Today's Shared Google Reader Items, 11/21

I liked yesterday's experiment with tagging the blocks, so here are my nicely categorized shared Google Reader items:

Entertainment:

• Being down-in-the-dumps in the demo, the demise of Daisies was destined. Dammit, dimwits! Don't Dr. Seussian stories scripted semi-seriously stand-up to your "standards?"

Politics:

• One of Obama's FCC transition team co-chairs is an avid World of Warcraft player. I just love that. Obama's FCC will be firmly in the 21st century, it seems.
• Presumably reassured by my endorsement last night, Hillary has reportedly decided to accept Secretary of State.
• Speaking of awaiting my endorsement, Geithner is going to be Secretary of the Treasury. Good move, Obama.
• I hadn't endorsed Richardson for Commerce, per se, but it works for me. I mostly like it because Richardson seems to be a smart guy, but he always sounds like a boob whenever I hear him speak. When's the last time you heard a Secretary of Commerce speak? On a more serious note, Richardson has always been a foreign policy wonk (from studying it in college through serving (briefly) as US Ambassador to the UN, plus bits beyond), and I think focusing on the foreign part of commerce is smart. It's a global world, we need to be focused on how we can make that work, rather than resisting it.

Technology:

• It's the future. We are now using frikkin' laser beams in Iraq.
• Speaking of technology, I found myself thinking, "Man, this is so amazingly awesome that we can do this" every time one of my planes took off on my recent trip to/from New York for a wedding, so this bit from Louis CK really cracked me up.
• DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, aka the Department of Figuring Out Cool Things) is sponsoring an initiative to build a brain-based, brain-like computer. This could lead to really, really cool things. Or, you know, not so much.

Atheism:

• Apparently the decline of the American economy is due to atheism. Or at least an idiot thinks so. PZ says it all better than I can, with a great icon for the quote.

Science:

• Energy-matter equivalence has been verified (computationally) at the quantum level. This is very cool; Einstein and quantum have had trouble getting along in the past.

Internet:

• Google is now allowing users to customize searches. It doesn't work with "I'm Feeling Lucky" yet, which is annoying, but it's still potentially very cool.

That's it today. Chances are good I'll miss tomorrow, and possibly Sunday as well, but the feeds are slow on weekends anyway so hopefully there won't be too much to catch up on Monday. Comment away to convince me to finish making my layout awesome.