They are cute and cuddly, but one wildlife expert argues that pandas should be left to go extinct.
Naturalist Chris Packham, a BBC nature host, says pandas are an evolutionary dead end. He says they are not very bright, they have many challenges reproducing in captivity, and because they live in the most populous country on the planet, China, their environment is shrinking.
Well, not quite, but it was an awesome comeback, imo. From Talking Points Memo:
Just before the Senate Finance Committee wrapped up for the long weekend, members debated one of Sen. Jon Kyl’s (R-AZ) amendments, which would strike language defining which benefits employers are required to cover.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) argued that insurers must be required to cover basic maternity care. (In several states there are no such requirements.)
“I don’t need maternity care,” Kyl said. “So requiring that on my insurance policy is something that I don’t need and will make the policy more expensive.”
Stabenow interrupted: “I think your mom probably did.”
The amendment was defeated, nine to 14.
Senator Kyl, by the way, is firmly anti-abortion, with a 100% perfect voting record according to the NRLC and a 0% voting record according to NARAL. So he thinks the government should force unwilling pregnant women to give birth, but objects to requiring insurance companies to pay for maternity care. Because that might make Kyl’s annual insurance premiums a few dollars higher.
The word “asshat” is so inadequate.
You can now pre-order Last Drink Bird Head, an anthology of flash fiction by science fiction and fantasy writers (”flash” means “very short”), including our own Mandolin, writing as “Rachel Swirsky.”
What Is Last Drink Bird Head? That’s the catalyst editors Ann and Jeff VanderMeer provided to over 80 writers in creating this unique anthology, with all proceeds going to Proliteracy.org. All each writer got was an email with “Last Drink Bird Head” in the subject line and the directions “Who or what is Last Drink Bird Head? Under 500 words.” The result? Last Drink Bird Head is a blues musician, a performance artist, a type of alcohol, a town in Texas, and even a song sung by girl scouts in Antarctica. Famed designer John Coulthart did the interior, which features bobbing bird heads in the corners of the pages, so that the antho is also a flipbook.
In addition to Mandollin, contributors include Peter Straub, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Brian Evenson, Henry Kaiser, Gene Wolfe, Hal Duncan, Jeffrey Ford, Rikki Ducornet, Holly Phillips, Stephen R. Donaldson, K.J. Bishop, Michael Swanwick, Ellen Kushner, Daniel Abraham, Jay Lake, Liz Williams, Tanith Lee, Sarah Monette, Conrad Williams, Marly Youmans, Cat Rambo, and many others.
From a neurologist’s blog:
Dear President Obama,
I’m writing to you for the first time.
I don’t want this to be a political blog. There are plenty of other sites for that. But we now face a national crisis of such serious proportions that it dwarfs other issues, such as global warming, health care, and middle-east peace. It now threatens the very fabric of our society, and directly affects every citizen. And I can remain silent no longer.
It’s still September, and every store near me ALREADY HAS THEIR CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS UP!
I have nothing against the holidays, Mr. President. Peace on Earth and all that stuff. But moving them up as if they were being held in another time-zone or alternate universe is getting out-of-hand. As far as I know, Christmas hasn’t budged in my lifetime. And treating every day like it was Christmas (like the stores seem to want me to do) is not helping.
The well-respected Nick documentary program, The Fairly Oddparents, has carefully researched what would happen if Christmas were held every day (Episode 107, air date 12-12-01 I have kids, OKAY!). Their conclusion? It would be catastrophic.
More.
Technological advances yeild a transportation device a fraction of the size of the Segway but makes you look even more like a dork.
You know what a scooter that’s embarassing to be seen riding needs? Yeah, that’s right, to be made into a unicycle. Thanks, Japan.
This year’s crop of new shows is pretty crappy. Except for Hoarders. Those slobs are fascinating.
Next Week: Bad-Ass Baucus
People who promote “traditional” marriage, and oppose official support for or recognition of other family forms, are often the same people who worry about the relatively low fertility rates in the US and other wealthy nations.
The blog Demography Matters quotes from a newspaper article, about attitudes towards motherhood in Germany — attitudes that too many cultural conservatives in the United States share.
Unbeknownst to most outsiders, Germany is the most difficult place in Western Europe to be a working mother, with a deeply ingrained culture of machismo that expects women to give up their lives once they have children.
The ideology itself was Ms. Hoffritz’s biggest barrier. When she talked about her frustrations, her friends and relatives openly denounced her as a rabenmutter – literally “raven mother,” a woman who abandons her children, like the mythic ravens throwing their chicks from the nest. It is a term routinely applied to working mothers in Germany.
“When I got pregnant, even though I’d had a career for 20 years, everyone expected me to drop my job forever, to take care of my son and not do anything else all day for the rest of my life, and they got angry when I said otherwise,” she says. “Friends just thought I should be a full-time mom.”
This attitude, unsurprisingly, discourages women from having children. A new study by Jean-Marie Le Goff compares higher-fertility France with lower-fertility Germany:
Women in France, Le Goff argues, have access to a whole variety of family structures, from the traditional nuclear marriage family to a family marked by cohabitation to single motherhood, with a relatively long tradition of recognizing the responsibilities of parents towards their children regardless of their legal status, with the idea of mothers working outside of the home not only being accepted but supported by any number subsidies to parents to affordable and accessible day care. In West Germany, social and policy norms tend to support traditional family structures. The result? In France, people are childbearing age are split between two sectors, one defined by marriage relationships and the other defined by cohabitation relationships. On the other side of the Rhine, people of childbearing age are split between people who have children and people who don’t. Katja Köppen’s Second Births in Western Germany and France (Demographic Research 14.14) further points out that whereas Frenchwomen seem to enjoy an institutional structure that encourages motherhood and there isn’t a contradiction between high levels of education–hence employment–and fertility, there is such a contradiction in western Germany, with government spending priorities in the latter country being directed towards the support of traditional families. It’s not too much of a surprise, then, that the German Federal Statistics Office reports that [the number] of childless women is rising, particularly in the former West Germany.
Personally, I don’t care if fertility in the US goes down or up; I suspect any deficit in our population caused by declining births can be made up for by increased immigration. But those who are concerned about fertility rates, should consider supporting, rather than denigrating, alternative family forms.
(Curtsy to Economic Woman.)
A salon claims to be kid friendly, but gives you the stink eye when you bring one in.
This guy was frustrated about waiting ten minutes for a table and stormed out swearing one moment before they called him.
How could our involvement in Afghanistan get worse? By propping up an illegitimate president that Afghans hate with our blood and treasure!
I am part of the problem, not part of the solution. The vampire book in which I did illustrations is out in stores now. I’ll be heading to NY Oct 5th-9th for a signing or two. I’m looking forward to hanging out with my old Onion editor and meeting some fellow New Yorker cartoonists. 
Thanks to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
sinnamongirl for this stolen image.
To prepare for my trip I’m growing out a crazy terrorist beard
I like having my friends’ art on my walls. It makes me happy. There’s a breast… does that make it NSFW or is it OK because it’s art?
