Wisconsin Primary

[Harlan Huckleby]

Polls are getting tighter in Pennsylvania. This may be over sooner than we thought.

This is bad news. It will only increase the Obama side's hubris, which is their fatal flaw. The nomination is already over, I don't care about that issue.

I am poised to spam my neighbors yards with "John McCain" lawn signs.

[Harlan Huckleby]

Obama wasn't on the ballot........of course she would have more votes!

Obama was on ballot in Florida. Not sure if they counted MI, some assign the "uncommitted" votes in MI to Obama. uncommitted trailed Clinton slightly, was main repository for non-Clinton voters.

[BallHawk]

Obama wasn't on the ballot........of course she would have more votes!

Obama was on ballot in Florida. Not sure if they counted MI, some assign the "uncommitted" votes in MI to Obama. uncommitted trailed Clinton slightly, was main repository for non-Clinton voters.

Loads of people didn't vote in Florida because they knew it wasn't counting. A large amount of those people were Obama supporters. Not making excuses for Obama, he would of had a large chunk more if people knew it counted.

I'm sick of the whole issue. Just give Clinton the delegates and she will soon destroy herself.

[packinpatland]

Obama wasn't on the ballot........of course she would have more votes!

Obama was on ballot in Florida. Not sure if they counted MI, some assign the "uncommitted" votes in MI to Obama. uncommitted trailed Clinton slightly, was main repository for non-Clinton voters.

Loads of people didn't vote in Florida because they knew it wasn't counting. A large amount of those people were Obama supporters. Not making excuses for Obama, he would of had a large chunk more if people knew it counted.

I'm sick of the whole issue. Just give Clinton the delegates and she will soon destroy herself.

.............down in flames.....crash and burn!

[Harlan Huckleby]

Loads of people didn't vote in Florida because they knew it wasn't counting. A large amount of those people were Obama supporters.

They had a record turnout!

I don't know why more Obama supporters would be staying home. It wasn't on a friday when they'd be in the mosques.

The primary they had is a reasonable estimate of support.

But of course a better idea is a revote, unfortunately Obama worked to kill it.

[The Leaper]

Obama wasn't on the ballot........of course she would have more votes!

If the Dems had the same delegate process as the GOP, Clinton would already have won the nomination.

[Harlan Huckleby]

interesting, i wonder if it's too late to change the rules.....

[texaspackerbacker]

Calm down Bluedog. Polls are getting tighter in Pennsylvania. This may be over sooner than we thought. She will back Obama, and her followers will follow suit. Hopefully it happens soon before Bill starts punching out Obama Superdelegates. Or Bill Richardson.

Somehow, if it were ever come to 'fisticuffs'...........Bill wouldn't stand a chance.......with anyone.......seems a bit of a 'wuss' to me.

Speaking of WUSSINESS, anybody see the video of Obama tippytoeing up to the line when he was bowling?

[texaspackerbacker]

Good point about the Ned Lamont/Lieberman scenario, Harlan.

The same demographics apply to McCain over Obama even in relatively liberal states like Connecticut, not to mention the vast area of clearly Republican states.

I'm thinking pretty positive right about now, and it should only get better--as it did in 2000 and 2004--closer to the election when there is less of a filter by the leftist mainstream media on the comparative views and positions of the candidates that people are exposed to.

[SkinBasket]

For Fruit Flies, Gene Shift Tilts Sex Orientation
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL,
International Herald Tribune
June 3, 2005

When the genetically altered fruit fly was released into the observation chamber, it did what these breeders par excellence tend to do. It pursued a waiting virgin female. It gently tapped the girl with its leg, played her a song (using wings as instruments) and, only then, dared to lick her - all part of standard fruit fly seduction.

The observing scientist looked with disbelief at the show, for the suitor in this case was not a male, but a female that researchers had artificially endowed with a single male-type gene.

That one gene, the researchers are announcing today in the journal Cell, is apparently by itself enough to create patterns of sexual behavior - a kind of master sexual gene that normally exists in two distinct male and female variants.

In a series of experiments, the researchers found that females given the male variant of the gene acted exactly like males in courtship, madly pursuing other females. Males that were artificially given the female version of the gene became more passive and turned their sexual attention to other males.

"We have shown that a single gene in the fruit fly is sufficient to determine all aspects of the flies' sexual orientation and behavior," said the paper's lead author, Dr. Barry Dickson, senior scientist at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. "It's very surprising.

"What it tells us is that instinctive behaviors can be specified by genetic programs, just like the morphologic development of an organ or a nose."

The results are certain to prove influential in debates about whether genes or environment determine who we are, how we act and, especially, our sexual orientation, although it is not clear now if there is a similar master sexual gene for humans.

Still, experts said they were both awed and shocked by the findings. "The results are so clean and compelling, the whole field of the genetic roots of behavior is moved forward tremendously by this work," said Dr. Michael Weiss, chairman of the department of biochemistry at Case Western Reserve University. "Hopefully this will take the discussion about sexual preferences out of the realm of morality and put it in the realm of science."

He added: "I never chose to be heterosexual; it just happened. But humans are complicated. With the flies we can see in a simple and elegant way how a gene can influence and determine behavior."

The finding supports scientific evidence accumulating over the past decade that sexual orientation may be innately programmed into the brains of men and women. Equally intriguing, the researchers say, is the possibility that a number of behaviors - hitting back when feeling threatened, fleeing when scared or laughing when amused - may also be programmed into human brains, a product of genetic heritage.

"This is a first - a superb demonstration that a single gene can serve as a switch for complex behaviors," said Dr. Gero Miesenboeck, a professor of cell biology at Yale.

Dr. Dickson, the lead author, said he ran into the laboratory when an assistant called him on a Sunday night with the results. "This really makes you think about how much of our behavior, perhaps especially sexual behaviors, has a strong genetic component," he said.

All the researchers cautioned that any of these wired behaviors set by master genes will probably be modified by experience. Though male fruit flies are programmed to pursue females, Dr. Dickson said, those that are frequently rejected over time become less aggressive in their mating behavior.

When a normal male fruit fly is introduced to a virgin female, they almost immediately begin foreplay and then copulate for 20 minutes. In fact, Dr. Dickson and his co-author, Dr. Ebru Demir of the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology, specifically chose to look for the genetic basis of fly sexual behavior precisely because it seemed so strong and instinctive and, therefore, predictable.

Scientists have known for several years that the master sexual gene, known as fru, was central to mating, coordinating a network of neurons that were involved in the male fly's courtship ritual. Last year, Dr. Bruce Baker of Stanford University discovered that the mating circuit controlled by the gene involved 60 nerve cells and that if any of these were damaged or destroyed by the scientists, the animal could not mate properly. Both male and female flies have the same genetic material as well as the neural circuitry required for the mating ritual, but different parts of the genes are turned on in the two sexes. But no one dreamed that simply activating the normally dormant male portion of the gene in a female fly could cause a genetic female to display the whole elaborate panoply of male fruit fly foreplay.

-------------------------

We had a cat named Fru once.

[Harlan Huckleby]

Skinbasket, have I taken a moment to remind you that you are an asshole lately?

Sometimes we get so caught-up in our daily cares that we forget to remind those around us how we feel about them.

[SkinBasket]

Fish Accused of Sexual Harassment
By Charles Q. Choi, Special to LiveScience
22 February 2008 10:28 am ET

Endangered fish might face a new threat — sexual harassment.

Male Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata) are jeopardizing the survival of the critically endangered Mexican fish Skiffia bilineata by constantly sexually harassing the endangered females, research now reveals.

The guppies, which invaded Mexican rivers and lakes roughly 50 years ago, physically resemble S. bilineata, but are genetically distant from them. Scientists knew that male Trinidadian guppies sexually assault females of their own species, and were concerned over whether they harassed the endangered fish as well.

The researchers found that when put in aquaria together, male Trinidadian guppies persistently tried having sex with the female S. bilineata, even when seven of their own females were present. The male guppies are drawn to large females, and endangered females are larger than guppy females, the scientists noted.

Normally S. bilineata have sex by simply uniting their genital pores in a copulatory embrace. Male Trinidadian guppies, on the other hand, have sex using a hooked organ — their "gonopodium." As such, they can damage the endangered females, and female S. bilineata have to spend a lot of energy dodging the guppies.

"Sometimes we observed harassed females jerking away from guppy males when the males appeared to have inserted their gonopodium," said researcher Alejandra Valero, a behavioral ecologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City. "We are assessing several possible ways in which female Skiffia can be damaged by guppy sexual activity."

The guppies could be contributing to the decline of the Mexican fish. "Half of the species in the Goodeinae tribe to which Skiffia bilineata belongs are already at risk of extinction," Valero said.

However, Valero stressed the guppies were not intentionally out to harm the endangered females or drive S. bilineata to extinction.

"It may seem like their sexual behavior is part of a strategy to displace native species in order to gain exclusive ownership of the habitat," she told LiveScience. However, the guppies "are doing only what they have been doing for the last million years, which is being highly efficient at passing their genes down to successive generations — only in this case, the genes end up in the wrong females!"

[Scott Campbell]

Sometimes we get so caught-up in our daily cares that we forget to remind those around us how we feel about them.

I'm pretty good about that typically.

BTW, you're still a shithead.

[packinpatland]

She's lying again...........her calling Bill 'Honey'......I don't think so.

"Leno also asked about moments during the campaign in which the former president has blown up at reporters and others.

"When you're supporting someone you love, you really do take it very much to heart," she said. "I said 'OK, honey, that's all right, we don't have to go get excited about it.' He's doing a great job for me but he does get a little carried away sometimes."

[texaspackerbacker]

What's happening here is the Clintons finding out that the leftist media is just not going to give them a pass to get away with the same kind of demagoguery and crap they had carte blanche to perpetrate against Republicans. Obama is the media's new sacred cow, and the former holy bovines aren't taking it too well.

Apologies to the Wisconsin dairy industry for my referring to Obama and the Clintons as cows.