“Look, the great strength of this President isn’t that he’s a complicated individual.” — Senator John McCain, in post-debate commentary tonight

Wow… I have a lot of complaints about how this so-called debate was structured, and I am not a Kerry fan, but he is shredding Bush to bits. Bush looks scowly, defensive, and dim. He sounds like he’s in an argument on a fourth grade playground. He’s repeating himself (read: talking points beaten into him all day) and not answering the questions – he’s using the same answers for several of the questions, in fact. Kerry is answering questions directly and for all his historical vapidity sounds focused, bright, and committed. He sounds clear on the Middle East and on terror. He sounds clear on the fucked-up priorities of the Bush team. Kerry looks positively Presidential; Bush looks like a defensive moron who didn’t do his homework. Bush is stammering through sentences and has delivered several non-sequiturs (but I am aware that most people tend to fall for them). I am truly stunned at the disparity here.

I hate to simplify these things into win-or-lose, because it often depends on your issues, priorities, and inclinations – basically what matters to you. But it’s hard to argue, at this point, that Bush is not getting clobbered.

The “invading Mexico” thing was good, too. Oh, and Kerry washed his face. Bonus.

An interesting article by Kristen Philipkoski in Wired News that explores the slow re-emergence of psychedelic research, especially around MDMA and psilocybin. MAPS founder and friend-o-mine Rick Doblin prominently featured.

I just finished a great book called Survival of the Prettiest. For my entire life, I’ve been particularly struck and moved by visual beauty – especially when adorned by color and fabrics and such (i.e. fashion, makeup, etc.) and most especially when combined with a youthful innocence. That may sound a bit dumb, because you might say we all are, especially men. But I have often felt that my psychoemotional response to those signals exceeds that of my male contemporaries. (Although I had one friend suggest that this may just be because I am a bit more resistant to letting society’s rules beat something out of me, which I considered a huge compliment.) As I consider myself to be a fairly substantive person, I’ve long struggled over whether my reaction to these signals is some sort of character flaw – a sign of preferring style over substance (“shallowness”) – or just a sign of immaturity. However, as I get older I believe this less and feel more comfortable with it. I don’t think it’s shallow. It’s only shallow to not see it in its proper context.

In “Survival of the Prettiest”, Harvard Medical School psychologist Nancy Etcoff takes the reader on a fascinating exploration of the ancient biological reasoning behind our response to physical beauty, youth, fashion, decoration, and so on.

Here’s a quick outtake, edited slightly:

—
One cannot escape the irony of sexual attraction today – in a world where men and women try to stave off pregnancy for a majority of their sexual encounters, sexual preference is guided by ancient rules that make us the most attracted to bodies that look the most reproductively fit. Nor can we escape that women compete in the mating world for men whose brains are hard-wired to find nubile teenagers highly desirable and particularly beautiful. Females tend to prefer slightly older males, and correspondingly, males prefer youth, with the gap increasing as males age. This is because the best way to find a fertile female is to grab her young and before she has started making babies… males prefer the physical signs of a woman below peak fertility, and therefore signs of age are important visual cues to reproductive capacity… while [modern, human] males may like younger women for many reasons including longings for his own lost youth, the desire to play a father figure, and the need to dominate and control, [the fertility difference] is the sole basis for the male’s erotic visual preference for [young women] … Beauty is a biological adaptation. The argument is a simple one: that beauty is a universal part of human experience, and that it provokes pleasure, rivets attention, and impels actions that help ensure the survival of our genes. Our extreme sensitivity to beauty is governed by circuits in the brain shaped by natural selection. We love to look at smooth skin, thick shiny hair, curved waists, and symmetrical bodies because in the course of our evolution the people who noticed these signals and desired their possessors had more reproductive success. We are their descendants.
—

A great book.

John Zogby, a pollster I trust, says tonight that this thing is a dead heat. I believe him. Just imagine how far ahead Kerry would be if he could distinguish himself on Iraq – easily Bush’s biggest liability. Bush is certainly right about something – he’s right that Kerry can’t get his Iraq story straight. The Democrats would be doing so much better with a solid anti-war candidate such as Dean, especially if supplemented by a VP candidate like Clark. This is *the* issue in this election and Bush & Kerry are of nearly the same mind on it.

Ok. I love cars. I love the ‘net. I love my PCs. So it’s little wonder how much it frustrates me that car dealers and service shops still have not integrated the ‘net into their business practices.

A random example. I am looking for a new car and have inquired via e-mail with a couple of dealerships (Dalzell Volvo in Norwood, MA and Boston Volvo in Boston) about when the 2005 S60Rs will be showing up.

I sent the e-mails in May – May 24 to be exact. I am sure that they were read because I used client product DidTheyReadIt and they were read within a day or two of me sending them.

I have not received a phone call nor an e-mail from either dealer in the four months that has passed. What the f*ck? I am demographically extremely desirable. I am not some kid fooling around on a Nintendo. When are these guys going to realize the Internet matters? I wonder how many sales are lost this way?

Sounds cliche to say what I just said, but … grr

Hey folks,

Here are some images I shot while at my mom’s place Saturday evening. It was getting time to go, and I told my mom it looked like the sky was going to catch on fire. She asked me how I knew. She, of all people, should know better because I get my Gaiaic intuition from her side of the family.

The exposure is quite dreadful, but at least this will give you an idea what was going on. I think they are in chronological order here:

http://www.citrano.com/pix/cape-1.jpg
http://www.citrano.com/pix/cape-2.jpg
http://www.citrano.com/pix/cape-3.jpg

http://www.citrano.com/pix/scarborough_marsh1.jpg
http://www.citrano.com/pix/scarborough_marsh2.jpg
http://www.citrano.com/pix/scarborough_marsh3.jpg

The pictures from her place were fine, but when I moved down the road to the marsh, I was really attacked by mosquitos unlike anything I’ve experienced in a while.. oh well.. hopefully I don’t have Ebola now.

I’m still sniffing around online and trying to figure out what the deal is on this person. As the producer of the Guard Memo story, I’m surprised we have not heard more about her. CBS stalled for too long, and only partially did the right thing tonight. I wonder how long Mapes will be able to hang on at CBS? I am very curious for more information on the vetting process and how much of it was politically motivated. Word is she was a fairly active liberal in the northwest. Let us see..

“The disconnect between the reality of this war and the President’s rhetoric is alarming… I’m terrified we’re going to wake up after the election and realize that the biggest problem in our lifetimes wasn’t even discussed…”

– Andrew Sullivan, The New Republic today on ‘Chris Matthews’

“Precious American lives are being inexorably squandered — two, three, five a day — in a wildly underfunded, undermanned, horrendously expensive war that cannot be won.”

Michael Moore?? No. Scott McConnell, executive editor of The American Conservative.