SNOW ON MARS

I don't know why this story made me tear up a little. Probably because I'm tired. But still, snow on Mars, that never touches the ground...

A laser instrument designed to gather knowledge of how the atmosphere and surface interact on Mars has detected snow from clouds about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) above the spacecraft's landing site. Data show the snow vaporizing before reaching the ground.

Making a movie is like fighting a land war in Asia.

Today I am wrangling ants

Today I am wrangling ants for a major motion picture.

For a music nerd, I discovered the 1968 Rolling Stones masterpiece Beggar's Banquet far too late -- like a few months ago. This song, No Expectations, is a beautiful wail of exhaustion and resignation.

RICHARD WRIGHT 1943-2008

And I am not frightened of dying. Any time will do; I don't mind. Why should I be frightened of dying? There's no reason for it—you've gotta go sometime.

LET US NEVER FORGET LET US ALWAYS REMEMBER

I almost let the anniversary of the Iraqis bombing Pearl Harbor go by without some commemoration. Let's link to this classic post of two men too in love with Al Quaeda's power.

My favorite quote unsurprisingly comes from me at my most articulate:

Fuck, this shit is crazy.

Hard to believe this is the same iconoclast who once wrote so eloquently about french-kissing George Bush.

I FOUND MY FIRST GREY HAIR THIS MORNING

Fuck.

Is there any reason to

Is there any reason to hold off on the nuclear option?

SO I WAS RIGHT AGAIN

Biden it is.

I hope McCain picks Mitt Romney for his VP, so they can continue the house debate, with two homes versus 17 or whatever.

MY VP PREDICTION

Okay, I've a new one. I've become really excited by the possibly of... Hilary Clinton! It would be exciting. It seems like all of Obama's options are unexciting, and Clinton sure would keep things exciting. And this race needs more excitement!

MY VP PREDICTION

Guiliani. Our country needs unity, and a transvestite ex-mayor. Do it, Obama.

THIS HAS BLOWN MY FRAGILE LITTLE MIND

Imagine a form of life so unusual that we cannot figure out how it dies. That’s exactly what researchers are finding beneath the floor of the sea off Peru. The microbes being studied there — single-celled organisms called Archaea — live in time frames that can perhaps best be described as geological. Consider: A bacterium like Escherichia Coli divides and reproduces every twenty minutes or so. But the microbes in the so-called Peruvian Margin take hundreds or thousands of years to divide.

I don't appreciate it when bloggers I like make fun of John McCain for being a fan of ABBA. I like ABBA. They're great. I think the world would be a better place if McCain used "Take a Chance on Me" as his campaign song.




Check out the hilarious showmanship in that video. They really don't look like they know how to perform live, in their awkward attempts to work the crowd. I love the silver -- is it mesh -- that Benny and Bjorn are wearing, and it's pretty cool just how sweaty Frieda -- and yes, I had to google which one was Frieda, but my hunch was right.

I liked this comment from something called "Movie Guy" at Matt Yglesias' blog (this part of it, at least): "It was [in Florida] that he met his next wife, Cindy, while still married to Carol. Of course, he remembers this song well as it happened in 1976, the year that Abba released Dancing Queen." The rest of his comment is dickery, but he understands why people like music.

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

This is amusing. If Paris Helton started making massive ad buys, I'd start tp respect her.

HEH

BARACK HITLER OBAMA

I laughed out loud at this line from Ross Douthet:

Here's a tip for liberals: If your candidate is going to stage enormous rallies in front of tens of thousands of chanting Germans (with monuments to Prussian military might in the background) in the middle of his Presidential campaign, it isn't the GOP's fault if the footage comes out looking a little like Hitler at Nuremberg.

A CYNICAL CRACK ABOUT THE LAST LECTURE

I haven't watched the video, because it is so very long, but today my boss gushed about this line: "'We have these ideas, we have a couple of ideas. This idea here is very safe. This idea here is risky.' He said, 'Go for the risk. It's better to fail spectacularly then to pass along and do something which is mediocre.'"

I replied, "that's a pretty ironic statement from a man who made his living as a college professor."