What Caught My Eye Today

Abortion - Here is another constituency--besides Republicans--that isn't likely to be participating in the ticker tape parade when Barack Obama takes office in January. The nation's Roman Catholic bishops vowed to forcefully confront the Obama administration over its support for abortion rights, saying the church and religious freedom could be under attack in the new presidential administration. Not if he abides by a little thing called the Constitution. You know that document that defined the whole concept of "separation of church and state." Several bishops said they would accept no compromise on abortion policy. Many condemned Catholics who had argued it was morally acceptable to back President-elect Obama because he pledged to reduce abortion rates. so much for "turning the other cheek." Several prelates promised to call out Catholic policy makers on their failures to follow church teaching including vice president elect, Joe Biden. During the campaign, many bishops had spoken out on abortion more boldly than they had in 2004, telling Catholic politicians and voters that the issue should be the most important consideration in setting policy and deciding which candidate to back. Yet, according to exit polls, 54 percent of Catholics chose Obama, who is Protestant. Is it possible that this is merely an expression of sour grapes driven by the fact that the Catholic Church keeps talking, but no one seems to be listening?

Economy - It looks as if people are taking Barack Obama up on his exhortations for hope and change. 72% voice confidence the president-elect will make the changes needed to revive the stalling economy. Underscoring how widely the public is counting on its new leader, 44% of Republicans joined nearly all Democrats and most independents in expressing that belief. Trust in Obama's ability to succeed is even broader, at least for now. 68% said they think when he takes office in January, the new president will be able to enact the policies he pushed during his presidential campaign. I don't want to rain on any one's parade, but wouldn't it be a bit more prudent to let Obama get his feet wet before putting all these expectations on his shoulders? Don't get me wrong, I voted for the dude based on the hope he could make things better as well. All I'm saying is let's not set Obama up to fail to deliver before he even takes office?

Oil - Oil prices neared $60 a barrel, their lowest point in about a year and a half, as a growing number of economic reports point to a long and painful recession. When the economy slows, the demand for energy fades. One side effect: the price of gasoline has tumbled from summer highs, when a gallon cost more than $4. Experts say gasoline could cost half that by year's end. Oil prices have now fallen nearly 60%since peaking at $147.27 a barrel in mid-July. This is one of those good news bad news stories. The good news, obviously is that gas prices have come down. The bad news is that the main reason that gas prices have plummeted is that people no longer have jobs or home to drive to anymore--hence the lower demand.

Egypt - Archaeologists have discovered a new pyramid under the sands of Saqqara, an ancient burial site that has yielded a string of unearthed pyramids in recent years but remains largely unexplored. The 4,300-year-old monument most likely belonged to the queen mother of the founder of Egypt's 6th Dynasty, and was built several hundred years after the famed Great Pyramids of Giza. The discovery is part of the sprawling necropolis and burial site of the rulers of ancient Memphis, the capital of Egypt's Old Kingdom, about 12 miles south of Giza. The find is important because it adds to the understanding of the 6th Dynasty, which reigned from 2,322 B.C. to 2,151 B.C. It was the last dynasty of the Old Kingdom, which spanned the third millennium B.C. and whose achievements are considered the first peak of pharaonic civilization. Saqqara is most famous for the Step Pyramid of King Djoser, built in the 27th century B.C. Why you make ask, do I find this story so fascinating? think about this for a moment. The United States is one of the longest running democracies in modern times, and we've been at it a whopping 232 years. Big deal. Egypt had single dynasties that lasted long than that with a lot less going for it than we did.

Armageddon - On the off chance that you've had it with...well, you know, Earth as we know it, here are some ways that we could "pull the plug" so to speak on the third rock from the Sun.

• Total existence failure -- Simply sit back and twiddle your thumbs as, completely by chance, all 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms making up the planet Earth suddenly, simultaneously and spontaneously cease to exist.
  Yeah, I won't hold my breath for that to happen.
• Gobbled up by strangelets -- Hijack control of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider in Brookhaven National Laboratory, Long Island, New York. Use the RHIC to create and maintain a stable strangelet. Keep it stable for as long as it takes to absorb the entire Earth into a mass of strange quarks.
  Huh?
• Sucked into a microscopic black hole -- Create a microscopic black hole and place it on the surface of the Earth. The black hole will plummet through the ground, eating its way to the center of the Earth and all the way through to the other side.
  Sounds rather simple when you put it that way.
• Blown up by matter/antimatter reaction -- Create a 2,500,000,000,000 ton antimatter bomb, then detonate it.
  Poof, no more planet.
• Destroyed by vacuum energy detonation -- The volume of space enclosed by a light bulb contains enough vacuum energy to boil every ocean in the world. All you need to do is figure out how to extract this energy and harness it to annihilate all of planet Earth and probably the Sun too.
  So simple, a baby could do it, right?
• Sucked into a giant black hole -- The nearest black hole to our planet is 1600 light years from Earth. You need get it and the Earth together.
  Right. What's next?
• Meticulously and systematically deconstructed -- Basically, what we're going to do here is dig up the Earth, a big chunk at a time, and boost the whole lot of it into orbit. All six sextillion tons of it.
  Again, I just don't see it.
• Pulverized by impact with blunt instrument -- find a really, really big asteroid or planet, accelerate it up to some dazzling speed, and smash it into Earth, preferably head-on.
  You have to love the sense of humor of the scientists who came up with these ideas.
• Eaten by von Neumann machines -- A von Neumann machine is any device that is capable of creating an exact copy of itself given nothing but the necessary raw materials. Create one of these that subsists almost entirely on iron, magnesium, aluminum and silicon. As the population of machines doubles repeatedly, the planet Earth will, terrifyingly soon, be entirely eaten up and turned into a swarm of potentially sextillions of machines.
  Sounds like a a nasty sci-fi flick, doesn't it?
• Hurled into the Sun -- Send the Earth near enough to the Sun and tidal forces will tear it apart.
  Finally, an option even I can understand.