Senator Chuck Grassley commented today about the final number released by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for the Renewable Fuels Standard volume increase.  Senator Grassley joined other senators six months ago in sending the attached letter urging OMB to act on this decision.

"This decision was too long in coming, especially with the negative impact the lack of certainty about policies in Washington is having on America's economy.  Biodiesel is a very good example of the impact that regulatory decisions and tax policy have on jobs and the economy.  Biodiesel has been a highlight of the Renewable Fuels Standard so far, so moving ahead with this increase is good news for plant workers going forward.  Along with creating jobs, biodiesel helps to expand renewable energy sources and reduce dependence on foreign oil."

Despite slashing government budgets on everything from entitlement to defense programs, NASA is proceeding with its $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory mission.

Central to the mission's success is Curiosity - a one-ton rover that continues to impress Earthlings with laser blasts for rock samples, mobility via a joystick and plenty of video and pictures. On all accounts, the mission, which may provide answers to questions of life on Mars, has so far been a wild success.

"With this Mars program, NASA has once again captured the imaginations of people throughout the world, instigating conversations about the universe and even the significance of life not only on Earth, but also on other planets," says Sanjay C. Patel, (www.SanjayCPatel.com), author of "God Is Real," a book that explores similarities between modern science and ancient cosmology.

Science and religion do not conflict with each other; they are different languages that ultimately lead to the same truth, he says. As science has done in the past, Patel suspects more data from extraterrestrial locations like Mars will continue to confirm ancient religious theories. He discusses four reasons why the Mars mission is well worth the expense.

• 2012 meets 1492 - an argument for resources: It's not just science-fiction anymore; prominent scientists like Steven Hawking say Earth's moon, Mars and Titan, a moon of Saturn, have resources people will need sooner rather than later. The main reason - the world's explosive growth in human population and the exponential consumption of land and other necessities. What we might find, Patel says, is a scenario very much like that which early Europeans experienced in the New World: new foods, reams of building supplies, new fuels, land and other resources. We may discover things that will become essential to future human beings.

• A spiritual-scientific connection: Science has confirmed what religion posited more than a millennium ago, Patel says. For example, scientific findings have confirmed what ancient Yogis said: That volcanic fire scorched India about 120 million years ago. Related volcanoes in the ocean south of India submerged about 117 million years ago. "The submarine Fire exists in the ocean," he says, quoting ancient Yogis. "It drinks the seawater and removes its saltiness. It then expels the desalinated water from another opening. ... That perfectly describes the undersea volcanoes and hydrothermal vents near India."

• If we're not moving forward ... Predictions as to where we'd be with space exploration in 2012 were quite ambitious during the race to the moon in the 1960s. But we haven't accomplished a lot since then. Celebrity astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson recently argued that we're still reaping the benefits of the research and development that went into the space race decades ago, and to negate space exploration is to turn off one of humanity's most important dimensions - our ambition to innovate.

• Alien life may not be so alien: As the European discovery of the New World revealed, the meeting of foreign civilizations can have disastrous consequences. However, the discovery of life elsewhere, whether or not it is intelligent or self-aware, can further enlighten us as to our origins, our reason for being, and our role in the universe, Patel says.

About Sanjay C. Patel

Sanjay C. Patel studied theology, Sanskrit, ancient cosmology, advanced yoga and meditation techniques, among many other subjects, earning a degree in Divinity at the BAPS Swaminarayan Ashram in India. He continued studies of modern science and ancient spiritual texts for 30 years. His discoveries regarding the convergence of science and ancient texts were published in mainstream science journals and presented at the 22nd International Congress of History of Science in Beijing.

By: Joe Thomas of Left Brain Digital

You hear it and see it every day: Follow me. Like us. Google it. And you know exactly what it means, don't you?

That's the power of brand recognition. You know the Gecko, the e-Trade baby, and probably all the words to the Free Credit Score.Com songs, too. What? You thought these characters and catch phrases just happened overnight? Not! They were planned and strategically planted, and they have become the "faces" of their respective brands.

Recognition is not the only thing - it's everything. I'm going to use an author as our test dummy for this piece because I've developed enough author websites to know there is a lot of confusion about how they should brand themselves.

I recently had a conversation with a prospective new client; let's call him Gunther Zigby. Now, Gunther wrote a book and hired an out-of-work hairdresser to "build a website tonight" that finally appeared online four months later. After getting only 30 visitors to his site and not selling a single book in more than five months, Gunther talked to a friend of a friend, who gave him my number.

I asked Gunther for his web address and he gave me the title of his book. I asked him if he had misunderstood - I was asking for his web address, the URL for his site.

"That's it," he said. "My book title is my website address, too. Pretty cool, huh?"

Well, Gunther, no. Not really!

I only mention Gunther Zigby because it leads me into a really important-sounding message: The Proper Packaging In Relation to the Development of Your Brand.

1. As an author/writer - understand that YOU are the brand - not your book.Have you ever heard of John Grisham? I rest my case.

2. A good many authors are also public speakers. When was the last time you heard of a book being hired for a speaking engagement? See, when it's all said and done, they really do want YOU!

3. If your website URL is your book title, what happens if, and when, you write another book? Now you're catching on; you just figured out that you'd have to build a whole new website for the second book, didn't you?

As an author, odds are you have written one or two books, but are still virtually unknown outside of your circle. It's not easy, but without the right tools, it's pretty much impossible to break out of that circle. You have to create a package that will upgrade you from "virtually unknown" to "hot commodity." That requires a plan and execution.

You may be branding yourself as an expert on your topic - because you are! That's a smart way to go but only part of the package. What kind of expert are you? Are you a roll-up-your-sleeves hands-on sort? Or do you have a flash and polish that make people say, "She's successful. I need to listen to her." Or, are you a funny, approachable everyone's-favorite-uncle type?

What is your message? Your promise? What can you consistently deliver, whether it's on your blog or as a speaker?

Even when you have everything 110 percent right, it's not easy achieving the stature that makes your name as well-known as, say, John Grisham's. But by laying the right foundation, you're at least giving yourself a good running start.

About Joe Thomas

Joe Thomas is the founder and owner of Left Brain Digital (www.leftbraindigital.com), a web development company. He's an award-winning web designer/developer with more than 18 years of experience in print and web design and development. Thomas' work became a major influence in graphic and web design in the "Y2K" era of the Internet's dot-com explosion.