There's only one problem with Neil deGrasse Tyson

The guy is so cool everyone's going to want to be an astrophysicist...and thanks to the Republicans, we're having a hard time affording the ones we already have.

I shoot film. Ask me almost anything.

Is anyone familiar with "Grease, School Edition"?

One of the local high schools is doing a production of "Grease, School Edition." I looked it up online, and it claims to be a version of the fan favorite 1970s movie/stage play "Grease" that's suitable for teens to perform.

Uhh...what do they do, come on stage and sing "Grease Is The Word," "Greased Lightnin'" and "Hopelessly Devoted To You" and go home? Making an edition of Grease without the sex, drinking and smoking is like making an edition of "Behind the Green Door" with no sex in it - the raunchy stuff is kinda integral to the storyline.

Speaking of the State of the Union address...

Would it be out of line to invite the congressional Democratic caucuses to the White House, conduct the State of the Union address in the East Room, videotape it, and send John Boehner and Mitch McConnell copies of it on Betamax cassettes?

Today's Public Service Announcement: Beware of Bad Gas

In this cold and nasty weather season, gasoline - ESPECIALLY the shit with ethanol in it - attracts moisture. Moisture is water. Water, contrary to about a brazillion YouTube videos, is not a good motor fuel.

If your car starts sputtering and acting like it's about to run out of gas at low RPM when there's a lot of it in the tank, you have Bad Gas.

If you have Bad Gas, take thee directly to the first place you can find that sells car parts (in this case, even Walmart will do) and buy a container of high-quality fuel system cleaner - not the house-brand stuff, but something that costs $10 to $15 per bottle - put all of it in your gas tank, and drive around until the sputtering goes away. Then go to a name-brand gas station and top off the tank. Drive the car until you're at a quarter-tank, then put another bottle of the same cleaner in the tank and top off again. This will correct the problem.

If you have a car that has an accessible fuel filter, change that too.

When they put George de Torquemada on the stand the first question needs to be...

"How much pork was in the fluid you pumped up these guys' asses?"

Riddle me something about the 9/11 Cross

Someone wrote a letter to one of my papers talking about his recently learning of the "Miracle Cross of 9/11" (backstory: rescue workers at WTC found a steel crossbeam in the wreckage of WTC 7 that had sheared off in about the proper proportions to be a Christian cross, and the fundies decided it was a Sign from God. It has since become sort of a shrine.).

Educate me: God was able, in the maelstrom of three collapsing buildings, to find the perfect steel crossbuck, slice it into the proper shape, gently lower it into place so it didn't sustain any more damage than it had to, and guide rescuers to it so it could be exalted...but He couldn't disable four fuel pumps and prevent the disaster from happening in the first place?

This is not a thread about murderous police

Maryland has one of the strictest gun laws in the US. Passed post-Newtown it requires owner licensing and bans assault rifles and hi-cap magazines. Thirty-five red states have filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to overturn it.

Assume they're successful. Could this be used as precedent for blue states to overturn...oh, anti-same sex marriage laws that haven't already been overturned, anti-abortion laws or voter disenfranchisement efforts in red states?

And yet another Lounge tradition: Tante Marie's turkey cooking lesson

Who would you like the president to nominate as Secretary of Defense?

My vote is for Joni Ernst: the SecDef essentially has no power at all - appropriations come from Congress, war is declared by Congress, short-term police actions are declared by the president, and all the real decision-making at DoD is done at the O-5/O-6 level, colonels, lieutenant colonels and their Navy equivalents - and making her SecDef almost completely eliminates her ability to cause lasting damage to the nation.