Pro-torture judge and new attorney general Alberto Gonzales apparently counts as a moderate in our world today. “Why is President Bush betraying the babies? ” ask our Culture-of-Life theocons (tip to Andrew Sullivan for the phrase and for the courage to scratch his butt in public). Well, perhaps for the same reasons he’s betraying the adults whose torture and execution Gonzales condones and expedites. Oh yeah.

As Tarantino says, Dick dick dick dick dick dick dick. For a man who quit smoking only after his fourth heart attack, Cheney seems to be packing some meat. Or perhaps just a funny camera angle and some baggy pants.

Not to be confused with the Evolution Groupware Suite Blog, the Evolution Blog is about the ongoing process of change over time, and whether it and other basic science CAN BE TAUGHT IN OUR SCIENCE CLASSES. I can’t believe we’re reliving the Scopes trial. How many years has William Jennings Bryan been in the cold cold ground? Are we going to revive the gold standard for monetary policy now? (Note that William Jennings Bryan was on the correct side of the monetary, but not the scientific, debate).

One for Leah in Detroit

One on animal hoarding just because I love the subject so.

And one for Leah in Detroit because she is so awesome: Muskrat stew, delivered hot to your door. Only in Detroit.

Punks, hardcore rappers, and hillbillies have a lot more in common than they would admit: self-sufficient badasses who ain’t too proud to take a bargain meal when it presents itself. Especially one with plenty of spicy goodness like a muskrat stew.

Talk Down to Me, I’ll Respect You More

Doin’itRight.org is a website about how you should not have sex if you are a teenager. The information on STDs comes down to “you’ll never know if you have one, and you can get them even if you use a condom.”

Best part? Doin’itRight.com is a travel site oriented mostly (although not entirely) to gay travelers to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, with convenient information about prostitution and drugs.

The teen anti-sex site does have the version with the missing G, although the properly-spelled .com version is a redirect to a yachting and diving website.

What else are you doing wrong?

Another Election Results Chart

Insightful as always, my brother Joel sends me a table of state election results sorted by per-capita income. Basically, the higher the per-capita income in a state, the more likely it went for Kerry.

Other ways of looking at the data: the less advantageous the ratio of money contributed to the Federal budget to money received from it, the more likely a state was to go for Kerry. That’s right, the states most in favor of the “small government” argument are those that benefit most from it.

The less likely a state was to actually be hit by terrorism, the more likely it was to favor Bush’s “keep us safe from bees by throwing rocks at the nest” terror policy.

I haven’t checked this data to see if it’s accurate, I’m just posting it. What am I, a reputable news source?

Reading list, Numbers

I’ve been thinking about how numbers run my life more than I know, and how I don’t necessarily understand them as well as, say, any of the other boys in the office, who are all good at math. Things like blood sugar levels and their fluctuation from the norm, the measurement of horsepower and torque, baseball stats, psychology. For example, it’s presumably OK to have a certain number of negative thoughts about one’s job, partner, life, meals, favorite television shows… but how many? If I chart them and notice them going up, is my relationship becoming dysfunctional?

So I’ve added “A mathematician reads the newspaper” to my reading list. Other items: “Dirty Havana Trilogy,” because there has to be some fiction in there, “* A Brief History of Everything” because Bill Bryson is hilarious, and “Something for Nothing” which is about luck and American’s obsession with it (again, stats). Plus some business books which are as dry as the day is long.