In an effort to illustrate my conflicted feelings about Kim Stanley Robinson’s extremely preachy style of Sci Fi writing, I present a hypothetical conversation between him and his research assistant:

KSR: I’m working on a novel about the rational obviousness of science, its role in all of human progress, and the stupidity of Judeo-Christian belief systems.
ASSISTANT: Yes, sir.
KSR: I’ll need you to get me some texts to study: physics, astronomy, planetology, geology, climatology, chemistry, quantum theory, biology, systems theory, and so forth.
ASSISTANT: Yes, sir. What about the social sciences?
KSR: Social scientists are just people who didn’t have the SAT scores to get into the hard sciences. Their so-called “theories” are unscientific mumbo-jumbo with no demonstrable usefulness or effectiveness. Human behavior is so complex it can’t even be studied scientifically.
ASSISTANT: Actually, sir, there are quite a few well-validated predictive models of various aspects of human behavior, and empirical research from the social sciences has been responsible for huge improvements in the human condition. Besides, human behavior is certainly no more complex than, say, an ecosystem or a planetary climate. Why, if we simply look through the list of Nobel Prize winners from the last half-century—
KSR: I said it’s mumbo-jumbo and too complex to study.
ASSISTANT: Yes, sir.
KSR: And Buddhism is awesome.

…blurting out inappropriate things in front of the neighbors.

(awesome)

This “Obama is going to indoctrinate my kids” flap has provided marvelous political theater, especially given that it recapitulates the issues surrounding a similar speech given by GHW Bush in 1991. I think there are some real issues raised, by it, though not of the catastrophic caliber suggested by the Rightest of the Right. I am still researching the issue of the “altered” portion of Obama’s speech (quotes used because I still haven’t found credible evidence that he changed it significantly after the furor started; but I’m still looking).

On some of the conservative blogs and news sites I visited in trying to figure out this controversy and its highly tenuous connections with Oprah’s “Pledge” video, I found some reasonable comments. However, I also found comments that strayed from Reasonable, ran through Questionable’s back yard, and hopped the fence right into Idiotic. Since those are much more fun than intelligent comments, here are some of them (from this blog post, about the “pledge” video):

“… Did you see the two Cubans in the Video-Cameron and Eva? Well screw them! I pledge to keep using plastic at the grocery story and driving an SUV!”

“I pledge to add a few more minutes to my really HOT showers.

“I’m with you. Today I tossed a plastic bottle in my trash in honor of the disgust I felt for this hair raising filth.”

“I pledge to throw perfectly good paper right into the trash.”

“I pledge to walk past the recycling bin at the gym and put my water bottle into the trashcan while horrified people look at me. And I will smile.”

Wow! How awesome is that!? “I disagree with the President, so I’m going to do something generally antisocial, like make my country a little big uglier, a little bit trashier, and a little bit less energy efficient.”  Why stop there? Express your displeasure with others’ ideas through this interesting tactic in other domains, too!

“Did you see the President trying to prop up the American auto industry? Well screw them! I pledge to never buy another American car or automotive accessory!”

“The President thinks he can indoctrinate my kids to do better in school, does he? Then I pledge to have a heart-to-heard talk with each of my kids, on the topic of how stupid school is, and how awesome it is to drop out. Also, I think I’ll keep them home one day a week, playing video games.”

“Obama is still fighting terrorists? Well, I pledge to stop my monthly donations to the United Way and instead give my hard-earned charitable cash to whatever shell organization will launder it and give it to Al Qaeda, while horrified people in the human resources office look at me. And I will smile.”

All joking aside, the most painful comment on that site was the following, perhaps so poignant because I believe the commenter really could not imagine any other point of view:

EXCUSE ME! For 8 years, and still today, our troops (under POTUS GWB) FREED over 50 MILLION people in two wars. Not only that, but we lost many of those troops being patient for those freed people to understand and trust their newfound liberty.

Here I am at the First Annual Doctors Hospital¹ at Renaissance  (or DHR, as the cool MDs call it) Behavioral Health Conference. I have to say I’m impressed.

Speakers
The speakers are excellent, which is surprising, given that we’re tucked in such a far corner of the country. Predictably, many of the experts are from Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio², but they really are experts in their fields. We also have researchers  from Boston (Harvard Med) and Tennessee, with international folks originally from Cuba and Colombia. Everyone has big lists of national and international accolades, presidencies, and frickin’ insane publication counts³. The organizers made dang sure this wasn’t a “lame local professionals” thing. Barry Mills, who does research on dangerousness, criminality, etc., was one of the presenters. It’s always nice to meet someone whose papers you’ve been stumbling across in major journals for a decade.

Filthy Lucre
The level of funding for this one-day-only, 150-participant conference is kind of unthinkable, from a social-science/mental-health perspective. Someone said it cost around $30,000. But it’s associated with a medical center, of course, and funded by training grants from pharmaceutical companies. Of course. The door prizes⁴ are Bose Wave Radios, Mont Blanc fountain pens, Tumi luggage, a PS3, ipods, portable DVD players, and a 37″ Toshiba plasma TV. That’s maybe three to five thousand bucks, I’m guessing. The programs are slick and professional, and the venue — though small — is very nice. I guess that’s what happens when you have a super-lucrative corporation or three funding your conference, instead of dues from a few thousand university professors. The registration fee was $35. I’m going on and on, I realize, but every time I come in direct contact with the financial influence of the drug companies, I’m left agog.

Expansion of My Mind
With one exception, every presentation has just been excellent. Solid, research-based, well-delivered, etc. Being funded by drug companies, I expected rampant conflicts of interest, but it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. Only two guys (no female presenters) had lucrative non-grant affiliations with Rx companies (experts on boards etc). Two more had received grants from  Big Pharma, and the rest seemed relatively untouched by the moolah. At least in any direct way.

The first talk (at seven friggin’ thirty a.m.) was a research-intensive review of the apparent reality, etiology, neural correlates, and unsavory comorbid associates of fibromyalgia. I’ve been hearing the same things everyone else in the medical field has been hearing, for years: fibromyalgia is some kind of attention-seeking hypochondriasis experienced by whiners. I’ve resisted this interpretation as somewhat demeaning to the sufferers, but I have still internalized it, I guess. I know that because of how surprised I was to see the evidence: solid brain imaging studies, self-report, other-report, functional impairments, objective measures, and on and on. They all point to a true syndrome with the what seems to be the level of evidence I expect to regarding the reality and specificity of a mood disorder, an anxiety disorder, or many physical impairments.

Humor & Snark

1. It can be jarring for a psychologist to go from an academic or mental health environment to a medical one. We often feel a bit like kids from the poor side of town, with ripped jeans and home haircuts. The medical profession’s term du jour for psychological/behavioral health professionals is Allied Behavioral Health. “Well, we can’t use any words that would imply that they’re part of the medical community… but I guess we don’t want them as enemies, either. How can we phrase that?”
2. From a presentation on bipolar disorder and suicide: “Now, keep in mind that a man who’s lost a wife within the past year has four times the risk for suicide, ah, compared to a woman who’s lost a wife.”
3. In a Simpsons vein, one of the presenters had a voice — nasal, slightly singsong, more tenor than bass — that sounded freakishly like Professor Frink’s. I realized this as soon as I heard him say, “…but this is the *ventral* striatum, in contrast to the *dorsal* medial striatum, which everyone here is clearly familar with.”

1. From the pamphlet, “Separate professional fees will be associated with your physician” [↩]
2. Though all are from nationally-competitive research & treatment organizations, which Texas — perhaps surprisingly — has quite a few of [↩]
3. Seriously, how do those MDs get pub counts like SEVEN HUNDRED by the time they’re 50? Does their research take longer than 10 minutes? Do they have institutional review boards? Do they ever have to apply for funding? I guess it’s a pretty sure bet that these guys don’t teach classes… [↩]
4. I didn’t win anything, but a colleague won the PS3 [↩]

Today: Cool picturey things. First: CORRELATION TOTALLY DOES IMPLY CAUSATION.

This one is extra awesome for being an example of what it illustrates:

And then:

Tectonic plates show up nicely when you plot thousands of earthquake epicenters on a globe:

This little want ad sets new records for the proportion of what’s-wrong-with-our-world that can be fit into a space the size of a postage stamp:

Finally: a video of a guy with a Samurai sword slicing a BB in flight! Half my 12-year-old dreams come true!¹.

1. seriously, it’s pretty freakin’ cool. But then, maybe that’s my 12-year-old self saying that. [↩]

It has been a lovely few days for web joy.

1. If you only watch one video today, this should be it. Some sheep farmers strap LED vests to their sheep, then herd them all over a hillside at night, making awesome animated art! SQUEEEEE!

2. ….and a great picture of a boy holding a cat almost as big as him.

3. The recipe for the awesome (and pretty easy) whole wheat bread I made yesterday. It’s delicious.

4. An exam (I hope not fake) and the prof’s email (also I hope not fake, but who knows) wherein the student answered “C” to every test, apparently unaware that all questions were T/F.

5. This is nearly too ridiculous to believe, so I hope it’s fake, too.

6. A yearly festival in China, dating back 500 years to a time when the locals couldn’t afford fireworks, in which locals fling globs of molten metal at a high wall. If I ever get to tour China, I would love to see this in person. Seriously.

…and now to church.

Here in South Texas, stuff blows around a lot. Few trees and certainly no hills to stop it. Lots of wind. So my teeny back “yard” gets its share of trash. This delicious document was in the take sometime last month. Is it not precious? I defy you to malign its preciousness.

(sorry about the quality; it’s a faded, blurry document; I’ve done what I can to make it legible)

IMAGINARY HOUSEMATE: Hello. How was your day?
ME: This is how it was:

“La de da…. what a nice day. A bit busy, but not bad. I don’t really want to go to this translation meeting, but since it’s Thursday I guess I’d better. 1:15… I’ll just walk on over to the SBS building and get set up early. Okay. here I am. Get this computer cranked up, figure out how to make the computer display on the big screen…. all right, it’s 1:30, time for the research assistants to show up…. let’s just check the time here on the ol’ computer… it’s um, 1:32… Wednesday… AAAAAA! It’s not Thursday! It’s WEDNESDAY! Class started 20 minutes ago! AAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH! @#$%! $#@#! #$@*!

And that’s how my day was. Bless their poor little hearts, the students were all still there. And now, in the interests of mental escape from my apparently buffoonish life, here are some comics from Toothpaste for Dinner.

and there’s this one…

also this next one…

and this is cute…

who could deny the humorousness of the following?

your mom thinks this is cute…

oh, the joy…

and finally…

Those of you not familiar with reddit.com … maybe you’ll be happier if you stay not familiar with it. If you are religious (and do not like being demeaned, belittled, mocked, or screamed at), politically conservative, sensitive to profanity, or not that into tech, it can be unpleasant to read. However, there are also a lot of intelligent, witty folks on reddit, and occasionally one of them spawns something incredible. I consider NOW to be one of those moments. Yesterday someone posted the following challenge:

Write this joke: Ben & Jerry create “Yes Pecan!” ice cream flavor for Obama. For George W. they created _________.”

Seemingly obviously (in hindsight), someone posted “No Pecan’t” as an option. However, that was not the end of the hilarity, by a long shot.

The comment thread for this item is, in my opinion, epic. Yes, I said EPIC. And I’m sure it’s still growing. After the cut, find the highlights, as of this morning. Warning: I’ve included the sweary ones, with the letters tastefully deleted. But children should probably not read this post in its entirety (unless they’re foul-mouthed little b******s). Disclaimer: I don’t necessarily agree with what you’re about to read, but I think you’ll admit the level of humor is as high as in any of David Letterman’s Top Ten lists :D

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Once again, I’m avoiding work. So, I have started to think about New Year’s resolutions. And I avoided doing that by cleaning residual spam out of my email inbox. Then it hit me: Why go to all the trouble to think up resolutions myself, when the spammers have already done just that? If the subject lines of my highly-personalized spam can be believed (and I think they can), spammers have both insight into my personal deficits and some specific advice for improvement.

So, here is my New Year’s resolution list, following (as word-for-word as possible) the suggestions implied by my most recent spam subject lines:

1. I resolve to become the IT consultant of perfect love making art.¹
2. I will make a stronger effort to confirm upon delivery.²
3. I will brand some Swiss watches.³
4. I will attain a huge love luger.⁴
5. I will upsize my manhood today!⁵
6. I resolve to gain inches the easy way.⁶
7. I shall represent female Viagra for most pleasure.⁷
8. When facing a love making problem, I will solve all myt problems in a few minute.⁸
9. I will strive to make the impression of a well off person on everybody.⁹
10. I will please approve or deny.¹⁰
11. I will stop certain bacterial infections forever.¹¹
12. I resolve to choose my own price.¹²
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1. This metaphor isn’t really working for me, but I don’t want to offend any Don Juan IT folks out there, so I’ll go with it. [↩]
2. This is just good sense, really. [↩]
3. ? [↩]
4. Okay… I get that this is some kind of penis reference, but “luger?” Is there some subcategory of fetishists in the world who fantasize about Nazi weaponry as metaphors for body parts? Wait, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. [↩]
5. Problematic. Sure, it could just be a penis thing, but let’s give the spammers the benefit of the doubt. Am I just not masculine enough? Do I need to spend more time lumberjacking and belching and cat-calling women and herding cattle? Should I take it more literally, like a request that I increase my weight training while packing in the protein powder? [↩]
6. I’m already achieving this goal, thanks to Amanda’s Nanaimo Bars. They have about 10,000 calories each. [↩]
7. This is right out; I already have a career, and I prefer to be paid with some form of government-recognized currency. [↩]
8. This resolution is vague in several ways. Is this a response to a sexual performance issue (and if so, whose?), or is it some sort of problem that actually results in the creation of love? The second option is far more interesting, but could be pretty complicated. In any case, I think it’s a recipe for disaster, in demanding that I solve the problem immediately (and with poor spelling), but with no workable plan of action. [↩]
9. This really doesn’t seem reasonable, and I’d rather understand hyphenation than appear affluent, anyway. [↩]
10. Like #2, quite reasonable, really. [↩]
11. If I can pull it off, I suppose I’ll win a Nobel Prize or something. [↩]
12. A pretty good gig, if I can make it work. [↩]

Santa Claus is Coming to Town (SCICTT), the 1934 holiday anthem penned by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie, is a dank and terrifying morass of Western religious child terror, wallowing in the threadbare banality of Orwellian paranoia.

The first strains of this well-worn dreadnought of a carol set an appropriately hopeless tone: “You’d better watch out, you’d better not cry, you’d better not pout…”  Children — ostensibly the intended audience of this misanthropic musical melange — are put on notice. They are to be observed, measured, and managed. Not only their behavior but their mental and emotional states will fall under the purview of a merciless overlord in red and white fur. A cheerful melody and jaunty accompaniment lay a whistling-in-the-dark veneer over the lyrics, which summon a haunted existence so unoriginal as to numb the mind.

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1. sad: Yoani Sánchez, a very cool Cuban blogger, who writes the poignant and well-crafted Generación Y, is getting shaken down and threatened by the Cuban national cops. Apparently, it’s not in the public good to be blogging honestly about life in Havana right after the two hurricanes (yeah, I don’t know what the hurricanes have to do with it, either).
2. Here are some totally great one-shot visual joke-type comics (t-shirt designs, actually). My favorites are the tuba-playing ninja, the handlebar-mustache-guy catching air on a pennyfarthing, the alien using  a lawnmower to make crop circles, and the classical musician in a tux totally smashing the crap out of his cello (or bass or whatever), rock-star-style.
3. This is a very cute (and well done) photo of a kitty, with a drug-reference macro I find amusing.
4. Want a fun 5 minutes? Here is a photo (not mine, sadly). There is absolutely a small bird in it, very well camouflaged. Find the bird :)

OK, gotta get up and get ready for work now. Sigh. So very not motivated, today.

Behold... My Future
		I will marry The Log Lady.
		After a wild honeymoon, We will settle down in The Dark Side in our fabulous Apartment.
		We will have 42 kid(s) together.
		Our family will zoom around in a Psychedelic Pastel kidwagon.
		I will spend my days as a female undawears model tan line inspector, and live happily ever after.

Notes:

1. Yes, the Dark Side business makes perfect sense while being married to the Log Lady.
2. My job inspecting undawears models’ tan lines would be pretty uninspiring, after that wild honeymoon (and naturally all the wild nights thereafter) with the Log Lady.
3. Nobody at this website knew to put an apostrophe in “what’s”?

…NO! Did I write a one-word-per-line villanelle about anhedonia? Yes! Yes, I did!

*

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I’ll be here all week.

(p.s. In case you’re wondering, I’m really not in a rotten mood; it was all about the juicy rhymes. This is variously called “Poetic Licentiousness,” “Terminal No-talent-itis,” or sometimes “lame-a&& hip hop”)

The web, she is a harsh mistress. This week, she has hurt me and tickled me and hurt me again. She is not a nice girl.

1. As I have said all along (and as young Catherine Vogt has just learned), associating oneself with a candidate who talks about diversity and tolerance doesn’t mean one actually has a clue about what those words mean.

2. Vanity Fair has written a snarky little piece about Thomas Kinkaide’s involvement in what sounds like the most horrendous movie ever made. It’s a movie based on a Thomas Kinkaide painting!!! The VF article is titled “Thomas Kinkaide’s 16 Guidelines for Making Stuff Suck.” :D

3. Andy Borowitz, a humor writer with the Huffington Post (or “HuffPo,” as some people call it… the people who are still upset that they never mastered the slang of the moment back in high school) has written about President-Elect Obama’s controversial and confusing use of complete sentences.

4. Richard Renaldi is a Canadian photographer with a strangely moving series of photos in which he asks complete strangers to touch each other while posing for the shot. “Giovanni and Deborah” is my favorite.

5. Second to last: This is absolutely without doubt a classic example of that “road to hell paved with good intentions” idea. This is Orwell’s 1984 in embryo. It is a very, very horrible idea. Just read the last sentence in the Globe and Mail article. Ick. Ick. Ick.

6. Last, but oh no siree bob definitely not least, you HAVE TO SEE THIS VIDEO. Especially if you like Rock Band/Guitar Hero. :D

NBC quickly and without comment yanked this SNL skit from its site, and sends repeated takedown notices to any service hosting it (e.g., YouTube). It’s pretty funny, and it even has some good points to be made. Oh yeah, some are about the Democratic Party, so… let’s see… Al Franken is a Democratic candidate… he continues to write for the show… the show’s viewer base is largely made up of Obama supporters… nah. That’s just crazy conspiracy talk.

Anyway, watch quick or this site might get perma-yanked, too. Don’t pass up this chance to see Bush, Pelosi, and even George Soros simultaneously roasted. :)

I decided to make something nummy. I have recipe book. I have ingredients. Let’s go! Somehow, the “cake brownie batter” looks like chocolate milk with flecks of pepper in it or something. I really don’t know what went wrong, except maybe the butter/margarine was too watery & runny? I should use real butter. So, to make the unholy concoction more cake-batter-like, I… well… I did things to it. Things I’m not  proud of. It’s in  the oven right now. I expect horrible results in 18 to 20 minutes.

In other news, you know how google’s newsfeed pairs hopefully-related photos with the summaries of news stories, sometimes with cute results? Well, here’s my giggle from yesterday. I suspect Alex may enjoy it.

Hey! Is that me, as a missionary in Mexico? No, wait. I wore white shirts.

1. I have stumbled on the Harry Potter Puppet Pals a little late, but it’s a great way to spend a couple of minutes. Better late than never.
2. Inspiring story about a guy in Africa who started using a traditional method of rejuvenating unfarmable land, starting a grassroots movement that has reforested millions (yes!) of hectares, largely with no government or NGO support; just farmers deciding to do this themselves.
3. I first heard this beautiful tune by the Fleet Foxes a couple of months ago. and I still like it.
4. Liked Back to the Future? Then you’ll (potentially) love Brokeback to the Future! (Totally SFW, despite how hilarious it is)
5. I KNEW IT!!!

Now I should probably stop wasting my day and go be productive. At least a little. The cat, by the way, is doing pretty well, as evidenced by the amount of mischief he has perpetrated in a few short days, and the fact that he is now licking his butt.

In response to Amanda’s ridiculous assertion that Euphrates doesn’t yield any good nicknames for cats, I offer: FRAIDY!