Science Wednesday: Policy edition ← FREE KRAUT!

Science Wednesday: Policy edition 113

Where science and politics intersect, a few quick hits:

1. CO2 is good for the environment.

The man behind the latest entry to the climate legislation wars is H. Leighton Steward, a veteran oil industry executive, co-author of the “Sugar Busters!” dieting books, and winner of an Environmental Protection Agency award for a report on damage being done to Mississippi wetlands. Now retired, he says he wants to “get the message out there” that carbon dioxide, which the Supreme Court has ruled a pollutant and which most scientists regard as a dangerous greenhouse gas, “is a net benefit for the planet.”

This week, a group of large corporations — including New Mexico utility PNM Resources, California utility PG&E, power generator Exelon and Nike — denounced the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s opposition to climate legislation.

PNM said it would let its membership in the Chamber lapse at the end of the year. “At PNM Resources, we see climate change as the most pressing environmental and economic issue of our time,” the company said in a statement.

2. All of a sudden we’re not allowed to buy ecstasy with tax money?

The peer review system requires that the project address “an important problem,” but some of the grants “do not seem to meet this standard,” the letter says. It points to four examples: one looking at whether dragon boat racing helps women who have survived cancer, and three others studying drug or alcohol abuse among sex workers in Thailand, in a Native American tribe, and at rave parties in Brazil. The congressman ask for details of peer review for the 12 grants, including scores given by individual peer reviewers, the so-called overall impact score, and the number of grants the panel reviewed. Impact scores, which reflect the overall quality of a grant, are normally known tp only NIH staff and the applicant.

3. Mouth swab…aaaaand you’re from Peoria!

The Border Agency�s DNA-testing plans would use mouth swabs for mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome testing, as well as analyses of subtle genetic variations called single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). One goal of the project is to determine whether asylum-seekers claiming to be from Somalia and fleeing persecution are actually from another African country such as Kenya.

Although the agency hasn�t detailed the isotopes it is examining, the use of hair and nail samples suggest the tests will look at �lighter� element isotopes, such as those of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen, all of which are incorporated into the keratin and other proteins as those tissues grow. Isotopes of strontium and other �heavier� elements incorporate into bones and teeth throughout life and some evidence suggests that strontium measurements can match people to geographic locales in which they were born, or at least grew up. In contrast, the lighter isotopes in tissues such as hair and nails being collected by the Border Agency are typically used to reveal recent diets and climatic conditions, not ethnicity.

Also:

�I don�t think I could tell the difference between a Kenyan and a Somalian,�

What, all brown people(‘s mtDNA) look the same to you?� Freakin’ racist.

4. The Wahhabi Institute of Technology

The multi-billion dollar project is a graduate institution with designs on crashing a list of the world’s top 20 research universities.� It’s a tall order for a school that sits on a 32 sq. km. slab of desert that hugs the Red Sea north of Jeddah, the country’s second largest city. But the 70-odd scientists that form the founding faculty�along with 400 students who began classes on 5 September�won’t be lacking for money or equipment.

The king has put his considerable power and authority behind the university, a message reinforced by holding the inaugural ceremony on the country’s National Day holiday. He’s hoping that KAUST will help to move the country from an oil-based to a knowledge-based economy, a task that the university’s president, Choon Fong Shih, expresses with a simple formula: “Hire the best minds and find practical applications for their discoveries.”

113 thoughts on “Science Wednesday: Policy edition

  1. salb918 Sep 30,2009 7:59 am

    Clowns in space!

    What, no giant cannon?

    • andeux Sep 30,2009 9:52 am || Up

      I can just see it … the LEM touches down on the moon … the hatch opens … and 37 clowns pile out of it and start waddling around in over-sized moon boots.

      TINSTAAFK
  2. mk Sep 30,2009 8:47 am

    4. It will be interesting to see how many of the “best minds” they’re able to lure. I know they’re throwing a ton of money around, but committing to live in Saudi Arabia for x years is a pretty dramatic life decision.

    • salb918 Sep 30,2009 9:05 am || Up

      It is, particularly if you are from a western culture and wish to raise a family. It’s not something that I would do, that’s for sure. I’ve visited the country before and without saying too much in a public forum, I don’t think I’d like to go back. There were aspects that I enjoyed (their KFC equivalent was delicious!), but many more that I didn’t (women leaving an elevator because I got on, having to accompany my mother everywhere).

      I have had colleagues travel to KAUST during the planning stages and they felt…odd, to say the least, even for a short visit. Non-Saudi friends who grew up in Saudi Arabia due to ex-pat fathers didn’t particularly care for it either.

      Having said that, ex-pats who work there can often do so on compounds that require little or no interaction with Saudi culture.

      My father worked briefly in Saudi Arabia (>1 year) when my sister and I were young. Rather than take us to the compound, my folks decided that mom would take us wee ones to Pakistan for the duration. Good choice; I wonder how our lives would have been different if we had all gone. Would my dad have found it more bearable with his family around and decided to stay longer? Would I in KAUST’s inaugural class?

      • salb918 Sep 30,2009 9:21 am || Up

        Related story:

        My father took the family on a trip to the middle east many years ago. It was a once-in-a-lifetime trip, the kind of thing my dad wanted to do for years but never could for a variety of reasons. With both my sister and I planning to move out soon, my dad decided to go for it. We went to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, and Egypt. A great vacation, lots of really interesting and historical sites, and a religious experience for my sister and parents.

        When it was over, I was glad we went, but was very anxious to get back to the US. I did learn about other cultures, and the key thing I learned was that I preferred the American style of doing…well, everything.

        Our flight landed in JFK and we had to claim our bags, go through customs, and check-in for our domestic flight back to SFO. In the line in front of us was a very attractive women wearing a low-cut blouse. One of her bags was too heavy for check-in, so she was frantically tranferring stuff from one bag to the other…leaning way, way over.

        Cleavage! Good gravy, I hadn’t seen cleavage like that since we left the US! Long live America! USA! USA! I had never been happier to be an American as I was at that moment.

      • mk Sep 30,2009 9:21 am || Up

        If you have a family … yeah. I can’t imagine many professor’s wives will want to sign up for that particular adventure.

        Where in Pakistan did you live?

        • salb918 Sep 30,2009 9:54 am || Up

          We lived in Karachi. I was about a year old. Don’t remember a lick.

      • nevermoor Sep 30,2009 9:55 am || Up

        I wonder if the school working would have a liberalizing effect (students see that women DON’T need to be escorted everywhere, grow up into Saudi elite, change rules) or if that’s too much wishful thinking in a repressive non-democratic environment.

        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
        • salb918 Sep 30,2009 10:03 am || Up

          My non-informed expectation is that it’s wishful thinking. I believe that most of the political elite are from prominent families and not academic or business leaders (I could be wrong). Plus, many of the faculty will be foreign and I suspect they won’t be afforded a voice in national policy and dicourse. Finally – and I’m loathe to say this, as a frequent basher of hum

          • salb918 Sep 30,2009 10:06 am || Up

            stupid FK, what kind of crappy site did you bulid nm?

            …of humanities and social “sciences” – but I doubt that a bunch of MEMs research will have the same liberalizing effect of the books, novels, critical essays, op-eds, etc. that you might expect from a historian.

            • nevermoor Sep 30,2009 11:59 am || Up

              The kind with a bloviation blocker…

              You might well be right. I just can’t imagine that, if this place has a culture similar to other elite institutions of the world that students will come out thinking that harsh repression is a good way to live.

              "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
              • salb918 Sep 30,2009 12:48 pm || Up

                No, but they probably will come out of the university…and leave the country.

                • nevermoor Sep 30,2009 12:54 pm || Up

                  I suppose so. Of course, in that case why establish the university in the first place?

                  "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
                • salb918 Sep 30,2009 12:56 pm || Up

                  The university, and therefore the state, will own a shit-ton of IP.

                  Also, education aside, you can think of it as a government research lab, like NIST/NREL/NIH/LLNL etc, where the research is used to further the national interest in energy, defense, health, etc.

                • nevermoor Sep 30,2009 1:12 pm || Up

                  Touche

                  "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
                • salb918 Sep 30,2009 1:28 pm || Up

                  That’s all my cynical opinion, of course. I could be (hope I am) wrong.

              • the dogfather Sep 30,2009 1:04 pm || Up

                Okay, left- or right-brainers, since most of you have given-up on sex — howsabout this for an article of universal interest?

                The meaning of life is not so much found, as it is Made. -- Opus
                • nevermoor Sep 30,2009 1:14 pm || Up

                  Prince Charles, Mike Tyson and the Marquis of Bath own microscopic sculptures made by Mr. Wigan, which can cost more than $40,000 apiece.

                  He’s gotta be in the running for “most expensive items by weight”

                  "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  3. salb918 Sep 30,2009 9:11 am

    The headline said, “Rollins: Haters of America still out there. I excitedly clicked, expecting Jimmy Rollins. I was wrong/

    • Leopold Bloom Sep 30,2009 9:50 am || Up

      and I, quite honestly, was expecting Henry, and was equally surprised.

      • Leopold Bloom Sep 30,2009 9:53 am || Up

        Um…

        He will once again find out if his powers of persuasion work on foreign leaders and hopefully for the hometown they will work better then they did last week.

        Education: now available for right-wing douche bags!

    • green star oakland Sep 30,2009 9:50 am || Up

      Since you’d ruled out Jimmy I naturally assumed Henry. Also wrong.

      If this is His will, He's a son of a bitch.
      • salb918 Sep 30,2009 9:53 am || Up

        Henry would have been even more awesome, but seemed so unlikely that it never crossed my mind.

    • andeux Sep 30,2009 9:53 am || Up

      Sonny? Henry? Oh, him.

      TINSTAAFK
  4. the dogfather Sep 30,2009 9:18 am

    Science news you can use.

    The authors conducted a study from June 2006 to April 2009 that asked women whether they had ever had sex for one of 237 reasons, all of which had emerged in a previous study. About 1,000 women contributed their perspectives.

    It turns out that women’s reasons for having sex range from love to pure pleasure to a sense of duty to curiosity to curing a headache [? This is good news]. Some women just want to please their partners, and others want an ego boost.

    Research findings
    Purposely made partner jealous?
    31 percent women vs. 17 percent men have tried to evoke jealousy in a partner.
    Had sex out of sense of duty?
    84 percent wives vs. 64 percent husbands usually or always comply when a spouse wants sex but they don’t.
    Partner choice for casual sex?
    63 percent of women prefer to have casual sex with a friend vs. 37 percent who prefer sex with a stranger.
    Steal someone else’s mate?
    38 percent of women say they’ve “poached” someone for a short fling.

    The meaning of life is not so much found, as it is Made. -- Opus
    • nevermoor Sep 30,2009 11:57 am || Up

      A couple reactions:

      1. I bet “curing a headache” is when they’re already in a relationship.

      2. SSS on the wife wants sex but husband doesn’t poll?

      3. So much for the “friend zone” analysis. That, or they’re lying.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  5. green star oakland Sep 30,2009 9:48 am
    One of the things that has made this summer so hectic:

    The first 10 days of Planck data (superimposed on an image of the sky at optical wavelengths)

    If this is His will, He's a son of a bitch.
    • salb918 Sep 30,2009 10:07 am || Up

      What does the color map represent?

      • green star oakland Sep 30,2009 10:24 am || Up

        Fluctuations in the temperature of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (except in the galactic plane, where the CMB is overwhelmed by dust emission).

        If this is His will, He's a son of a bitch.
        • salb918 Sep 30,2009 10:34 am || Up

          Awesome!

          • green star oakland Sep 30,2009 10:50 am || Up

            Yup – especially knowing that we’ve definitely got 1 and likely 2.5 years more data to come.

            If this is His will, He's a son of a bitch.
  6. monkeyball Sep 30,2009 10:18 am

    4. They should have called it the Wahhabi Technology Foundation

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • salb918 Sep 30,2009 10:34 am || Up

      WWF

      • monkeyball Sep 30,2009 11:00 am || Up

        awesome

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
      • nevermoor Sep 30,2009 12:02 pm || Up
        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  7. mk Sep 30,2009 10:20 am

    1. Sexing up college course titles.

    Among them:

    – The Scarlet Whore of Babylon
    – Enlightenment Cliche Enemas for Political Prisoners
    – Orgies, Assassinations, and Karma, Baby

    2. Even if you can’t get into Stanford, you still need a degree, but you could probably do without the “experience”:

    Not that my students minded: My divided attention meant they could turn in substandard work and get the grade least likely to result in my having to justify it. And it was probably pretty obvious I wasn’t going to lodge any complaints about cheating or plagiarism. I just wanted to churn out a plausible distribution of grades onto the grade sheets at the end of the semester without actually having to teach anyone anything.

    […]

    [W]e all broke down into pretenses, that the school work was completed, that the grades were fair, the [sic] anything was learned other than a practical knowledge of how to exploit an institutional bureaucracy more invested in its own illusions than in fulfilling its social mission.

    […]

    [I]f this comes to pass, it will reveal college for what it generally is at non-elite venues: a four-year adventure in spectator sport attendance, alcohol abuse, boundary testing and self-actualization.

    3. Cell phones + texting + driving = 2 9/11’s per year. I urge one of the Kagans to write an op-ed about this emerging threat to the homeland.

    4. Somebody needs to setup a mikeA v Putin pay per view spectacular.

    Stalin cared so much about his reputation as a chess master that he publicized a fake game in which he claimed to defeat party loyalist and future chief of the secret police Nikolai Yezhov. (Stalin later had him executed.)

    5. There is a lot of cruelty in the world.

    • green star oakland Sep 30,2009 10:32 am || Up

      I liked “Differential Equations” => “The Only Constant is Change”.

      If this is His will, He's a son of a bitch.
    • monkeyball Sep 30,2009 10:35 am || Up

      4. Are you indirectly calling for the execution of mikeA? Harsh!

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • salb918 Sep 30,2009 10:47 am || Up

      5b. What’s objectionable to you: the cost-cutting move to outsource, or the “training” scheme?

      • mk Sep 30,2009 11:09 am || Up

        The latter.

        set SalsComment = replace(SalsComment, ‘training scheme’, ‘lying disrespectful bullshit’)

      • green star oakland Sep 30,2009 11:14 pm || Up

        Both when the cost-cutting really translates to “fails to provide a living wage and sustainable working conditions” and hence “profiteers by throwing a significant fraction of employees basic living costs onto state and federal programs, because they’re obliged to give a damn”.

        If this is His will, He's a son of a bitch.
    • mikeA Sep 30,2009 10:53 am || Up

      Einstein v. Oppenheimer: Oppenheimer’s lawyer suggested that he present this game to the HUAC as proof that he was not in league with the reds, but pride fucked with him…

    • salb918 Sep 30,2009 11:56 am || Up

      and perhaps as fewer are accepted into literature programs in graduate English departments, the topics of dissertations will become less ludicrous

      Oh, they’re all ludicrous, aren’t they?

  8. monkeyball Sep 30,2009 10:21 am

    You want science policy? Howzabout $5B for medical research?

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • salb918 Sep 30,2009 10:33 am || Up

      I read that.

      Hopefully, the NIH will see fit to give the money to, oh, me and not to study drug abuse among Brazilian ravers.

      • monkeyball Sep 30,2009 10:45 am || Up

        No, it’s stimulus funding — I think that means it’s going to go toward studies of meth addicts.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  9. monkeyball Sep 30,2009 10:40 am
    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  10. monkeyball Sep 30,2009 10:43 am
    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  11. monkeyball Sep 30,2009 11:12 am

    Amazing dinner out last night. JP’s first fine-dining experience.

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • nevermoor Sep 30,2009 12:08 pm || Up

      That place is pretty darn good, although I’ll admit I prefer Allegro Romano.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • monkeyball Sep 30,2009 12:14 pm || Up

        I’d been wanting to go there for years — been by it dozens of times, and we live just over the hill from it. The service was very good, too — they helped handle JP and his/our needs with aplomb.

        Everything was excellent, but the lamb was preposterously good.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • FreeSeatUpgrade Sep 30,2009 1:34 pm || Up

          My wife and I had the nine course tasting menu here last week, celebrating our eleventh anniversary. Best meal I’ve ever had…by far.

          "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
          • nevermoor Sep 30,2009 1:57 pm || Up

            That just went on my list.

            "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  12. monkeyball Sep 30,2009 11:13 am
    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • salb918 Sep 30,2009 11:48 am || Up

      Dude, did you even read my DLD?

      • monkeyball Sep 30,2009 12:05 pm || Up

        No. Was I supposed to?

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  13. nevermoor Sep 30,2009 12:17 pm
    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • Leopold Bloom Sep 30,2009 1:16 pm || Up

      So, I know nothing but whisperings of gossip (“He’s out of the country and cannot return because he had sex with a minor.”–he’s obviously a child molester) and what I’ve just read in that article right there.

      So, FK, should we have arrested him and be threatening to bring him back here for trial?

      • nevermoor Sep 30,2009 1:45 pm || Up

        I vote yes.

        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  14. FreeSeatUpgrade Sep 30,2009 1:38 pm

    The competition is strong to be sure, but the opening paragraph in Bruce Jenkins’ article on the Warriors today may just be the most moronic words he’s ever penned.

    Mix the inept with the selfish and the immature, and you have Monday’s media day for the Warriors – a day that effectively ended the season. We’re accustomed to preseason doubts surrounding this club, but this is the first 82-game grind to end in September.

    Yes, Golden State is irrevocably doomed because Jackson wonders about playing someone else, and Ellis wonders about their starting lineup. Sell, sell, sell!

    "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
    • mk Sep 30,2009 3:59 pm || Up

      In effectively crushing Stephen Curry’s spirit, Monta Ellis showed he’s about as capable of leading a team as a squirrel.

      I don’t get that. Are squirrels notoriously bad leaders? Raccoons seem a lot more contentious. As do cats and rats and seagulls, for that matter.

      • andeux Sep 30,2009 4:09 pm || Up

        There are other possible interpretations. For instance, he could be talking about Ellis’ ability to lead squirrels. Or his ability to lead the team if he adopted the persona of a squirrel.

        I haven’t RTFA (and don’t follow basketball), but what FSU quotes sounds like garden-variety hyperbole to me, which makes it nowhere near the stupidest thing Jenkins has written in his long career of assbackwardness.

        TINSTAAFK
        • FreeSeatUpgrade Sep 30,2009 4:18 pm || Up

          The idea of deeming the season doomed based solely on the pre-season media day struck me as especially outrageous.

          "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
          • andeux Sep 30,2009 4:30 pm || Up
            TINSTAAFK
          • mjdittmer Oct 1,2009 10:52 am || Up

            It’s hyperbolic, but for Warriors fans who are righteously pissed off at Jackson and Ellis, it was medicine.

            And I understand that some people aren’t pissed off at them at all; Tim Kawakami is arguing that they are truth-tellers no less willing to die for the truth than DFA and PT.

            But I am pissed off at them, at Jackson in particular. This, from the transcript of the press conference AT MEDIA DAY;

            -Q: You signed your extension after Baron and Al were gone, do you feel like you were committing yourself to this team at that point?

            -JACKSON: Well, who’s going to turn down that money? It’s only right. I’m not stupid. I mean, I didn’t go to college but I’ve got a lot of common sense. I’m not going to turn down that money.

            Sure! You’re not stupid. But when athletes sign contracts, isn’t there an implied commitment not only to the management of the franchise, but to the fans of that franchise? I suppose there isn’t, but there should be, and I think we as fans all appreciate players who do respect the bonds they make with the fans of the franchises they play for, and we boo the players who don’t respect those bonds. (We feel the same way about management–thus, the A’s low attendance since the let’s-get-the-hell-out-of-here marketing plan went into effect.)

            I suppose that series win over Dallas pulled me into liking these guys more than I’d realized … I only truly realize it now, when I see how disappointed-as-hell I am to see them acting out this badly. Bruce’s hyperbole goes to show that he’s disappointed too; he’s my shoulder to cry on.

            P.S. Ratto weighs in (ha ha) on cbssports.com; the A’s make a cameo appearance.

            • mikeA Oct 1,2009 11:13 am || Up

              Signing Jackson to an extension was really stupid.
              1) He’s not that good.
              2) The odds were ~100% that bs like this would happen.

        • Leopold Bloom Sep 30,2009 4:34 pm || Up

          Everything I Know, I Learned From a Squirrel

      • nevermoor Sep 30,2009 4:27 pm || Up

        I’m getting tonto flashbacks.

        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
        • Leopold Bloom Sep 30,2009 4:34 pm || Up

          me wampum big smoke to Warriors game?

  15. xbhaskarx Sep 30,2009 1:45 pm

    I am not good at internet, anyone know when A Serious Man is coming to theaters in norcal?

    • Leopold Bloom Sep 30,2009 1:47 pm || Up

      I think it opens everywhere Friday, no?

      • xbhaskarx Sep 30,2009 1:49 pm || Up

        Wikipedia says limited release.

        • Leopold Bloom Sep 30,2009 1:55 pm || Up

          bastards. Hmmm….looks like NYC, LA and…Minneapolis. Fucking Coen Brothers.

      • mikeA Sep 30,2009 1:55 pm || Up

        no. NY and LA; the internet doesn’t know when it will go elsewhere…

  16. salb918 Sep 30,2009 1:47 pm
  17. xbhaskarx Sep 30,2009 2:45 pm
    • Leopold Bloom Sep 30,2009 2:47 pm || Up

      The Raiders back-up QB from the early part of this decade hit a home run?

  18. monkeyball Sep 30,2009 2:58 pm
    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • mk Sep 30,2009 3:17 pm || Up

      I always like to picture Rove torso-deep in a garbage can, which is where the lutefisk usually ends up after holiday gatherings of my extended family.

      When the College Republicans gathered for their convention at the Lake of the Ozarks resort in Missouri, Rove and Atwater relentlessly challenged the legitimacy of Edgeworth’s delegates, even if the evidence did not justify their attacks. Because of Rove’s allegations, the convention ended in deadlock. In revenge, Dolan went to The Washington Post with recordings that captured training seminars where Rove boasted of his campaign techniques, including rooting through opponents’ garbage cans and other forms of campaign espionage.

      • monkeyball Sep 30,2009 3:36 pm || Up

        I’m adding “flooding McHenry’s district with manpower” to the euphemism directory.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  19. nevermoor Sep 30,2009 2:59 pm

    Nothing is different! Everything is the same!

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  20. Leopold Bloom Sep 30,2009 4:38 pm

    Why does this make me laugh?

    Ryan Sweeney is scheduled to to receive platelet-rich plasma injections for his ailing patella tendons after the season.

    • monkeyball Sep 30,2009 5:06 pm || Up

      Taking from the platelet-rich to give to the platelet-poor

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
      • monkeyball Sep 30,2009 5:32 pm || Up

        And from each according to his projectability, to each according to his knees.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  21. FreeSeatUpgrade Sep 30,2009 5:04 pm

    Just because.

    "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
  22. Leopold Bloom Sep 30,2009 5:58 pm
    • monkeyball Sep 30,2009 6:07 pm || Up

      needs moar moat

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • mk Sep 30,2009 6:40 pm || Up

      Well, that’s what you get for recklessly undermining the optimal truth-seeking climate (monkeyball’s “TWSS” comment definitely qualifies as a breach of analytical thread decorum as well).

      First, your history is off— castles were very rarely attacked, because they were semi-impregnable during the Middle Ages.

      I can’t stop laughing …

      • monkeyball Sep 30,2009 6:51 pm || Up

        Analytical thread decorum was very rarely breached, because it was semi-impregnable.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • green star oakland Sep 30,2009 7:11 pm || Up

          There’s no such thing as semi-impregnant.

          If this is His will, He's a son of a bitch.
          • monkeyball Sep 30,2009 7:45 pm || Up

            But there is such thing as …

            you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
      • nevermoor Sep 30,2009 7:19 pm || Up

        I almost jumped on that one, then decided to let it go. I clearly foresaw the battle over the definition of “attacked” that would ensue.

        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  23. monkeyball Sep 30,2009 6:57 pm

    Science Wednesday: In former Soviet Union, DNA continuously repairs you

    Related — LB, you and I are going to live forever:

    capable of cycling from a mature adult stage to an immature polyp stage and back again. This means that there may be no natural limit to its life span

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  24. monkeyball Sep 30,2009 7:46 pm

    Clearly, those Dominican Cincinattian middle infielders are tipping pitches for Griffey.

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • Leopold Bloom Sep 30,2009 9:13 pm || Up

      I thought MaEl was from North Dakota?

  25. nevermoor Sep 30,2009 10:33 pm

    This may be sappy, but I just want to throw out that I’m glad FK has turned into what it is. 100 comments a day is nice, and we’ve got a good group (also: clowns).

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • mjdittmer Oct 1,2009 1:23 am || Up

      And midnight commenters!

    • salb918 Oct 1,2009 5:09 am || Up

      This only has 99 comments.

      Oh, wait.

    • FreeSeatUpgrade Oct 1,2009 9:06 am || Up

      Needs more vitriol. Dick.

      "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
      • the dogfather Oct 1,2009 10:09 am || Up

        I’ll do an email search; I’ll bet I can find some.

        The meaning of life is not so much found, as it is Made. -- Opus
  26. monkeyball Oct 1,2009 11:50 am

    Oh, fer fuck’s sake. Hard drive on my antique secondhand Pismo macbook just died. Eh, guess I got my money’s worth.

    Those who are interested in reading the script … this will push things back.

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • mk Oct 1,2009 12:24 pm || Up

      1. I am interested.
      2. This is a shamefully transparent stalling tactic.
      3. Do you use Final Draft, or just format it manually?

      • monkeyball Oct 1,2009 12:29 pm || Up

        1. Can I have $5?
        2. Actually, it was supposed to be a shamefully transparent bleg
        3. Word, and format using styles; I’m a big fan of Word

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • mikeA Oct 1,2009 12:31 pm || Up

          I know a guy… who knows a guy…. who lives in Concord… and charges a lot of money….

        • Leopold Bloom Oct 1,2009 12:31 pm || Up

          You’ve vastly misunderstood Pismo macbooks. They’re semi-impregnable.

          • andeux Oct 1,2009 12:34 pm || Up

            So we don’t have to worry about monkey-Pismo chimeras?

            TINSTAAFK
            • Leopold Bloom Oct 1,2009 12:46 pm || Up

              not unless they’re immune to +3 weapons and below. Then, we’re screwed. But we would’ve been anyways.

            • monkeyball Oct 1,2009 12:47 pm || Up

              Nor about monkey-A’sfaninPismoBeach chimeras

              you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
          • monkeyball Oct 1,2009 12:46 pm || Up

            You mean I shouldn’t have thrown it in the moat?

            you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come

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