An amazing ad:
Archive for the 'Misc. Miscellany' Category
Sample Ron Paul supporter response to my column this morning:
FUCK YOU PIECE OF FASCIST SHIT! HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BLOW RUPERT MURDOCH! WE AMERICANS ARE WAKING UP TO YOUR EVIL AND SLANTED VENOM!
MAY YOU ROT IN HELL!!!
GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!!
Surprising you guys don’t win over more converts!
UPDATE:
And another great one, mixing in the racism and anti-Semitism I’ve come to expect from the Paul Brigades:
Im Not Sure Of YOUR Politics”? Ive been a CONSERVATIVE Republican all my Life. Ron Paul Is Not a ‘Cook’ As you Claim to Know”? Im ‘Sic’ Of The Republicans and Dems “”They are For A NEW WORLD ORDER And Paul sees this and You sir Are a TWIT And can’t See The Fuzz On Your face.
The traitors In BOTH Parties In America want a North American free Trade Zone wioth No Border”" I don’t and I would rather see An armed revolution If these Stinkin Traitors Try And Make ME A Mexican Or a Socialist Canadian’!
Kid, You Live In a NYC Dream world and cannot see The Mexicans Invading My Country Any easier Then the Fuzz growing On your face’!
America Needs To Throw Off ISRAEL (Thats why America Is hated In The Middle-East And By the Muslims) and Foreign Aid and Get back to taking care Of Americans and Not The Babys Of Illegal Mexicans and Central Americans ILLEGALLY In MY Country’! We Must Take Back The American Revolution……………And……………Ron Paul IS THAT MAN”!
A Nationalist America Is What America Nereds Today’! (Some White Pride For a Change’!)
(This Not Taught In the Marxist Colleges That YOU probably attended Somewhere in America)
Oh well.
To be clear: I know these people don’t represent all Ron Paul fans. There are plenty of reasons to oppose the war and the Patriot Act and the state of never-ending warfare the Bush administration and others seem so eager to get behind. And there are plenty of legitimately libertarian things about what Ron Paul is saying.
But for anyone encouraged by the polling success (if you can call 5% success) and fundraising success (the money is real) of Ron Paul’s campaign, it’s worth keeping in mind just who a lot of these folks are. Paul’s message isn’t all about liberty. A lot of it is xenophobic populism and isolationism. Even if you’re not drawn in by that message, it’s important to remember that a lot of Paulites are.
I’m sorry. But there’s no other headline for this:
Canadian PSAs are NOT MESSING AROUND.
(via Gawker)
An indisputable link between gay marriage and terrorism:
BAGHDAD (CNN) — Soldiers manning a checkpoint near Baghdad stopped a wedding convoy to find that the purported bride and groom were wanted terror suspects, an Iraqi Defense Ministry official said Monday.
The Army set up the checkpoint last week in the Taji area, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) north of Baghdad.
The soldiers became suspicious of the convoy because its members — save the “bride” — were all male and because one of the cars in the convoy did not heed orders to stop, the official said.
Also, soldiers said, the people in the car seemed nervous and the groom refused to lift his bride’s veil when soldiers asked him to, according to the official.
Soldiers ordered everyone out of the car, the official said.
Upon inspecting the convoy, soldiers found a stubbly-faced man, Haider al-Bahadli, decked out in a white bride’s dress and veil.
Bahadli was wanted on terror-related charges, as was his groom, Abbas al-Dobbi, the official said.
Two other terror-related suspects were detained as well.
Scary lookin’ dude.
Justice Scalia. It’s a scientific fact.
I had this song in my head all through Thanksgiving:
Turkey Is My Hot Hot Sex Lyrics (Cansei De Ser Sexy)
Cansei De Ser Sexy - Turkey Is My Hot Hot Sex LyricsFrom all the drugs the one i like more is turkey
From all the junks the one i need more is turkey
From all the boys the one i take home is turkey
From all the ladies the one i kiss is turkey (muah!)Turkey is my boyfriend
Turkey is my girlfriend
Turkey is my dead end
Turkey is my imaginary friend
Turkey is my brother
Turkey is my great-grand-daughter
Turkey is my sister
Turkey is my favorite mistressFrom all the shit the one i gotta buy is turkey
From all the jobs the one i choose is turkey
From all the drinks the one i get drunk is turkey
From all the bitches the one i wannabe is turkeyTurkey is my beach house
Turkey is my hometown
Turkey is my kingsize bed
Turkey is my hot hot bath
Turkey is my hot hot sex
Turkey is my back rub
Turkey is where i’d like you to touchClaro-que-sim
Fui escoteira-mirim
Direto da escola, não
Não ia cheirar cola
Nem basquete, pebolim
O que eu turkey não é de graça
O que gosto não é farsa
Tem guitarra, bateria, computador saindo som
Alguns dizem que mais alto que um furacão (rhéum)
Perto dele eu podia sentir
Saía turkey seu olho e chegava em mim
Sentada do seu lado
Eu queria encostar
Faria o tigela até o sol raiar
Debaixo do lençol
Ele gemia em ré bemol
Fiquei tensa
Mas tava tudo bem
Ele é fodão, mas eu sei que eu sou turkey
Have a good holiday weekend.
Skin Cell to Stem Cell / Lead to Gold
Published by November 20th, 2007 in Misc. Miscellany. 0 CommentsResearchers in Japan and Wisconsin have figured out how to reprogram skin cells into stem cells. I’m obviously unqualified to offer too detailed an assessment, but the science press seems to be treating this as a watershed.
The issue, of course, is that stem cells, heretofore, have required the destruction of embryos — which the pro-life crowd considers ethically abhorrent. The practical problem this solves, however, as Wired explains, is eliminating the need for eggs:
If it works, the technique — technically known as somatic cell dedifferentiation — promises to solve the two great downfalls involved in producing embryonic stem cells: the controversial destruction of embryos and reliance on a limited supply of eggs.
The former issue will likely get all the attention, but in the long run the latter may be more important. Ethical debates and political controversy has stunted research — most notably, President Bush banned federal funding for research on embryonic stem cell lines developed after August 2001 — but the rise of state-funded programs, and the less-conflicted approach of other countries, is making this less of a problem.
There is, however, no easy answer to a limited egg supply. At present, a personal embryonic stem cell line — one that your body wouldn’t reject as foreign — can only be produced by putting a cell nucleus of your own into a fertilized egg from which the original nucleus was removed. Spare eggs are produced by women undergoing in-vitro fertilization — enough for researchers, but not enough for everyone.
But if all it takes to produce an embryonic stem cell equivalent is, essentially, a flake of skin, stem cell therapies will be that much more accessible, that much cheaper.
Great news for anyone who could ever benefit from stem-cell therapy. Also good news for Republican politicians, who can now be relieved of the burden of holding at least one scientifically backward position.
On Thursday night, I checked out the first-ever Great American God-Out, held in Midtown Manhattan (at a little place called Metro 53). Turnout was a little lighter than one might have expected in godless New York City (Home of the Jews and the Gays), but there were at least 60 God haters on hand, partying the night away.
Fighting a bad cold, I spent most of the evening reading Scientific American Mind at a table and nursing a gin and tonic (a drink noted for its cold-fighting properties). The bar had the Democratic debate on, without sound, which really is the ideal way to follow politics. The debate was replayed over the next few days on CNN; I watched with my wife and can confirm that sound did not enhance the experience.
Anyway, I was mostly interested in checking out the program from the stage — and I was not in the least disappointed…
[Before offering any commentary here, I suppose I should clarify my own entry point into all of this: I’m an agnostic, bordering on atheist. I’m broadly sympathetic to the goals of movement atheism (less religion in public life), but I’m in no way an activist or proselytizing atheist. Who has the energy?]
First up (after an introduction by event organizer Lydia Hartunian) was Margaret Downey, president of Atheists Alliance International. I’m afraid to say this was the “stereotypical shrill atheist” part of the program. Downey told how early that morning she blocked out the words “In God We Trust” on all of her currency. She had two dozen black markers to give out to the crowd so that they could do the same with their currency. “We refuse to be a link in a chain of proselytization,” she proclaimed. Michael Newdow, noted “Under God” unenthusiast, will apparently be bringing a lawsuit challenging our Deistic currency soon in the Ninth Circuit.
It’s not that I’m unsympathetic to the basic idea — if I could snap my fingers and remove the word “God” from every facet of our national life, especially any and all implements of government, I would — but the benefit-to-engendered-hatred-of-atheists ratio here is just incredibly low. If the goal of the atheist movement is to foster more people to “come out” as atheists and to convince others that atheists are A-OK folks — well, this is just about as backward a way to go about things as possible.
Next up was an incredibly painful act by “the singing Darwin scholar,” Richard Millner. The less said here the better. (A blues song about the Scopes trial… OK, I’ll stop.)
After that was the main event, a talk by Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine. Now, right before Shermer came on stage, I found myself thinking: “I’ve seen this all before… the nerdiness… the social misfits convinced they’re right while everyone else is wrong… the ill-conceived ideas about how to win friends and alienate voters… yes, these people are libertarians!” Coincidentally enough, Shermer started off by mentioning that he’s a libertarian — but said he wasn’t going to get into that tonight.
Now, I’m guessing that the majority of the folks in attendance would not have called themselves libertarians (this was Manhattan after all, probably they were mostly Democrats or Independents or Greens or whatnot). But it did lead me to wonder: What percentage of libertarians are atheists, and what percentage of atheists are libertarians? I’ve never seen survey data, but that’s not to say there isn’t any out there. I’m guessing the overlap is pretty significant.
Despite not getting into the libertarian angle, though, Shermer’s talk was thoughtful and sobering. “This is about as good as it’s ever been for atheists,” he declared. And that sounds right, even if a thrice-married black, gay, Mormon would have a better chance of being elected president than an open atheist. (I think it’s more than likely we’ve had plenty of closeted atheist presidents, just as it’s likely we’ve had a closeted gay president [you thought the link would be to an Abe Lincoln joke … you were wrong].) Shermer pegs the number of atheists in America at 60 million, very broadly defined to include folks like Buddhists, who don’t believe in a traditional theistic religion. What’s more, he argues, President Bush, 9/11, extremist Evangelicals, and murderous Muslim extremists all have contributed to a climate of more and more Americans being fed up with religion. Atheists shouldn’t demand anti-God purity, he argued. Atheists (and we should just embrace the term, instead of trying to come up with ridiculous neologisms like Brights) should embrace like thinkers with open arms.
Meanwhile, Shermer argued, sociological research is discrediting long-held prejudices with regard to atheism. Studies make it clear that believers and non-believers exhibit precisely no difference in sinful behavior such as adultery, murder, theft, etc. etc. etc. (Our behavior is guided much more by societal norms and an evolutionary need to fit in and cooperate.) In fact, the religiosity of a modern, industrialized society seems to have an inverse relation to societal health — that is, the more religious belief there is in a society, the more likely it is to display signs of cultural dysfunction, like crime, abortion, drug use, etc. (see: Western Europe versus the United States).
In the end, paradoxically, the best weapon against religion seems to be removing the wall of separation between church and state. Whereas religion thrives in America as churches and religious denominations have to compete with each other for members and money, European religion has withered, fat and happy with its state support.
Perhaps having “In God We Trust” on the currency isn’t such a dangerous thing after all. Perhaps it’s just a day late and a dollar short.
Surprisingly enough, Sager is one of the top 5,000 most common surnames in America.
Look for yours here.
Not long after taking the picture above, I had one of two run-ins with law enforcement on my recent trip through the Southwest.
(I attended the Society for Neuroscience annual conference last week in San Diego. I got there and back by flying in to and out of Albuquerque, N.M., and driving 2,200 miles back and forth in a very ugly orange rental car [pictured above]. Yeah, and I did all this during NBC’s “Green Is Universal” week. Ironic.)
Moments after snapping a few pictures along the side of Route 8, which runs East-West close to the Mexican border in southern California, a Highway Patrol cruiser pulled up behind me. I was half worried and half relieved (if you catch my drift) that I wasn’t doing anything stupider than taking pictures.
The officer asked me what the problem was. I told him there was none. He proceeded to inform me that I was in a “high-crime zone,” where people stopped along the side of the highway to pick up illegal immigrants and shipments of drugs. The implication was not that a stupid New Yorker like me shouldn’t be in such a place, with regard to my safety. The implication was clearly that I might be picking up illegal immigrants and/or drugs (little does he know, I support the free and legal importation of both!). He spent a few minutes poking around in the bushes next to the road to see if there were any illegal immigrant drug mules hiding — there weren’t (though how bad would my luck have been if there had been?).
The cop definitely did seem to be telling the truth about things; he pointed out to me a foot path that clearly saw a lot of use heading off into the hills along the border. Still, I was mostly just glad he didn’t ask to search my car. As a libertarian, I would have felt a definite responsibility to refuse such a request (I can’t see how he would have had probable cause). But it probably would have meant getting thrown in the back of a Highway Patrol cruiser.
All in all, though, I thought this cop acted reasonably. It was my second run in, with Border Patrol, that left me pissed.
I don’t remember if this happened in Arizona or New Mexico, but it was on Route 10, which runs from Tucson, AZ, to Las Cruces, NM (an amazing drive — I recommend it). Chalk it up to my own ignorance about border enforcement, but I was pretty surprised to run into a Border Patrol checkpoint on a road that never gets closer than 90 miles to the Mexican border. It turns out, though, that within 100 miles of the border, the government can set up checkpoints to question and harass people traveling entirely within the United States (for instance, from San Diego to Las Cruces to points north).
“Are you an American citizen?” the BP agent asked me.
“Yes,” I answered, only half having turned my stereo down (I did not want to miss “Cherub Rock.”). Of course, Americans don’t yet have to carry their papers everywhere they go (at least until Rudy Giuliani becomes president), so he would have to take my word.
“Where are you headed?,” the BP asked.
Intrusive, but I answered Albuquerque.
“What for?,” he asked.
“To catch a flight.”
“Why aren’t you flying out of El Paso?,” he asked, now really pissing me off.
“Because I’m flying out of Albuquerque,” I answered, growing uncooperative.
“This is a long way out of your way,” he said.
“Look, I had a conference to go to in San Diego,” I said. “I wanted to drive around some, so I flew in to Albuqurque and am driving back and forth.”
“Drive around?,” he asked, quizzically.
“Look at the scenery,” I said. The “jackass” was implied.
Finally, I guess he decided he wasn’t going to search my car. Again, I don’t know what I would have done had he decided otherwise. But after this exchange I was probably pissed off enough to go to jail to avoid cooperating. I only learned later, online, that the Supreme Court has upheld warrantless searches within 100 miles of the border.
I must say this all strikes me as completely outrageous. And obviously not just because I was inconvenienced (I’m a white guy, and the whole thing probably lasted 30 or 40 annoying seconds — I can’t imagine the shit I would have been put through if my skin were darker and my explanation for what I was doing just as eccentric). The fact is that we have a Bill of Rights, and it’s supposed to protect us from harassment by the federal government. The Fourth Amendment, of course, springs to mind (one might also invoke the Ninth Amendment’s right to privacy).
The Supreme Court has deemed these checkpoints constitutional, in United States vs. Martinez (1976), but that doesn’t mean the court decided the case correctly. American citizens simply shouldn’t be subject to daily harassment inside their own country. But that’s what we get when we pursue an insane war on drugs and a racist war on immigrants.
Anyone surprised by Pat Robertson’s endorsement of Rudy Giuliani hasn’t been paying attention.
That said, this really is a big one — and it ends the debate over whether Giuliani can make himself acceptable to the Christian Right wing of the Republican Party. I’ve been making the case that he can for well over a year now. Paul Weyrich may have endorsed Mitt Romney. And Sam Brownback may have endorsed John McCain. And James Dobson still may be looking for his anybody-but-Rudy candidate. But if Pat Robertson can stomach our drag-wearing, abortion-tolerating, gay-couple-living-with, three-wife-having ex-mayor … a lot of unlikely folks out there in the countryside can do so as well. The polling has been telling us this for months and months, along with on-the-ground reporting from the campaign trail, but now it’s 100% confirmed.
Still, this really is a remarkable political moment. The War on Terror has clearly eclipsed the culture wars as the defining issue in the conservative movement for better or for worse. (Andrew Sullivan seems to think it’s for the worse. I’m undecided on the question, but I’m leaning toward the position that it’s the healthiest turn of events for the party for which one could reasonably hope.)
The question then is whether Giuliani really wants the Robertson endorsement. If Giuliani thought Ron Paul’s theory of 9/11’s root causes was crazy and offensive…
… well, then maybe he’s never heard what Robertson has to say on the matter:
If Giuliani is offended by the idea that we invited 9/11 by attacking Iraq, maybe he should also be offended by the idea that we invited 9/11 by allowing secularism and paganism and abortion in our society.
Of course, the politics of the situation dictate that Giuliani celebrate the Robertson endorsement. And that’s what he’s doing. Publicly rejecting the endorsement or otherwise rebuking Robertson would be political suicide. Still, there’s a huge amount of hypocrisy involved here, and Giuliani deserves to take the hit for it among non-Christian Right voters. He should definitely get a question on this at the next debate — at the very least.
M.O. is on the road through November 10, on the way out to San Diego and the greater southwest for some work and some not-so-much work.
Will check in as warranted…
For those wondering: I’ve left my post at the New York Sun and will be returning as a columnist at the New York Post. Some Latest Politics features, such as the primary indices and the McCain Death Watch, will likely be resumed here in coming days. As you may notice, this site is undergoing something of a redesign. Excuse any design kerfuffles in the interim.
UPDATE [10:55 MDT, 11/1/07]: As I’ve gotten questions, I want to be clear my writing for the Post again has nothing to do with John Podhoretz having given up his column to edit Commentary. I’m currently a freelancer, as I was there through the beginning of this year.
You may have heard…
Former senator from Pennsylvania and all around goober Rick Santorum will be writing a column for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The column’s name? The Elephant in the Room. Needless to say, I’ve contacted my lawyers.
Peanut butter creationism:
One objection, though it’s obviously too stupid to take seriously: If life were generated in a peanut butter container (a stupid scenario for too many reasons to count), it would be microscopic!!!
(via Sully)
…from Bill Maher on religion in politics:
He makes a good point on the “religious test” provision in the Constitution. I sometimes hear Christian conservatives trot it out as a reason folks should never question the beliefs of a Religious Right candidate. But of course the provision only means the government can’t have a religious test for filling an office — voters are always free to vote on whatever terms they chose.
…turns 25.
“I wanted to be asked, Oprah. Don’t you understand that? … ‘Day No. 20. 11/27/01. Oprah. Noprah.’ It was humiliating.”
I wouldn’t run Vista if someone kidnapped my family and threatened to kill them, but it’s nice to know that my MacBook Pro could smoke a PC if I did.
Apparently Scott Adams hasn’t heard of the old “ask for something that’s not money to get money” trick. It’s a big one here in New York City. I’m sure they’ve got it on the West Coast, too.
Maybe it’s worth the $20 to feel good and to be 100% certain you haven’t left a truly screwed person … well, screwed. But feeding the scammers only makes it harder for folks legitimately in need to get help.
I mean, how many recently deposed Angolan finance ministers can’t find Americans willing to help them transfer money out of their country because they’ve been burned so bad before?
Is here.
The translation of a 50 Cent video is particularly choice.
How World of War Craft could help us fight infectious diseases (other than by preventing its players from engaging in meat-space sexual intercourse).
Ross Douthat’s right. Will Mark Penn write next about the MILF vote?
Drunk driving in a golf cart.
Since When Did ‘Puke’ Become a Headline Word at CNN?
Published by August 15th, 2007 in Misc. Miscellany. 0 Comments
Ted Stevens Is Not in on the Joke
Published by August 4th, 2007 in Misc. Miscellany and Misc. Neuro. 0 Comments
From infants to old people…
Old people (such as Alaska’s senator, Ted Stevens, pictured above) have a reputation for sometimes being grumpy and humorless. Well, now there’s some scientific research to back that up.
A new study out of Washington University in St. Louis looks at how general cognitive decline leads to a loss in humor comprehension:
Humor comprehension in older adults functions in a different fashion than humor comprehension in younger adults. The researchers studied older adults from a university subject pool as well as undergraduate students. The subjects participated in tests that indicated their ability to complete jokes accurately as well as tests that indicated their cognitive capabilities in areas of abstract reasoning, short-term memory, and cognitive flexibility. Overall, older adults demonstrated lower performance on both tests of cognitive ability as well as tests of humor comprehension than did younger adults.
The experiment was conducted, in part, by having test subjects complete a “joke stem” “correctly”: “A joke stem was presented with four different endings including the correct humorous ending; a humorous nonsequitur—an ending that does not make sense with the joke stem but is funny in and of itself; an unhumorous straightforward answer; and an unhumorous, unrelated nonsequitur. The correct ‘funny’ answer required that the participant integrate the three different cognitive measures tested in the study—abstract reasoning, short -term memory, and cognitive flexibility.”
I’d love to see the jokes they used. (Did they haul out the old “Soup or Sex” chestnut?)
While it’s easy to make fun of, though, this strikes me as important research. People don’t lose their sense of humor because they get old and/or crotchety. They literally lose their sense of humor, like one loses one’s hearing or one’s eyesight, though in this case due to a general decline in cognitive function. I’m not sure this means we’re close to a cure for “grumpy old man syndrome”; but we’re headed in something like the right direction.
For Senator Stevens, however, I fear we’re too late.
(via Omni Brain)
Infants Know What You’re Thinking
Published by August 4th, 2007 in Misc. Miscellany and Misc. Neuro. 0 CommentsKnowing that others have minds and being able to comprehend their thinking is one of the things that makes us human. However, scientists have yet to come to a consensus as to how early we acquire this ability. The results of a new experiment may indicate that we gain this ability earlier than previously thought:
In two experiments, the researchers had the infants [13 months] watch a series of animations in which a caterpillar went in search of food (either a red apple or a piece of cheese) that was hidden behind a screen. In some scenes, the caterpillar could see a human hand situating the food, but in others there was no hand to drop a hint. The caterpillar was either successful finding the preferred food behind the correct screen, or went behind an alternative screen with the other type of food behind it.
When the caterpillars didn’t do what one would expect — going to one screen despite seeing the human hand place the desired food behind the other — infants tended to look at the animation longer, suggesting puzzlement about the caterpillar’s actions. “This result,” says Surian, “Suggests the infants expected searches to be effective only when the [caterpillar] had had access to the relevant information.”
If the experiment’s design is sound, this means that “infants who expect agents’ behavior to be guided by such internally available information thereby exhibit an ability to attribute mental content — and this is mind reading proper, however rudimentary.”
Architectures of Control
Published by August 3rd, 2007 in Misc. Miscellany, Misc. Love and Misc. Neuro. 0 CommentsA blog I’ve gotten into recently is Architectures of Control, which looks at, well, architectures of control — how design is used to guide (or control) people’s actions. Today, the blog notes this scam:
The hope, apparently, is that visitors can be guided through an amusement arcade. But, as the author notes, it’s a pretty transparent ruse — you can see clearly that it’s possible to simply go around the building.
I couldn’t help being reminded of this Onion story:
Highway Billboard Urges 75-Mile Detour
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