Not this shit again... oh wait!

West Virginia lawmaker pushing to insert something as a mandatory part of education. Oh, wait, it's science fiction.

On the minus side, I'm not sure it's going to have the intended positive effect on promoting interest in STEM. And then there's this:

"I'm not interested in fantasy novels about dragons,"

Suck it, Tolkien!

"I'm primarily interested in things where advanced technology is a key component of the storyline, both in terms of the problems that it presents and the solutions that it offers."

Hm, that's a pretty limited box there. It would leave out both 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, both correctly mentioned by David Brin as books that kids maybe oughtta read.

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ETA: "Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@livejournalinc.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error."

Fuck you, LJ.

How Kitty is Killing the Dolphins

Fascinating/Horrifying story in the current SciAm (only a wee preview available) about how traditionally land-based pathogens are infecting sea creatures. Possum cooties killing California sea otters. MRSA in dolphins. Meningitis (presumably originating from human sewage) killing off 90% of the Caribbean's elkhorn coral. Drug resistant bacteria from livestock (treated with antibiotics) in sea mammals. And, yes, Flipper getting your cat's toxoplasmosis.