"I ain't fat - jes' fluffy..."
QUOTE / UNQUOTE
"If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it." - [Arthur Schopenhauer]
"The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve
change amid order." - "Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) English
Mathematician, Philosopher."
MONEY QUOTE
Susie Essman, who plays Susie Greene, the wife
of Larry David's agent on "Curb Your Enthusiasm," on the perks of her
job: "Just to constantly tell Larry David to go fuck himself and that
he's an asshole, take after take after take after take, is just so much
fun." (N.Y. Daily News)
INTELLECTUAL - RICHARD DAWKINS, Zoologist
THE TOP INTELLECTUALS IN THE WORLD?
From "The Prospect" - a Brit Mag of Politics - ran an on-line poll to find
the "100 Top Intellectuals in the World". The results are skewed
heavily toward North Americans. There are fewer conservatives - but
then, there are so many conservatives who eschew intellectuals, y'
know.
I could have guessed the anarchist-postmodernist anti-American
American Noam Chomsky would win by a landslide - but I'm still disappointed.
My guy Dr. Dawkins (the most prominent atheist in the world today ,
they say) came in at #3! Some from the l Dudes - LIST:
1 - Noam Chomsky
3 - Richard Dawkins
4 - Vaclav Havel
6 - Paul Krugman
10 - Salman Rushdie
16 - Tom Friedman
20 - Camille Paglia
26 - Stephen Pinker
31 - E.O. Wilson
33 - Peter Singer
49 - Germaine Greer
60 - Larry Summers
75 - Martin Rees
TOP I - DUDE? CHOMSKY...
Oliver Kamm on Chomsky:
Noam Chomsky remains the most influential figure in theoretical linguistics, known to the public for his ideas that language is a cognitive system and the realisation of an innate faculty. While those ideas enjoy a wide currency, many linguists reject them. His theories have come under criticism from those, such as the cognitive scientist Steven Pinker (#26), who were once close to him.
Paul Postal, one of Chomsky's earliest colleagues, stresses the tendency for the grandiloquence of Chomsky's claims to increase as he addresses non-specialist audiences. Frederick Newmeyer, a supporter of Chomsky's ideas until the mid-1990s, notes: "One is left with the feeling that Chomsky's ever-increasingly triumphalistic rhetoric is inversely proportional to the actual empirical results that he can point to..."
Prospect readers who voted for Chomsky will know his prominence in linguistics, but are more likely to have read his numerous popular critiques of western foreign policy. The connection, if any, between Chomsky's linguistics and his politics is a matter of debate, but one obvious link is that in both fields he deploys dubious arguments leavened with extravagant rhetoric—which is what makes the notion of Chomsky as pre-eminent public intellectual untimely as well as unwarranted ... But Chomsky went beyond the standard left critique of US imperialism to the belief that "what is needed [in the US] is a kind of denazification." This diagnosis is central to Chomsky's political output...By the time of the Kosovo war, this prophet of the amoral quietism of the Major government had progressed to depicting Milosevic's regime as a wronged party...
In A New Generation Draws the Line: Kosovo, East Timor and the Standards of the West (2000),
Chomsky wryly challenged advocates of Nato intervention in Kosovo to urge also the bombing of Jakarta, Washington and London in protest at Indonesia's subjugation of East Timor. If necessary, citizens should be encouraged to do the bombing themselves, "perhaps joining the Bin Laden network..."
Chomsky has a dedicated following among those of university education, and especially of university age, for judgements that have the veneer of scholarship and reason yet verge on the pathological.
WHY ISN'T THE USA #1 ANYMORE?
Our tax system is said to be the MOST
FAVORABLE to business of any competing country. The wealthy get to keep
their wealth and they're able to fund more research, development and
good jobs, right?
Why is our healthcare system less efficient and SAFE than Cuba's?
Why do we pay through the nose for gasoline when Venezuelans pay a buck a gallon?
Why do we have regulating agencies when all they do is encourage utilities and telecoms to raise rates and cut services?
Why do laid-off workers in America get 30% of their pay IF they QUALIFY for unemployment - and then for only 6-months?!
Why are young mothers shoved out of the welfare safety net with little or no support? Why don't they get continuing help with day-care, transportation, healthcare and education?
I love this country, but I'm becoming increasingly disenchanted with the cruel joke that has replaced the American Dream. The Democrats AND the Republicans had better start doing something about restoring hope for social mobility and economic security or this country is going to GET CHANGED from the bottom up!
OBESITY IS MULTI- FACTORAL, YES!
I'm not FAT - I'm INFECTED!!
Breitbart reports:
When babies receive shots against diseases like polio and measles, their vaccinations may in the future include protection against getting fat, according to researchers. Infection by certain pathogens triggers rapid increases in fatty tissue in animals, Nikhil Dhurnadha told the annual meeting of NAASO, the Obesity Society in Canada.
At the same time, the discovery that many more obese people than normal-weight people have been exposed to a certain virus suggests a link between obesity and viral infection.
Researchers are reporting at the conference on other fat triggers that include a genetic tendency to store fat among groups whose ancestors survived famines, medications such as treatments for psychotic mental disorders, toxins in the environment like organochlorines, and infectious agents like bacteria, viruses and prions. "Obesity is multifactoral," Dhurandhar told scientists at the conference.
Researchers are reporting at the conference on other fat triggers that include a genetic tendency to store fat among groups whose ancestors survived famines, medications such as treatments for psychotic mental disorders, toxins in the environment like organochlorines, and infectious agents like bacteria, viruses and prions.
EVOLUTION OF REV. ART
I KNEW IT!! My Irish ancestors came to Brown County, Ohio during the British
Gummint-induced Famine in Ireland in the mid-1800s.
There were more
than a few psychotic mental disorders among my German antecedents. And, yes, I live better chemically with PROZAC and RITALIN.
And
I have used the public restrooms at professional sporting venues - and
those places are usually SWIMMING in bacteria and viruses, LITERALLY!
Prions? I dunno. I've never been able to fit into one o' those little sub-compacts...
"I'M SO INDICTED!!"
The indictments are coming - and soon...
I'll handicap 'em:
65%: John Hannah - Fitzgerald's secret source.
90%: Scooter Libby
75%: Karl Rove
60%: The Dick Cheney
25% DUBYA, unindicted co-conspirator...
BUSH IS AUDITIONING REPLACEMENTS FOR CHENEY - JUST IN CASE...
Wonkette wonders:
Can a Veep be indicted? Why, yes, yes he can.
And has been: "Not long after he killed Alexander Hamilton in their famous 1804 duel, Vice President Aaron Burr was indicted for murder in both New York and New Jersey." [WaPo]
(Click any image to enlarge)
TEX-MEX meets ROCKABILLY
"The Rhythm Orchids" (L-R)
Jimmy Bowen, vocals, bass;
Buddy Knox, vocals, guitar;
Don Lanier, lead guitar.
BUDDY KNOX
In 1957 and 1958 Buddy Knox and the Rhythm Orchids placed a total of
eight songs on the charts (Roulette label),
including the mega-hit Party Doll, Rock Your Little Baby To Sleep, Hula Love, and Somebody Touched Me. They appeared in the movie Jamboree along with some of the top rock-and-roll stars of the day in 1957.
Jimmy Bowen (w/Rhythm Orchids) recorded I'm Stickin' With You. The lyrics were hokey - "Be-Bop, I love-a you, Baby, Be-Bop, I don't mean maybe..." but it hit #14. Jimmy Bowen managed to put four songs in the top 100 before becoming a
top record executive and producer on the West Coast. While Buddy continued to work as a performer, Jimmy worked for
Chancellor and Reprise (and produced some of Waylon Jennings' best recordings) before moving to MCA Records in Nashville in the
70's; MCA was renamed Universal Records in 1988 with Bowen as its
president. Buddy died in '99 of cancer. He was 67.
Click to view Rev. Art's Atheist Pin-Ups
Good fortune. COMMENT! Please spread the meme. Don't smoke in bed...
