Paying attention

Yesterday I ran through a series of photos of potential cabinet members. Some of the shots showed the individuals in conversation with Obama and what stood out to me was that you could tell the at-that-time presidential candidate was intently listening. I saw the same thing of this election night photo of Barack listening to McCain's speech.

Gotta love it

This would be something interesting to carry around.

The "It's Not Because He's Black" Excuse Wheel^®

If you're like many of us, you become uncomfortable when anyone asks you why you’re voting against Obama. You can’t just tell the truth and say "it’s because he’s black." That's socially unacceptable. So you come up with an excuse like "I think he’s secretly Muslim" or "he compared Sarah Palin to a pig." But you can only get away with parroting McCain surrogate talking points for so long before people start laughing at you and asking you to become an Amway distributor.

You need to vary your response, so it looks like you're not desperately latching on to the first non-racist excuse that pops into your head. I've developed the "It's Not Because He's Black" Excuse Wheel^® to help you do just that. Now, whenever your mind is too clouded with crystal meth or too preoccupied wondering how Noah tricked the dinosaurs into getting on a Liberian-flagged ark to think up a decent excuse for voting against Obama, all you need to do is spin the excuse wheel's pointer.

If you're like many of us, you become uncomfortable when anyone asks you why you’re voting against Obama. You can’t just tell the truth and say "it’s because he’s black." That's socially unacceptable. So you come up with an excuse like "I think he’s secretly Muslim" or "he compared Sarah Palin to a pig." But you can only get away with parroting McCain surrogate talking points for so long before people start laughing at you and asking you to become an Amway distributor.

You need to vary your response, so it looks like you're not desperately latching on to the first non-racist excuse that pops into your head. I've developed the "It's Not Because He's Black" Excuse Wheel^® to help you do just that. Now, whenever your mind is too clouded with crystal meth or too preoccupied wondering how Noah tricked the dinosaurs into getting on a Liberian-flagged ark to think up a decent excuse for voting against Obama, all you need to do is spin the excuse wheel's pointer.

Just for fun

This is one of a series of pics sent by boyhood friend Jeff.

Allow an Aries his fixation

The greatest joy in life, for me, is the delight of discovery. Just as we are continually uncovering the rich complexity of this world, we now have a whole new planet being revealed. Just wait until we can operate with equal 'comfort' on Venus and the Jovian moons.

Martian Clays Tell Story of a Wet Past
Layers of clay-rich rock have been found in Mars' Mawrth Vallis, a potential landing site for future rovers.
This work, published in the August 8 issue of Science, suggests that abundant water was once present on Mars and that hydrothermal activity may have occurred.

The Mawrth Vallis outflow channel is a feature in Mars' northern highland region, a heavily cratered, ancient area of the Red Planet whose geology is a time capsule offering revelations to those who can read it. A team of researchers led by planetary scientist Janice Bishop of the SETI Institute has used the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) to examine infrared light reflected from clays situated in the many-kilometer wide channel. Mawrth Vallis resembles a dried-up, broad river valley through which water may have flowed.

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Canary with scales?

There are very fundamental concerns which should be attracting our attention but we appear to be easily distracted by vacuousness. Reality will, in the long run, prevail but will it be too late?

Study: Earth's edible fish face extinction

A U.S. scientist predicts continued overfishing will lead to the extinction of the Earth's edible species of fish and affect other levels of the food chain.

But Jeremy Jackson, a senior scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, says just the enforcement of fishery regulations would help prevent such extinctions.

Jackson says certain steps, if taken immediately, might reverse the demise of the Earth's ocean species. Those measures include establishing marine reserves, eliminating subsidies for fertilizer use and limiting fossil fuel consumption.

In addition to the extinction of edible fish species, he said without the immediate implementation of ocean-protection measures, larger dead zones and toxic algal blooms may form along the coastal zones of all of the world's continents, increasing disease outbreaks and inhibiting vertical mixing of ocean waters.

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Getting spacey

When I first saw this, my mind immediately insterted 'Moon'... Not so fast, buck.

Enhanced Color Caloris

The sprawling Caloris basin on Mercury is one of the solar system's largest impact basins. Created during the early history of the solar system by the impact of a large asteroid-sized body, the basin spans about 1,500 kilometers and is seen in yellowish hues in this enhanced color mosaic. The image data is from the January 14th flyby of the MESSENGER spacecraft, captured with the MDIS instrument. Orange splotches around the basin's perimeter are now thought to be volcanic vents, new evidence that Mercury's smooth plains are indeed lava flows. Other discoveries at Mercury by NASA's MESSENGER mission include evidence that Mercury, like planet Earth, has a global magnetic field generated by a dynamo process in its large core, and that Mercury's surface has contracted significantly as its core cooled.

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More maps

You can count on Google to create a clean and usable product. They have done it again with a 'suite' of election options.

Keep up-to-date on the 2008 election with Google Maps

Browse through these political maps to learn about this year's race for the Presidency and show off your favorites by embedding them around the web for the world to see. Feeling ambitious? Design and create your own elections map with our getting started guide.

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