This is, uh, eye ctaching: Outrage as Egypt plans ‘farewell intercourse law’ so husbands can have sex with DEAD wives up to six hours after their death

Egyptian husbands will soon be legally allowed to have sex with their dead wives – for up to six hours after their death.
The controversial new law is part of a raft of measures being introduced by the Islamist-dominated parliament.

Frankly, if my wife just died, the first thing on my list would be to go finally have sex with someone other than her!

But Egyptians are weird, I guess.

UPDATE (April 26, 2012): I should note something I suspected from the start (though I foolishly did not voice this suspicion): the whole story is a hoax. I think we would all agree it sounded too good to be true.

I had lunch at The Olive Garden today. I’ve never been a big fan of that place but never been sure why. Today it dawned on me: their flavors are too obvious. If they want something to be salty, they pour the salt on. If they want you to notice the parmesan crust, they bake that shit all over the place. If they want you to experience capers they add capers up the ying yang. Everything comes on strong.

The whole experience is a bit like dealing with an old Russian whore. You ever dealt with an old Russian whore? “Come and make love to me, darlink! My body needs your touch!” Yeah, uh, maybe later. “Now my sweet man-bear. I yearn to be dominated by you!!” Eh, I really need to get going. “Please, darlink! I BEG YOU to enslave me with your masterful fingers!!! PLEASE!!!” I think my bus is coming.

The Olive Garden is like the old Russian whore of Italian restaurants.

North Korea’s new leader is having some problems.

Financial Times: Kim under pressure after rocket failure

All I can say is: I’ve been there. You had a long day at work, you put back a few too many… but chicks just don’t want to hear it.

I was lying around at the park yesterday, half asleep, and an interesting idea for short story drifted into my mind. It’s set around a main protagonist, a young classical pianist who is setting the music world on fire with his playing. With every performance he receives rave reviews from the critics for his passion and technique. Except for one critic in New York who condemns him as a hack. The years go by and this character continues to rack up acclaim and awards, being loved by all… except for that one critic who sneeringly dismisses him. The lead character finds himself wondering, “who is this guy?” Whenever he visits New York, the pianist spends several nights parked outside the critic’s apartment, watching the man typing away at his desk.

Still more time passes — the pianist enters middle age. He gears up for a great performance in New York, playing some particularly emotional and technically demanding pieces. After the performance, he feels like he’s achieved a new high. The next day, the reviews come in, and everyone loves it… except you know who. That night, the pianist slips into the building of the critic and knocks on his door. When the man opens the door, he berates him. “Why do you hate me?” The pianist demands. The man refuses to answer. The confrontation turns violent, and soon the pianist is chasing the critic across the rooftop of the building. They assault one another and the critic is soon hanging off the ledge. Many stories below is a fenced off kennel of dogs who look up at the hanging man and bark. The critic smiles at the pianist and says, “You ask why I hated your playing? I don’t have an answer. I merely saw you the first time you performed and could tell everyone would rave about you. So I decided to be the one lone voice of opposition.”

The critic releases his hold on the ledge, and falls into the kennel below. The dogs attack, and the pianist can hear the horrible screams as the man is rendered alive by furious canines.

Six months later, the pianist schedules another prominent performance after a period of no activity. In front of the gathered fans and critics, he works his way through a famous piano piece. As he gears up to a particularly difficult section, he finds he can no longer hear the music in his head. All he can hear are the barking dogs and screams of the critic as he was consumed. The pianist flubs the section and stops playing. He can feel the eyes of the astonished audience upon him. He stands up, and realizes he’s not wearing any pants. Suddenly the cover of the keys of the piano slams down, crushing his penis which is caught because he wasn’t wearing any pants. “Shit, Fuck, Cunt!!!” he screams.

That’s basically it.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading about the genetic history of man. It involves a lot of speculation about what life was like for preagricultural man and his forebearers, the Neanderthals and apes. Frankly, it doesn’t sound so bad. In modern society, we’ve become so dependent on technology… our cars, our televisions, our computers, our MP3 players, our robot vaginas. It would be nice to relinquish all that and walk barefoot on the open plains eating berries and bugs and the occasional animal you catch.

I think I’d like being a Neanderthal.

I was thinking about my recent post comparing hunger and pain and realized it was profound enough to warrant further investigation.

Let’s back up a bit. I’ve commented in the past that there’s a meme going around in society, especially popular amongst hippies and assorted filth, that you should “listen to your body.” This basically means your body will tell you when you’re doing things that are good for it, and also when you’re doing things that are bad for it.

Now, as I’ve also mentioned before, I’ve read a lot of arguments in regards to pain that go against this “listen to your body” argument. They basically state that some pain is basically psychosomatic, and not really indicative of serious structural damage to the body. It’s a little hard to wrap your brain around this, however. Obviously, if we slam our finger in a car door (e.g. cause structural damage) we feel pain, so we’ve been trained to associate pain with structural damage. Why would our body “lie” to us and cause pain when there is no (serious) corresponding damage.

This gets to the point of my earlier post — hunger is an example of our body lying to us. It says, “eat, eat, eat,” when in fact we’ve satiated ourselves. As a result, you see a lot of fatties walking around (well, not walking so much as waddling) doomed to early death from heart disease or diabetes. If our body is supposed to be sending signals that encourage the survival of the organism, it’s massively failing by saying “eat, eat, eat.”

But here’s the twist. For most of our evolutionary history, the message “eat, eat, eat” made sense because most creatures don’t have regular access to McDonald’s and frozen dinners. If you’re a Neanderthal, and you stumble across a meal, you better eat as much as possible, storing whatever you don’t immediately turn into energy as fat, because you don’t know when your next meal is coming. So this hunger incentive delivered to your brain really is the “right” message for most creatures, during most periods of history and in most environments. (You could argue it’s the wrong message for pets, since they likely will be fed on a regular schedule.)

Could the same thing be said about pain? Is our body programmed to deliver messages of pain according to rules that made sense out in the wild, but no longer makes sense in structured, civilized, 40 hours a week society? I don’t know, of course, but it’s an interesting thought.

And to expand upon that, is it possible that we’re constantly receiving “incorrect” signals from our body and senses because they are programmed according to rules that no longer apply — rules that made sense when we were monkeys, but do not as men? You could argue this is what anxiety or panic over nonthreatening situations is, or feelings of attraction to someone merely because they’re wearing red lipstick, or a perfume that somehow indicates desirability (on some chemical, pheromone related level I don’t understand.) Perhaps we’re going through life like blind fools, feebleminded Mr. Magoos, knocking over ceramic furniture with our canes, oblivious to the damage we are causing to ourselves and others.

Heh – this is awesome. A bunch of underwater photos of dogs. As I have always said, dogs are some crazy motherfuckers.

This caught my eye: LA Times – Solar storm sends charged particles toward Earth

A massive explosion on the sun’s surface has triggered the largest solar radiation storm since 2005 and has unleashed a torrent of charged plasma particles toward Earth, though the threat to satellites, power grids and other high-tech hardware is believed to be manageable, scientists said.
…
Radiation from the explosion arrived at Earth within hours of the flash, said Doug Biesecker, a physicist with NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo. A burst of charged plasma particles is expected to reach Earth by 6 a.m. Tuesday. That charged plasma is traveling uncommonly fast, making the 93-million-mile trip to Earth in about 34 hours, rather than taking two or more days, as is usually the case, Biesecker said.

The article is worth reading more for what it doesn’t say. No mention of the possibility that a massive solar plasma flare could cause the recently dead to rise from their graves and hunger for the flesh of the living. No concern about the great likelihood that solar plasma radiation will create giant sized insects who will travel the countryside searching for human victims whom they can literally pull apart with their pincher claws.

No mention of these very real possibilities.

And the media wonders why nobody trusts them anymore.

I was nosing around reading about animals with long lifespans and came across mention of George the lobster. George is a lobster (you might have guessed that) and was purportedly 140 years old when he was released in the wild a few years ago.

At first one feels a twinge of jealously towards George. After all, what could we do with our lives if we could live into our 14th decade? But I wonder if it would be all that great. Sure, George might have seen many things – the advent of the automobile, the freeing of American slaves, the birth of television – but what of the dissappointments, the heartbreaks? Eventually life takes its on a person’s (or lobster’s) psyche. There comes a point, I feel, when one can say, “I have lived enough.” Perhaps George has reached that point.

I bet he would be delicious.