Here's a good scientific report. The scientific journal Oikos published a study about scientists themselves, and why some were wildly successful, some were reasonably successful, others barely marginal and some complete flops. The study found that the more beer a scientist drinks, the less likely he is to be successful, with some notable exceptions here and there. Hell, I could have told them that. That pretty much covers any occupation, no? When was the last time you heard of a guy who downs a case of beer a day being listed in the Forbes' 500? Sometimes you wonder if a lot of these scientists have too much time on their hands.
And aren't scientists the last people you want to hear about chugging a ton of brew? Not quite as dire, say, as a sudsy airplane pilot or surgeon, but still a group of people the rest of us sort of depend upon to explain a lot of mysterious and complicated things. What if it turns out they were drunk and made it all up? For all most of us know, Einstein could have been telling us whopper after whopper about relativity and the speed of light and all that. And what if Isaac Newton was a drunk? Maybe gravity isn't the same everywhere and the laws of physics are something other than what he said they are. What if these new guys we have now got that whole global warming thing wrong and we wake up one day to find a new Ice Age after we've all invested in Bermuda shorts, Hawaiian shirts and suntan oil? Then what? Nobody I know has any experience at all dealing with Wooly Mammoths.
Here's something for beer drinking scientists to study: the difference between Eliot Spitzer's unfaithfulness to his wife and David Paterson's. Spitzer was forced to resign as New York's Governor when it was revealed he was patronizing prostitutes, like it was any of our business. So the guy who took over for him, Lieutenant Governor David Paterson, admits right from the start that he had a number of sexual relationships with women other that his wife. Apparently that's okay since he didn't pay for the sex. That sort of thing is also none of our business either, but it's interesting that nobody was calling for Governor Paterson to resign. Exactly what is America's stand on extra-marital sex? It's okay to have a love affair but not to pay for sex? Wouldn't having a loving and continuous relationship with someone other than the lovely wife be a worse transgression than simply paying for sex? Yet another assumption I got dead wrong.
Okay, with Spitzer I understand the outcry and smug satisfaction over the downfall of a killjoy reformer who spent a good deal of his time as New York State's Attorney General shutting down prostitution rings and generally condemning everybody who was not him. When a guy elevates himself on a pedestal we all love it when he topples. No one likes people like that, hypocritical moral policemen always in other people's business and always pronouncing that they just don't measure up to his arbitrary moral standards. Neither did he as it turns out. And he's just as big a boob as the people calling for his head since he resigned all craven and contrite and ashamed to look the world in the eye, as if having sex with women was some sort of unnatural act. If he had the balls he liked to display to the hookers he'd have told the public that his sex life is none of our damned business.
Still in all, he should not have been forced from office for being the customer of an ancient and thriving industry. He can still be governor and the hypocritical sack of shit he always was, much like a whole lot of politicians. And he can still be governor and a man who sleeps with hookers, again, not a rarity. Of course he would have had to lose his moral superiority card, but that's not a bad thing. It's a good thing to have governor who's forced to be neutral in judging the morals of others. It's an executive administrative job, not a church pulpit. We could have just chuckled at the irony and gotten on with our lives without all the outrage at our Governor's lax morals. Now what separates us from the likes of him? Pretty much nothing is what, except that we've still got our jobs, such as they are.
So, by leaving like he did, Spitzer gets the last laugh since he now turned a whole bunch of people into mini-Spitzers; finger-pointing holier than thou clowns peeking into the private lives of others and giving them a very public thumbs-down and an appropriately superior frown. Especially considering that all the newly minted morality police now have to live with a governor who's slept with a whole bunch of non-wifely women. Spitzer walks away with a victory for his world view. Big Sex Brother is watching and America's adulthood when it comes to sex is further delayed, stuck somewhere in junior high school. Sad.
So, 5 years after Bush The Younger invaded Iraq, putting the hunt for Osama bin Laden on permanent hold, Osama's back this week with another video, this one threatening the European Union for publishing cartoons making fun of Islam. Is there a more humorless cretin out there than this guy? Conspicuously absent in his latest Gangsta Rap was any criticism of the Hamas cartoon mouse that threatens to eat the Jews. Now, I don't understand Arabic, but watching this guy you wonder if there's ever been a less charismatic figure. No matter how you view the guy, as a terrorist, a freedom fighter or a religious figure, he's one dull drink of water. So how dull do his followers have to be to think this is a guy to inspire the masses?
The only interesting thing about Osama bin Laden is that our country's leadership did not move heaven and earth to track him down and kill or capture him after what he did on 9/11/01. If you or I were president that day that would pretty much be the #1 priority of our presidency, no? That's what would make sense, right? The reasons would be obvious and the motivation powerful. So when a president invades an oil-rich nation that posed no threat to America and had no part in the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, why are his motives not obvious? There's only one reason to attack Iraq and that is to steal the oil there, yet people come up with all sorts of implausible motives and desired results when it comes to the invasion of Iraq.
And now you've got Bush and his boss Cheney proclaiming that fiasco a "success." For who? The Iraqi people? The American people? No, it was disaster to both sets of citizens. For the cause of American style democracy in the Middle East? Doesn't seem to be any huge groundswell of support there for the dusty kingdoms where sultans rule, women cower in fear and a lot of men like to date teenaged boys and chant "Death to America" in the streets. For Big Oil? Bingo! Check the price at the pump and the record profits recorded by the big oil companies. Mission accomplished, all right. That Lear Jet parked on the personal landing strip of the mansion in Palm Springs speaks volumes. If it walks and quacks like a duck it's a damned duck and not a war of liberation. Beer-drinking scientists, see what you can find out about self delusion between six-packs and get back to us soon.
Here's a good scientific report. The scientific journal Oikos published a study about scientists themselves, and why some were wildly successful, some were reasonably successful, others barely marginal and some complete flops. The study found that the more beer a scientist drinks, the less likely he is to be successful, with some notable exceptions here and there. Hell, I could have told them that. That pretty much covers any occupation, no? When was the last time you heard of a guy who downs a case of beer a day being listed in the Forbes' 500? Sometimes you wonder if a lot of these scientists have too much time on their hands.
And aren't scientists the last people you want to hear about chugging a ton of brew? Not quite as dire, say, as a sudsy airplane pilot or surgeon, but still a group of people the rest of us sort of depend upon to explain a lot of mysterious and complicated things. What if it turns out they were drunk and made it all up? For all most of us know, Einstein could have been telling us whopper after whopper about relativity and the speed of light and all that. And what if Isaac Newton was a drunk? Maybe gravity isn't the same everywhere and the laws of physics are something other than what he said they are. What if these new guys we have now got that whole global warming thing wrong and we wake up one day to find a new Ice Age after we've all invested in Bermuda shorts, Hawaiian shirts and suntan oil? Then what? Nobody I know has any experience at all dealing with Wooly Mammoths.
Here's something for beer drinking scientists to study: the difference between Eliot Spitzer's unfaithfulness to his wife and David Paterson's. Spitzer was forced to resign as New York's Governor when it was revealed he was patronizing prostitutes, like it was any of our business. So the guy who took over for him, Lieutenant Governor David Paterson, admits right from the start that he had a number of sexual relationships with women other that his wife. Apparently that's okay since he didn't pay for the sex. That sort of thing is also none of our business either, but it's interesting that nobody was calling for Governor Paterson to resign. Exactly what is America's stand on extra-marital sex? It's okay to have a love affair but not to pay for sex? Wouldn't having a loving and continuous relationship with someone other than the lovely wife be a worse transgression than simply paying for sex? Yet another assumption I got dead wrong.
Okay, with Spitzer I understand the outcry and smug satisfaction over the downfall of a killjoy reformer who spent a good deal of his time as New York State's Attorney General shutting down prostitution rings and generally condemning everybody who was not him. When a guy elevates himself on a pedestal we all love it when he topples. No one likes people like that, hypocritical moral policemen always in other people's business and always pronouncing that they just don't measure up to his arbitrary moral standards. Neither did he as it turns out. And he's just as big a boob as the people calling for his head since he resigned all craven and contrite and ashamed to look the world in the eye, as if having sex with women was some sort of unnatural act. If he had the balls he liked to display to the hookers he'd have told the public that his sex life is none of our damned business.
Still in all, he should not have been forced from office for being the customer of an ancient and thriving industry. He can still be governor and the hypocritical sack of shit he always was, much like a whole lot of politicians. And he can still be governor and a man who sleeps with hookers, again, not a rarity. Of course he would have had to lose his moral superiority card, but that's not a bad thing. It's a good thing to have governor who's forced to be neutral in judging the morals of others. It's an executive administrative job, not a church pulpit. We could have just chuckled at the irony and gotten on with our lives without all the outrage at our Governor's lax morals. Now what separates us from the likes of him? Pretty much nothing is what, except that we've still got our jobs, such as they are.
So, by leaving like he did, Spitzer gets the last laugh since he now turned a whole bunch of people into mini-Spitzers; finger-pointing holier than thou clowns peeking into the private lives of others and giving them a very public thumbs-down and an appropriately superior frown. Especially considering that all the newly minted morality police now have to live with a governor who's slept with a whole bunch of non-wifely women. Spitzer walks away with a victory for his world view. Big Sex Brother is watching and America's adulthood when it comes to sex is further delayed, stuck somewhere in junior high school. Sad.
So, 5 years after Bush The Younger invaded Iraq, putting the hunt for Osama bin Laden on permanent hold, Osama's back this week with another video, this one threatening the European Union for publishing cartoons making fun of Islam. Is there a more humorless cretin out there than this guy? Conspicuously absent in his latest Gangsta Rap was any criticism of the Hamas cartoon mouse that threatens to eat the Jews. Now, I don't understand Arabic, but watching this guy you wonder if there's ever been a less charismatic figure. No matter how you view the guy, as a terrorist, a freedom fighter or a religious figure, he's one dull drink of water. So how dull do his followers have to be to think this is a guy to inspire the masses?
The only interesting thing about Osama bin Laden is that our country's leadership did not move heaven and earth to track him down and kill or capture him after what he did on 9/11/01. If you or I were president that day that would pretty much be the #1 priority of our presidency, no? That's what would make sense, right? The reasons would be obvious and the motivation powerful. So when a president invades an oil-rich nation that posed no threat to America and had no part in the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, why are his motives not obvious? There's only one reason to attack Iraq and that is to steal the oil there, yet people come up with all sorts of implausible motives and desired results when it comes to the invasion of Iraq.
And now you've got Bush and his boss Cheney proclaiming that fiasco a "success." For who? The Iraqi people? The American people? No, it was disaster to both sets of citizens. For the cause of American style democracy in the Middle East? Doesn't seem to be any huge groundswell of support there for the dusty kingdoms where sultans rule, women cower in fear and a lot of men like to date teenaged boys and chant "Death to America" in the streets. For Big Oil? Bingo! Check the price at the pump and the record profits recorded by the big oil companies. Mission accomplished, all right. That Lear Jet parked on the personal landing strip of the mansion in Palm Springs speaks volumes. If it walks and quacks like a duck it's a damned duck and not a war of liberation. Beer-drinking scientists, see what you can find out about self delusion between six-packs and get back to us soon.
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