Non Sequitur’s Danae (a kindred spirit) on baboons and booger-brains …

And it’s a deliciously satirical (but painful) reminder of our last Presidential “election” …

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Related …

Legendary designer Yves Saint Laurent dies at 71

Yves Saint Laurent, Fashion Icon, Dies at 71

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h/t SwiftKids For Truth

Happily, in these cases of “deception,” wasps don’t “panic” and orchidphobic violence is not a result …

Orchids that mimic female wasps may not only waste the time of the male wasps they lure into spreading their pollen — they also seduce them into wasting valuable sperm, Australian researchers reported on Wednesday.

And the flowers benefit twice — getting help in their own reproduction, and perhaps indirectly producing more male pollinators in the process.

Some of the most exotic orchids are known to have evolved their convoluted shapes to attract insects, who unwittingly collect and transfer pollen as they try to mate with the flowers.

“The effect of deception on pollinators has been considered negligible, but we show that pollinators may suffer considerable costs,” Anne Gaskett of Macquarie University in Sydney and colleagues reported.

“Insects pollinating Australian tongue orchids (Cryptostylis species) frequently ejaculate and waste copious sperm,” they wrote in a report in The American Naturalist.

It is not harmless to the wasps, who may suffer more than an inconvenience. “Male pollinators can prefer orchids to real females, prematurely end a copulation with a real female to visit an orchid, or be unable to find real female mates among false orchid signals,” the researchers wrote.

“Unquestionably, producing sperm, ejaculate, or seminal fluids is costly for many animals. The energetic demands of sperm production can result in reduced body mass, a shortened life span, or limited lifetime sperm production,” they added.

But this arms race of sexual trickery works in more than one way for the flower. “We also show that orchid species provoking such extreme pollinator behavior have the highest pollination success,” they added.

“How can deception persist, given the costs to pollinators?”

They found that the wasps who frequent these flowers are haplodiploid species. Like bees, ants and similar species, offspring produced by sexual unions are female, while females can also produce males asexually.

“Therefore, female insects deprived of matings by orchid deception could still produce male offspring, which may even enhance orchid pollination,” the researchers wrote.

Gaskett’s team examined flowers after wasps visited them and found the hoodwinked males did eventually learn their lesson.

“With experience, male Lissopimpla excelsa wasps become less likely to copulate with and pollinate sexually deceptive Cryptostylis orchids,” they wrote.

Sexy orchids do more than embarrass wasps?

The orchid, by the way, gets its name from the Greek όρχις orchis, meaning “testicle.”

From a Reuters news report earlier this week concerning “penis theft panic” in the Democratic Republic of Congo …

Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men’s penises … Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear …

Though it doesn’t sound like the locals were exactly rhapsodizing like this about “the magic touch” …

… and though the Congo may not be quite ready yet to challenge Thailand’s title, the authorities there need to catch on to their “chop-less” advantage and the rich possibilities in medical tourism and more affordable medical care for GID sufferers in these difficult economic times.

No doubt we need Pres. Bush back in Africa for a lengthy discussion of these health care issues with the Congolese.

No, I’m not making a comment there about the overwhelming majority of Americans who no longer support President Bush or his chosen course of action regarding Iraq. (But, with relatively so few Americans serving in this military “mission,” with no pay-as-you-go tax increases to pay for it, and with the — until recently — feel-good, housing-boom economy … I suppose that it was easy to give Bush and company a free ride … kind of like Tony Blair here … but us commoners’ indignation can swell when things go sour, no doubt, as evidenced by those polls.)

No, what I was referring to was this item in Variety today …

Economists are citing some dire portents of a recession these days, but they’ve missed one indicator I find especially disturbing: The porn business has suddenly gone flaccid.

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At a time when “gonzo” is fading, “limp” is in. What does that say about the mood of the country?

It means (for a while at least … as those poll numbers suggest) the country’s ready to take a new (with no comment about the remaining U.S. presidential aspirants intended), “limp” direction.

Darnit, I never should have shorted that stuff … …

This is from Randall Forsyth’s UP AND DOWN WALL STREET DAILY column (“No Market For Young Men“) in Barron’s yesterday …

ALAN GREENSPAN IS OFF THE HOOK. The biggest bubble in history was not inflated by the Federal Reserve pushing interest rates too low for too long, science has proven conclusively.

No, the boom can be traced to raging testosterone levels of traders on Wall Street and the City of London, according to the results of a new study. And the current bust may be the result of swings in another hormone, cortisol, which is associated with stress.

Those are the findings of a study of hormone levels of City traders by John Coates and Joe Herman of Cambridge University and published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Monday. Coates also has additional insight in the matter, having previously run a trading desk for Deutsche Bank, according to the Financial Times, which reported on the research Tuesday.

“Steroids such as testosterone and cortisol affect our moods, memories and behavior,” Coates wrote in the FT. Testosterone levels rise when males prepare to compete, and increase further in the winner, but fall in the loseWeight Exerciser. Higher testosterone levels are associated with greater risk-taking and confidence; winners experience a positive feedback loop of higher testosterone begetting more confidence, Coates explains.

The Cambridge researchers monitored hormone levels in 17 London traders and found those with the higher testosterone levels in the morning made more money that day. Indeed, testosterone “is likely to rise in a bubble and, by increasing risk-taking, exaggerate the market’s upward movement,” they posit.

But, not surprisingly, that can go too far, as the last year or so has amply demonstrated. “Effective risk taking turns into dangerous behavior,” other studies show, they add.

When the markets go against these Big Swinging Dicks — as Michael Lewis called them in “Liar’s Poker,” his classic recounting of the trading floor culture of what was perhaps the most macho firm at the time, Salomon Brothers — they experience a hormone swing.

Cortisol, which has the opposite effect, increases with stress and lowers confidence. “Cortisol is likely to rise in a market crash and, by increasing risk aversion, to exaggerate the market’s downswing,” the Cambridge researchers say.

“In the present credit crisis, traders may feel the noxious effects of chronic cortisol exposure and end up in a psychological state known as ‘learned helplessness’,” they contend. “If this happens, central banks may lower interest rates only to find that traders still refuse to buy risky assets.” In other words, they may be pushing on rather limp string.

All this squares with experience of a top woman portfolio manager, who says her research in brain chemistry finds that men are more prone to hormonal mood swings than women. Men go through testosterone cycles every two weeks, making their swings twice as frequent as a woman’s, she points out. Incredibly, she relates, questions about dealing with her monthly cycle were a big deal for some prospective investors when she was launching her fund.

The real difference between male and female traders, she continues, is that men react to every economic number or report to play a short-term swing. “It’s almost like video games,” she says, breeding an addictive behavior.

Her experience finds women tend to be more contemplative and less eager to jump on every number for a play. Yet, despite the advances made by women in other fields, her impression is that there are fewer female traders and portfolio managers than, say, in 1980, though she adds there are more women in institutional sales on Wall Street.

Coates and Herman suggest that more women on trading desks would temper the irrational exuberance and inevitable crashes. Older men might also help dampen the swings. As pilots are wont to say, “There are old pilots and there are bold pilots. But there are no old, bold pilots.”

Diversity on trading desks would help dampen those testosterone-fueled swings, this female PM says, and it’s something she’s practiced. Gender alone can’t explain her fund’s success, which has produced steady, market-beating returns, even in the first quarter, when it scored double digits while the markets were sucking wind. The key, she says, is a personality type that can deal with failure and get on with it.

That has nothing to do with a Y-chromosome. As Kipling wrote:

“If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And loseWeight Exercise, and start again at your beginnings

And never breath a word about your loss…

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And — which is more — you’ll be a Man, my son!”