You youngsters won’t believe this, but there was a time when Americans actually made physical things called “products” right here in America. Workers would go to large grimy buildings called “factories” where they would [...]]]> Here is an interesting, humorous comment by Dave Barry about United States citizen’s and their current method of earning a living:

You youngsters won’t believe this, but there was a time when Americans actually made physical things called “products” right here in America. Workers would go to large grimy buildings called “factories” where they would take a raw material such as iron ore and perform industrial acts on it such as “forging” and “smelting.” By the end of the day, as you can imagine, they smelt terrible (rim shot), but they had turned the ore into something useful, such as a locomotive or a toaster or (this was not a big seller) a toaster-locomotive. Today, of course, we don’t make anything. If you give iron ore to modern American workers, it will get into their Starbucks mocha latte, and they will sue you, and they will win.

Audrey Hepburn

Here is the original caption with the photograph:

“View of the Earth as seen by the Apollo 17 crew traveling toward the moon. This translunar coast photograph extends from the [...]]]> On this date in 1972, the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft took this famous photograph of the Earth on their way to the Moon:

Here is the original caption with the photograph:

“View of the Earth as seen by the Apollo 17 crew traveling toward the moon. This translunar coast photograph extends from the Mediterranean Sea area to the Antarctica south polar ice cap. This is the first time the Apollo trajectory made it possible to photograph the south polar ice cap. Note the heavy cloud cover in the Southern Hemisphere. Almost the entire coastline of Africa is clearly visible. The Arabian Peninsula can be seen at the northeastern edge of Africa. The large island off the coast of Africa is Madagascar. The Asian mainland is on the horizon toward the northeast.”

Some dudes and dudettes at NASA speculate that this is the most widely distributed photographic image in history.

The Shift Has Hit The Fan