Saudi News

well, no physics news for now, but let me mention two of today's news stories from saudi. my mother circulated a news story yesterday suggesting that saudi authorities were going to lift their restrictions banning women from driving. well, i haven't yet actually found anything to confirm this story - the king has been talking about this driving ban for a long time but nothing has come of it - and bbc tells us that the only thing actually accomplished is that women can now stay alone in the country's hotels, as long as they show proper identification (this information is then passed on to local police). the second news story is that one of the most popular saudi bloggers has been imprisoned for making statements about political prisoners in saudi arabia. i'm refraining from comments for diplomatic reasons, but these developments are interesting to follow.

Can it actually be right...

...that I haven't made a single post in over four months. I'm a huge embarrassment, blogging-wise. Here is Mercury from Messenger. Let's see if I can keep the blogging up this time. Let me also mention that I am learning Italian, and am very pleased that the weekdays are all planet names + day. Or, Roman gods, but I'm a psudo-astronomer so I have my take on it.