AdamSmith

They also taught that one should speed across Mississippi as fast as possible if constrained to drive through it on the way to anywhere.

Not sylLABle. In fact those Cajuns taught me at least 3 useful things: how to say Biloxi and Natchez (have no idea why it came up), and how to make gumbo. Oh, and to always suck the good stuff out of crawfish heads.

Ahem. One recalls you concurring in my reminiscence of surreptitiously ogling those rags in drug store and supermarket when we were repressed teenagers.

From my Cajun ex & in-laws, I learned not to even hazard a guess on pronunciation of place names in either Louisiana or Mississippi without waiting to hear them say it first. Natchez was one of many such.

Louis!

I might ball my wax...

Doesn't quite capture my existential dread of certain preparations likely being made even now... ...somewhere on that Natchez Trace.

We await in fear & trembling.

Thinking on this, I've watched quite a few relatives live into their late 80s or 90s, one to 103. To a one, they all, so long as they were compos mentis, wanted to stick around just as long as possible. Even those in pretty considerable physical distress, such as one who long suffered severe COPD after decades of cotton-mill work. Of course what do I know here at age 55, but I tend to think I'll be of like mind.

So I am always the last to know, it seems. http://ragemaker.net/ is the site that lets you (or your grandmother, or anyone ) generate cartoons like the one below that I discovered & posted a while back. Should you be of such mind.

Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic. Meet Amelia: the computer that's after your job A new artificially intelligent computer system called 'Amelia' that can read and understand text, follow processes, solve problems and learn from experience could replace humans in a wide range of low-level jobs http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11123336/Meet-Amelia-the-computer-thats-after-your-job.html

Earth lost 50% of its wildlife in the past 40 years, says WWF Species across land, rivers and seas decimated as humans kill for food in unsustainable numbers and destroy habitats http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/29/earth-lost-50-wildlife-in-40-years-wwf

Armed intruder had penetrated farther into White House than admitted Revelation came ahead of a congressional hearing on Tuesday and heaped pressure on the beleaguered US secret service An armed intruder said by prosecutors to have been a threat to the president made it far further into the White House after jumping a perimeter fence than the secret service first admitted, according to damning new evidence to be heard by a congressional panel on Tuesday. Witnesses have told the House oversight committee that Omar Gonzalez overpowered an officer at the front door and was not stopped until he reached a separate room toward the back of the White House, according to testimony first reported by the Washington Post. After running past a stairway leading to the first familys living quarters, Gonzalez, a former army sniper, sprinted the 80-foot length of the East Room and was finally apprehended at the doorway to the Green Room another formal room overlooking the South Lawn the Post reports. The account differs starkly from a press release issued by the secret service the day after the incident which merely says he was physically apprehended after entering the White House North Portico doors. The impression that this meant he was stopped immediately after entering the doors is something administration officials did nothing to counter in the days after the event. The ground-floor rooms of the main White House residence are normally highly guarded, as they are used for a range of public visits and guided tours, and the fact that Gonzalez was able to travel a considerable distance will compound concerns that the incident has revealed serious weaknesses in the protection given to President Obama and his family. Utah Republican Jason Chaffetz, who chairs the House oversight subcommittee on homeland security, is expected to seize on the alleged evidence from whistleblowers to demand an explanation of why the door through which Gonzalez entered the building was not locked, as well as on suggestions that an internal alarm system was suspended because it had irritated ushers who worked at the door. Obama and his family had left by helicopter from the South Lawn just minutes before Gonzalez, a former Iraq veteran allegedly carrying a pocket knife, scaled a fence outside the North Lawn and made it across the stretch of grass in front of the White House without being challenged by the snipers and dog patrols intended to guard against intruders. Neither the secret service nor congressman Chaffetzs office immediately responded to requests for comment, but the White House earlier downplayed a separate Washington Post report into a shooting incident in 2011, which the Post says the secret service failed to properly investigate. As you would expect, the president and first lady, like all parents, are concerned about the safety of their children, said spokesman Josh Earnest when asked about the Posts reporting that Michelle Obama was furious about the attack, which saw seven bullets strike the upstairs residence. But the president and first lady also have confidence in the men and women of the secret service to do a very important job, which is to protect the first family, to protect the White House, but also protect the ability of tourists and members of the public to conduct their business or even tour the White House. Gonzalez, who was allegedly found to have 800 round of ammunition and a machete in his nearby car, was described as a danger to the president by assistant US attorney David Mudd during a court hearing regarding the fence-jumping incident. Chaffetz on Monday criticised the Secret Service for claiming it was exercising restraint by not shooting Gonzalez who was originally reported to be unarmed and argued there had been epic failure from top to bottom and that lethal force should be used stop to intruders entering the White House. I have deep concern that the president is not as safe as we need him to be, he told CNN. These incidents seem to be getting worse, not better. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/29/white-house-intruder-east-room

Maybe invest in one of those thousand-dollar Japanese automated toilet seats and program it to auto-spray this stuff?

Not too bad a selection, as these things go. The 10 best works of erotic artArt has always been intrinsically linked to expression, passion and sensuality, but across the centuries, there have been surprisingly few unambiguous depictions of the carnal act in its naked glory. Here, Jonathan Jones chooses his favourite 10 erotic pieces Jonathan Jones The Observer, Saturday 27 September 2014 The British Museum Katsukawa Shun’ei (attributed to) Ten scenes of lovemaking, a scroll painting (Edo period, 1795-1810) British Museum Japanese Shunga art is explicit about sex in a way western artists never found easy before the 20th century. Free from any Christian identification of sex with sin, Shun’ei here offers an erotic luxury. As you unfurl the scroll, detailed and beautifully coloured scenes of lovemaking reveal themselves. Time stands still. The cares of life are forgotten in a relaxed, mutually fulfilling utopia of pleasure. V&A Collection Andrea Riccio Satyr and Satyress (1510-1520) V&A, London In Greek and Roman mythology satyrs are goat-legged followers of the wine god Bacchus, hairy votaries of sex, dance and ecstasy. In Renaissance art they are walking penises, embodiments of lust, who chase nymphs or spy on sleeping goddesses. Here, however, the brilliant craftsman Riccio imagines a satyr couple, tenderly embracing in some balmy woodland nook. Being half goat, they are all desire. Love is wild. The Tate Picasso The Kiss (1967) Tate, London When Picasso draws or paints a kiss - and he returned insatiably to this subject - it is no chaste romantic touch of lips but a carnal encounter of tongues. The oral entangling in this late work by the most sexual of artists is impossible to misunderstand. Clearly it is not so much a kiss he is portraying as an ecstatic allegory of all the copulations he can remember or imagine. Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest Egon Schiele Two Women Embracing (1915) Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest Egon Schiele is a great artist who found his subject in the bedroom. In the last days of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud was researching sexuality and Gustav Klimt was painting sensual dreams. Young Schiele took this respect for sex to a new level in superbly drawn masterpieces like this depiction of women in love. He turns his erotic curiosity into moving, beautiful, arousing art that may well be the most sublime pornography ever created. ©Jeff Koons/Whitney Museum of MA Jeff Koons Made in Heaven (1991) Whitney Museum, New York When Jeff Koons married porn star and (later) Italian MP Ilona Staller (Cicciolina) he marked their union in a series of works, including this poster, as well as glassware and sculptures of them having sex. The imagery is indistinguishable from porn with Koons identifying himself with pop culture at its most shameless. The Tate Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec In Bed, the Kiss (1892) Desire is beautiful. Toulouse-Lautrec’s portrayal of two women in bed is intimate and frank, and free from all the prejudices we ascribe to his age. Toulouse-Lautrec lived among and regularly portrayed the prostitutes, dancers and artists’ models of Montmartre. His pastels recording the real lives of his women friends are his true masterpieces. Love is easy, and love is free. The National Gallery After Michelangelo Leda and the Swan (After 1530) National Gallery, London There are strong hints of homosexuality as well as fellatio in this depiction of Leda making love to a swan. In ancient myth, Jupiter took the form of a swan to seduce Leda. Such myths were transformed by Renaissance artists such as Titian into alluring sensual painting. Michelangelo provocatively makes the coupling real. The model for Leda was his assistant Antonio Mini. The work barely conceals Michelangelo’s fantasy – or record – of his own penis meeting Mini’s mouth. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Rembrandt The French Bed (1646) Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Images of sex abound in Renaissance and baroque art, usually in mythic couplings of woman and cloud, boy and eagle. Rembrandt here shows the thing itself, stripped of mythology or metaphor. A couple – probably Rembrandt and his lover Hendrickje Stoffels – are going for it in spite of the cold that keeps them semi-clothed in their bed. Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid Photograph: Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid Salvador Dalí The Great Masturbator (1929) Reina Sofia museum, Madrid Surrealist leader André Breton urged artists to unleash their unconscious. Along came Dalí confessing to desires that appalled Breton. This painting acknowledges its creator’s seamy mind, sleazy fantasies and onanism. The sex act that requires one participant is Dalí’s image of art, a narcissistic daydream that feeds on memory to create something self-contained. The Trustees of the British Museum Giulio Romano I Modi (The Positions) British Museum Renaissance Rome was rocked by I Modi, a printed sequence of graphically illustrated sexual positions. It was designed by Giulio Romano and engraved by printmaker Marcantonio Raimondi. This was luxury art porn. Despite being banned, it became a European bestseller. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/sep/28/the-10-best-works-of-erotic-art

...Schrödinger's scat? http://www.boytoy.com/forums/index.php?/topic/17787-poop-poll/ http://www.boytoy.com/forums/index.php?/topic/17245-fart-filtering-underwear/

One for the Other Side...