Drill Here, Drill Now; How About "Drill Your Head"?

It'll make as much difference to the price of gasoline. Really, how hard is this to comprehend?

So I'm driving behind this big 'ol SUV, Lincoln Navigator or something, with a bumper sticker containing the brilliant slogan "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less". After resisting the urge pull along side and point out not only the idiocy of the sticker but the hypocrisy of putting it on such a behemoth gas-guzzler, I decided to get some facts instead.

Jonathan Dorn of the Earth Policy Institute has put it quite succinctly in this bulletin. Some highlights (emphasis mine):

• The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 10.4 billion barrels of oil are technically recoverable in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)—less than one and a half years of consumption. (5)
  
• DOE projects that lifting the OCS moratorium would not increase production before 2017 and that by 2030 production would only amount to 0.2 million barrels per day—less than 1 percent of current consumption. (7)

• DOE projects that opening ANWR would lower gasoline prices at the pump by a mere 2 cents per gallon. (10)
• Lifting the moratoria on drilling in ANWR and the OCS would reduce the price of a gallon of gasoline by at most 6 cents—and this would not be seen for at least another decade. (11)
• Oil is traded as a global commodity and its price is set on the world market. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) could simply reduce exports to negate even the nominal potential price reduction, a fact acknowledged by DOE. (12)

This isn't rocket science, people. If politicians are suggesting that opening ANWR and the OCS will reduce gas prices, call it like it is: call them liars. It's not a matter of spin or interpretation, they're flat-out lying. Then again, they're politicians. Isn't that what we pay them for?

The Bush (and Republican) Legacy

Ozymandius by: Percy Bysshe Shelley

Adaptation by: The CyberLizard

I met a traveler from an antique land Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal these words appear: My name is Ozymandius George W. Bush, King of Kings, Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.

I'm sick, like Chuckie was sick*

*Apologies to TMBG for using one of their lyrics for such a purpose

Once again I demonstrate my sick and demented humor. These pictures caused me to totally laugh out loud. This is about all my brain is good for at the moment. The world sucks, so you have to laugh. Brought to you courtesy of FAIL Blog

This next one is wrong on so many levels:

I'm getting buried

So Mrs. CyberLizard had the weekend off. She attended a scrapbooking retreat. Three days, three nights of fun with scrapbooks (or so I've been told). That left me all by my lonesome with the two little Lizards. My Google Reader shows 171 unread items. The world financial markets are going down the shitter. There are lunatics running for president who may actually have a shot at winning. And I can't post because I'm changing poopy diapers.

*sigh*

I'm sure I'll catch up eventually.

Where's the Beef?

I must confess to liking some, shall we say, less-than-highbrow humor. FAIL Blog never fails to provide (that was a bad one, sorry).

I love PETA

The Rev. BigDumbChimp once again reminds me that, as soon as I think the world can't get any stupider, there's always one more example of stupid to trump all the others.

This time PETA gets to provide the humor:

WATERBURY, Vt. -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc., urging them to replace cow's milk they use in their ice cream products with human breast milk, according to a statement recently released by a PETA spokeswoman.

Now, Mrs. CyberLizard is a pretty hard-core lactivist, but I think even she would see the absolute stupidity of this.

Steve Higgins of the "Of Two Minds" blog was inspired by PETA to conceive of a fantastic new business plan:

I guess I can just open up a milking center at the mall so that I can get new mothers to stop by for a few minutes while I milk them. I could even offer them.. well lets see I could probably extract less than a gallon at a time...so at current rates - maybe offer them 10 cents for their time? I'll bet I could get at least enough milk from 100 malls to maybe provide enough ice cream for 1 mall.

I love Ben & Jerry's spokesman's response: "We applaud PETA's novel approach to bringing attention to an issue, but we believe a mother's milk is best used for her child."

Here's the brilliant letter PETA sent to Ben & Jerry's:

September 23, 2008

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Cofounders

Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc.

Dear Mr. Cohen and Mr. Greenfield,

On behalf of PETA and our more than 2 million members and supporters, I'd like to bring your attention to an innovative new idea from Switzerland that would bring a unique twist to Ben and Jerry's.

Storchen restaurant is set to unveil a menu that includes soups, stews, and sauces made with at least 75 percent breast milk procured from human donors who are paid in exchange for their milk. If Ben and Jerry's replaced the cow's milk in its ice cream with breast milk, your customers-and cows-would reap the benefits.

Using cow's milk for your ice cream is a hazard to your customer's health. Dairy products have been linked to juvenile diabetes, allergies, constipation, obesity, and prostate and ovarian cancer. The late Dr. Benjamin Spock, America's leading authority on child care, spoke out against feeding cow's milk to children, saying it may play a role in anemia, allergies, and juvenile diabetes and in the long term, will set kids up for obesity and heart disease-America's number one cause of death.

Animals will also benefit from the switch to breast milk. Like all mammals, cows only produce milk during and after pregnancy, so to be able to constantly milk them, cows are forcefully impregnated every nine months. After several years of living in filthy conditions and being forced to produce 10 times more milk than they would naturally, their exhausted bodies are turned into hamburgers or ground up for soup.

And of course, the veal industry could not survive without the dairy industry. Because male calves can't produce milk, dairy farmers take them from their mothers immediately after birth and sell them to veal farms, where they endure 14 to17 weeks of torment chained inside a crate so small that they can't even turn around.

The breast is best! Won't you give cows and their babies a break and our health a boost by switching from cow's milk to breast milk in Ben and Jerry's ice cream? Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Tracy Reiman

Executive Vice President

For christ's sake!

/begin rant

Why is it that every major piece of news devolves into what people think about the invisible sky fairy? USA Today ran this article, originally via Reuters.

With Wall Street in turmoil, some in suits turn to religion

By Christine Kearney, Reuters

NEW YORK — As financial workers suffer through tumultuous times on Wall Street, some are turning to an old source of solace: religion.

Religious leaders said attendance was up at lunchtime meetings in New York's financial district last week, with many more people in business attire than usual.

I'd rather turn towards that old source of solace: booze. Both booze and religion will make you say and do stupid things, but at least with booze you can sober up.

A handful of men in suits and ties and women in business attire were among dozens of people at the Episcopal church, which was hit by debris from the World Trade Center collapse on Sept. 11, 2001. [emphasis mine]

What possible bearing on the story does this have? None that I can see, but apparently it's important enough to bring up again:

Just a few blocks away, St. Peter's Church has seen "a slight uptick in attendance among people in suits," said Father Peter Madigan. St. Peter's, a Catholic church, displays a cross found in the rubble of Sept. 11.

Seriously, WTF? Did Rudy Giuliani write this? It's bad enough that we're wasting time babbling about Wall Street workers going to church, but to throw in these extraneous 9/11 references; I just don't get it.

Anyway, to the punch line.

Lou Janicek, who works as a financial adviser on Wall Street, said he had not considered attending a religious service, but said Wall Street would benefit if people applied the same morals they learned in church to the workplace.

"What you do at work matters as much as whether you regularly attend church or the synagogue or whatever," said Janicek, who was brought up as a Christian. "If you are an accountant or you find yourself in an unethical situation, you can't just stand by and let it happen — then you have another Enron.

Really? People learn morals in church? And apply them to their lives? Oh, yeah, all the right-wing fundegelicals are Republicans. What a bastion of "religious" values and ethical behaviour. Right.

/end rant

Why can't we have naked cyclists in Florida?

Apparently Oregon gets all the fun kooks while Florida is stuck with the fundegelical wackaloons. No fair! C'mon ladies and gentlemen, let it all hang out for peace!

I can't help but be reminded of this:

Fat bottomed girls they'll be riding today
So look out for those beauties oh yeah

Some Resources

I'm feeling particularly sleep deprived and not up to my usual level of introspective and provocative writing (how's that for laying on bullshit? I could go into politics). So you get links today. I'll let other people do the writing.

The Skeptics Annotated Bible has terrific summaries and snippets on the bible's viewpoint about major topics. See what the bible says about women's rights:

Genesis 3:16

Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

Or how about what God thinks of children:

Children who refuse to obey their parents must be executed.

If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear. -- Deuteronomy 21:18-21

He that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death. -- Exodus 21:15

He that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death. -- Exodus 21:17

Children who mock their parents will have their eyes plucked out by ravens and eaten by eagles.

The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it. -- Proverbs 30:17

Like Abraham, parents should be willing to kill their children for God.

And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and ... offer him there for a burnt offering.... And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. -- Genesis 22:2,10

Another great resource, The Brick Testament shows us, using the word of God, exactly why we should follow His law. And see what He has to say about religious tolerance. Mmmmm, Lego and the wrath of god. What could be sweeter?

Avast, matey, how could I be forgetting this?

Arrr, it's that time of year again, me hearties. Polish your cutlass and grab your tankard of grog, because International Talk Like A Pirate Day be upon us again.

I'm Sick

We all knew that, why is that news? This is not my usual mentally-sick sickness I'm talking about. You know, the sickness that manifests in inappropriate jokes, black humor, snarky comments, biting sarcasm, et al. No, my sickness this time is caused by a little thing known as a virus. I've got a cold flu black death. I'm dying. All right, technically we're all actively engaged in the process of dying. And the intellectual part of my brain is telling me that I'm not going to die anytime soon, much less because of this little bug. But that's not what my body says.

Except, viruses don't exist. The germ theory is an illusion. I have seen the light, and it comes in the form of the blinding stupidity of one Robert O. Young who tells us:

One must challenge everything in the modern construct of
immunology and what is said to be the immune system. The basis of modern immunology is founded on Louis Pasteur, the fraud, impostor, deceiver and self promoter. There is a serious problem to where every word and part of the anatomy must be questioned to find their use and function because of the fraud of Louis Pasteur.

I mean, how can one deny the brilliance of his logic when describing influenza:

For example, the word influenza means influence. Originally, influenza was said to come from the stars or heavens. The Avian Influenza is an influenza of a bird influence. More specifically, it is an influence of bird waste. The bird consumption industry in Southeast Asia is overcrowded to the point that the chickens are consuming their own waste, producing an over-acidification of the birds and workers that must work in the acidic air and waste.

It could be more accurately called Acidic Bird or Chicken Excrement Influenza that is only contagious to those consuming acidic birds, like chicken or breathing chemically altered air from chicken excrement. Because chickens do not have a urinary tract system, like humans and animals they are more likely to absorb their own acidic urine into their tissues. I guess you could say that's what makes chicken flesh or turkey flesh taste so juicy and why chicken or turkey flesh should never be consumed by humans!

Ahhh, the stupid, it burns more than the fever coursing through my body caused by the non-existant virus:

The word virus is originally Latin meaning poison, as in snake venom, (being too acidic). When a serious snake bite releases venom or acid into the skin and soft tissues, the small sweat vessels become so enlarged that red corpuscles can flow into the tiny seat glands, showing red skin patterns and allowing the venom or acids to escape through the skin. Acidity dissolves and enlarges blood vessels for the movement of acidic fluids or gases. Alkalinity constricts and normalizes the blood vessels.

The point being that viruses are molecular liquids or gases (venom) that can be created by chemical imbalances in humans, plants and animals (by malnutrition or toxic acidic food and/or drink consumption), also created in humans, plants and animal glands, sometimes used in defense (snake venom) or emergency (overactive adrenals), also can be crystallized in laboratories, rarely, if ever crystallized in vivo, and foolish to call viruses contagious when viruses are nothing more than acidic liquids or gases from biological transformation or rotting matter.

The brilliant "scientist" leaves us with these thoughts to ponder:

As you contemplate the cause of the flu, cold or any so-called infection, may I suggest that each of us take personal responsibility for the consequences of our choices, rather than blame a phantom Avian Influenza virus, cold virus, flu virus, cancer virus or some non-existent HIV virus. If you get sick, it is your own fault and not the cause of some phantom virus that you can blame to cover your own lifestyle and dietary transgressions. Save your money and save your life by making alkalizing and energizing lifestyle and dietary choices. This is where true immunity is found -- not in a vaccine or a drug which are all acidic and poisonous to the body but in living an alkaline lifestyle.

Sigh. So much for my attempts to lay the blame at the feet of microscopic little buggers for my illness. Instead it's because I had that glass of lemonade.

Many thanks to Orac for introducing me to the truth about germs.

I won't be buying a GM car anytime soon

Bob Lutz was the guest on the Colbert Report tonight (last night, it's after midnight. whatever). He's there to talk about the Volt, GM's new electric car. Ok, cool. Except Mr. Lutz isn't so cool. It would appear that he is a climate change denialist. Came right out and said he thought the planet might be warming, but didn't believe the "CO2 theory" was responsible. Earlier this year he said he thought global warming was "a total crock of shit".

Well, he apparently felt the need to out do him self. When Colbert got into the "man talk" and asked him if the Volt was sexy, if it would get him laid, Lutz responded that it might, but that it would attract a different type of woman. What type is that, you may ask? "...a lot of no makeup, environmentally aware [mumble]" women. Say what? Maybe I'm overreacting, but that sounds like a slam to me. Given Lutz's disregard for the environment it wouldn't surprise me that his attitudes towards women get the same regard.

Die, Mouse, Die!

Hat tip to PZ.

Apparently mice are bad. I mean, really bad. Not just, "they're bad but we can ignore them" kind of bad, but "EXTERMINATE!" bad. So bad that even cartoon representations of them must die.

According to Sheikh Muhammad Munajid,

The mouse is one of Satan's soldiers and is steered by him.

and

According to Islamic law, the mouse is a repulsive, corrupting creature.

Even better:

Mickey Mouse has become an awesome character, even though according to Islamic law, Mickey Mouse should be killed in all cases.

Nooooo!!!! Not the Mouse!

Seriously, I live in Florida. You kill Mickey Mouse and what have we got left? Lightning, sharks, hurricanes and religious whackaloons. Don't do that to me!

I Can Haz Munny?

IANAE (I Am Not An Economist). I vaguely recall taking economics in college. I think. But things are lookin' pretty bad out there. I hear even fervent supporters of the "free market" clamoring for more/new regulation of our financial markets. But one thing they will never acknowledge is the fact that their pushes for deregulation are what led us here.

Now, I'm all for making money. I have a good job, I pay taxes, pay (most) of my bills. I understand the need to exchange currency for goods. I'm not anti-money, or anti-capitalism. But it seems to me that there is a fundamental problem that the free-marketeers are overlooking: humans are selfish, maybe even greedy. We've evolved that way. Survival of the fittest. May the best man win. It's what kept us alive when survival was a tooth-and-nails experience. However we, as thinking, rational people, manage to balance this innate desire with some common sense and compassion.

Also, most of us are living in a world where we will never have access to the kind of money (and power, I think that falls under this same concept) that Wall Street tycoons, big corporate CEO's, certain religious leaders and high-level government muckety-mucks deal with on a daily basis. Because of this, our desires tend to take a back seat to necessities, like paying the mortgage/rent, car payments, buying food and fuel. We live in a much smaller world where the impacts of our actions have a much more noticeable affect on our immediate family and friends. If you cheat your friends or your community out of money, or commit crimes against them, there is a much more direct and immediate response against you. So our desires for more money and possessions, at this level, generally lead to us working harder, getting education, trying to move up the corporate ladder and so forth. The results of this are generally beneficial to us and those around us. There are exceptions, of course, and those of us in more dire circumstances find a lot more pressure to engage in activities that circumvent the improvement process; crime, get-rich-quick schemes, lottery tickets, etc. But on the whole we manage to make do and hopefully improve our lives. All well and good.

But I think that when you reach a certain level of wealth/power, those negative impacts become further and further removed from you. Rather than engaging in commerce with a specific individual, you're dealing with an abstract "corporation". You're dealing with "constituents" rather than neighbors. You begin dealing in numbers so staggering that the relative impact of losing a few grand gets smaller and smaller, so you lose sight and comprehension of that impact to someone not in your position.

I must admit to falling into this trap myself. I can remember a time, not all that long ago, 10 years or so, when my wife and I would literally scrounge pennies and loose change from the sofa to be able to go to Taco Bell (remember $0.39 tacos?). Time passes, careers progress, and I have found myself sweeping up those same pennies and dropping them in the dustbin without thinking. Humans have a remarkable ability to forget pain, which can be a good thing; otherwise women would never have more than one baby ;-) But it also allows us to forget how to relate to others in more difficult circumstances than we are. And if you've never experienced more difficult circumstances yourself, it becomes that more more difficult to relate. I've never been homeless, never been truly hungry. I've never had my family massacred or been forced to flee my home.

But that's where another human trait comes in handy. We have the ability to empathize with others. We are capable of consuming information, processing it, and using it to extrapolate what it must be like to be in an other person's situation. This means that is possible to understand the impacts of our decisions on others who aren't at the same place in the world that we are. And the further you are removed from that situation, the more difficult that process becomes. Which is why we need to work harder at it.

So, my point, after all this rambling, is that we need to provide safeguards against the known proclivities of people and part of that, I believe, is reasonable regulation of the financial markets. That way, even if those people who are so far removed from our reality that they fail to or cannot fathom why them making money at the risk or expense of others is wrong, they might still avoid doing it for a greedy and selfish reason: to avoid going to prison.

Some confirmation of what I've suspected

I have been struggling to find some logical reason for the Republicans refusal to acknowledge reality. The hypocrisy displayed by the republican party this election cycle is just astounding. Even when they are flat-out proven wrong, the right-wing pundits keep spouting the same garbage.

Fortunately, I'm not the only one to notice. Jonah Lehrer of the blog "Frontal Cortex" has a good summary of this phenomenon:

I think this experiment helps explains a rather disturbing amount of our political discourse. What it neatly demonstrates is that the main reason so many campaigns traffic in dishonest allegations and pseudofacts is that, when it comes to voters, the facts don't really matter. Most of us are just partisan hacks:

Political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler provided two groups of volunteers with the Bush administration's prewar claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. One group was given a refutation -- the comprehensive 2004 Duelfer report that concluded that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before the United States invaded in 2003. Thirty-four percent of conservatives told only about the Bush administration's claims thought Iraq had hidden or destroyed its weapons before the U.S. invasion, but 64 percent of conservatives who heard both claim and refutation thought that Iraq really did have the weapons. The refutation, in other words, made the misinformation worse.

A similar "backfire effect" also influenced conservatives told about Bush administration assertions that tax cuts increase federal revenue. One group was offered a refutation by prominent economists that included current and former Bush administration officials. About 35 percent of conservatives told about the Bush claim believed it; 67 percent of those provided with both assertion and refutation believed that tax cuts increase revenue.

In a paper approaching publication, Nyhan, a PhD student at Duke University, and Reifler, at Georgia State University, suggest that Republicans might be especially prone to the backfire effect because conservatives may have more rigid views than liberals: Upon hearing a refutation, conservatives might "argue back" against the refutation in their minds, thereby strengthening their belief in the misinformation. Nyhan and Reifler did not see the same "backfire effect" when liberals were given misinformation and a refutation about the Bush administration's stance on stem cell research.

I had to read this a few times to wrap my head around it. Basically, it shows that more people believed the lies after seeing proof of its fallacy than before. WTF?

He continues:

The Princeton political scientist Larry Bartels analyzed survey data from the 1990's to prove the same point. During the first term of Bill Clinton's presidency, the budget deficit declined by more than 90 percent. However, when Republican voters were asked in 1996 what happened to the deficit under Clinton, more than 55 percent said that it had increased.

Again with the denial of reality. Is this really so hard to comprehend:
Or how about this one? To difficult to process?

Yeah, right, "Drill, baby, drill". Graph from ::Architecture 2030

Anyway, back to the analysis:

What's interesting about this data is that so-called "high-information" voters - these are the Republicans who read the newspaper, watch cable news and can identify their representatives in Congress - weren't better informed than "low-information" voters. (The sole exception was Republicans who are ranked in the top 10 percent in terms of political information. As Bartels notes, it's only among these people that "the pull of objective reality begins to become apparent.") These citizens According to Bartels, the reason knowing more about politics doesn't erase partisan bias is that voters tend to only assimilate those facts that confirm what they already believe. If a piece of information doesn't follow Republican talking points - and Clinton's deficit reduction didn't fit the "tax and spend liberal" stereotype - then the information is conveniently ignored. "Voters think that they're thinking," Bartels says, "but what they're really doing is inventing facts or ignoring facts so that they can rationalize decisions they've already made." Once we identify with a political party, the world is edited so that it fits with our ideology.

Sigh. Still, I feel the need to keep preaching, even if it is only to the choir.

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I'm coming out...

... so you better get this party started.

... I want the world to know

I really liked the first one. Turns out I'm really bad at my lyrics. The Pink song is "I'm coming up" not "I'm coming out". Diana Ross did the "I'm coming out" one.

Anyway, the point is that I'm coming out. And it's not what you think. Not that I have anything against that kind of coming out. Really.

Anyway, what am I babbling about? There's a new icon in my sidebar. A big scarlet 'A' (Most people would call it red, I like the implication of "scarlet A"). I'm talking about The OUT Campaign. You can read Richard Dawkins' Introduction to it. It's doing my little part to help the world realize that godlessness does not equal lack of morals or satanism or eating little babies (or communism or anti-americanism or any of a number of other things the Xians would like you to believe about us). One really big point to make is that we are NOT trying to eradicate Christians, or any religion for that matter. Our biggest gripe is that religion is trying to be forced into places it doesn't belong.

The presidential election cycle here in the United States has forced me out of the closet. The ramrodding of so-called "Christian values" into our government must stop. It is literally sickening to me to see our country betrayed this way by a bunch of hypocritical bullshitters. I believe that our founding fathers would be rather disgusted by what's going on today. Archiving Early America has a great article that clearly shows that the intent of our government is secular. My favorite is this quote from the Treaty of Tripoli back in the late 1700's:

As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. [emphasis mine]

I mean, you can't get much clearer than that. This was written in the last term of George Washington's presidency and signed into law by John Adams during his presidency. Pretty unambiguous statement from our founding fathers themselves, eh? One of the basic principles of our country is freedom of religion. This also includes freedom from religion.

So I'm coming out. Reason must win. The motto of the Scottish clan that I am technically a member of (Keith) is "Veritas vincit" (Truth conquers). I'm going to hold to that and work to make it so.

Links to a few other good Atheist blogs that I follow:
Pharyngula
Rev. BigDumbChimp
Possummomma (aka, Atheist in a minivan)
Atheist Revolution
Enemy Combatant Trailmix Appreciation Club

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Some people should NOT be performing

Thank you, Rev. BigDumbChimp, for giving me a good laugh.

He taught me how to praise my god and still play rock-and-roll

Apparently this guy's mistaken about a number of things, not the least of which is the definition of "rock-and-roll".

And did they rip off those dresses from my high school choir? [/inside joke]



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The Oh of Pleasure

The headline caught my eye, I must say:

Stroking reveals pleasure nerve

Thank you, Jenny Carpenter, Science Reporter for the BBC, for this hard-hitting piece of investigative journalism.

A new touch-sensitive nerve fibre responsible for the sense of pleasure experienced during stroking has been described at a UK conference today.

Oh, it gets better:

The nerves tap into a human's reward pathways, and could help explain why we enjoy grooming and a good hug, a neuroscientist has explained.

His team used a stroking machine to reveal the optimal speed and pressure for the most enjoyable caress. (emphasis mine)

I know a few people who would like to get their hands on that machine.

In order to isolate the touch-sensitive nerves responsible for the pleasure experienced during stroking, Professor McGlone designed a "rotary tactile stimulator" - a high-tech stroking machine.

"We have built some very sophisticated equipment, so the stimulus [of stroking] is very repeatable."

Now this is the kind of science I can get into! Unfortunately, the article goes on to destroy my hopes and dreams:

Professor McGlone points out that these touch nerves are not responsible for the pleasure experienced from rubbing sexual organs, nor are they found in a person's palms or soles.

Well, then, what's the point?

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Still very powerful after seven years

Thank you, Orac, for posting this. It moved me enough to repost here. There's something about watching this for so many minutes from the same location, you begin to feel a sense of familiarity with the area. It makes it that much harder when the end comes. My heart goes out to all those who have been affected by such a horrific event.



A commenter on the above blog struck a chord with me:

...I fear that this sort of video can too easily become the centerpiece for a two minute hate. I didn't admire the 9/11 attackers. I don't like their goals or their methods. I don't want to live in a country that is using the same essential method--destroy people and thing until your opponent gives up--to get its way. I don't know how to stop terrorism. But I do know that I don't want people in Iraq and Afghanistan and maybe soon Iran to be facing this kind of destruction and worse on a daily basis because people see videos like this...

I'll leave with this thought:

A Blessing for All Beings

May everyone be happy and safe,
and may their hearts be filled with joy.

May all living beings live in security and in peace
beings who are frail or strong,
tall or short, big or small,
visible or not visible, near or far away,
already born or yet to be born.
May all of them dwell in perfect tranquility.

Let no one do harm to anyone.
Let no one put the life of anyone in danger.
Let no one, out of anger or ill will,
wish anyone any harm.

Metta Sutta (Stuttanipata)
Translated by Thich Nhat Hahn.

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Science in da' house!

Since I've already introduced you to this science music, I figure I should broaden your horizons even more. It's especially appropriate today because they just fired up the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) this morning. Enjoy.

Hat tip to GrrlScientist for reminding me about the big event today and its musical significance.

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Twice in one week?

My geek index is going up! Or rather my bug index. For those of you wondering why I don't just post bug pictures here, David's write-ups easily top the mindless drivel that I could come up with.

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Bugalicious

See my latest bug-famousness here. And despite the fact that he and his kind ravaged my okra, I swear I had nothing to do with the missing leg. He was like that when I found him.

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HOA's can go to hell

You might remember this post wherein the future of my garden is threatened by my neighborhood's Home Owners Association. You might also remember my carefully worded and researched reply. I hadn't heard anything in response and, being very ADHD and somewhat passive-aggressive, I didn't follow up on it. No news is good news, as they say. Well, I finally got news. Just as Fay was starting to really blow, we discovered our upstairs window was leaking. As we were frantically moving bookshelves and pulling up carpet and trying to stem the flood, the postal carrier pulls into our driveway to deliver a certified letter. From our HOA.

In short, they decided to forward the matter to their attorney. "With no positive response to previous notice, the Board has no other option except to proceed with legal action." So either my response was not "positive" enough or they didn't give a shit about what I had to say. Naturally, I felt it necessary to respond:

Dear Board of Directors:

We were very disappointed to receive the Final Notice of Violation dated August 19, 2008. Especially disturbing was the statement that no positive response had been sent with regard to the prior notice. Apparently the letter attached to emails sent to the board members and the hardcopy mailed to the [management company] office did not count as positive response. Perhaps we do not understand the bureaucratic processes of home owners associations.

We are attaching a copy of the previous letter we sent in response. Furthermore, a hard copy has been sent out the the address listed above via certified mail, return receipt requested. We hope that this will constitute sufficient response to the violations. If any further information is needed, please do not hesitate to contact us. We are very interested in working with the board to resolve this matter.

Now here's where my expectations came crashing into reality. What I expected was a dialog between reasonable parties where the issue could be discussed and resolved in a professional manner, even if the boards decision went against me. In my original response, I included reasonable questions requesting clarifications on the rules and advice on how to best follow them in the event the board did not see fit to rule in my favor. What I received was something much different:

I for one live on the street as this vegetable garden and it is a sight. It keeps getting bigger and bigger and looks terrrible. She can build a fence even though she is on a corner lot. I say we stick to the no vegetable gardens and if you are considering changing this, drive by and have a look yourself. It will change your mind. This is my thought

Now, a home owners association is a quasi-legal organization with the authority to file liens on your home and even to initiate foreclosure. The board of directors act as the representatives of this body and, indeed, of all the members of the community. That a member of the board would feel that this was an appropriate response to a reasonable discussion of policy came a quite a shock. In addition to the factual errors (the garden hasn't grown since it was established, unless you count the growing of the plants) the attitude just blew my mind. After the shock came anger. Much anger. Darth Vader-type anger. If I could have force-choked this individual, I probably would have. While I despise bureaucracy, I have an appreciation for the niceties and formalities that generally accompany legal proceedings. I would expect this kind of reply in a blogs comments section or on some internet forum. Coming from one of the leaders of an organization that, quite literally, could force me out of my home was disgusting.

At this point, the representative of the management company that our HOA hired to handle all the paperwork and act as enforcer decided to throw in her $0.02:

They have received 3 notices and they haven’t removed the vegetable garden. What more needs to be discussed?

This person has no role on the board, has no decision-making authority and has absolutely no business interfering in a discussion between the board and a resident. At least that's my opinion. Besides which, she was completely incorrect. We did respond and have been trying to engage the board in a dialog. Which they apparently are steadfastly trying to avoid.

Fortunately, not all the members of the board are such small-minded individuals. Later, another member offered their take. While well-meaning, it was full of fallacies that I will address in-line below.

I did read your letter that you sent, you did respond,

Good of you to notice. You'd think that maybe this could be relayed to the guard dogs that the board hires to do its dirty work.

I believe the notice is referring to the action that needs to happen. It clearly states as you have noted that vegetable gardens are not allowed in the neighborhood unless properly contained.

No shit, why do you think I was writing a response?

I can totally appreciate where you are coming from in your letter, growing your own produce is very beneficial, I myself do it, but it is contained in pots on the back porch and in a tiny fenced area in the back of the home displayed neatly. I have driven and walked by your home on several occasions and recognized your vegetation as an eye sore. Tomato bushes in general grow rather wildly, the manner in which you have planted them is the problem.

So in other words, tomato plants are ugly and shouldn't be planted in a Square Foot Garden, only in "tiny fenced areas" because that's how you like them.

The wood enclosure which surrounds the plants looks bad and the location that you choose is random.

Two things wrong here: the wood enclosures are cedar planks used for the siding of houses. They form a border 8" high around the square beds. Not exactly a hideous bit of landscaping. And their location was FAR from random. The two beds are exactly 36" apart and stand 36" from the nearest landscaping, to allow for the passage of the lawn mower. They were placed on the south side of my house which recieves direct sunlight all day long.

It is obvious that you have a green thumb and I think that is great, speaking for myself I would not like for you to tear them up, just move them and make it look neat. I know you have a patio just off of your slider, why not plant the vegetation to the left of that patio and put some PVC 12" fencing around it with some trellising? We have a long weekend ahead of us, maybe this could be a project for you.

Nice thought, but that location is in perpetual shadow and is so waterlogged that the only thing that will grow there are swamp plants. There's about an hour a day that the sun can penetrate most of the back yard. The south side is the only viable location.

I think your property would look a lot nicer is you chose to take my advice, I am not sure what the other Board members might think about your garden because quite honestly we haven't discussed it.

In retrospect, this part bothers me more than anything else. The association documents outline a process for handling violations that includes the right of the homeowner to respond and seek relief. What's the fucking point of allowing a response if you're not even going to address it?

I do wish you well, I hope my response has helped, feel free to contact me again. My intent is not to hurt any feelings, just to be honest and helpful, constructive criticism, I hope you see it this way.

I don't give a shit about hurt feelings or how you hope I see it. What I see is an HOA BOD with a disregard for its residents and a rigid mindset that says that the only attractive yard is one that looks like theirs; i.e. chemical-drenched St. Augustine grass and landscaping completely unsuited to the Florida climate that can only be maintained by regular chemical applications and the waste of thousands of gallons of water. I see a board with no concept of professionalism and apparently with poor reading comprehension skills, since they didn't address my clearly worded questions.

Well, as per my standard response to all bureaucratic and authoritarian bullshit, fuck 'em. Unfortunately, this attitude can result in even more financial problems that I really don't need right now. I don't have the time or energy to fight this kind of crap. I'm dealing with a combination of stupidity, small mindedness and apathy. The amount of shit I'd have to go through to get these people out, assuming that the rest of the neighborhood isn't populated with the same type of people, is just too much right now. I've got a wife and two kids and a stressful job. Gardening used to be an outlet for my stress, a form of meditation. Guess I'll have to get back on the cushion, 'cause the garden has gone bye-bye.

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Tags: stupidity, hoa, morons, politics, bullshit

Must... buy... epMotion

I'm not a scientist. It would be a real stretch to even try to classify myself as a computer scientist since I don't do any of that fancy theoretical-AI-quantum-researchy stuff. But I'm addicted to the Science Blogs. Some of the stuff is so far over my head that it's like a 6 foot tall person is holding it up and taunting me with it (I'm only 5' 5"). But one of my talents is the ability to pick up concepts based on context, so I can generally figure out what's going on.

At any rate, sometimes things pop up there that anyone can appreciate. Indeed, part of the mission over there at SB is to promote science education and accessibility. So even if you've never wielded a pipette in a lab, you should be able to appreciate this product marketing directed at our esteemed scientists working to make the world a better place.

I can't stop humming it. I haven't felt the need to watch a music video multiple times since I first found "White and Nerdy".


Via::Pharyngula

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Tags: science, marketing, humor, advertising

Choose your enemies carefully

This is starting to get scary. Here's a summary of some recent events in Minnesota during the lead-up to the Republican National Convention. It would appear that our national policy of preemtive strikes has trickled down to the local level.

Some more coverage:

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/9/1/democracy_now_s_elizabeth_press_detained
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/31/raids/index.html
http://www.minnesotaindependent.com/
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/09/thugs_at_work.php

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Tags: politics, police, brutality, illegal, republicans