Yesterday's QUOTES ...

Chameleons aren't hiding, they're advertising?
The study provides strong evidence that the chameleon's color change evolved mainly for communication, says behavioral ecologist Roger Hanlon of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. No one has ever shown that the chameleon's special ability provides camouflage, says Hanlon, who reviewed 100 years of scientific literature on the subject. That, combined with the results of this research, he says, should definitively debunk the popular myth--until someone else finds a new species that justifies the belief.
"It's like a wristwatch: If it runs slow, you're late for everything; if it's too fast, you're early for everything," ...
A cluster of brain cells called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) runs the clock in humans, and the body's other cells have their own "slave clocks" that are synchronized to the SCN. With timekeeping outposts throughout the body, the main clock helps regulate everything from sleepiness to concentration.
Our own worst enemy ... Also worrying is a flash point created by drying soil and dying vegetation. Fires are a natural feature here, as shown by periodic dark bands in tree rings. But fires are growing more frequent and fierce, says Boldgiv. The worst-case scenario is that drought and wildfires converge in a regional conflagration. Huge swaths of taiga forest and steppe grasslands could be lost in a single summer, he says. There is no fire brigade out here.

Just what ecosystem might emerge from that apocalyptic scenario is a central question of the Hovsgol project. After a decade of research, ecologists have bad news and worse news. The bad news is that receding taiga and overgrazed steppe tend to leave shrubby wasteland in their wake. Islands of this "semidesert" of sparse plants and few grasses are expanding. Goulden is worried that this may warn of a wholesale transition to semidesert, which would be "disastrous," he says, because it supports a fraction of the animal density that grassland supports. And it could ruin the country's best source of drinking water if topsoil eroding into Hovsgol's tributaries spurs algal growth in the lake.

As was to be expected, the media was quick to ask the superficial question immediately after the first two-candidate Democratic debate of this campaign: “Who won?”

They totally missed the obvious point: The Democratic Party won tonight.

Body language, everything was different ... so refreshing.
The worst is yet to come ...
What's breaking is not necessarily revealed in Iraq but when these psychologically scarred men and women return home, without adequate medical care or mental health treatment at their service. It's as big a landmine as the next President will have to face; being handed an Army that is withered to the core, and then if he or she attempts to pull out of Iraq to save the military, being chastised by the neocon faction about hating the country and loving to lose, etc., etc.
... and a tragedy that the GOP will use with glee to the detriment of us all.
Another Uniter? ...
The reality is that the person who is being divisive in this campaign is not Sen. Clinton - it is Sen. Obama. Rather than behave as the UniterTM that he claims to be, he can't stop dividing the Democratic party with the use of false Republican attacks against his main opponent. If he really wants to be a uniter, rather than a divider, and set an example to his followers, he can run a campaign on the issues, criticize his opponent on the merits of her positions (but not by making stuff up about her repeatedly), and not write and deliver divisive speeches using faxed talking points from the Republican National Committee. Now, that would be a simple and easy way to unite the Democratic party and the country. We'll see if Sen. Obama is up to the task.

How Republicans think, if one can call it that ...

To paraphrase:Per United States Attorney General Michael Mukasey, torturing Mukasey would be torture (to Mukasey) but not necessarily torture if Mukasey weren't Mukasey. Got that?