The topics:

• Stephen found a picture of the boy scout ferris wheel his two older boys helped decorate and ride. Its probably good that Stephen wasn't there to keep his kids from getting on this apparent death trap... because they had a lot of fun.

• Yuri's night. Last Saturday was the 47th anniversary of the first manned space flight. Here's his wikipedia biography.

  Phil got a little confused on the story of Gagarin's marriage. Gagarin was married to Valentina Goryacheva, not Valentina Tereshkova (the first woman in space). Tereshkova was, indeed, part of a propaganda marriage to a cosmonaut -- Wikipedia reports that Kruschev himself presided over the wedding party -- but it was to Andrian Nikolayev, not Yuri Gagarin.

• Here's the video of the Kennedy space speech:

• Our Tales of the Paranormal section: "Mutants live in the underworld of Moscow."

• Phil is six months into his "No Mammals" diet. This is an ethical decision on his part. While he continues to eat fish and fowl, he believes that we will soon enter a time when it is not considered ethical to kill animals for food. Stephen and Michael still eat red meat.

  But, we reached a consensus: when we are able to manufacture meat that tastes good and is priced comparably with animal meat, people will make the ethical choice (for both the environment and for the sake of the animals) to stop killing animals for food. But, we don't think that people will move from animal food until a comparable alternative exists.

  They also believe that comparable alternatives will exist in the future.

• Stephen points out that low carb dieting would be incredibly hard without meat. "Low carb dieting, especially with heavy exercise, would be difficult to the point of impossibility without meat." He looks forward to the day that manufactured meat can allow him to be thin without killing animals.

  Stephen's diet and exercise plan is a combination of the TNT Diet and Body for Life.

• Stephen agreed to try a mammal-free low carb diet and exercise program. But he suspects he will get tired of chicken and fish.

• We marked the passing of Charlton Heston with a quote from a certain dystopian sci-fi movie.

  Soylent Green is a counter-scenario to the advancing ethics that the Speculists hope for. Technological advancement enables ethical advancement. Societal collapse would have the opposite effect.

  Phil quoted Michael Anissimov:

  ...everyone will be a vegan soon, if for nothing else, that in vitro meat will be better and cheaper. When we’re no longer compelled to mass murder animals in factory farms, many people will stand up and say, “well, we knew it was wrong all along”. Amazing how morally sophisticated people can get when practical alternatives to the immoral behavior emerge! (I’m guilty of this just as much as anyone).

Our front bumper is a sample of Marginal Prophets' "The Difficult Song."

Our exit music this week is from Sundaydogs. The song is "Sapien."

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