Ultra Security Bedroom Set

To help the paranoid sleep better at night.

The Quantum Sleeper is a bed that converts into a bullet-proof, airtight shelter that is shielded from biochemical attacks with filtered ventilation and rebreathing equipment. Options include a toilet, a short-wave radio, and motion detectors.

Gizmodo writes: Some might call being trapped in a small, airtight box getting buried alive. Others realize that it's a completely rational response to the potential threats in a post-9/11 world. Featuring 1.25" polycarbonate bulletproof plating, the Quantum Sleeper seals you into your mattress in emergency situations. You breathe filtered O2, use the built-in facilities and wait comfortably for the world to not be over. Sound a bit unsettling? No way. Just look at that happy couple basking in their thoughtful preparation, the husband grabbing his wife lovingly, always ready to perform the Heimlich should the opportunity arise.

Go figure.

Doctor Who program called "Greatest lie Satan ever told"

Simon White and his lifesize Tardis

From http://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/trowbridgenews/display.var.2134279.0.dr_who_tardis_on_sale_on_ebay.php

Dr Who Tardis on sale on eBay
By Benjamin Parkes

A TROWBRIDGE Christian who renounced the evil of Dr Who in favour of his religion is selling his collection on internet auction website eBay.

Simon White, 47, became obsessed with Dr Who from a very early age and started collecting and building life-size models.

He shares his home in Boundary Walk with a full-size Tardis that he built himself, a huge Dalek, two Cybermen and model of Dr Who's robotic dog K-9.

The collection, which Mr White estimates is worth nearly £7,000, was built up over a number of years but is to be cast aside because of his religious beliefs.

Dr Who and his materialistic obsession with it represents the "greatest lie that Satan ever told" according to Mr White.

He said: "I loved science fiction as a kid. It was the Tardis that did it for me. You could get in that box and go anywhere.

"I started collecting Dr Who stuff starting with the Dalek, which I got from an old exhibition in Brighton.

"Me and a friend spent two years making the Tardis and I became obsessed. I made a model of K-9, then a full size Cyberman with authentic Dr Who parts. I couldn't stop.

"I had to retire early from my job as a nurse at the Royal United Hospital in Bath in 1998 because I was suffering from bipolar disorder.

"I turned to drink and became an alcoholic and the Dr Who obsession was the only thing that kept me going. I wouldn't have given it up if you'd have put a gun to my head."

Having discovered Christianity Mr Smith has renounced his old life and is putting the whole collection up for sale in local trade magazines and on eBay.

He said: "God delivered me from the evil that is Dr Who, materialism and alcoholism.

"Through my relationship with Jesus I saw that none of this was making me happy and I was born again like Lazarus.

"It's a timely tale as we come up to Easter. I wanted to tell others that no matter what trouble you are in God can deliver you from the evil. If you are prepared to have a relationship with him then God can help. I have been resurrected. My old life is dead, my new life is alive."

If you are interested in buying the Dr Who figures contact the Wiltshire Times & Chippenham News on (01225) 773643.

In Kansas with Jackson Green

I have flown to Kansas City and then driven on to Manhattan, Kansas to visit with my new grandson, Jackson Green. The son of Sarah Jane and Justin Green was born a week ago this evening and seems to be doing well.

I arrived in Manhattan at about 2 AM Friday morning, and after a morning of mostly sleep, I dropped in and spent some nice hours with Jackson, Sarah and Justin along with grandmother Sally and her partner Doris who are visiting from Germany. Megan Harlow, one of my former students who is now an assistant debate coach at Kansas State also dropped by, and it was good to visit with her. It was a nice day of conversation punctuated by Jackson waking up, eating and looking around. Jackson seemed very well-tempered and enjoying the attention, which is pretty good for one week old.

The house has been very well fixed up for the transition to a child, and a lot of new work in the basement has expanded the living space in their very nice home. Sarah notes that croquet season is not far away.

I will be here tomorrow for more visiting before returning to Vermont on Sunday.

So, I guess I am a grandfather.

Welcome Jackson Matthew Green

Sarah Jane and Justin Green have announced that Jackson Matthew Green has arrived in this world. Their 6 pound 15.5 ounce baby boy was born on Friday March 7 2008 at 6:50 PM in Manhattan, Kansas at a birthing center.

Yes, it is true, I am now a grandfather. So the tides of time and the march of the generations continue.

Sarah is proud of how it went, and especially that she "pushed him out without an epidural." She says that the Reggae dub music that I sent her worked very well during labor. She was home very quickly and is now settling in for the long tenure of raising a child.

I liked the way that she and Justin, both very active debate coaches, had taken March off so that they could focus on family. They are about as intense as it gets when it comes to debate coaching, so it showed a considerable sense of priority.

I am very proud of how they have planned for and executed all of this, and now we get the benefit of watching Jackson develop and grow.

I am flying out Thursday, will spend Friday and Saturday there, and then will fly back on Sunday. You can expect another report then.

For more details and pictures, go to
http://sarahjustinandbabygreen.blogspot.com/

I am going to call him Jax.

Recreational Flashlight Becomes Powerful Killing Tool

This is very scary. I know my buddy Bob from Mexico sent it to me with perhaps a different emotion in mind, but this scared me. The smirk on this guy's face is also sort of frightening. I'll never think about a thick wallet in the back pocket the same.

"Death Star" Gamma Ray Gun May BE Pointed Directly at Earth

A composite of 11 images of Wolf-Rayet 104, an unstable binary star system that could direct a deadly burst of gamma rays at Earth.

From http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,335186,00.html

'Death Star' Gamma-Ray Gun Pointed Straight at Earth
Thursday, March 06, 2008

Earth could be in for a neighborhood dispute with a death star, according to an Australian astronomer.

A spectacular rotating pinwheel system just down the astronomical road from Earth — 8,000 light years away — includes an unstable Wolf-Rayet star that could explode.

Eight years ago, WR104 was discovered in the constellation Sagittarius by Sydney University astronomer Peter Tuthill.

A Wolf-Rayet star is the last step on the way to a supernova — the explosion of a star at the end of its life.

Images from the Mauna Kea in Hawaii telescope show that every eight months the two stars at the centre of the pinwheel orbit each other, leaving a trail of hot gas, carbon and dust.

"Viewed from Earth, the rotating tail appears to be laid out on the sky in an almost perfect spiral," Tuthill said. "It could only appear like that if we are looking nearly exactly down on the axis of the binary system."

Tuthill and his team worry this box-seat view might put us in the firing line when the system finally explodes.

"Sometimes, supernovae like the one that will one day destroy WR104 focus their energy into a narrow beam of very destructive gamma-ray radiation along the axis of the system," he warns. "If such a 'gamma-ray burst' happens, we really do not want Earth to be in the way."

Even a short gamma-ray burst at supernova strength could zap away half the Earth's ozone layer, drastically increasing the amount of deadly space radiation that penetrates our atmosphere.

One leading theory blames the Ordovician mass extinction of 443 million years ago on such an interstellar gamma-ray burst.

There's no need to move planets just yet, however, because Tuthill is uncertain whether Earth is precisely on WR104's axis.

"We probably have hundreds of thousands of years before it blows, so we have plenty of time to come up with some answers," he said.

Tuthill's research is published in the latest edition of the Astrophysical Journal.