Can't remember what the scale said this morning

Well, this explains a lot:

Overweight middle-aged adults tend to score more poorly on tests of memory, attention and learning ability than their thinner peers do, researchers reported Monday.

The findings, they say, suggest that a heavier weight in middle age may mean a higher risk of dementia later in life.

Reporting in the journal Neurology, the researchers speculate that higher rates of cardiovascular disease or diabetes might help explain the link. But it’s also possible that substances produced by fat cells, such as the hormone leptin, have direct effects on the brain.

Just what I needed. You know, I always suspected that the ... uh ... what was I talking about?

Oooh, look! A birdie!

More Airplanes, More LEGO

I may have just gotten back from NYC, but I'm already boarding another plane. This time, it's for San Diego to attend a wedding of Mrs. Mosley's Uncle. In the meantime, you know the drill: Gape and stand in awe of the purty pictures until I get back next week. Bye!

Shadow of the Pedophile

If you go onto Amazon.com and do a search for "Hastert", then you will find the following items:

Dennis Hastert's 2004 book Speaker: Lessons from Forty Years in Coaching and Politics

An "I Love J. Dennis Hastert" Long Sleeve T-shirt (?!?!?!)

An "I voted for J. Dennis Hastert" Keychain

The Shadow of the Vampire DVD

Huh? No, the currently besieged Speaker of the House did not star in the 2000 film with Willem Dafoe and John Malkovich. The Amazon keyword search simply picked up on an actor named Patrick Hastert, who has the honor of playing "Reporter #3" in the film.

However, it is interesting to note that the film's plot concerns a megalomaniac who discovers that someone he is in charge of is habitually out harming others. Instead of acting out so that further harm is prevented, the megalomaniac keeps it a secret so that his own plans may not be disrupted. In the end, the man who has been harming people dies and the megalomaniac goes on to reap his success.

I'm thinking the parallels are going to stop before that happens, though.

Skippy of the Day: Trent Lott

Trust Trent Lott to, when given the opportunity to clarify some controversial comments recently on The Daily Show with John Stewart, only dig himself deeper (Via Think Progress):

LOTT: "I always had trouble understanding — Iraqis look like Iraqis, and Americans look like Americans. Now I can’t tell –"

STEWART: "You mean that as unity, not as what the hell, they all look alike to me."

LOTT: "Methodist, Baptists, and Catholics live in my hometown. They all look the same to me, they all look like Americans."

I initially tried to write about this in regular paragraph form, but I'm thinking that bullet points will be easier:

• Racial breakdown of Grenada, Mississippi, Trent Lott's birthplace: 98.6% Whites and African Americans, 1.4% Other (Including Hispanic, Asian and Arabic).
• Racial breakdown of the United States of America: 87.4% Whites and African Americans, 12.6% Other (Including Hispanic, Asian and Arabic).
• Religious breakdown of Mississippi: 93.0% Christian or related sects, 7.0% Other or None (Including Jewish, Muslim and Hindu).
• Religious breakdown of the United States of America: 76.5% Christian or related sects, 23.5% Other or None (Including Jewish, Muslim and Hindu).

So, in spite of Trent not living in a terribly representative part of the country, he feels confident that only White and Black people who are Christian really look like Americans. Arabs and Muslims (and Asians and Hispanics and Jews and Hindis) do not look like Americans.

Citizenship ain't what it used to be.

"Marmaduke is going to get another shutout"

Well, this site get's my vote for "Blog Of The Week":

Forest Whitaker Quote of the Month: October 2006

Ah, what people do for their friends. Move a couch? House-sit while you're on vacation? Costar in your ill-conceived crappy sci-fi vanity project just because you were in Phenomenon together?

Yes, my droogies, we're talking about the dreaded Battlefield Earth. Whitaker plays Ker, sidekick to big alien honcho Terl (John Travolta) in all their underhanded and sadistic activities. Reviewer Ken Begg over at Jabootu's Bad Movie Dimension actually makes some specific comments about Whitaker in the "Afterthoughts" section of his review:

"Unsurprisingly, Forest Whitaker provides the closest thing to a decent performance here. A real and actual actor, he gamely attempts to bring his role as it's written to life. Which is as someone who, despite being incredibly dense, persists in believing that he's slyer than those around him. (And considering how smart Terl and the rest come off, you can't really blame him.) Rather than helping, however, Whitaker's efforts serve instead to throw the film further off-kilter. The problem is that the cast brings so many different sensibilities to their performances. Whitaker, for his part, nobly tries to bring some depth and weight to his role. Meanwhile, the rest of the cast, all pretty much novices except for one obvious exception, brings a stolid, uninspired seriousness to their roles. This, in turn, serves mainly to amplify the script's already prodigious unintended humor factor."

That's pretty much spot on. But I suffered through this whole mess for a reason, and that was to bring you folks a quote. Alas, the only thing really quote-worthy spoken by Whitaker is the film's last line, which is spoken to Terl after he has been imprisoned by the humans inside of Fort Knox.

Ker: "Look at the bright side: You may not be wallowing in luxury on Psychlo, but at least you finally got your gold!"

And lest you think that everybody is a little too hard on this silly sci-fi film, I point you to the trivia section over at IMDb that says, "Forest Whitaker expressed his regret for participating in this movie". Ouch. I guess John Travolta was moving his own damn couch after this one.