CONSIDER: Stimulation at Moral Junction

Scientists at MIT are prepared to confirm what many already suspected: human morality is not incorruptible.

New experiments there have targeted the area of our brain-- the right temporo-parietal junction-- that becomes active once we begin to morally reflect. By means of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, that area may now be so-stimulated to temporarily impair the brain's ability to weigh morally-freighted scenarios.

In one trial, subjects were asked to judge a man who allows his girlfriend to cross a bridge he knows to be unsafe; the girlfriend survives, but is the man still morally delinquent? For more information, and their answers, READ IT.

REMEMBERING: June Hovac

Baby June, vaudeville star and sister of Gypsy Rose Lee, is dead. She was allegedly born in 1912, making her 98-years old. June outlived both her sister and infamous mother, Rose.

LATELY: Republicans Spend Money

To best prepare for election campaigns, national political committees often devote some of their financial stores toward the wooing of potential donors; here is a partial breakdown of how the Republicans have dipped into their coffers, to that end:

$17,000: private jets

$15,000: limousine service

$31,000: hotel accommodations

$2,000: dinner and a show at Hollywood topless club, "Voyeur."

After coming under fire for said spending, the Republican National Committee Chairman, Michael Steele, advised critics to "Shut up, step back, and get in the game...".

The RNC has opened an investigation.

COLORING CONTEST: Hutaree

Hutaree, n.

1. a Christian militant who is prepared to fight the Antichrist

2. an extreme religious group/cult, of which nine members were arrested on March 28, 2010 after plotting to shoot the police officers of Detroit

For inspiration, SEE IT.

WINNERS: Inventors Hall of Fame

The National Inventors Hall of Fame has announced its inductees for 2010. Among those who will be honored are Spencer Silver and Arthur Fry, who-- despite what some may have us believe-- invented the Post-It Note. Other winning creations include the aqua-lung, the first-ever home video game, and synthetic diamonds.

LATELY: Funding American Schools, and Not

The states of Delaware and Tennessee have convinced the Obama administration their plans for a public school system overhaul are innovative, and will be rewarded a combined prize worth $600 millions. The White House announced its "Race to the Top" competition in January, promising federal grant money to those states that show "exemplary progress in areas that President Obama considers crucial to education reform." The winning innovations? Delaware will receive $100,000,000 for eliminating those teachers who have been rated "ineffective" for three years, and Tennessee will get $500,000,000 after passing a law that allows the state to intervene in its own failing schools. It should be noted that these are only some of the proposed innovations, which were apparently more promising than those submitted by 38 other states.

Meanwhile, out in the Pacific, Hawaii has determined its education funding necessitates a four-day school week. Teachers will work the same amount of hours in what officials are dourly calling "Furlough Fridays," but cafeteria employees and bus drivers will see their pay decrease by--that's right--twenty percent. The Department of Education responds: "Generally, we are concerned about financial constraints leading to a reduction in learning time." Hawaii joins seventeen others states that have also resorted to the four-day plan.

BRIEFLY: Bills, Marijuana, Tree of Smoke

Lost amid Health Care:

1. Congress has voted to exclude commercial banks from the federal student loan racket. This means that students will now have to secure their school loans through their college's financial aid office. Before its passage, private banks argued that the measure would eliminate jobs and deny students the same "level of service."

2. Californians will vote this November on whether to legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana. Advocates claim the passage will raise $1.4 billions and save the state's thinning law enforcement/prison resources. Those interested in supporting the campaign are encouraged to make their donations in $4.20 installments.

3. Our man Michael D. Furlong, recently accused of going rogue in his compiling of a Middle Eastern War Zone Assassination Squad, denies any wrongdoing. He swears to having approval from central command, and that he is now being made the fall-guy in a turf war between the CIA and Pentagon.

LATELY: Hope for Hibernating Hearts

This is the zebrafish. The zebrafish lives in tropical freshwater and is a member of the minnow family. It enjoys zooplankton, insects, and phytoplankton; if those aren't available, it will enjoy almost anything else. Those who keep aquariums like to populate them with zebrafish. The zebrafish can grow a new heart.

Spaniards recently lopped off twenty percent of zebrafish ventricle, and stood by as the remaining cells began to glow youthful green, and regenerate.

Photo courtesy of Lukas Roth.

FIN DE SIECLE: When Katla Blows

Molten torrents continue to spring forth from Mount Eyjafjallajokull, as scientists eye the glacial cap that is slowly melting atop Mt. Katla. The ice over Katla is the only thing sealing the massive volcano against rupture, and therefore the only thing stopping a "global deep freeze" from likely ensuing. This is scientific extrapolation corroborated by history: when Katla unleashed its ire in the 1700s, it froze the Mississippi River.

The big freeze would go something like this: as hot lava runoff from Eyjafjallajokull unsettles the ice on Katla, a resulting eruption would expel tons of ash into the stratosphere and prevent solar rays from reaching the earth's surface. Here we have a perfectly natural, organic response to our planet's warming, and one that doesn't include rocketing two-foot-wide disks of silicon nitride into its orbit!

LATELY: Shock and Terror and Birds

Crafted to the tune of $10,000 and Ed Wood, this film is called "Birdemic." Here we have talons, blood, and shotguns-- all set against the trappings of a bucolic California town. After a cool rejection from the Sundance Festival, director James Nguyen took to driving around Park City with a vendetta and bird cacophony pumping from his stereo. Nights, he screened his film in post-festival party bars and filed for a U.S. trademark. His enterprise has not gone unrewarded: "Birdemic" is currently on a midnight run at the IFC Center, in New York, and its director can now legally bill himself as The Master of the Romantic Thriller TM.

You've seen this film before, but never like this. GET IT.

For more avian shock! and terror! see: Emi Brady.

POWERS TO MOTHER: Do Not Reproach Me

Reports surfaced on March 23 that China and Russia have realized they're big, and are getting friendly. The speed at which Washington announced its own "breakthrough" with Mother hardly seemed coincidental; their report, attributed to sources anonymous-but-official, materialized on March 24.

One needn't read terribly deep into these narratives to detect their diverging tones. In his talks with Russia, the future leader of China, Xi Jinping, is concerning himself with just that: the future. Xi and President Medvedev envision continued market prosperity and boom, a new world order that originates from the east. Meanwhile, the Obama administration is literally exchanging bullet points with the Kremlin: to date, those talks have mostly revolved around arms control and nuclear weaponry, around Bush-era missile shields and the lofty goal of "resetting relations"-- all of which does nothing but to trace, again and again, the shape of a closed circle. Some Americans claim they can see the Volga from our shoreline, shimmering, but Alaska is a long ways from Washington.

GOING ROGUE: Complete with Psy-Ops

What follows is the distillation of a compulsive, Tree-Of-Smoke of a story in which one imprudent official from the Department of Defense is cover-blown after having siphoned government money earmarked for intelligence into his own, more secret fund, which he then used to establish a spy network of private contractors in the -stans whose prime objective--and this still may be the case--was to track and kill alleged area militants, as filed by the Times on March 15. Alright then:

1. The assassination squad was assembled from former C.I.A. and Special Forces operatives. It's creator, Michael D. Furlong, was at the time operating under a euphemism: that is, "a benign government information-gathering program..."

2. "It is generally considered illegal for the military to hire contractors to act as covert spies;"

3. "The officials say they are not sure who condoned and supervised the project..."

4. but it may have been an attempt to "get around" the Pakistani habit of prohibiting American military personnel from operating in their country;

5. Officials say Mr. Furlong's operations "seem to have been shut down," that it is "still murky" as to whether he obtained any approvals or handshakes from central command...

6. And that it's "generally a bad idea to have freelancers running around a war zone pretending to be James Bond."

7. Finally, it is reported that "Mr. Furlong has extensive experience in 'psychological operations.'"

For more, read the on-record investigation, or the novel Tree of Smoke-- both of relative length.

LATELY: Volcanic Provocation

Today, Reuters reports that enormous Mount Katla is a) fuming under the influence of fellow Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajokull, and b) "wanting to get in on the action."

Eyjafjallajokull erupted after nearly 200 years on Saturday, and geophysicists now fear its growing intensity will inspire nearby Katla into a rage of steam and massive flood. It wouldn't be the first time: Mount Katla has been similarly compelled on three previous disturbances at Eyjafjallajokull.

SEE: Socotra Island

Where one may shade beneath the Dragon's Blood tree, and watch the bats.

COLORING CONTEST: Eyjafjallajokull

Eyjafjallajokull, n.

1. volcano in southern Iceland, dormant nearly 200 years

2. volcano in southern Iceland, active since March 21, 2010: after a fountaining of ash and molten lava, scientists call eruption mostly peaceful

3. a glacier

IN PURSUIT OF: Prince Charles

Foregoing Chopin, Prince Charles Takes Audience with Tatars, Polish Bison;

Leaves Duchess for Visit to Primeval Forest.

The Prince has eschewed genius relic for a day spent with ruminants. Shortly after landing in Poland while along their European Tour, Prince Charles left his wife to her nerves and set himself upon the countryside. Tracking the Prince as he traveled by helicopter and by car--encountering beast, mosque, Kruszyniany-- the terrain could be described as that of Scientific Romance itself.

There is little more we would ask of our royalty.

EXCLUSIVE

Click here to read the as-yet untitled screen treatment for the new Ellen Page film, set for release in fall 2040. Ms. Page will play Nancy Pelosi.

LATELY: The Pulitzer Prize

Citing its "exhaustive investigation of the John Edwards Conspiracy and Cover-Up," The National Enquirer reports it is under consideration for the Pulitzer Prize.

Also cited is The New York Times story about the Enquirer's report of the unofficial Edwards story, making the whole occasion seem "even more official with [the] elegant headline: 'Enquirer Is Eligbile for Pulitzer.'"

Here's hoping you take home the gold, National Enquirer.

Image stills from "The Hudsucker Proxy."

SEE: Amy Archer

HEADLINES: A20

TEXAS CONSERVATIVES SEEK DEEPER STAMP ON TEXTS

PANEL PROPOSES A SINGLE SET OF STANDARDS FOR THE

NATION'S SCHOOLS

KANSAS CITY WILL SHUTTER NEARLY HALF OF ITS

SCHOOLS

SUSHI SPOT IS CHARGED WITH SERVING WHALE

From The New York Times; page A20 (National)

March 11 2010

CONTEST WINNER: Ippy Patterson

Here you have it, the "Cockatrice," winner of our March 8th coloring contest. Note the deadly glance, and curious scales. For more Ippy Patterson and her Elizabethan bestiary, SEE IT.

CAUGHT: Jihad Jane

40-year old woman from Pennsylvania who reminds me of Montana (SEE: teased hair, women's groups) has been picked-up by the Fed after consorting with her fellow Jihadis and entertaining notions of international assassination!

LATELY: Congressional Tickling

Representative Eric Massa would like to draw the distinction between sexual harassment and tickling, and then he would like to resign. In what was supposed to be a birthday-celebratory-male-staffer-dog pile, some third-party became offended when the congressman made a quip about having sweet sexual intercourse with one of said male staffers. He's charged with a grope.

For more unrelated-related New York Democratic Ethic-Investigations, SEE: Gov. David Paterson, congressman Charles Rangel, and Eliot Spitzer.

COLORING CONTEST: "Cockalorum"

Cockalorum, n.

1. a strutting little fellow

2. the game of leapfrog

COLORING CONTEST: "Cockatrice"

Cockatrice, n.

1. a legendary serpent with a deadly glance, said to be hatched by a reptile from a cock's egg on a dunghill and often conceived of and represented - esp. in heraldry - as having the head, wings and legs of a cock and the tail of a serpent. Compare: basilisk.

2. an extremely offensive, esp. pernicious person

3. a prostitute

LATELY: The Fire and Brimstone Crowd

On Sunday afternoon in Brooklyn, New York, embattled Gov. David Paterson emerged from a Baptist service and claimed his authority divinely-ordained. A few moments later, in the lot of a Presbyterian church in another part of town, a 75-year old man's SUV inexplicably accelerated while in reverse, trampling women and children and leaving one for dead.

Also: family men and women are still packing heat out west, just because they can. Everything was looking very old fashioned as the gun-slingers exercised their divine right to openly bear arms, until one of them ordered a Grande Caramel Frappuccino. Then it all "just faded into the background...".

SEE: Crispin Glover

Psycho-analyzed and train-wrecked, Crispin Glover does Letterman.

If you were two and missed C.G.s appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman, treat yourself to performance art and have another beer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JpZWaXFc48&feature=related

If you think that EVERYTHING IS FINE, and wonder what IT is, reconsider and be happy. Have a penchant for mannequin and vivisection? Consider: CLOWNY CLOWN CLOWN. "I hate you, Clown!"

Let's say more. 'Volcanic Eruptions,' Mr. Glover's self-established publishing house, appropriates texts whose rights have fallen into the public domain. We have said publishing house to thank for such ecclesiastical gems as OAK MOT, RAT CATCHING, and CONCRETE INSPECTION. If you'd like to spin a record backwards and have got the time, by all means consider C.G. and slideshow variety, which is also available in standard playback form.

GET IT.