Have a ticky-tacky Christmas!

It’s awfully hard to get into the spirit of the War on Christmas when Christians are so danged tacky. I mean, really…the Jesus loves you sucker is only one comma away from perfect honesty, while the Jesus Tree Topper with the silk gown, gold crown, nail prints in the hands, and built-in light is pure cheese. He really needs a complement, though: Naked Tormented Jesus with Stigmata Squirting Action. Then the kids could battle it out between ascetism and the prosperity gospel right there on the Christmas tree.

Those degenerate French…

You have to see the mascot for Orangina, some fruity drink, to believe it. She’s kind of hot in a peculiarly cephalopod/tetrapod hybrid way, but then…the video. Oh. My. Non-existent. God. Sex and furries. She gives a lap-dance to a bear-man and squeezes orange juice out of her mammaries.

My brain is scarred. I don’t think I could ever drink Orangina without thoughts of bestiality frolicking unbidden through my head.

(No thanks to Jim Lippard for contaminating my brain with this stuff.)

Can’t it at least wait until after Thanksgiving?

The War on Christmas starts earlier every year. The first salvo: an advent calendar in Hanover, Germany includes a small, cartoonish portrayal of famous local son, Fritz Haarmann. He was a serial killer who lived over 80 years ago.

i-8564948d3731bcd62219d402e60a070a-killer.jpg

I think the wounds of the monster’s actions are healed over and largely forgotten now, so while not entirely in good taste, I don’t think Christianity should be too outraged at the inclusion of a wicked fellow who killed 24 people. There are other mostly forgotten characters who could be put on a Christmas calendar without causing this kind of misplaced outrage, like Athanasius or Savanarola or Arnaud-Amaury or more than a few popes, who were responsible for many more deaths. I guess it just isn’t the holiday season without something for the right wing to rage over, and it’s better that they’re howling at Fritz Haarmann than some bewildered greeter at Wal-Mart.

But while you’re scowling at the reminder of the holiday season, I’ll mention that this is a good time to order your secular season cards. I fear the “Stop the Lies” card might give Aunt Tillie a heart attack when she opens it, but the Darwin as St Nick cards are nice.

Pie in the sky between your thighs

Ladies, there are people who want your menstrual blood. It contains stromal cells, which are a multipotent adult-stem-cell-like population that might be a useful source of fairly plastic, proliferative cells. This distant possibility has prompted one company, C’Elle, to offer to collect, test, purify, and store these cells for you. As they say, these cells “may potentially provide phenomenal life saving treatments and customized therapies in the future“…so you should stash away a supply in cryogenic storage, just in case someone comes up with a use.

There is some serious science here, and Attila Csordas summarizes some of the interesting properties of these cells, but the approach is just weird. This can’t be called fraud — throughout their web site, they plainly admit that there is no practical, applied use for these cells right now, so they aren’t attempting to mislead at all — but they also can’t give a good pragmatic reason why anyone should pay to have their menstrual blood stored away.

That’s right, pay. Fees range from $499 for a single collection, to $1599 for a quarterly collection, with an additional yearly fee of $99-$199 for cryostorage. Yow. And you’ve just been throwing those tampons and pads away, not realizing that that is sludgy red treasure between your legs, and that you ought to be putting it on a high-tech pedestal and preserving it for a lifetime.

We guys are feeling left out, I assure you. I’m hoping we find a multipotent adult stem cell type in mucosal epithelia, so that we too can pay a premium price to honor the potential in our mucky secretions. If there isn’t a company doing this yet, I should start one.

I think I’ll call it “B’ooger™” (pronounced “boo-zhay”, of course).

Later, we may expand to serve a discriminating and exclusively male clientele with “Smeg’ma” (“smay-mwah”). There’s gold in them there slimes!

Feminine complaints and masculine emissions

Tild uncovers a real treasure: a book from the heyday of patent medicines, full of advice specifically for women, and loaded with testimonials for Dr Pierce’s ‘prescription’. When you find out what was in the concoction, you’ll understand why all the accompanying photos show women looking both cheery and glazed.

The results were startling. Richardson’s Concentrated Sherry Wine Bitters had 47.5 percent alcohol; Hostetter’s Stomach Bitters, 44.3 percent; Boker’s Stomach Bitters, 42.6 percent; Parker’s Tonic, “purely vegetable,” 41.6 percent. Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound had relatively little—20.6 percent.

Bok saw a real problem. Women were doctoring themselves and their families with dangerous alcoholic nostrums. Temperance women were turning to “bitters” to cure their sluggishness. Pregnant women used “Doctor Pierce’s Favorite Prescription”, which contained digitalis, opium, oil of anise and alcohol (17 percent).

Ladies, go read it. You’ll get the impression that early 20th century women were all sick and diseased, and also all doped to the gills.

Gentlemen, though, might want to read another link Tild provides. Fellows, do you suffer from Spermatorrhea, or the emission of semen without intercourse? I get the distinct impression from that libertarian thread that there are many here who have not ejaculated healthily into a vagina in quite some time. This is bad news.

[Read more…]

In a previous life, I was…

The Bronze Dog got to be a “pirate chick with panache and a heart of gold”, but my past life analysis isn’t quite as interesting.

Your past life diagnosis:

I don’t know how you feel about it, but you were male in your last earthly incarnation.You were born somewhere in the territory of modern South China around the year 1000. Your profession was that of a builder of roads, bridges and docks.

Your brief psychological profile in your past life:
Revolutionary type. You inspired changes in any sphere – politics, business, religion, housekeeping. You could have been a leader.

The lesson that your last past life brought to your present incarnation:
You are bound to solve problems of pollution of environment, recycling, misuse of raw materials, elimination of radioactivity by all means including psychological methods.

Do you remember now?

Wait…so I was a Chinese laborer with dreams of revolution, and therefore I now have the power to eliminate radioactivity with psychology?