My mess says that I'm liberal

Apparently, even long before my politics had swung to the liberal, my lifestyle was screaming it for me.

According to a ScientificAmerican article online, Political Science: What Being Neat or Messy Says about Political Leanings, some researchers think that they can tell someone's politial affiliation by looking at the condition of their offices and bedrooms.

I'm not sure about the metrics behind this study, but a casual stroll around cubesville belies this theory.

Secret of my success

A first-of-its-kind study at UCLA finds that computer-savvy middle-aged adults who search the internet are actually stimulating and improving their brain function.

"Our most striking finding was that Internet searching appears to engage a greater extent of neural circuitry that is not activated during reading — but only in those with prior Internet experience," said Small, who is also the director of UCLA's Memory and Aging Research Center.

In fact, researchers found that during Web searching, volunteers with prior experience registered a twofold increase in brain activation when compared with those with little Internet experience. The tiniest measurable unit of brain activity registered by the fMRI is called a voxel. Scientists discovered that during Internet searching, those with prior experience sparked 21,782 voxels, compared with only 8,646 voxels for those with less experience.

Compared with simple reading, the Internet's wealth of choices requires that people make decisions about what to click on in order to pursue more information, an activity that engages important cognitive circuits in the brain.

Take that, whippersnappers.

A Real Commander In Chief?

An essay that I had read, which compares the respective transition team efforts between Obama and McCain, got me to thinking about just how different those two people could be.

In synopsis, "Obama has organized an elaborate well-staffed network to prepare for his possible ascension to the White House, while Sen. John McCain has all but put off such work until after the election." Further,

The Arizona Senator has instructed his team to not spend time on the transition effort, according to the source, both out of a desire to have complete focus on winning the election as well as a superstitious belief that the campaign shouldn't put the cart before the horse.

I think it's a little bit ironic that McCain, the self-styled "military expert," is looking only at the battle but does not have any plans for long-term occupation. Perhaps this explains why McCain had graduated fifth from the bottom — 894th out of a class of 899 — from the naval academy.

Draw your own parallels.