Plus the local neigborhood.

Here's him building another one:

dri again. I know, I'm avoiding anything important. I'm under the weather and a bit stupid today.

Posted by: Ace at 12:30 PM | Comments (11)
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Public Pole-Dancing content warning. Also, a content warning for Prince's Erotic City.

The story:

The N train may need to be changed to the NC-17 and the L could be dubbed the lap dance express.

That's because commuters on the lines got their two bucks worth - and then some - when four leggy New Yorkers set out to turn the subway cars into strip-club Champagne lounges.

On a dare from a Web site promising $10,000 for the best pole dancing in public, the quartet took a ride on the wild side and their winning video has become a rage on the Internet.

...

Gal pals Jessica Wu, Marissa Lupp and Isis Masoud joined Anderson for the hip-grinding stunt that had male riders ogling and skipping their stops, females smirking - and the MTA fuming.

"The last thing we want is for anyone to turn our subways into roving burlesque stages for crude exhibitionists," said NYC Transit spokesman Paul Fleuranges.

I don't know about "last." I would say "third."

...

"Strip dancing in public can be a little nerve racking, but we were all broke and in between jobs and it seemed like a good way to make some cash," said Masoud, an aspiring actress and choreographer.

...

Filmed with a Sony Handycam and edited by Masoud, the women submitted their video to Darejunkies.com and collected the grand prize.

Thanks to dri.

Posted by: Ace at 12:12 PM | Comments (25)
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It's true and it's fabulous!

From the article:

A new study finds that both drugs and genetic manipulation can turn the homosexual behavior of fruit flies on and off within a matter of hours.

That drug that turns gayness on and off? Ecstasy

While the genetic finding supports the thinking that homosexuality is hard-wired, the drug finding surprisingly suggests it's not that simple.

In fact, homosexuality in the fruit flies seems to be regulated by how they interpret the scent of another.

I'm beginning to understand the conundrum that is French masculinity now.

In the new work, University of Illinois at Chicago researcher David Featherstone and coworkers discovered a gene in fruit flies they call "genderblind," or GB. A mutation in GB turns flies bisexual.

In humans this "gene" is known as "appletinis" and "Madonna Concerts."

Post-doctoral researcher Yael Grosjean found that all male fruit flies with a mutation in their GB gene courted other males.

"It was very dramatic," Featherstone said. "The GB mutant males treated other males exactly the same way normal male flies would treat a female. They even attempted copulation."

Fly on Fly action is HOTT! Just ask Larry Craig. He's known to keep a sharp eye out for flies.

"Based on our previous work, we reasoned that GB mutants might show homosexual behavior because their glutamatergic synapses were altered in some way," Featherstone said. "Homosexual courtship might be sort of an 'overreaction' to sexual stimuli."

GB Mutants. Putting the S-E-X in Professor X since 2007.

The team figured fly brains maintain two sensory circuits: one to trigger heterosexual behavior and one for homosexual. When GB suppresses glutamatergic synapses, the homosexual circuit is blocked, the thinking goes.

So they did more tests. As expected, without GB to suppress synapse strength, the flies no longer interpreted smells the same way. The smells in question come in the form of pheromones, chemicals that affect sexual behavior in much of the animal kingdom.

Pheromones? More like Fairy-Moans if you ask me.

It is not known, however, to what extent human attraction is affected by pheromones. A study in 2005 found that when smelling a chemical from testosterone, portions of the human brains active in sexual activity were turned on in gay men and straight women, but not in straight men.

But at least among fruit flies, "pheromones are powerful sexual stimuli," Featherstone said. "As it turns out, the GB mutant flies were perceiving pheromones differently. Specifically, the GB mutant males were no longer recognizing male pheromones as a repulsive stimulus."

So, I guess, science is telling us that "teh ghey" could be cured with just a little help from the aromatherapy section at Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Which confuses me, because as we all know, aromatherapy is completely gay.

It's the little unexpected irony's in life that make it worth living. Well that and the invariable Sullivan freakout.

We might even have to resurrect the Sullivan Freak Out Index once he gets word of this development!

Posted by: Jack M. at 11:50 AM | Comments (35)
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Alas, the battle of Musa Qala didn’t produce the hoped for surge in demand for Allah supplied virgins. The only town held by elements of the Taliban is back in the hands of the Afghan National Army and international forces.

The Taleban withdrew after telling local elders that they would not fight street by street after heavy aerial bombardment during the night.

According to our correspondent they will easily disappear into the mountains to the north of the town, dressed as they are in the same way as the local residents, with the distinctive black turban worn in the south of Afghanistan.

However, they are expected to regroup and try to stage a counter-attack, our correspondent says, so the task for Nato and Afghan forces now is to dig in and fortify their positions.

The British are planning to set up a small base in Musa Qala, but the defence of the town will be led by Afghan forces.

Apparently taking on the Afghan Army backed by 3,000 UK troops and a couple of hundred American soldiers and airpower was a little more than they bargained for. Unfortunately, these cowards will simply go back to doing what they do best…executing children.

Posted by: DrewM. at 10:13 AM | Comments (22)
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Alas, the battle of Musa Qala didnÂ’t produce the hoped for surge in demand for Allah supplied virgins. The only town held by elements of the Taliban is back in the hands of the Afghan National Army and international forces.

The Taleban withdrew after telling local elders that they would not fight street by street after heavy aerial bombardment during the night.

According to our correspondent they will easily disappear into the mountains to the north of the town, dressed as they are in the same way as the local residents, with the distinctive black turban worn in the south of Afghanistan.

However, they are expected to regroup and try to stage a counter-attack, our correspondent says, so the task for Nato and Afghan forces now is to dig in and fortify their positions.

The British are planning to set up a small base in Musa Qala, but the defence of the town will be led by Afghan forces.

Apparently taking on the Afghan Army backed by 3,000 UK troops and a couple of hundred American soldiers and airpower was a little more than they bargained for. Unfortunately, these cowards will simply go back to doing what they do bestÂ…executing children.

Posted by: DrewM at 10:13 AM | Comments (22)
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In case you wanted more information about Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., the former Deputy Director of Operations at the center of the controversy over destruction of CIA interrogation tapes, the NYTimes has a pretty thorough article. He's about to get raked over the coals for this, so it's nice to know more about him.

The article recounts Rodriguez's many years of service and describes some of his exploits. Congressman Silvestre Reyes calls him "American Hero." The article put me in mind of what moron SGT Dave wrote this weekend about the intelligence community facing difficult choices:

If the tapes were destroyed to hide illegal actions, the boss should fry. If, however, the boss destroyed the tapes because some damn weasel was going to give them to a congresscritter who was then going to pass them to the NYFT to pass out the identities of our interrogators, then the boss just did what he is supposed to do. Protect the F'ing source and your people. Safeguard the information. Accept responsibility and act decisively. In this case, throw self under bus instead of your troops.

That last line may be gospel; with the change in congress possibly forcing a re-alignment at the Justice Department, the man in charge made a call. Should he be fired for it? Probably. Was it still the right call? Yes.

I'm sure we'll be hearing more about this, though I hope that this is my last post about it for a while.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 09:03 AM | Comments (21)
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Over the weekend, President Bush told the Democrats that the mega-sized spending bill, intended as a compromise so Democrats can fund some extra projects while Republicans get war funding, would be vetoed if it is overbudget. It is nice to see congressional Republicans working with the president:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who was the first to suggest the outlines of the spending deal, also objected yesterday to its price tag, saying that the $11 billion in extra funds being sought by Democrats is "too much to ask of the American taxpayer."

This is going to be in the news this week because the continuing resolution which has funded the government since the new fiscal year expires on Friday.

Jack, you have any insight into the process?

UPDATE [Jack M.]- As a matter of fact, yes. But rather than type it all out, I'm going to cut and paste a "hot of the press", um, press release that I just got from House Minority Leader Boehner's office.

Pay attention to the use of the phrase "ping-pong." This might be the only example where you can use it and not conjure up images of extremely talented Thai hookers.

Oh wait..it's a dem Congress. Never mind. Press release below the fold. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:09 AM | Comments (17)
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Pardon him. Now would be fine. Just do it.

Posted by: Dave In Texas at 07:47 AM | Comments (17)
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Michael Totten has posted a new dispatch from Fallujah. And, as usual, it is filled with awesomeness:

“What was the most intense thing you experienced?” I said.

“Personally?” he said. “It would have to be the initial push. By training I am a mortar man. We have these 60mm mortars, and our section had to carry our gear. We had to carry our tubes. The system weighs about 117 pounds, and we split that out between three guys. And everyone carried rounds that weighed about eight pounds each, and we'd have to carry about eight of those. Plus our combat load. We would wake up at dawn, fire our guns, pack everything up, get on line with the elevens, and just keep pushing through everything. It sucked a lot of times. It seemed like every time you were ready to take a break, it's like they knew, and that's when all the fire fights started. It seemed like it never happened when you were fresh.”

Update: It looks like Totten's site went down right after I posted this. Was it taken down by a Moron Monsoon?*

*Sort of like an Instalanche but surlier.

Posted by: Open Blog at 07:38 AM | Comments (13)
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Some thread on the Boston Globe message boards asks the question:

Compulsory Voting?
Many countries, for example Australia, practice compulsory voting. Basically you get fined if you are an eligible voter and don't vote. As you would expect, voter turnout in such places tends to be very high.

Do you think it would be a good thing if the US adopted such a practice? Why?

I've long believed that if "any of the above", and "none of the above" were included in all elections that none of the above would win a plurality in quite a few elections. I also believe that the "none of the above" candidate taking a plurality would end all this talk of "mandates" that politicians love to babble about. Duly chastened politicians seems like a good thing to me.

I would love a way to tap the silent majority, but criminalizing non-voting isn't the way to do it.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 07:31 AM | Comments (44)
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