Here’s one Robot I’m not afraid of:
The peeing Cherubs are a nice touch.
First they gave us “Dutch Wives”.
Now they give us this:
I haven’t made a burger that looked like that since The Great Patio Conflagration of Ought Twelve. Nobody wanted to eat them then. Now people are paying $7 for them in Japan.
It’s not burnt – it just looks that way. The flat black finish does make it look fast, though. And FYI I do think about more than sex and food.
AP: Marijuana Industry Battling Stoner Stereotypes
Recreational marijuana use having been recently legalized in Colorado, the Marijuana Industry (AP’s language) is looking for ways to increase sales. I wrote about this in an April 22nd, 2014 post at The Men Out Of Work Blog: Marketing Marijuana In Colorado…
Though the law has changed, the cultural battle lines are the same. Opponents still argue that marijuana use has risks, especially for youths. Proponents object to the use of stereotypes in campaigns that warn of potential risks. And one thing is for certain – the marijuana industry – whatever you want to call it – has the goal of increasing marijuana sales, and to do that it must minimize any stigma associated with it’s use and increase the customer base. Translation: get more people to use pot.
I don’t think that is a good thing.
Spare me your slings and arrow for a few minutes while I explain. The older I get, the more libertarian I get. Notice the small “l”. Personally, I think that if you want to smoke pot, you should be free to do so. But now that it’s legal, it’s turned into a business. And a business’ first and foremost goal is to grow…and grow…and grow some more. Keep growing, year after year. That means either the same people have to use a lot more pot, or – more likely – more people have to start using and keep using it. And I believe that there is no upside to more people using (or abusing) a mood-altering drug.
Spare me the lecture about alcohol. Yes, it’s legal and often abused. That is not an argument for adding one more substance to the pallette of legally abusable substances. Many people use alcohol responsibly. But can you argue that there is a benefit to society if more people use alcohol, responsibly or otherwise? Well, I guess you could argue it, but would you? I wouldn’t.
I am not a prudish teetotaller. I use alcohol. I have used marijuana. In the past, both to excess. In hindsight I can truthfully say that I would not have misssed out on anything had I never used marijuana. Using it had costs to me that were financial, physical and intellectual. Had I been thinking rationally, I would have opted out. But I did not…because I was not thinking rationally…because I was young.
The legalization of a substance, advertising it and minimizing the stigmas associated with it’s use will have an impact on the most impressionable in our society – young people. So let’s be careful. It’s legal, so go ahead, smoke up. Advertise responsibly. But let’s not pretend that there are no risks.
Most of all let’s not hide the risks from young people who are most at risk of making foolish impulsive decisions that may affect them for a lifetime.
I’m always interested in learning about what makes people tick and the reasons why we are such strange critters. So after a discussion today about why certain people seem to like having an adversarial relationship with one another, I came across an article at TheWeek.com and now feel compelled to share.
Here’s the article: “The Science of Sex: 4 Harsh Truths About Dating and Mating”
The article is based on some “research” posted at a website called Barking Up The Wrong Tree, so the “science” may be total bullshit, but the 4 truths are generally accepted stereotypes they claim are supported by research. Well, they’re stereotypes, so they must be true at least part of the time or they would not have become stereotypes. I won’t go into the supporting information, you can go to the link if you want that. I just want to cover the harsh truths. This is after all a search for the truth no matter how harsh. So here goes.
Harsh Truth #1: Those things we say we hate about people actually make us more attracted to them. Based on surveys of women who were most attracted to men that they were told might like them either a lot or not very much. They were more attacted to them than to men who they were told liked them a lot. Related: surveys found that “playing hard to get” works. Just don’t play “too hard to get”. Also, Narcissistic traits make a person more attractive.
Harsh Truth #2: Guys are pretty shallow. Most male behavior is all about getting laid. Guys are more likely to be attracted to women with large breasts. Guys will go to greater lengths and expense to impress younger women.
Harsh Truth #3: Women are no angels, either. Women find “bad boys” more attractive, and “happiness” was found to be the least attractive emotion in a man. Women are attracted to men of status (translation: Money).
Harsh Truth #4: Harsh truths #1 – #3 do not change over time (as we age). They also hold true across different cultures. Men focus on looks, women focus on status. Even in nursing homes.
Well they may be harsh but calling them truths goes too far. They certainly are stereotypes, but stereotypes are not absolute. In this case, the claim of “truths” is alleged to be backed up by science. But even that holds that the “truths” are valid only for “x” percentage of the respondents. So they are “mostly” truths or “sometimes” truths. Thank God.
Some of these are partially true for me, others don’t apply to me at all. I’ll let you guess which. So all we can glean from this is that there are a wide variety of things that motivate people in regard to physical attraction.
Oh and…*ahem*…sex.
So, as I like to say, different strokes for different folks. Now that is a truth. And not too harsh!
Now this:
…”Six States” initiative fails to qualify for ballot.
Well, it was fun while it lasted, but according to the California Secretary of State, insufficient valid signatures were submitted to qualify the initiative for the 2016 ballot. The initiative would have carved California up into six separate states. You can read this for backgound.
I opined early on that this would never come to fruition because it would upset a very large apple cart for the Democratic Party and Public Sector Labor Unions that have a stranglehold on political power in this state. They found this baby in it’s cradle and pressed the pillow hard. Long Live the Status Quo!
Approximately 800,000 signatures were required for the initiative to qualify – nearly 1.4 million were submitted, a seemingly sufficent margin for error. The SOS predicted that only 66 percent of the signatures were valid based on “random sampling”. So fully 1/3 of the submited signatures were deemed “invalid”. I’d like to see a little more in depth reporting on this. The sponsors of the initiative have promised a review of the invalid signatures.
I’m certain that the Secretary of State did a careful and thorough job of verification. Certain!
Now this:
Two drummers. Awesome. And Mike McDonald when he was still “Salt and Pepper Lightning”.
“They” being animals. I lifted the post title from the Time.com article “What are Animals Thinking? (Hint:More Than You Suspect)”. There are some interesting observations in the short article, but after reading it turns out that it’s just a preview – almost an advertisement – for the Time book “The Animal Mind” (On Newsstands Now!).
Since the most popular post on the blog is “What Makes a Human Different From an Animal?” I thought that this would be a natural topic to do a follow up post. The original post ended up being more of a reflection on animal rights vs. human rights. Not having read “The Animal Mind” because I do not know where I might find one of these “newsstand” things, I can only go with the ideas put forth in the preview article which seem to focus more on animal intelligence and “intellect” if you will, based on animals’ exhibition of so-called “human” behaviors and their relative success at performing those behaviors. There is no doubt that all animals have some degree of intelligence. We’ve heard for years that some animals are “smarter” than others – A pig is smarter than a horse, which is smarter than a dog, which is smarter than etc, etc. Also, a (fill in the blank) is as intelligent as a (blank) year old child. A quote from the article:
“Animals, the research is proving, are creatures capable of reflection, bliss, worry and more. Not all of them in the same ways or to the same degrees, surely, but all of them in far deeper measures than we’ve ever believed.”
Interesting, if true. I guess I’ll have to read “The Animal Mind” to find out how you measure whether an animal feels “bliss” or whether they worry. I think that these type of “human behaviors”, if that’s what you want to call them, require a certain amount of self- awareness. All animals are self-aware to some extent – they’d have to be to survive. I think the question lies in determining how much of their behavior is geneticaly embedded “instictive” behavior and how much is driven by intellectual reasoning and emotion. To the extent that certain behaviors are noted I think that it is interesting that the behaviors do not seem to overlap species which leads me to believe that much of it, no matter how human it seems, is instinct.
I don’t believe that cats groom themselves because they worry that their hair doesn’t look good. But that doesn’t mean that I like cats any less because of it. There are a lot of people who are emotionally invested in portraying animals as “beings” – just look to the animal rights movement for proof. I think animals have it better today than at any time in the past; machines have taken over a lot of the labor we used to use animals for. The animals we eat are raised and slaughtered more humanely than in the past and we’re probably eating fewer of them to boot. Animal cruelty is socially unacceptable today. These are all good things.
Often I would like to know what is going on inside my dog’s head, though I don’t think there’s a lot of intellectual activity going on there. But that won’t stop me from trying to live up her expectatations and to be the kind of person she thinks I am. Or rather the kind of person I imagine that she thinks I am.
Not content to ban single use plastic shopping bags, the California Legislature has moved to ban free distribution of single use PAPER shopping bags at stores and supermarkets. Notice I said free distribution. Per Senate Bill 270, single use carryout bags may still be provided to customers – at a cost of not less than ten cents each. So apparently all those extra dimes floating around will be the solution to whatever problem was caused by single use plastic or paper carryout shopping bags. Oh wait. There never was a problem caused by either of these. So…problem solved anyway! And it only costs a dime! Huzzah!! Be sure to look for more small change based solutions coming your way from the geniuses in Sacramento.
Reason.com – California Plastic Bag Ban Survives After All
I hope that not all liberals are fuzzy headed enough to believe that plastic shopping bags are the scourge of our lifetime, but I don’t see any evidence of that. I reuse virtually all of the plastic shopping bags I get when I shop, so if they are banned I will simply have to buy other plastic bags for those uses. Amount of plastic “saved”? Zero. The platic bags are recyclable (as are the paper bags). Yet they are not listed as acceptable materials to be placed in the County recycle containers where I live (the paper bags can be placed in the recycle bins). I will not use re-usable bags that are transporters of E. Coli and Salmonlella, which is a far greater real problem than any imagined issue related to plastic bags. There are so many common sense “solutions” to any of the so-called problems created by shopping bags, however, they require a little thought instead of just a knee-jerk reaction. And as we all know by know, there is no room for thoughtful reflection or logic when it comes to creating the Liberal Utopia of California.
This is coverage you count on…brought to you by…take a guess. National Enquirer? People Magazine? Cosmo? Wrong! Via the Washington Post Wonkblog, I give you “Where Cats Are More Popular Than Dogs In The U.S. – And All Over The World”. Interactive map I promised you is at the link. Somebody’s got to get the word out, so not fair for me to blame the messenger. People (like me) are blogging about it and linking it, so I guess Mission Accomplished. Anyhoo…what’s your guess as to who’s the most popular? SPOILER ALERT! Turns out it’s pretty close to even steven everywhere, at least in the U.S. Europe is another story. They like their cats over there because they are so…European.
Meanwhile, who is more popular with Baby Elephants?
Moral of the story? Do not mess with a baby elephant unless you want the Monty Python Treatment.
