Sheep, or Lemmings?

Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf have a brew after a hard day's work in the fields.

Sam (blows the head off the beer, and the hair out of his eyes): Well, that was the damnedest thing I ever saw.

Ralph: No kidding. I never, ever, thought that would happen.

Sam: How'd ya do it?

Ralph: I just put on that old sheep suit. You know the one. I've worn it before.

Sam: I remember.

Ralph: Anyway, I was gonna try to sneak in and grab a sheep. Nothing fancy.

Sam: You know that never works. I always see ya.

Ralph: I know that, but I figured maybe you wouldn't expect it again. Besides, Acme was back ordered on my original idea.

Sam: Which was?

Ralph: Nice try. You'll just have to wait. Anyway, I decided to try a new angle. The cliff's right there, so I figured I'd climb up rather than try to sneak in from one of the usual ways.

Sam: Good thought. I'll have to keep that in mind.

Ralph: Nah. Turns out it's a huge pain in the haunch. By the time I got to the top, I was panting like a St. Bernard in the tropics. I wasn't watching where I was going, and stepped on a sheep patty.

Sam: Damn, I hate it when I do that.

Ralph: No kidding. Anyway, I slipped, and next thing I know I'm falling back over the edge. Fortunately, there was a branch there that I was able to grab.

Sam: I thought I cut that off the last time you were hanging over there.

Ralph: It grew back. So, I'm hanging there, thanking my lucky stars, when a sheep goes flying by me. And then another, and another. They just kept coming. Soon, there was the biggest pile of dead sheep I'd ever seen below me, so I just let go, and aimed for all the wool. Softest landing I ever had.

Sam: It was bound to happen. Sheep follow. One of them sees another sheep going over the cliff, and decides that looks like a good idea, and does the exact same thing. Next thing ya know, they're all doing it. They're like TV networks that way.

Ralph: Ain't it the truth. (glances at watch) Well, I've gotta go. Me and a bunch of friends are gonna have a barbeque down by the beach. Hey, why don't you drop on by. We're doing zouvlaki.

Sam: Nah, I can't, Besides, it wouldn't be right.

Ralph: Okay then. Night, Sam.

Sam: Night, Ralph.

Hee!

I'd comm that, but I'm lazy

I suddenly got an image of Clovis taking over the Supreme Court.

He'd really like that.

If you could go anywhere in the world this weekend, where would you go?

I still want to go to that crazy hotel in Dubai they went to on The Amazing Race. And considering it's 62 and rainy here, the desert sounds pretty good for the weekend. And thanks to their sponsorship of local public radio, I know I can fly nonstop on Emirates Air!

There was an op-ed in the N.Y Times about who the most "activist" Supreme court judges are [link] by seeing who has struck down congressional action the most.

If you could go anywhere in the world this weekend, where would you go?

Mustique. And I probably wouldn't come back.

If you could go anywhere in the world this weekend, where would you go?

Medeival Times.

Or Paris.

These findings provide evidence that the ultimate goal of the visual system is not simply to construct internally an exact reproduction of the external world, Meister and his colleagues write in Nature. Rather, the system seeks to extract from the onslaught of raw visual information the few bits of data that are relevant to behavior. This entails the discarding of signals that are less useful, and dynamic retinal adaptation provides a means of stripping from the visual stream predictable and therefore less newsworthy signals.

That sounds pretty similar to the way the rest of the nervous system works-- you might be aware of the feeling of putting your pants on, but you don't have to deal with a barrage of "you're wearing your pants. You're wearing pants. You have pants on. Linen pants." all day from your legs.

eta context, because I am unaware of the passage of time

Thanks bon bon. Now I'm hyper-aware of my pants.