Dan had to pass on this one. For starters, he wouldn’t set foot in medieval times without body armor and a .45 semi-automatic, and he sucks at foreign languages, enough to burn out that little implant of yours. Plus, he’s too much of a sissy to give up toilet paper. So, he’s left this question in the capable hands of me, your Evil Overlord.
Thanks for the opportunity to answer this one. I'll be back if we ever get around to that question about which five body parts we'd least like to have removed with a peeling knife.
I am now the president of my neighborhood association. I'd like to say it was the latest step in my evil-genious power-grab, but the truth of the matter is that the other senior board member and I flipped a coin for it.
I lost.
Quite a lot has happened since my last entry...
I now return you to your daily grind, already in progress.
This week’s question comes from… me.
You know, I had just put some real downer questions into the queue when my dog strolled in, so I decided that I should finish off with a trivial, happy question. Turns out, it was the first one served up.
- As a teenager, my dog Skip got heartworms, but we caught it early enough to treat it. The treatment itself is pretty rough – basically repetitive treatments with arsenic to kill the heartworms – so she was wiped out afterwards for a couple of weeks afterwards. This happened right before the Christmas break, and my folks took pity on the poor girl and let her stay inside with me for the duration. It was the first time I’d really had an indoor dog, and I really loved it.
- Many years ago, something bad happened in my life. What that was is the subject for several long posts that I’ll probably never make. Right afterwards, I was feeling really depressed, even traumatized, but my dog Briana was there and seemed to sense my mood. Instead of hitting me with boundless puppy energy, she just nuzzled up to me and stayed with me for a while giving unconditional love as only a dog can.
- Briana had become friends with the neighbor dog, Buddy, via a hole in the fence. We effectively had just one yard for two houses as a result, but then the neighbors moved away. Eventually, we decided to get a second dog, a little retriever/lab puppy. Upon bringing her home, we were worried about how Briana would react. Anger? Jealousy? No. Briana was overjoyed. She kept sniffing and licking Miranda and then running over to us, her whole body wagging. It was as if she were excitedly saying, “You got me a puppy!!”
- Actually picking up Miranda was a happy moment as well. MAW had a friend who was giving away a little of these pups, and I got their first to get my pick of the litter. I looked them over but wasn’t quite satisfied with what I saw. Eventually I settled on one and was about to put the little puppy collar on when I noticed this little ball of fur in a box in the owner’s backseat.
“Are you keeping that one?”
“No, not really, but you don’t want her. She was the runt of the litter.”
As an old Clifford fan from childhood, I figured I at least owed this little one a look-see. She was sleeping, so I picked up gently. She was so small she practically fit in my hands. Then she woke up and looked at me with those sleepy, puppy-dog eyes. That was it. I’d found our new dog.
Oh, by the way, Miranda grew to be twice the size of some of her siblings. Miranda: the big, yellow dog.
- While still a puppy, but a big puppy, Miranda fractured one of her front paws. The vet put it in a cast and said we should keep an eye on her to keep her from chewing through it. With both of MAW and I working, the only option seemed to be to put her in the kennel for the next two weeks. Instead, I took her in to work. After a little adjustment, she behaved quite well. But the highlight came when she jumped up to greet our office clown (also a dog-lover) and smacked him right in the balls with her cast. Not to take joy in the suffering of others, but it was priceless.
Meme
by Dan | Permalink
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September 15, 2004
Colin Powell unveils WMD...
You know, public figures shouldn't put on this kind of expression when photographers are around...
Tinfoil Beanie
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September 13, 2004
RatherGate
I just ran across a site setup to act as a clearinghouse for news the memos that Dan Rather claims are authentic but the rest of the internet seems to think are blatant forgeries.
It's also asking for Rather to resign, which is asking a bit much, IMO, unless he knew they were forgeries. If the forgery allegation holds up, I'd settle for a primetime apology and an investigation into the source of the forgeries, one done with more vigor than the original story. After all, this isn't just some questionable veterans group shouting with questionable evidence, this is a major media outlet with a history of integrity.
Anyway, check it out: www.rathergate.com
Politics
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September 12, 2004
Links on CBS memos... typography
Here's a couple of interesting links on the typography issues surrounding the question of whether or not Dan Rather and CBS presented us with forged memos in their recent story alleging Bush's National Guard desertion.
A discussion of the computational complexity of the kind of font-spacing artifacts seen in the memo.
An experimental analysis showing that the memos could not have been produced even on one of the most advanced word processing machines of the time.
Apart from the politics and the bloggers vs. Mainstream Media angles, I found this interesting just on the technical details of word processing and printing.
Another hat tip to the Belmont Club for a good summary.
Blog
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Football season
Today I acknowledge the official start of the cheerleader football season.
If only I'd understood what it meant to be a male cheerleader back when I was young enough...
Tinfoil Beanie
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September 11, 2004
Psychic Lady vs. My Butt
Recently, I was stuck in a waiting room with a psychic demonstrating her talent. After considering her performance with a critical eye, I can only conclude that my butt has more psychic powers than she does.
She wasn’t actually in the same room as me. In truth, she was on the television as I waited in Wal-Mart’s service bay for my car to get an oil change. It was a talk show, perhaps “The View” as I recall, and they did two segments interviewing this psychic and allowing her to demonstrate her powers. I’ll have to grant her this: she gave a good spiel and her showmanship was first-rate, but her performance itself was low-grade chicanery at best.
I’ve included several segments below that I transcribed thirty minutes later when I arrived home. Her basic deal was that she was trying to pass on psychic messages from someone in the subject’s life, so a good deal of each interaction was spent on identifying just who the message was from. She would identify the gender she was seeking and then try to spell/guess the name with just a little prompting from the subject. The subject was not choosing the name, but just responding if the name matched someone in their life. She started with the male host of the show, with a message from a woman in his life. My real-time criticism is interspersed through the transcript.
Psychic: I’m thinking the name begins with an M or an A.
Male Host: There’s an M.
Say, I have some women in my life with names like that…
P: Is it an M-A?
MH: Yes.
Yeah, me too.
P: M-A-R? I’m thinking of a Mary or a Margaret?
MH: Yes, a Mary.
Wow, I actually had both!
P: Is this family?
MH: Yes.
Yeah, my mother-in-law.
P: Your mother… or a sister?
MH: My grandmother.
P: I knew there was something motherly there.
But… but… you were wrong. You guessed mother or sister. Why is your subject giving you credit for this one?
After delivering the message, she moved on to the female host. This time, the message was from a man in her life.
P: I’m thinking of a J or an M.
Female Host: It’s a J.
Oooo, I had both again. She’s really on my wavelength.
P: I’m thinking a J-O… a John or a Joseph?
FH: Joseph.
John for me. Also several instances of James.
P: Is this family?
FH: Yes.
P: Your father, an uncle?
FH: My brother.
Huh? She got it wrong again – aren’t we going to call her on this?
P: Is he considering a move or some kind of life change?
FH: Yes, he’s thinking about moving.
Whoa… a move or a life change? In today’s chaotic world, we spend upwards of 80% of our time considering a move or a life change. Maybe it’s a new job, a new romance, a child, or just a nicer house now that mortgage rates are hovering at 30-year lows!!
P: Is he moving close or far?
FH: He doesn’t know. He’s still deciding where he’s going to move.
P: Is he living here now?
FH: No, he’s living far away, but we grew up here.
Come on, hurry up and get to the psychic powers. This is just interviewing.
P: Hmmm, I don’t think he’s going to here to Washington. I think he’s too worried about the terrorist attacks. Of course, everything is going to be OK, just that he’s not going to move here.
FH: Wow, that’s amazing.
Yes, truly amazing, and totally untestable in the setting of the show. Coincidence?
P: Now I’m picking up some good news for you, a new opportunity.
FH: Yes?
P: You’re working on a new show, trying out for something?
Yeah, like who isn’t? Unless you’re Oprah, Regis, or maybe Dr. Phil, these morning talk shows are the pit of the entertainment world. You’re just treading water, tying to keep your name out there while waiting for that big break that gets you all the way up to the B-list.
FH: Yes, I am looking at another project.
P: It’s very promising, and it’s going to turn out very well.
Again, completely untestable in the setting. At least use your vaunted powers to tell us about the project. It’s not like you’re under NDA!
After the commercial break, she moved on to the audience members, just to prove that it wasn’t all staged. For the first audience member, she was looking for a man in her life.
P: I’m thinking of a J or T.
Audience 1: It’s a J.
P: Is it a John or a Joseph?
Wait a minute… John or Joseph again? Is this just a really psychoactive day for all the Johns and Josephs in the spirit world, or could it be, just perhaps, that John and Joe and their variations are some of the most common male names in the country?!!
A1: It’s a John.
P: Is this family?
A1: Yes.
P: Your father or brother?
A1: My grandfather.
Man, she’s not doing too well on family members here. Am I the only one seeing this?
P: Is he dead now?
A1: Yes.
Well, I’d grant her a bit of good logic here. The woman in the audience looked to be in her thirties or later, so it would be a good bet that her grandfather would be dead. Except that she didn’t say he was dead. She just asked if he was dead.
P: What was it he smoked… cigars?
Ah, another good bet. After all, going back two generations from someone in their thirties puts much of the grandfather’s adult life from the 1920’s through the 1970’s. Add to the fact that he’s dead, and I’d put money on it. Turns out though, it almost gets her trouble.
A1: No, he didn’t smoke.
Ouch. Backpedal, try to recover.
P: Nothing at all?
A1: Well, he did smoke cigarettes a long time ago.
Whew! Now quick, deliver the message and move on.
P: Ok, well, he’s trying to tell you that when it’s your time to cross over to the other side, when you see him, don’t run from him.
A1: Oh, I’d never do that.
Well, maybe it was her other grandfather John.
The next subject was another woman, and we were looking for a woman in her life.
P: I’m thinking of an A or a K.
Audience 2: No, I can’t think of anyone.
Oops, we’re in trouble now, though this seems unlikely for letters like A and K. I mean, it’s not like we’re fishing for Q’s and Z’s.
P: You need to be open about who this could be. Anyone in your life.
Come on, work with me. You’re making me look bad.
A2: Well, there’s my friend Kathy.
P: Ok then…
Nice save!
She finished off with another woman, and this time it’s a man in her life.
P: I’m thinking of an A or a G.
Audience 3: I’m an A.
Huh? Did someone just have a psychic sex-change? I thought we were looking for a man.
P: Now, don’t tell me your name, but is it an A-N?
Hmmm, I know several A-N’s, Anne, Anna, Anne-Marie, Angela, and so on. My only question: is she working off a baby name book, or has she gone as far as the Huffman table for a phone book?
A3: Yes, it is.
P: I’m thinking Anne or Angela.
A3: Yes, it’s Anne.
Hmmm, my money’s on the Huffman table.
P: Are you going through any kind of change right now?
A3: Yes, I’m starting a whole new life.
Again with the “change”? Ok, let’s see if I can use my own psychic powers. A middle-aged woman has just said she’s starting a whole new life. [strain]Hmmmmm…[/strain] could it possibly be that she’s just had a divorce?
P: Yes, I’m sensing that too. Did you break up with someone?
A3: Yes, I divorced him.
Score one for Dan! At least I was willing to put it out there and not just ask a leading question.
P: I’m still picking up the G. Is there a G somewhere in your life?
Ah, maybe we’ll get back to the message from that man.
A3: No, I can’t think of anyone.
P: You’re sure?”
A3: No one comes to mind.
Cap’n, the shields are buckling. I don’t know how much more she can take.
P: Then I think it’s someone you’re going to meet, a Greg, perhaps, and he’s going to make you very happy.
Again, great save.
Now, that was her psychic demonstration, let’s move on to my own, or rather, my butt’s demonstration. It was later that day, and I was working in my home office. I was sitting on an exercise ball that I sometimes use as a chair, and I was bouncing up and down gently. I heard some movement and noticed that my door, slightly ajar, was rocking back and forth. I thought perhaps my son was at the door, so I called out, “Sammy, is that you?”
After a moment, MAW opened the door. “What’s up with your door?”
“Yeah,” I replied, “that was weird. I thought it was someone on the outside.”
“No, I was on the other side of the room.”
“Me too. Maybe it was my bouncing.” I resumed the bouncing but got no door action.
“Well,” MAW noted, “the door was mostly closed before.” So she returned it to its earlier near-closed position.
I continued my bouncing, and the door started rocking back and forth again. Eventually, it even closed and latched.
“Wow!” MAW exclaimed.
“Yes – my butt has psychic powers!”
So, here we have two psychic demonstrations. Lady Psychic’s was little more than a barely successful name-game, while mine was a reproducible demonstration of butt-telekinesis. Let the death-match begin!
Of course, both of these are ridiculous. The main difference is that no one believes my butt has psychic powers. Toxic powers, yes, but that’s another story.
Narrative
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Four More Invites
I have four more GMail beta invites if anyone's interested. (Actually six, but two are reserved for Gmail4Troops.)
Blog
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September 10, 2004
Bloggers vs. Mainstream Media
I just wanted to point you at an interesting article from the Belmont Club about how bloggers seem to be ripping apart the recent Bush National Guard documents as forgeries. Completely apart from the politics of purple-heart bandaids vs. national guard deserters, this is part of an interesting recent trend where the traditional media wants to decide what the story is supposed to be while the bloggers are showing their power to direct things as a distributed pool reporter.
None of this is to argue that the mainstream media is always wrong or that the blogosphere will always be right. Blogs, including this one, are often wrong. But there is no reason why bloggers should ipso facto be dismissed as amateur analysts when compared to the Mainstream Media (MSM). The traditional news model is collapsing. It suffers from two defects. The "news object" can no longer be given sealed attributes in newspaper backrooms. The days when the press was the news object foundry are dying. Second, the news industry is suffering from its lack of analytic cells, which are standard equipment in intellgence shops. Editors do some analysis but their focus is diluted by their attention to style and the craft of writing. The blogosphere and other actors, now connected over the Internet, are filling in for the missing analytic function. And although the news networks still generate, via their reporters, the bulk of primary news, they generate a pitiful amount of competent analysis.
Blog
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Friday Five: Bill & Ted's Historical Dinner Party
Today's question comes from Gord:
Another Time Travel Question: You're given a chance to use a time machine to snatch five historical personages and bring them to the twenty-first century. Perhaps you're saving them from their awful fates in history, or perhaps just picking them up for teatime and a Saturday night dinner party. The catch is, there's a problem with the time machine and a possibility that you will need to house all of them in your living space for a few days, perhaps up to a week. So they'd better get along. Which five historical personages would you pick up, with good faith that they would play well with the others, and what would you expect each to contribute to the evening of merriment?
- Benjamin Franklin: Inventor, philosopher, capitalist, patriot. Plus, he knew how to party.
- Eleanor of Aquitaine: Beautiful, educated, strong-willed, and by all reports, a demon in the sack. (That’s right, I’m pimping for Ben.)
- Karl Marx: This one is purely for spite. I want him to see what communism degenerated into and what capitalism evolved into. Plus, he can debate Ben over dinner.
- Joan of Arc: I won’t be seating her next to Eleanor at dinner, but I think they could be polite. Mostly I’d just like to rescue her from the flames and then unleash her on modern French politics.
- Johannes Gutenberg: I wouldn’t expect too much interaction out of him. I suspect I could just show him into my library and then slide bread under the door for a week.
Meme
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September 09, 2004
Dad's Cancer
I got the call from Mom around five this afternoon. Dad's cancer is back. From my mother:
After having the rib biopsy and then bone scan last week, we got the results today, and they're not good. The cancer has returned, this time attacking the bone and possibly a spot on the liver. ... The doctor does not talk about "cure" at this stage. He says that once lung cancer returns, it is usually a matter of time.
My dad's birthday is next Friday, the 17th, and I'm planning on flying out there w/ my brother. It's an open question whether or not to take MAW and the kids or not, but I'll be buying tickets in the morning. I don't know if this will be Dad's last birthday or not, but I figure I should be there.
If MAW and the kids stay behind, any help for her over the weekend would be appreciated.
Blog
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Jeopardy News....
Mega-spoiler below, proceed w/ caution. This is mostly a warning to MAW, who is a Jeopardy junkie.
Here's the original article.
Has Ken Jennings ended his "Jeopardy!" streak?
A report posted Wednesday on the TV Week Web site said the brainy software engineer from Utah lost in a show taped Tuesday, walking away after his 75th straight game with about $2.5 million overall in cash and prizes. The magazine cited unnamed sources and said the show would air later this fall.
A spokesperson for the show told TV Week that it would not disclose whether Jennings lost.
Blog
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Kerry has a spiritual gaffe
I passed on one of Bush's recent slips, so it's only fair that I pass on one of Kerry's.
Kerry gave a big speech last week about how his faith is so "important" to him. In this attempt to convince the American people that we should consider him for president, he announced that his favorite Bible verse is John 16:3. Of course the speech writer meant John 3:16, but nobody in the Kerry camp was familiar enough with scripture to catch the error. And do you know what John 16:3 says?
John 16:3 says; "They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me."
The Spirit works in strange ways.
Disclaimer: this was passed on to me via an email forward, so its accuracy is fair game for challenge. Amusing, nonetheless.
Update::> Indeed, the saying needs to be updated: "I read it on the Internet, so it must be false." It looks like my disclaimer was well-chosen. As you can see in the Comments, Adam has pointed out that this is old and has been played both ways and has been refuted on Snopes.
Politics
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September 08, 2004
Florida flooding...
A friend passed this on to show the dangers of the flooding in Florida:
Tinfoil Beanie
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September 07, 2004
Practicing their love...
It's no secret that I support Bush, and I agree with where he's going with these comments on medical malpractice suits, but this is just too damn funny not to pass on:
"We've got an issue in America. Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country."
If only he'd had the Barry White voice to pull it off right.
Politics
/Tinfoil Beanie
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September 06, 2004
Clinton's Heart...
I'm relieved to read that Clinton's heart surgery was successful, and that he is expected to make a full recovery. There was recently some bad blood over this as an an erroneous report led the left to pop a vein. That erroneous report was that some Republicans boo'd Bush for asking for prayers for Clinton's health. This report was countered by many eye-witness bloggers, some of whom even had video and audio of the alleged event. AP News is in the process of turning this into an Orwellian un-event as they even try to game the Nexis database into erasing the original wire story.
But as a Republican and as someone who vehemently opposed many of Clinton's presidential actions, I wanted to say a little of why I'm thankful Clinton is going to make it. It really boils down to three reasons.
- He's generally a good guy, and as such I want him to be ok. For contrast, I don't lose any sleep over, say, Osama's diabetes.
- Regardless of how misguided I think his policies were, he is an American who gave decades of his life to public service at the state and national level. In my book, that earns him automatic gratitude.
- Finally, I feel that presidents who are influential or iconic to their parties, deserve to die when one of their own is president. I'd like them to go out believing that the country is in the hands of someone they believe in, and since the signature eulogy is given by the sitting president, it's always nice for such influential presidents to be praised honestly rather than through strained smiles. In this sense, I felt that Reagan deserved to last until a Republican was in office, and seeing as how much the Democrats loved him, Clinton deserves to last until a Democrat is in office.
So, with all honesty -- and a minor political jab from reason 3 -- I wish Clinton a long and healthy life.
Politics
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September 04, 2004
Have a safe Labor Day weekend
A lot of you may be heading out to the beach or the lake this Labor Day weekend for some fun on the water. Just remember to follow these important safety instructions:
Tinfoil Beanie
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September 03, 2004
Birthday lunch
I had a wonderful birthday lunch with HappyTester, and believe it or not, we made it in and out of the Olive Garden with no singing.
Blog
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My Birthday… 1095 days until my mid-life crisis
When I was young -- I can say that now that I’m old -- I used to think a mid-life crisis was a little like the lottery. If you were one of the chaps who got to have one, it arrived all of a sudden like Ed McMahon on the prize patrol. It was prefabricated, complete with a sports car, a mistress, a timeshare in an exotic locale, and a really bad wardrobe. You got to kick back and enjoy yourself for a few months as you took a kind of vacation from being a responsible adult. In the end, if you were smart, the sports car was all you tried to keep.
As I’ve gotten older -- not just old, but older -- I’ve learned that the real source of these things was neither Ed McMahon nor Dick Clark, though God knows that guy needs one. Instead, it comes when you realize that your life hasn’t turned out the way you wanted, that all your dreams are slipping away as each tick of the clock makes your future that much shorter. It comes on slowly as a growing dissatisfaction, though there are moments of epiphany when you wake up one morning and wonder just how did you end up with that broad, why you’re stuck in a dead-end job, and just whose idea was it to have all these damn kids anyway?
My mid-life crisis is likely to be a little different for a couple of reasons. First, by objective measures, I’m living the good life: good job, good family, moderate wealth, and I got my trophy wife the first time around. Second, I’ve rarely, if ever, been discontent with what I have, but I’ve always been discontent with the things I have not yet done. Somewhere along the line, I became an overachiever, which is almost laughable considering how much I slacked off in high school and how I nearly flunked out of college. I’m not sure when, but at some point, I swallowed the Big Lie that I could achieve success not just in anything that interested me but in everything that interested me. It was merely a matter of sufficient focus and time.
Well, that’s just done wonders for my psyche. Anything and everything is possible, and any failure to achieve it is due to lack of focus (a.k.a. slacking off) or poor time-management (a.k.a. laziness or procrastination). It’s like telling Jimmy Olsen that he could be Superman, too, if only he weren’t such a lazy shithead. I’m exaggerating, of course, both because I have actually achieved a fair amount and because I rationally know that not everything is possible -- even if the prerequisite talent exists, there are only so many hours in the day.
And that brings me back to the clock mercilessly carving away at my future, second by second, and ultimately year by year, which of course brings me to my birthday. In three years I’ll be forty, and barring the discovery of an immortality serum between now and then, it will be painfully clear that there isn’t enough time, that the hourglass only gets flipped so many times. It won’t be the fear of death that gets me, it will be fear of not having lived enough.
But hey, I’m still just thirty-seven. That’s three whole years away. I’ve got plenty of time to do things before that realization strikes. Then again, that’s only 1095 days. If I’m going to exercise every day before then, is 1095 times enough? Or if I write every day, will that finish off a couple of novels? What about the photography? Or gaming? Or art? Or my life-long ambition to play the glass harmonica at Carnegie Hall?!!
Deep breathes. In. Out. Close eyes.
By trying to head off that looming mid-life crisis, am I just starting it early?
In truth, I’m not that worried. I went through the same thing at twenty-five and came through it just fine. When it was all said and done, I’d picked up a good RMT and a couple of fun hobbies, though my blood pressure never quite recovered.
I just hope I get the sports car this time.
Narrative
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Friday 5: Virtue and kindness -- who invited her??
Today’s question comes from Laura:
I was watching Disney's Sleeping Beauty the other night, while leafing through an old storybook for the original story, and I found myself snorting at the gifts the precious little princess got - gifts of beauty and song, virtue and kindness - So very useful. What five gifts would you give the fateful little princess?
Thanks to Adam and MAW who explained enough of the story line for me to come up with something. For those of you who don’t know it – like me – this wee little baby princess is being given magical gifts by her relatives, only to have one curse her with death upon getting a splinter in her finger from a spinning wheel. The single remaining gift giver was only able to mitigate this by saying it would be a near-eternal sleep instead. So now I, the late arrival, will bestow my gifts:
- Flamethrower of Vengeance (+3): Not only will this take care of the evil fairy, but it’ll come in handy fending off any over-aggressive spinning wheels. Sorry if this seems out of place, but I just watched Aliens the other night, and I’ve got a hard-on for Ripley and her flamethrower.
- Protection from evil magic: Boost that saving throw vs. cursed splinter.
- Intelligence: Come on – how much smarts could she have had? You’ve got a curse that only goes into effect when you get a splinter in your finger from a spinning wheel. It’s been the talk of the court since your Christening. You finally come across such a spinning wheel in the attic, all dry and rough from years of disuse, and what do you do? Step away from the spinning wheel!! I’m not asking for a 1600 on the S.A.T., but at least avoid the one thing that can send you to the big bed in the sky.
- Gloves: See above.
And my personal favorite…
- Insomnia.
Meme
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September 02, 2004
Internet poles?
Philadelphia is consider making the entire city an internet hotspot:
The ambitious plan, now in the works, would involve placing hundreds, or maybe thousands of small transmitters around the city - probably atop lampposts. Each would be capable of communicating with the wireless networking cards that now come standard with many computers.
So, does that mean we're going to have guys who say that whenever they walk past a lamppost, the internet goes down?
Technology
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Zell Miller tears into Kerry
I haven't really been watching the conventions, but I just read a speech by Democrat Zell Miller given at the Republican Convention. In addition to tearing Kerry on his record in the Senate (which the press never seems to talk about), he gave a wholehearted endorsement on Bush's strategy on the war on terror. On top of it all, it's one of the better pieces of political speaking that I've run across in a while. Here's the closer:
This election will change forever the course of history, and that’s not any history. It’s our family’s history. The only question is how. The answer lies with each of us. And, like many generations before us, we’ve got some hard choosing to do. Right now the world just cannot afford an indecisive America. Fainthearted, self-indulgence will put at risk all we care about in this world. In this hour of danger our President has had the courage to stand up. And this Democrat is proud to stand up with him.
Politics
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September 01, 2004
Adam and his Eves...
I'd read about date variations in mitochondrial DNA vs. Y-chromosome tracking before, but I just by chance ran across a good summary of it. In short, the evidence suggests that monogamy was not the norm for most of human history.
Scientists have proposed that humans have a history of polygyny before. But with these new DNA results, the Arizona researchers have made a powerful case that polygyny has been common for tens of thousands of years across the Old World. It's possible that polygyny was an open institution for much of that time, or that secret trysts made it a reality that few would acknowledge. What's much less possible is that monogamy has been the status quo for 50,000 years.
The rest of the writing on the site is of such quality that I've added Corante to my blogroll.
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