Second Best Find to Cheesesteaks on Jupiter

Water ice on Mars!

Get Rita's to send a man up there immediately!

Indexed by tags science, astronomy, Mars, water ice.

Three Hundred Dollars for a Massage?

Let's play a game. I'm a grand and powerful politician, you a lowly scientist. How do we play? Well, whenever you experiment, analyze, or discover something I don't believe in, I'll check out your personal bank account and credit card bills. I win!

Many scientists and some of [Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe] Barton's Republican colleagues say they were stunned by the manner in which the committee, whose chairman rejects the existence of climate change, demanded personal and private information last month from researchers whose work supports a contrary conclusion. The scientists, co-authors of an influential 1999 study showing a dramatic increase in global warming over the past millennium, were told to hand over not only raw data but personal financial information, information on grants received and distributed, and computer codes.

Link to Washington Post editorial, via the Blog of the American Constitution Society, which I don't remember not recalling never belonging not to. Also, link to American Association for the Advancement of Science letter to Barton. Look, whatever your view on global warming, Rep. Barton just wants to see whether you can save a bunch of money on your car insurance.

What do you think is the percentage chance that, at some point after learning of the study's results but before inquiring into the scientists' financial records, Barton said, "Well we'll see how they likes it when we turn up the heat on them!" and slapped his balding, white, suit-clad colleagues on their backs while smoking a cigar and laughing maniacally? Oh, also, he was carrying one of those sacks with the dollar sign on it.

Indexed by tags science, politics, global warming, Joe Barton, privacy, climate change.

They Wouldn't Use the Word "Surreptitiously" So Often, for One

The Guardian held a contest inviting its readership to write in doing their best impression of famous authors other than J.K. Rowling writing a scene from Harry Potter, specifically the then-rumored death of Dumbledore. The results range from amusing to hilarious. The winner was Chaucer:

Pottyr and freynd, in't towyr trapp'd,
At mercie of thyss eevil ratte!
What woe! What payn! Unluckiness!
To looke upon poor boye's dystresse.
"Fore all thysse tyme, my plans you've foyled,
Designs divertyd, and schemes despoyled!"
So began the Dark Lorde's awfolle gloatyng,
And standarde badde guy showéboatynge,
"But not todaye, you little shytte!
Payn's true meanynge, thou shalt wytte!"

But I had other favorites. I liked Salinger:

"You're a goddamn moron, Malfoy," I screamed at him. I was about to hex him, but Ron held me back. He kills me, old Ron, he really does. You'd really like him.

And adored Hunter S. Thompson:

We were somewhere near the edge of Hogwarts when the magic began to take hold, all of a sudden the air was filled with hundreds and thousands of frogs, hopping all over the front of the car and a voice was screaming 'what are these creatures'.

Indexed by tags Harry Potter, Dumbledore, J.K. Rowling, Chaucer, Hunter S. Thompson, J.D. Salinger, contest.

Is It Just Me, or . . . ?

Have you seen these posters for the movie Wedding Crashers? I'm not talking about the ones that have a full body shot of Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn and say "Wedding Crashers" really big at the top. I'm talking about the others, the ones with close ups of either Wilson or Vaughn. They don't print the title very large, but they do include taglines. It's those taglines that get me. They are all awkward, prominent, and badly punctuated, like a tween's t-shirt or something from engrish.com. They say things like:
"If you can't cry . . . fake it," which, I mean, why have the ellipses? And then there's the stupendous:
"Free drinks, why not?" This is either a sentence fragment or a run-on sentence or both. Either that, or it's a really bizarre word order for "why not free drinks," which I don't think it is. I wish they'd used a dash rather than that dreadful comma. They should have saved the comma for the fake crying one. People should spend a full year in high school on the comma, or at least on Wedding Crashers posters.

Indexed by tags movies, posters, Wedding Crashers, grammar, punctuation.

Everything Is Going According to Chertoff's Plan

Evil Mastermind and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff managed to dupe the Senate into moving him up the Presidential succession ladder Tuesday.

New list of people standing in the path between Chertoff and global domination, along with their predicted demises:
(8) Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who will fall into a mysterious vortex
(7) Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who will be knocked out in a bar brawl over a difference of opinion on the topic of greatest British prime minister
(6) Secretary of the Treasury John Snow, who will be thrown in jail by overzealous cops
(5) Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, who will develop gigantism from drinking brain tonic
(4) President Pro Tempore of the Senate Ted Stevens, who will be forced to shave his sideburns
(3) House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who will be poisoned by exposure to radioactive waste
(2) Vice President Dick Cheney, who will be sidetracked saving babies, kittens, and player pianos from burning houses, and
(1) President George W. Bush, who will be hypnotized into believing he is a chicken.

Indexed by tags politics, government, Michael Chertoff, Homeland Security, President, presidential succession, United States.

Why the World Is Going to Hell

So there's a new BP (British Petroleum for the acronym curious) ad that goes a little something like this:

BP: What would you rather have, a car or a cleaner environment?

Retarded Woman: "I would love to have a clean environment but that’s like asking someone to give up chocolate."

Link to Capitalist Pig post on the commercial, link to the BP print ad.
Things implied by the ad:

• You have to give up your car to save the environment.
• Environmentalists are wackos who want you to give up your car.
  
• It's impossible to give up your car.
• It's impossible to give up chocolate.
• It's easy to become an attorney if you're self-centered, chocolate-addicted, and idiotic.
  
• BP has never heard of Lent.

Indexed by tags oil, BP, advertisement, environment, chocolate.

Meanwhile, in Montrose . . .

Well, they finally put the old Spencer Mill up for auction.

Indexed by tag Montrose.

From Chimpan-A to Chimpan-Z

Scientists are now creating "human-primate chimeras" by implanting human brain cells in apes. What could go wrong?

In cutting-edge experiments, scientists have injected human brain cells into monkey fetuses to study the effects.

Critics argue that if these fetuses are allowed to develop into self-aware subjects, science will be thrown into an ethical nightmare.

An eminent committee of American scientists will call for restrictions into the research, saying the outcome of such studies cannot be predicted and may in fact produce subjects with a 'super-animal' intelligence.

Link. The most worrisome part is the picture accompanying the story. As Eve Pearl remarked upon seeing post-surgery Joan Rivers, I am not making this up:

Apparently we are supposed to see that cigarette as indicative of humanness. Well I'm not buying that Big Tobacco conspiracy. I've seen the same monkey behavior in Project X.

Indexed by tags science, nature, monkey, ape, brain, cells.

The Search for America's Finest Restaurant Is Over

• Where else can you sit outside in a parking lot and have a hamburger?
• Where else can you enjoy a brown cow made with Richardson Root Beer while remarking that the boldface "rich" on the Richardson keg is a little heavy-handed?
• Where else was this blog's author sitting when his profile picture was taken?
• What other restaurant still sports animated gifs on its website?

If you answered "nowhere but Conneaut's own White Turkey" to each of the above questions, you weren't paying very close attention, because the "what other restaurant" form in the final question begged to be answered "none" rather than "nowhere."

Did you know?

The White Turkey Drive-In got its name from the White Holland Turkeys that the Tuttles had raised on their turkey farm. They wanted to use the large birds left in the operation, so they used them to make their turkey sandwiches for their new business. Today, turkey sandwiches are still on the menu and still the favorite of many customers. Gary and Peggy Tuttle and five helpers spend the month of February preparing the turkey. Currently, one and a quarter tons of turkey is needed to last the season.

Bonus points if you can name the White Turkey employee who is related to Mrs. Good Reverend.

Indexed by tags food and drink, restaurants, drive-in, small town, Americana, White Turkey.

Periodic Madness

This new periodic table is infinitely cooler than the new food pyramid. Although both would make great ironic emo t-shirts.

Indexed by tags science, chemistry, periodic table, astronomy, food pyramid, nutrition.

The Motion to Dismiss for Failure to State a Claim Blues

I submitted my pleading
And that's all she wrote for me
Let me tell you I submitted my pleading
And that's all she wrote for me
The court had just one reading
Then cited Federal Rule 12(b)

I tries to get the carrots
But I always gets the sticks
I said I tries to get the carrots
But I always get the sticks
Instead of hearing my case on the merits
They threw it out on 12(b)(6)

Indexed by tags law, law school, civil procedure, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 12(b)(6).

Meanwhile, in Montrose...

The Borough Council has given a fifty-cent-an-hour raise to two part-time police officers. Municipal spending is getting out of control.

Indexed by tag Montrose.

Cat Killing?

By now I'm sure you're familiar with the age-old adage, "Every time you masturbate, God kills a kitten." When my doctor said this to me the other day, it made me think: can the statement really be true? Although the idiom implies a causal link, let's take it at face value and assume that it is merely observing a correlation between the kitten mortality rate and the masturbation rate. Does such a correlation exist?

Approximately 70,000 dogs and cats are born in the U.S. each day, or 25,567,500 each year. Of these, roughly 54%, or 13,806,450, are cats. Since 34.5% of cats don't live to see their first birthday, we can assume that about 4,763,225 kittens die each year in the United States alone. We'll take for granted that God in His divine Wisdom purposely smote each of these kittens.

Let's assume that the idiom is talking only about male masturbation. Let's further assume, highly conservatively, that males do not start masturbating until they reach age 15. Of the total U.S. male population, 107,199,356 would then be masturbation-age males. Again, let's conservatively estimate that teenagers masturbate no more frequently than adults, and that all men masturbate an average of 20 times each month or 240 times per year. This means that each man in the United States masturbates approximately every 1.5 days. It also means that there are approximately 25,727,845,440 male masturbation sessions in the United States each year.

There are nearly 26 billion male masturbation sessions in the U.S., yet there are fewer than five million kitten deaths annually. Far from a one-to-one correlation, there are 5401.5 masturbation sessions for every single kitten death. This means that the average American man can masturbate regularly for 22.5 years before he is responsible for the death of a single kitten. Indeed, with a life expectancy of less than 75 years, the average man will be responsible for only two or three kitten deaths in a lifetime of vigorous masturbation.

Indexed by tags kittens, masturbation, kitten mortality rate, every time you masturbate, God kills a kitten.

Skip to Maya Angelou

When someone asks for a click so they can get a million hits, you don't ask questions, you just click.

Plus, "When i want news, i turn to CNN...and they turn...to...Skippy...the Bush Kangaroo."

Indexed by tags Skippy the Bush Kangaroo.

Meanwhile, in Montrose . . .

The Endless Mountain Health System: first in excellence for treatment of congestive heart failure, and first in our hearts!

Indexed by tags Montrose.

The Radical Left

Did you know?

• One in ten people are left-handed.
• By 2020, there will be a billion left-handed people.
• Left-handed people are superintelligent and bound to take over the human race?

I didn't. That is, until I read this article in Pravda, badly translated from the Russian:

Latest research works conducted in many countries of the globe showed that the IQ level of left-handed people is higher in comparison with the one of right-handed individuals. Every fifth outstanding person is left-handed as a rule. Furthermore, the people[] who can boast of having extraordinary abilities[] are left-handed too.

"There are a lot of extrasensorial individuals among them," doctor of medical sciences[] Alexander Lee said. "We checked the supposition. There are hardly any right-handers among those[] who have the gift of remote viewing, telepathy, or X-ray viewing," the doctor said.

Right[-] and left-handers are virtually different types of people with their own special mindsets and perception of the world. "They get along with each other perfectly, but there is a hidden evolutionary struggle taking place between them, which reminds [me of] the struggle between primeval humans, Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal men. It seems to me that left-handers will eventually win the fight owing to their anomalous abilities," scientist of anomalous phenomena[] Pyotr Chereda said.

Link. Man, I'd give anything to be a scientist of anomalous phenomena, if only for the sheer consonance of the title. But then of course, I would be a Neanderthal scientist, and who wants that?

Indexed by tags science, human body, left-handed, anomalous phenomena.

Eve 6 Could Not Be Reached for Comment

Close your eyes and picture this. Okay, wait, if you close your eyes you can't read, so open your eyes again. Picture this: you, a lowly zygote, grow into an embryo in a lab because your parents have difficulty conceiving the old fashioned way. But you are not selected for implantation like the two other embryos and so are presumably destroyed. However, you are not destroyed. The doctor in charge of your lab is a crackpot who saves old embryos in a freeze to implant in future women. You're not implanted, so you sit, frozen, for 13 years. Then you're finally thawed out and implanted in your original mother, who, months later, gives birth to you, 13 years younger than your triplets.

In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Debbie said: "I put my hand over my lower abdomen and said, 'Welcome Home'. They had been in a cold place for so long. Now it was over. Whether God took them to heaven or they became babies, it was OK."

One of the embryos did become a healthy baby - Lania - even though she was born five weeks early.

Debbie said: "I still look at her and can't believe it. I smell her and kiss her and I still can't believe she is here."

Link. I just hope that in the next few years Lania doesn't transform into a zombie dog.

Indexed by tags science, reproduction, fertility, embryos, cryogenics.

A Brief History of C-Man

Not sure how long this will be up, but . . .

Indexed by tags Clayton Brown.

I Told You Not to Touch Me Like That

Indexed by tags comics, Batman, sexuality.

Quick Perception Test

Check out this image:

Do you see
(a) a young girl
or (b) an old woman?

Now, check out this image:

Do you see
(a) President Bush emerging from a tiny hole in a red, white and blue sheet
or (b) President Bush wearing a huge, festive Independence Day skirt?

Indexed by tags Bush, politics, Independence Day, illusion.