Now if only they'd work on debunking the pernicious Myth of the Clitoris.

You can call off the search, chaps – the G-spot may not exist after all.

Researchers who studied 1,800 women have found no evidence of the female erogenous zone.

They believe that it may be a figment of women's imagination, encouraged by magazines and sex therapists.

They add that the 'myth' has made many men and women feel inadequate about their sex lives.

The G-spot is supposed to be a small area of the female body where nerve endings are concentrated. If activated by a sexual partner, it is supposed to give supreme sexual pleasure.

Sex therapists have made careers out of telling women they can boost their G-spot through diet or exercise.

But the study of British women at King's College London has cast doubt on the science behind it.

Co-author Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology, said: 'Women may argue that having a G-spot is due to diet or exercise, but in fact it is virtually impossible to find real traits.

'This is by far the biggest study ever carried out and it shows fairly conclusively that the idea of a G-spot is subjective.'

Yeah, I never really bothered looking for it at all, because I'm selfish and incompetent in bed.

So I win.

Temple of Jennifer.

Posted by: Ace at 03:24 PM | Comments (343)
Post contains 254 words, total size 2 kb.

Happy New Year to all. I tried to look at a computer screen as little as possible over the holidays. There was football to be watched, various beasts to be cooked & eaten, and general revelry to be had.

A scan of my usual sources looks to be mostly stories on record cooling. so I don't know that I missed much. But...

If anyone has some big stories from the past 10 days or so that didn't find the light of day, please post in the comments and they may end up in my next ClimateGate entry.

On to the normal post:

(A series of daily-ish roundups of the day's Climate news and commentary.)

This is by no means a comprehensive recap. The stories come from a variety of sources, and I highly recommend exploring the linked sites for more breaking news.

(after the break...)

more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 01:10 PM | Comments (151)
Post contains 636 words, total size 5 kb.

Racist.

But [Janet Napolitano] was just following the modern bipartisan public relations template in this age of information management. First, play down the problem. Second, emphasize what did not go wrong. Assure us that those in charge are investigating, and most important, emphasize no one in any position of responsibility is at fault. ItÂ’s not lying. But itÂ’s not exactly the whole truth, certainly not the whole story. All she left out was that part about asking us to respect the privacy of those involved. Oh, IÂ’m sorry. I got the government spin mixed up with the Tiger spin. Here is the difference. Tiger can hire as many people as he wants to make his excuses. It maydo him no good but itÂ’s his money to spend as he wishes. When government officials insult us with spin theyÂ’re doing it on our dime, which is supposed to be used to operate the government, not to hold news conferences to tell us what a fine job people on the public payroll are doing. As we learned during Katrina, self-serving spin at the first sign of crisis does not help the situation. It makes it worse. Because it makes it harder to believe anything the government says. Real security is built on trust in government. That requires truth, which should be the beginning of government presentations, not the fallback position.

Actually, my headline's wrong; it was a guest on Schieffert who knocked the administration's competency (or perception thereof). Schieffert added this spin-deal.

Via Instapundit.

Posted by: Ace at 11:40 AM | Comments (159)
Post contains 282 words, total size 2 kb.

Bastard.

The former senior intelligence official confirmed an NBC News report Monday that the bomber was Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a 36-year old doctor from Zarqa, Jordan. He was arrested over a year ago by Jordanian intelligence, and was thought to have been flipped to support U.S. and Jordanian efforts against al-Qaida.

Can we now kill the 'poverty creates terrorist' myth once and for all?

I'm not saying Jordanian doctors make the big tonsil removing money their American counterparts do but the idea that the international terrorist set is made up of poor, uneducated goat herders who only need a few bucks, some kind words and they will be on our side is simply BS.

Of course, that was pretty clear when a rich Saudi and an Egyptian doctor (aided by an American trained Pakistani engineer) designed the 9/11 attacks. Funny how the self proclaimed 'reality based community' ignores this inconvenient truth.

Posted by: DrewM at 11:35 AM | Comments (61)
Post contains 176 words, total size 1 kb.

Forecast: disaster with a 20% chance of biblical famine, locusts and pestilence, meatballs not so much.

...Germany, long considered the cornerstone of eurozone fiscal discipline, forecasts public debt at around 78 per cent of GDP this year, while in France, the second biggest eurozone economy, public debt jumped to a record 75.8 per cent in the third quarter of 2009.

Greece says its shortfall come to 120 per cent of output in 2010.

Debt is raising the cost of borrowing for many countries and adding to the weight of reimbursing obligations on future budgets.

With unemployment rising and weak growth expected in 2010, officials cannot count on increased tax revenues for much help in paying down debt, a lot of which is owed abroad.

"The (economic) crisis is weighing on the sustainability of public finances and potential growth," the EU commission has warned as economists leave open the possibility of a "double dip" recession this year...

I need to send silly Europeans Pete Stark's(Moonbat-CA) phone number. He's previously assured us that taking on more debt increases the nation's wealth. I'm pretty sure he's got a PowerPoint presentation tucked away somewhere to prove it too.

I've resigned myself to "embracing the suck". Stimulus v2.0, Health Care, Cap and Tax. Bring the pain baby, bring it all. We're through the looking glass now, so we might as well take the ride.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 09:20 AM | Comments (230)
Post contains 246 words, total size 2 kb.

Ah, well. They can always call people racists. That should do the trick.

A dismal job market, a crippled real estate sector and hobbled banks will keep a lid on U.S. economic growth over the coming decade, some of the nation's leading economists said on Sunday.

U.S.

Speaking at American Economic Association's mammoth yearly gathering, experts from a range of political leanings were in surprising agreement when it came to the chances for a robust and sustained expansion:

They are slim.

Many predicted U.S. gross domestic product would expand less than 2 percent per year over the next 10 years. That stands in sharp contrast to the immediate aftermath of other steep economic downturns, which have usually elicited a growth surge in their wake.

If it's that bad, we might see the White House in the hands of one party, then the other, for single terms for a while.

On the other hand, I'm not really thinking past 2012 at the moment.

And Treasuries aren't performing.

Treasuries were the worst performing sovereign debt market in 2009 as the U.S. sold $2.1 trillion of notes and bonds to fund extraordinary efforts to bolster the economy and financial markets.

Investors in U.S. debt lost 3.5 percent on average through Dec. 30, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes, the biggest annual slide since at least 1978. The 10-year Treasury yield reached its highest level in six months yesterday before a Labor Department report next week forecast to show payrolls were unchanged in December after the U.S. economy lost jobs in every month since January 2008.

“The financial system has survived,” said Ray Remy, head of fixed income in New York at Daiwa Securities America Inc., one of 18 primary dealers that trade directly with the Federal Reserve. “Now the market has to deal with other issues like deficit spending, tremendous issuance, the weakness in the dollar. How significant is this recovery, and what happens when you take away some of the government stimulus.”

Posted by: Ace at 08:56 AM | Comments (76)
Post contains 364 words, total size 2 kb.

Why am I linking?

Because you paid for this -- you might as well enjoy the fruits of your labor.

You ponied up good hard cash, that could have gone to your retirement, or a kid's braces, or a new plasma tv, so that NPR could insult you as stupid and crazy. And a "teabagger."

NPR -- time for them to go.

Definitely click -- you are paying for their servers, after all.

Thanks to EdwardR. and others.

Posted by: Ace at 08:34 AM | Comments (208)
Post contains 94 words, total size 1 kb.

Sure, they won't call it that but that's what it is.

The US transport security administration said all passengers flying into the United States from abroad would be subject to random screening or so-called "threat-based" screens.

But it further mandated that "every individual flying into the US from anywhere in the world travelling from or through nations that are state sponsors of terrorism or other countries of interest will be required to go through enhanced screening."

And what countries will be effected by this? Let's see if they have anything in common...

Cuba
Iran
Sudan
Syria
Afghanistan
Libya
Nigeria
Pakistan
Somalia
Yemen
Algeria
Lebanon
Saudi Arabia
Iraq

Cuba is a little odd but it's a state sponsor of terrorism. What else might the rest have in common? Oh yeah, they are majority Muslim nations (though Lebanon and Nigeria have sizable Christian populations).

Welcome to the real world President Obama!

This isn't a fool-proof system, none is. Richard Reid, the original shoe bomber, is a British subject who got on a plane in Paris, so he would not have been subject to this new policy. Also, Abdulmutallab could have just as easily started his fateful flight from London*, not Lagos, Nigeria. It would be better to add travelers carrying passports from these countries to the list of people to be singled out (they will be, see update).

Just for fun, imagine for a moment if Bush had ordered this. The screeching and rending of garments would be unbearable. But since President Wonderful's administration did it, silence.

Still, this is a welcome development. It's almost as if people are realizing that it's not a bunch of Anabaptists running around blowing things up.

Now, if this bunch will just realize that if you catch someone thanks to these additional procedures, you shouldn't treat them as if they are common criminals. Alas, that is likely to prove to be a bridge too far.

Update:

Just after I posted this I saw this update from Tapper's version of the story. It looks like the enhanced security procedures will be utilized for any national of these countries, no matter where they are traveling from.

*"someguy" makes the point in the comments that Abdulmutallab couldn't have made his trip from London since the Brits had him on their Do Not Enter list. Point taken but the wider point still stands, there are plenty of terrorists to be in London and all across Europe who wouldn't have been subject to the policy. The addition of citizenship is an important (but again not fool proof) step in dealing with this.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:04 AM | Comments (102)
Post contains 443 words, total size 3 kb.

Also, scroll down for some early-morning posts.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:51 AM | Comments (179)
Post contains 15 words, total size 1 kb.

Racism is the last refuge of an untalented writer. (Safe link to JWF.)

"Photo-Smearing," the Husky Huckster calls it. Smearing. The guy who doubts that Sarah Palin gave birth to Trig, because, you know, he moved into her uterus a year ago and doesn't see how she could also have room for a baby.

Here's the picture:

Glenn Reynolds said it was bad PR. Setting Obama's wannabe-boyfriend off on a tizzy-fit. (Yeah, tizzy-fit. I am running out of different ways to describe Sullivan's screechy-screedy style of "analysis.")

Glenn Reynolds finds a photo in the White House Flickr basket and publishes it to, er, point out how bad the White House's p.r. is, or how blind they are to perceptions of Obama or some such thing. I tried to puzzle this one out and can just about see how an elusive photo of a tired Obama reacting to something unknowable might make him look tired or arrogant or something.

And then I realized why this photo immediately strikes some people are damning. Obama is a black man who looks as if he is condescending to a white man. That's political gold.

Andrew Sullivan has trouble understanding how someone widely believed to be an arrogant dick might be poorly served by a photo of him with an arrogant dick expression on his face.

Personally, I didn't bother linking this, because it didn't strike me as anything meaning anything. As Althouse says, it's likely the guy is just exhausted. This is, after all, the first job of real responsibility he's ever held.

But if someone is already put off by Obama's arrogance, is it racism to notice that the slit-eyed cool-regard face is a standard actor-face manner of expressing arrogance and contempt?

Apparently so.

Someone recently sent me a link about a FoxNews special that was to highlight Obama's friendships and political relationships with socialists and radicals. I wrote back, basically, sounds interesting, but FoxNews has run similar exposes, and in any event, a president is judged on job performance and not really on anything else. Such arguments about background and character are of value during a campaign, as they are good predictors of future performance; once the guy is elected, you don't need predictors of future performance any longer.

So this stuff is of limited usefulness, as far as de-electing someone. Sure, it fires up the base, but the base is pretty fired up already.

And the same thing applies to this eternal club wielded by Obama's flightier supporters. The racism charge? Sure, it was useful as hell during the campaign, as "racism" became the standard response to any criticism of His Awesomeness whatsoever. The tactic was used to shut up critics and push the media off of any careful scrutiny of the Man from the Chicago Political Machine (Hyde Park Radical Division). Not that the media needed much pushing.

But I'm afraid the racism charge no longer carries any heft. Obama sought the presidency, and he won it -- and he is now entitled to all the criticism, mostly fair, some not, that the job he himself sought entails. This endless mau-mauing of any critic as "racist" makes Obama's supporters sound like precisely what they are: Lunatics, by and large, hyperpartisan dupes, and people frankly scared shitless by the quality of Obama's job performance and who strongly suspect he's going to be a failed president.

And all of their silly high-school-crush dreams will go down with Captain Wonderful.

And so, unable to make any good case for Obama on the merits, they simply lash out emotionally. And they don't even realize what they're doing. As the saying goes, "You can lie to me, but don't lie to yourself." They aren't even aware that their screeching, white-knuckled panic is a bigger indictment of Obama's competence that anything -- an-y-thing -- any "rightwing racist" could ever possibly say.

"I have every confidence in Obama," they will sometimes say, the statement becoming more rote and more lacking in conviction every time they say it. You have every confidence? Oh, obviously you do. Your henny-penny crazy-eyed twitchy-bitchy political tweaking is powerful evidence of that.

Obama's making all the right moves? Obama's got the economy on a glide path to recovery? Obama's really protecting the American public against terror and needs hardly fear an incident that will further erode his credibility?

You believe that, huh?

Well, you silly sods, if you really believed that, you'd act like you believed that, and take things like this in stride with a bemused grin.

But you're not bemused at all. You're not coolly confident.

You are terrified out of your sillyass minds. And it's palpable.

And it's hysterical. In both meanings of the word.

Oh: And as one Obama enthusiast, erm, enthused: "He looks just like James Bond!"

Thus hitting on another thing "wrong" with this picture. Obama is known -- and confesses it -- to have a rather, um, outsized sense of self regard. He's a narcissist.

This picture feeds into that. Whoever posted it guessed, probably accurately, that his boss would like a photo showing him all cool 'n stuff.

I don't think the point of American government is to further increase the self-esteem of one man, already pretty obviously smitten with himself.

Posted by: Ace at 05:38 AM | Comments (258)
Post contains 912 words, total size 6 kb.