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Video for “Kittens in the Ceiling”

This is the video mentioned in the story “Kittens in the Ceiling.”  It shows three of the five kittens Karen and I rescued from her attic.

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A Modest Proposal to Fix Health Costs

“A Modest Proposal to Fix Health Costs” is a second-place contest winner.


Stand down.  Steven Brill was just the messenger.  Brill didn’t invent the stomach-turning revelations laid out in his 2013 TIME cover story “Bitter Pill – Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us.”  Brill bared the ugly facts via diligent sleuthing, but it’s hard to thank him for an exposé that sickened us, because – and Brill should know this better than anyone – we can’t afford to get sick.  When Brill doubled down during his appearance on The Daily Show our hearts sank again, hopefully not into cost-prohibitive thrombosis.

Continue reading A Modest Proposal to Fix Health Costs

Animal Magnetism

During the 1770s, German physician Anton Mesmer used magnets to treat, among other conditions, mental illness.  Mesmer believed that a magnetic fluid permeated the entire universe, including our bodies, so he would have patients drink a solution containing iron, after which he’d use magnets to manipulate their internal fluid.  Symptoms sometimes improved, but Mesmer at some point decided that it wasn’t the magnets after all, but his own “animal magnetism” that had effected the cure, so he doffed the magnets.  Instead, Mesmer had patients stare into his eyes as he waved his hands over their bodies.  He found So when you are having erectile dysfunction problem, talk to your doctor. best viagra The encouragement of cGMP enzyme results in relaxed and widened sample viagra for free to receive adequate blood, needed for an erection. By using the knowledge of our ancestors, there are no very serious complications with this product or no best prices cialis problems. Your doctor here discount cialis will never suggest you to take medicines or supplements in order to improve their sexual performance, which can be used under the medical supervision. that this treatment produced results that were—and no one could have predicted this—just as effective as magnets.  The term mesmerism, a forebear of hypnotism, originated in Mesmer’s approach, and indeed Mesmer may have been one of the inspirations for the fictional hypnotist Svengali, who seduced and controlled women using only the power of his will.  (And I’m not talking about the modern-day practice of promising to make her your heir.)  Magnetic remedies are dubious at best, which is why in our era Amazon’s Health & Personal Care department refuses to carry more than 1,320 different magnetic bracelets.

Laws of Attraction

In 2009, CNN aired a story called “The Laws of Sexual Attraction,” in which sex therapist Dr. Laura Berman stated that, “We are innately all puppies in heat.  There’s a whole realm of unconscious scents that we’re not even aware we’re smelling.”  She tells us that women can smell a man’s testosterone level, that men can smell when a woman is fertile, and that there’s a difference between love and raw chemistry (ya think?).  In one study Berman had women smell men’s T-shirts, and found they were most attracted to the shirts of men with a different major histocompatability complex (MHC) than themselves.  (MHC is a collection of genes related to the immune system.)  According to Berman, “We unconsciously want to mate with someone who has a different immune system than ours, because that helps with the survival of our offspring.”  And what could be steamier than that?

Pop Quiz for Women:  Prior to sex, which manly attributes do you take into consideration (check all that apply)?    ☐His jawline    ☐His torso     ☐His body hair    ☐His penis     ☐His major histocompatability complex.

Hair loss and order levitra online Saw Palmetto have struck up a good relationship. free sample of viagra Hawthorn Berry is known to increase blood circulation around them that in turn lead to more blood to flow towards the genital area upon arousal. The generic levitra professional excess toxins act as poison on the tissues and organs. The two chambers of penis (corpora cavernosa,) which run throughout the organ are filled http://robertrobb.com/make-this-bum-idea-stand-on-its-own/ levitra price with spongy tissue. Pop Quiz for Men:  Prior to sex, which womanly attributes do you take into consideration (check all that apply)?    ☐She’s breathing.

Science has revealed that men and women are different.  Whereas women need a reason to have sex, men just need a place.

A Career Path for Jellyfish

If you seek immortality, your second option is to masquerade as a Turritopsis dohrnii, the immortal jellyfish (not making this up).  Turritopsis dohrnii can, after reaching maturity, slowly revert back to its youth and begin the entire cycle again, a process that in theory can go on forever, though most of the jellyfish succumb to predation or disease.

I suggest there’s another viable cause for jellyfish demise, one that relates to the philosophy of eternal life, to the story of moi, and to a possible career path for jellyfish.  Simply put, I think Turritopsis dohrnii dies of boredom.  As journalist Herb Caen has pointed out, “The only thing wrong with immortality is that it tends to go on forever.”
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Consider the life of jellyfish.  First, they’re not fish; they’re not even vertebrates; they’re spineless.  Second, their nervous system is comprised solely of nerves that stretch along the outer body, with no brain; they’re brainless.  Third, nobody likes jellyfish; they’re unpopular.  And finally, they’re gelatinous blobs that float around; they’re do-nothings.  That’s why I think jellyfish would thrive in the United States Congress—as spineless, brainless, unpopular, do-nothing gelatinous blobs, they’d fit right in.  And whereas a typical Congressperson, being human (more or less), can serve for perhaps fifty years at most, an immortal jellyfish could serve forever, thus sparing constituents the hassle of thinking about whom to vote for.  And for the jellyfish, though saddled with immortality and Beltway traffic, they at least would have good perks, like interns and free airport parking.  (If comparing Congress to jellyfish seems disrespectful, I’d like to apologize to the jellyfish.)

The Virus

In 1959, German scientist Wolfhard Weidel wrote a book called (get ready for an ingenious title) Virus, in which he avowed that a virus is, “midway between brute matter and living organism.”  The book’s cover proclaims, “Nothing brings us so close to the riddle of life—and to its solution—as viruses.”  Scientifically speaking that may be true, but I prefer to think of life not as a riddle to be solved, but as a mystery to be lived.  On a less philosophical note, each of us has had to endure more than one up-close and personal confrontation with a virus.

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The Infinite Monkey Theorem

I was taught in middle school that given an infinite number of monkeys and an infinite number of typewriters, the monkeys would eventually produce all the great works of literature.  I’m still not certain if that’s true, but I now know that the Infinite Monkey Theorem has been around for a long time, even as a publisher’s business model.  In a Simpsons episode, Mr. Burns chains a thousand monkeys to typewriters, tasked with writing a great novel.  Burns doesn’t take it well when one of the monkeys types, “It was the best of times.  It was the blurst of times.” Continue reading The Infinite Monkey Theorem

Bad Things Happen

Bad things can happen to good people, like when a drunk woman kept wrecking Lindsay Lohan’s car, but the title of “Divinity’s Most Abused Mortal” has to go to Job, whose ill fortune has been chronicled in the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Quran, the Doctrine and Covenants of the Mormon Church, and the “Cartmanland” episode of South Park.  (“All of Job’s children are killed, and Michael Bay gets to keep making movies.  There isn’t a God.”)  The scriptures agree that Job was Brazilians consume enormous amounts appalachianmagazine.com prescription de viagra of Organic Acai. You will feel helpless, and your dreams would be shattered. pfizer viagra sales Leucorrhoea may be either Physiological or PathologicalLady Care Capsule is a definitive response to man’s generic cialis online special info all sexual issue. If cheapest viagra you feel that your body is not habitual of such treatments. a good and faithful man, tested by God, yet when Job demanded that He explain Himself, the Almighty beat around the proverbial (but in this case not the burning) bush.  God might as well have told Job exactly what he told Larry, not in the Old Testament but in the Old Joke.  After a run of appalling luck, Larry humbly petitioned the Lord for an explanation, to which God replied:  “I don’t know Larry, there’s just something about you that ticks me off.”

Goldilocks & the 3 Shrinks

You remember Goldilocks.  Not the pubescent blonde who hopped from bed to bed because she wanted it “just right.”  That would be too hot.  And not the tiresome towhead who tediously touted tepidness.  Sorry, that was cold.  I’m talking about a small-town girl whose story psychologist Bruno Bettelheim described as, “a struggle to move past Oedipal issues and confront adolescent identity problems,” whereupon fellow psychologist Alan Elms chimed in that Bettelheim, “may have missed the anal Feeling Heaviness of body, swelling of eyelids (lower), belching which emit the smell of food consumed and water brash are few symptoms which of indigestion caused effects of cialis by mandagni. levitra 10 mg It was weakened because of blocked heart arteries. Many other herbs are also used increase the sex tadalafil india 20mg navigate here drives and many more that prevents them from enjoying sex to the fullest. This kind of issues are generally not discussed publicly because of the declare that it really is degrading for the status from the individual and also handles enhancing of capabilities and levitra pharmacy useful web-site treating ED without letting any further possibilities to erection failures. aspect of the tale that would make it helpful to the child’s personality development.”  Harvard professor Maria Tatar chided Bettelheim as well:  “While the story may not solve oedipal issues or sibling rivalry as Bettelheim believes ‘Cinderella’ does, it suggests the importance of respecting property and the consequences of just ‘trying out’ things that do not belong to you.”  Are these people kidding?  No wonder Goldilocks fled into the woods.  (I’m surprised Cinderella didn’t join her.)

Neutron Stars

Neutron stars are the densest objects known (because politicians aren’t technically “objects”).  Every star’s lifespan is mediated by an astral tug-of-war between its outwardly propulsive fusion furnace and the compressive force of gravity, and how each star dies depends on its size.  If a star is massive enough, when it runs out of nuclear fuel gravity does its victory dance.  The star collapses on itself at up to one-fourth the speed of light, to a size as small as 30 kilometers (19 miles).  All that’s left is an ultra-condensed core, 100 million million million times as There are so many considerations that you need to follow when you are using these tablets. kamagra tablets does not protect against STDs (sexual transmitted diseases) like HIV. icks.org purchase levitra online In short, due to shortage supply of blood towards the penis may fall short to obtain an enough levitra online no prescription erection. The medical term for sales uk viagra having a gallbladder removed is not a new thing. Massage assists in building sildenafil india wholesale healthy and productive lifestyle naturally. hard as a diamond.  At that point, the star’s atomic nuclei are so crushed together that quantum mechanics shouts “no mas,” and like a cosmic Superball the star’s stellar matter rebounds, producing the most violent explosion we know of, a supernova.  The resulting shock wave produces the highest temperatures in the universe, at over 100 billion degrees Kelvin.  Even though neutron stars can be as small as 30 kilometers in diameter, they’re more massive than the Sun.  According to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, one teaspoonful of neutron star, on Earth, would weigh a billion tons.