Um, if the chip making plant is on the west side of the Rocky Mountains, as stated, then it's already on the same side of the mountains as California. Why would they have to go over the Rocky Mountains to get to California? Inquiring minds want to know...

I have a little different perspective. My only child, Nathan, got one of those bad transfusions in the 1980s, during his treatment for Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia, with which he was diagnosed at age 6. He beat the leukemia with chemotherapy, but the transfusion killed him in 1988 at age 12. He was the eighth case of pediatric AIDS in Houston, which had a large gay community even then.

I support lifting the ban and testing all the blood. Back then the blood banks were fighting tooth and nail against testing because it was expensive and time consuming; they had only ELISA and Western Blot tests at the time. Now the tests are fast, more accurate, and much less expensive. Let gay people donate.

There are two Babbage Engines in existence now that look very different from the picture in the article. One is in the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. It's amazing to watch it work. It even contains a printer!:

http://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/

Check out the Gas Tank Orchestra, too:

http://home.earthlink.net/~gjwildes/

Dan

Finnish is missing. I understand it's related to Hungarian, which was previously noted as absent.

Graffito in the physics building first floor men's restroom at Rice University in the 1960's: "Heisenberg may have slept here."