Christa McAuliffe’s backup, teacher-turned-astronaut Barbara Morgan, blasted off aboard Endeavour this evening at 6:36 p.m. EDT. Extra cool: She is now a fully trained astronaut rather than a teacher and will help operate the robot arm for cargo transfer during the mission.

I couldn’t help wishing they had mothballed the shuttles after Columbia disintegrated, but it isn’t the American way to retire what we think we can fix. Space travelers and test pilots all sign up to take their chances with technology and God. Godspeed to the seven-person crew of Endeavour.

“Who would bother” with those who have left Islam and become rallying points for others who do so or wish to?

The attackers, “not of Dutch origin,” of Ehsan Jami, a Dutch politician who leads a group for those who have left the faith, that’s who. Jami has been attacked three times. He’s 22.

According to the Dutch news agency ANP, Mr Jami recently described the Prophet Muhammad in an interview as a “terrible man”.

The Committee for Ex-Muslims, which Mr Jami leads, aims to support former Muslims and lift taboos on domestic violence and violation of rights within Muslim communities. Similar organisations exist in Britain, Germany and Scandinavia.

H/t thelmajoy, who has also taken to fishing in Allah’s Barrel.

Slow blog because I’m on vacation, although not entirely–I brought an editing project with me because it’s freelance and I can’t exactly say, sorry, that project won’t get done until a month after I get back.

Here’s a sentence pulled from the current MS, a compilation of excerpts of the writings of women travelers up to the Victorian era (I’m not editing the excerpts, just the biographical information connecting and surrouding them. This one’s from an excerpt):

“Between Jalapa and Perote, and still more between Vera Cruz and Jalapa, the astonishing prodigality and unutterable magnificence of the tropical vegetation [are] perfectly overpowering!”

Find me another clause with that many words over three syllables that doesn’t need to be simplified. Listen to the way the syllables bounce around your brain as you read it. Pretty cool.

Update: Here’s a little portion of the biographical matter:

Matters with Chazal, Flora’s husband, had never been settled. She had not been able to get a divorce from him, in part because of a prolonged battle over child custody, and Flora had been campaigning for a change in the divorce laws. Shortly after Flora returned to France, her husband shot her in the back. The divorce was granted.