(Brief background for the non-American readers: tomorrow is a national holiday called Thanksgiving. A turkey feast is the traditional offering.)

Slate has a wonderful article on how they manage to have so many turkeys ready at one time (The Turkey-Industrial Complex). The most popular turkey is the White Broad Breasted Turkey which has been bred for large size. So large, in fact, they are unable to reproduce; the species is kept around by artificial insemination (WARNING: some of you may not enjoy this video very much)

As a bonus, here’s MSNBC mocking Palin during some turkey pardoning event. She’s doing an interview while turkeys are being terminated in full view in the background.

(Uncensored version is here.)

Enjoy your turkey, people.

1,000 thanks to Joe Lee of ROTK for this find: “You know you start to wonder what the age of the biochem researchers demographic is when they start releasing ads like this.”: It’s called EpMotion

So these results are not completely unexpected, and the results surely range far beyond partisanship:

In a study a couple years ago, Democrats and Republicans both had a hard time correctly assessing information contradictory to their points of view. The test involved hearing contradictory statements from John Kerry and George W. Bush. The candidates on the test subjects’ sides could essentially deny their favored candidate’s statements while jumping on the opponent.

Oh, and right now Bush has a 32% approval rating. 65% Republicans approve of Bush. I would like to ask those of you who do give Bush a thumbs-up two things:

1. Why does Bush get your approval?
2. What do you think Bush has done poorly (if anything)?

If you’re wondering what the picture has to do with this, it’s because the weapon the processioneers are carrying is called a “partisan”. It’s a spear-like weapon, but instead of a simple spear point, the sharp end has little “wings” on the side. Presumably this was to aid in catching incoming swordstrokes, but I’m not convinced it made a partisan wielder that much more capable against swordsman than a spear wielder.

Sources: Democrats and Republicans Both Adept at Ignoring Facts, Study Finds

President Bush Job Approval

Visiting Liquid Egg Product can be a vital part of boosting your productivity at work. (Not that you aren’t doing this already, of course.) Taking a break from work to surf the ‘net actually boosts your ability to work because you get revitalized. Check out what this professor at some university said:

Dr Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic of London’s Goldsmiths University, who helped with the research, said: “Tea breaks and fag breaks have long been the most common types of break within office culture but the report shows that ebreaks are fast becoming the most popular choice of break for British workers.

“The report proves that a 10 minute ebreak a day can have significant benefits but, despite this, many bosses are banning them in the fear that they distract employees.

By the way, this article’s from Britain, so when it says “fag break” it means cigarettes. Either that, or they’re doing something else in the British workplace I wouldn’t be particularly eager to be a part of.

Anyway, the next time your boss asks you “Why the *#@% are you visiting that website with that egg again, Smithson?!?!”, just respond, “Sir/Madam, I’m just trying to boost my productivity for the good of the company! That egg is called the Mascot and you’ll find him very inspirational!” (Note: In that example conversation, you should substitute your own name for Smithson if your name’s not Smithson.)

And while you’re at it, tell him to buy a Mascot T-shirt to support my 2008 presidential bid. Obama is starting to pass me in campaign funds.

Source: The Press Association: Web breaks ‘boost productivity’

How much of human knowledge can be better ascribed to luck or simple deductions, whether expert or non-expert, rather than years of research by the learned?

Adrenoleucodystrophy (ALD) is a genetic condition that slows destroys the brains of boys, something to do with a build of fatty acids. The parents of one afflicted boy (Lorenzo) set about to find a cure after doctors told them there was nothing they could do to prevent certain death.

After doing their own research, the parents developed a combination of olive and rapeseed oil they thought may eliminate the fatty acids that is a signature of the disease. While it did reduce the fatty acid levels, it failed to improve their son’s condition, and he died yesterday.

However, due to the persistance of ALD expert Dr. Hugo Moser, they’ve discovered that Lorenzo’s Oil has some preventative effect on the disease. The substance has been given to boys whose genetics put them at risk for the disease. While there’s still a lot of work to be done–by the trained, there’s now hope–because of the untrained.

Sources:

• Lorenzo’s oil: The full story
• A talk with Hugo Moser

WordPress users: Anyone else encountering a different type of spam recently? What they’re doing is putting garbage on line 1, a legit link on line 2, and a spam link on line 3, and it’s slipping by Akismet. They look something like this:

toppingness girtline geocarpic lamiaceae homophylic vermix catholicate pseudatoll
FEC Wants ClintonGore Campaign To Repay Matching Funds [CNN link]
http://www.obviousspamlink.com

It should be noted that LEP is a relative lightweight when it comes to getting spammed, because I’m not using a WordPress server–almost a year and “only” 790 spam comments. So maybe this has been going on for a while and I’m just out of the loop.

At 28 years old, I’m still a relatively young person, but old enough to have seen significant changes. This past weekend, returning from Houston, I started noticing all the “cool stuff” that might have been out of sci-fi novels of old. Kiosks allow you to check-in and get your boarding pass without having to interact with a human. And they have moving walkways that are pretty nifty.

Besides that, there’s plenty of other everyday stuff: Instead of businessmen carrying briefcases full of paper, we carry computers. (I remember the days when my dad had a briefcase as a symbol of work. As the next generation, I have a laptop.) We have big-screen, flat TV’s at home. There’s Wikipedia, which is something like the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. You, as a civilian, can now make reservations for sub-orbital flight. With GPS, a machine in your car can tell you exactly how to get to where you want to go. Animals have now been cloned. The list goes on.

If you put yourself in the right mindset, you could start thinking, “Dude, I’m living in a sci-fi novel!” Maybe we are.

Meet Ashley Qualls. Three years ago, at 14 years old, she started a website (with $8 borrowed from her mother) that posted downloadable MySpace themes for free. Now? The site grosses $1 million/year, and which allowed her to do stuff like buying a house for her family. (Full story here.)

Inspiring: Wow, I could do that, too! I just need to borrow $8 from my mom.

Depressing: You know she got lucky. There are very good reasons why this happens so rarely. There are people who are better than her at what she does, but without the same success.

There was a piece in the Scotman last year about Stalin’s experiments with creating an ape-man hybrid for use as an ultimate warrior. A History Channel piece last night cast doubt on that assertion, and apparently Stalin had no use or desire for such experiments.

The show claimed Dr. Ilya Ivanov really did attempt creating the hybrid, but without specific direction from the government. Stalin did give Ivanov a scientific grant, but he gave out a lot of cash to anyone who was trying to advance science, so the money didn’t imply Stalin’s personal interest in that particular project. Ivanov’s main motivation was to curb the influence of the strong Russian church, from which he was afraid of persecution.

A small amusing portion towards the end involved a scientist questioning whether humans were indeed the most intelligent species on the planet. He said something to the effect of “I may be able to do calculus and play the piano, things that we’d associate with intelligence, but how useful would they be in the jungle?”, and so forth.

Look, in the last 10,000 years, humans have developed stuff like writing, agriculture, the crossbow, the Theory of Relativity and have walked on the moon. The extent of our closest competitors’ technology is using pointy sticks as weapons. Chimps and gibbons may be smart, but they’re not THAT smart.

If you’ve been wondering why you haven’t seen me at your local night club picking up ladies, it’s because I’ve been doing some research for the website (see picture, above).

After painstaking labor, I was able to ascertain that Liquid Egg Product is the 2,182,289th best website in the world. It would have cracked 2 millionth place if I were featured more frequently, more like 90% of the time.

And it would help if I got a raise, too.

Today is the last day to cast your vote for the 2007 Liquid Egg Product on the Face Award. Although everyone who was going to vote has done so already, I think. And the winner is an almost-certainty. Even so.