In praise of “Mockingbird” October 30, 2007

This is good news.

Author Harper Lee is to be given America’s highest civilian honour by President George W Bush for her outstanding contribution to literature.

best music videos of all time

A friend of mine recently challenged me to find my list of the best music videos of all time.

Well..when I say challenged me, I mean he mentioned it to me and I accepted bravely.

This is a work in progress…so I’m not going to post them here just yet (via youtube, that is). But I will construct my list here.

So far, off the top of my head (and not in any particular order):

Van Halen: Hot for Teacher

I know..I know…it’s so wrong. And that’s what makes it so right. There’s no way this video will ever be made again. And watching Diamond Dave with the “Siddown, Waldo” makes me laugh until I pee.

Beastie Boys: Intergalactic

My friend listed Sabotage…which I agree is a spectacular vid. I just happen to like Intergalactic more because of robots.

Oh! What about, then:

BS 2000: It Feels Like

Because, well, I have a crush on Ad Rock and it makes me smile when he does.

Of course, theres:

Fatboy Slim: Praise You

Jaw droppingly brilliant in its simplicity and sweetness.

Rufus Wainwright: April Fools

Because who doesn’t want to see Rufus cover his face in mock horror?

I’ve got an Erykah Badu toss up here:

Other Side of the Game

or

Love of My Life

I think that’s it for now. It’s way past my bedtime.

see for yourself…virtually October 28, 2007

I am sad to say that in my life I’ve been to Milan only for one day, and that day wasn’t spent looking at da Vinci’s Last Supper.

But look:

You can see a super up close version of the Last Supper on Teh Interwebs.

via bbc news

have to admit, I got so excited about this that I a/ didn’t read the article I found it in and b/ haven’t even looked at the image yet. So…we’ll go in together, shall we?

UPDATE: I didn’t wait for you. It is actually very cool. Here’s a game. Pretend you’re in Chicago in 1986. Pretend you’re Cameron and you’re skipping school with your best friend and his gf. Now stare at the picture and keep zooming in.

News from down the pipe October 26, 2007

Just found this out:

The DNA pioneer James Watson retired yesterday from his post as chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York state. The move is the coda to the race row that engulfed his visit to London last week following comments he made suggesting that black people were less intelligent than whites.

It was probably about time.

Also…I have yet to find a link to it (that isn’t written by some redneck who thinks that Ezra Levant’s article on the woman school bus driver who was involved in a fatal collision last week was some sort of strike for free speech) but I believe that Ezra Levant has been excused from further Sun writing.

Hey, pal…buck up. We don’t all get to write for newspapers and sometimes we just have to rely on our blogs. I’ve been to the Western Standard blog a fair amount of times to ‘discuss’ issues and if you you’re comfortable with the level of hatred and nonsense venomously spewed out in the lengthy comment sections, then maybe that’s the best place for you.

I’m curious about the editor who allowed that article to be published. And no…this has nothing to do with ‘hard issues’ and ‘free speech’…this has to do with Ezra running his mouth on stupid shit and someone giving him some paper to do it on. If he’s allowed to do that, I should have a space in the Sun to talk about how freaking tired I get sometimes (much like the lamer posts I write here) because they offer about the same amount of journalistic information. Zero.

Anyway…blah blah blah. I’m upset because I actually read some of the Western Standard’s blog today and I was pleased to see a few commenters standing up to Ezra and his ilk, but it’s pretty disgusting. Ugh. Here. Take a look. Warning, though, it is not for the faint of heart.

Anyway…Dr. James Watson looks like Mr. Dressup by comparison to Ezra Levant, but I think both of these men needed a little “time out”.

thanks lilithattack

ahhh…don’t go changin’ Ezra October 23, 2007

lilithattack has a post on the new Ezra Levant article. Go check it out.

Note: I checked out the Western Standard blog soon after this was brought to my attention this morning. What a complete package of neatly wrapped bullshit. I don’t even know where to start. Seems like Ezra’s up to his old tricks trying to drum up readers for his crappy rag of a magazine.

ohhh…my goodness but this hurts

clearly, I’m not in the 80s anymore. I have to confess, I couldn’t even watch the whole thing yet. It was too painful. I thought Ben Stein was a different man.

I just got to the part where B O’R asks why you can’t just mention in biology or science class that they’re are ‘theologians who believe that a higher power were responsible for the first life?’…

The reason, BO’R, is that it is no longer the realm of science or biology to say so. If someone wants their kids to believe, so badly, that this ‘god’ thing brought life to our planet, then what is wrong with sending them to a religious school? I went to catholic school…I took part in ‘religious studies’ classes and there I learned what Catholics believe in. I have since left that practice…but I’ve never understood what is so difficult about this.

via Pharyngula

It’s early, but I’ll try my best

I found this article the other day: Ten Politically Incorrect Truths about Human Nature. I read it. I thought, ‘ummm…well…uh…huh?’

I can’t go into all of it right now since a/ I read it a couple of days ago and b/ I had a late night of exam marking and just woke up to a continued headache, but I’m gonna try my best here. There are two points to the article I want to address but the main point I would like to make is: I think the word ‘truths’ is stretching it.

4. Most suicide bombers are Muslim

According to the Oxford University sociologist Diego Gambetta, editor of Making Sense of Suicide Missions, a comprehensive history of this troubling yet topical phenomenon, while suicide missions are not always religiously motivated, when religion is involved, it is always Muslim. Why is this? Why is Islam the only religion that motivates its followers to commit suicide missions?

Now. Note the loophole in that particular paragraph. “…while suicide missions are not always religiously motivated, when religion is involved, it is always Muslim.” They can cite that line any time anyone brings up this:

Kamakaze pilots

I don’t buy the religion part. I mean, I do…Islam serves as a strong belief that motivates suicide bombers to perform the same act as a Kamakaze pilot did during WWII. Kill themselves in an attempt to kill others on a larger scale. Faith in their country and their service to it is what motivated Kamakaze pilots. But the article goes on to say this:

It is the combination of polygyny and the promise of a large harem of virgins in heaven that motivates many young Muslim men to commit suicide bombings. Consistent with this explanation, all studies of suicide bombers indicate that they are significantly younger than not only the Muslim population in general but other (nonsuicidal) members of their own extreme political organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. And nearly all suicide bombers are single.

Alright. This is the meat of the matter. The Western willingness to believe that “those people over there” are so very different from us “regular folk” in the West that we actually believe that 72 virgins has anything to do with it. I don’t care if every suicide bomber shrieks out “I can’t wait for those 72 virgins” before they do their horrible deed, I don’t buy it. I once heard Ayaan Hirsi Ali say (and you’ll have to believe me since I can’t find this interview anywhere to cite) that it wasn’t the 72 virgins that motivated people as much as a profound fear of hell.

That is something I am willing to accept more than this ludicrous idea that these crazy men are offing themselves at the promise of sex with 72 virgins…something which not only has the West hung their hats on, but Western commedians everywhere have built their evening shows around. But what I really think…these people are killing themselves for the same reason that kamakaze pilots killed themselves. Honour and foolishness…they were convinced that it was something important they needed to do. They have a strong belief and nothing to lose. Sex has nothing to do with the age and marital status of the men who suicide bomb, as the article suggests. Young people are most often those who involve themselves in social protest (see, like, every university) and single men don’t have families and responsibilities.

More examples of protest suicides without the promise of ‘otherworldly sex’: Buddhist monks protesting the Vietnam war

10. Men sexually harrass women because they are not sexist

Abuse, intimidation, and degradation are all part of men’s repertoire of tactics employed in competitive situations. In other words, men are not treating women differently from men—the definition of discrimination, under which sexual harassment legally falls—but the opposite: Men harass women precisely because they are not discriminating between men and women.

And once again we have come to the same tired explanation of bad behaviour on men’s parts (or bad behavour of men’s parts *rimshot*). Men are evolutionarily, or biologically, predisposed to bad behaviour. The “we’re pigs…we can’t help it…we were made that way” argument that has been sold to us. The very reason women in some countries must cover their entire bodies, women need chaperones and that date rape is such a “grey area”. Men have so successfully sold us on the idea that they just ‘can’t act right’. What do you expect, they’re men?

I say, ‘bitch, please’

I know a whole whack of smart men who act right. Manly men, too. In fact, they are more manly for it, in my book. I know that the wives or girlfriends of some of these men do not concern themselves as to where they are or who they’re with. The single ones are, though certainly not eunichs, respectful and honest.

God..I forgot where I was…oh yeah. I don’t believe for a second that men who sexually harrass women think, deep down, that they’re doing the right thing by acting as though she’s ‘one of the guys’. What the researchers have failed to examine is the type of harrassment that is deemed bullying versus sexual harrassment versus the art of shit talking your opponent (like so many men (and some women) while in competition). In fact, I’m surprised that the researchers didn’t differentiate between these behaviours. Yesterday, my collegues and I, upon watching a presentation on the prosodic tone of sarcasm, discussed and thought about several types of tone that can be attributed to sarcasm (because we are a thrilling bunch). These researchers on harrassment didn’t take into account different types of harrassment? Shame.

I think that’s it for today, children. Morning rants sure take it out of Mama Himbly.

Update on hilarious old scientist October 19, 2007

Looks like action was taken:

The Nobel Prize-winning DNA pioneer James Watson has been suspended by his research institution in the US.

That sounds about right. I mean, if you have a scientist working with your team and who so g-damn clearly has no understanding of current science…then what is he doing on your team?

Apparently, Watson has sort of retracted his earlier statement:

The scientist has since said that the way the words were presented did not reflect properly his position.

“I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in the ways they have,” he said.

“To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologise unreservedly.

“That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief.”

That’s not what you meant? Sure sounded like what you meant. This is the most obvious backpedaling it hurts to read. I don’t believe for a second that he woke up the other day and thought to himself, ‘ohhhh…no, I better explain what I actually meant’.

UPDATE:

PZ Myers at Pharyngula feels differently based upon free speech.

I certainly understand what he is saying and I would have asked him why it might have not been on the basis of bad science in the comments, but the poor man has got himself caught up trying to argue against very ignorant people. I understand where he’s at. I just wanted to have representation of this side of the coin.

Effing great.

I’m up late…again…but this time not due to a/ work guilt, b/ second wind, c/ taking a nap earlier, or d/ coffee. This time I’m up become three fucking guys broke into my building about an hour and a half ago. Then they took off.

I got nothing to say. I’m tired and pissed off.

Poppa Trump can jump up his own ass October 18, 2007

So, I guess Trump was on Larry King the other day and said this:

Angelina Jolie is sort of amazing because everyone thinks she’s like this great beauty. And I’m not saying she’s an unattractive woman, but she’s not beauty, by any stretch of the imagination. And now she’s like a representative of the United Nations and world peace on hunger and all of this crap.

You know, I”m amazed at how many people think that the work Angelina Jolie does is horseshit. But that’s neither here nor there…I’m not here to talk about her work. Suffice to say, publicity or not, there’s attention drawn to a topic and people that need attention.

And…by that quote, I don’t necessarily mean to dispute his opinion of beauty. Me, I think she’s beautiful…I think she’s had a past and I think she’s changed a lot in her life and has started moving in a very good direction. So…Trump doesn’t think that AJ is beautiful. Okay. This is what got me riled:

And now she’s like this great beauty who is representing world peace and the United Nations. It’s called give me a break. But she’s not — in terms of beauty, she’s not a great beauty. She’s a nice looking woman. She’s OK. But she’s not a great beauty.

KING: And it’s your opinion.

TRUMP: Well, it’s my opinion.

KING: (INAUDIBLE).

TRUMP: I really understand beauty. And I will tell you, she’s not — I do own Miss. Universe. I do own Miss. USA. I mean I own a lot of different things. I do understand beauty, and she’s not.

You understand beauty, Mr Trump? Because you own a crappy, archaic, young-woman-mill you’re the expert on beauty? And by saying this, aren’t you betraying the whole facade that this is a competition for the whole woman? Nope…you actually are just interested in their bodies and faces and whatever else they have is an edge over the competition.

*puke*

Let’s check out Poppa Trump at work.

remember that? one of his girls did some bad things (of which, at her age, I did far worse) and now she’s labeled as an alcoholic and a drug addict. He shamed her, but then he made himself the hero by giving her a second chance. Wait…let me show you:

KING: Oh, when you forgave that winner of the contest, yes.

TRUMP: Right. Because I gave somebody a second chance — a drug addict, an alcoholic, you know, Miss. USA — who, Tara. Tara Connor. A wonderful girl. I gave her a second chance and Rosie went nuts.

What a dick. I’m not saying that Tara Connor isn’t an idiot for doing what she did when she knew she was in the public eye, but I do take issue with Trump’s a-hole spin on these things.

To summarize: Trump can jump up his own ass.

O.M.G. – awkward

I’m sure you’ve all heard of Watson as in the famous Watson and Crick…those who brought you DNA. Well, they didn’t bring you DNA…they just told you that you it was all twisty. Anyway…guess what I just read:

Dr James Watson, who won the Nobel Prize for his part in discovering the structure of DNA, was due to speak at the venue on Friday.

okay…cool. He’s probably have lots to say…go on…

But the museum has cancelled the event, saying Dr Watson’s views go “beyond the point of acceptable debate”.

goodness! What? But he’s such an important scientific figure!

In an interview with The Sunday Times, the 79-year-old said he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really”.

*blink blink*…uh…what?

He went on to say he hoped everyone was equal but that “people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true”.

*silence*……….ha…hah….hahahahahahahahaha…AAAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Holy crap, really? Dang. I hate when scholars/anyone get all weird like that. It’s a shame, really. Thanks for the double helix, blathering racist old man.

For the record, I still think they should have let him talk. Let him prove himself to be out of his league with the “tests have shown” and the “black employees” crap.

UPDATE:

Turns out I didn’t read the last paragraph…

The scientist has courted controversy in the past, saying that a woman should have the right to abort her unborn child …

oh? yes? you are a feminist, though? oh, I see…you’re not finished…

… if tests could determine it would be homosexual.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…oh, gramps. You get me every time.

UPDATE:

Greg Laden weighs in:

I assert, here and now, that Dr. Watson’s remarks indicate that he is of substandard intelligence. I say this because he must know better … he is a scientist who has worked in ancillary areas, and there is simply no way that he is not familiar with the relevant scientific literature. Therefore, he must be stupid. At least, that is what the empirical evidence strongly suggests at this point.

Thanks to Greg Laden, the author of this article. You should read it.

via pharyngula

Ann Spears October 13, 2007

How is Ann Coulter not a political Britney Spears?

She’s got her fans, she’s definitely got her detractors, she creates big stirs. They love her, they hate her and everyone watches her. But in the end, is she actually saying anything of worth? She says things to shock, she says things to get people riled up and she starts debates, but is there anything in what she says that’s worth a dime?

Not really, in this blogger’s opinon. Let’s watch:

When someone talks like this…the way she’s done here…there’s no actual content that you can use. You might as well just treat it as wind blowing past you. However, like Britney Spears, I wrack my brains trying to figure out her appeal.

Yet! And yet! I see this. Henry Rollins’ response:

Dude. I thought you were on our side. I mean, yeah…we all want Ann Coulter to shut the fuck up, but what’s with the tired BDSM imagery? Is that the best you’ve got? To suggest that Ann Coulter become your bitch? Wtf, Henry Rollins?

Am I the only one who thinks the whole domination/submission thing is played out? I mean, if it’s your thing…great…but I wish everyone would stop selling it as though it’s the hottest new thing on the block. It’s as old as the hills and as sexy as your neighbours on ‘role playing’ night.

I am not suggesting HR is sexist…he’s not (from what I know of the guy, and frankly, it’s not much…not even from my “punk years” (I secretly listened to Bob Dylan the whole time)). Just, I mean, come on. She’ll be your servant/sex slave and ‘shut the fuck up’? Even women we don’t like deserve a bit more creativity than that, no?

‘kay…so this is better:

Not a massive fan of Adam Corolla, but it got the point across. Nicely done.

–X-Files theme here– October 12, 2007

I’m not sure I”m swayed in either direction when it comes to the ‘life on other planets’ debate. There might be, there might not be.

I, however, don’t particularly believe that aliens have ever come to this planet. It just seems so unlikely. The probability of us is pretty staggering…but believable. The probability of other, more advanced, life forms in the universe is even more staggering…but…well…still believable, I guess. Who knows.

The probability that one should visit the other…I don’t know. I just can’t wrap my head around it.

Anyway…my point is not to try to work out my issues on the universe via the ol’ bloggity, but to introduce this news item:

The switch has been thrown on a telescope specifically designed to seek out alien life. … Funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen the finished array will have 350 6m antennas and will be one of the world’s largest.

The ATA is being run by the SETI Institute and the Radio Astronomy Laboratory from the University of California, Berkeley.

“For SETI, the ATA’s technical capabilities exponentially increase our ability to search for intelligent signals, and may lead to the discovery of thinking beings elsewhere in the universe,” said Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute in a statement.

I mean holy shit. In a society where alien abductions are kinda laughable (except Sammy Hagar’s…it’s true. Google it.), alien autopsies are faked and alien dolls are marketable toys, it just seems like an insane amount of money to put towards finding life in such a vast area. Vast! The universe, I think, falls under the heading of “vast areas”.

More boobies…. October 10, 2007

Yeah. I bet most of you don’t get to go to work and see boobies that regularly. Some of you do, I’m sure, but most of you don’t. Ha! Now, how often has seening boobies been directly involved with doing a master’s thesis?? Double Ha!

Again…I got to see boobies at the lab. Oh! Ha! (again). I lied last time to protect the boobie lady…she breastfed while at the lab and just before I started the experiment. But that was long enough ago that I don’t even remember who it was anymore, so I’m sure I can come clean about that now.

Today I was in a similar situation where the baby was hungry. This time I got a bit of forewarning: “do you mind if I feed her before we start?”

Suddenly, my (male) collegue was nowhere to be found. haha.

“yeah…no problem”, I said, “do you want some privacy? I can close the door.”

“nah, you can leave the door open, I don’t care. You can stay and talk, too, unless you’re shy or something.”

That, friends, was the woman being kind enough to give me an out. Me, however…I interpreted it as a challenge so I kinda gulped and said, ‘uh, no…I’m fine’ and sat on the floor across from her (she was on the floor, too).

Actually, it wasn’t that uncomfortable at all. The mother was a very nice and calm woman, so it put me at ease. I have to admit something, though, that I realized only a little bit later. I TOTALLY stared.

I admit it. I stared at the lady with a baby latched onto her boob. I would like to go on here about the miracle of birth and the mother/child bond and the beauty of such an intimate moment, but the truth is that none of these things crossed my mind. This is what crossed my mind, though:

1- if you are in a room and a baby is in the room, too…it is very difficult not to look at the baby.

2- if you are in a room and an uncovered boob is in the room, too…it’s even more difficult not to look at the boob

3- if those two objects (the baby and the boob) were at opposite ends of the room, it would be a difficult choice as to what to look at and so you’d spend your time behaving as though you were watching tennis

4- if those two objects are in close proximity to each other…joined, even…you’re going to stare at the new object made of babies and boobies because, holy crap, how often do you see that 10:30 am?

So, I watched as the baby fed. Not to be completely without depth, I did think, ‘holy shit! we make food for kids!’ part way through, but then I kept talking to the woman and staring at her boob and baby. It was quite a cool moment. I think I might do the same the next time it happens to me.

update re: me October 9, 2007

good to be back. My computer is healthy and lovely and all is well except for burning cds and that’s a little irritating but I’m sure we can fix it. Maybe she’s like a pet who gets pissed when they’re away from you for awhile so she’s making me throw out once perfectly good cds. Bitch.

I didn’t mean that.

So, I came home today and goofed off. Then I napped (apparently goofing off was tiring). Woke up ready to start the work I need to do (there is lots of it) then realized that, though there’s lots to do…none of it is really all that pressing and I worked all weekend so back to goofing off.

Once I made that very informed decision, it was like all those objects associated with things I need to do decided to march on me like an army. Banners were waved saying, “yeah, but I need done ASAP so that my friend here can move forward…” and “don’t forget me…november is just around the corner”. I’m back to feeling guilty and we (my stuff) and I negotiated some blog time and then I’ll work.

Plus I’ll write it in “my list”…”my list” has, in conjunction with “my dayplanner” ruled my life.

So…what’s been up with me? Things have been going rather well. My work is moving forward reasonably well, the learning curve that I experienced when I started to TA this current course has evened out a bit (still steep, but I’m faking it better and feeling less guilty when I answer a question with ‘yeah, I’m not sure but I’ll check on that’). Money is short…in fact, when I found out how much less I’m making this semester, my breath was short, too. But, I’m not starving and it’s not like I”ve got a fast paced social life filled with fast cars, loose women and expensive nights out on the town.

Back to talking about my work. What prompted me to write this little update was something I read in facebook. A cousin of mine wrote something about counting down to the weekend…again. My first reaction was, ‘huh? It’s only Tuesday!’ but then I realized something. I remember one reason I got into this life and out of my old one was because I hated hated HATED the idea of living for my weekends. That I would only really appreciate 2/7ths of my life…because, also, not much was going on in my evenings that I could write home about.

I’ve just backspaced my way out of about 4 semi-paragraphs in an attempt to describe how I now feel about the things I do every day. Each one of those deleted passages was too sappy and embarrassing to recall here. Suffice to say that I no longer look for the weekends to redeem myself and allow me to do what I want to do. I’m doing what I want to do all the time now. It feels good.

Funny, though…as much as I would like to write about my research here I just can’t bring myself to do it.