…(Tampa’s version of Mardi Gras) could get ugly quickly.
If you want to drink a cold beer at Gasparilla this year, you better bring your own.
For the first time in recent memory, beer will not be sold at tents along the parade route.
…Instead of beer, revelers will be offered mixed drinks: Seagrams 7 with Lemon Lime; Captain Morgan Original Spiced Rum and Cola; Smirnoff Vodka and Lemon Lime Soda; and George Dickel Whisky and Cola.
Blech. ONLY mixed drinks? Sure glad I’m not part of the city clean-up crew afterwards.
For some male bats, sexual prowess comes with a price — smaller brains. A research team led by Syracuse University biologist Scott Pitnick found that in bat species where the females are promiscuous, the males boasting the largest testicles also had the smallest brains. Conversely, where the females were faithful, the males had smaller testes and larger brains.
All they had to do was ask Major Dad’s favorite question when confronted by…say…the Coors Twins:
“Why are men pigs?”
He wants the answer to be “because the trough is full”, but that’s a lie. The simple truth is:
“Because they are.”
This is a plan?
For the first time, the federal government would rate the academic rigor of U.S. high schools in a quietly added GOP-backed education program, a report said.
The academic rigor rating is part of a five-year, $3.75 billion education plan that Republican senators tucked into the budget bill last month and one the House of Representatives is expected to approve next month, The New York Times reported.
The Bush administration-backed plan would give grants of $750 to $1,300 to college freshmen and sophomores who have completed “a rigorous secondary school program of study.”
The secretary of Education would define what constitutes a “rigorous” high school program
It sounds more like someone was getting a nickel for every time he could use ‘rigor’* in a sentence. Reminds me of a line from one of my favoritest movies :
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
* “NOTE: 5b. rigidness or torpor of organs or tissue that prevents response to stimuli
SECRET, startling insider testimony about supply shortages in Iraq:
The Atomic Fireballs will come in handy. Not sure if you were aware of the Atomic Fireball deficit in Iraq, but it’s a real tragedy. I check the candy stash on Lt Plummer’s desk periodically with no luck. She said she was going to fix that.
Damning stuff, people. Damning. Only YOU can right this national wrong. Email me for a Marine if you don’t have one. Or send your jarhead another package. (Mention Lt Plummer and the Swilling if you do.) We must do everything we can to hold them until they get home.
She said she was going to fix that…
It doesn’t get any more heartrending…
The FBI has uncovered fraud by public officials in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and has created a task force to investigate corruption as federal money pours into the Gulf Coast region, Mississippi’s top agent said Monday.
“We are seeing public officials facilitating some of the fraud,” John G. Raucci, agent in charge in Mississippi, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It’s not widespread, I will say that, but we have seen it and we have begun addressing it.”
Raucci would not give details.
You knew it was coming ~ KNEW it had to be happening ~ but it’s still such a shame. If this breaks big, the sympathy meter might well be pegged in a lot of hearts and minds.
You go right ahead, Mr. Crotzer. You enjoy every second of it.
TAMPA, Florida-Alan Crotzer stepped into the warm sunlight outside the courthouse Monday and raised his arms to the sky, celebrating his freedom after more than 24 years behind bars for crimes he didn’t commit.
Whadda hoot.
“The mayor just sent you a box of chocolates.”
Let’s review: Don’t eat a damn thing anybody TELLS you to. Just don’t eat too MUCH of anything you want to.
Study casts doubt on soy’s heart benefits
So ~ I will tell the scientific foodie community to bite me because I’m sick of them and their track record, the sum of which seems to be as follows:.
10 years from now, whatever they told you was great for you NOW will kill you by THEN.
And what they tell you will kill you NOW WON’T kill you by then.
Got eggs?
Well, feel guilty no longer. You can’t help yourself.
Cannibals in the Closet?
…In a paper in Science, Mead argued that the prevalence of these two forms, and a mathematical analysis of other mutations on the same gene, showed there was strong evolutionary pressure for defense against prion disease for much of human history. But how were people exposed to it? The spontaneous form is very rare, and mad-cow outbreaks are an artifact of industrial agriculture. That left cannibalism.
Gentlemen, fasten your seat belts. And ladies, make sure the young’ins are safely tucked in bed, ‘cos we ain’t kidding around no more. Tonight we’re drinking the baddest of them all, the manliest of manly whiskies
Laphroaig.
Look ma, no ice!
Ah, where to begin? The full peaty aroma, laced with some deliciously acrid oily bites, leaps out at you when the bottle is opened. The warm golden color as it sits in the glass creates a yearning for that first sip, a deep desperate yearning that can only be quenched by…ah hell, that first sip. Oh, the taste! An amazingly full bodied taste and honeyed mouth feel, that is no where as peaty as the nose would lead you to think. Make no mistake, “Laphroaig” is not gaelic for “subtle”, there’s a whole bog o’peat here, but it’s really not as…overpowering as you fear it might be.
So check your blended Blacks and Reds and Greens and Fuschias at the door; this is whisky.
Our hero, having not learned his lesson, continues to search for a good Zin under $10. Tonight’s contestant comes from California, the 2003 Rock River. Price: $9.99.
It has a very nice, deep purpley-red color, which gives me hope. The first few sips were somewhat disappointing, however, as there was a harsh, acidic finish. However, as it sat and opened up in the glass, after some 20 minutes or so, that went away and was replaced by a much nicer, full soft finish with good fruit. There still was just a touch too much acidity for my taste, but this is a decent wine for $10. Sadly, it seems to be a little low on the alcohol content, as they don’t even bother to list it on the bottle (a good Zin should have around 15%). But let it breathe in the glass for a decent amount of time before quaffing!
It will probably rate another bottle or two for further testing here at Netherfield.
…in Miami?
A renaissance is under way on Biscayne Boulevard, the central artery of downtown Miami, where derelict motels and strip malls are being tenderly restored and scruffy neighborhoods are striving for cachet. But a defining element is about to vanish: the royal palm trees that have lined the street for decades, making clear that this is not Hartford or Detroit, but the otherworldly subtropics.
Along several miles of the street, the tall, trim royals are being replaced with bushier live oaks, which planners say will provide much-needed shade and beautify the heavily traveled street.
…Most palm trees withstood the high winds of Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma, making their dwindling popularity all the more puzzling. Some private landowners, like Skip Stoltz, a developer in Palm Beach County, are planting only palms after losing dozens of hardwood trees in the storms.
If they remake ‘Miami Vice’ five years from now, the opening credits’re going to look peculiar.
Whatever they decide, I hope it’s not as half-a$$ed as the remake of our downtown here in Bangla-cola. They had a magical, graceful canopy of mature crepe myrtles that were like a lacy frame for the historical storefronts. Then they decided to tear up the sidewalk. Out came the trees (And three quarters of the businesses ~ urban planning strikes again.), to be replaced by an oak here and a spindley maple there, with an ‘i-got-no-idea-what-it-is’ in between. It looks like a mish-mash, ‘whatever was cheapest at the nursery that day’ crap ~ there’s absolutely no coherency to the street anymore. And all those different twigs are going to grow at different rates and into different shapes. Blech. Anyway, maybe Miami won’t be so boneheaded. ( I know a guy who loves bulldozing trees if it turns out badly.)
…how many merlot snobs frequent this blog, the bilious buggers. But her comment in the post below did remind me to note the merlot ::GASP:: we enjoyed Friday evening. Suffering for a good cause cleanses the soul, believe me.
A miserly $12.99 a bottle and it were yum.
…are at odds in the real world.
In the fog-shrouded forests of California’s remote North Coast, winemakers believe they’ve found the perfect terrain to grow the notoriously fickle pinot noir grape prized by connoisseurs.
Vineyard developers are snapping up thousands of acres of redwoods and firs in Sonoma County, with plans to clear the trees and plant the once-obscure varietal made famous by the wine-fueled road trip film “Sideways.”
Environmentalists and residents in Annapolis, a tiny town about 85 miles north of San Francisco, are trying to rein in the pinot lovers.
Damn that stoo-pid movie! Of course, I said the same thing about Martha Stewart when she started collecting yellowware kitchen bowls and had to tell everyone about it in her damn magazine. What had been $10 bowls skyrocketed to over $60 for the chipped/cracked/encrusted with 50 years of kitchen goo variety. All it takes is one knuckleheaded big mouth to ruin ‘a good thing’ for the rest of us.
This is like my worst nightmare. Sasquatch homeless for a varietal that’ll be out of favor in five years. I mean, ‘White Zinfandel’ was the ‘next big thing’ just a while ago. Gack.
…it’s a worrying admission.
Land conflicts, fluctuating crop prices and backward conditions in the countryside are threatening China’s stability and its food supply, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said in unusually blunt comments published Friday.
…a pi$$in’ match.
Four and a half months after Hurricane Katrina blew through Louisiana, a bit of Mississippi envy is in the air.
…Before Congress adjourned last year, it passed a hurricane aid package that included up to $6.2 billion in grant money for Louisiana and $5.3 billion for Mississippi, the two states hardest-hit by Hurricane Katrina. But Louisiana officials say that getting 54 percent of the Community Development Block Grant money — the most it can get under the law — is nowhere near enough for the level of damage to homes, schools, hospitals and businesses, which they say far overshadows the destruction in Mississippi and the other Gulf Coast states.
I think Mississippi would beg to differ ~ a lot of those folks are feelin’ like the country thinks New Orleans had the only hurricane this year.
…for the Coors Twins.
An ancient brewery from a vanished empire was staffed by elite women who were selected for their beauty or nobility, a new study concludes.
The finding adds to other evidence that women played a more crucial role in ancient Andean societies than history books have stated. It may also in some ways reflect modern drinking traditions in the Andean mountains, where women get drunk as much as men, researchers say.
Dear God.
Honestly. It’ll fit. We do this all the time.
Read more »
First: can you take a study done by a guy named “Pierre Pica” (Well, okay, Cullen could.) from “Paris VIII University (…and WTF is that?)” seriously. Even if you could, it raises some nagging questions…
We’re hard-wired for geometry
Tests with Amazon villagers hint at innate geometrical sense
Even if you never learned the difference between a triangle, a rectangle and a trapezoid, and you never used a ruler, a compass or a map, you would still do well on some basic geometry tests, according to a new study.
Using a series of nonverbal tests, scientists claim to have uncovered core knowledge of geometry in villagers from a remote region of the Amazon who have little schooling or experience with maps and speak a language without the mathematical language of geometry.
…regarding their testing methodology.
During the test, each participant was shown 43 sets of six images — and asked to choose the one “weird” or “odd” image out of each set of six. A correct answer required the person to choose the image that did not follow the same basic aspect of geometry illustrated in the other five images.
Having closely studied the images…
Read more »
…John. He talks such sense so purty.
Just as the Boomers here enjoy the fruits of a society most of them had no hand in building or maintaining (and in fact actively tried to destroy), pretentious, preening Europeans can be that way because the wolf has been kept from their door by the very American military might that they so despise.
…are amazing. I never knew there was a ‘Nude Auto Mall’ online.
I do now.
More than half of students at four-year colleges — and at least 75 percent at two-year colleges — lack the literacy to handle complex, real-life tasks such as understanding credit card offers, a study found.
…Without “proficient” skills, or those needed to perform more complex tasks, students fall behind. They cannot interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school.
“It is kind of disturbing that a lot of folks are graduating with a degree and they’re not going to be able to do those things,” said Stephane Baldi, the study’s director at the American Institutes for Research, a behavioral and social science research organization.
Most students at community colleges and four-year schools showed intermediate skills. That means they can do moderately challenging tasks, such as identifying a location on a map.
…The survey examined college students nearing the end of their degree programs.
The students did the worst on matters involving math, according to the study.
Almost 20 percent of students pursuing four-year degrees had only basic quantitative skills. For example, the students could not estimate if their car had enough gas to get to the service station. About 30 percent of two-year students had only basic math skills.
Of course the answer to all this is “monitoring” by the states. I would humbly suggest we start at the grade school level and (SOMEHOW) require parents to be part of the educational system, vice using it as a babysitting/psychiatric therapy/clinic/selective disciplinary/meal delivery service. Maybe then teachers could get back to ‘teaching’ (Read: KNOWLEDGE impartment) instead of forced into pseudo parenting a horde of ungrateful, unmannered, surly, entitled and enabled functional illiterates AND their ‘parents’.
But that’s just me. In the meantime, I hope you know how to make change for your $20 when the register poops out, ’cause the 26 year old knuckle-head behind the counter (AND her manager) sure won’t.
Paper Shutters Blog After Ombudsman Post
The Washington Post shut down one of its blogs Thursday after the newspaper’s ombudsman raised the ire of readers by writing that lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave money to the Democrats as well as to Republicans.
…There were so many personal attacks that the newspaper’s staff could not “keep the board clean, there was some pretty filthy stuff,” and so the Post shut down comments on the blog,…
“In simple terms, this is the story of a decent and honorable young man embarked on a spiritual quest,”
…but no. It’s not.
But they do turn.
A man who spent nearly 21 years in prison for a toddler’s death, now believed to have been an accident, was awarded $756,900 by a state compensation board – $100 for every day he spent in prison.
…In 2004, the San Diego district attorney asked for a new trial and later dropped the case when a doctor raised doubt about Marsh’s guilt. Marsh was released from prison that year and married Philip’s mother.
Doctors retained by Marsh’s attorneys believe the drug mannitol, which was administered by physicians at Children’s Hospital to treat the head injury, was a “substantial factor” in the boy’s death.
Marsh has filed a $50 million federal lawsuit against doctors at the hospital and a coroner’s investigator, alleging they conspired to “cover up” alleged medical malpractice that contributed to the boy’s death.
Thank goodness the San Diego DA had some integrity.
Fun | Mr. Bingley | 
January 25, 2006 10:20 am | 
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