Election 2008: The Vote For The Most Strange

In every Presidential election there are some images that we remember. Images that have been captured by the media during the heat of the campaign.

Often, these images make us wonder why any sane person would run for political office. Certainly, these images show an absence of common sense and behavior difficult for most of us to explain.

Indeed, there are many examples of bad taste in the 2008 Presidential election campaign. Still, here is my vote for the top five things that will be remembered for a lack of good judgement and even as down right strange.

1. In July, The New Yorker had a picture of what it called a "satire" of Michelle and Barack Obama on its front cover. The "satire" magazine cover showed the Oval Office with Barack Obama as a tribal African. Michelle Obama was depicted in an afro-hairdo with a machine gun.

A picture of Osama Bin Laden was displayed on the wall and an American flag was on fire. Exactly, what was the editor thinking to allow the magazine to publish this picture?

2. Recently, Al Franken, who is not a credible candidate for the Senate but is running even with his opponent, Norm Coleman, was shown as a cartoon character, sticking out his tongue and wearing a beanie in a recent partisan Republican mailing. What ever happened to winning with new ideas in political election campaigns?

3. A Halloween display of Sarah Palin hung in effigy and John McCain emerging from a chimney in flames. These images courtesy of a West Hollywood couple were disturbing, misguided, and pretty strange. It just shows that in America, one man's hate crime could well be another man's Hollywood design.

4. A McCain campaign worker that pretends to be the victim of an attack by an Obama supporter at an ATM. She cuts a backwards B into her cheek in a vain attempt to give credit to her false claim. She was charged for filing a false police report for her deception and cheeky crime of physical pain.

5. A final example of the strange in Election 2008 comes from a quartet of young women in Brooklyn. They are pictured in a poster under the heading "Girls Say Yes to boys who say Obama".

Indeed, it's a poster that exists as an acknowledgement of the "dumbing down" of American society. Certainly, a poster that said "Girls say yes we can, to boys who say Obama" would have been far more appropriate in this strange election year.

The End Of The Phoenix Mission Is Near

It's common in late October for the temperature at Phoenix's arctic landing site to drop to well over -100 degrees Farenheit . The Phoenix lander is equipped with heaters to withstand the extreme cold, but there is now a bigger concern.

Winter on the far northern part of the Martian planet is coming, and days on the Arctic plains are shortening. As a result, the solar panels on Phoenix will soon not generate enough power.

Recognizing the inevitable, NASA has just announced that Phoenix's days to see and explore Mars are numbered.

However, NASA originally scheduled research on Mars for ninety days. Indeed, the extended length of this Phoenix Mission should promote its success. In November,the Lander will have analyzed the planets surface and atmosphere for more than five months.

So, what did the Phoenix find in the last five months on the martian surface? The test results of the samples will be analyzed for some time, but here are some initial observations from NASA:

The lander found evidence that the chemical makeup of the dust on the surface of Mars resembles that of sea water, adding to evidence that liquid water that once may have supported life flowed on the planet's surface.

Phoenix experiments also yielded clues pointing to calcium carbonate, the main composition of chalk, and particles that could be clay. Most carbonates and clays on Earth form only in the presence of liquid water.

The Phoenix lander detected snow falling from Martian clouds. A laser instrument designed to gather knowledge of how the atmosphere and surface interact on Mars has detected snow from clouds about 2.5 miles above the spacecraft's landing site. Data also shows the snow vaporizing before reaching the ground.

Recently, Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona was quoted as follows: "Mars is giving us some surprises. We're excited because surprises are where discoveries come from.

Smith continued: "One surprise is how the soil is behaving. The ice-rich layers stick to the scoop when poised in the sun above the deck, different from what we expected from all the Mars simulation testing we've done. That has presented challenges for delivering samples, but we're finding ways to work with it and we're gathering lots of information to help us understand this soil."

Over the next several weeks, four survival heaters will be shut down, one at a time, in an effort to conserve power. The heaters serve the purpose of keeping the electronics within tested survivable limits.

As each heater is disabled, some of the instruments are also expected to cease operations. The energy saved is intended to power the lander's main camera and meteorological instruments until the very end. "At that point, Phoenix will be at the mercy of Mars," said Chris Lewicki of JPL, lead mission manger.

For background on the Phoenix Mission, read: The Phoenix Mission Replaces Hollywood In Martian Exploration on eWorldvu.com.

The Final Days Of The Election Of 2008

There are just six days to go in the 2008 Presidential Election. At this late stage in the race, there are several things that have become quite clear. Barack Obama has run a better campaign than John McCain.

He has had the discipline to stay on message and performs very well in front of a teleprompter. Obama's campaign is better organized and the candidate has looked very "Presidential" in all of the debates.

In general, McCain has suffered from the timing of the financial crisis and the unpopularity of the current Administration. The truth is that McCain has more than a 20% higher approval rating than George W. Bush. The fact that this is still a fairly close election in a Democratic year seems hard to believe, but that is what the pollsters say.

However, there has not been one public opinion tracking poll since early September that has indicated that Barack Obama has trailed in this election. Current polls in the major battleground states show Obama tied or slightly in the lead. In western states that usually vote Republican like New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado, Obama looks like he is well ahead and will probably win.

There is little doubt that if the election were held today, Barack Obama would become the next President of the United States in 2009. He will win next week if nothing changes between now and then. However, there is still one week to go in election 2008 and the last week of any Presidential Election can be the most volatile.

Remember in 2000, George Bush had his college record of DUI appear in the major media markets across the country. This revelation evaporated his four point lead in the polls over the last few days before the election and led to a surge by Al Gore that almost cost Bush the Presidency.

What can happen in the final days to change the outcome in election 2008? It probably would be an external event to the campaign. A foreign policy crisis or a national security event. A new revelation about Barack Obama, his background, his ideas or even dubious comments from his wife. There are certainly many different rumors in the blogosphere of damaging tapes containing information that will soon be released that could alter this race.

Indeed, we have entered the final days of the Election of 2008. So, bring a healthy dose of skepticism, and hold on tight because it may be a wild ride. In politics, it even has a name, its often called the October surprise.

Israel's Choice Is War Or A Nuclear Iran

Israeli Prime Minister-designate Tzipi Livni just announced that she cannot form a coalition government and new general elections will soon be held in the State of Israel. Many current public opinion polls indicate that in the general election, former Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu will be elected Prime Minister of Israel in early 2009.

The fact is that these new Israeli elections are likely to end the current peace process with the Palestinians, restarted with U.S. backing at Annapolis, Md., nearly one year ago.

Meanwhile, Iran continues to build a strategic relationship with Russia through a new energy alliance. Both countries should soon announce the formation of a natural gas cartel. In addition, Iran continues to enrich uranium, well along its path to becoming the only nuclear power in the Middle East.

It has become obvious that the hope of any additional strong United Nations Sanctions against Iran for its illegal nuclear enrichment program are now non-existent. Previous United Nations Sanctions have proven too weak and have not worked anyway.

In the United States, the deteriorating economy and the 2008 Presidential election dominates the national news. The dubious prospect of a nuclear Iran has dropped well down the list of problems that need immediate national attention.

For Israel, after the general election, the decision that they face is unfortunately clear. Their choice between war or the threat of a nuclear Iran is the direct result of another failure of international diplomacy and the United Nations.

It all adds up to an unresolved international problem destined to escalate into a major world wide event. Indeed, a major foreign policy crisis is on the horizon, soon after the start of the new year.

Cars In The Future Will Think And Change Shape

Over one million people worldwide die in motor vehicle accidents every year. Studies have found that more than 90% of all motor vehicle accidents involve some degree of human error.

So, we should all just face the hard cold facts. Many of us just can't drive safely. Often, some of us let our emotions overcome reason.

Stress, road rage, speeding, alcohol, cell phones, screaming children, and a lack of proper driving directions, all distract our attention, reduce our driving performance and as a result increase our potential accident risk.

Since in this fast paced world we elect not to change our behavior, the automotive industry is going to provide a car in the future designed to give us instant safety protection, and provide operator help.

Consider that a car that protects its passengers by strengthening the inside of its frame in the instant before a collision has recently been crash-tested by European engineers. The system uses radar and cameras to anticipate an impact on the side of a car just a fraction of a second before impact actually occurs.

In that instant before impact, a metal bar slides into place to create a temporary brace that makes the cars inside frame significantly stronger. The bar bridges a gap between the front door and another bar running across the car and anchored on the chassis. So, the internal shape of the car instantly changes to protect occupants from the collisions impact.

The fact is that automobile prediction systems have become possible due to improvements in sensors and computing. Indeed, many car manufacturers are already testing and designing head lights that work automatically based on driving visibility, and brakes that act on their own to begin to slow a car based on upcoming traffic.

Eventually, the car of the future will warn us about the imminent danger of an oncoming vehicle or a potential collision while backing a car up. It could provide a calm reassuring voice during a difficult commute. It could even warn us of an upcoming change in the contour of the road and alert us that the speed limit is being exceeded.

Of course, the car of the future may provide other things for us to ponder as well. Consider, some of the research funded by the automobile industry being done by Car Lab at Stanford University as well as research at software giant, Microsoft, Corporation.

Both are involved in research focused on vehicle accumulation of information on driver behavior. In the future, our car will keep a record of where we drive, how fast we go, where we stop to eat and shop and many other aspects of our consumer and driving preferences.

So, the car of the future could be designed to tell our insurance company how often we were speeding, how we drive in traffic, and how many times we park illegally. The amount of our future insurance premiums may well rely on our car's report on our own driving behavior.

In addition, consider that as we pass Walmart, our car's dashboard voice may tell us all the items that the store has on sale today. It may even tell us about the deal we can get on a Latte at a nearby Starbucks or to consider going left at the next intersection for breakfast at Dennys.

The car of the future will be much safer, but from a privacy standpoint, we may need to consider taking a cab.

The Controversial Paper Of Livingston And Penn

I thought that I would check on the activity of the sun today. After all, in March, many prominent scientists were worried that Solar Cycle 24 would be so active by now that our entire communications system would be disrupted.

That 2008 consensus scientific prediction certainly has proven to be well off the mark and dramatically incorrect.

As can be see in the picture above, once again today, there are no sunspots, and the face of the sun is blank. In fact, a blank sun is the same picture that has been seen by astronomers for over 200 days during this year already. The number of days without a sunspot now makes 2008, the fifth blankest year in the last century and there is still plenty of time left in the year to move toward a record and be on top.

So, what does this lack of sunspot activity on the sun really mean? The answer is still unknown but there is one thing that we do now know. We know that there was only one scientific paper that predicted this current trend in sunspot activity before it all began. However, it was denied publication nearly three years ago.

The paper was released during an active sun in 2005. It was laughed at in the scientific community, never published, rejected by scientific journals, and eventually dismissed as being too controversial.

This controversial paper was based on the research of a pair of astronomers from the National Solar Observatory (NSO) at Kitt Peak in Tucson, Arizona, William Livingston and Matthew Penn.

The researchers looked at minute spectroscopic and magnetic changes in the sun by analyzing data from sunspot observations over a 15-year period from 1990 to 2005. In total, over 1000 sunspots were measured, noting their umbral brightness, temperature and magnetic field strength.

Livingston and Penn discovered that the sunspot umbral magnetic field was decreasing rapidly from nearly 3000 Gauss in the late 1990’s to nearly 2000 Gauss in 2005. Projecting the current trend to continue until 2015, the umbral magnetic field strength would hit 1500 Gauss. At that point, the sunspot structure would not be maintained since no umbral darkening could be observed.

So, if the umbral magnetic field continued to decrease, the Sun would continue to become less active over time until the 11-year solar cycle would effectively be “put on hold” in the year 2015. It would remain on hold until the unknown mechanism driving the process decided to start up again. The result is that in 2015 there would be no visable sunspots.

The conclusion of their research was certainly startling and it is also the title of their work: “Sunspots may vanish by 2015". It should be noted that their paper only considers data from 15 years worth of sunspots, that’s only just a little more than one cycle. Data over several sunspot cycles could certainly be seen as more conclusive.

However, what if they are proven correct and we are about to enter a sunspot minimum with the regular eleven year sunspot cycle on hold in just a few years time? It has happened before in the Maunder and Dalton Minimums, and if sunspot history is a guide, much colder times for this planet would be ahead.

One thing seems certain. If the current lack of sunspot activity becomes a continuing trend, nobody will be laughing at the scientific research in the controversial paper of Livingston and Penn.

Click Here to Read The Paper of Livingston and Penn

Joe Biden Moments Are Hard To Understand

Joe Biden moments continue to appear with regularity in the Democratic Presidential Election campaign of 2008.

Last week, Joe could be seen shouting into a microphone that the major issue in this campaign year is a three letter word and then he proceeds to spell out for the audience the four letters in the word Jobs.

Its a pretty funny moment if you have not already seen the video, but its just another in a series of Biden gaffes in this campaign. Surely, its not any wonder why Barack Obama has recently tried to keep this guy away from a microphone.

The truth is that Joe Biden has been isolated from the traveling press, taken off of the campaign trail for a week and has not held a press conference in over a month. Nevertheless, Joe Biden moments just keep on coming.

Indeed, its very difficult to explain how an intelligent career politician of more than three decades can make so many verbal and political mistakes. In fact, here is the latest strange Joe Biden quote at a fundraiser on the campaign trail.

"Mark my words, it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."

Biden continued: "I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. But he's gonna need your help. Because I promise you, you all are gonna be sitting here a year from now going, 'Oh my God, why are they there in the polls? Why is the polling so down? Why is this thing so tough?' We're gonna have to make some incredibly tough decisions in the first two years. So I'm asking you now, I'm asking you now, be prepared to stick with us. "

So, two weeks before election day and Joe Biden is turning the voters attention to Barack Obama's inexperience in handling foreign policy? In addition, he is telling the American voter that there will surely be a foreign policy crisis early next year and that a Democratic administration's handling of that crisis will be unpopular.

It seems that the logical conclusion of this speech to a voter trying to avoid Biden's bleak foreign policy outlook would be to vote for the experience of John McCain over the inexperience of Barack Obama. Biden must have realized that his speech would make news in the press.

Biden's foreign policy assessment may well be true but why bring it up now, only two weeks before election day, with the Democrats significantly ahead in every major public opinion poll? The discussion acts to create foreign policy uncertainty which doesn't politically help Barack Obama but could assist the failing campaign of John McCain.

Consider that all the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates were given high level foreign policy briefings last week. This briefing may have led to Bidens recent foreign policy comments. Comments which politically represent yet another Joe Biden moment in Election 2008.

If the polls are right and do not change, in two weeks, Joe Biden will only be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. The next four years of Joe Biden moments would surely be entertaining but they could also become a full time job (three letters) for this country to understand.

Other articles on Joe Biden on the eWorldvublog:

Joe Biden Moments May Get John McCain Elected

Joe Biden's Moment Of Truth Will Not Help Obama