The Green Universe: Carl Sagan and the "Pale Blue Dot"

Link: http://sierraclub.typepad.com/greenlife/2012/03/green-perspec.html

March 26, 2012

The Green Universe: Carl Sagan

Sensational news stories can make badly behaved celebrities and bickering politicians seem larger than life. Luckily, the scientists who study the vast universe maintain a different perspective. This week, we'll bring you quotes and videos that reveal nature's star power.

Carl Sagan and the "Pale Blue Dot"

It might look like a grainy photograph, but take a closer look. See that tiny little dot in the middle of the yellowish band of light? Carl Sagan asked the NASA operators of the Voyager I to snap this picture as the spacecraft was leaving our solar system, to remind us of this very simple fact: "Everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was lived out their life . . . lived there."

Watch the video below to see our home planet in a new light:

--photo courtesy of NASA; video by Pale Blue Films

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Spell It Out: 16 Abbreviated Company Names Explained

Spell It Out: 16 Abbreviated Company Names Explained 

by Ethan Trex - May 6, 2010 - 11:36 AM  {VIA - mental_floss}

Dozens of companies use acronyms or initials in their names, but how well do you know what the abbreviated letters 
mean? Let’s take a look at the etymologies behind a few abbreviated company names.

1. CVS

Sorry, drugstore fans, there aren’t three fatcat pharmacists with these initials running around out there. When the pharmacy chain was founded in Lowell, MA in 1963, it was known as “Consumer Value Stores.” Over time the name became abbreviated to simply CVS.

2. K-Mart

Longtime five-and-dime mogul Sebastian S. Kresge opened his first larger store in Garden City, Michigan, in 1962. The store was named K-Mart after him. (Kresge had earned the right to have a store named for him; he opened up his new venture at the tender age of 94.)

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Daily Digest 9/5 - How The U.S. Debt Got So Bad, Where's The Oil Price Collapse, Iran Plugs In First Nuclear Plant - Blogs at Chris Martenson

Daily Digest 9/5 - How The U.S. Debt Got So Bad, Where's The Oil Price Collapse, Iran Plugs In First Nuclear Plant - Blogs at Chris Martenson: "Where's Our Oil Price Collapse? (JimQ)

Make no mistake about it, without plentiful, cheap, and easy to access oil, the United States of America would descend into chaos and collapse. The fantasies painted by “green” energy dreamers only serve to divert the attention of the non critical thinking masses from the fact our sprawling suburban hyper technological society would come to a grinding halt in a matter of days without the 18 to 19 million barrels per day needed to run this ridiculous reality show. Delusional Americans think the steaks, hot dogs and pomegranates in their grocery stores magically appear on the shelves, the thirty electronic gadgets that rule their lives are created out of thin air by elves and the gasoline they pump into their mammoth SUVs is their God given right."

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