give me that old time cellular fission - it was good enough for slime mold and it's good enough for

There was a time when amoebae went to phagocytosis, sometimes against their own clones, so that other amoebae could be free. And there was a time when amoebae went to phagocytosis because we recognized protein when we saw it, and knew that it had to be engulfed.

There was even a time when a President of the United Pond threatened to punch an amoeba in the membrane and kick him in the chromatin, because the amoeba had the temerity to say bad things about the President’s first-generation clone’s flagella retraction.

We’re not like that anymore.

Now, little clones in grade school are suspended for playing protozoa and Blue-green algae, paramecia and plankton, and all the other familiar variations of “good guy vs. bad guy” that helped them learn, at an early cellular age, what it was like to have decent amoebae hunt you down, because you were an edible organism.

Now, amoebae are taught that violence is bad — that when a parasite breaks into your membrane, or threatens you in the local water drop, that the proper way to deal with this is to “give it what it wants”, instead of taking a hunt-and-seek protein to the rascal or absorbing it dead where it swims...

And finally, our President, who happens to have been a qualified single-celled organism, lands on a current wearing a flagella suit, and is immediately dismissed with words like “swaggering”, “macho” and the favorite epithet of Eukoryte girly-amoebae, “cowboy”. Of course it was bound to get that reaction — and most especially from the Press in Eukorytia, because the process of amoebic genitalization Over There is almost complete.

How did we get to this?

In the first instance, what we have to understand is that the Pond is first and foremost, a culture dominated by one reproduction method: Meiosis


via Philosoraptor by way of young Ted


Parenthetical note: according to Debretts, the only time one styles oneself as Mrs. [surname] without the given name of one's husband is if one's marriage has been dissolved.

Perhaps this is at the root of the creeping personal insecurity at issue here.

edit: whoops, I'm wrong. Debretts also says it's acceptable to use the bare title with the last name if the husband's given name isn't known.

I don't know if that helps.

but it was just torture. Halliburton could be looking at congressional oversight. Have some perspect

The Bush administration is seeking to block a group of American troops who were tortured in Iraqi prisons during the Persian Gulf War in 1991 from collecting any of the hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen Iraqi assets they won last summer in a federal court ruling against the government of Saddam Hussein.

In a court challenge that the administration is winning so far but is not eager to publicize, administration lawyers have argued that Iraqi assets frozen in bank accounts in the United States are needed for Iraqi reconstruction and that the judgment won by the 17 former U.S. prisoners should be overturned in its entirety.

If the administration is successful, the former prisoners would be deprived both of the money they won and, they say, of the validation of a judge's ruling that documented their accounts of torture by the Iraqis.

"I don't want to say that I feel betrayed, because I still believe in my country," said Lt. Col. Dale Storr, whose Air Force A-10 fighter jet was shot down by Iraqi fire in February 1991.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "No amount of money can truly compensate these brave men and women for the suffering that they went through."


I think these brave men and women would be willing to experiment with getting their money.

Even if it doesn't help all that much.

If'n I was one of those psychological-type girl bloggers, I might suggest that maybe Mr. Bush has a little hostility thing going on with military pilots who were shot down by the enemy.

People, Scott McClellan said this wouldn't help.

California Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger, who as a candidate vowed not to take special interest donations, has scheduled his first fund-raiser as governor aimed at tapping contributions from Capitol insiders, an invitation sent to Sacramento lobbyists shows.

In an event set for Dec. 3, two weeks after his swearing-in as governor, Schwarzenegger is soliciting donations of as much as $21,200, the maximum he can accept under Proposition 34 campaign finance restrictions.

Longtime Republican patron Alex Spanos, a Stockton developer and owner of the San Diego Chargers football team, signed the invitation for what he promised would be a "spectacular event."

Despite campaigning as a populist who decried politics as usual, Schwarzenegger took out bank loans totaling $4.5 million and raised $11.9 million from donors during the recall campaign to oust Gov. Gray Davis, who ran afoul of voters in part because of his frequent fund raising.

The actor turned politician had denounced Davis and the "special interest game" in which contributions come in and favors go out. But by scheduling a fund-raiser for shortly after his swearing-in, Schwarzenegger is following the pattern set by most newly elected legislators and statewide officeholders.


In other worthy causes news,


President Bush and his wife, Laura, are splitting up re-election campaign duties, each appearing at a pair of fund-raisers -- his in the South and hers in the Northeast.

Sandwiched around the four events Monday were two speeches -- his on the economy at a BMW auto plant in Greer, S.C., hers in Portland, Maine, about preserving America's culture and history.

Bush's 2004 re-election campaign has raised more than $90 million, well on its way to a goal of $170 million -- a sum that can only be used for the primary season, in which he is unopposed for the Republican nomination.


No confirmation is available that funds will be set aside from the campaigns of either great american to buy dry shoes for tortured servicemen from the first Gulf War who have been reduced to pissing up a rope (see below).

A Mr. Nader, who at one point ran for President on a third-party ticket, notices a cool spot on his

Former Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader called Democrats "chronic whiners" for continuing to accuse him of spoiling the 2000 presidential election for Al Gore

"They should realize that the retrospect on Florida concluded Gore won Florida," the consumer activist told the Wisconsin State Journal on Saturday. "It was stolen from the Democrats. And they should concentrate on the thieves and the blunderers in Florida, not on the Green Party."

A media-sponsored review of more than 175,000 disputed ballots found that Gore would have won by a small margin if there had been a complete statewide recount. President Bush won Florida, and thus the White House, by 537 votes out of more than 6 million cast.

Nader, in town for a speech at the National Conference on Media Reform at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, noted that 300,000 registered Democrats in Florida voted for Bush.

"I think the Democrats can be fairly charged with chronic whining, and they ought to look at themselves first and foremost," Nader said.


I'd link to it, but there's a national election coming up so you can just hit pretty much any publication you come to for the next ten to fourteen months (or the last three or four years) for the same story.

I hear his interview with Chinchilla Breeder's Quarterly is a barnburner.

a transcript of Fox v Franken

Not as bad as I thought - apparently the lawyers for Fox were only trying to show that Fox viewers are equally as stupid [I should probably substitute for this the thorougly documented phrase "factually challenged," given the propensities of both Fox viewers and Ms. Hanswirth's firm] as the lawyers from Fox.

Pay particular attention to their standard for non-casual viewership.

( Ahem. Snerk. )

duh.

what decade does your personality live in?


quiz brought to you by lady interference, ltd

big copout

I'd try to write something clever about all the things I read today that I think you should see, but I'm too damn tired.

Please try to assume that whatever you've thought of that's particularly clever, that's just what I was thinking.

( more links than you can shake a stick at, if that's your thing )