Here’s how I feel about Presidential Politics.  To paraphrase I-don’t-remember-who:

Any person that can be elected to be President, doesn’t deserve to be president.

And:

Any person that can get themselves elected as President should on no account be allowed to hold that office.

And as Lord Acton said:

The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern.  Every class is unfit to govern.

For the first time ever (as far as I remember, anyway), I’ve received a comment spam for my earlier post “Brian Eno’s morphing mashup of music and art” that I actually kinda like what the links lead me to.  In this case, it’s KiNo, a musician, poet and artist.  Although I treated the comment as spam, which it surely was, I’ll still give the guy his desire & share his links.  Take a look & a listen at:

http://www.kinomapoftheuniverse.com

http://www.myspace.com/kino

Peace and Blessings, KiNo.

Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.

- Buddha

Two terrible tragedies in Asia - Cyclone Nargis last week claims approximately 32,000 lives, and today’s earthquake in China nearly 10,000.

Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.

- Buddha

Neither fire nor wind, birth nor death can erase our good deeds.

- Buddha

Everything is changeable, everything appears and disappears; there is no blissful peace until one passes beyond the agony of life and death.

- Buddha

This is making the email rounds.

If you were around in 1919 (just before prohibition started) and came upon the following poster………

I mean seriously, Would you quit drinking?

I think I’d rather drink turpentine than get near any of those sour lips.

Mr. “Hieronymus Isambard” (Jake) von Slatt, the Proprietor over at The Steampunk Workshop, has created a couple of very nice telegraph sounders.  Taking it even further, he interfaced one with his PC to “copy” RSS feeds in Morse code!  I attempted to post his video of one of the sounders “sounding off” an RSS feed in code, but I couldn’t get WordPress to accept it.  Take a look at his description of the project.

I was doing ham radio stuff outside on the deck this afternoon, and Kitty and Chelsea were enjoying the warm afternoon along with me.  Kitty is giving Dylan (our other cat) the evil eye.

I’ve been looking for a cheap GPS to use in my car.  I think I’ve found it!

Randall Munroe (XKCD), #40

Very interesting…  But I have to wonder just how much power is needed to run the RF generator…

Like a deep lake,
clear, unruffled, & calm:
so the wise become clear, calm,
On hearing words of the Dhamma.
    -Dhammapada, 6, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

Cribbed from NASA.gov

+ High resolution (20Mb TIF)

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took two images of the larger of Mars’ two moons, Phobos, within 10 minutes of each other on March 23, 2008. This is the first, taken from a distance of about 6,800 kilometers (about 4,200 miles). It is presented in color by combining data from the camera’s blue-green, red, and near-infrared channels.

The illuminated part of Phobos seen in the images is about 21 kilometers (13 miles) across. The most prominent feature in the images is the large crater Stickney in the lower right. With a diameter of 9 kilometers (5.6 miles), it is the largest feature on Phobos.

The color data accentuate details not apparent in black-and-white images. For example, materials near the rim of Stickney appear bluer than the rest of Phobos. Based on analogy with materials on our own moon, this could mean this surface is fresher, and therefore younger, than other parts of Phobos.
A series of troughs and crater chains is obvious on other parts of the moon. Although many appear radial to Stickney in this image, recent studies from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter indicate that they are not related to Stickney. Instead, they may have formed when material ejected from impacts on Mars later collided with Phobos. The lineated textures on the walls of Stickney and other large craters are landslides formed from materials falling into the crater interiors in the weak Phobos gravity (less than one one-thousandth of the gravity on Earth).

In the full-resolution version of this image, a pixel encompasses 6.8 meters (22 feet), providing a resolution (smallest visible feature) of about 20 meters (about 65 feet). The image is in the HiRISE catalog as PSP_007769_9010.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson, and the instrument was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona