What excites me and what doesn't

I can't get to excited about the elections today. There is some indication that Hillary may be gaining some ground on Obama. Probably not enough to salvage he horrible campaign. But no matter the results of today's primaries or the November election one thing has become obvious to me - the country that I love is not going to get what it desperately needs at this time in history, a great president.

This on the other hand excites me.(via Below the Beltway)
Earth and Moon as Seen from Mars
Click on picture for larger image.

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera would make a great backyard telescope for viewing Mars, and we can also use it at Mars to view other planets. This is an image of Earth and the moon, acquired on October 3, 2007, by the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

At the time the image was taken, Earth was 142 million kilometers (88 million miles) from Mars, giving the HiRISE image a scale of 142 kilometers (88 miles) per pixel, an Earth diameter of about 90 pixels and a moon diameter of 24 pixels. The phase angle is 98 degrees, which means that less than half of the disk of the Earth and the disk of the moon have direct illumination. We could image Earth and moon at full disk illumination only when they are on the opposite side of the sun from Mars, but then the range would be much greater and the image would show less detail.