Full Frontal Blogging

This new blog will become one of the most popular ones on the net. See it here.

Learn some biology of Origins, enjoy the art, and have fun learning. This guy is good, damn good.

Da' Dukester Guilty

To five (5) felony counts.

Arrogant Republican goes from hero to jailbird in one easy step.

The Gutless Anonymous Liar posts a comment

The Gutless Anonmyous Liar (GAL) has posted a comment on an old blog written by moi, ici. I of course deleted it within 10 minutes.

The GAL was crowing about how Peter Bowditch's Ratbags Website had finally been taken down because the GAL is made to look like a fool. Hummmm ... looks like the same old site to me. Maybe the GAL's 3600 baud dial up connection had someone else on the party line that interfered with his web-sleazing.

Or maybe it wasn't the GAL after all. (I could look because he just signed a security certificate that I can trace when he copied the code to post his poo, but who wants to look?). Maybe it was Tim Bolen, aka, Assama bin Blowpipe, who is just all aflutter because the process servers found his "undisclosed secret location" in the Cleveland National Forest. In fact it is rumored that some wag sent the GPS location to the Orange County Sheriff's office with an accuracy of one foot.

On the satellite photos such cabin looks a whole lot like the newsreels of the arrest of the unibomber a few years ago.

PS: Blow, or GAL --- what is that thing on your lip? Better put some ice on it.

Only in Texas

Some politicians put clever sayings on bumper stickers. Kinky Friedman has put his entire platform on a bumper sticker, and there is plenty of white space left over.

Friedman is running for GOV. Mel Brooks, in his role as GOV in Blazing Saddles has a better chance of being elected GOV of Texas; come to think of it, he's funnier too.

If Ross Perot has as his theme song "Crazy", then the theme for Friedman is one of his own, "They ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Anymore". That should be a big hit in Texas. His slogan is "I will sign books, CD and T-shirts, anything but bad legislation." Coming from a State that has produced the likes of George Bush, and GOV "Goodhair" Perry, I must admit this might be an improvement.

It's always good to do a campaign/book selling speech on the floor of the Texas House, wearing a black cowboy hat, black long "columbine" duster jacket and carrying an (unlit) big cigar. The only thing missing was a bottle of Jim Beam -- or in the case of the Kinkster, a Jamaican doobie -- and maybe a colt. The C-SPAN cameras didn't catch whether or not he was wearing spurs.

Showing that gawd is gracious, Kink does have one friend in the world. Don Imus, the "I-Man", notable for a thirteen year old wife and a face that only Marlborough can appreciate. That will be an inaugeration to see ... the I-Man giving the oath of office to the Kinkster. What will Rev Doc Criswell think, what will Molly think? Think Mexico can be talked into taking it back?

42 Years Ago This Week

The Glory of War

By

Major John McCrae, Canadian Officer

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below

We are the dead.
Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

And Science Marches on:

First thanks to Norm Levitt for this little gem which he posted on a very respectable list populated by physicists and other scary-smart people.

Possible IgNobel candidate:

-Self-study

Men behaving badly, single-handedly

Marc AbrahamsTuesday November 22, 2005, The Guardian

When a young man masturbates, exactly how distracted does he get? An experiment performed on students at the University of California, Berkeley aimed to find out. Full details are in a study that will be published in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. Dan Ariely, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and George Loewenstein, of Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, describe their arousing achievement in dry, formal terms: "We examine the effect of sexual arousal, induced by self-stimulation, on judgments and hypothetical decisions made by male college students."

The scientists begin their report by pointing out that "sexual motivation plays a direct or indirect role in wide-ranging social interactions and in considerable economic activity." Pornography alone, they say, takes in more revenues in the United States than the three largest professional sports (football, basketball and baseball) combined.

Having established that the topic is of value, Ariely and Loewenstein get right to the action.

They explain how they recruited 35 students, offering to pay each a small fee for the effort of masturbating while answering a survey. Each student was given a laptop computer with a keypad "designed to be operated easily using only the non-dominant hand."

Some of the volunteers had instructions to answer the questions "while in their natural, presumably not highly aroused, state"[HAHAHAHA - gotta' be kiddin', right?]. Others "were first asked to self-stimulate themselves, and were presented with the same questions only after they had achieved a high but sub-orgasmic level of arousal."

The computer screen displayed "an 'arousal thermometer' with regions colored from blue to red representing increasing levels of arousal. Two keys on the keypad allowed the user to move the probe on the arousal meter to indicate their momentary level of arousal. The panel on the top-left occupied the largest part of the screen, displaying diverse erotic photographs."
The screen also showed the long series of survey questions. Some asked about the attractiveness of different sexual activities, items and opportunities. Among them: women's shoes; a 12-year-old girl; an animal; a 50-year-old woman; a man; and an extremely fat person.

Other questions probed the risks the volunteer would take in order to obtain sexual gratification.

The volunteers were instructed to press the computer's tab key if they ejaculated. None reported doing so. [HAHAHA, again]

Ariely and Loewenstein say their results are "striking" and more than confirm what most people believe about young men as a group - that when aroused, they (1) become sexually attracted to things otherwise offputting; (2) grow more willing to engage in morally questionable behaviour that might lead to sex; and (3) are more likely to have unprotected sex.

"[Our] study shows that sexual arousal influences people in profound ways," they write. "Efforts at self-control that involve raw willpower are likely to be ineffective." This is a dig at theorists - the ones who advise people to just say no - from experimentalists who are unafraid to get their hands dirty. [HAHAHA - too rich for words]

· Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly magazine Annals of Improbable Research (www.improbable.com), and organiser of the Ig Nobel Prize

And the Flames Creep Closer

Last Friday a close associate of Jack Abramoff pled guilty to a series of crimes, including the bribery or attempted bribery of various congressmen.

In the world of prosecutors this is called "dealing up". You get the goods on a lower level criminal, and then smack him between the eyes that you are going to ask for the max jail time, which usually amounts to something like ten quadrazillion years. But you can make a deal with him if he will rat-out the people who were more important.

Jack Abramoff himself has turned into a small fish as the names of several congressmen are now in the mix. First, his good buddy, Tom Delay, who will be the next to be indicted. Then Bob Ney. Who will go after that. And then who??? (Hint to Ralph-SqeekyClean Reed and Grover Nordquist -- seek legal counsel)

How about Billy'sBoyToyRoy Blunt? After all, Blunt was a favored guest at Table #40, Abramoff's own table, in Abramoff's Washington eatery, woofing down some very expensive steaks. In fact, he was listed as a "FOO" Friend of Owner, and was not to be presented with something so embarrassing as say .... a bill.

Now the next question is what did Abramoff either get, or expect to get, from the BoyToyRoy? Arm twisting for his legislation? Simply the vote of an obscure Congressman from the Ozarks? A plea with BoyToy's pal President Weak and Stupid for a pardon from the charges that he certainly knew would come from his criminal activities.

And why, if we have such a smart Congressman, did the BoyToy allow himself to be suckered into such a damning situation if he claims, as his criminal lawyer does, that he is clean as an Ozarks stream.

Time to fess up Roy. Courts will go easier on you if you turn yourself in and cooperate with the prosecutor.

Deconstructing Kansas

One of the reasons I don't do this more often is because people like this do it so much better than I can.

Read it here.

Fall Photos

This year was exceptionally good for fall colors. I had not expected much since the drought in mid summer. I was pleasently surprised. I am adding a few at a time to my photo page.

To see them go here.

For those with a technical bent. I used Ectachrome 64, (a few with Fugi 200 or 100) exposures and aperatures vary, and I used a circular polorizing filter to get the deep blues in the sky. The only digital enhancement was to brightness and contrast. Film scanned with a Minolta DImage. Scanned first as an uncompressed .tif and then converted to a .jpg for storage.

Especially Satisfying Night

I keep asking Ron Davis how to spell shundefrende, but he just lets me look like a fool and suffer alone. But it's a word for taking glee in anothers misfortune. And I am full of it tonight.

All eight members of the Dover, PA, school board who supported the teaching of non-science ("Intelligent" Design) in science courses were kicked out of office. All were Republicans incidentally, and all who replaced them were Democrats.

One might explain the results without allowing how the voters in that part of the world had a sudden impulse of sanity. For instance, the current court case against the school board is over, awaiting decision by the judge. At one point in the trial one of the main fiction writers of ID, Michael Behe, testified that using his definition of science, astrology qualifies. One of many hoots that occured during this three week trial. The Provost at Lehigh University has laid down the law to Behe: whenever he identifies himself as being on the faculty of Lehigh he must also include a disclaimer that in no way do his ideas represent the University, the faculty, or his own department.

Maybe it dawned on the voters that when they lose this case, and that is a virtual certainty, the district is going to put up with the money tab from everybody. My prediction is that legal fees for the plaintiffs alone will come to something like $2 million. And to make it even sweeter, most of that will go to the ACLU attorneys -- something that is bound to piss off all the fundie religious/political nuts who pushed this bow-wow of an idea.

Meanwhile, Kansas ... ah, good old Kansas ... continues to blindly drive the train headlong onto the bridge that is missing the middle span.

The National Academy of Sciences, has denied Kansas the use of any of its copywrite material in any biology course until they decide to teach science rather than religion. A number of Universities, around the world and in the US, have stated that if they continue, the Kansas High School credits for biology will not be accepted for fulfilment of prereqs for admission to their University. Maybe they can get in MoSt rather than Harvard.

Finally, some sanity in the voting booth.

Bless the Flying Spaghetti Monster. May his marinera never spoil.

Lying for Jezzzzuuuussss

In honor of the Kansas Board of Non-Education I offer the following:

Go here to read it.

All the poo possible in one post put in this place.

Scooter and his Porn Novel

Even in the world of porn ... it ... er ... ah ....sucks.

Anyone who writes a porn novel and uses the word "glistening" more than three times should stick to writing lies for Cheney that gets 2000 Americans dead -- they are better.

Read about it here.... with juicy exerpts ... like how to force a ten year old girl to have sex with animals so you can make her a better ho by turning her frigid.

It almost as bad as Bill O'Reilly's audiotapes of his porn novel, and then his calls to an unwilling employee (who was smart enough to tape the conversation), describing the joy of a shower, a loofa sponge, and a vibrator up your butt.

And these are the Repugs who are the fine xtians and family values people.

Oh, and how could I possibly ignore ... the cast of characters includes --

A dwarf

MOVE OVER JEFF GANNON, YOU HAVE COMPETITION IN THE WHITE HOUSE.