![Miro Collas [2009-12-31]](http://www.penguinbar.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Miro-Collas-Self-Portrait-2010-01-31-Square-256.png "Miro Collas [2010-01-31]")
Full-frontal blokes still get the flick – Film – www.smh.com.au
“The fear of male homosexuality is the fear of the loss of male dominance in our society – if everybody gets equally sexualised and equally open to having sex with everybody else then the whole system of male dominance gets called into question.”
via Full-frontal blokes still get the flick – Film – www.smh.com.au.
Topics: Current Events, Male Erotica | No Comments »
Is Stupid the New Black?
When did it become fashionable to be stupid? Or rather, when did it become acceptable, or profitable, expected, or newsworthy? Because these days, I feel overwhelmed by stupidity: stupid behavior, stupid decisions, and then stupid excuses. Maybe it's the 24/7 news cycle or a case of over-active PR machinery. There's too much stuff going on that masquerades as news. But some days, it's just WTF times 2 — or maybe times 200.
Stupid has several connotations; it's a hurtful word, which is why I hate using it. But these are mean-spirited times, my friends, and that occasionally calls for mean-spirited words. As I apply it, stupid refers to (but is not limited to): willful ignorance, determined obstinance, self-serving incompetence, deliberate misrepresentation, purposeful insensitivity, or wholesale rudeness. It's the impulse to act like a jerk and I promise you, I'm not exempt. And let me make this perfectly clear: this epidemic is not restricted to one particular party, gender, religious group, or age bracket.
via Is Stupid the New Black? – Nikki Stern – Open Salon.
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New Hubble Maps of Pluto Show Surface Changes (02/04/2010) – The Full Story
NASA today released the most detailed set of images ever taken of the distant dwarf planet Pluto. The images taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope show an icy and dark molasses-colored, mottled world that is undergoing seasonal changes in its surface color and brightness. Pluto has become significantly redder, while its illuminated northern hemisphere is getting brighter. These changes are most likely consequences of surface ices sublimating on the sunlit pole and then refreezing on the other pole as the dwarf planet heads into the next phase of its 248-year-long seasonal cycle. The dramatic change in color apparently took place in a two-year period, from 2000 to 2002.
The Hubble images will remain our sharpest view of Pluto until NASA's New Horizons probe is within six months of its Pluto flyby. The Hubble pictures are proving invaluable for picking out the planet's most interesting-looking hemisphere for the New Horizons spacecraft to swoop over when it flies by Pluto in 2015.
Though Pluto is arguably one of the public's favorite planetary objects, it is also the hardest of which to get a detailed portrait because the world is small and very far away. Hubble resolves surface variations a few hundred miles across, which are too coarse for understanding surface geology. But in terms of surface color and brightness Hubble reveals a complex-looking and variegated world with white, dark-orange, and charcoal-black terrain. The overall color is believed to be a result of ultraviolet radiation from the distant Sun breaking up methane that is present on Pluto's surface, leaving behind a dark and red carbon-rich residue.
When Hubble pictures taken in 1994 are compared with a new set of images taken in 2002 to 2003, astronomers see evidence that the northern polar region has gotten brighter, while the southern hemisphere has gotten darker. These changes hint at very complex processes affecting the visible surface, and the new data will be used in continued research.
Topics: Science | No Comments »
Science Digestive: “Dear Homeopathy, from Science” (No. 2)
Dear Homeopathy
Hello. Science here. Thought I'd better introduce myself, seeing as how we've never met. I know you like to give people the impression that you work closely with me, and that I'm somewhat envious of you so try to suppress you, but seeing as we both know the truth, I have to ask; Who are you and what do you want?
Surely we can be adult about this? I know we have our differences. I'm the anthropomorphic representation of the concept of science, a millennia-old field of study and learning based on the establishing of evidence and rational theories, vital to the functioning and progression of society, and you're… you. What are you exactly? I ask because I'm genuinely confused. You seem to want people to think you're a valid aspect of what I do, while simultaneously telling people what I do is wrong? Seems contradictory, is all.
Did you ever meet that guy who was a professional skydiver even though he didn't believe in gravity? No, of course you didn't, that never happened because it would be ridiculous. Am I being too subtle here? Don't overlook the fact that the guy in the comparison I just made up would no doubt have ended up having to be buried in a bucket, that's something you might want to be careful of if you carry on like you're doing.
via Science Digestive: “Dear Homeopathy, from Science” (No. 2).
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“Dear Media, from Science” (No.1)
Firstly, would it kill you to be a bit more specific when you tell people what I'm up to? The number of news stories I've read which end with “…say scientists” just drives me to distraction. And I can't afford to be distracted, a lot of my work is quite delicate., some of it involves brains!
Do you realise how vague a term 'Scientists' is? It's like 'cars', there are hundreds of different types. It might be accurate, but it's not specific. You'd never say “'Kill all homosexuals', say religious people”. And I don't blame you, there'd be uproar, but it's basically the same thing. You're not helping by grouping my lot together like that, they're a very diverse bunch. Einstein and Pasteur were both Scientists, but only one has anything useful to say on the laws of relativity. That and the big mustaches are all they have in common (both were also from mainland Europe, and they're both dead, but let's not get bogged down in this).
This implication that 'Scientists' are all in agreement whenever a 'breakthrough' is made is gibberish. As a result, people think my lot are some shadowy cabal who meet once a month in order to decide what new rules we have to dictate to the general populace. I've tried telling them that they're thinking of the Freemasons, not my lot, but to no avail. You're the one who's giving this impression, not me. Cut it out will you! If a botanist says there's no climate change, don't class him as a scientist, assume he's an idiot and ignore him, you have my permission. Some specificity, please. I know it sounds like extra work, but how hard can adding or changing a single word be? You're not writing the Bible here, and even if you were, same applies.
via Science Digestive: “Dear Media, from Science” (No.1).
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National Prayer Breakfast Draws Controversy – NYTimes.com
The objections are focused on the sponsor of the breakfast, a secretive evangelical Christian network called The Fellowship, also known as The Family, and accusations that it has ties to legislation in Uganda that calls for the imprisonment and execution of homosexuals.
The Family has always stayed intentionally in the background, according to those who have written about it. In the last year, however, it was identified as the sponsor of a residence on Capitol Hill that has served as a dormitory and meeting place for a cluster of politicians who ran into ethics problems, including Senator John Ensign, Republican of Nevada, and Gov. Mark Sanford, Republican of South Carolina, both of whom have admitted to adultery.
More recently, it became public that the Family also has close ties to the Ugandan politician who has sponsored the proposed anti-gay legislation.
via National Prayer Breakfast Draws Controversy – NYTimes.com.
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An Ugly Week For The Human Race And Other Living Things
Don’t get me wrong about healthcare, either. Everything about that legislation was wrong, and I’m delighted to see it die. It was poorly handled in every imaginable way, by what is without doubt the most inept president at least since Herbert Hoover, and by a Congress full of whores, thieves and congenital liars, and I’m happy that the whole thing exploded in their faces. Damn shame, of course, about all those millions of Americans without adequate health care. But since any assistance this bill might have provided them was going to be scant and inadvertent, anyhow, I refuse to feel bad about its demise.
Democrats know exactly what they need to do if they want to fix healthcare in America. And they also know that even if they can’t get the legislation through the Senate, now that they’ve blown their super-majority, they could at least destroy any member of Congress who would vote against such simple reforms that minimally regulate the worst practices of the insurance industry (since we can assume that Democrats could never pull the trigger for single payer). But they also know that they ARE those members of Congress who would be destroyed. When it comes to the essential question of who they work for, they’re really no different than the Grand Old Pigs.
But Scott Brown’s election was a really bad thing for America and the world, at least in the short term, because when you have a two party system and the Democrats are in power, that means a vote to throw the bums out can only go in one place. The story of American politics over the next five years has already been written. In desperation for solutions, and having already forgotten how much they hated the Bush nightmare, voters will soon be handing the keys to American government back to the Republican Party, which will then promptly fail, even more egregiously than the Democrats, to provide solutions. Neither further tax cuts for the wealthy, nor the slashing of social programs, nor gay-bashing, nor some jive war in some banana republic will cure what ails Americans, and it may no longer even successfully distract them for more than a few minutes.
via The Regressive Antidote – An Ugly Week For The Human Race And Other Living Things.
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Goldman Sachs and the $100 million question – Times Online
Goldman Sachs, the world’s richest investment bank, is facing a potential political storm over how much it pays its chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein.
Bankers in Davos for the World Economic Forum (WEF) told The Times they understood that Mr Blankfein and other top Goldman bankers outside Britain were set to receive some of the bank’s biggest-ever payouts, in defiance of President Obama’s attempt to shame banks into cutting bonuses. “This is Lloyd thumbing his nose at Obama,” said a banker at one of Goldman’s rivals.
Mr Blankfein took home his biggest bonus so far in 2007, when he was paid $67.9 million. Goldman’s profits last year were $1.8 billion higher than in 2007. This leaves the bank with a justification to pay him even more although payouts will be made in shares rather than cash to make them more politically palatable. Some rival bankers claim Mr Blankfein could receive up to $100 million, though even a much lower figure could prove politically explosive.
via Goldman Sachs and the $100 million question – Times Online.
Topics: Current Events | No Comments »
