Posts tagged obama
Obama Proposes ‘Meaningful Action’ on Climate Change
President Barack Obama called for “meaningful progress” on tackling climate change in his State of the Union speech in Washington, DC on Tuesday night. While acknowledging that “no single event makes a trend,” the President noted that the United States had been buffeted by extreme weather events that in many cases encapsulated the predictions of climate scientists. Read more
In 2010, President Obama directed NASA to get astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025, then on to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s.
wnyc:
Image of the day so far: voting by flashlight in a makeshift polling tent on Staten Island. (via NYTimes)
-Jody, BL Show-
make sure you vote today, tumblr people!
and if you’re in the NJ/NY area, good luck and let us know how it goes.
(via mattlehrer)
if you decide to move out of the country after the election results are finalized, make sure you prepare. i accidentally emigrated to Canada once, true story. Remind me to tell you about it some time.
Move to Canada? It’s Not That Easy
Despite threats to move to Canada during each election season, the reality is more complicated than many think.And although many Americans happily relocate — often for reasons unrelated to politics — their new reality is not necessarily as idyllic as some may hope. Canada, after all, has problems, too.
With a valid passport, just about any American can visit Canada for up to six months. But showing up at the border with a U-Haul full of belongings is a sure way to get turned back at the border (seriously, i’ve done it).
Most immigrants come because of a job offer or because they’re marrying a Canadian, Cohen said. Other routes to permanent residency include proving your economic worth to the country, investing a significant amount of money, starting a business, or completing a graduate degree at a Canadian university.
even astronauts can cast a ballot!
How Space Station Astronauts Can Vote
Two U.S. citizens may be hundreds of miles above the nearest polling booth, but they still cast their ballots.
Astronauts residing on the orbiting lab receive a digital version of their ballot, which is beamed up by Mission Control at the agency’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston. Filled-out ballots find their way back down to Earth along the same path.
This system was made possible by a 1997 bill passed by Texas legislators (nearly all NASA astronauts live in or around Houston). It was first used that same year by David Wolf, who happened to be aboard Russia’s Mir space station at the time.
in this time of robo-calls, political canvassing, mailings, long lines to cast a ballot and constant coverage on cable news we threw up our hands and ask…
Why Do We Need a President Anyway?
It wasn’t always a given that we’d have a single executive who has the power to make final decisions about the fate of our country.
Every four years, political frenzy seizes the nation for months building up to the presidential election. Often lost in the hoopla of the campaign trail, though, is the question of how it all began: Why do we have a president in the first place?
After a fizzled attempt to run the country through disparate committees in individual states did the creators of the United States Constitution decide at a historic convention in 1787 that there needed to be a strong national government with a leader on top.
But making the call to create the Presidency was not easy…
I’m right-handed, but my Mom is left-handed, does that make me a half-lefty? Maybe? It’s that a… stretch?*
(*really bad arm-related pun)
Left-Handed Presidents
If you’re a southpaw, you’re in good Presidential company. Many of our U.S. Presidents have been left-handed, including Harry S. Truman, Gerald R. Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama.
Both Presidents Truman and Reagan were switched to writing with their right hands as young school children, but photos show them favoring the left in other activities. It’s widely believed that Herbert Hoover was also left-handed, but archivists at the Hoover Library tell us that they’ve found no documentation - it’s just left hander’s lore.
Happy International Left Handers Day!
You just wait, next mission half of mission control will have crazy hair.
Obama to MSL Team: Martian Microbes and Mohawks
“I just wanted to call to say congratulations to the entire Mars Science Laboratory team and really all of JPL on last Monday’s incredible success,” Obama said during the phone call that was patched into a loudspeaker at mission control in NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
“I understand that there’s a special ‘Mohawk guy’ working on the mission?” Obama jokingly asked, which was promptly followed by a roar of laughter from JPL.
A Head of State, and a Boy’s Touching Request
From the NYTimes:
For decades at the White House, photographs of the president at work and at play have hung throughout the West Wing, and each print soon gives way to a more recent shot. But one picture of President Obama remains after three years.
Candidate’s Popularity Determined Using Twitter
Senior engineering students at the University of Cincinnati developed Twipolitico, a Web-based application that can gauge the popularity of the 2012 presidential candidates.
President Obama Becomes the First American President to Back Same-Sex Marriage
“I’ve just concluded, for me, personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” Obama said in an interview with ABC News.
Obama, who had previously backed strong protections for gay and lesbian couples, said his position had evolved partly after talking to his two daughters Malia and Sasha who had some friends who had same-sex parents.
“It wouldn’t dawn on them that somehow their friends’ parents would be treated differently. It doesn’t make sense to them and frankly, that’s the kind of thing that prompts a change in perspective,” Obama said in the interview.
It’s skin deep and pitch perfect sometimes.
When people chose between images of real candidates that were digitally altered to be unrecognizable and to emphasize facial structure, a 2007 study in Evolution and Human Behavior found that voters in the experiment mirrored results of actual elections — suggesting that faces hold real power over us.
