Bush Proposes Sending Transformers™ to Iraq
Awards $85B Defense Contract to Hasbro

Increasingly frustrated by the Iraqi government’s failure to meet a series of defined benchmarks, President George W. Bush today proposed sending a group of giant robots known as the Transformers™ to Iraq.

Aides to the president were vague as to when Mr. Bush arrived at his new Transformers™ strategy, but sources say that he devised the plan last week, shortly after a surprise visit to a multiplex in Bethesda, Maryland.

In announcing his new proposal, the president authorized an $85 billion defense contract to Hasbro, believed to be the largest military contract of its kind ever awarded to a toy company.

At a White House press conference, the president expressed his confidence that the Transformers™ would succeed where the Iraq government had failed.

“I’d like to see what would happen if al-Qaeda tried to attack one of our tanks, and instead the tank got up on its legs and turned out to be a robot and started shooting at them,” Mr. Bush said. “That would be so cool.”

But even as the president announced his new plan for victory in Iraq, congressional critics questioned the wisdom of dispatching Transformers™ to the war-torn nation.

“A tank that can turn into a giant robot is awesome, but it’s not an exit strategy,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).

Responding to his critics, Mr. Bush said that he would announce an exit strategy later this week after consulting with his newest advisor, J.K. Rowling.

“She has experience at ending things,” Mr. Bush said.

Elsewhere, China announced plans to send a new brand of rat poison to the United States under the name “Delicious Cupcakes.”

Bob H

A recent survey stated that drivers in Miami are the rudest in the nation. Granted, shooting at other drivers tends to give Miami an unfair advantage in this poll. And while they have held the title for two years in a row, I don’t believe Miami drivers are all that rude.

At least not as rude as the people who chose to conduct this survey during the annual gasoline price spike.

The Auto Vantage Road Rage Survey is taken to learn about driving habits and attitudes, and to find drivers’ views on road rage. They would have saved at lot of work if they had conducted their poll at the nearby gas station.

Before recent price declines, gasoline prices across the US had risen to an average of over $3 per gallon. These days today’s average consumer needs to decide whether they can buy Quaker State for their car or enroll Junior in Penn State. They can’t afford to do both.

So they become angry and impatient, and their auto becomes a one-stop anxiety center. And there are a number of causes for road rage.

Ninety percent of consumers surveyed said they saw drivers talking on their cell phones every day.

Here in New Jersey we make a special effort to combat cell phone abuse. Driving while using hand held cell phones is illegal here, so of course it is not an issue. But if any driver spots another one talking on a cell phone, they immediately pull out their own cell phone and call the local police. Problem solved.

But in spite of what the driver in front of you may be doing, he was a lot less angry before the last time he filled his gas tank. And generally right after he pulls out of the “service” station, a worker in camouflage gear sneaks up the ladder to raise the price again.

Many people become outraged at gasoline price hikes. But this has become just another annual tradition, like summer barbecues, and the Phillies’ pennant hopes fading into the sunset.

Philadelphia actually finished ninth in cities reporting the most incidents of road rage. The most courteous motorists, known in New Jersey by the technical term “sissies,” are found in Portland, Oregon, Pittsburgh, and Seattle/Tacoma.

Leading habits which cause stress for commuters, included tailgating, speeding, cutting across lanes, and running through red lights.

As part of the road rage survey, people admitted that they cursed at other drivers, made obscene gestures, honked their horn, slammed into the car in front of them, and even called the police to report others. But there was nothing these police officers could do about gas prices.

During the annual drilling of your wallet for oil at the pumps, no drivers are immune to higher prices. And we are all able to experience the same gas-related rituals on a yearly basis.

They begin with helpful hints from AAA on ways we can save on fuel. And various politicians from our states and even our own President remind us that this is all our fault because Americans are addicted to oil. Yes, we are merely slippery, slimy, oil-sucking monkeys.

Hearing these annual expert opinions is a good part of the reason that drivers slam on their brakes quickly, cut other drivers off, speed, and drive too slow in the fast lane.

And just what can we do about higher gasoline prices? Aside from checking to see whether Halliburton has any job openings, nothing. Because last summer you tried consolidating all of your driving trips into one a month, and you wound up buying $300 worth of hamburger rolls at Sam’s Club.

AAA advice never includes what to do during the rainy season.

So the only trip that you absolutely have to make is to your employer. That drive may or may not result in road rage for you, but you’re already angry at the beginning of the drive because you hate your job.

Aside from that, the only way we can really save on gasoline is to never leave the house. We are all learning to order everything we will ever need through the Internet, although I still haven’t found the answer to AOL rage.

But thankfully the pizza guy still delivers.

Actually, it may be a bad sign when a spokesperson for AutoVantage happens to be a NASCAR racing TV personality. A ten-car pile up on Route 38 in Cherry Hill is not beyond the realm of our imagination. But if the NASCAR people can get their road rage under control, then it should be possible for the rest of us.

The easiest way to handle cases of road rage is to slow yourself down. And try not to let AAA or the fuel company experts from your favorite news broadcast team get on your nerves.

Meanwhile in Miami, 35 percent of those people surveyed said they see drivers doing things like shaving, putting on makeup or reading while they are driving.

Hopefully they save on gasoline by buying first aid equipment in bulk at Sam’s Club.

Bob H

MEN HAVEN'T CHANGED IN 270,000 YEARS

NEW HAVEN, CT- A survey of genetic information contained in the Y chromosomes of modern day men suggests that Homo sapiens descended from a single group of male ancestors, and that this occurred more recently than previously believed.

Researchers at Yale University evaluated samples of DNA from 38 men from all over the world. Surprisingly. no sequence variations were found in a 729-base pair intron near a gene thought to be involved in sperm or testes development. In contrast, the corresponding sequence in gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans did show significant polymorphisms.

Based on the assumption that this lack of sequence variation is attributable to ancestry and not other causes, the researchers estimate the divergence occurred about 270,000 years ago. Previous estimates have put mankind's origins much further back in time.

This discovery adds to growing evidence that modern humans share the same basic genetic makeup, and that population differences represent relatively minor variations in the overall spectrum of human diversity, said Robert L. Dorit, an assistant professor of biology at Yale University. Dr. Dorit collaborated with researchers from the University of Chicago and Harvard University on the project.

Bob H

Contrary to the common notion that paying taxes can be a painful experience, researchers at the University of Oregon say the practice actually may trigger feelings of satisfaction and happiness.
'… even mandatory taxation can produce satisfaction for taxpayers.'— University of Oregon study finding.

"Paying taxes can make citizens happy," Ulrich Mayr, a professor of psychology, said in a release accompanying the study in the Friday issue of Science.

"People are, to varying degrees, pure altruists. On top of that, they like that warm glow they get from charitable giving. Until now, we couldn't trace that in the brain."

The study by Mayr and his colleagues is titled Neural Responses to Taxation and Voluntary Giving Reveal Motives for Charitable Donations.

Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology, the researchers observed the brain activity of 19 women who were given a balance of $100 each. The researchers created the effect of taxation by making mandatory withdrawals from their account. The withdrawn money was actually sent to a food bank's account.

Participants also made additional choices about whether to give away more money or keep it for themselves.

The study found that two reward-related areas of the brain — the caudate nucleus and the nucleus accumbens — lit up during the taxation test. These areas are typically activated when a person experiences feelings of satisfaction, as they do after having eaten a meal.

"The fact that mandatory transfers to a charity elicit activity in reward-related areas suggests that even mandatory taxation can produce satisfaction for taxpayers," the study said.

When the participants voluntarily gave the charity more money, the activation area was larger — a finding that, according to the researchers, sheds light on why people make donations.

"These transfers are associated with neural activation similar to that which comes from receiving money for oneself," the study said.

Mayr said the findings show people are willing to pay their taxes as long as they support good causes. The authors noted, however, that the results may have differed if people had been presented with a tax that seemed less fair or benevolent.

Good causes? Government?

Bob H

This just in: Our favorite Kuiper Belt Object, the thing formerly known as The Planet Pluto -- having already endured the ignominy of being demoted to the status of "dwarf planet" (and heckled on the street by cruel and unfeeling gas giants!!) -- has been revealed to be something even cruddier and more pathetic than anyone had imagined. It is not, apparently, the biggest of the dwarf planets. That lofty status now goes to the dwarf planet Eris, which is way out past Pluto. Here's the news, via Caltech:

'PASADENA, Calif.--Die-hard Pluto fans still seeking redemption for their demoted planet have cause for despair this week. New data shows that the dwarf planet Eris is 27 percent more massive than Pluto, thereby strengthening the decree last year that there are eight planets in the solar system and a growing list of dwarf planets.

According to Mike Brown, the discoverer of Eris, and his graduate student Emily Schaller, the data confirms that Eris weighs 16.6 billion trillion kilograms. They know this because of the time it takes Eris's moon, Dysnomia, to complete an orbit.

"This was Pluto's last chance to be the biggest thing found so far in the Kuiper belt," says Brown, a professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology. "There was a possibility that Pluto and Eris were roughly the same size, but these new results show that it's second place at best for Pluto."

This, unfortunately, has been your Pluto update.

Bob H