Sign the petition for Pluto’s encounter with New Horizons to be honored with a new stamp

From the scientific vantage of medicine to the politics of abortion, low cost accessible contraception makes sense all the way around. Healthier women with more money to spend, fewer abortions and unwed mothers. But conservatives and a tiny handful of democratic enablers, who can’t seem to read polls or just don’t give a goddamn, continue to dream of the Republic of Gilead:

Any women who votes for these bozos is probably too far gone. For men, the last time birth control was illegal, there was no such thing as genetic testing and court mandated child support. Then again it wouldn’t take a theocracy long to strip those laws and ban genetic testing. After all, it’s the always women’s fault, and babies are always a blessing … just ask any Handmaid.

Most of my male conservative buddies pretend not to care about the issue while whining that we’re not going along and playing solely on their rhetorical terms. But I got a call from another reliable GOP voter this week — after Rush’s tirade — and herfirst three words were, “You were right.”

• It’s been a good week for giant insects, extinct monster fleas with a hankering for Jurassic dino blood and extant “tree lobsters,” gentle six-legged giants so striking in appearance that they might make interesting pets …for the right kind of animal enthusiast anyway.
• Mixing chemistry with climate change has unexpected consequences: An ongoing reaction with dissolved GHGs and seawater has made the ocean more acidic than anytime over the last 300 million years. Another, even more obscure consequence of polar warming might kick off a toxic reaction producing elemental mercury.
• The asteroid reported to be on course for a possible 2040 rendezvous is no dino killer and highly unlikely to hit earth. If it beats the long odds, depending on the closing velocity, strike angle, and the composition of impactor and target, simulations predict it would be similar to a standard hydrogen bomb in blast, without the deadly gamma ray flash, radioactive fallout, or blinding white fireball. It could annihilate entire city blocks, kick off house or forest fires in the vicinity, but the damage would be mostly localized.
• Pluto is the most exciting first-time encounter in the near future. But New Horizons doesn’t need to settle for one stamp, there are dozens of Kuiper Belt Objects it could also reach after it sails by distant Pluto and Charon. Beyond even the last KBO is the mysterious Oort Cloud, reaching so deep into interstellar space that newly inferred rogue planets may float silently by. Could life exist on such a wandering world untethered to a star?