schlafly for supreme court!

you may be shocked and appalled with my endorsement of phyllis schlafly for the supreme court but, according to the carpetbagger, she has just recognized what i have long argued, naked apes are animals, dogs are animals, so give us our damned constitutional rights!

according to schlafly and the eagle forum (read the original here):

Evolutionists claim that their battle against creation-science is primarily a "scientific" issue, not a constitutional question. But our treasured U. S. Constitution is written by persons and for persons. If man is an animal, the Constitution was written by animals and for animals. This preposterous conclusion destroys the Constitution. The Aguillard Humanists leave us with no Constitution and no constitutional rights of any kind if they allow us to teach only that man is an animal.

These subtle and dangerous attacks on God Himself and the Constitution must be repelled.

i first move that we amend the constitution to exclude goddamn cats from constitutional protection (maybe that whole 3/5th thing!). also, please stop shushing me when i bark at that goddamn pug who walks past my house like he owns the place. stop abridging my free speech. and stop trying to quarter soldiers in my house, british.

chimps vs. children

chimps win! some scientists pitted some naked apes versus some hairy apes in an experiment testing how apes learn. here's a description of the study from the new york times:

The box was painted black and had a door on one side and a bolt running across the top. The food was hidden in a tube behind the door. When they showed the chimpanzees how to retrieve the food, the researchers added some unnecessary steps. Before they opened the door, they pulled back the bolt and tapped the top of the box with a stick. Only after they had pushed the bolt back in place did they finally open the door and fish out the food.
Because the chimps could not see inside, they could not tell that the extra steps were unnecessary. As a result, when the chimps were given the box, two-thirds faithfully imitated the scientists to retrieve the food.

The team then used a box with transparent walls and found a strikingly different result. Those chimps could see that the scientists were wasting their time sliding the bolt and tapping the top. None followed suit. They all went straight for the door.

The researchers turned to humans. They showed the transparent box to 16 children from a Scottish nursery school. After putting a sticker in the box, they showed the children how to retrieve it. They included the unnecessary bolt pulling and box tapping.

The scientists placed the sticker back in the box and left the room, telling the children that they could do whatever they thought necessary to retrieve it.

The children could see just as easily as the chimps that it was pointless to slide open the bolt or tap on top of the box. Yet 80 percent did so anyway. "It seemed so spectacular to me," Mr. Lyons said. "It suggested something remarkable was going on."

apparently, naked apes learn through imitation even when it is not the best learning strategy while chimps focus on goals. i understand. i can't quite understand why i must sit-down-stay every time i want a snack when clearly it is much more efficient for me to just root around in the snack drawer and help myself. i think the chimps would agree.