coast Guy, the Lovely Bea, and the indomitable Admiral Mac.) “I have to drink the wine when I am out because I have to drive home,” I said. The bar was raucous for a change, people seeming to have come past the first holiday of the new year with minimal damage. The usual suspects […]

“They say creative destruction is a process by which capitalism selectively destroys things,” I said to the enormous green turtle, who was standing in front of the new building across North Glebe Road and gesturing to the oncoming traffic. “What?” said the turtle, voice muffled by the green fabric of the costume. I moved a […]

I don’t know if I could pull off a story thismorning, what with Wikipedia going dark, and the ominous black mask over theGoogle logo on the mighty search engine. Check it out: (Masked Google Logo echoes corporate protest to corporate aggression. Photo belongs to them, please don’t hurt me.) This is what greets the world […]

  I was up early enough to write something profound this morning. I thought about what precisely that might the dwarves in South Carolina are up to, or when a recess appointment is constitutional when technically the Senate isn’t in recess. I just couldn’t dredge up the interest. Instead, I looked for restaurants in little […]

Restaurant Week at Willow was in full swing. Mac and I sat way down the bar from Old Jim and his bride Mary, and a bunch of civilians- including an irritating party from DARPA who talked too much—were clogging the aisles. The point to Restaurant Week is to offer great deals on a fixed price […]

“So, who is it that is killing the scientists of Iran?” I asked Mac. We were seated way down the bar from the Amen Corner, and it felt unusual. Unbalanced. John-with-and-H was seated next to us. Apparently he is keeping his distance from Old Jim, who was occupying his usual seat, but entertaining some civilian […]

It is Friday the 13th. I don’t know if you put much stock in the old tale of woe that comes on this combination of days: there are three of them coming at us in 2012, and this is the first. There is some squirrely stuff going on, now that I have a chance to […]