The Perks Of Knowing Gun Nuts...

...especially well connected gun nuts who attend defense industry trade shows, is that the swag they bring back is atypical.  My belated birthday present was a black t-shirt with this graphic on it:



It is good to have friends.

This Is Good News

The president-elect has selected Steven Chu for energy secretary...

Steven Chu is good people.  I've had the pleasure of meeting Director Chu a couple times and felt the withering blowtorch of smart which he is.  Not everyone turns their hand from one discipline to the next with the same facility that he does.  I've often said that someone with a physics degree is a manual and two weeks away from being able to do just about anything, but he is one of the best examples of that I've seen.

I despair that he'll get wrapped up in bureaucrata even more than he is now, taking him further away from research, but its good to know that someone knowledgable and brilliant will be at the top of DOE...rather than the last two appointees, one of whom (Abraham) wanted to dismantle the department prior to being appointed its head.  Compare and contrast all the secretaries if you like.