JPL Scientists Refuse Broad Background Checks

from "JPL Scientists Sue Federal Government and Caltech for NASA's Background Checks"

The waiver allows investigators to look at workers' employment, financial and medical histories. They can also question friends and colleagues about the workers' psychological health, political background and sexual proclivities.

This is legally acceptable for people in classified or highly sensitive positions, said Stormer, but none of the 28 scientists -- many of whom have been at JPL for decades -- fit that bill.

..."I can fly a spacecraft to any planet in the galaxy, and I'm being judged by people who don't have a clue as to my technical qualifications whether I'm suitable for government service," said Byrnes.

He continued, "It's already an extremely rigorous process when the labs hire someone. We check your degrees, whether you worked where you said you did. All that is normal and fine. This is something else. This is McCarthyism."

Weather misery

It's this strange yellow out, almost hazy, but nothing you can really put your finger on. It's 100 degrees.

This was my life:

San Francisco



This is my life in hell/graduate school:

Pasadena



Any questions?

(thanks to city-data.com, friend to the data-obsessed, referred by dolface)

Ick

Flyswatter. By chefmate!?

She's flummoxed by virtual infidelity

There's an article in the WSJ titled "Is This Man Cheating on His Wife?" It's free for now. It's about problematic involvements in online fantasy worlds, highlighting a marriage in which a real-life woman is unhappy with her husband's online marriage.

[She] is losing patience with her husband's second life. "It's sad; it's a waste of human life," says Mrs. Hoogestraat, who is dark-haired and heavy-set with smooth, pale skin. "Everybody has their hobbies, but when it's from six in the morning until two in the morning, that's not a hobby, that's your life."

But my favorite quote has to be:

"It's really devastating," says Sue Hoogestraat, 58, an export agent for a shipping company, who has been married to Mr. Hoogestraat for seven months. "You try to talk to someone or bring them a drink, and they'll be having sex with a cartoon."

Uh, yeah. Clearly she signed on for a monogamous relationship and isn't buying her husband's insistence that it's just a game. While I think denial pervades all of our interactions, you can't really blame a 58 year old woman for not having thought much about "sex with a cartoon" fits into her relationship landscape.

A happy shoe find

Professional Teeth Whitening Online

Seriously. That was a text ad in gmail this morning.

And the winnah is...

bonden
Originally uploaded by _buttercup

My little dog and I finished beginning obedience class Wednesday night. Graduation was a small scale dog show of the obedience kind. And guess who took home the first place trophy? What a dog.