Lightsaber chopsticks. No, really.

Tyson replaces Labor Day with a Muslim religious holiday. In a recent union negotiation, Tyson, the ubiqitous packagers of poultry products, granted their workers at a plant in Tennessee a Muslim religious holiday in exchange for Labor Day. My natural bias leads me to be outraged here, but the argument could be made that the western world is typically off for Christmas. I want to rant and rave against this, but I just can’t. *sigh*

Here is a case of the punishment not fitting the crime. San Francisco wants to fine residents $1000 for not sorting their trash. Recycling is a necessary component of good stewardship of our resources, but this takes it a little too far. This is another example of the “nanny” government exerting its influence over us.

Kate, a self-professed reformed MMO addict, provides her reflections on re-entering the fold as a casual gamer. First with Age of Conan, and second with World of Warcraft, she’s exploring her rekindled love for the genre. She also has an interesting perspective on the current state of the PC Game market, in which developers are pushed to release games before they’re ready.

SpaceX fails to get its rocket into orbit. I’m very optimistic about the future of this company, but I’d like to see them get their quality control issues under wraps long enough for a successful launch. Elon Musk, the original owner of PayPal (who reported sold it for around $1.5 billion to eBay), has used his money as capital to get the company “off the groud.” (Pun intended). According to the article above, he had this to say after the launch:

In Mr. Musk’s statement, he insisted that the company will not be deterred and still has strong support from its backers. “SpaceX will not skip a beat in execution going forward,” he said, and added that the fourth flight, currently scheduled to take place in the fourth quarter of the year, and fifth flights are being prepared, and that he has given the go-ahead “to begin fabrication of flight 6.”

And, he added, “We are in very good financial basis here. We have the resolve, we have the financial base, and we have the expertise” to identify the problem and go forward. “There should be no question about that.” In a version of the statement distributed to employees, Mr. Musk said that the company “recently accepted a significant investment” that, along with the company’s current cash reserves, will ensure that “we will have more than sufficient funding on hand to continue launching” the Falcon 1 and the larger Falcon 9 vehicles.

Here’s hoping!