Shoeing the Homeless

Docs in Burlington VT are doing their part to help the homeless in the local area by giving them quality footwear.  Why shoes? Because “The mission of the national ‘Our Hearts to Your Soles’ program is to provide less fortunate people around the country with shoes and free foot exams with the belief that proper foot health is an essential part of everyday life.” Proper foot health is an essential part of everyday life…  What life, pray tell, is that?  The one not involving a job, or the one not involving a home?  Also, how about feeding them while your at it.  Because food is kind of an essential part of everyday life.  And maybe a coat too, cuz it’s VERMONT after all and probably freezing.  Being alive is also an essential part of everyday life.  Sheesh….  But seriously, that’s really a cool thing to do.  Good on you guys.

Taxing the Warfighter to pay for the War the Warfighter is fighting…..

Levin wants to tax the rich to pay for the war in Afghanistan.  Why, because the  “rich are greedy SOB’s that do nothing but bleed the working man dry, also they bothered to do something productive with their lives by generating wealth for others and they should be punished,  the bastards.”   Let’s look at who Levin considers rich, those making over $200k a year.  Well that’s junk.  Any of the hundreds of thousand higher ranking military personnel with working spouses filing jointly falls into that category.  I love the idea that our military should have to shoulder not only the burden of fighting and dying in the war, but paying for it as well.  Thanks Levin.

English the Ultimate Peacekeeper

Pulled this off Drudge.  The Chinese are saying their lack of proficiency in English is an obstacle to peacekeeping missions overseas.  Well duh.   And not just duh, but boohya as well.  I’ve been advocating making English the dominant global language for years (not really) mainly because I speak it,  fluently I might add, but also because it’s awesome.

Depressed Women Just Need More Sex

So this flibanserin drug was originally designed to stave off depression in women, but it didn’t in fact do that, instead it did something way better, it significantly increased female friskiness.  Which consequently reduced depression (my assumption, because how could it not, but it hasn’t as of yet been  proven in any study).  This unexpected side effect is good news for women, a group that is twice as likely as men to be depressed.

Another interesting point made by Thorpe (a guy in the article)  is:

Lack of desire is the most common sexual problem in women aged 30 to 60, just as erectile dysfunction, for which Viagra is one of a choice of treatments, is the most common sexual disorder among men in the same age bracket, Thorp said.

“Men remain interested but can’t act or perform properly and women lose interest,” said Thorp.

“So where Viagra and other erectile dysfunction medications work in the blood supply, flibanserin works in the brain,” he said.

Did you get that last part?  It’s all in our heads ladies.  I know you could argue organic causes, and I’m not talking about organically based mental illnes but rather willful discontentment.  Show me a woman who is pissy and depressed and I’ll show you a woman who chose to be that way.  It begins with a choice then becomes a disease.  Much like alcohol.  I digress.  So cheer up ladies, help is on its way.

Why….????

To try and make this funny would do an injustice to the story so here it is.  A hotel in France will let you pay ($148.00)  to spend the night in one of its villas as a hamster. Not a cowboy, astronaut or hooker, but a hamster.

I wish I was making this up…..

Good News For Women

The University of Leeds has quantified the age old dilemma of “How much skin should I show to get a man?” Well the answer is 40%.  I would have said less, only because I snagged my husband fully clothed from head to toe, but I’m unusually  hot so that right there would exclude me from the study.  Also, I’m not a scientist conducting a highly scientific study on drunk scantily clad women in a night club.  And how great is that for the geeky science guy who never dated in prep school?  70 hours of doing nothing but watching women get hot and sweaty on a dance floor.

I’m sure there are some women out there who will find fault with this kind of research.  Blather on and on about how women are more than objects to lust after, yada yada  yada.  How the objectification of women is destroying the moral fabric of our society.  Well to them say, it’s your own damn fault, you want all the freedom to behave like cats in heat and none of the consequence for having acted like a whore.  I’d add, maybe if you tried a little harder to look nice you too could land a man.  And then I would direct them to this study which, to date, is the best guideline for how to get a guy.

The Most Advanced Stupid People

I was driving to work one day when I realized my cell phone wasn’t accessible to me.  It was behind my seat buried underneath purse stuff.  Two things happened, anxiety and relief.  Anxious because heaven forbid what if I can’t be reached, and relieved because in point of fact, I don’t want to be reached.  Pretty much ever. But by then my mind had engaged and I began to wonder about what all this immediate access has done for us.  How has the ability to find answers at the speed of your processor impacted us as a culture?  My nanny can now reach me anywhere at anytime, that, as I see it, is a good thing, but so can everyone else, which is not a good thing.  Trivial Pursuit, a great game,  is now obsolete because no one needs to remember trivia.  They’ve got the internet, literally at their finger tips.  Quick test, see how long it takes you to find out what the most expensive sport in the world is.  It took me a little under a minute.  And yet, 15 years ago it took my mother and her team-mate 10 minutes of conferring back and forth to come up with the right answer.  Skill and risk in games are  made null and void by search engine optimization.  But more than that, we as a society have willed it so.  We no longer accept that there is one chance to get something right, no, there are numerous chances, multiple choices, audience help, a lifeline, ESP, and the Bene Gesserit.  All of which serve to give you the contestant, every opportunity to demonstrate you’re an idiot.  Where did we get so off base that games shows are no longer competition, Jeopardy excluded, but a social gathering where everyone is a winner, even the loser?  There is no shame.    But what is disturbing to me is what appears to be the indirect relationship between advances in technology and the collective IQ.  We are more advanced than we’ve ever been in the history of people, and yet, we are more stupid as a whole, with the exception of a select few of me.  This gets into the whole question of does instant gratification ruin the soul?  I argue that man, by his very nature and Design, was never meant to, and should never instantly gratify anything.  Mainly because once he does, his will is fractured and it becomes that much harder to exercise discipline the next time around.  Just look at the astounding rate of obesity in this country. Yes, I know, it’s glandular.

I’m leaving you with this extremely appropriate and funny clip from CK Louis. (click the link Youtube gives you, it should work)

Rabbit Trail……

I came across this article during my morning Drudge troll.  It’s a great story about an amazing and courageous military sniffer lab named Sabi.  The dog went missing after the Taliban ambushed a joint Australian-Afghan Army patrol back in September of 2008.  After missing for 14 months the pup was spotted by a U.S. serviceman, who, upon taking possession of the dog realized she must be military trained.  Long story short the dog is now in the care of her Australian handler and is safe.

Here she is

So the story is indeed impressive, and a lot could be said about Sabi’s ability to survive in worn torn Afghanistan for 14 months, when say this guy, Alexander Supertramp couldn’t survive 4 months in a bus outside Nealy, Alaska.  But what struck me about her story is how it impacted those around her.  Sabi’s will to live and not end up an IED has been a tremendous morale boost for the soldiers.

Mark Donaldson, the SAS trooper awarded the Victoria Cross for rescuing a wounded interpreter during the battle, said: ‘Sabi’s the last piece of the puzzle.

‘Having Sabi back gives some closure for the handler and the rest of us that served with her in 2008. It’s a fantastic morale-booster for the guys.’

Sabi’s return has restored something in these soldiers.  She is the embodiment of what Churchill meant when he said, “Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

Another example of how an animal can shame the entire human race into rethinking its priorities is the story of  Scarlett the cat.  This mother had the good sense to do for her kittens what Susan Smith and Andrea Yates failed miserably to do for their children, save them.

Here’s Scarlett

So where am I going with?  Well volumes have been written on what animals have taught us people about love, perseverance, loyalty, and portion control.  Some of the most beloved books and movies made have been about the indescribable relationship animals forge with us.  Possibly because they don’t speak and we like a captive audience.   More likely, because they never leave us, no matter what we do, and they seek us out no matter how far we go, not at all unlike God.

So this got me thinking, we get a lot of benefit from animals, but what do animals get from us?  What do they take away from their relationships with us?

Well I found out.  They teach us the deeper meaning of friendship and we teach them how to raise their paw and run in a circle, things they already do without our help.

We also spends countless hours putting together videos of our pets doing silly things so that we can laugh at them, again and again.

We dress them up as fast food.

We let celebrities own them.

And we die them blue.

(disclaimer, this might be photoshopped but that doesn’t invalidate my argument that some idiot somewhere has in fact done this to their dog)

So now where are we?  Well animals, although they have been known to eat us from time to time,  seem far more capable of effecting meaningful change and inspiring hope in us, then we, who have been known to eat animals, are of inspiring anything in them.  I’m not saying people suck, that’s not the point.  I am pro-people,  I am just saying that animals should probably get use to disappointment.  In fact that might even be the better story.  What animals have taught us about living with disappointment.

Ahmed’s Dream Come True

Ahmed Muhamed Dore is a simple 112 year old Somali man who recently married his teenage sweetheart.  Which would be a sweet story except the girl is an actual teenager, 17 to be exact.  In Ahmed’s defense, he told The Guardian, “I didn’t force her, but used my experience to convince her of my love, and then we agreed to marry.”  I guess it’s hard to argue with 112 years of experience.  The bride, one Safia Abdulleh, had this to say about her new beau, “They told me he had a television.” The new brides family has expressed happiness over the union.  As have Ahmed’s other two wives and 114 children and grandchildren.

Now, the reactions among my friends and family upon hearing this story have been mixed, ranging anywhere from physically ill to a kind of Scanners thing.  But to all the naysayers out there  I say no, the shear ickyness of this union is not what should be focused on here.  This old man, in the face of genocide, famine, natural disaster, AIDS and the UN kept a dream alive for probably a hundred years, who knows.  Ahmed’s is a story of triumph over adversity.  To illustrate my point I’ve made a list of pro’s and cons.

Pros

1. He’ll be dead soon.

2. Instant family.

3. He can feed you.

4. He can impart upon you vast amounts of wisdom about goats.

Cons

1. He wants children.

2.  He’s wrinkly.

3.  Babysitting the grand kids.

4. See #1.

So as you can see, the pros and cons are about even.  And all things being equal I’m inclined to give Ahmed the benefit of the doubt on this one.  Because he kept his dream, albeit a sick and twisted one, alive for a really long time.  And it’s inspiring in a gross, uncomfortable sort of way.