Scheduling conflict: NASA to launch shuttle Endeavour same day as royal wedding

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

One giant step for Prince William and a calendar conflict for NASA. The space agency is launching the shuttle Endeavour on its final mission on the same day that William marries Kate Middleton. I'm no fan of the Royals, but I do realize that eyes in Britain and North America will largely be glued to the regal extravaganza, and likely not on the shuttle launch.

NASA was unaware that the shuttle Endeavour's final mission was on the same day as the royal wedding. "The frank answer is no," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for space operations, said when asked if the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton was a factor in the shuttle scheduling.
"I didn't realize when the wedding was when we moved the launch date," said Gerstenmaier. The shuttle was scheduled to launch on April 19 and was later postponed to April 29. "We kind of set that date independently."


"I haven't yet put on our manifest charts 'wedding constraints' so we did not factor that in," he said.

Endeavour is the second last shuttle launch for NASA. The final launch will be in June when Atlantis launches and officially ends the 30-year-old space shuttle program. I think I'll stick with the launch and watch William's next wedding. Maybe Kate should do the same, given the track record of the previous royal generation.

Credit NASA

Iran poised to outlaw dog ownership

Image via Wikipedia

Iranian dog owners: Go into hiding now! Lawmakers in this hostile state have proposed a new bill in parliament that would criminalize dog ownership. The bill warns that that dogs are a public health hazard and that the popularity of dog ownership "also poses a cultural problem, a blind imitation of the vulgar culture of the West."


Dog ownership in Iran has previously been treated much the same as gays in the U.S. military: Don't ask, don't tell. There have always been occasional crack-downs by the police (even though there is no law forbidding it), but the dogs and their owners were typically left alone, despite clerics  demonizing them in sermons.

The law would allow police to confiscate the offending dogs and impose a fine of $100 - $500 on the owner. No word on the fate of the offending dog.  "Considering the several thousand dogs in Tehran alone, the problem arises as to what is going to happen to these animals," Hooman Malekpour, a veterinarian in Tehran, told to the BBC. The  dogs likely will face the same fate as the hundreds of street dogs that the government regularly culls from the streets of Tehran. "Many in Tehran and other big cities find the killing of street dogs offensive and cruel," says Omid Memarian, a prominent Iranian journalist. "It's like the Iranian people and officials live in two different worlds." 

Frankly, I'm pretty sure this wave of dog ownership is a Zionist plot.