Blogging here in Escambia County; we got the runaround yesterday and today trying to get a license and permit just to put on some roofing.  We still don't have either (and I thought they were begging for help).  The first place we went to for our permit was an office working out of a trailer off of one (1) cell phone.  No lines, no fax, nothing else.  Efficient, huh?  Most other people have had phone lines for weeks.  The worst of it, though, is that no one we talked to had any idea of what was the correct process for obtaining our license and permit.  Suffice it to say we were officially told opposite things more than once. And the web site made it sound so easy. . .

Happier news: The (big breath) National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Institute for Advanced Concepts is giving $75,000 each to 12 proposals for advanced space propulsion techniques.  One idea is to use a "magnetized beam of ionized plasma" shot from a space station:

Under the mag-beam concept, a space-based station would generate a stream of magnetized ions that would interact with a magnetic sail on a spacecraft and propel it through the solar system at high speeds that increase with the size of the plasma beam.

John McCaslin's blog has a great post at the very bottom of the page.  It's a bumper sticker sighting. . .

"I Actually Voted For John Kerry Before I Voted Against Him."