Ultimate Cats: Fish-Carrying Contest

I'm not really exploiting the new media opportunities for instantaneous commentary about the breaking news that are afforded by blogging, as this story is already old. I might as well publish a newspaper as have a blog!

Anyway, watch the video. Toribia-no-Izumi, the Japanese trivia show (as if I can distinguish one Japanese trivia show from another), subjects a group of cats to ever more grueling tasks of fish-carrying in order to determine the maximum weight of fish that a cat can carry.

The excitable commentary by the judges and dramatic music is the best part. Also, I swear I heard one judge say 'sensei.' Since I don't speak Japanese, I can continue to hope that he was referring to the cat.

I'm sure you've all seen this

..but you really ought to visit the CSS Zen Garden. Despite my glee, I'm compelled to point out that the Mozart design is downright ugly.

Vernon Robinson

For people who know more than I do: does Vernon Robinson have a snowball's chance in hell of beating Brad Miller? I can't find any polls on the subject, and it would pretty much be an unmitigated disaster if Robinson was elected. So please, tell me what I need to hear in order to sleep at night.

Update: My parents, who I think are in the 13th district, have the attitude that Miller is safe, but while they're generally well-informed, they didn't hear about polls or anything similar.

It helps if you imagine this being said in Ros's voice

You're such a cute widdle Mac, oh yes you are oh yesh yesh you ARE! You're so pretty and new and I'm gonna hug you and squeeze you forever, oh yesh I AM! ...I love you, widdle Mac.

Actually, I'm really disoriented, as I've spent almost no time on a Mac since OS 7 or 8—long enough that I can't even remember the precise time frame. So I'm still doing ridiculous windows stuff like ejecting a disk while trying to hit page up, or forgetting that programs have to be quitted.

But any new Mac owner has to gush, and I shall not violate this rule.

Pangloss

I'm less sour on evolutionary psychology than I used to be, largely because of mild increases in my familiarity with it, but I still often run into something where it simply hurts me to read it. The latest is a model which purports to explain suicide (look for “Evolutionary Explanations” and apply all necessary disclaimers since Wikipedia is my source). Is there any more obvious time to stand up and yell “pleiotropism” or “spandrel?” Seriously, suicide is very heavily linked to severe mood disorders. Is there an explanation of them in terms of evolutionary psychology which doesn't treat them as spandrels?

Oh dear. They've done it. (No idea how reputable those folks are.)