I swear these stories are finding me and not vice versa.

From the “recent studies suggest” department, we learn that sex is not only beneficial in lowering stress…

Volunteers who had sexual intercourse were the least stressed and had blood pressure levels that returned to normal more quickly than people who engaged in other types of sex. But people who had abstained from sex had the highest blood pressure response to stress.

…but also gives vitamin C a run for its money in boosting the ol’ immune system:

Swiss scientist Manfred Schedlovski claims his experiments show that regular love-making increases the amount of phagocyte cells, which boost the body’s immune system and fight the microbes that cause colds.

He claims the number of phagocytes - which attack alien antibodies, causing them to self-destruct - significantly increases during sexual intercourse.
And according to Schedlovski’s research, the number of phagocyte cells can even double after an orgasm, allowing alien microbes to be detected and destroyed more quickly.

Somehow, I don’t think these two tidbits will be added to any Sex Ed curriculums anytime soon.
Not to mention all these.

There have been a lot of crappy movies gracing our theaters lately. Big budgets and crafty hype have slapped out McDonalds-style flicks that do nothing to the moviegoer, except maybe a mild headache from the MTV jerky camera and lightning scene sequences that are nothing more than a desperate attempt to keep the viewer from realizing how crappy the plots and acting really are. Whew!
I enjoy going to a theater and looking at the expressions old people make when they are zapped with pop camera angles and impossible stunts. Some are desensitized to it by now (because all they do is watch TV), but then there are those with less faculties who catch only a percentage of what is actually fluttering in front of them. Those are the ones to watch! It reminds me of that scene in A Clockwork Orange where the ministry is attempting to cleanse Alex’s nihilistic habits. They clip open his eyelids so he cannot refuse to watch the horror in front of him. Yeah, I can’t put eyedrops in my eyes because of this traumatic scene.

I degress. So as my entree for the week, I shall introduce a handfull of upcoming films that seem worth the dollar they will cost at the dollar theater in H-ville. (which just opened by the way) Enjoy!

The Devil and Daniel Johnston

Hoot

Thank You for Smoking

Apocalypto

End of the Spear

And a last one for Jorge

A new study finds that couples who watch tv in the bedroom have half the sex that tv-less couples do.

“If there’s no television in the bedroom, the frequency (of sexual intercourse) doubles,” said Serenella Salomoni whose team of psychologists questioned 523 Italian couples to see what effect television had on their sex lives.

On average, Italians who live without TV in the bedroom have sex twice a week, or eight times a month. This drops to an average of four times a month for those with a TV, the study found.

For the over-50s the effect is even more marked, with the average of seven couplings a month falling to just 1.5 times.

And these are Italians, imagine what TV does to the already underutilized* American libido!

*Results may vary, especially in my case.

Dear Once-a-Day Readers:

Google is fighting the department of justice. Good for them. The Department of Justice says they need to investigate Google searches in order to fight child porn. Hmmm…I kinda sort of doubt that.

Note that Yahoo complied.

Yet another reason why Google is google-icious.

Love,

Johnny Palmetto

PS: How long do you think they’ll be able to hold off Bush and Company?

This came from Defective Yeti, another fine blog. It reminds me of all those times I walked into other people’s dorm rooms to find them absorbed in a text game. What a great idea this was!

Oval Office
You are standing inside a White House, having just been elected to the presidency of the United States. You knew Scalia would pull through for you.

There is a large desk here, along with a few chairs and couches. The presidential seal is in the middle of the room and there is a full-length mirror upon the wall.

What do you want to do now?

> INVADE IRAQ
You are not able to do that, yet.

> LOOK MIRROR
Self-reflection is not your strong suit.

> PET SEAL
It’s not that kind of seal.

> EXAMINE CHAIRS
They are two several chairs arranged around the center of the room, along with two couches. Under one couch you find Clinton’s shoes.

> FILL SHOES
You are unable to fill Clinton’s shoes.

> EXAMINE DESK
It is a large, oak desk, with several drawers.

In one drawer you find a bag of pretzels.

> EAT PRETZEL.
I don’t think the pretzel would agree with you.

> INVADE IRAQ
You are not able to do that, yet.

> INVADE IRAQ
You are not able to do that, yet.

> GO RIGHT
Far-Right
You are on the far right of the political spectrum.
Jesse Helms is here.
John Ashcroft is here.

> GO RIGHT
Radical Right
You are on the extreme right of the political spectrum.
Dick Cheney is here.
Pat Robertson is here.

> INVADE IRAQ
You are not able to do that, yet.

> TAKE VACATION
Taken.

> INVADE IRAQ
You are not able to do that, yet.

> SCORE
Your favorablity rating is 58% out of a possible 100%.

On another note, here is a fine breakdown of US-responsible Human Rights Violations compiled by the Human Rights Watch yesterday. Those included are (obviously) Iraq, but also Katrina, and our general incarceration methods.

a few thoughts on conspiracies:

1. Focusing on conspiracy theories is exactly what the Right would love the Left to do (and vice versa). This has worked with the so-called culture wars–more people discuss race in this country than class. But this argument is nothing new…see Howard Zinn’s A PEOPLE’S HISTORYOF THE UNITED STATES (especially his discussion on the colonial South and the use of poor whites as over-seers).

2. Time spent on conspiracies is time not spent actively engaging with the government and policies that actually exist. Time spent on conspiracies is time not spent making change. Let’s stop the war first…

3. Why do conspiracies seem to be so West-focused?

4. Reality is difficult enough. There’s no conspiracy behind the army of lobbyists Wal-Mart supports. They just don’t want to pay for health care or higher minimum wages.

5. The towers fell. People died. It smelled. I enhaled that crap. Years from now I’ll get cancer. Not a conspiracy. The fact the the Republican appointed director of the EPA said it was all good…no conspiracy there.

Now go watch SURFACE on NBC if you want to learn about a really cool conspiracy involving a rebellious biologist, a Wilmington teenager, and a bunch of big-ass sea lizards!!!!!!

These have been around awhile, but always worth a laugh.

Introducing Demotivators®

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AT DESPAIR, INC., we believe motivational products create unrealistic expectations, raising hopes only to dash them. That’s why we created our soul-crushingly depressing Demotivators® designs, so you can skip the delusions that motivational products induce and head straight for the disappointments that follow!

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Founder and COO

My favorite:

And while we’re breaking in a new category, why not revisit one of my favorite pieces of internet humor of all time, an interview with Jeeves.

Yes it is! Reason #73625: whitehouse.org, as compared to whitehouse.gov. True excellence from the patriotic poster page.

An abbreviated timeline cut and pasted from “Working Class Hero”, in The Nation:

Given the corporate sponsorship of contemporary King day celebrations, it may come as a surprise that the holiday began as a union demand in contract negotiations. In 1968, just four days after King’s assassination, Representative John Conyers introduced a bill to make the slain leader’s birthday a national holiday.

As black union leader William Lucy testified before Congress, King’s prolabor politics gave the holiday a “special significance” for the organized working class. Those politics had emerged from King’s close collaboration in the 1950s and early 1960s with union activists like Bayard Rustin, A. Philip Randolph and Cleveland Robinson, a leader of the New York City-based Distributive Workers of America (DWA). Lucy highlighted that King was shot while supporting a strike in Memphis by members of Lucy’s union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

Unions provided the financial and social capital to extend the movement nationwide. That support was coordinated by DWA leader Robinson, a close friend of the King family. King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, invited Robinson and Conyers to kick off the campaign for a national holiday at a 1969 birthday rally at the new King center in Atlanta. At the rally, Conyers recounted his bill’s defeat in Congress and expressed hope for more support the following year. Robinson called for direct action, declaring, “We don’t want anyone to believe we hope Congress will do this. We’re just sayin’, Us black people in America just ain’t gonna work on that day anymore.”

By 1973, with the King holiday bill still languishing in Congress, working-class blacks were doing just what Robinson recommended. “I have been told by people in plant after plant in Detroit,” Conyers testified in Congress that year, “that on January 15th, if it is not in the bargaining contract, one does not come to work anyway. It is a holiday already.”

In 1976 the King center strengthened its alliance with unions by focusing MLK birthday celebrations on the demand for full employment–a centerpiece of the AFL-CIO’s legislative agenda. Thousands of people joined that year’s King day march in Atlanta, with union members as the largest contingent. The event solidified a coalition that helped elect Jimmy Carter President that year. In exchange, President Carter endorsed the national holiday bill and ordered a commemorative stamp to honor King’s fiftieth birthday in 1979.

At the national level, Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina led a vitriolic attack on the holiday movement and the “epidemic” of “illegal strikes of municipal employees” that seemed to drive it. Helms claimed that another national holiday would be too costly, and inveighed against King as a lawbreaker “subject to influence and manipulation by Communists.”

[I]n 1980, superstar Stevie Wonder dedicated his hit song “Happy Birthday” to King. In 1982 the King center received large donations from Coca-Cola, the Miller Brewing Company and other megacorporations. The center also gained admission to the Combined Federal Campaign, allowing it to solicit donations from federal employees and members of the military. Coretta Scott King presented Congress with 6 million signatures in favor of a King day bill, the largest petition in favor of an issue in US history. Congress passed the bill, and on November 3, 1983, President Reagan signed it into law.

Take it away Wiki:

[The holiday] was observed for the first time on January 20, 1986.

On January 18, 1999, for the first time, Martin Luther King Day was officially observed in all fifty U.S. states. The day is marked by demonstrations for peace, social justice and racial and class equality, as well as a national day of volunteer community service.

On January 16, 2006, Greenville County, South Carolina, will be the last county in the U.S. to officially adopt Martin Luther King Day as a paid holiday.

There must be something in the air this week. I have found a series of documentaries on 9/11 that are backed with overwhelming evidence that the entire attack was staged. The footage is amazing, the narrator (though he sounds a little like Ira Glass) does a great job in presenting the case without any assumption or insinuation. Make sure you have a good connection and some time to dedicate tothe film , as the 3-part series is about 30 min long. Trust me, I wouldn’t post it if I thought it was not worth your time.

link.

On a lighter note, here’s a site I look to when I think my job couldn’t get any worse. (Though some of these look kinda fun!) he he

link.

Last night, tuesday January 10th, 2006, the second official meeting of the Vox Pop 9-11 Activist Squad occurred, with three of the activists reporting back with some updates.

Eric Douglas commented on this guy:

Dara Mcquillan, PR man for Larry Silverstein Properties. Recall in early 2002, Larry Silverstein said the following:

I remember getting a call from the Fire Department commander, telling me they were not sure they were going to be able to contain the fire. I said, you know, “We’ve had such terrible loss of life that the smartest thing to do is just pull it.” And they made that decision to pull it and we watched the [World Trade Center 7] building collapse.

So, more than three years later, an answer came concerning the pressing question, “what do you mean you said to “pull it?” “Pulling” a building refers to a controlled demolition, but was that really how Tower 7 fell? I mean, it sure looks that way, but come on, why would the building already be wired?

Like I said, more than three years after Larry spoke the above quote, his PR rep Dana Mcquillan, came out with an answer as to what he really meant:

In the afternoon of September 11, Mr. Silverstein spoke to the Fire Department Commander on site at Seven World Trade Center. The Commander told Mr. Silverstein that there were several firefighters in the building working to contain the fires. Mr. Silverstein expressed his view that the most important thing was to protect the safety of those firefighters, including, if necessary, to have them withdraw from the building.

Later in the day, the Fire Commander ordered his firefighters out of the building and at 5:20 p.m. the building collapsed. No lives were lost at Seven World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

So, by IT, Larry Silverstein was talking about the batallion of fire-fighters. We’ll lat that one lay for now, but if you want to check out some videos of tower 7 and judge for yourself, visit Eric Douglas’ website http://www.nistreview.org/

This website also contains an exhaustive documentation of the National Institute of Standards and Technology: World Trade Center Collapse Investigation.

My time is up, I was going to mention more, but it’s back to the grindstone at my job. If you want to know more, come to the next meeting at Vox Pop. We’ll be passing the hat to pay the rent.

1022 Cortelyou Road, Flatbush, Brooklyn
Thursday, Feb. 9, 2006 7:30 pm.

A guy thought to himself, “how could I make a million dollars?” Then he had an idea. Sell clickable real estate on a million-pixel image for a dollar per pixel…the Million Dollar Homepage. Somehow, there are only a thousand pixels left. WaPo story. [via]

Alito is a prime example of why the Left, progressives, people who believe in civil (a.k.a. human) rights need to stop picketing and need to start thinking. This is the deal. Alito and many other legal eagles on the Right are part of a long-term effort funded by wealthy conservatives (foundations, individauls) to stack the courts and to undermine civil rights in the US. Rather than bore you with the details, just go check out the National Campaign to Resotre Civil Rights.

And then I want to suggest…you know how all the Christian Fundamentalist have been talking about moving to South Carolina? Well, I know a sweet little town right over the border where we could all hang out between forays to the other side…Like the Right, we need our own long-term, well-funded plans.

Mrs. Jórge just got a new set of wheels, the sweet ride pictured above, which will serve as our first foray into the world of biodiesel.

The car’s conventional diesel engine needs no modification in order to run pure biodiesel (B100), which is “fuel made from renewable resources such as vegetable oils or animal fats. It is biodegradable and non-toxic, and has significantly fewer emissions than petroleum-based diesel (petro-diesel) when burned.” It can also run on more common blends of biodiesel and petrodiesel (for example, a blend of 20% biodiesel and 80% petrodiesel is called B20 at the pump) which are becoming increasingly available in the U.S. as farmers, truckers, schools, and municipalities have gotten their fleets hooked on the stuff. Celebrities are also jumping on the bandwagon, adding to the headlines surrounding biodiesel, the most active of which is Willie Nelson, whose own BioWillie fuel is now available in 4 states across the U.S.

There are, of course, some obstacles in making biodiesel a viable and sustainable replacement for fossil-based fuels. In addition to the short-term compatibility concerns between traditional diesel-running engines and newer fuel alternatives, the big question to the biodiesel movement is where all this fuel is going to come from. Soybean oil is currently one of the most popular sources of commercially available biodiesel, but it’s far from the most efficient. As it stands, the United States lacks enough arable land on which to grow a sufficient amount of soy to fully transition its vehicles to biodiesel. The best alternative I’ve heard of so far is definitely different:

More recent studies using a species of algae that has oil contents of as high as 50% have concluded that as little as 28,000 km² or 0.3% of the land area of the US could be utilized to produce enough biodiesel to replace all transportation fuel the country currently utilizes. Further encouragement comes from the fact that the land that could be most effective in growing the algae is desert land with high solar irradiation, but lower economic value for other uses and that the algae could utilize farm waste and excess CO2 from factories to help speed the growth of the algae.

Sounds good, though if algae or any other biodiesel alternative becomes yet another environmentally unfriendly crop of big agribusiness, we’re still left with soil erosion, water contamination, and a host of other global consequences of large-scale farming. Like most issues facing the world today, it’s not easy to see what the clear answer is, if there is such a thing. In the meantime, I’ll try to borrow my wife’s car when I can, though I tend to agree with this author on the big picture:

There is no “quick fix” solution to the environmental problems that humans have created. Substitution of one consumer product for a different, less polluting one can be a positive first step, but these products are useless if they enable people to forget issues of inequality, over-consumption, and alienation from the natural world.

Biodiesel is not a bad idea, but it is not the answer to all of humanity’s petroleum woes. To achieve a cleaner environment and less dependency on foreign oil, Americans must, as a culture, make a commitment to drive less. We can create and use biodiesel as well as continue to explore other renewable fuel options such as solar power and hydrogen cells … but we must also walk more, ride bicycles, and use public transportation. That way everyone can live a healthier life and have a cleaner environment.

Big thanks to Slingshot and co. for pointing me in the diesel direction, I’ll have to see what kind of finder’s fee I can get you all for the VW.

Who controls humans? God? The genes? Or nevertheless the computer? The on-line forum Edge asked its yearly question — and the answers raised more questions.

Once a year self-styled head of the Third Culture movement and New York literary agent John Brockman asks his fellow thinkers and clients a question, who publishes their answers every New Year’s Day in his online forum edge.org. Thus Mr. Brockman fulfills the promise that is the basic principle of Third Culture.

The sciences are asking mankind’s relevant questions he says, while the humanities busy themselves with ideological skirmishes and semantic hairsplitting. It is about having last words, which have never been as embattled as in the current context of post-ideological debates and de-secularization. That’s why this year’s question ‘What is your dangerous idea’ seemed unusually loaded. Since it’s inception in 1998 the forum had mainly dealt with the basic questions of science culture per se. But maybe that’s why this year the debate has brought out the main concerns of ThirdCulture more direct than in the years before.

Just Click on some of the highlighted names and read their thoughts. Pretty interesting

On another note, last week, a woman in Israel married a dophin. link

In trying to find the story about the West Virginia mining collapse, I googled the words “trapped miners, West Virginia” and found a host of different stories about many other mining accidents. I googled a number of different word scenarios and still couldn’t find the story until I just went to the Associated Press Website. What do I think of that? Well, since you asked, I’ll tell you.

As for now, I’m working in a career using advanced technology, GIS software, 3D animation software, CAD and a host of others in order to further the idea of community-based design and development. But I’m beginning to think that the idea of “development” is counter-productive, and Coal mining is just the tip of it. The computer I’m working on right now, and all the electronics we use at my office (and all of our cellphones) rely on materials that have to be mined from the earth. Now, not many people want to give up their homelands for it to be devastated and turned into a mine, so there’s a lot of struggle involved, sometimes cheating, lying, corruption and murder.

So what I’m thinking at the moment is that we can either see things like this mining accident as a red flag in our relationship with the Earth, or we can regard it as a necessary sacrifice to the gods of production and civilization. I once was a firm believer in Bucky Fuller’s idea that technology had the possibility to save humankind. I’m now beginning to think that almost all of our technology not only is rooted in oppression and violence, but also actually insists upon it for its survival. While we may send cell phones to growing communities in poorer nations and see the good they provide, we do not see the violence in obtaining mining rights for the materials in the same phone.

Today’s post is merely a rant, and this is something I’m going to be looking into deeper as the weeks go by, I’d like to hear what you think about this. I’m growing ever more anti-civ every day.

PS, here’s a quote about our lovely Appalachian Mountains, a place where some of my loved ones call home:

One of the greatest environmental and human rights catastrophes in American history is underway just southwest of our nation’s capital. In the coalfields of Appalachia, individuals, families, and entire communities are being driven off their land by flooding, landslides, and blasting resulting from mountaintop removal coal mining.

Mountain top removal coal mining is a relatively new type of coal mining that involves clear cutting native hardwood forests, using dynamite to blast away 800-1000 feet of mountaintop, and then dumping the debris into nearby valleys forever burying streams. Meanwhile, communities near these mining sites are forced to contend with; continual blasting from mining operations that can take place up to 300 feet from their homes and operate 24 hours/day, air pollution from dust and debris, and the threat of floods that have left hundreds dead and thousands homeless.

To read more about the Appalachian Mountains, go here.

Work on blog…..

One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to get involved with this:

The Film Connection offers a diverse and compelling film lending library intended to inform, challenge, entertain, and gather communities together in conversation. Our mission is to promote community, civic engagement, and positive social change through film and an open exchange of ideas, opinions and perspectives.

Check out their library. It sure beats Netflix, and it’s free.