The Salt Maze. Peta would NOT approve.

I got into a debate with a very opinionated vegan kid yesterday. He informed me that he's not vegan for health reasons. In fact, he'd be vegan even if it were very bad for his health. Instead, he claimed he was vegan for moral reasons. "It's wrong to exploit animals." He wouldn't even eat insects, despite their lack of consciousness and superior nutritional value.
I think hardcore vaganism is mostly a social phenomenon, and a result of a socialization process. For some, it's probably done out of a desire to feel different, and for others it's a desire to fit in. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but it seems almost like a religion to me.

Brought to you by Loma Linda University:

Human research on soy and cognitive function is very limited, but one recent study did find a negative effect of soy. In the Honolulu Heart Program, an ongoing study of the health of Japanese-American men living in Hawaii, those who consumed the most tofu (two to four times per week) during middle age showed the most signs of mental deterioration in later years.

Indeed, John D. MacArthur points out:

What's more, higher midlife tofu consumption was also associated with low brain weight. Brain atrophy was assessed in 574 men using MRI results and in 290 men using autopsy information. Shrinkage occurs naturally with age, but for the men who had consumed more tofu, White said "their brains seemed to be showing an exaggeration of the usual patterns we see in aging."

Oh well. Who needs a brain anyway?

Aquatic Ape Theory (AAT) says that humans developed our weird characteristics through an aquatic evolutionary path. It kind of makes sense: the webbed fingers, hairless body, and downward-pointing nose...

Will Ferrell gave the Class Day speech at Harvard. Read it and laugh.

I wonder how many people who voted for Bush are among the 8 million or more workers who stand to lose their overtime pay under the plan his administration is proposing?

I just added my home and cell phone numbers to the new national do not call registry. I'm very excited to not be hearing from telemarketers. If they call me they can be fined up to $11,000.

In completely unrelated news:
I'm lusting after this camera, which can fit inside an altoids box.

Ever wonder how our president reacted when he learned of the 9/11 tragedy? Did he weep, become angry, faint, pee his pants, hide, what? Well, wonder no more.

I noted the lack of comment from the White House regarding the Supreme Court's decision to strike down Texas' anti-gay law, but I'm sure it wouldn't be a very happy comment if there was one. The White House is a big fan of Souter, who wrote the dissent in this case.

Most people don't realize it, but Mark Twain once gave a lengthy discourse on self-abuse.

I want some.

Brought to you by fark:

When I posted my post about outdoor parties, I forgot to mention this 3-day outdoor festival that's happening in two weeks...

Lawyers: Can't live with them, yet it's illegal to kill them.

I've been meaning to drop this one on everybody, and now I'm doing it:
Yourmom.com.

Expamples: Your Mom is so stupid, you told her Pi * r^2 and she said no, they're round.

Your Mom's so nasty she made speed stick slow down.

Your Mom is so poor she does drive by shootings on the bus.

Long ago, in a place called the internet, Mahir became the first meme du jour. He was there before All Your Base, before Am I Hot or Not, before Mullets Galore.

I didn't hear anything about him for a while, so I decided to track him down and see what he's been up to. Apparently he has his own webring. According to his new web portal ikissyou.org, he's getting married this summer. It's a classic turkish-pervert-gets-fifteen-minutes-of-fame-then-meets-a-girl-and-settles-down story.

Arie has a cool website, and part of it explains the SCO-IBM-Linux-Microsoft circle - o - fun going on at the moment, as explained by the Dukes of Hazzard. I think Daisy Duke makes a very sexy Linux.

Cafepress is hosting a cool shop.

Cafepress lets you design and sell your own t-shirts, mugs, mousepads, backpacks, underwear, steins, etc, etc, etc, . All you have to supply is the design and they do the rest.

I used to worry that Christina Aguilera might have an eating disorder. Now I don't, because she's obviously got it under control.

Cure for boredom:

I'm not exactly sure what happened to me last night. I only know that now I can't shoot more than one kitten per turn in Clay Kitten Shooting.

What is SCO up to? Are they really stupid enough to try to take IBM on? Are they merely making themselves Microsoft's pawn in a Machiavellian behind-the-scenes stab at the credibility of Linux? Are they high on crack?

The post below this one was cooked up using Google Zeitgeist. It was a deliberate attempt to get lots of hits on my site. You see, last week I posted about Oliver the Humanzee, and it ended up causing my my site to go from 10 hits daily to 85. I was thoroughly amazed, and a little intrigued. So I decided to shamelessly pander for attention through the power of Google.

I was watching the Miss Universe pageant when I got to thinking about the Bugbear worm. Then a commerical for "2 fast 2 furious" came on and I was distracted: could it be better than The Matrix? "No", I decided. It seemed like a movie that Martha Stewart would enjoy.

I heard that Metallica is releasing a new album. *sigh*. They're washed up. I still haven't forgiven them for being record industry pawns and slamming Napster. They're about as relevant as Amber Frey in a Spencer Tunick photo.

Last but not least, Pirates of the Caribbean will be out soon, and here's a couple of fun facts about Trevor Goddard, courtesy of the IMDB:

October 1999 - Trevor was jumped by six men and beaten to unconsciousness requiring seven stitches on his face and causing broken ribs. The altercation was the result of Trevor, who is an ex-boxer, decking a man who was heckling two women at a bar in Australia.

October 2000 - Passed out during the filming of "Hollywood Vampyr" at the sight of fake blood gushing out of a woman's arm that he was to cut.

We just bought mouse traps to capture our unauthorized rodent roomates. We're armed with sticky traps and classic ones, but I'm recommending the classics since I want to feed the mouse to my carpet python, Azrael.

Q. What's scarier than scary?
A. Cannibals with nuclear weapons.

Q. What's scarier than that?
A. Babboons ate my baby!!!

Q. What's scary?
A. Cannibals.

Q. What's scarier than scary?
A. Cannibals with nuclear weapons!

I read Lies My Teacher Told Me a long time ago, and was thoroughly shaken up by how completely whitewashed our history books are. It's amazing. The book goes hand in hand with A People's History of the United States when you are ready to be thoroughly disenchanted and get rid of the post-9/11 patriotism forced on you by the major media.

I really hope that the state of Oregon will do the right thing in its budget crisis: instead of abolishing funding for schools, why not abolish the OLCC? Why spend $90 million per year controlling people's ability to buy alcohol and bullying the owners of drinking establishments?

The OLCC's heavy hand of regulation is ultimately about the attempt to regulate the peaceful, honest and voluntary behavior of individuals. What else would one expect given the OLCC's roots are traceable to the 18th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1919? This wholesale violation of individual liberty ruined many lives.

Nicholas Murray Butler gave an address against Prohibition before the Ohio State Bar Association in 1923. He noted that Prohibition could never be enforced because "it lays down rules of private conduct which are contrary to the intelligence and general morality of the community."

My site has gotten more hits in the last two days than it got in the last two weeks. How did I go from ten hits per day to a hundred? It must be the new graphics...hehe.

It's Monday morning of finals week at University of Oregon. I stopped at the library to do some blogging in their computer lab. As I turned the corner and looked into the lab, I noted a line of about ten students waiting to use computers.

Then I noticed that, as usual, there were two perfectly good G4 Macintosh systems running OS X. With nobody using them. I didn't know if I should feel sorry for the Mac illiterate or mock them openly. I decided to let sleeping dogs lie and proceed to the nearest Mac, a brand new one with a 17" flat panel monitor.

Get paid to buy things. Seriously. Use refunds and rebates in combination, and if you play it right and use Microsoft's Wallet on checkout then instead of being $-0.04 you end up being ahead. I'm skeptical, but it sounds good to me. I looked at the other stuff there and concluded that pretty much rocks.

I'm missing a cool free outdoor party right now. Hooray.

This party is happening in three weeks though, and it's free camping. I'll have to attend. There's also another outdoor party on July 12 which costs $10 per carload. Then on the 26th there's this party "in the beautiful oregon forest right outside of Eugene".

I love Oregon!

I watched Old School with Wil Ferrell today. It was very good. It made me want to streak.

How to de-Messenger XP. Micro$oft is evil. Get yourself some

According to The Mercury (no, not the Portland Mercury)Maxis' The Sims Online has been taken over by a criminal element. There are rival crime families, extortion, racketeering, and prostititution. Oh, and violence.

Particularly egregious affronts to the Shadow Government could -- at least until game maker Maxis disabled this feature -- be dealt with by ripping out an opponent's heart. Of course, nobody dies in the ``Sims Online.'' It's just to prove a point.

Not everyone thinks it's such a bad thing:

Game experts say organized gangs are the hallmark of successful online multiplayer games, like ``Lineage'' or ``Ultima Online.'' Sometimes, it's a sign that the game lacks enough interesting elements to engage the players -- so they create their own drama. More often, it means players are so attached that they invest the time to exploit its rules.

There was an interesting development in my quest for the monkey butler. Last night at work, as I flipped through the channels while taking a break, I ran across the story of Oliver the humanzee.
Could this be the missing link between monkeys and butlers? Could there be a population of monkey butlers in Congo looking for work as I type this sentence?

To the detriment of his resume, Oliver did enjoy a nightcap consisting of scotch and 7-up. This makes his hireability questionable, since it's unacceptable to have the help dipping into the scotch. He also enjoyed cigars, and it would probably stink up the house with tobacco smell. There is also anectdotal evidence that he made improper advances toward women, which would also be grounds for termination of employment. However, the development is still promising.

Watch the show if you can find it. For real, it's creepy.

Enter the bearded lady gallery.

Here's a sketchbook for you to look at. Be ye warned, for it's a long download on a modem. If you're feeling brave and brash, feel free to check out the author's homepage. It's pretty insane.

Here's something that's cooler than a pet monkey: a pet wildcat.

Gaping Void. I ran across this site long ago and lost it, then I ran across it minutes ago and decided to post it immediately. Enjoy.

This man is graduating cum laude in Mathematics. He's planning graduate study in Math, Aerospace Engineering, Political Science, and Biomedical Engineering. He's founded an international youth advocacy organization and been nominated for 2 nobel peace prizes. Oh yeah, he's thirteen. He graduated high school with honors at 9. Info courtest of CNN. Follow the link for a photo.

Doesn't he look like a young Eminem? I think if he had a haircut and a few tattoos, he'd be a dead ringer. I bet when he gets into his late teens he'll dabble in hip-hop.

The California Coastline Project has the ambitious goal of photographing the entire California coast. Sounds really cool to me. I really like the idea, but Barbara Streisand hates it. In fact, she hates it so much that she's suing for $50 million. This lawsuit-happy factoid comes courtesy of memepool.

Play 20 questions with a computer. Not related to the song, "21 questions" by rapper 50 cent.