Crazy Left

Not politics, just cool:Slowly rolling across the ocean floor, a humble single-celled creature is poised to revolutionize our understanding of how complex life evolved on Earth.

A distant relative of microscopic amoebas, the grape-sized Gromia sphaerica was discovered once before, lying motionless at the bottom of the Arabian Sea. But when Mikhail Matz of the University of Texas at Austin and a group of researchers stumbled across a group of G. sphaerica off the coast of the Bahamas, the creatures were leaving trails behind them up to 50 centimeters (20 inches) long in the mud.

The trouble is, single-celled critters aren't supposed to be able to leave trails. The oldest fossils of animal trails, called 'trace fossils', date to around 580 million years ago, and paleontologists always figured they must have been made by multicellular animals with complex, symmetrical bodies.

But G. sphaerica's traces are the spitting image of the old, Precambrian fossils; two small ridges line the outside of the trail, and one thin bump runs down the middle.

At up to three centimeters (1.2 inches) in diameter, they're also enormous compared to most of their microscopic cousins.

Just came upon this, apparently folks discovered it this past September (that'll teach me not to check my ThinkProgress). Freaky.

You may remember that Nancy Reagan fought against drug consumption by urging Americans to "just say no." Now we need Mrs. Reagan again because some poorly run corporations are asking for taxpayer bailouts and

We Americans are blessed with a history that teaches that things work out right. Our first president set the precedent of relinquishing power he could have had for life and returning to his farm. Two of our greatest...

It seems like there's a lot of non-political cool news today, such as this meteor that landed in western Canada last night:



Here's another look:

Paph. Adilene Bobadilla 'Rossilyn' x Honeycomb Creek 'Butterdish' AM/AOS

This little guy is a bit messed up this time around. He's flowered before, quite well in fact, but something happened this time, whether it was a pesticide I used, or changing temperature, or the change in humidity, but the flower got a bit deformed. It's still pretty cool. Now is the season for a lot of paphs (this type of orchid) to bloom, and in fact I have two more that are just starting to grow flower sheaths (and the ones coming are the really cool ones that have multiple flowers at once and look kind of like military gliders crossed with evil bats). Might be a few months until they fully bloom, but stay tuned.

Enjoy.

From Greg Sargent:Ben Smith points out that the statement from Hillary's spokesperson, which says today's reports are "premature," is nonetheless basically confirmation that she and Obama will reach a deal and she'll be his Secretary of State.

In truth, it's hard to read it any other way. Here's the statement from Hillary spokesperson Philippe Reines again:"We're still in discussions, which are very much on track. Any reports beyond that are premature."To my knowledge this is the first public statement from Reines or Hillary that directly addresses the actual possibility that she'd take the gig. That makes it significant. And that statement confirms that the talks are "very much on track."

The things we missed while focusing on the campaign

Read the comments and you'll see why this one shot to the top of the www.amaze.fm chart for the week.

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The wild ride on Wall Street continues. After eight years of the George Bush/GOP economic policy, news of Obama's pick for Treasury Secretary set off a rally. The markets have apparently joined the rest of us by "applauding change":After two days of punishing losses, Wall Street surged on Friday afternoon after news reports said that President-elect Barack Obama had tapped Timothy F. Geithner, the president of the New York Federal Reserve, to be secretary of the Treasury.

Skittish financial markets closed dramatically higher following the reports, recouping some of the slide that brought them to 11-year lows. The Dow Jones industrial average soared 494.13 points or 6.5 percent, closing at 8,046.42. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index swung 6.3 percent higher, or 47.59 points to 800.03. The Nasdaq composite was up 5.2 percent.

“It was almost a Geithner relief rally,” said Steve Neimeth, portfolio manager at AIG SunAmerica Asset Management.

Bits of news have swung financial markets widely in recent weeks, and on Friday afternoon, traders seemed to rally behind unconfirmed reports that the country’s next president had picked his chief financial officer. The markets were not applauding the choice specifically, said Ryan Larson, senior equity trader at Voyageur Asset Management, but any choice at all.

“What you’re seeing is a rally off the headlines,” Mr. Larson said. “The markets are applauding change. It’s a hope that change will bring some sort of effectiveness to these plans and ultimately make a road map to come out of it.”Did you ever think you'd hear Wall Street people adopting the language of "hope" and "change"? The new administration can't start soon enough.

Amid reports that the retailers are hurrying the Christmas shopping season, and hobbled by a cold, I am taking the weekend off and opening the Hugh Store for holiday shopping.There will be a couple of more offerings...

I'm hearing that CBS is refusing to run this card check ad because it features Nancy Pelosi, who, by the way, is a guest on their Sunday talk show...

At first blush the markets appear to really like Timothy Geithner as Obama's Treasury Secretary.To be frank, I don't know a lot about him. Here's what I've been looking at to get an idea of what he is like. Novak column...

From the Wash Post:New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has emerged as a "serious contender" to head the Commerce Department under President-elect Barack Obama, according to a Democratic official close to the proceedings.

Richardson was originally in the mix to be the secretary of State but Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) is now expected be announced for that post after the Thanksgiving holiday.

Commerce was originally rumored to be going to Penny Pritzker, the finance chairwoman of Obama's campaign and a close friend of the Illinois senator, but she removed herself from consideration on Thursday due to an inability to extricate herself from a series of complex business ties.

David Brooks seems awfully impressed with what he terms the "valedictocracy" filling the ranks of the Obama administration.But as someone who shares Michelle Obama's almae matres of Princeton and Harvard, let me just...

Tim Geithner is expected to be named Treasury Secretary on Monday. He is thought of as being not a Wall-Streeter, but rather an acedemic sort. However, he was involved in the Bear Stearns and AIG Bailout.... Bill...

Announcing the victor in our very first slam-bang election sweepstakes.

Conservatives have always known how to solve our country's traffic problem, and it's surprisingly simple. The problem is too many cars (the U.S. has more licensed automobiles than licensed drivers) rolling down too...