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Love was in the air yesterday for Washington, D.C.’s panda power couple, Tian Tian and Mei Xing. And by “love,” I mean “the narrow window where properly conducted copulation stands a chance of resulting in the implantation of an embryo and hopefully, months down the line, the live birth of a panda cub.”
Yep, it was that special time, which comes about as frequently as a lunar eclipse, when panda bears can potentially get pregnant. Of course, since we’re talking about panda bears, which are a failed experiment that only continues exist because we think they’re too darn cute to let them not mate themselves into oblivion, they failed to do so, forcing mankind to take up the dirty work.
Scientists at the National Zoo said they artificially inseminated the giant panda Mei Xiang yesterday after she and her partner, Tian Tian, unsuccessfully tried to mate Tuesday.
Well, at least the National zookeepers can know that the panda’s appreciate our hardworking men and women going elbow deep in giant bear vaginas to keep them from disappearing off the face of the planet. What’s that? We can’t? They aren’t appreciative?
The 170-pound giant-panda cub at the National Zoo grabbed a worker while trying to play, sending her to the hospital with a small leg laceration, zoo officials said Wednesday.
Uh-oh. Sounds like Tai Shan doesn’t want a baby brother or sister, and he’s taking his ire straight to the scientifically-enhanced source.
Hey, remember six years ago when we took that Film 100 class during my first semester freshman year? Remember how you came into class with the same trench coat you wore every day, listening to some music on your portable CD player, back before we all had iPods?
Remember how the class started, and the professor asked you to take off your headphones, and remember how you told him you would, but “Let me finish up this song first”? That didn’t go that well, huh? Amazing that the professor wouldn’t want to delay the class an entire minute and a half so you could complete your enjoyment of a song from some band I’m sure we’ve never heard of, but are really big in Bulgaria/Portland, Oregon.
Anyways, just wanted to let you know that I thought of that event on my way to work today, and if anything, your behavior has only gotten more ridiculous as those six years have passed. What an unbelievably moronic move. FYI.
The big news going around today is that Bear Stearns, an investment bank staffed by a colorful and vibrant variety of white people, has sold itself to JP Morgan for $2 a share. The stock was once worth $70 a share, so JPM got it at like Fashion Bug markdowns.
There’s a lot of crazy stuff happening in the market, most of which can seem to the average American as pretty foreign and scary, like some sort of giant French robot with a laser baguette. So where do you, the one with a paycheck, put your money so it’ll be safe, from both the market and French robots?
Here are few hidden nooks in the market that should provide a good bomb shelter to the nuclear holocaust that is the current stock market.
- Bags with Dollar Signs on Them - Nothing says “there’s money in here,” like a bag with a dollar sign on it. Some investors worry that these bags could fall prey to bank robbers who wearing black and white horizontally-striped clothes and Zorro masks, but I think that threat is largely exagerrated. So long as you store these bags in a locked vault, they’ll be protected from the sneakiest of ne’er-do-wells. However, do remain wary of bankrobbers who own stethescopes.
- Gold in them thar hills - Now I know what you’re thinking. This is the 21st century, not 1949. But now let me tell you what I’m actually thinking: that’s precisely the reason you can’t go wrong with panhandling for gold in the harsh and unforgiving West; nobody’s doing it anymore. This long-neglected section of the market is ripe for a renewal, and besides, if those grizzled maniacs with a sandsifter could make a killing in this market sector, why couldn’t you? You’re not scared, are you? Are
you? - Bigfoot - If you can find him within the deep and unrelenting forests of the Pacific Northwest, you might be able to convince Bigfoot to hold onto your money for you, and he is very strong, strong enough to keep it safe. Especially if it’s already separated into bags with dollar signs on them.
Before you accuse me of some sick combination of misogyny and Ohio envy, I’m not showing you this video to mock Hillary Clinton. She’s a politician; it’s her job to look wooden and uncomfortable in situations with human beings that don’t share her practiced and poised woodenness. SEE: Mitt Romney and the black people. SEE: Dennis Kucinich and Earthlings.
No, I’m showing you this video to bring to your attention that there appears to be an a capella hip-hop jazz group based in Scranton, that is entirely populated by white people. And their peppy and synchronized support all but locks up the “Good God, Trying Too Hard and Embarassing the Rest of Us” bloc.
Enjoy!
As First Lady, Hillary Clinton traveled to Bosnia in an effort to build a bridge of diplomacy. It was all a bit before my time, but if my regular Friday Scholastics handed to me by my fourth-grade teacher serve me right, I recall Bosnia being a place where lots of bad stuff was going down. Rubble and refugees; the Political Upheaval Special.
Sen. Clinton has touted the trip as part of her deep and vast, almost oceanic foreign policy experience. And she’s right to do so, unlike Barack Obama, whose foreign policy experience amounts to holding Kamachtka with only two army guys. After all, that experience includes such luminaries as Sheryl Crow and Sinbad (Sinbad the comedian, not Sinbad the sailor, who would be a great foreign policy peer, since he traveled the world and managed to not die seven times).
If politics have taught me anything, it’s that you don’t mess with Sinbad on foreign policy.
In an interview with the Sleuth Monday, he said the “scariest” part of the trip was wondering where he’d eat next. “I think the only ‘red-phone’ moment was: ‘Do we eat here or at the next place.’”
Clinton, during a late December campaign appearance in Iowa, described a hair-raising corkscrew landing in war-torn Bosnia, a trip she took with her then-teenage daughter, Chelsea. “They said there might be sniper fire,” Clinton said.
Threat of bullets? Sinbad doesn’t remember that, either.
“I never felt that I was in a dangerous position. I never felt being in a sense of peril, or ‘Oh, God, I hope I’m going to be OK when I get out of this helicopter or when I get out of his tank.’”
In her Iowa stump speech, Clinton also said, “We used to say in the White House that if a place is too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the First Lady.”
Say what? As Sinbad put it: “What kind of president would say, ‘Hey, man, I can’t go ’cause I might get shot so I’m going to send my wife…oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you.’”
You do not implicate Sinbad, that is something you do not do. Obviously, this is proving to be a bit of a misstep on Clinton’s part, but one has to admire her dedicated policy to get the economy back on its feet: by dragging oft-forgotten and defunct entertainers dreaming of Branson back into the public sphere to cajole a few more grains of sand from their 15-minute timer. Next up on this revitalization plan?
THERE ARE DRUGS IN YOUR WATER.
THERE ARE DRUGS IN YOUR WATER.
DRUGS — WATER — YOUR!
If you turned on your television, flipped on your drive-time morning radio show, or eavesdropped on your chatty coworkers, you probably heard some mention of a new study that says 41 million Americans had their water supply contain some rogue pharmaceuticals. Here’s the story:
(AP) — A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.
So if you sudden find yourself happier and/or hornier, you can blame Big Tap Water for infesting your life-giving force. Is this a government conspiracy to keep the dundering masses happy and copulating, to ensure that the Motherland remains strong and vibrant, but also making it so that the drooling elated masses don’t ask the tough questions? Is it? Is it??
No, it’s not.
the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose.
It’s true America, your drinking water is .0000000001 to .0000000000001% sex hormone. Don’t worry, your water is perfectly safe.
OR IS IT?
We know that this Democratic primary campaign is far from over, but it should be more over than it is currently considered over. Yes, Hillary Clinton won Ohio and Texas (but only their primaries, the early caucus results show an Obama victory there), but she didn’t even sniff the margins she needed to remain a mathematically viable candidate.She needed to pull 60% of the vote in both states to reassume the delegate driver’s seat, and she came up short in both states, winning 54-55 in Ohio and 51-47 in Texas (the primary, mind you, not the caucuses), according to MSNBC. As a result, she is still lagging in terms of total delegates, including her lead in superdelegates.
Meanwhile, the campaign trail continues on to Mississippi and Wyoming, which are both expected to be Obama wins, so expect any gains made by Hillary last night to all but disappear in the next couple of weeks.
At this point, what matters far more than delegates and voters is how the race will be presented from here on out. If the media portrays yesterday as the beginning of Hillary’s comeback (despite it being much closer to her hanging on to victory by her fingernails, losing a 20 point lead in both states in the last few weeks), she may be able to spin herself into a renewed, reinvigorated woman like the ones from the Herbal Essences commercials.
But if the coverage focuses more on the incredibly long, very improbable road ahead for her, despite the victories, she still will face an incredibly steep hill to climb, and she’ll have to do some less than noble things to get it done (argue for backdoor Florida and Michigan delegates, try to convince superdelegates to give her the nomination in the face of the voters indicating a preference for Obama), then Obama maintains the edge of public sentiment.
Hillary is doing her best to suggest that what was upside down has been turned rightside up again, and she has resumed the mantle of inevitability, despite, you know, still losing overall. However, she’d be more than happy to consider Obama as her vice president when she finally wins the nomination, which is of course all but a technicality now.
Meanwhile, Clinton, fresh off big primary victories, hinted Wednesday at the possibility of sharing the Democratic presidential ticket with Obama — with her at the top. Obama played down his losses, stressing that he still holds the lead in number of delegates.
Do not be fooled, David Gregory. Her marginal wins are mere technicalities, she really accomplished nothing yesterday, certainly far less than she really needed to.
The math is still very foreboding for Hillary, don’t let Obama down, Tim Russert.
Why?
Because he’s powered by God, that’s why.
It’s unseasonably warm here today, with the mercury rising about 10-15 degrees beyond where it rightfully should at the beginning of March in the mid-Atlantic region. A relatively warm day blindsiding you is always a big deal to people, allowing us to drink the replenishing fluids of warmth after spending months traversing the desert of winter. (The author has an English degree. Before attempting such confounding metaphors yourself, consult your local Starbucks barista/English degreeholder.)
Also, the first warm day of spring is a damn near federal holiday while you’re in college. Here’s what my day was like the first time it cracked 60 in the spring:
- Get up. See sun. Put on shorts and a T-shirt.
- Attend first class. Overzealous treehuggers demand professor take us outside for class, because it’s “so nice.” If professor submits to intensive and zealous guilt trips, spend next 45 minutes to one hour trying to get as little mud on my butt as possible, as grass is undoubtedly still drenched from last week’s blizzard.
- Go to lunch. Eat a piece of fruit. Given the reminder that the winter will someday end, you decide to reestablish your relationship with nature, as I’ve spent the last 5 months hardying up my energy stocks while simultaneously challenging my immune system with the finest gustatory compounds a lab in Herndon, Virginia named TasteMakers can conjure.
- Skip the rest of classes for the day. Spend afternoon playing cornhole and drinking. Make fun of the morons who dragged a couch outside, as well as the d-bags who suddenly reassumed an interest in the acoustic guitar.
Such a day truly marks a turning point, a beacon of hope that promises that good outdoor times are right around the corner, and that your parka’s days are numbered.
Now that I’m ostensibly a working man, the first warm day of spring takes on a slightly different tact, but by no means is it any less rad:
- Get up. See sunrise. Put on dress pants, shirt, and tie.
- Ride bus to work. Learn eight new smells.
- Sit in an office for eight hours, talk to coworkers about how nice the weather happening far away from us must be.
- Leave office. See sunset. Go home and do laundry.
Have a great warm day everybody in the mid-Atlantic region.
