Racism, Gnomes, Fish That Live In Trees, Sex With Robots

I’m a little insulted that so many people called the same article to my attention this week, because it is completely racist. If you haven’t heard yet, one of the world’s preeminent scientists, James Watson, has claimed that African Americans are less intelligent than Caucasians. He even stooped so low as to say, “all our social policies are based on the fact that [African American] intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really…people who have to deal with black employees find this not true.” According to Matt (the third person to call my attention to the story in the past four days), Dr. Watson has also recommended genetically testing for gayness and sub-intelligence so that mothers can abort undesirable children. Well, if he gets his wish, at least we don’t have to look forward to a future as bleak as the one in Idiocracy, or one with an overabundance of glitter, amyl nitrate, neon colors and fucking fabulousness. [story]

Oh, FYI: Apparently I have a son, and there is no denying that he takes after his father. [story]

Northwestern University, the prestigious institution I longed to attend as a child (but could not weasel my way into, what with the bad grades and all), where several family members were formerly employed, where my lovely sister received a degree in…something (sorry I forgot!), was the target of a stunning robbery last week. The website Travelocity delivered their famous “Roaming Gnome” to the University to display in the lobby of The Transportation Center, but it was snatched up by a thief roughly twenty-four hours after its arrival. My guess is, the fine people at Travelocity are going to receive a really sweet package of photographs in the mail several months from now showing the gnome in various cities around the world. It’s a bit hackneyed, sure, but if I had the idea first I would have stolen the thing, too. [story]

A vast ye matey! Pirate attacks are up fourteen percent over the first nine months of 2007! If I could afford a boat and some tight-fitting clothes, I might actually consider a career in costumed aggression. I’ve got the whole “drinking swill” thing down… [story]

A recent poll shows that many people are hoping to leave New Jersey. According to a survey, about half of the state’s residents are looking to move out of the state. Since 2002, over 231,000 people have left America’s most densely populated state. The only states to lose more were New York and California (whose populations are vastly higher than NJ’s), and Louisiana, who lost a considerable portion of its population following Hurricane Katrina. Several reasons given for wanting to quit Jersey life included “weather, environment, longing for a change of scenery, overdevelopment, congestion and government corruption.” I can’t blame those people. I can only point at them from 3,000 miles away and laugh. [story]

Reason #4,301 why I love reading Daily Mail: they’re not afraid to open a news story with a line like, “It’s one of the golden rules of the natural world — birds live in trees, fish live in the water. The trouble is, no one bothered to tell the mangrove killifish.” That’s it. I’m hooked. I want to hear all about this fish that lives in a tree. David Copperfield rapist what? Stock market collapse? No thanks, I just want to hear about the tree fish. [story]

Here’s the story we’ve all been waiting for. Artificial intelligence researcher David Levy hypothesizes that, “Around 2050, the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriages with robots.” He states that sure, sex with a robot might seem geeky at first, but people are certain to jump on the bandwagon once they realize how good it is. I for one cannot wait until the day I can marry my own Lucy Liu bot. That way I can say things like, “This is the best movie I’ve ever seen! It has a vampire and an explosion,” and she’ll be all like, “It’s amazing the way you NOTICE TWO THINGS“. You know, like this exchange on that episode of Futurama?[story]

Clearly, David Levy has never seen this helpful educational video: