Funmurphys: the Blog

Let's Give Them Something To Think About

The ChicagoBoyz take on reproductive freedom and marvel at the attempt in Illinois to restrict ultrasound so that pregnant women can't get an ultrasound without a doctor's permission because it's an effective tool in persuading women not to have an abortion (yes, I get letters from the local Crisis Pregnancy Resource Center requesting money to buy such machines because they are effective, so here's the proof that they really are). So much for "hands off my body".

Businessweek has discovered a story that's bound to get every blog in the country to link to them -- "Blogs Will Change Your Business ". With lines like "Go ahead and bellyache about blogs. But you cannot afford to close your eyes to them, because they're simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the Internet itself. And they're going to shake up just about every business -- including yours." how can any blogger resist linking? And they even do it in a traditional blog form, so we can't even ridicule them as clueless MSM. Insidious.

Armavirumque takes a look at the new pope's elevation in such an educated manner I'm not sure I followed. But I did understand his dig at Andrew Sullivan, even if it wasn't as graphic as Wizbang!'s: (how's that for some punctuation)

Cafe Hayek talks international trade in such a down to earth way I clearly understood it.

The Japanese have apologized, again, for all the really awful things they did in WWII. Will this smooth the waters over with China? Beats me, because while I think even the Chinese goverment is kinda hoping this dies down, they can't be seen as being soft on Japan.

Cronaca complains about the ongoing destruction of the Temple Mount at the hands of the Islamic Waqf, and wonders where the howls of outrage are. Me too, so according to Business Week I'm doing the most I can to help just by posting this.

Over at Professor Bainbridge's I discovered a readibility test and of course I plugged in the ol' web page. I'm not sure if the blog roll distorts the results, but here they are anyway:

Mary Madigan at Michael Totten's (that's the trouble with naming your blog after yourself -- hey, you could have used the word eponymous and kept the fifth graders at bay -- then invite other people to post) looks at love of Armaggedon amongst the fringe of the environmentalists.

President Bush keeps shaking things up -- now he's named a Marine as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (shouldn't that be Chief of the JCS?). No word on the Navy's reaction.

The Vodka Pundit's Sidekick writes about the biggest story you're not reading about: "And what a story! It's got corruption, Kennedys, secret informants, Clintons, even weird sexual allegations." Hey, I want to read about that!

In a move that should surprise nobody, the woman who claimed to have found a finger tip in a bowl of chilli at Wendy's was arrested today. I watch those shows on the food channel, (Unwrapped and The Secret Life Of -- both of which you ought to be watching too), so I know if somebody loses a finger anywhere near the chilli while being made, they stop the line and if they can't find the finger, they dump the chilli because that's a lot cheaper than paying a claim down the road when someone else finds the finger. And nobody, nobody, overlooks losing one and half inches of a finger.

Speaking of food, Tom Maguire links to a NYT article that tells us that contrary to what's been said in the past, that whole overweight thing, don't worry. A few extra pounds is actually a good thing, at least when it comes to life expectancy. Tying your shoes, well, that's a different problem. Now I can get back to ordering chilli from Wendy's with neither worry nor guilt. I remember my local paper, the St. Awful, doing front page articles and writing fulminating editorials when the CDC was telling us that obesity was the number 2 cause of death. I'm not holding my breath (because that would lead to death!) for them to run front page articles and write fulminating editorials about how parts of the CDC are trying to scare us to death, since that's pretty much the press's stock in trade.

Blognor Regnis provides reason 793 why I don't respect academics. I do respect people who, through no fault of their own, are academics.

Speaking of Chilli, the first census of gut bacteria was taken by a fellow Standford man and found 395 variety of microbe living in healthy guts. Just remember, bacteria in the human body outnumber human cells by a factor of 10, and counting the bacteria that live on the outside, people are really just a big bacteria trellis. And in the category of information I didn't want to know, the weight of a human turd is half bacteria. And in the category of information I can use, I can blame my weight on the efficiency of my gut bacteria. I'm not overweight, I'm improving my life expectancy through superior bacteria.