Hot Ukranian reformist Yulia Tymoshenko on a motorcycle. Biker leather and the Princess Leia cinnamon buns-- nice.

Posted by: Ace at 07:04 PM | Comments (40)
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...can be found here, with a link to a free podcast program.

The show went okay today, but... apparently there was some concern over content and parts have been edited out.

Not sure exactly what was so bad, but Bill from INDC's question about "spanking the monkey" was cut out. I haven't listened yet so I don't know what else was edited out.

Bill's always causing problems, isn't he?

Eh. I don't think anyone went over the line. Not sure why any of this was so bad it had be cut, but whatever.

Thanks to MacStansbury for tipping me to that.

Posted by: Ace at 03:09 PM | Comments (152)
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You're the 5,000,000th visitor.

If this could be you, and you care at all, drop me an email and I'll check your IP address.

Really, this is sorta dumb, but now that I promised someone a D&D figure, I guess I have to follow through.

Update: It turns out that SiteMeter tells you someone's visitor number, so I know now that the 5,000,000 was from a rr account, and I know the beginning of the IP address. It starts with 65.

Also: You're on IE, have a 1280 x 1024 resolution, and are from North Carolina. Or at least that's where the IP address is based.

Again, this is dumb, but if this is you, let me know.

Posted by: Ace at 02:40 PM | Comments (50)
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The New Editor quotes this bit from Sowell, complaining that too many people have simply decided that the the facts should fit their beliefs, rather than vice versa:

Even institutions that are set up to pass on facts -- the media, schools, academia -- too often treat facts as expendable and use their strategic positions to filter out facts which go against their own preconceptions.

Indeed. But it's not "even" institutions that are set up to pass on facts-- it's especially such institutions. Perhaps it is because of their declining influence that they feel the need to more severely edit reality to conform to their worldviews, making up for their loss of influence by increasing the stridency and dishonesty by which they seek to influence.

Posted by: Ace at 12:58 PM | Comments (25)
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...coming up within an hour or so. Maybe around 6:45 Eastern time.

I skipped noting the 4 millionth unique hit, but I guess 5 is a cooler number, because it's five. Four is a boring number, stuck between interesting numbers three and five. No one ever says "I'll count to four before I blow your head off."

Thanks for continuing to visit here for your moron news, even though the blog hasn't been great lately. Eh, what do you care. You morons come here to talk to each other and to watch Michael make an ass of himself hitting on anything that types.

But thanks for coming. I do appreciate it.

What does the 5,000,000th visitor win? Well, if I can figure out who it is, I'll send you something dorky. Like a D&D Miniatures goblin. Maybe a couple of 8-sided dice. Something stupid like that. To cherish.

Thanks to Alessandra for the headline suggestion.

Posted by: Ace at 12:33 PM | Comments (37)
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Terrorists claimed to have shot down an American helicopter, and provided video of the glorious victory.

Al Jazeera ran the footage; Reuters reported on the terrorists' claims.

One problem: Check out the screenshot of the video. In the corner of the screen, the video CLEARLY identifies itself as having been shot in 2000.

Multiple levels of painstaking editorial fact-checking and etc.

Posted by: Ace at 10:46 AM | Comments (18)
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Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom once again joins as cohost on Hoist the Black Flag. Click here at 4:05 Eastern.

No guest today, so we'll be discussing the recent news. Of course, you can be a special surprise guest by calling in at 866-884-TALK and giving us a piece of your mind.

Topics for the day will include McCain's "embrace" of the Christian right, Cynthia "Slappy" McKinney, Democratic dirty tricks on immigration, how George Bush made Basic Instict 2 bomb at the box office, Zarqawi's demotion, and bias at the NYT and BBC. Plus-- fairies.

And some stuff about King Kong, which we both saw recently.

And whatever callers might want to talk about. We're desperate here, guys.

Posted by: Ace at 09:57 AM | Comments (57)
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Priceless media quotes from 2005.

Here's the Quote of the Year:

Ted Turner: "I am absolutely convinced that the North Koreans are absolutely sincere. ThereÂ’s really no reason for them to cheat [on nukes]....I looked them right in the eyes. And they looked like they meant the truth. I mean, you know, just because somebodyÂ’s done something wrong in the past doesnÂ’t mean they canÂ’t do right in the future or the present. That happens all the, all the time."

Wolf Blitzer: "But this is one of the most despotic regimes and Kim Jong-Il is one of the worst men on Earth. IsnÂ’t that a fair assessment?"

Turner: "Well, I didn’t get to meet him, but he didn’t look — in the pictures that I’ve seen of him on CNN, he didn’t look too much different than most other people I’ve met."

Blitzer: "But, look at the way, look at the way heÂ’s, look at the way heÂ’s treating his own people."

Turner: "Well, hey, listen. I saw a lot of people over there. They were thin and they were riding bicycles instead of driving in cars, but–"

Blitzer: "A lot of those people are starving."

Turner: "I didnÂ’t see any, I didnÂ’t see any brutality...."
— Exchange on CNN’s The Situation Room, September 19.

Posted by: LauraW. at 08:36 AM | Comments (23)
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Well! It seems Ron Burgundy was right:

Your brains are one third the size of ours. It's science.

It's a thesis that manages to insult men by calling them cruel slavemasters who treat women like chickens, and also manages to insult women by calling them, brain-wise, chickens.

WHY DO WOMEN have smaller brains than men? Male brains weigh around 1.25kg; female brains weigh on average 100g less.
One possible answer comes from an unexpected study of foxes. In 1959 Dmitri Belyaev, a Russian geneticist, launched a long-term experiment to tame foxes. Starting with a population of caged wild animals, he selected from each generation the puppies who were friendliest (or, initially, least hostile) to humans, breeding only from them.

After 35 generations he produced animals that had been transformed from the usual snarling fearfulness of wild foxes into animals that were similar to domestic dogs. The tamed foxes wagged their tails, whined for affection, were submissive, barked like dogs and their ears flopped. As Darwin said: “Not a single domestic animal can be named which has not in some country drooping ears.” Belyaev seems to have concertinaed all this into 50 years when it took 10,000 years to domesticate wolves as dogs.

And the tame foxesÂ’ brains were smaller. Domestic animals generally do have small brains. On average, domestic dog, cat, sheep and pig brains weigh 25 per cent less than those of wild animals. The mechanism remains a mystery. A recent study by Elena Jazin and her colleagues from Uppsala University in Sweden, published in Current Biology, reported that of 30,000 brain genes about 40 showed differences between tame and wild foxes. All we do know is that blood levels of stress hormones are lower in tame than wild animals and that brain levels of anti-stress hormones are higher.

But would it be dangerous to suppose that womenÂ’s brains are smaller than menÂ’s because, over the millennia, we men have been selecting friendly women with whom to breed? And that therefore we have domesticated them? And that they, in turn, have selected assertive men?

It would be a dangerous to suppose that within earshot of most of the women I know, yes.

It's not all a downer, though, ladies:

In any event, small brain size seems to optimise emotional intelligence.

As nasty a supposition as this is, for both sexes, there may be something to it. And awful lot of the brain is taken up with hand-eye coordination and spatial relationship estimations -- stuff that men would be expected to use more of, being the hunters, and so maybe the difference in sex roles bred men with bigger areas of the brain dedicated to these sorts of tasks than women have.

But that could just mean the bulk of the difference in brain size occupied by baseball-throwing-and-catching sort of tasks.

Meanwhile, the shoe-selection-and-appreciation part of women's brains (the "footwear cortex") is said to be friggin' enormous.

Thanks to Piglito.

Posted by: Ace at 08:15 AM | Comments (91)
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But of course he does, darling.

He's on Al Jazeera, preening like the evil terrorist-supporting peacock he is. As a little bonus, as he debates Richard Perle, he Jew-baits him by saying, twice and for no apparent reason, "Show me the sheckles."

I really have to stress that that line is entirely unconnected to anything in the debate. They're not talking about bribery or the need for proof, or anything else that could make "Show me the sheckles" make sense as anything but an old-school Jewish slur.

There's real evil in the world, but the New York Times and other liberal media are too busy covering up for it to actually cover it.

Thanks to Craig.

Posted by: Ace at 08:02 AM | Comments (12)
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