Month: July 2008

Yahoo! News

The Phoenix spacecraft has tasted Martian water for the first time, scientists reported Thursday. By melting icy soil in one of its lab instruments, the robot confirmed the presence of frozen water lurking below the Martian permafrost. Until now, evidence of ice in Mars’ north pole region has been largely circumstantial.

New York Times Blog

Nathan Kensinger generally does not ask for permission when he photographs the decaying remnants of Brooklyn’s industrial waterfront. Since 2003, he has wandered into shuttered factories, padlocked basements and forbidding warehouses. He often goes along with other photographers who have an adventurous bent. He hasn’t been arrested, yet, but he doesn’t want to tempt fate, either.

Mr. Kensinger’s photographs are now on view in a small exhibition, “Twilight on the Waterfront: Brooklyn’s Vanishing Industrial Heritage,” that opened on June 17 and runs through Aug. 30 at the central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library.

Check out a slide show of some stunning photos.

NYTimes.com

The White House predicted on Monday that the Bush administration would bequeath a record deficit of $482 billion to the next president — a sobering turnabout in the nation’s fiscal condition from 2001 when President Bush took office and inherited three consecutive years of budget surpluses.

By most accounts, the worst seems yet to come. The deficit announced by Jim Nussle, the White House budget director, does not reflect the full cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the potential $50 billion cost of another economic stimulus package or the prospect of steeper losses in tax revenue or further declines in the housing market.

(emphasis mine)

NYTimes.com

Senior aides to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales broke the law by using politics to guide their hiring decisions for a wide range of important department positions, slowing the hiring process at critical times and damaging the department’s credibility and independence, an internal report concluded Monday.

AWEARNESS

Here’s a plea, not just to the McCain campaign, but to people everywhere who attempt smearing someone’s reputation with false allegations: If you’re going to do it, don’t make claims that can be refuted with two minutes and a decent search engine. That’s just stupid.

I couldn’t agree more!