Escape From Pianosa

Unbelievable:

A Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting.

Read the rest. Here’s the best line:

“The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soliders to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistably attractive to one another,” Hammond said after reviwing the documents.

Having heard Ali G accuse so many of his detractors of “racialism,” I thought it was just a word made up by Sacha Baron Cohen. Alas, it’s really used in Britain, and there’s no parody here:

“So she explained. The Green Man, she said, prided itself on being the most racialist pub in England. That was her word: racialist. There were other racialist pubs, she said. In fact there were two more in Bury. But none was as consistently racialist as the Green Man. The Green Man, she continued, had never served a colored person.”

That’s from Among the Thugs by Bill Buford, a fascinating read about a reporter who infiltrates a gang of English soccer hooligans. It’s a good way to knock that notion of European civility from your brain, if only temporarily.

What!? People would rather be blind than fat!?

Apparently, shockingly, most people would rather be blind. “When you’re blind, people want to help you. No one wants to help you when you’re fat,” one respondent (of the 89% who’d lose their sight over slimness) explained.

I’ve never had a whole lot of pity for overweight folks, mainly because there’s something you can do about being overweight. It may not be simple and it may not be easy, but losing weight is at least possible, whereas curing blindness… well there’s not much you can do except live your life and hope that medical technology finds a cure before you die.

This sounds suspiciously like the oft-quoted “fact” that most people are more afraid of public speaking than they are of dying. Which explains why so many commit suicide just before going on stage. Or not.

Of course, the article that Ben links to floats the idea that losing weight is “impossible”:

But it seems less so by the end of “Rethinking Thin,” a new book about obesity by Gina Kolata, a science reporter for The New York Times. Kolata argues that being fat is not something people have much control over. Most people who are overweight struggle to change their shape throughout their lives, but remain stuck within a relatively narrow weight range set by their genes.

So if your weight is mostly genetic, you have almost no control and what you eat or how you behave doesn’t matter. I don’t think anyone seriously believes this. And if weight is purely genetic, then why has obesity increased so dramatically in recent years? Are fat people having more kids? Did something happen to change our genes only recently?

I strongly encourage anyone trying to lose weight to check out Evolutionary Fitness at ArthurDevany.com. Art believes that the way you eat and exercise actually has a profound effect on how your genes express themselves. I’ve been eating “the EF” way for 5 months now and I can definitely say that it works (really really well), even if I don’t entirely understand why. Try it out before you give up.

I may have told you this weekend with great excitement about a groundbreaking new sitcom that takes places in a terrorist training camp. The terrorists were all named Abdul, and everyone was portrayed as an hapless idiot–a terrorist parody. Edgy but hilarious.

And unfortunately, not real. Turns out it was an April fool’s day hoax from NPR’s On The Media. I’m disappointed, as I was looking forward to the show…

A bum knocked on my window…I glanced at him and rolled it down.

He flashed his toothless smile and said “your mother’s my woman!”

Things like that make me love Baltimore.

Blogging has been light this week due to the return of fantasy baseball. Every February I prepare for my draft, usually in one massive fifteen hour effort over the span of a few days. My apologies to neglected friends, family, girlfriends, and clients.

Lenny Dykstra? As in Lenny Dykstra the baseball player?

Here’s Lenny on Comcast stock:

I am adding to my position in the July $35 (CCQGG) calls, buying 10 more July 35s at a limit price of $7. This will give me control of 2,000 shares all the way until the third Friday of July, July 20, with the average price now coming in at $7.80. In setting up for the exit, adjust the GTC (good till cancel) sell order down to 1 point higher than the cost, which is this case would be $8.80.

Obama in 2007:

“We can build a more hopeful America. And that is why, in the shadow of the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln once called on a house divided to stand together, where common hopes and common dreams still live, I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for President of the United States of America.”

Lincoln in 1858:

I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.

The quote of the day comes from San Francisco mayor, Gavin Newsom:

“I’m not going to moralize it, but I don’t think this is the appropriate place” for a porn film studio, says the mayor, who recently admitted to having an affair with his re-election campaign manager’s wife.

Here’s more from the WSJ (RR) on the unintended consequences of San Francisco’s zoning laws.

My dinner was interrupted tonight by two young Hispanic males, knocking on my door, asking me if I spoke Spanish.

Yes, I do.

(unwrapping his wares) Would you like to buy a gold chain?

Mmm, no. Thank you though.

Anyone else on the street speak Spanish?

The lady on the corner…good luck fellas…

This is the second time I’ve had people knock on my door offering ‘discount’ jewelry. Does this happen in other cities?

Actually, one of my favorite Baltimore moments is when I was sitting on the steps of a row house on Carroll Street in Washington Village and a guy walked by me with one of those big plastic reclining chairs you find at public swimming pools. “Hey man, you need a chair?”