Willful ignorance opens it's fat mouth and speaks with a horribly grating accent, again.

The current wettest blanket of them all thinks that we shouldn't be wasting valuable resources performing research on fruit flies. Of course, when you don't "believe" in "DNA" or the "theory" "of" "evolution" "by" "natural selection" then you wouldn't really understand what kind of an impact fruit fly research may have on things such as autism or dare I say, Down syndrome.

"That's more than the shortfall to fully fund the IDEA," she said. "And where does a lot of that earmark money end up? It goes to projects having little or nothing to do with the public good -- things like fruit fly research in Paris, France, or a public policy center named for the guy who got the earmark. In our administration, we're going to reform and refocus. We're going to get our federal priorities straight, and fulfill our country's commitment to give every child opportunity and hope in life."

This is hard not to laugh at...

Faniq writes:

You probably heard a few years ago that T. Boone Pickens, who chairs the hedge fund BP Capital Management, gave Oklahoma State a $165 million donation to be used all for helping the school's athletic program. And the largest portion of it was going to be used to beef up the school's football stadium and football facilities.

Well, there was one problem with Boone's donation. He left the donation in the hedge fund, which initially seemed to be a good idea as oil prices soared in a post Katrina economic climate, swelling the initial gift to over $300 million. That was before things began to turn in 2007, as international demand for oil failed to meet projections, causing the fund to come to a sudden standstill, and then dropping on mistakes made by fund managers, who were managed by Pickens.

Anyway, Pickens resisted pleas by some OSU Regents to bank a good deal of the balance out of the fund when it exceeded $300 million, which was only 14 months ago. Instead Pickens decided on borrowing almost $200 million needed to expand and renovate Boone Pickens Stadium on the Stillwater campus, despite the fact that the donation was dropping in value.

Now, here's the bad news. Yesterday all indications were that OSU Regents had been told last Friday afternoon that a large portion of the Pickens donation in the BP Capital hedge fund was virtually wiped out by margin calls on the funds investments in the third quarter.

Since when did universities turn into investment firms? I wonder if the economics department advised on this decision.

One of these two men is going to be president of the united states.

In case you think it was photoshopped.

What's wrong with the economy part 1

Happy joy unicorn land

In happy joy unicorn land, the nice asian man next door has kindly asked that we stop borrowing his lawn tools and kitchen equipment, since if we insist on using our hats and shoes as cooking pots and chopping up our furniture for firewood, he is concerned that he won't ever see again the nice things he lent us for our barbecue last summer.

Chinese regulators have asked domestic banks to stop lending to U.S. financial institutions in the interbank money markets to prevent possible losses during the financial crisis, the South China Morning Post reported Thursday. The China Banking Regulatory Commission's ban on interbank lending of all currencies applied to U.S. banks, but not to lenders from other countries, the report added, citing a source. End of Story

Marketwatch (HONGKONG)

That is stupid #4. Alaskan Manly Men Gourment Coffee, Ahar!

Ahar mateys! Come aboard an' try some of my delicious grog. Ahar! I mean coffee: coffee thick as a slurry o'fish bait rolling around in a ship's hold after a long voyage, with the delicate aroma of a skipper's armpits and the barest hint of o'stale crab meat.

Come meet me for a cup at your local supermarket. No autographs please! But I am available for children's parties. Ahar! I mean p-arghties, of course.

Surprise! Theism negatively correlated with IQ

What's worse: that it took so long for someone to get round to doing this research, or that this research is more important than ever in the 21 century?

University of Ulster professor Richard Lynn will draw the conclusion in new research due to be published in the journal Intelligence, the Times Higher Education Supplement reports.

Lynn and his two co-authors argue that average IQ is an excellent predictor of what proportion of the population are true believers, across 137 countries. They also cite surveys of the US Academy of Sciences and UK Royal Academy showing single-digit rates of religious belief among academics.

Oh, I know what's worse. That I'm going to have to tread on eggshells when taking about this with so many people I hold dear.