inkycircus

I know it's a cliche but...

WE'D BE BETTER OFF WITH THIS FROG PRINCE. HE'S DEFINITELY GREEN. PHOTO: GOZDEO)

I can't help but be disgusted by Prince Charles today. I'm not violently against having a monarchy, I know they're expensive and silly but so what. There are plenty of sillier and more expensive things in this world, and tourists seem to like them. However, when they are screaming hypocrites I lose my benevolence and get angry.

Of the whole bunch, Prince Charles is one of the more annoying. He fancies himself as a bit of a green freak, obviously in the hope to make us all forget that he's a lazy rich boy with a valet who puts toothpaste on his toothbrush for him every night. Fair dos, saving the environment is a noble cause. But why the hairy hell has he just FLOWN to the US to accept an award for being so eco friendly? With his wife. On an outrageous jolly. It's astounding. Then the daft pompous arse has the temerity to make some ghastly joke to show how amusing and self-aware he is to criticism. Here's the joke in full: "I must warn you at the beginning that I am in fact a video recording. I have only made a virtual flight across the Atlantic and am virtually half dead and only virtually royal. I am a mere hologramatic visitor from cyberspace who could not be more flattered and honoured to be receiving this award." Augh. And then he expects us to forgive his shameless one-finger salute to the environment by saying it's ok as he took a scheduled BA flight to America rather than hiring a private jet.

This is what he said in his acceptance speech at Harvard: "Every passing year has seen further evidence emerge of the damage we are doing to this poor old planet, the only one we've got so far... that sustains life in such a miraculous and well-ordered way". He also said mankind was unlikely to stop damaging the planet until there was a change of outlook. Change of outlook, eh? Like, maybe, I dunno, NOT flying half way round the world for 2 days to accept an award? Just a suggestion.

Via BBC News.

Christmas and the Jesus doll

JESUS AND MOSES FROM THE BEVERLY HILLS TEDDY BEAR COMPANY

I love an after lunch chuckle. Really helps to digest the food and work again with levity. So imagine my joy when I learned that the US Marine-lead charity "Toys for Tots" rejected a donation of 4,000, foot-tall, scripture-quoting Jesus dolls. The toy's maker was "surprised and disappointed" at the decisions. Why deny thousands of poor children the opportunity to hear "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again" and "Love your neighbor as yourself," on Christmas morning?

The TFT spokesman Bill Grein said that the Marines did not adhere to one religion over another and therefore could not risk a Jewish or Muslim child getting Mr. Jesus as a present. He added that the Jesus doll didn't seem fun - a strict requirement for toys, of course.

Now as much as I enjoy a little joke at a Jesus (or Barbie, GI-Joe, Einstein) doll's expense..I have to point out a couple of things on the Toys for Tots website that, um, TOTALLY NEGATE their not-religious association spiel.

U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program
MISSION: The mission of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program is to collect new, unwrapped toys during October, November and December each year, and distribute those toys as Christmas gifts to needy children in the community in which the campaign is conducted.
GOAL: The primary goal of Toys for Tots is to deliver, through a shiny new toy at Christmas, a message of hope to needy youngsters that will motivate them to grow into responsible, productive, patriotic citizens and community leaders.
OBJECTIVES: The objectives of Toys for Tots are to help needy children throughout the United States experience the joy of Christmas; to play an active role in the development of one of our nation's most valuable natural resources - our children; to unite all members of local communities in a common cause for three months each year during the annual toy collection and distribution campaign; and to contribute to better communities in the future.

Sorry to burst everyone's bubble here, but Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus, Savior and son of God according to the Christian church. Don't you think a Jewish or Muslim child would be a little peeved to receive a gift on Dec 25th regardless of what it was? Maybe not..as long at it's more fun than a talking Jesus (if you gave him a light saber, he would look uncannily like Obi-Wan Kenobi...)

Hwang I-suck but this time in a funny way

KIDS, SCIENCE IS SO MUCH FUN. IT MAKES ME SO HAPPY. YOU GET TO WEAR BABY BLUE PIPETTING HOODIES AND DEAL WITH MAFIYA.
So let's say you were outed as being The Worst Scientist of all time for your dodgey ethics that lost you the cheesyass title "Supreme Scientist" - said dodginess coming down to lying in one of the most prestigious scientific journals about cloning human embryonic stem cells. Said lie dashing the hopes of countless long-suffering souls who for once had a hope of a cure for the following diseases that put loved ones through the ringer: Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, heart disease, stroke, arthritis, diabetes, and spinal cord damage. Said crime leading to your indictment last May for fraud, embezzlement, ethical breaches and other charges of eviltude.

Now that's a sharp descent into the more reviled depths of shame. But Woo-Suk just hung himself again. He used private donations to BUY MAMMOTH PARTS FROM THE RUSSIAN MAFIA. You can't make up stuff this good. From All Headline News:

"Some of the money was spent in contacting the Russia Mafia as we tried to clone mammoths," Hwang told the court during a hearing on Tuesday. "But you can't say that (on the expense claim), so we expensed it as money for cows for experiment."

That's right. The black market mammoth bits, from which he wanted to clone the beastie, went down in the books as "cows". While we're visiting the organized crime extinct/endangered animal connection, who's to say he didn't get black rhino tusks from the Hong Kong triads and expense them as "meds"? Or Bison bits from the Hell's Angels being written off as "hogs."

The divine powers of ovulation: use them for good

I know a certain someone (totally not naming names, don't even ask me), who, when ovulating, finds a very "diverse" group of men sexy. If I am out with said person and she spots a dubious hottie and begins to extol his physical virtues, I will immediately ask, "honey, you ovulating?"

So it can come as no surprise that women seem to tart up their wardrobe at the precious peak of fertility. Or at least they do according to a study of 30 undergrad girls from UCLA. These women were all in relationships and  NOT on hormonal birth control (which begs the question, but anyway...). They gave urine samples several times over a month to determine their ovulation cycle and had their picture taken twice -  once near to ovulation and one far off. None of the participants had any clue as to what was going on.

The photos were judged by a panel of experts (25 women and 17 men) who had to determine in which image the woman was trying to appear more attractive. The panel chose the high fertility zone outfit 60% of the time. When the photo session fell upon the exact date of ovulation, the panel chose that as the more sexy ensemble 83% of the time. Women were more likely to wear skirts, jewelry and revealing clothing when closer to that all important high point in fertility...this being LA, we hoped they didn't have to worry about variations in the weather to account for said skimpiness.

From a modern day culture kind of way, this result is intriguing because hey, who hasn't woken up one morning feeling H.O.T. and just wanted to dress all slutty?  Even more interesting, from an evolution/animal behaviour view, is that human females are SHOWING signs of their fertility status. Female great apes like us are supposedly the only animals who conceal ovulation - most other animals give off smells or feathers or big red glowing butts. Why do we hide it? Sexual power games of some sort. (IE men just want to make the babies and if they knew it was baby-makin' time they'd just ditch for the rest of the month OR by hiding the baby-makin' time women can be sure to make babies with only the best males all the while "placating" the less deserving...) The details are still being hashed out by the behaviourists and evolutionary psychologists and anthropologists and physiologists. Anyways.

This leads us to another point. Are women gettin' all hot to trot for their own committed spouses or maybe, are they dressing to impress a little bit of "good genes" on the side? Studies**** of people have shown that  1)partnered women are more likely to flirt with, have interest in or fantasize about other men around ovulation, especially if they consider their partner to be less than smokin' hot. And 2) Women like manlier men and more masculine faces around ovulation. 3) Women generally just want more of the sex, but they want it more with other men as the relationship goes on.

So is the clothing just another on the list of evidence convicting women of attempting to cheat - even if only in their "primal" brains? You know, I find it hard to answer that one. I just keep on getting stuck in the misogynistic hellhole that is evolutionary psychology. Let's try this: Will the power of ovulation force a partnered woman to wear a miniskirt and stilettos, fall helplessly in bed with a big hunk-o-beef-cake and have hot hot sex? No. Will her fertility peak make it impossible to resist the FINE man she's been flirting with FOREVER, while being stuck in a crummy horrid marriage ? No. Harder? Maybe.

****Many studies of human sexual psychology are prone to severe crapiness. Grains of salt all around.

Dark days for science

THE WEATHER WASN'T THE ONLY THING DIFFERENT BACK THEN. NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE METEOROLOGISTS PREPARE FORECAST 100 YRS BACK (PHOTO: NOAA) 

As if it weren't bad enough that Hwang Woo-suk let us all down by fudging his cloned stem cell lines, scientists left right and center have been duping us all along, as summed up in Environmental Science & Technology recently.

Looks like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), formed by Nixon in 1970 to serve "for better protection of life and property from natural hazards," got spun too.

Paul D. Thacker over at Salon wields the Freedom of Information Act and gets ahold of emails that further reveal how the Bushites played climate change like a fiddle. The worst came in the wake of Hurrican Katrina. At the time the connection between Katrina and global warming was explored, but mostly dismissed. Now we know in part why:

The e-mails also show that after Hurricane Katrina, NOAA press officers had to get clearance from the Department of Commerce for scientists to discuss global warming and hurricanes with the press. (NOAA is part of Commerce.)

Instead the media were herded towards scientist Chris Landsea. But not without Commerce's deputy director of communications Chuck Fuqua making double sure things would go swell:

"Please make sure Chris is on message and that it is a friendly discussion," Fuqua wrote regarding a request for Landsea to appear on "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer." On the show, Landsea downplayed research that linked global warming with more-intense hurricanes like Katrina.

In an e-mail the week prior, Fuqua OK'd Landsea for another interview and asked, "Please be careful and make sure Chris is on his toes. Since BLANK went off the menu, I'm a little nervous on this, but trust he'll hold the course."

Rep. Waxman has released the Internal Commerce Dept. emails while also asking Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez to explain why his office denied a media request to interview a NOAA scientist who concluded that global warming may lead to more Katrinas. The honest answer won't come as a surprise. And neither should the suggestion that Katrina was part and parcel of a trend whereby hurricanes are getting meaner. Such abuse of scientific rhetoric ruins the gig for everbody. For that crime Fuqua can go do exactly that to himself. If there is debate out there air it. Don't censor it. I don't care what the answer is but we need to trust it and you screwed that up. If only Nixon, the corrupt prez that he was, had the foresight to ensure his fledgling agency's own protection against, of all things, politics. 

(Thanks Kevin & Paul)

Creationist crazies

5 JUNE 2006 - ON BOARD THE FERRY CHENEGA
It was all my fault. We wandered into the Orca cafe to catch a bite to eat before boarding our ferry away from the paradise that is Cordova. And while Isla ordered our food I met Micah. Or rather, Micah met me. He seemed friendly. He had these sly eyes that twinkled. Plus he had this great North Carolina meets surfer accent. And Cordova had put me at ease. Plus, I hadn't had my coffee yet. I think that can explain away everything else that happened after that.

Next thing I knew we were hitching a ride to the ferry terminal. And Micah tagged along. And then we were buying our ferry tickets. And then Micah invited himself to hitch a ride to Anchorage with us. At which point I noticed he smelt kinda. In the I haven't bathed in a while and have recently spilled loads of beer on myself way. In the you slowly edge away from that smell on public transport way. But he was full of fun stories.

ON BOARD THE CHENEGA KEEPIN' A LOOKOUT FOR CRAZIES  (PHOTO: ISLA)

Fun creationist stories, it turned out. As the Chenega left Orca Bay behind, our smelly friend asked us whether we believed in god. And with that, his sly eyes turned fanatical. Look at all this! he gestured at the stunning scenery, you're telling me that this just happened?? He was incredulous. So were we. Now it's a very brave, and drunk it turned out, creationist that picks a fight with two women who are fervent Darwin fans. But that didn't stop our Micah.

His main argument was that there were no waterfalls on earth older than 6,000 years (false: Niagara escarpment is ~415 million years old; the Niagara falls are 12,000 years old). And hence, the world was 6,000 years old, just like the bible said. Next came the creationist conspiracy theory talk. Did you know that all the fossils from hominids could fit in one coffin? he asked us. I mean, dude!, at which point he spread his arms in that check-out-this-BIG-fish-I-caught gesture. Yeah, the darwin fish maybe. Also, in his opinion chimps were created by God just to "mess with our heads man!" This holy joke made him laugh lots. "You just THINK you're related man!" But the bottom line was this, it doesn't matter what you say because there's no arguing with faith - not that we wanted to even. And god is the ultimate trump card you just can't beat. Carbon dating? Ha! God just made earth pre-equipped with carbon-14 isotopes like that. And it went on.

No amount of science could destroy his faith. And no amount of his faith could cause us to spurn science. Plus he still wanted to hitch a ride with us. So we all agreed to disagree. But we didn't agree to give him a ride.