light hearted ...

Someday the Sun Will Go Out and the World Will End (but Don't Tell Anyone) from NYTimes

I've always been proud of my irrelevance.

When I raised my hand to speak at our weekly meetings here in the science department, my colleagues could be sure they would hear something weird about time travel or adventures in the fifth dimension. Something to take them far from the daily grind. Enough to taunt the mind, but not enough to attract the attention of bloggers, editors, politicians and others who keep track of important world affairs.

So imagine my surprise to find the origin of the universe suddenly at the white hot center of national politics. Last week my colleague Andrew Revkin reported that a 24-year-old NASA political appointee with no scientific background, George C. Deutsch, had told a designer working on a NASA Web project that the Big Bang was "not proven fact; it is opinion," and thus the word "theory" should be used with every mention of Big Bang.

...

The recent peek behind the curtains of this bureaucracy has been both depressing and exciting. So they are paying attention after all.

They should be paying attention, but I'm not looking forward to having to include more politicians and bureaucrats in my rounds of the ever-expanding, multi-dimensional universe (or universes).

I'll do it, but, lacking the gene for street smarts, I fear being played like a two-bit banjo. I'm even happy to go star-gazing with Dick Cheney, if duty so calls, but only if he agrees to disarm and I can wear a helmet.