A new bra

Dr. Calvin Rickson, a scientist from Texas A&M University has invented a bra that keeps women's breasts from jiggling, bouncing up and down, and prevents the nipples from pushing through the fabric when cold weather sets in.

 

After the news conference, announcing the invention, a large group of men took Dr. Rickson outside and kicked the crap out of him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(ok, I actually got this as an email from my wife, and I don't know where it originated.  Still funny)

Feeling old

A colleague of mine has been bringing her newborn into the office about once a week for everyone to see (she still has close to a month more vacation / maternity leave ). My own youngest turned 16 yesterday. My oldest turns 26 in November.

It just got me thinking a bit. My kids are starting to become adults one by one, and how many more years are there before I become a grandparent? Still a few away, but definitely out there.

I look back at when I last held, fed, bathed and cared for a baby, and I'm a bit surprised at how much I do not miss it. I like being a father, but as my kids are leaving home, it seems that the being with kids part is going with them.

A lot of the pelople I interact with are parents of young kids, and it is really surprising me that while I'm happy for them, I don't need to share it. I don't have any desire to hold Jessica's baby, and honestly most young kids of other parents I know are more annoying than cute.

On the one hand I find that I'm one of the "cool" parents that my kids friends all like (even to the point of soon runnikng yet another Pathfinder game for Matt and his friends), while on the other I don't want to be bothered by a bunch snot nosed rug rats. When did I get this old.

Now get off my lawn!

Intelligent Design - NOT!

A while back there was some furor over Intelligent Design - with a bunch of people calling it a scientific theory (because they had obviously never looked up the definition of a theory, as opposed to a scientific lawm or even a hypothesis).

The whole idea is rubbish, on so many levels. A classic argument is the eye, which sends images to the optic upside down. Obviously not designed, at least not with any intelligence. Or the classic joke about the placement of human sex organs (i.e. putting a recreation area right next to a toxic waste disposal site).

Lately I'm more concerned with another completely back asswards human design problem. Our bodies are set up so that any excess calories are stored as fat for when we don't get enough. A good idea. But what happens when you don't get enough to eat then? Do we use those same stored calories, that fat that we were saving for a hungry day? Hell no. If you don't eat enough then you hoard the fat, and instead start breaking down muscle. So once food becomes scarce, our bodies make it even more difficult to obtaqin more. And when we get more does it go back to replenishing the muscles it just broke down? Of course not, that would be an intelligent decision. It goes back to storing it as fat.

There is no such thing as intelligent design. If we were designed at all, it was by a commitee of idiots.

Yes, diets make me cranky, you want to make something of it? I'd smack you, but I'm too weak from hunger while my fat belly just seems to grow.

(And you thought I wouldn't find anything to complain about :-) ).

Rule by the minorities

One thing I have noticed the past few years, and that I have been curious as to when it happened, was the end of majority rule in our society.

It seems that everything is now based on taking care of the minorities - no matter how small they might be. We can't have anything that might adversely effect even the smallest percentage of people, even if it stongly benefits the vast majority.

The main example I remember is an article about new public toilets in NYC. They were from Europe, and were small, self cleaning, and efficient. The problem was that you couldn't fit a wheelchair in them, and when you made it big enough to do so, homeless people ended up moving in and sleeping in them. I believe in equal rights, and giving reasonable access to the handicapped, but in this case it was not possible. And because this small percentage of people could not use them, the city was sued, the project scrapped, and NOBODY got them.

Anlther case - some steakhouses used to have peanuts on the tables. There are some kids with peanut allergies - serious enough to cause hospitalization or death. To me the reasonable solution is, if you are allergic the DON'T GO THERE. But no, in our minority rule society the restaurant instead removes them - taking them from the vast majority who enjoy them for the sake of a small minority.

I won't even get into politics and the current approval ratings for our so called 'leaders'. They don't seem to represent the majority anymore.

To me it seems ridiculous to ever think everybody can have everything. Just because I can't do something should not mean that nobody can. Of course I'm in the minority for believing this, and it is the one case where the minority is ignored - go figure.