I missed getting to post this apparently awesome story about a man who grew back about a half inch of severed finger, supposedly using some "cellular matrix" which he calls "pixie dust" which induces cells not to grow scar tissue, the useless hole-plugging spackle of the human body, but instead grow the missing tissue back just the way it had been.

Instapundit has updates, with some saying it's junk science and nonsense, and others arguing this might be real.

It sounds a bit like cold fusion to me. If it's this easy, how come it's never been done before? Before penicillin was refined into a true drug, people did use mold on bread to attempt to stop infections; they noticed it worked sometimes. If something as simple as ground-up pig bladder matter can induce regeneration of lost digits, how come no one ever in the history of medicine ever noticed a similar but lesser effect before? Even if this "cellular matrix" is a refined and potent tissue-growing agent, surely less refined and less potent analogues should have been discovered to have lesser, but noticeable, tissue-growing properties before.

Shouldn't there be a whole trove of folk wisdom about the benefits of rubbing pig-guts on cuts to reduce scarring and so forth?

It's also a bit sketchy that the man who grew back the finger... just happens to have gotten the pixy dust from his brother, who's working on his magic regenerative powder.

Posted by: Ace at 04:42 PM | Comments (41)
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I don't care what your politics or background is, that right there is hot.

Actual caption: "Sexual coercion among animals is extremely common."

It's the way they're raised, man.

Via Fark.

Posted by: Ace at 02:53 PM | Comments (68)
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I'm super rich, but I don't want women to love me for my money, so I can only meet you anonymously through Craigslist, but seriously, I am rich. But I'm not going to show it or spend a lot of money on you, because I don't want you to like me for that.

But I have a tender side. Sometimes, I see a hobo. And when I see the hobo, I think to myself, "This man is poor. His monetary value is low, and my monetary value is high, and it's a shame that he is himself. What can I do?"

I ask the hobo if he would rather have booze or money to buy booze. If he says he wants the money, I don't give it to him because I know he'll buy booze with it. But if he says he wants the booze, I give him the money because I value honesty, even among lying hobos.

Read through it. He really wants you to come over for a shared solo in his model train room and then stomp around and kick over the trains "like a giant monster."

Now that's what I call a mantuary.

Thanks to PetiteDov and Ken.

Posted by: Ace at 02:33 PM | Comments (19)
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No retraction, no explanation. No integrity.

Posted by: Ace at 01:20 PM | Comments (32)
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I concede: Yes. Very yes.

When Vicki and Brian Meldrum bought their first home four years ago in Cleveland, they made a pact: She could decorate and furnish the rest of the 1,110-square-foot house however she wanted, but the 15-by-10-foot finished basement was his.

Brian Meldrum filled his "man cave" in the basement with vintage movie posters and sports memorabilia.

...

But for Brian, it's not just about holding onto the ratty futon and the "Fletch" movie poster from his bachelor days. It's about having a "mantuary," or "man cave" -- a space just for him where he can watch sports uninterrupted or play Xbox games with his buddies.

...

But retreating to the cave will only get a guy so far.

"I work with a lot with couples where it's an issue that the guy is always on the computer and the gal is feeling like he's not there for her," Brody says. "The man cave in many instances can be more harmful than helpful because it develops distance, it establishes a barrier, and people take it personally."

An all-or-nothing approach to spending time together (or apart) is never the answer, Brody says: Talk it out and split the difference.

"As ridiculous as the idea of watching six hours of golf is to my wife, that's how ridiculous the idea of watching six hours of 'America's Next Top Model' is to me," Brian Meldrum says.

...

"It doesn't have to be Batman. It's just a place where somebody goes and has a meaningful experience," Brody says.

"Meaningful experience." Why, I've heard some Japanese officials have 2,800 such meaningful experiences per day.

Posted by: Ace at 12:40 PM | Comments (78)
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Understandable, I guess.

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has been avoiding stops in black communities in his quest to become the first black major party nominee for the U.S. presidency.

Isaac Onah, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina, told the Boston Globe that black voters appear to understand Obama's campaign strategy.

...

Darryl Carson, a 41-year-old industrial clerk, told the Globe he sees Obama "walking a thin line." He believes other black voters in North Carolina will be there for Obama where it matters, in the voting booth, the newspaper said.

I want your vote, but I can't be seen with you.

I guess I really do get this. The fear of being branded "the black candidate," which, uh, is what he is and what he's been running on. No one's called him the "Tangible, Detailed Policy Proposal" candidate. He's running on "change" and "hope" which would just be even more jejune and empty from a white guy. The change he offers is a black president, and only that, and the hope he offers is that a black president will simply by his existence heal racial wounds. And that's it.

As they say, the medium is the message. Barack Obama, and more specifically his race*, is the medium and the message.

* On his 2000 census form he listed his race as "Other/Lenny Kravitz."

Thanks to dri.

Posted by: Ace at 12:01 PM | Comments (52)
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780,000 hits in 9 months.

That's over 2800 hits a day.

The man, a Kinokawa city government employee in western Japan, visited porn sites from June 2007 to February 2008, city official Tomiko Waki said. The man's name was withheld.

Morons, take note. He only got demoted, not fired, and hit with a $190/month pay cut. There's a threshold here somewhere, I'm just not sure what it is.

I am beginning to understand though why Japanese men prefer bowing instead of shaking hands.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 11:28 AM | Comments (42)
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Did the leftwing dishonest media inadvertently conspire to spare the country a recession?

I'll explain after this.

Wall Street shot higher Thursday as investors, while anticipating another dismal jobs report Friday, viewed the rising dollar and falling oil prices as promising signs for the economy. The Dow Jones industrial average soared nearly 190 points to close above 13,000 for the first time since Jan. 3.

The dollar jumped on better-than-expected economic data and the Federal Reserve's apparent resolve to monitor inflation. The Commerce Department said consumer spending rose 0.4 percent in March, more than predicted, and the Institute for Supply Management said U.S. manufacturing contracted in April by a bit less than anticipated.

The readings were not all positive -- consumer spending ticked higher mainly due to rising energy and food prices. The ISM's report also indicated that companies are hurting from climbing costs.

But the dollar, which has recently strengthened after a protracted decline, rallied anyway, pushing the euro down more than 1 percent to $1.5461 in late trading.

...

The Dow rose 189.87, or 1.48 percent, to 13,010.00, after briefly rising more than 200 points....

Broader stock indicators also enjoyed a significant advance Thursday. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 23.75, or 1.71 percent, to 1,409.34 -- its first settlement above 1,400 since Jan. 14. The Nasdaq composite index climbed 67.91, or 2.81 percent, to 2,480.71, its highest close since Jan. 10.

The dollar's rise came a day after the Fed lowered key interest rates by a quarter-point, but indicated the economy should keep growing moderately, while inflation is the growing concern.

"What we're seeing is that maybe the economy is not falling off a cliff, but perhaps leveling off," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at New York-based brokerage house Avalon Partners Inc. "I think the Fed (rate-cutting campaign) is over with, even though the Fed's statement didn't say that."

By the way, the Dow has since fallen after that big early gain, but it's still up around 10, and still over 13,000.

Now about that inadvertent conspiracy.

Recessions happen largely due to "irrational exuberance" building at the end of a business cycle. Companies stop expanding prudently and begin expanding imprudently. With most good employees already working, they hire marginal employees. They expand into very marginal markets they can only make money on if they get very lucky and if the economy keeps expanding. With stock prices climbing, anyone who wants to buy in has to buy in at inflated costs, well above any realistic estimate off what a stock is genuinely "worth." (I realize it's pretty hard to say anymore what a stock is worth, but at the end of a cycle it gets really ridiculous.)

Everyone knows in such a boom that it's going to end; people just think they'll be good at timing their retreat from spending, hiring, expanding and investing atprecisely the right time and manage to get out from their overextended positions while still coming out ahead.

Some manages this trick. Most don't. Most suffer losses when the balloon is pricked, and then overcorrect for their previous overconfidence and pare spending, workers, investments, etc.

I've read that most stoppages on highways are due to just this sort of thing: People overcorrect on braking when they see cars braking ahead. If everyone just slowed down a little rather than hitting the brakes so hard, there would be no stoppage at all; cars would just flow at 10 or 15 mph slower. But h8mans overcorrect their speed when they see a slowdown, causing a chain-reaction which eventually freezes all traffic at a standstill.

For no particularly good reason. There wasn't an accident or construction or the like. There was just a bit of thickness in traffic with everyone overbraking, ultimately causing a what could be called phantom gridlock. Gridlock for no definable reason.

At any rate, the media have conspired -- knowingly-- to poor-mouth Bush's recovery and expansion for years. The backfire result may be, however, that with genuine economic troubles now being experienced, and more uncertainty on the horizon, there actually might not be a true recession at all -- because the media restrained the country, quite accidentally, from psyching itself into that irrational-exuberance feeding frenzy that usually precedes serious retraction and retrenchment and a deep recession.

So, there are economic troubles now. The public has been informed ceaselessly that there were economic troubles for seven years. So, there is the genuine possibility of a recession now. The public has been informed that there was a recession on the horizon for seven years.

We may actually already be in a recession. But a majority of the public thinks we've been in a recession since Bush took his oath of office.

Ergo, the Bush recovery was prevented by constant undermining of confidence from ever attaining the boom-year highs of most previous business cycles. But that means that confidence -- the sharp turn in which usually causes an overcorrection and a recession -- was never that high to begin with. Which means public confidences really doesn't have that far to fall.

So rather than falling from irrationally high levels into irrationally low depths, public confidence may have been artificially tempered by relentless media alarmism, resulting, much to the MSM's chagrin, in public confidence now all falling to realistically pessimistic levels. That is, reasonable levels, with little of the severe overcorrection that causes a real recession.

To go back to the traffic analogy: Rather than traffic speeding up to a too-fast 80 mph and then everyone having to jam on their breaks at once and thus calling a standstill, instead the media pricks have kept everyone at a more reasonable 60, so now no one really needs to jam on the breaks. They can slow down to 40 and cruise on through, more slowly, yes, but without an actual stoppage.

I mean, seriously. The MSM has been telling us we're all doomed for seven long years. Now they actually have some, you know, actual facts to back up their gloomy predictions, but all that gloom and caution is already baked into the cake. An economic downturn simply can't puncture the balloon of overoptimism when the balloon was never inflated in the first place.

So, if we should happen to pull out of a couple of weak quarters without ever actually going into a recession, continuing the recovery and growth phase of the business cycle: Thanks, MSM!

Posted by: Ace at 11:27 AM | Comments (33)
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A literal bombing in Clinton, NC.

The good news? As the bombers attempted to toss a bomb out the window of their car at a school, it went off in one's hand and blasted both of them.

Drive-by bombing. There's a new one.

Charles Darwin just emailed me from the Astral Plane to write, "See?!?!?!"

Posted by: Ace at 10:36 AM | Comments (25)
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Look I'd be as outraged about this as anyone, but he's saying it about people from Indiana.

I mean, seriously, Indiana, it's like Arkansas and Mississippi had an ass baby that liked corn, soybeans and cold weather.

I'm not saying people from Indiana are stupid but the state flower is the Buick Skylark. About the best I can say for them is at least they're not Iowa.

Really I feel sorry for them, embittered, holed up in their trailer parks, clinging to their guns and ceremic Jesus figurines, getting drunk on toilette bowl wine and beating up their women. It's all very sad.

If you vote for me I promise that I'll at least get them to shower once in a while and maybe change underwear every few months. Can we do it?

Change that's hygenic for your genitals.

Thanks to... um, "Barack Hussein Obama," who cruised by the comments to say hello.

Posted by: Ace at 10:33 AM | Comments (16)
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