Never Enough Financial Perspective Department

Even with my pay cut nearly in half:

I'm the 608,124,192 richest person on earth! Discover how rich you are! >>

Never Enough Sincere Gratitude Department

Speaking as a queer, transgendered SubGenius minister with admittedly skewed ideas and a filthy mouth, I would like to take the opportunity to thank the right-wing punditry, the Bush Administration, and the Republican Party leadership for becoming so shrill and unhinged that even I seem reasonable to most folks. While I have no desire to be "normal" per se, it's a lot easier to pass as "normal" in comparison to those who prefer to manufacture reality rather than deal with reality. You have guaranteed that America will increasingly depend on the crude oil of other countries, and will be forced to implement their policies over our own self-interest. You have disregarded sanity in favor of ideological rigidity, and have sacrificed your own independence of conscience in the name of political power. You have defamed the term "conservative" and turned it into a lie; you have transformed the word "liberal" into a cludgel. You have insulted the grieving and refused to support your words with actions.

You have reached the point where you cannot climb out of the hole you insist on digging for us all. You have undermined your own efforts to rule. You shall suffer the consequences, without a single vengeful hand, save your own. You've fucked up.

Never Enough Science TV Department

If you have yet to see it, I strongly urge you to check out The Science Channel's six-part miniseries, Miracle Planet. I realize that documentaries is not everyone's cup of tea, but the information in here is very cutting-edge. I'm utterly amazed at how much more we've learned since my high-school years regarding how Earth was formed and how life came to be. It also drives home the point that life is a lot more durable than we believe, that it has survived catastrophe almost beyond imagining. (The graphics are a bit overdone--in one scene, you can clearly see the Milky Way behind the Earth, while in reality it would be lost in the glare of reflected sunlight off the surface of our planet. But I quibble.)

It got me thinking....

Junk DNA is genetic material which, to the best of our knowledge, serves no immediate function. Some of it is ancient hangovers--legacies from long-extinct ancestors currently suppressed. Some of it appears to be gibberish.

What if junk DNA was intended to be used as a buffer against mutation? I'm not talking about bad sci-fi mutations, like the Mutants from This Planet Earth; nor am I talking about the "Superior Mutant" used by my fellow SubGenii. Mutations in DNA can be fatal if they change the way our bodies produce vital proteins. So if you provide a lot of "junk" in the DNA sequence, your chances of mutations in vital code are greatly diminished.

Surely I wasn't the first to come up with it. Surely not.

I wasn't.

If only I could convince the anti-science faction to take this sort of thing seriously--and, simultaneously, not use life's hardiness as proof that we can safely trash the planet. Life may continue, but we may wipe out almost all life we know in the process. No, thank you.

Never Enough Feedburning Department

If you were subscribed to the Atom feed, try using the Feedburner link instead--you'll like it.

Never Enough Ugly Blog Feeds Department

Many pardons for the state of the Atom feed. Browser woes mixed with my own sadomasochistic browsing methods led to posting issues I've since fixed.

Never Enough Natural Gender Deconstruction Department

The Missing Vagina Monologue--part of the Our Bodies Ourselves website--approaches the transgender/intersexed question from a different angle: What if you were a woman, such as author Esther Morris, born without a vagina? For too many people, their concerns focus around whether this woman can be penetrated, not whether she cares. Questions about gender identity may fill her mind, and she may experience terrible cramping, but none of that seems to matter as long as she can have so-called "normal" sexual relations. (Never mind decades of sex research indicating that "normal" isn't quite as straight-forward as the missionary position with the lights off.)

In one sense, this disorder--Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser Syndrome, or MRKH--has parallels with transsexuality, in that women with gender issues are seeking surgery to "correct" their genitalia. In another sense, women with MRKH are 180 degress from transsexual women; while transsexuals often know from an early age that their gender differs from their body, MRKH women are usually unaware of any incongruity until puberty. In some ways, women with MRKH have similarities closer to being intersexed, whether via chromosonal, gonadal, or hormonal means. Any changes in their gender perception come later, when puberty goes differently than expected. Psychological changes follow the physical. In contrast, for transsexuals, physical changes follow the mental. In both cases, however, we find ourselves wrestling with society's expectations of sex, gender, and sexuality.

It's promising that Our Bodies Ourselves now includes a chapter on gender identity and sexuality, but thanks to the imposition of gender based on a crude check of a baby's crotch at birth, it often feels more like damage control instead of progress.

Never Enough Brain-Throbbing TV Department

I've long thought Harvey Birdman was a sharp, insane mockery-cum-tribute to Hanna Barbara's crappy cartoon heritage, but the first episode of Season 3--which had premiered last Sunday--is perhaps the first one that put me in the mood to make sweet Foghorn-Leghorn weasel noises at Thea. Up until the point that Wally Gator testified while wearing the beer hat. But the scene just before that? YOWZA. That's some fine booty there. I'd throw the shrink-ray in reverse for THAT.

But then I follow it up with a video for Lisa Marie Prestley's cover of the Don Henley song "Dirty Laundry." Damn, she's got her daddy's eyelids--and the high-tops from Katrina and the Waves. Too bad she can't make a song about salaciousness... SALACIOUS. Not even with subliminals, either.

Just sayin'.

Never Enough SubGenius Beach Parties Department

August 21--2 PM til we stagger off blind

Golden Gardens Park
8498 Seaview Pl. NW
Seattle, WA

YOU BRING THE PERSONALITY DISORDERS, I'LL BRING THE CAUSTIC CHEMICAL TANKERS.

Never Enough Long March Bad News Department

In case it is not clear at this point, this year's Long March is a
wash. I strongly doubt that we'll even throw a Short Stroll, although
I still think we should throw a SubGenius Beach Party sometime next month.

For those who sincerely wanted to go, I will be announcing a date
later this year for next year's Long March. We'll have a date well in
advance and worry about logistics later, rather than going the other
way around. I realize that many SubGeniuses have a very rebellious
attitude when it comes to Conspiracy calendars. But Time Control is
not achieved by refusing to be controlled by time. You gotta grab time
by the horns and BLOW BAYBEE BLOW!

Thank you, "Bob," for the lesson, asshole.

Never Enough Patient Explanations of SubGenius Dogma Department

Many of those who stumble across the Church wind up saying, "Oh, it's funny, I guess, but why do they have to sell memberships? In fact, why do they sell so much useless crap anyway?!?" In their careless blasphemy against our holiest relics they miss a fundamental theological point: our prophet and object of idolization was, is, and will always be the Greatest Salesman Ever. It is our sacred duty to sell, and sell we shall. It brings us closer to "Bob" to hawk items that few would buy, seeing if we can develop the power to sell the unsellable.

(The Dogon, a West African tribe better known for their tales of amphibious intelligences from Sirius-B, is also said to have witnessed a slick-haired, pale-skinned man that belched smoke from a reed held in his teeth, who successfully traded a mound of elephant dung to a swarm of tse-tse flies in exhange for all their maggots. When asked by the Dogon why he would do such an incredible act, he reportedly said he had a wager to win, refusing to say any more, but winking and nudging for hours thereafter.)

One day, J. R. "Bob" Dobbs will eventually sell nothing to something, and everything to everything else, achieving universal symmetry in the Beforelife and beyond, and achieving the eternal Oozquirt we all crave so powerfully. And we Superior Mutants are dedicated to being there. In the meantime, like a cargo cult building model planes from crates to honor the flying gods that drop gifts from the heavens, we too must sell in order to bring Dobbs' sales-driven slack into our lives.

Alas, we suck at selling. Oh, we're doing better than expected by the average Normal, but ultimately we're still not exactly taking over the Conspiracy as fast as we hope. YOU HUMANS SHOULD BE SO LUCKY. At least we know and understand Slack, in some measure--and all we truly want is for a world of slack for all. All those who at least sent in a dollar, anyhow. [Updated 7/20/05]