Today's Shared Google Reader Items, 11/24

Oops, I almost forgot to post today. Here are today's shared Google Reader items.

Miscellaneous:

• I don't often share the "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks, but I read everything they post, because grammar mistakes make me point and laugh. When said mistakes occur on the sign for an elementary school (not even, semi-excusably, on the part that changes; no, this is on the permanent part), I have to share it.
• This isn't a shared item, but I'm watching Rachel Maddow without a DVR buffer since the Daily Show and Colbert were repeats, and I just saw a commercial for some hair-removal device. If you act now, you get a smaller one for "lips, chin, and sensitive areas." Do you really want to use the same hair-removal device on your lips, chin, and "sensitive areas?"

Atheism:

• Could it be? Is Obama as non-religious as I hoped he might be?? Didn't the right-wing nutjobs realize calling him an atheist would make him even more hated in America than calling him a Muslim??? Woot to Scientologists moving below us, at least.

Politics:

• Palin 2012! No, seriously, there are still people who want to get Palin on the ticket in 2012. I may have to give them money.
• Somehow it surprised me that Biden was replaced in the Senate by his former chief-of-staff, rather than by his son, Beau. Apparently everyone knew this was going to happen; that the chief-of-staff is holding the seat for 2 years presumably to allow Beau to run for it when he gets back from Iraq/finishes his term as Delaware Attorney General. How did I miss that?
• Bush has begun his end-of-term pardons. I shared this mostly for this sentence (emphasis mine): "Those issued reprieves had been found guilty of mostly garden-variety offenses, like Leslie O. Collier, who was issued a pardon for a 1996 conviction for the unauthorized use of a pesticide in killing bald eagles.

Science:

• A study has shown that napping boosts "sophisticated memory." I don't really have anything to add to that, except that it's awesome news; I'm not being lazy, I'm just pumping up my memory. Oh, and in the other story linked from that page, it says not to watch TV and/or read stuff off of a monitor just before going to bed. So, of course, I'm blogging and watching MSNBC before heading to bed. Oops.
• We're going to Jupiter in 2011, but not Europa. Why not Europa?? We know Europa is probably the best bet for finding life in the solar system. I can't imagine a bigger scientific find than extraterrestrial life. Why aren't we checking the place that we think offers the best chance of finding life??? To answer my own question, I know they're terrified that they won't properly sterilize the mission, and we'll find life only to have it killed off by bacteria on the probe. Well, that and we need to send some sort of drilling machine if we do it, because it'd have to go through tons of ice to get to the possible ocean. But we should at least plan to spin any probe that goes to Jupiter over to Europa to help us map that moon out for a future mission.

Technology?

• [most recent] McDonalad has applied for a patent for a "method and apparatus for making a sandwich." If it's as ridiculous as it seems to be, just... wow.

That's it today. Comment below.