Tipster Michael sends non-Palin-related proof of the end of days.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mBi7d6e5KI]

So, when McCain refers to Americans as “my fellow prisoners,” is it:

a) a flashback, possibly drug or senility induced, to his actual days of being a prisoner, or
b) a reference, albeit an oblique one, to his outmoded economic views, inasmuch as he sees Americans and businesses as “prisoners” of taxation and regulation, or
c) a tacit philosophical comment on how we are all, metaphorically, “prisoners,” perhaps of a corrupt political system or of a stagnant culture or somesuch, or
d) the foreshadowing of a threat to actually imprison us once he’s elected.

You decide? more »

Indeed, the problem appears to be fewer mammals.

All of your cute n cuddly favorites, from the super intelligent dolphins, to bulky, lovable whales, to apes and cats and hyraxes are dying off in a horrible evolutionary cataclysm, termed an “extinction crisis” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

“Within our lifetime, hundreds of species could be lost as a result of our own actions,” said Julia Marton-Lefèvre, the director general of the I.U.C.N., a network of campaign groups, governments, scientists and other experts.

The group’s annual Red List just came out, and it includes at least of quarter of all of earth’s mammals. That. Blows. So. Much. In only slightly less depressing news, a third of the planet’s amphibians are also in the crapper. While I’d like to believe otherwise, I have the feeling that the Chevy Volt is not going to solve this problem all by itself. And as Dose readers know, my enduring raison d’etre is the hope that, somewhere in the Yangtze, the Baiji lives.

Meanwhile, some “leading geneticist” says that human evolution is breaking down because men aren’t waiting until they’re old to have kids, because old men’s sperm is more unstable and therefore more likely to contain the mutations that power the evolutionary process. Oh, that and now you can be a total moron and yet manage not be killed off by nature before procreating.

As if we didn’t have enough to worry about what with our mammal problems. more »

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aBaX9GPSaQ]

Ahhhhh!

I’m not quite sure about this new True Blood series on HBO.  The characters introduced in the first episode were often cartoonish and silly, and the effort to be quirky threatened to sink the whole effort.  But by the end, the Anna Paquin character — who is not a vampire but can hear what people are thinking — had started to grow on me.  Sometimes it takes a while for a series to find its footing, getting all the people introduced and back-story laid out.  The writing is witty and there are some highly provocative and unsettling sex scenes.  I’ll keep watching for now. (And I agree with The New York Times review, the opening credits are awesome.)

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNb9WjTn1xQ]

Hold on to your birth control, ladies!

John McCain has chosen experience maven Sarah Palin as his running mate! The Alaska Governor, formerly a beauty queen and the mayor of a suburb of Anchorage, has been in office for a whopping two years. She likes Jesus, or at least the version of Jesus that doesn’t think gay people should have the same rights as straight people. She loves off-shore drilling, especially the Alaskan kind. She wants all kiddies around the country to believe that the earth was created in 7 days.

I’m sure that Palin’s vagina will satisfy my favorite crafty Providence Journal columnist, who received a pounding of criticism for her delusional column about John McCain’s moderate stance on abortion.

For those of you who missed McCain’s fuzzy controversy about birth control, here’s a recap, just for fun:

1. McCain BFF Carly Fiorina was on the campaign trail and proclaimed it was unfair that insurance companies cover Viagra and not birth control.

2. Pro-choice group NARAL responds, highlighting that McCain twice voted against measures that would have required insurance companies to cover birth control — in 2003 and 2005.

3. John “buh-uh-well” McCain dodges the question and apparently doesn’t have an opinion. See for yourself:

We can assume the choice of Governor Palin clears things up when it comes to reproductive rights. Holla at me, Froma Harrop!Four more years of threats to our reproductive rights? Well, unless we’re interested in giving up sex, I guess we know who to vote for.

(…*To Inspire You To Hide Under Your Bed Until Jan. 21, 2009)

 This must-read report just in from the New Yorker’s “This Would Be Funny If It Wasn’t So Fucking Scary” Department: “Preparing the Battlefield: The Bush administration steps up its secret moves against Iran” by the ever-vigilant Seymour Hersh.

 Hersch writes:

Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership.

This may sound like generically scary Bush warmongering, but it’s actually so much more. more »

First the gays… and now this! Can it really be the 25th anniversary of this nightmare fuel? Seems like just yesterday I was saying “Get that thing away from me.” Fans and collectors will meet again today at the RI Convention Center for the My Little Pony Convention.

the horror…. the horror

Remember Y6B, the year when the global population hit 6 billion? Wasn’t that, like, a month ago?

Turns out it was actually 9 years ago, in 1999. So, according to the J-Curve, we’re about due for another billion.

The world’s population will reach 7 billion in 2012, even as the global community struggles to satisfy its appetite for natural resources, according to a new government projection. There are 6.7 billion people in the world today.

The world’s population surpassed 6 billion in 1999, meaning it will take only 13 years to add a billion people.

By comparison, the number of people didn’t reach 1 billion until 1800, said Carl Haub, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau. It didn’t reach 2 billion until 130 years later.

Meanwhile, some oversexed Massachusetts 15 year olds have entered a “pregnancy or bust” pact, which is totally not helping. more »

Who doesn’t remember faking a sick day from school? Somehow, I think my Mom always knew, but she let me stay home anyway.

Now, though, if your kid is faking sick, you can give him/her a dose of Obecalp (get it?) and push ‘em out the door to school. Obecalp is a chery-flavored miracle pill that is “not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease or illness.” Jennifer Buettner, the “Mommy” who invented Obecalp, told the Times that the pill “is designed to have the texture and taste of actual medicine so it will trick kids into thinking that they’re taking something. Then their brain takes over, and they say, ‘Oh, I feel better.’ ”

The use of placebos has a long and decorated history in medicine. Still, some experts question whether using a placebo on children is appropriate. You know, because deliberately deceiving children is not always the best move. “I don’t like the idea of parents lying to their kids,” said Dr. Steven Joffe, a pediatrician and bioethicist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. “It makes me squeamish.”

No word yet on whether they are working on a pill that cures the inevitable rift that might develop between mendacious parents and their hoodwinked children.

from the Times .

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80% take the gun. Wouldn’t you?

I was never as scared of clowns as my little sister was — I have this especially vivid memory of Fourth of July in Rockville, MD circa 1987. I was a mumbler even then, and shocked that the fireworks illuminated the clouds in the night sky. “You can see the clouds! You can see the clouds!” My little sister heard ‘clowns,’ freaked out, and ran over to my mom. Who told me to shut the heck up.

So it wasn’t a surprise to me — nor, do I imagine, to the rest of the planet — when Harper’s printed this in its Findings a month back:

“British researchers determined that children universally dislike clowns, finding them “unknowable“

It’s true, and from a study on prospective hospital wallpaper designs. The clowns — in typical form not knowing when to chill out — are fighting back:

more »