Sleepless in Midland

Choose from six different gender classifications

There was a time when a simple question on a form asking what's your sex had two choices, male or female. I'm so old I can remember a time when the thought of a third option -- "Other" -- would have consumed an entire Johnny Carson monologue.

Not now. For one, the word "sex" is a verb, and your sex classification is now "gender." But that's old news. See California college will now ask students to pick from 6 genders. Excerpt:

The new form will ask students to pick one gender from six different choices. Prospective students will be asked to choose between male, female, trans male, trans female, gender queer/gender non-conforming and different identity.

What I wonder is this: If you change your mind, can you change your selection or are you stuck with the first choice? That would be important to an applicant tempted to fudge on the form to gain an edge on acceptance to the school.

Meanwhile, I'm nostalgic for "Other."

Ashley Madison -- the net's No-Tell-Motel -- had an unwelcome guest

I thought the Ashley Madison website was either a scam or a porn site. Turns out it was both now that their secrets have been purloined and they're facing blackmail threats. See Online Cheating Site AshleyMadison Hacked.

Anyone who suspects that just about anything put online can eventually be hacked -- from baby pics to government held medical information -- got some more confirmation they maybe they aren't just paranoid. Maybe someone really can get to the information.

The clincher is the claim by the hackers that the site didn't fulfill its promise to customers that they could delete their information. To wit:

According to the hackers, although the “full delete” feature that Ashley Madison advertises promises “removal of site usage history and personally identifiable information from the site,” users’ purchase details — including real name and address — aren’t actually scrubbed.

“Full Delete netted ALM $1.7mm in revenue in 2014. It’s also a complete lie,” the hacking group wrote. “Users almost always pay with credit card; their purchase details are not removed as promised, and include real name and address, which is of course the most important information the users want removed.”

Hmmm. I have this image of the guy signing up for the Ashley Madison. He's George Castanza pretending to be married to better his chances of getting lucky.

Meanwhile, ijreview.com has a sampling of some tweeted responses. The best:

Dear Ashley Madison, 37 million people now know what it feels like to be betrayed by someone they trusted, how ironic.

Kenyans hope to teach Obama about the birds and bees

This came by way of Canada Free Press. It's a news item in Premium Times.

Apparently, members of Kenya’s Republican Liberty Party plan a rally with nude demonstrators for the educational benefit of Barack Obama when he visits there. Here's an excerpt from Kenya gears for mass nude protest against Obama’s “aggressive” gay stance:

Kenya’s Republican Liberty Party has notified of its intention to mobilise 5,000 men and women to protest naked against President Barack Obama’s “aggressive support for homosexuality”.

The party said it has already notified the authorities of the protest scheduled to hold on July 22 and 23, coinciding with the U.S. president’s visit to Kenya.

Vincent Kidala, the party’s leader, wrote to the Police on Monday to notify the authorities of the planned protest march from Nairobi’s Freedom Corner to the streets of the capital.

He said the protest would involve “totally naked men and women” to “demonstrate the difference between men and women.

“The procession shall be carried out by approximately 5,000 totally naked men and women to protest the President Barack Obama’s open and aggressive support for Homosexuality.

“The party’s main objective is for him to understand the difference between a man and a woman,” he said in the letter to the Police. ...

A White House Spokesperson, Joshua Earnest, said last week the U.S. President planned to address the issue of gay rights and the need to protect gay rights during the visit to Kenya.

Kenyan religious leaders have stepped up a campaign to urge Obama to drop the gay rights subject matter.

Oh, those imperialist Americans, always trying to foist their way of life on foreigners. If the target of this demonstration had been George W. Bush the msm would be all over it.

Anthony Kennedy's lonely heart's club band

There is a character who appears frequently on a TV commercial. He's the smarmy old guy who consoles the attractive but lonely damsel. She has had such bad luck finding a decent man. Sigh. If only she would join his dating site she could find Mr. Right. I couldn't help think of that commercial after seeing this quote in a blog:

Marriage responds to the universal fear that a lonely person might call out only to find no one there.

That wasn't a dating club commercial. That was Anthony Kennedy in the gay marriage case (Obergefell v. Hodges). Who knew the constitution covered that? Our founding fathers have probably spun over in their graves so many times they've drilled horizontal wells into the next county.

In any event, Kennedy's judicial assessment of the lovelorn is a rather remarkable observation, especially now that marriage rates seem to be declining and out of wedlock births seem to be increasing.

Maybe he should start a Dear Anthony advice column to stave off the next big movement: an onslaught of gay divorces.

Meanwhile, how about those of us who wake up in the night, don't want to cuddle, don't call out, just want to go back to sleep, but can't? Got anything for us, Doc Kennedy?

P.S. I don't mean to be to tough on the whole issue. There must be millions of people out there whose lives are hollow without the right to marry someone of the same sex. Now, as a famous guy keeps telling us about another issue, it's the law of the land. Besides, it's a universal truth that when that old love bug bites, there's just nothing you can do about it.

Tips for guys and gals on the singles scene

This is going to be a departure for Sleepless in Midland, but since diversity is supposed to be of such social importance, we're all in. Herewith are some tidbits that may be useful for singles.

First off, the odds aren't in your favor:

The mathematical chance of meeting your soul mate is one in 10,000.

But maybe time factors may be useful:

Women look their oldest every Wednesday at 3:30pm.

However:

Sleep deprived men think women are more amorous than they actually are.

A sleep deprived guy meets a woman at 3:30pm. MATCH!

But be careful how you say that:

Women really are satisfied by deep, husky voices.

Heck, it's a jungle out there. Maybe the social networks are better. But,

Using "don't" and "won't" correctly in online dating messages boosts response rates by more than a third.

Hmm. Good luck out there. We hope this helps in the dating arena, although the word "date" may have slipped out of the hook up lexicon. Anyway, all of these factoids came from a BBC article titled 100 things we didn't know last year.

Antibiotic makes men more cautious around attractive but untrustworthy women

The headlines about this were a little bit misleading. For example, DailyCaller.com titled their report Antibiotic makes men immune to womanly wiles. Actually, the study suggested that the antibiotic made men a little bit more rational around an attractive woman, not necessarily immune. And the woman's wiles didn't come into play at all, only her appearance.

Here's how it happened. The experimenters selected around a hundred men and eight women who were each given money to play the game. The graphic on the right shows how it worked. The women were photographed, and only their photos were shown to the men. Each man could choose to keep the money at which point his game would end. Or he could give the money to the woman whose photo was shown to him, and if he did, the sum given to her would triple. She would then have two choices. She could betray and keep all the money or cooperate and split the money with the guy. Unsurprisingly, the men offered the money to the pretty women more often than to the not-so-pretty women. Interestingly, and perhaps this deserved a study of its own, each of the women decided in advance to betray the guy and keep all the money herself.

The men were put on a four day oral treatment of either the antibiotic minocycline or a placebo. And the result of the study -- see thumbnail on the right -- suggests that the men on the antibiotic were a little bit less trusting of the women's generosity, and more of them got to take home some money.

The report describes how the authors think the drug works on the brain. But here's the money quote -- "This study demonstrated that minocycline is the first drug shown to reduce the honey trap effect on young males." Read the whole thing at Minocycline, a microglial inhibitor, reduces ‘honey trap’ risk in human economic exchange.

Post script: You know, if minocycline had been a component in James Bond's travel kit the stories would have been a lot less interesting.

Post post script: Maybe the DNC should slip some in the drinks of Anthony Weiner, Eliot Spitzer, Bill Clinton, et al. [You just couldn't resist rubbing it in, could you? -- Robo-ed.]  [No,  I wouldn't want to touch those guys with a ten foot pole much less rub something into them. -- Sleepless.]

Now this is creepy -- positive pregnancy test results for sale on Craigslist

The image you see below came from the humor site thechive.com, and it appears to be a Craigslist ad for a positive pregnancy test results for $25.

I thought surely it must be fake and checked Craigslist for Buffalo to be sure. The ad says it was posted on 5/8/2013, so if it was real, that particular ad is no longer there.

However, the seller was onto something. Apparently, there's a market for positive pregnancy test results, at least if Craigslist postings are any indication. Go to Craigslist.org and pick any large city, search for "pregnancy test" and odds you'll find some.

The one below comes from Central New Jersey and gives credit for the idea to "The lady in Buffalo."

The next one from Dallas/mid cities purports to be from the father who is simply trying to raise "a few extra bucks for the baby."

Baby needs a new pair of shoes!

One thing most of them have in common is that they say they don't care what the buyer plans to do with it and won't ask question.

So why would someone want a positive pregnancy test? This prospective buyer from Dallas admits right up front that she wants to get even with some guy. Just what her plan entails isn't disclosed, but at least she's not seeking a hit man, in this ad, anyway.

Could it be that the buyers of these tests are females hoping to a extract a marriage proposal under false pretenses? Stranger things have happened. Women were once called "the fair sex." They didn't like that very much, so maybe "the unfair sex" might be a better fit.

Related: Prolific blogger Glenn Reynolds has a running theme about the #WARONMEN with some cautionary tales for young men on the dating scene.

Aside: One has to imagine modern boy scouts sitting around the camp fire telling scary stories, not about the ax murderer, but marriage entrapment. OK, maybe throw in a story or two about Lorena Bobbitt and her ilk before the fire goes out.

Unbelievable if true -- Wife tried to frame husband for ricin letters

What a stunning case. It's detailed at GMA Yahoo, to wit:

Shannon Richardson, 35, initially called the FBI claiming that her husband was the person who had sent a series of letters tainted with small amounts of the toxin ricin to Obama, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Bloomberg's top gun-control lobbyist in Washington in late May.

But when investigators looked closer, they arrested Shannon Richardson June 7 at the couple's home in New Boston, Texas. The actress who played bit roles in movies and on TV shows, including the "Walking Dead," was charged with mailing a threatening communication to the president. She could face 10 years in federal prison if found guilty.

Investigators tripped her up in the interrogation, and apparently she confessed after a polygraph test. If all this is true, she wasn't as good an actress as she thought she was.

As for any larger lesson, is it any wonder that young men are shunning marriage these days?

On the other hand, it will be a giant step forward gender equality when the number of females in prison equals the number of males.

Oh yeah, happy father's day. And watch out for white powdery substances.