#4 was what Walt called a weenie. "You've got to have a weenie at the end of the street," he said.

Some people do. Not everyone does. Your children are not necessarily Wonderful Things to anybody but you. In fact, lots of people think they're irritating, ugly, and unappealing.

Gross.

God, what is it with all the pro-baby stuff on boingboing lately? Is it because Cory just sprogged?

For those of you who are wondering what the plural of octopus is, it's "octopodes." Greek root, you see. "Octopuses" is also acceptable.

I'm not sure how it is at Disneyland, but at WDW, the points system is more complex than the article described. There's a matrix, which allows you to have a certain number of points in a time period, and points do go away after a certain amount of time. They're only cumulative up to a point.

At WDW, you get half a point for clocking in late, up to two hours. If you're more than two hours late, you get a whole point. It used to be that you could call in sick three days in a row and only get one point (on the assumption that you are actually sick), but I'm not sure if it's still like that.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program is not keen on the consumption of shark meat. Shark populations are declining worldwide, and part of the problem is that sharks are part of the "bycatch," ie, the unwanted stuff that gets thrown back.

The only shark species on the Seafood Watch's approved list is the spiny dogfish, only when it is caught in British Columbia. Even then, it's only a "good alternative," not a "best choice."

They wanted to see the movie because a) it's probably quite funny, although unintentionally, and b) because they're both in it. The producers of "Expelled," which is supposedly a documentary, managed to interview both PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins under false pretenses. So, yes, Myers was banned from seeing a movie that he is in.

And really, Dawkins protesting a movie of this little stature would give it far more credibility than it deserves.

It doesn't say what happened to the ray, although from the pictures I would guess it stayed on the boat and died. I hope that's not true.

Oh my god, Cory. You have breeder brain.

What do you mean, "too much"?

Teresa, how is that *not* just posing with tools? In the shirt, she's standing with the hammer. Not using it. Posing. I don't see how you've refuted my statement at all.

As for political persuasion and Coop's sensibilities, I'm not familiar with anything else he's done. I am going solely by this image, and what this image says to me is that it is another in a long, long line of representing women as objects of the male gaze. It's not that cheesecake art is inherently problematic; it's the social context that makes it so. (Also, you can be perfectly enlightened and still create sexist art. That doesn't make it less sexist.)

I find it hard to believe that Coop, as a skilled illustrator, couldn't just as well have had her use the jackhammer.

Okay, so here's another thing that bugs me about the design: Jackhammer Jill isn't jackhammering. She's posing. The real JJ in the logo is actually using her hammer, whereas this new one isn't doing anything other than looking cute.

This wouldn't be even worth noting except that it's yet another instance in a long, long line of images of women doing nothing but posing. Look at the history of advertising, and contrast the images of women with those of men: often, you see women posing or being looked at, while the men are more active and engaged.

I think it would be a much cooler design if Jill were actually using that jackhammer, like she does in the logo.

What's up with the women's shirts being $1 more? It was lame when drycleaners charged more for women's clothing, it's lame when simple haircuts cost more, and it's lame when boingboing does it. One would think you'd be a little more enlightened.

The problem I have with the laptop is an assumption of the type made by Davex, above: that any given child will make the most out of the laptop of its own free will. Most children won't; most don't have that kind of self-direction. The One Laptop per Child program doesn't include any kind of teacher training, as far as I know, and that's where it falls down. You can't just give kids these laptops and expect them to "reach for something greater" entirely on their own. Similarly, you don't see very many kids making use of a library to fill their educational needs; kids like that exist, sure, but they're very rare.

I think a vastly more useful program would be One Laptop per Teacher.