Sunday linkfest

After a slow week, I figured I'd throw together some links.

1. The media mocked Bush, and an pro-Sadr Iraqi journalist threw shoes at him, but the troops he sent to Iraq gave him a tremendous welcome. It's got to be heard to be believed. (via HotAir)

2. Ronald Radosh on Bush and the Jews.

3. From November, but still timely: Don Feder on the Jewish vote.

4. Almost as old but not quite: Mark Steyn on the murders at Chabad in Mumbai.

5. Coming soon to the Mets' bullpen: J.J. Putz. Next headline: "Some Putz blows the lead." Bonus: New York Times uses the P-word, the clinical term, in its article.

6. Gallows humor.

7. Mocking Time magazine may be easy, but it's still enjoyable.

8. This semi-earnest discussion of the grammar to be used when mixing a certain bad word with Gov. Blagojevich's name is quite amusing.

9. Invest in skateboards?

10. Well, at least Obama will receive excellent advice from his new science advisor. Just tell the Messiah not to invest with him. (via HotAir)

Click here to read more . . .

The Million Mile High Club?

You adventurers who are planning your first space mission have probably got a few questions.

* How long does the training take?

* What's it like to be weightless?

* Can I have sex in space?

I don't know the answers to the first two questions, but if you believe this article in Pravda, the answer to the third question is Yes.

Now, I know that those of us who grew up in the Cold War were trained not to believe Pravda. There was an old saying among the dissidents that "Pravda (Truth) has no news, and Izvestia (News) has no truth."

But that article is too good to check.

“While a lot of scientists all over the world are busy searching for extraterrestrial civilizations, astronauts plan a more earthly contact, that is conceiving a human baby at the orbital station,” Rostislav Beleda, a Candidate of Medical Sciences said. Mr. Beleda worked as the chief sexologist at the Central Aviation Hospital for 14 years. “The biggest problem is how to conceive, because liquid cannot be spilt under the condition of weightlessness,” he added.

“But they do not need a bed in space. They can love each other in the air.”

“And what will come out of that? As soon as he touches her, she will fly away in the opposite direction. A bed or at least some fastening device on a wall is more likely to be used.”

“Is astronauts’ sexual need taken into consideration during long-term flights?”

“Certainly. In space men exercise on treadmills. In addition, they can theoretically masturbate too. But they should not forget about condoms or other containers, otherwise drop of sperm will be flying chaotically in the cabin and they will have to collect it. As a matter of fact, humans are not eager to make love in space. ***”

I hear you thinking very loudly right now: "Too much information!" But you asked for it, and I provided it.

As for the answers to your other questions, you'll have to look elsewhere.

Click here to read more . . .

Turning it on and off

Q. How do make gay fruit flies stop "mincing about town in spotless waistcoats like Oscar Wilde"?

A. You take away their soy.

Or else you manipulate their . . . uh . . . their genes.

(See Jack M. writing at Ace's.)

Click here to read more . . .

Sunday linkfest

Man, I've got a whole bunch of links burning a hole in my pocket, and I just don't feel like writing an entire post about any of 'em. So here's my linkfest. Hope you enjoy these.

1. A "Mom Job"? Oy. You'll be pleased to know that even mothers of college-aged children are having this plastic surgery. "'I had been thin all my life until I had my son and then I got this pooch of overhanging fat on my abdomen that you can’t get rid of,' Ms. Birkland, 39, said. 'And your breasts become deflated sacks.'" Mind you, this is a woman with a 20-year-old son. She was about 19 when he was born, and now she's concerned with her looks -- and blaming him? I shouldn't be surprised about her. Get this line: "There is more pressure on mothers today to look young and sexy than on previous generations, she added. 'I don’t think it was an issue for my mother; your husband loved you no matter what,' said Ms. Birkland, who recently remarried." Personal to Ms. Birkland's new husband: If that's what she thinks, ditch her now; she'll only get "worse" looking.

2. An observatory on the roof of your house? Cool. "'The reason why people don’t use their telescopes is they are such a pain to haul out and set up,' said John Spack, 50, a certified public accountant who had a domed observatory built on top of an addition to his house in Chicago last year. 'Now, if I want to get up at 3 a.m. and look at something, I just open the shutter.'"

3. "Pro-semites" on JDate? When, some years ago, Irving Kristol said, "the danger facing American Jews today is not that Christians want to persecute them but that Christians want to marry them," he was right on the money. It turns out that something like 11% of members of JDate aren't Jewish but are interested in meeting Jews. Pollster Mark Penn writes in a new book "that 'the number one reason they [people he calls "pro-Semites"] gave for desiring a Jewish spouse was a sense of strong values, with nearly a third also admitting they were drawn to money, looks or a sense that Jews "treat their spouses better."'"

4. Vegans dating regular vegetarians. As a former "vegetarian" who actually ate dairy, eggs, and even fish, and the father of a former vegan who was actually serious about it until he had a revelation (that vegans are morons, or something like that) and is now a proud carnivore, I have to admit this line tickled me: "'I'm in a relationship with a murderer,' bemoans Carl, one of many vegans who wrote in to the 'Vegan Freak' podcast for romantic advice." My son was never like that when he was a vegan.

5. Speaking of vegetarians, if you work for Countrywide and you didn't get the memo, W.C. Varones got it for you. Heh!

6. Stupid pickup lines. I did like the final one, which is charmingly cheesy: "Well, here I am. What are your other two wishes?"

7. "There are signs that the global Islamic jihad movement is splitting apart." Discuss. (via protein wisdom)

8. WTF? I saw this bumper sticker on a car on the highway in Maryland: "God Bless The Whole World / No Exceptions." Yeah, I understand it now: God bless Johnny, and God bless Billy, and God bless Osama. Because, heck, we're no better than any of those guys who are trying to murder us.

9. Here's a concert I'm glad I missed: Beethoven's 9th, redone according to the "aural graffiti" that Gustav Mahler wrote on the score. Tim Page lays the smackdown on Leonard Slatkin: "Somebody should sit Leonard Slatkin down and explain to him, firmly but not without compassion, that Ludwig van Beethoven actually knew what he was doing when he composed his Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, and that the work he created needs no enhancement from Gustav Mahler or any of the other musicians who followed in his shadow."

10. Andrew Ferguson in the Weekly Standard has an amusing review of Alan Greenspan's new book: "Alan Shrugged." ("Ayn," Alan would say, overcome by some Randian insight, "upon reading this, one tends to feel exhilarated!")

11. Columbia's newest friend, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has another insight: Move the damn Jews to Alaska. Seriously. (Via HotAir) He must have been reading the latest dreck from a Jewish writer suffering from Weltschmerz. Can you imagine the Jews in Alaska? All the Jewish geezers would sit around all afternoon saying things like this: "Oy, it's so cold here." "Moses got the desert, but we're stuck in this icebox."

12. And you just can't miss this last one, but don't listen to it at work, unless you can close a door behind you: Don't try that satire s--- in f---in' New Yawk. (Bad language alert.)

Click here to read more . . .

Modern science

Don't blame me for writing about this topic. This is science: "Bras Don't Support Bouncing Breasts, Study Finds" (via HotAir)

The LiveScience site on which the article appears even has a photo intended to prove it's science. A woman in a jogging outfit on a treadmill has pompoms all over her strategic regions. The caption says the pompoms are sensors. Also proving this is science, there's a woman in the photo standing by, looking scientific, and writing something on a booklet of some kind. I think it's the eyeglasses that demonstrate that she's a scientist.

More evidence that this is science comes from the fact that the BBC has an article about it.

Finally, I have no idea what the site News-Medical.Net is, except that it's obviously British, but the following line confirming this is science appears on that site: "The Portsmouth team are studying the biomechanics of breasts during exercise and other activities to better understand the stresses and forces involved."

If only Einstein had studied this topic, instead of wasting his time on the general theory of relativity. . . . But as a man, he plainly viewed "the study of breasts in relation to exercise [as] something of a joke."

Click here to read more . . .

Oy, another linkfest

I'm between two short vacation and things aren't allowing me to work on one longish post, so here's another linkfest. No, no, no. Don't thank me.

1. A man uses an internet florist to send his mistress some flowers and asks that the florist not to send him a receipt, which they do, and his wife sees it. (hat tip: fee simple) As they say over at Fark, hilarity ensues.

2. A followup on the story mentioned in yesterday's linkfest about an alliance between jihadis and Mexican drug gangs. (via HotAir)

3. Does the camera at the dressing room make my butt look fat? (via Mary Katharine Ham) Bonus: A video. Super-bonus: The key shot is here:


4. Tip to women from the NY Times: Eat red meat on your first date to make a good impression on your MAN. (via Alarming News) And fetch him a beer while you're at it. A commenter at Alarming News points out that Sloane Crosley, interviewed in the Times article, wrote a piece for the Village Voice that began, "White girls with big asses, man." Just sayin'.

5. Apparently, NASA has revised downward its temperature data, at least for the United States, because of a Y2K bug. Ace discusses. Also read the post at HotAir and the long post at Coyote Blog. What people naturally are puzzled about is why some of the scientists in this area won't release their data. From Ace: "The bug was discovered by someone who took the time to reverse-engineer Hansen's flawed algorithm...."

6. "Hashem saved me," says a former Yeshiva student in Minnesota who survived the bridge collapse. Dude, if I were you, I'd be asking myself why Hashem hurled me off the bridge in the first place.

Originally, I was sure this item was a hoax. The name of the young man is Roman Koyrakh. That's one external and one internal enemy of the Jews. Korach, who led the rebellion against Moses in the wilderness, died when God opened up the earth, which swallowed him up along with his followers. Hmmmm.

But I was wrong, I think. There is a guy named Roman Koyrakh in the Minneapolis area. (Check the middle photo on page 12 of this pdf.) Sure, he doesn't look like a yeshiva bachur there, but that's a 3-year-old photo, and maybe he's become frum.

Click here to read more . . .

In the anas*

I'm sure we've all had these moments in raising our kids.

You know what I'm talking about. Your teenager comes up to you to make an announcement. And not just any announcement.

Kid: Dad! Or Mom! Whoever you might be! I know exactly what I'd like to study in college and make my career.

You: You do?

Kid: I've, like, totally given up on the adult-entertainment star idea.

You: That's, uh, that's very good. I'm glad for you.

Kid: That is, like, so totally last year, really.

You: So what's your new plan?

Kid: I'm going to study the reproductive biology of ducks* and do research on the duck vagina.

You:

Kid: Seriously, I just read about it in the Yale Alumni Magazine.

You: Yale? I didn't go to Yale.

Kid: Found it at the dentist's office. Listen! Here's what the article says: "Among ducks such as the mallard, the Pekin, and the long-tailed, the phallus can reach surprising length: 4 to 5 inches is common. The Argentine river duck, the champion in this department, has a phallus up to 16 inches long -- longer than the bird itself."

You: Now I know why you gave up that promising "acting" career.

Kid: But that's not all. In these ducks, the phallus "shrinks to the size of a rice grain after the mating season and grows again the following year," and it's "elaborately coiled." How cool is that?

You: I don't know. I thought that was a pathology.

Kid: Here's some more: "But although this phallus was first described in detail more than 100 years ago, no scientist ever bothered to investigate what seems the obvious corollary. That is, until Patricia Brennan, a post-doctoral researcher in ecology and evolutionary biology, entered the field. 'What kind of structure,' Brennan wondered, 'did he put it into?'"

You: Oh, my! Hold on, I need to sit down.

Kid: You really will have to sit down when you hear this: "Given the size of the duck phallus, Brennan guessed that she'd find 'an enlarged but simple sack' when she dissected female ducks. Instead, she uncovered a coiled organ bristling with detours, roadblocks, and dead ends. Upstream, it coils in the opposite direction from the phallus."

You: Now I remember! I read about this in the New York Times a while back. This researcher said about the phallus and vagina: "Obviously you can't have something like that without some place to put it in. You need a garage to park the car." Sounds like a bad imitation of a Kinky Friedman song, doesn't it? I remember that Brennan has a theory that the duck vagina was designed to prevent rape by ducks who were not her mate, right?

Kid: No, Brennan never had any duck as a mate.

You: I meant . . ., oh, never mind.

Kid: But, yeah, she thinks it has to do with rape. The magazine article calls it "forced copulation."

You: Yale. Anyway, here's my question for you. If she's already done the research, what's left for you?

Kid:

You:

Kid:

You:

Kid: Well, all right, forget about it. I'm back to adult entertainment.

Click here to read more . . .

Happy Fathers' Day

I can't possibly do justice to this idiotically cute article in the Science section of the New York Times about sperm. Yes, sperm: "Sleek, Fast and Focused: The Cells That Make Dad Dad."

I don't even want to try.

Certainly not with an article that starts this way:

We are fast approaching Father’s Day, the festive occasion on which we plague Dad with yet another necktie or collect phone call and just generally strive to remind the big guy of the central verity of paternity — that it’s a lot more fun to become a father than to be one.

And ends this way, after discussing the mechanics of fertilization:

The wheels are in motion. How do you like your new tie?

It's not even worth doing the Beavis and Butthead review of the article. ("Heh, heh, heh, she said 'strokes.'") Finally, it's not worth groaning over lines like these: "Sperm do not really hit their stride until they are deposited in the female reproductive tract * * *." "The ovum eggs them on * * *."

And there's not even a single mention of the female orgasm. What a total waste of ink!

Click here to read more . . .

Help wanted?

"Have Sex While You Sleep"

Click here to read more . . .

Thematic linkfest

1. Headline of the Day: "Duck penises show 'arms race' between sexes" (via Fark) You don't actually have to know what that's about, but if you want to know, read Ace's description.

2. Quotation of the Day: "When couples come to me and they are not having sex, the last thing they want to do is examine their relationship. They want to believe that it's nothing to do with their relationship." (via Ace, though I can't remember where exactly)

3. Scary Science of the Day: There's good news and bad news. The good news is that scientists have found a new chemical that seems more powerful than Viagra and comparable drugs. The bad news is that it comes from spider bites. (I got this directly from livescience.com, but amazingly, it's turned up at Ace's, too.)

4. Some of you may remember that a few months ago, after returning from a college visit with my daughter, I put up a moronic post about the experience, and then took it down. Well, in honor of being more or less through with the process, I'm retrieving an unrelated portion of that post -- about the flight home. This is not exactly a link, but it's miscellaneous. Here goes:

If you've ever wondered how painful it must be to be married to me, consider this. We had just recently boarded the flight home tonight, when the flight attendant got on the PA system to ask everyone to put smaller carry-ons under the seat, because the flight was "extremely full." Now, my wife is something of a stickler when it comes to English usage -- though she manages to accuse me of being a pedant. (Note to readers other than my devoted following of intellectuals: a pedant is someone who's unreasonably formalistic about usage, not a man who likes boys.) So the conversation went like this:

Mrs. Attila: "Extremely full?"
Me: Yes. Not only is every seat taken but there are some unusually fat people here.
Mrs. A: Shhhh!
Me: Some of those people are so obese the plane might not be able to get off the ground.
Mrs. A: Shhhh!
Me: We're going to have to take a vote and vote some of them "off the island."
Mrs. A: Shhhh!

And if you think I embarrassed my wife, just imagine how my teenaged daughter felt about being with me.

Click here to read more . . .

Are dogs conservative?

The question I've posed in the title is asinine. Or is it? I mean, dogs tend to be loyal, extroverted, optimistic, and firm in their defense of the person they live with. Cats, not so much.

I'm not planning to write a serious essay on this topic, but I will refer you to other sources that have considered the issue, with varying degrees of seriousness.

There's even been a study that claims to have shown that liberals prefer cats and conservatives prefer dogs. Click on the image to read about it.


Here's the explanation of the chart: Percentage Owning Cats and Dogs (Blue=Dogs, Green=Cats) (VL=Very Liberal, L=Liberal, C=Conservative, VC=Very Conservative) (M=Male, F=Female)

I've raised this question whether dogs are conservative, because a reader named Alice sent me an article from the website of the magazine Nature that says this: "Dogs wag their tails to the right when they see something they want to approach, and to the left when confronted with something they want to back away from." Which easily could indicate that dogs are conservative.

It's just something you might want to consider when you contemplate discussing the upcoming presidential election with your dog.

Click here to read more . . .

Spider genitals

Reading The Voltage Gate, a fellow member of the Maryland Blogger Alliance, I discovered something I totally didn't realize: Spiders have genitals. Not only that, but certain male spiders use the tip of their genitals to "plug up" the females so that no other males can couple with them:

A male orb-web spider leaves behind a post-coital gift that helps to ensure that any subsequent offspring are his. He leaves the tip of his genitals in the females' sexual orifice, effectively blocking future males' efforts to inseminate the female, new research shows.

Let me rephrase this point: Male spiders engage in self-circumcision in order to put a chastity belt on the females.

Wow!

The amazing thing is that Maryland truck drivers aren't hanging fake spider genitals from their trailer hitches.

Click here to read more . . .