The best part is it would bring an end to airports and airlines

I try not to use this blog as a passive email forwarding system, but in this case I'm making an exception. This news is one of the coolest things I've heard in a long time:

According to LiveScience, the university's Joint Quantum Institute for the first time was able to teleport information between two separate atoms across a distance of a meter--about one step for an adult.

Its entirely crazy to think about. What if they did this with a human being? Is the destination person really the same as the original person? Does the original person go away, or is this really just a new-fangled way to clone? Can this become a correctional medical device? Instead of plastic surgery, you just beam yourself across the room and switch a few molecules around in your nose in the process to make it less pointy? What about clothing? I've got a shirt that's a little too snug, can I enlarge it when I teleport it to my closet? Can it be used to target certain things? Can I instantly beam all of the spiders out of my house and into my neighbor's backyard? Think of the fun it could offer while driving! You could beam entire vehicles out of your way! Although I suppose we wouldn't need to drive at all. Ooo! What about food? What if we could beam all those pesky little bones out of fillet of fish before we eat it? Or how about garlic! Its such a pain to get the outer skin off of a clove of garlic, I'd love to be able to just beam it off.

So many possibilities! Lets pump some funding this way, Mr. President!

I Can Get Behind That

There has been a lot of debate over the past 36 hours about President Obama's inaugural address. Many have expressed disappointment in the speech, saying that it needed to be more uplifting, more optimistic, more soaring in its rhetoric. It certainly was not a typical Obama speech, and that caught people by surprise -- me included.

But for 8 years we've had a president who was afraid, unable, or unwilling to be straight with us. He was a president who asked us time and again to trust him to make things right, only to betray that trust at every opportunity. We don't need another president like that, and we didn't need another speech like that either.

Instead, President Obama knew that the worst possible thing that could happen right now is for the American people to disengage, to be lulled into a false sense of security by an overconfident leader offering more than he alone could possibly deliver. As great as he is, Obama is only one man, and he cannot fix this country by himself. It wasn't just rhetoric when he said, "as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies." It was the truth. The entire speech was about the truth, about leveling with us about the challenges we face and the difficult road that lies ahead, but also building our confidence not just in government, but in ourselves.

Obama said exactly what he needed to say, even if it wasn't what we wanted to hear. And in doing so, our President demonstrated his courage by resisting the temptation to give the soaring, but ultimately empty, speech we were all expecting. And he demonstrated his faith in, and respect for, we the people, knowing that we will overcome these challenges and prove our worth once more. He is the embodiment of government by the people and for the people, and for that we should all be grateful and proud.

This was the perfect speech, the right speech, the only speech. And that, my fellow Americans, is something we should all get behind.

Jolly Good Person Watch: Rev. Joseph Lowery

I dare say, Rev. Lowery stole the show today. I can't say I've ever heard such a poetic prayer:

Help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid; when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around -- (laughter) -- when yellow will be mellow -- (laughter) -- when the red man can get ahead, man -- (laughter) -- and when white will embrace what is right.

Let all those who do justice and love mercy say amen.

Amen!!

(See, if religion always spoke with such words and led by such example, this atheist might just join the flock.)