Whores and Holes - two great things that go great together

But they don't sound THAT much alike....unless they are black, and you are the NAACP.

If you're not going to click on the links to get the full story (and you should), Hallmark recalled an audio card with an astronomical theme (which included "black holes") because somebody in the NAACP thought it sounded like "black whores". You can judge for yourself if you follow the links.

Don't cry over spilt milk - build storage tanks....

As though the EPA didn't have anything better to do, they were threatening to apply rules meant for oil spills to milk:

The EPA regulations state that “milk typically contains a percentage of animal fat, which is a non-petroleum oil. Thus, containers storing milk are subject to the Oil Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure Program rule when they meet the applicability criteria ...”

Unfortunately, Marginal Revolution didn't post this until weeks after it was announced that this would not be the case.

Vuvuzela virtuoso visiting Eastman Theatre?

Seems unlikely, but clearly so far the biggest winner at the World Cup is this delightful little instrument - and the biggest losers are those condemned to have to hear it unwillingly. Perhaps, as with garlic, the solution is "If you can't beat them, join them."

Now we can not only see any web site to the background of vuvuzela sounds, youtube has added a gadget (soccer ball shaped) that lets you mix the audio of the clip with the appropriate sounds.

Another loser would be astrology, after France rather convincingly showed that it is NOT useful when selecting your soccer team.


Update: the horror!

Women in literature - the early years

I've been reading Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World, a book about language history. A passage in it reminded me of a gurl friend of mine, who takes an interest in early female authors - although this one is well before the medieval times that interest her.

Akkadian bilingualism would have become common in the elite, and one can see evidence of this at the highest level, since Sargon's daughter Enheduanna is supposed to have composed two cycles of Sumerian hymns, and the most famous (to Innanna) has been found in some fifty copies.

This participation by women, especially princesses and priestesses, in Sumerian literature was not uncommon. They wrote funeral hymns, letters and especially love songs.

Thy city lifts its hand like a cripple, O my lord Shu-Sin
It lies at they feet like a lion-cub, O son of Shulgi,
O my god, the wine-maid has sweet wine to give,
Like her date-wine sweet is her vulva, sweet is her wine.....

(in background here, Sargon and his daughter were not Sumerian, they were Akkadian - and their language was not at all closely related, although they adopted the Sumerian cuneiform writing system for their own language and kept Sumerian culture alive)

Does anybody have any cunnilingus reference that pre-date this?

Coyote's public service announcement....

...needs to be widely distributed:



(Coyote, who is all about public service, here)

The excitement of chess

This xkcd comic turned out to be inspirational.


I sort of wanted to try it, too, but some went further than just wanting.

Quote of the Day

"The referee's should have been wearing pink in the match where the German striker was given two yellows."
- An Australian co-gamer

My goal this week....

...is to use the word "invidious" in a sentence without sounding like an utter plonker.

I'd love to know the story behind this....

Texts from last night is supposedly a collection of odd text messages people have received. Not all that different, except for tech level, from Overheard In New York.

Sometimes one of these brief excerpts really leaves you wondering about the story behind it. This one, for example:

My vagina has become a graveyard for my brother's friendships

My best guess is that she has had relationships with friends of her brother's.

Hating BP "before it was cool"

Katherine Mangu-Ward gloats a bit here, about an article she wrote in 2006:

For an example of a company apparently trying to single-handedly save the planet through expensive public relations alone, one needn't look farther than the corporate darling of serious environmentalists and greenish consumers alike: BP

BP is first among many companies that have opted to do their environmental penance in the glare of the spotlight. British Petroleum (recently rechristened BP, following KFC's model in removing unsavory words from its brand name) has been much ballyhooed for its commitment to the environment. Most of the ballyhooing is being done by BP itself.

A gas and oil company with $225 billion in revenue, BP is part of an industry that will keep environmental advocacy groups in business for as long at it exists. Yet these days BP is styling itself "Beyond Petroleum" and declaring that it's "thinking outside the barrel." BP's Environmental Team has crafted an elaborate advertising campaign and rebranding effort, recently expanded to the Web. Its goal: to convince the world that a company that sucks dead dinosaurs out of the earth, turns them into gasoline, and delivers that gas to SUVs can also be environmentally friendly enough to use a green and yellow sunburst (or is it a flower?) as its logo....

One might be forgiven for wondering how BP is managing to take in hundreds of billions in oil and gas revenue, apparently in its spare time.

I've never been a big fan of finding scapegoats, but in this case it seems like there was some definite negligence involved. Of course, we'd all like to think this isn't a necessary cost of our need for energy....

Gladiator graveyard

Pretty cool, a burial found in York appears to be of at least 80 gladiators, all young men with especially well developed right arms in good condition, not counting the decapitation and lion bites.

HT Archeaoblog, which in another post sets the record for blogging about the earliest shoes. As they point out, even the Manolo puts his foot in on that one!

Smile - people will wonder what you're up to....

...or apparently, they'll at least figure you're not trying to start a fight. Maybe that's why The Virginian emphasized you have to "smile when you say that."

The little quiz linked to in the link is short and kind of fun - i got 14 out of 20, for the record.

Personality of the week: builder and book burner

Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang

Started the (first version of the) great wall and destroyed (almost all) the literature.

Quote of the day

"Politicians are not magic. The less they do, the better."
- John Stossel

Quote of the day

"You cannot stand what I've become
you much prefer the gentleman I was before -
I was so easy to defeat, I was so easy to control,
I didn't even know there was a war...."
- Leonard Cohen

As much as I hate to tolerate assault....

...sometimes I actually find myself cheerleading it.

Almost makes one want to draw Muhammed!

I'll deal with it somehow....

A new study purports to show that exposure to beautiful women is bad for men's health. By some strange circumstance, I am still alive today. This is anectodal counter-evidence at best, but I must agree with the source that this study is suspect. The criticisms are not only funny but right on the mark.



Hat tip Skepchiks.

Quote of the day

(in response to "I thought you were honest")
"That's a common misperception. I just hate people."
- Alice from Dilbert

Not a cause I support.....

...but it IS kind of funny.

I guess putting some kind of boundary to vandalism seems almost worthy, unless you are a chicken concerned about being misunderstood.

Trivia of the day

Maltese is the only semitic language normally written in a Latin alphabet.
- Language Log