November 28, 2006

There were 3 posts published on November 28, 2006 (this is page 1 of 1).

Going Ape Over Older Females

I was amused to read today’s story (ok, actually last week’s story but the News and Observer either didn’t see it until now or is too cheap to pay for Washington Post material when its fresh) that male chimpanzees prefer older females to younger ones. Most versions of this wire story start off saying how different chimps are from human males, since human males clearly prefer younger women (the USA Today version is the exception). Read the version that ran in the N & O:

Chimpanzees may be our closest biological relatives, but male chimps appear to differ from male humans in one striking way — they clearly prefer older females, according to new research.

And the USA Today version has this to say:

Human males, of course, generally dig younger women, as the Internet-clicking hordes of Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan fans demonstrate.

Um, what kind of idiot human males are they talking to? Only idiots prefer younger women.

It’s no contest. Britney Spears? Lindsay Lohan? The “Tart Twins?” You’ve gotta be kidding me. Anyone “clicking” on these two bimbos are either the same age as the girls or younger, and hopefully one day they’ll grow up and know better.

I’ve ranted before about the concentration-camp look models sport today and how horrible I think it is. The Huffington Post commented today about the recent death of Yet Another Anoxexic Model. Sure its sad when people die, but it’s sad to think that the starving look is anywhere near attractive. Beauty doesn’t always mean thin and young, though.

As Prince sang in Kiss, “women, not girls rule my world.” That’s the case with me, too. I like women with beauty, curves, and brains. If they’ve got wisdom and the sexiest thing of all, self-confidence, then they’re absolutely irresistable. Youth? Not so much.

You don’t have to be young to be beautiful. Look at Priscilla Presley, Joan Collins, Sharon Stone, Julianne Moore, or Susan Sarandon. Decades after becoming a phenomenon, Christie Brinkley still looks fantastic. These women have that spark that only comes with age. They age like fine wine.

I doubt the young girls that are being paraded before us will be around long from now. If all you’ve got is youth, ladies, you’re fighting a losing battle.

Those chimps know what they’re doing.

Who Killed The Electric Car?

Kelly and I enjoyed watching the movie Who Killed The Electric Car? [warning: flash] two nights ago. I was fascinated by the story it told of the incredible GM EV1 car and how GM couldn’t wait to pull it off the streets. The EV1 seemed like the perfect electric vehicle: fast, sexy, and decent range. In spite of enthusiastic demand, GM took posession of every car at the end of its 3 year lease and sent it off to the crusher.

I thought the movie was surprisingly fair in this controversy. GM looks like the bad guy – clearly appearing to be threatened by the success the EV1 was starting to show. Had the electric car caught on, it would have instantly exposed cars with internal combustion engines as the dinosaurs they truly are.

While I was in South Bend two weeks ago, I took a moment to tour the excellent Studebaker museum, showcasing the beautiful automotive creations of this now-defunct car company. Like all car manufacturers of the early 1900s, Studebaker’s first cars were electric, with a range of 60-70 miles and speed of 25 MPH: plenty fast for the unimproved roads on which they drove. Their huge advantage at the time was that their competition – the internal combustion engine – was unreliable, loud, and smelly. Since carriages were largely open-air, these last two drawbacks made electric cars seem to be the clear choice. Its been 100 years since electric cars debuted in America and I’m still waiting for mine.

The movie openly mocked the car manufacturer’s research into hydrogen-powered vehicles, and for good reason. Hydrogen fuel-cell cars cost more than $1 million. Hydrogen is the lightest element in the universe, thus its the least-dense gas. It provides poor energy density per volume, making any hydrogen-powered vehicles need highly-pressurized tanks to provide any range. In the movie Joseph J. Romm, author of The Hype About Hydrogen, takes apart the auto industry’s hype about hydrogen, pointing out that by the time any hydrogen infrastructure get put in place other technologies will have left hydrogen in the dust.

I read today that Ford is unveiling their first hydrogen vehicle this week. Its hydrogen tank is pressurized to 10,000 pounds per square inch, twice the pressure of other hydrogen cars. Can you imagine what that would look like in a collision?

The movie made me pine for the past when electric cars ruled the roads. Perhaps someday they will again once people realize there’s a better way to travel.

Opossum Redux

Well, I spoke too soon when I said I rid the house of the opossum the other night. Kelly came to get me around 9 PM last night, saying she heard it scratching under the office floor. Tough little bugger, I thought. Since it didn’t get out the night before its been at least a week since it left the house.

I had to do something different this time. I remember during my weekend research that a good trick to know if an opossum has come or gone is to sprinkle flour at the entrances. If the critter makes tracks, you know its been there.

So that’s what I did. I opened a vent cover on the far side of the house and sprinkled flour on the opening. For good measure, I went to the opossum’s preferred doorway (the original hole it dug under the house), parted the brick pavers I placed above it, and gave it the flour treatment, too.

An hour later I was ready for bed but decided to check for opossum tracks before retiring. Sure enough, the one by the hole had been hit! There was flour not only on the pavers where I placed it, but flour pushed off the paver and onto the ground. Finally, proof that the critter was out!

I closed up the vent and hole again and went to bed. This morning there are no signs it tried to get back into the crawlspace – a place that might have easily been its tomb. Now to clean up the after effects and seal things up where this doesn’t happen again.