Well, that’s not exactly the headline. Ugly children get less attention.

Key points
• Study finds parents discriminate between children based on ‘attractiveness’
• Canadian study showed parents more likely to neglect ‘unattractive’ children
• Attractiveness described in terms of facial symmetry, cleanliness and attire

…

The study by scientists from the University of Alberta in Canada watched parents shopping in supermarkets with children. It found that unattractive children were allowed to wander further and more often from parents than their more attractive siblings, and also revealed that unattractive children were less likely to be strapped into the trolley.

So the definition of unattractiveness includes dirty and sloppy, and parents who have dirty, sloppy kids tend take care of them less well. Hmmm… how about parents who don’t take good care of their kids don’t focus on cleanliness or attire?

Cause? Or effect?

I’m not sure we really needed a study for this.

MIT is having a Time Traveler Convention on May 7, 2005.

42:21:36.025°N, 71:05:16.332°W

Of course, there is only a need for one Time Traveler Convention. Ever.

So if now is the future and you are reading this blog in the past, set your dial to May 7th, 2005, and call Dr. Brown.

Proposal Would Have Drivers On Left Side Of Road:

Drivers on a stretch of highway in northwest Ohio may soon find themselves on the left side of the road.

Officials with the Ohio Department of Transportation said they are considering reversing the normal flow of traffic on U.S. Route 224 in an effort to reduce congestion.

AP:

School board members and principals are waking up to a market-driven climate, and trying to figure out how to compete. It’s critical because in Denver, for example, each student is worth $6,500 in funding to a school.

Charters have found niches in the marketplace and have responded to what parents want, said Theresa Pea, a Denver School Board member.

“We (DPS) haven’t caught up with that,” she said. “We will need to give our principals more training and capacity to handle this. Some of them have never been in the business environment where they have to compete.”

Hah!

A newly discovered fragment of the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament indicates that, as far as the Antichrist goes, theologians, scholars, heavy metal groups, and television evangelists have got the wrong number. Instead of 666, it’s actually the far less ominous 616.

…

They and satanists responded coolly to the new “Revelation”. Peter Gilmore, High Priest of the Church of Satan, based in New York, said: “By using 666 we’re using something that the Christians fear. Mind you, if they do switch to 616 being the number of the beast then we’ll start using that.”

Related.

Hah! Great sign by some Dino Rossi supporters in Washington state.

A handful of supporters of Republican gubernatorial challenger Dino Rossi stood across the parking lot of Daybreak Star, one holding a sign that read: “Living non-felons for Rossi,” a reference to the upcoming court fight about how many felons cast illegal votes in the November election.

16 year old girl, pregnant with twins.

After Erica’s doctor’s visit a week earlier, Jerry said, she had decided she didn’t want to be pregnant anymore. She’d heard that if someone stood on a pregnant woman’s stomach, you could abort the babies. For days, she’d asked Jerry to do it. He didn’t want to, but ultimately he gave in.

Erica lay on the bedroom floor, and Jerry, about five foot eight and 180 pounds, stepped onto her stomach, just above the navel. Then he pressed his K-Swiss sneakers into her flesh. Their statements vary as to how often they repeated this process. Jerry said it was two or three times during the week leading up to the miscarriage; Erica said he stepped on her twice in the two weeks prior to the miscarriage.

Back in the hospital, Erica did two things: She admitted that Jerry had hit her several times, and she confirmed Jerry’s story about stepping on her stomach. Under a state law passed in 2003, she had just implicated her boyfriend in two counts of capital murder. Under that same law, she was guilty of nothing, since a mother has the right to end her pregnancy.

Taranto says:

Still, even if one thinks a woman should have the right to choose, can’t everyone agree that standing on her stomach is a form of abortion that ought to be criminalized?

But I say, “Why?” What makes standing on her stomach (assuming she is consenting) any worse than puncturing the skull and sucking the brains out of the living baby’s head? If one is legal, why should not the other be?

This sounds like something from the Clinton White House, not a comedy routine you would expect to hear from Laura Bush:

Eyebrows were raised by the first lady’s bit about the president’s ranching skills, which Mrs. Bush said her husband lacked because the elite schools he attended, Andover and Yale, “don’t have a real strong ranching program.”

She then added: “He’s learned a lot about ranching since that first year when he tried to milk the horse. What’s worse, it was a male horse.”

And while we’re on the topic of ranching:

George’s answer to any problem at the ranch is to cut it down with a chainsaw — which I think is why he and Cheney and Rumsfeld get along so well.

While the milking the male horse joke may be funny, it simply does not fit the public persona that Mrs. Bush has groomed. I wonder why the change.

UPDATE: Here’s the video from Trey Jackson (via OTB and BfB) And A Typical Joe points out that the NYT has a potential answer to my musing about the reason for her racy act.

“She brought down a very tough house, and she humanized her husband, whose sagging poll numbers are no match for her own…her zingers showed how much the White House relies on her to soften her husband’s rough edges at critical moments, much as she did with her extensive travels and fund-raising in the 2004 campaign.”

Also, there is a complete transcript of the speech here. It was written by Landon Parvin, who also wrote jokes for Reagan and Schwarzenegger.

UPDATE 2: I just watched Trey’s video. And she really was great.

UPDATE 3: The Washington Times story quoted above (also quoted by Ace) has disappeared. Jack Lewis says they fell for a hoax. Others discussing the hoax: Irish Trojan, Wonkette and Little Miss Attila, who ironically enough got all excited about social conservatives being “dumb as boards” to get upset about Laura’s remarks, and yet she herself is the one that fell for the hoax. Hah!

I’m still trying to figure out what keywords are triggering the “free sermons” Google ads on the left side of this site.

Anyway, if you’re looking for free sermons or sermon outlines, check out those sites!! :-)

(And, to state the obvious, they were there before I created this post).

UPDATE: Not just free sermons, but also Pentecostal sermons!

Kevin at Wizbang, and Rusty Shackleford are skeptical of the satellite evidence story.

Also, as a PSA, if you’re going to redact something, do it right. (And since they didn’t, here’s the unredacted version).

James Joyner, a secular humanist, has some excellent commentary on the gathering of “anti-theocracy” groups this weekend in D.C.

Understanding and answering the “religious far right” that propelled President Bush’s re-election is key to preventing a “theocracy” from governing the nation, speakers argued at a weekend conference.

“The religious right now has an unprecedented influence on American politics and policy,” said Ralph White, co-founder of the Open Center, a New York City institution focused on holistic learning. “It is incumbent upon all of us to understand as precisely as possible its aims, methods, beliefs, theology and psychology.”

Joyner:

These people are either delusional or woefully ignorant of both American history and electoral math. I’m a secular humanist but understand that I’m in a small minority in what is perhaps the most religious nation in the developed world. That said, it is simply absurd that the “religious far right” is sufficiently large to elect a president, let alone that they’d have picked George W. Bush if they were indeed powerful enough to choose our leader.

And then he goes on to back it up…. check it out.

Somewhat related, Pat Roberston, on ABC’s “This Week” apparently offered a “glowing endorsement” of Rudy Giuliani, and as James Joyner says:

If he can wax enthusiastic about the likes of Giuliani, a pro-abortion, pro-gay rights, adulterer, then I’d say we’re more than a smidge away from theocracy.

This is pretty interesting.

Solar cell implant may restore some sight for the blind.

The Captain has an interesting partial transcript from Fox News Sunday.

Check it out.

Here’s the latest in the LA billboard story.

Also MM, Murdoc, Say Anything, and the Dark Citadel.