Live from Austin!

Two awesome scientific research studies everyone should disseminate widely:

1. Study #1: “The results of this study indicate that individuals who score in the homophobic range and admit negative affect toward homosexuality demonstrate significant sexual arousal to male homosexual erotic stimuli.” The one-liner: 80% of homophobic males are turned on by gay porn, compared to 34% of non-homophobic males.

2. Study #2: “I found that if you made men more insecure about their masculinity, they displayed more homophobic attitudes, tended to support the Iraq war more and would be more willing to purchase an SUV over another type of vehicle”

I thought these were common knowledge, but a couple of people refused to believe without a link today, so I think the fact-based community needs to do a better job of spreading the news.

Driving back to Austin tonight we almost hit a porcupine.

Q: What’s the difference between a porcupine and an SUV?
A: A porcupine has the pricks on the outside.

The Bush “stimulus” plan includes big tax breaks for people buying SUVs. Yes, you can get an SUV tax free, so long as it weighs over 3 tons [corrected]; dealers report businessmen buying luxury SUVs on their accountants’ advice.

According to market research conducted by car manufacturers, SUV drivers are insecure, vain, self-centered, antisocial, and bad drivers.

“If you have a sport utility, you can have the smoked windows, put the children in the back and pretend you’re still single.”

—David Bostwick, Chrysler’s market research director

Still, on the plus side the occupant death rate is higher in SUVs than in cars. Higher still for really big SUVs. SUV drivers are also much more likely to run over their own offspring.

Unfortunately, SUVs kill five times as many non-SUV-driving people as normal cars do.

Porsche have launched an SUV.

I’ve been invited to test-drive an SUV. As the front of the envelope puts it:

It’s the right of every
American to drive the latest
descendent of the original 4×4.

They’re referring to the Jeep Liberty (sic), a gas-guzzling four ton behemoth that gets 16 miles per gallon. To try to sell it as an “off road” vehicle, they’ve set up a special little course that you can drive it around. Careful perusal of the brochure reveals that the course has a maximum elevation of fifteen feet, which will surely give a nosebleed to the kind of terrified soccer mom who actually drives this kind of vehicle.