By CHRIS PACKHAM
Sit, Aibo: If there's any residual doubt in your mind that you, like everyone else, are nothing but a meat robot responding to subconscious scripts and preprogrammed biological directives, then throw this on the teetering pile of evidence that scientists call Mount Pavlov: 
Loud music in bars causes people to drink more than they would have in the first place. This study was conducted in London, where hoodie-wearing chavs drink Guinness in pubs while planning to steal Cousin Avi's diamond, but it could probably be applied to you, your parents, your friends and everyone you've ever met in the long, basically unbroken sequence of conditioned responses you call your "life." I realize it's comforting to think of yourself as a special snowflake, a unique entity with operative free will. Sorry for the bad news. It basically all comes down to fingerprints, at this point. On the bright side, I've now relinquished all responsibility for my actions, since the impulses that drive even seemingly deliberate behaviors are hard-wired in my genes and amygdala. Look out, ladies!
After the jump, a meditative contemplation of Iowa Republicans, women's underwear, and some facts about small businesses in Kansas City that will chill you to the bone. Click here, or push the button we've installed on the nose of Nobel Prize-winning roboticist and dog owner Ivan Pavlov:
Small businesses switching to oxen: Gas prices don't hit anybody harder than a small-business owner, unless it's someone in a gasoline-powered iron lung. That person would would really be feeling the pinch, which is why we need to regulate the kickbacks doctors receive from petroleum companies. The Kansas City Star skirts that whole issue in this story and focuses on the ways in which area business owners are adapting to the economic environment, as if it isn't hard enough just running a small business in Kansas City. If you have the bad luck to suddenly own a small business in Kansas City, the important thing is not to panic. Look around: Are there any nearby exits? Move calmly toward the exit, grabbing any valuable assets you can carry along the way. You're going to need to sell them in order to feed your family during the lengthy bankruptcy process. God help you if you have a liquor license, because if you're not a gigantic corporate behemoth, Liquor Control hates you — literally, they hate you, and they will find a way to destroy you. Trust me on this: I used to tend bar. That was years ago — I haven't had a valid liquor card since 2006, and sometimes I still see those people parked outside my house.
They eat their own: Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, a reliably strict-constructionist, anti-abortion, gun-rights advocate who has been bringing home the crispy bacon of right-wing tax-cutting orthodoxy since 1980, has been denied his position as a voting delegate at the Republican National Convention for not being right-wingy enough. Forgive my unfamiliarity with Republican Party convention rules, and also don't hate me because I'm beautiful, and excuse our dust while we remodel, and pardon my French, but fuck! They can do that? According to Talking Points Memo, the Iowa Christian Alliance, which has taken over the Iowa Republican Party's executive committee, is unhappy with Grassley for — well, for whatever it is Christians get their sexy low-rise boy-shorts in a bundle over. Also, the boy-shorts have a matching camisole. It turns out that the group may be angry with Grassley for teaming up with Montana Democrat Max Baucus to investigate the finances of televangelists, a pompadoured constituency much favored by Iowa's panty-wearing state Republican Party executive committee.
First!
Posted at: July 22, 2008 10:55 AM