More science:

Call “pre-gaming” by any of its other names and it still translates the same for substance abuse specialists seeking strategies to control the ubiquitous “pre-party,” generally defined as a small group of students drinking together in a dorm room or other private space prior to an actual party or social event.

New research presented Friday at the U.S. Department of EducationÂ’s conference on creating safe and healthy campuses suggests that students are strategic in their approach to the pre-game, measuring their shots to obtain the bullÂ’s-eye perfect buzz, the gathering often serving not one, but multiple purposes.

An “exploratory study” of Pennsylvania students’ pre-gaming habits found that college students use pre-parties as a mechanism for getting buzzed while enjoying a safe environment, cutting costs, and short-circuiting law enforcement, bouncers and a need for a valid I.D. The students are also seeking to bond with friends and set themselves up for a sexual experience later on – two particularly telling objectives given what researchers found to be a profound sense of social anxiety and loneliness among focus group participants.

“The game is all about hooking up, having a sexual experience,” Beth DeRicco, associate director of the Center for College Health and Safety, said Friday at the conference, held in Arlington. DeRicco teamed with the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board to host focus groups at 10 of the state’s colleges this winter to study students’ nighttime rituals and their attitudes toward what DeRicco called “a real embedded culture from campus to campus about pre-gaming.”

I guess it might be getting worse, so maybe I shouldn't mock this as silly. Yes, perhaps this has always been going on -- to an extent -- but now maybe it's worse than ever before.

Thanks to Slublog, who reports he used to "pre-game" in his college days, in order to have a "nice buzz on" for "Family night" when he'd get to sit in his dormroom and beat it to Kristy MacNichol.

Who, you know, wasn't really very cute at all.

Meanwhile... Briish teens are the most sexually actve in all of Europe. 38% of fifteen year olds report having had sex.

The sexual revolution seems to have stalled out in the eighties, due mostly to AIDS, not any increase in sexual restraint, but now the spectre of death seems all but forgotten and the swinging seventies are back.

At least for teenagers.

Posted by: Ace at 03:39 PM | Comments (27)
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Yihad in Venezuela, as Clint Taylor has warned before.

I'm so glad we forced Israel into a ceasefire with them. Can't have the "cycle of violence" "spiraling out of control."

Posted by: Ace at 02:16 PM | Comments (16)
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Donors get a very special thank-you from Osama bin Ladin.

Were they punked, really, though? Isn't it equally likely Osama bin Ladin misses the "prosperity and peace" of the Clinton Administration?

Posted by: Ace at 01:48 PM | Comments (14)
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Bestiality?

Seen it.

Necrophilia?

Seen it.

You've become pretty jaded when you've got to mix the two to get a decent chubby:

A 44-year-old Saginaw man remains jailed today on charges of bestiality after he was seen engaged in sexual acts with a dead dog, Michigan State Police troopers said.

The man was arrested after police searched the area of Midland and Carter roads Friday for a man who ran away from a Bay County Animal Control officer. The entire incident was within view of a nearby day care center.

Troopers said a woman from the day care center called for animal control because there was a dead dog near the property which had been hit by a car several days earlier.

Before officers could arrive, the man showed up and began engaging in sexual acts with the dog, police said. The animal control officers also reported seeing the man involved in the sex act and as he approached the man, the man shoved him away and ran off.

Okay, just to get the triple-- was it a male dog?

Because that would be weird.

Thanks to RLW.

Posted by: Ace at 01:26 PM | Comments (61)
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So, there's a game called Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, where you goal is to build kickass rollercoasters and attract a lot of customers.

Or, you can create a Deathcoaster and kill all of your customers.

Your call.

Posted by: Ace at 01:22 PM | Comments (14)
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$600 for the machine, another $50 if you want the extra controller for a friend, and then another $30 if you want the HD cables necessary to actually get the HD picture they make such a big deal about.

Since Sony announced the price tag on the PS3 in May at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, speculation has run rampant as to whether or not consumers — even brand loyalists — would be willing to plunk down so much money on a video game console.

But since then, Sony has tried to make the argument that it's not just a video game machine you're buying but an entertainment system, and that it's an investment in a product that will be in your living room for years to come.

"The thing about the PS3 you can't forget is that it's a Blu-ray player, too," said Sam Kennedy, editor in chief of 1Up.com. "If you do have an HD TV and you want a way to watch HD movies, the PS3 is a great bargain."

Yes, but what if you don't?

What if you're a teenager who wants the game for his own non-HD-TV in his bedroom, and you just want to play games?

They're bundling two pricey bits of electronics, one of which you obviously want if you're a gamer (the actual console) and one which you may or may not want (the HD DVD player). It may be cheaper to buy them bundled, but if you don't want both, well, you're either going to have to pluck down $600-$650 for a plain old game system or go elsewhere.

This seems like an ill-conceived attempt to leverage the popularity of PS into making sure Sony's Blu-Ray technology doesn't suffer the same fate as BetaMax. I don't think it's going to work.

Posted by: Ace at 12:26 PM | Comments (29)
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Charlie Crist, running for Governor of Florida. He denies:

"The point is, I'm not," he said. "There's the answer. How do you like it?"

Lifelike Pundit blames the "Lavender Leftist Mob," but the alleged "outing" seems to come from an independent candidate (though trading in longstanding rumors, many of which are probably pushed by Democratic operatives).

I'm starting to think I'm the only non-homo in this party.

Posted by: Ace at 12:16 PM | Comments (39)
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Based on the statistic that, in the House, the candidate with more money wins 98% of the time.

As others have pointed out, though, that's largely because there are so few races in play lately, so of course the virtually-unchallenged incumbent will have more money than his unserious candidate (or no opposing candidate at all).

There now just shy of 50 contested House seats, though, way up from the usual 30.

From Stop the ACLU's exercpt:

Our analysis — based on a race-by-race examination of campaign-finance data — suggests that the GOP will hang on to both chambers, at least nominally. We expect the Republican majority in the House to fall by eight seats, to 224 of the chamber’s 435. At the very worst, our analysis suggests, the party’s loss could be as large as 14 seats, leaving a one-seat majority. But that is still a far cry from the 20-seat loss some are predicting. In the Senate, with 100 seats, we see the GOP winding up with 52, down three...

Is our method reliable? It certainly has been in the past. Using it in the 2002 and 2004 congressional races, we bucked conventional wisdom and correctly predicted GOP gains both years.

Barron's theory isn't so much that money moves elections via advertising, but that it's a better proxy for true public support than polling.

Posted by: Ace at 12:11 PM | Comments (14)
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Some silliness here.

More silliness from sidhe:

more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:41 AM | Comments (24)
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The bulls are running. The S&P's up almost 0.6% today, too.

Posted by: Ace at 11:23 AM | Comments (27)
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