The "natural inferiority" of women

Hey, it's a book title. Written by a woman, too - Tama Starr. She subtitled it "Outrageous Pronouncements by Misguided Males", but I won't hold that against her. What could be wrong with a book whose title was taken from a quote by the Marquis de Sade?

It has some great quotes:

People ask me how many children I have and I say one boy and seven mistakes - Muhammad Ali

What do women need money for? - Mick Jagger

The only way to resolve a situation with a girl is to jump on her, and things will work out. - Lee Marvin

There's marital guidance too:

A bride received into the home is like a horse that you have just bought: you break her in by constantly mounting her and by continually beating her - Chinese proverb

That's one of the tamer ones.

She was doing so well, but then she went and fouled it all up by writing Eve's Revenge - Saints, Sinners and Stand-up Sisters on the Ultimate Extinction of Men, in which she offers slurs like the following:

What do you call that useless flap of skin at the end of a penis?

Where do you find a man who's committed?

Women who want to be equal to men lack imagination - Timothy Leary

So it looks like she just can't make up her mind. Isn't that just like a woman....

The latter book was published in 1993, too early to include one of my favorites, from here(some graphics might not be appropriate for work):

Men are like linoleum. If you lay them right the first time, you can walk on them for 20 years. - Brett Butler

Note: the preceding post is for entertainment purposes only, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial position of No Watermelons Allowed. Yes dear, I'm coming...

Marketing of professionals

So doctors don't like to see pharma firms spending money on marketing. Too bad.

In my experience, besides a line or two in the phone directories, doctors usually don't market themselves.

Unless of course they do vanity work. And I suspect that of all the medical fields, those practitioners are the ones least respected by the other fields. They oughtta be working gratis on deformed children instead of mounting Revision 3 of Pamela Anderson's boobs.

So, frankly, just what do physicians as a group know about marketing?

I do know that I've received free meds before. This makes the doctor look like a good guy. But where did he get them from? Uh-huh, by those pharma companies' marketing organizations.

Some years back lawyers weren't allowed to advertise either. When this was being discussed I was in grade school, and to my unsophisticated brain it seemed unfair if they couldn't advertise - what could be wrong with that?

Plenty. Strangely enough, if you promote something, you'll get more of it. And now we have ambulance chasers on the back of phone books, on TV ads, running full page ads in newspapers, you name it.

And look at what has happened to our legal system.

So tell me again who it is who shouldn't be spending money on marketing.

Who, me?

Here I am working in the dead of the night grinding out a few terabytes of data. Nobody's around, so I'm sitting here brushing my teeth.

You have to be in a bathroom to brush your teeth? Obviously you've never lived with a bunch of people and a common bathroom. I've heard people say that you aren't supposed to swallow toothpaste so I usually head for the bathroom (more details available upon request). Anyway, I'm brushing away as I decide to check the hit counter.

What do you know? Google sent me somebody who wanted to know "how to give a good blowjob". This isn't funny, Jody.

I retrieved my toothbrush and went to the bathroom to wash my mouth out a bit more thoroughly than usual. I wish the toothpaste had been another color. At least it wasn't a gel.

Let me state clearly for the record that any expertise I possess in this area is limited to providing feedback, seeing a smutty movie or two, and reading stuff like this.

Alright, so I dance a little and I watched something about Liza Minnelli the other day. But that's it.

Marry Theresa!

She's still trying. I haven't been through Nashville since the billboard went up, so I don't know if it's still there or not. Anyway, she's writing of her travails and some of the losers she's met on her site, which is bloglike in part.

She has a few things to tell us men. So does Moxie. And Uncle Dever.

Dissent?

Diana E. likes "dissent", speaking as if it's a virtue rather than mere sanctified bitching.

Well, it would scare me if everyone had the same opinions. But this, comrade, is no accident. Diana E. doesn't like the Bush administration.

OK, I have my differences too. But what does she cite? President Bush's association with Harken Energy and Dick Cheney's business past.

As she notes, there's nothing wrong with questioning these things per se. But there is something wrong with pursuing it long after a reasonable person would have dropped it.

Take Harken for example. This was well before the 2000 election and Bush had dealt with it before. So why is it coming up again, and why doesn't it go away? And if there was anything to it, why didn't the supposedly smart Al Gore use it in 2000?

Perhaps it was an oversight, but she didn't mention anything about the worthiness of an investigation of a former Clinton official like Robert Rubin.

It might have helped us decide whether her positions were "dissent", or mere partisan politics.

The singing blogger

First I saw Meryl Yourish with this, setting a plea for links to "Frere Jacques". Then somewhere on A1A we find this, set to "Matchmaker Matchmaker". Now MY is linking to this from The Bar Code King, set to Loudon Wainwright III's immortal "Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road".

Keep trying folks, but you'll never top this one - "Green Haze" by Elvis Hitler. It's the lyrics from the theme from "Green Acres" set to the music of "Purple Haze".

Whatever happened to Katie Beers?

By now we've all heard about Erica, the 7 year old girl from Philadelphia who escaped some creeps.

That reminded me of the Katie Beers story from 1993. She was locked in a basement in Long Island for 17 days before being released.

She'd be around 20 by now. I didn't find anything recent in Google. Whatever happened to her?

Gray Davis vs. Reality

Steven Den Beste on Gray Davis' energy pipe dreams.

Off the Blogspot

Charles Kuffner has moved to http://offthekuff.com/mt/ and onto Movable Type, and he gives info on how you can make it happen yourself.

I'll be following him one of these days - the host and domain have been in place for some time now, but I'm still jacking around with it. I might even change the name of the blog.

Hamas Leader Killed in Gaza Strike.

Let's see if this martyrdom thing catches on with management. It's better this way - they don't need any of those expensive explosive belts and they can do it without even leaving home.

She did ask...

Thanks to Instapundit I found Laura Crane's blog. It's an interesting mix of environmental issues, risk, and other topics I have had every intention of writing more about on this blog. Definitely worth a visit if not a bookmark.

Here's one of the "other topics". It's not representative of most of the content, but she did bring it up - what with that prickly exterior, how do hedgehogs mate?

I can't speak for the hedgehogs (and probably shouldn't for the humans either), but this is what the porcupines do.

While we're on the subject, this might be a conversation starter.

Am I missing something?

In general I think the answer is 'yes', but I have something specific in mind.

I always figured I was as horny as anybody, but then that's hard to believe sometimes. After all, I'm not willing to go as far as some of the crazies I've seen. Examples include PeeWee Herman, George Michael, Hugh Grant, and of course Bill Clinton. (I couldn't think of any women for this, besides maybe Monica Lewinski. Any suggestions? How about phone numbers?)

If I were looking for a description of an orgasm, I'd probably check with Dawn Olsen or Shell. Barroom sages have assured me that "if God made anything better than [orgasms] He kept it for Himself." If I were writing about it, I'd probably write something like "a brief intense localized sensation that's difficult to improve upon".

But can it be? Is it really better for others? Or are they just too obsessed to keep things under control?

I suppose it's plausible that some people get more out of sex physiologically than others. After all, some people see better, hear better, etc - why not this too?

Any better ideas?

Glenn Reynolds is not happy with Tom Ridge. Fair enough, I respect Glenn's judgment.

But what I don't seem to be seeing anywhere are constructive alternatives to Ridge's proposals. Whatever his talents, I don't envy the guy his job. No matter what he does, somebody is going to shout "Fascist!" or invoke Orwell. Even the "Homeland Security" name rubs some people the wrong way.

So what should Ridge (or his successor) be doing?

St. Lous Blog Bash II this Friday

Don't forget the latest St. Louis Blog Bash! That I will be there is by itself an experience most can only dream about in their lamest fantasies. You'll also get to see cats like emcee Juan Gato, and we couldn't do without our Sine Qua Non Pundit Charles Austin (no excuses). Others are supposed to be there too - I just can't think of any bad lines to introduce them with. There's no word on whether we'll be seeing Richard Cohen.

Anyway, check out Gato's site for the particulars, then check us out next Friday night. See you there!

The Safety Valve has moved

To here. It's a must-see.