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Monthly Archives: February 2006

Bush State of the Union

During Bush’s last State of the Union, he discussed our need to remove our dependence on foreign oil:

Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology…

Breakthroughs on this and other new technologies will help us reach another great goal: to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025. (Applause.)

Apparently, what he said is not what he meant. From KR:

One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America’s dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn’t mean it literally.
…
“This was purely an example,” Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said.

What? Bush lie?

Bush Social Security

For those of you who were unable to watch Bush’s State of the Union last Tuesday, our president was thrown off base when a large portion of congress applauded his statement on social security: “Congress did not act last year on my proposal.” From Think Progress:

When President Bush first launched his campaign to privatize Social Security last year, just 39 percent of Americans approved of how he was handling the issue. A year later, that number has dropped to 35 percent.

The sentiments of the majority of Americans was voiced last night when President Bush brought up his privatization plans. Bush’s statement that “Congress did not act last year on my proposal” was met with rousing, unexpected applause that clearly unnerved Bush.

Watch the video.

Zombie Cockroach

Apparently, nature thought of Night of the Living Dead long before humans. The ampulex compressa wasp has the ability to control a cockroach by surgically cutting and injecting venom into the insect’s brain. From Corante:

The wasp slips her stinger through the roach’s exoskeleton and directly into its brain. She apparently use sensors along the sides of the stinger to guide it through the brain, a bit like a surgeon snaking his way to an appendix with a laparoscope. She continues to probe the roach’s brain until she reaches one particular spot that appears to control the escape reflex. She injects a second venom that influences these neurons in such a way that the escape reflex disappears.

From the outside, the effect is surreal. The wasp does not paralyze the cockroach. In fact, the roach is able to lift up its front legs again and walk. But now it cannot move of its own accord. The wasp takes hold of one of the roach’s antennae and leads it–in the words of Israeli scientists who study Ampulex–like a dog on a leash.

The zombie roach crawls where its master leads, which turns out to be the wasp’s burrow. The roach creeps obediently into the burrow and sits there quietly, while the wasp plugs up the burrow with pebbles. Now the wasp turns to the roach once more and lays an egg on its underside. The roach does not resist. The egg hatches, and the larva chews a hole in the side of the roach. In it goes.

The larva grows inside the roach, devouring the organs of its host, for about eight days. It is then ready to weave itself a cocoon–which it makes within the roach as well. After four more weeks, the wasp grows to an adult. It breaks out of its cocoon, and out of the roach as well. Seeing a full-grown wasp crawl out of a roach suddenly makes those Alien movies look pretty derivative.

Maybe you should think twice before you help take out that wasp hive behind Aunt Bettie’s shed….