For those keeping up with the Infamous Bingo Wars in Alabama, there’s exciting news out of the nation’s capitol –“The Rev. Jesse Jackson confirmed today that he will be joining a Saturday march and rally in Montgomery in support of allowing closed casinos to reopen.”

Nothing like gambling to get folks out for a march. As Alabama’s Governor, Bingo Bob Riley, continues to send his Anti-Gambling Task Force agents on raids against the evil one-armed bandits, folks on both sides of the issue are beginning to get hot under the proverbial collar. For every bingo parlor closed, dozens of pink slips follow. So the Reverend Jackson says he’ll hit the streets because “The state is so poor, how they can afford to lose this many jobs, this much income?”

Another reason to legalize marijuana: jobs!

Come on down and join the fun.

Bingo!

posted by Mudd

So sayeth the New York Times – “To meet the Obama administration’s targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, some researchers say, Americans may have to experience a sobering reality: gas at $7 a gallon.”

Yeah, and Garth Brooks is coming back to do a disco album.

Where do the pundits get this stuff? Of course, we’re talking about the news as reported by the NYT’s mini-site called “Dot.earth.” And to make things more risible, the site’s slogan is “Nine billion people. One planet.” The irony? When our lovely planet hits 9 billion Homo erectus asphaltus, all armed with laptops, iPhones, GPS units, and hybrid-Humvees, there won’t be a blade of grass left standing. Soylent Green will look tame compared to the dystopian quagmire we’ll find ourselves in.

Let’s say it again: If you ain’t talking population, you ain’t green. Kermit notwithstanding.

posted by Mudd

The New York Times reports — “As with any other species, human populations are shaped by the usual forces of natural selection, like famine, disease or climate. A new force is now coming into focus. It is one with a surprising implication — that for the last 20,000 years or so, people have inadvertently been shaping their own evolution. The force is human culture, broadly defined as any learned behavior, including technology.”

Homo erectus asphaltus is shaping its own evolution? You mean to say that a daily diet of wide-screen TV, X-Box, wifi, iPod, Twitter, Fazebuke, MySpaced, UToob, Fox News, text messaging, GPS, CNN, MSNBC, BBC, ENN, and other assorted alt.binaries, is altering our freaking DNA?

Of course it is! We don’t need a rocket scientist to tell us that “People adapt genetically to sustained cultural changes, like new diets. And this interaction works more quickly than other selective forces, ‘leading some practitioners to argue that gene-culture co-evolution could be the dominant mode of human evolution'”.

Oops… gotta run. My Twitter gizmo is calling….

posted by Mudd

March 1 (Bloomberg) — “The earthquake that killed more than 700 people in Chile on Feb. 27 probably shifted the Earth’s axis and shortened the day, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist said.”

There goes the Mayan Calendar!

posted by Mudd

This in from the folks at CNBC – “For more than a dozen years, the B&B Do It Center in Camarillo, CA, has been offering free doughnuts and coffee to customers. Not anymore…… in what some in this town consider a complete overreach of government, the county has told the store the freebies have to go. They violate food-handling regulations.”

As 75-year-old Thomas Frye of Camarillo told the Ventura County Star, “We’ve abandoned common sense where the need for licenses and fees are more important than tradition.”

No wonder a majority Americans now believe their “government” presents a threat to personal liberty.

Gimme a doughnut!

posted by Mudd

Ever wondered why teenagers seem so goofy? Because they are! And now, thanks to the White Lab Coat Guys (and NPR), we know why – “…. because the nerve cells that connect teenagers’ frontal lobes with the rest of their brains are sluggish. Teenagers don’t have as much of the fatty coating called myelin, or ‘white matter,’ that adults have in this area.

Think of it as insulation on an electrical wire. Nerves need myelin for nerve signals to flow freely. Spotty or thin myelin leads to inefficient communication between one part of the brain and another.”

At least, that’s what Neurologist Francis Jensen appears to have discovered, in no small part thanks to her own teenaged kids.

What’s it all mean? Not being a PhD wonk of any description, I feel fully competent to explain – Picture young chimpanzees frolicking in the jungle. That play activity isn’t just fun; it’s part of the brain’s wiring shtick. Primates require a long maturation process in order to be what we hope is an adult. In our own species, Homo erectus asphaltus, that maturation period is a tad longer than for our chimp cousins – something on the order of 35-50 years (depending on the amount of time spent Twittering sex pics of oneself to other idiots).

It thus stands to reason that until the neuronal connections are fully wired, young whippersnappers will inevitably engage in stupid and wrong-headed behavior to the detriment of themselves (and/or others). No wonder Hollywood releases a flood of seriously dumb movies in the summer. They have a captive audience of young chimps with nothing better to do than laugh at themselves.

Alas, those were the daze. What I remember of them.

From the New York Times – “Thousands of the nation’s largest water polluters are outside the Clean Water Act’s reach because the Supreme Court has left uncertain which waterways are protected by that law, according to interviews with regulators.”

And, of course, “As a result, some businesses are declaring that the law no longer applies to them. And pollution rates are rising.”

As an example – “Cannon Air Force Base near Clovis, N.M., for instance, recently informed E.P.A. officials that it no longer considered itself subject to the act. It dumps wastewater — containing bacteria and human sewage — into a lake on the base.” (NYT)

Oh, ain’t it awful. Some bastards are knowingly, willingly dumping noxious pollution into a waterway. What shall we do?

Well, for starters, why not revert to taking matters into our own hands, as per the time-tested Common Law? Unless exempted by State statute, the abatement of a nuisance remains one of the fundamental tools in every Joe’s bag of rights. And, last I checked, trespassing is still taboo in most states; i.e., nobody can dump their shit on your land without your consent.

Yes, the Supremes may have shifted the burden to us ordinary citizens out yonder on the fruited plains. So what? It’s been widely touted that our beloved EPA has long been, shall we say, lax in enforcement of the Clean Water Act. Ditto many of our upstanding State environmental agencies. So why not go after polluters the old fashioned way? And that means in State court, where judges are often elected and a tad more sensitive to the power of the ballot.

In some ways, the Supremes may have done the nation a favor by reminding us that we can’t rely on our government to take care of us. All environmental issues are local. Let the defending begin….

posted by Mudd

The BBC News reports – “For millions of Indian Hindus, the temple is a place of worship and reverence. But as Krupa Padhy discovered during a visit to one of the country’s famous temples in the state of Orissa, it can feel like stepping into a circus.”

How refreshing, a religion that tricks itself out as a circus! Forget the stuffy burn in Hell routine and leave the gloom at home. Specifically, Monsieur Padhy is talking about the Rudr Narayan Kuntya temple, where “there are monkeys everywhere.”

Sadhus, priests, and monkeys – a prescription for a snazzy spiritual rocket-ship ride into Nirvana. And it’s worked pretty well for 5,000 years, give or take a century or so.

Buckle up and pass the ghee.

posted by Mudd

From the BBC News – An analysis of the foods listed in hieroglyphic inscriptions on temple walls showed the meals offered to the gods were laden with saturated fat.

And the moral of the story? “Professor Rosalie David, an egyptologist from the University of Manchester, said: ‘There couldn’t be a more evocative message: live like a god and you will pay with your health.'”

posted by Mudd

Breaking “news” – Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government’s become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens.

This is the government that’s going to “save the planet”?

pass the Preparation H.

posted by Mudd