Slate's ad report card comments on the new Verizon commercials that feature a mixed-race family, with a white mother and a Latino father.

I had seen these ads and was intrigued by the use of a mixed-race family. I would agree that it's used as an attention-getting gimmick, but not because of the fact that "a mixed-race family is still sort of a big deal." I think it grabs the attention because it's something we haven't seen before, from either full television shows or commercials.

The article views the move in the standard, cynical marketing way, but I think the fact that such a huge company can used a mixed-race family in their broad, nation-wide marketing campaign is a wonderful sign of how far we've come as a society. With all the issues of race and diversity we've had to deal with on campus this year, it's comforting and reassuring to see that Verizon, and its market research, feels it can treat the issue as "no big deal at all."

This article on asteroids hitting Earth contained this interesting passage:

An asteroid, or several asteroids, are believed to have kicked up so much dust and set off so much volcanic activity 65 million years ago that the resulting climate change wiped out the dinosaurs.

But scientists believe an event of that size would only occur about every 700,000 years on average.

Every 700,000 years? Now, I'm not the best mathematician, but doesn't that mean we should have had approximately 92 such catesrophic events in the past 65 million years?

Very interesting analysis of the Bush presidency. Confidence Man

Bush calls for ban on same-sex marriages

Seriously, I think this is an election-breaker for me. I support what the President has done in the war on terror, but really, if we can allow something so hateful and bigoted to become part of the Constitution, what are we fighting to protect? I can't even express the outrage I feel at the prospect of this. I can only refer to the Andrew Sullivan and the many who have emailed support to him. As always, most of the blogosphere is more eloquent, though not more passionate, than I.

The Justice, my ever-favorite campus newspaper, seems to have started a series of interviews with recognizable campus staff. Last week was the cute cashier from Usdan and this week's it's the ever-popular singing mailman. I think it's great a great trend. There are a lot of people that work hard to make our campus run smoothly and it's great they're getting some recognition.

So the beginning of classes, the business of my life, and the lack of computer in my room (it crashed right after break, new one should be here next week) have hindered the blogging lately. It took a lot to bring me back from hiatus, but I think this article is worth it.

Inventor of 'Ctrl-Alt-Delete' is retiring.

It is a sad, sad, day.

So just now, as I was sitting in my room talking on AIM and doing some reading for class, I heard shouting out in the hallway. I go outside to investigate and find a group of about 10 Brandeis students marching through my hall chanting, "Oppose Hate, Tolerate!" Now, I was visibly confused as to what was going on, wandering around and saying, "What's this? What's going on?" However, no one even tried to stop and explain to me why they were making this demonstration. Now I, for one, am all about opposing hate, but I do wonder what made them feel that this was an effective way of fostering tolerance. It seems that they are mainly disrespecting their fellow students who are trying to study and wind down from a long day. Instead of a productive exchange of ideas, I was prompted to once again look with disdain on the activists of this campus and share with my fellow bewildered hallmates the sarcastic proclamation," You know, I have always been for hate, but they've really showed me that I should tolerate instead."