Author: NewMexiKen

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

was born on this date in 1882.

First of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

If you’re not interested in a guy then don’t laugh at his jokes

From a report at news @ nature.com on humor in male-female relationships.

If love is blind, then maybe humour is the attention-grabber.

That’s the conclusion of two recent studies that confirm a long-standing stereotype of flirting: that women like joky men, while men like women who laugh at their jokes.
…

Women generally preferred men who were funny, while men favoured a woman who thought he was funny, the team report in a second paper accepted for publication.

Bressler believes that the findings might hint at why humans have evolved a sense of humour at all.

According to one theory, proposed by psychologist Geoffrey Miller at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, women prefer funny men because their wit reveals an active and healthy brain – and a fine set of underlying genes. “It’s a very powerful and reliable way to show creativity and intelligence,” Miller says.

Too bad NewMexiKen is only half a wit (see masthead above).

Reel obnoxious

A pro fisherman, Michael Iaconelli, ranked sixth on GQ magazine’s list of 10 most hated athletes — but it wasn’t for lack of trying to be like the No. 1 guy, banished Eagles receiver Terrell Owens.

As fellow angler Denny Brauer told the magazine: “When he catches one, you’ve got the fist pumps, the running around the boat, the lying flat on the boat. He’ll stare at the fish, yell at it, point at it. He’ll shake his finger at it.”

Fortunately, Sharpies can’t write on slimy fish scales.

(Oh, yes, the entire top 10: 1, Owens; 2, baseball’s Barry Bonds; 3, auto racing’s Kurt Busch; 4, baseball’s Curt Schilling; 5, Kobe Bryant; 6, Iaconelli; 7, basketball’s Bonzi Wells; 8, golf’s Phil Mickelson; 9, baseball’s A.J. Pierzynski; 10, tennis’ Lleyton Hewitt.)

Sideline Chatter

Sideline Chatter also has a good lead story about how the Raptors Jalen Rose quieted an obnoxious Denver crowd.

Good point

NewMexiKen read this observation somewhere this morning:

Four years of Bush I.
Eight years of Clinton.
Eight years of Bush II.
Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.

Do we really want to keep the presidency in two families for 24-28 years?

Signing statements

Mark Morford is in fine fettle. Read it all, but here’s an excerpt:

How about how Bush’s insane rate of issuing those now-infamous “signing statements,” those little firebombs of judicial misprision wherein your mumbling president gets to reserve for himself the right to ignore any law he signs — yes, any law he desires: anti-torture, surveillance, you name it — whenever he feels like it, if he deems that law unconstitutional. Screw Congress. Screw the system of law. And screw, well, you.

For the record: Ronald Reagan issued 71 signing statements during his unholy term. Bill Clinton issued 105 over the span of eight years. Bush 41 signed off on 146, the previous record.

And Dubya? Well, little George has slapped his color-crayon signature on over 500 signing statements so far, reserving his right to disregard the law more times than all former American presidents combined. It is a record. It is a disgusting abuse of power. It is another thing to stack on the pile o’ embarrassment for our nation. Shall we see how high we can go before we topple and implode?

(Here is the beautiful kicker, the thing to make you shudder and sigh: As this Knight Ridder report illuminates, in 2003 lawmakers attempted to rein in Bush’s abuse of signing statements by passing a bill that required the Justice Department to inform Congress whenever BushCo decided to ignore a legislative provision. Bush signed the bill into law — but then immediately issued a signing statement asserting his right to ignore it. Ah, the nauseating poetry of it all.)

After Subpoenas, Internet Searches Give Some Pause

If you’ve been aware this past week of the government’s efforts to subpoena web searches (and Google’s, but not Yahoo’s or MSN’s, refusal to comply), tell me you haven’t hesitated as you typed something no one’s business but your own into Google (or the others). An article in today’s New York Times describes people rightfully nervous. It begins:

Kathryn Hanson, a former telecommunications engineer who lives in Oakland, Calif., was looking at BBC News online last week when she came across an item about a British politician who had resigned over a reported affair with a “rent boy.”

It was the first time Ms. Hanson had seen the term, so, in search of a definition, she typed it into Google. As Ms. Hanson scrolled through the results, she saw that several of the sites were available only to people over 18. She suddenly had a frightening thought. Would Google have to inform the government that she was looking for a rent boy – a young male prostitute?

Ms. Hanson, 45, immediately told her boyfriend what she had done. “I told him I’d Googled ‘rent boy,’ just in case I got whisked off to some Navy prison in the dead of night,” she said.

The best lines of the day just keep on comin’

“To admit to fucking up on Katrina would only embolden the terrorists who wish to destroy us. Did we mention 9/11?”

TBogg on the White House’s refusal “to turn over certain documents about Hurricane Katrina or make senior White House officials available for sworn testimony before two Congressional committees investigating the storm response.”

My next thing I have to have (aka toy)

At The Mossberg Solution, Turning Your Cellphone Into Your Home Phone:

As more and more households continue to trade in their landlines for cellphones with better calling plans and free long distance, the inconvenience of toting a single cellphone around the house gets more annoying.

So, this week we took a look at two products that aim to solve that problem by tying your cellphone into your wired home phone setup. They allow you to use your home phones, including extensions in every room, to place and receive calls through your cellphone and your cellphone calling plan.

Two more best lines of the day, so far

These, via Daily Kos:

“Osama bin Laden released his first new audiotaped message in over a year. While there is some new material in the message, insiders say it’s mostly a Greatest Threats collection. A White House spokesman says they plan to check out the message in its entirety, but they’re too busy listening to your phone calls.”
— Tina Fey

“According to a study at the University of Colorado, researchers say morning grogginess can give you a feeling of being legally drunk and unable to think straight. They say this condition can last anywhere from a few minutes in some people to as long as two entire terms in office.”
— Jay Leno