Current Biology found the louder the howler monkey, the smaller his testicles.

A University of Utah researcher co-authored a study released Thursday that reveals size does indeed matter — at least when it comes to howler monkey testicles.

Primatologist Leslie Knapp, professor and chair of the university's Department of Anthropology, found that the smaller a howler monkey's testicles are, the deeper and louder his mating calls.

Overcompensating? Perhaps. The monkeys with the deeper howls also had larger hyoid bones, which enable them to have some of the loudest voices in the animal kingdom, an eardrum-busting call that's been compared to a tiger's roar.

They don't "howl" in the way your dog might, though. Instead, their call sounds more like a non-stop belch.

The bill would allow legislative campaign committees and political parties to receive unlimited contributions, with the exception of a $12,000 per year limit on PAC contributions to those committees and parties. The legislation would allow unlimited contributions to be made to and transferred between political action committees. Recall committees and referendum committees could also receive unlimited funds, and unlimited funds could be donated to pay expenses related to a recall or recount. Candidates could also make unlimited personal contributions to their own committee.

The proposal would ban candidates from coordinating with outside groups on express advocacy — calls to vote "for or against" a candidate — but would place no restrictions on coordination on issue advocacy.

In an interesting twist and a brilliant maneuver, each and every Democrat recused themselves from the vote, pointing out that they have a conflict of interest because it would directly affect their own campaign committees. The Republicans were at a loss at having their blatant corruption and greed exposed like that, but not enough so to keep them from passing the bill anyway.

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To deal with that, the Republicans are also set to dismantle the Government Accountability Board (GAB), a nonpartisan panel of former judges that investigate campaign finance and ethics violations. The Republicans want to replace the GAB with two partisan panels - one for campaign finance violations and one for ethics violations - each consisting of three Republicans and three Democrats. This will leave the committees at stalemates on almost every issue.

Scuba--

You need to know what's happening in Wisconsin right now:

As we speak, Republicans in the state legislature are fast-tracking Assembly Bill 387, a bill that would roll back the clean government and campaign finance protections in Wisconsin as we know them.

This dangerous legislation was secretly drafted, rushed through the legislature, and is on the verge of passing this afternoon with little opportunity for Wisconsinites to weigh in. It's a partisan attempt to dismantle our state's proud history of non-partisan Democratic traditions -- and Wisconsinites deserve better than this type of cynical gamesmanship.

We must make our voices heard, before it's too late: Share the post on Facebook with your friends and family.

Wisconsin citizens and the proud history of our state's non-partisan democratic traditions deserve better than this cynical gamesmanship. Share on Facebook »



Here's what you need to know about Assembly Bill 387:

The bill allows unlimited corporate donations to political parties and legislative committees.

The bill allows an individual or corporation to anonymously spend an unlimited amount of money for or against a state or local candidate. As long as the expenditure is outside of the 60-day window before an election, the individual would not be required to report any of their activities or even disclose who paid for the activity. Within the window an individual or corporation could spend up to $4,999.99 anonymously.

The bill allows a political action committee (PAC) or independent expenditure committee (IEC) to anonymously spend money for or against a state or local candidate. As long as the expenditure is less than 50% of the total budget for the organization, the PAC or IEC would not be required to report any of their activities or even disclose who paid for the activity.1

This kind of legislation is irresponsible and reckless. It benefits corporations and special interests at the expense of hard-working Wisconsin families -- and gives multi-millionaires and billionaires even more access to our political process.

Time and again, the Wisconsin GOP has passed dangerous legislation like this. It's the current reality in a Wisconsin governed by Scott Walker. And you can bet that my likely opponent Senator Ron Johnson supports unlimited corporate money in politics.

Enough is enough.

Share my post on Facebook with your friends and family -- we need to spread the word about Scott Walker and the Republican legislature's mission to put an end to Wisconsin's proud history of clean and fair elections.

With your help, we can take Wisconsin back from the special interests, millionaires, billionaires, and corporations. Thank you for standing with me.

Sincerely,

Russ Feingold

As encouraging as these thoughtful challenges were, I was troubled by Clinton's hollow responses and the fact that they went unchallenged by the mainstream media. For example, she dismissed the charge that she had failed to demonstrate good judgment in Iraq, glibly suggesting that when Obama appointed her as Secretary of State, he had, in effect, absolved her of bad judgment. She defended her role in Libya calling it "smart power at its best" and claiming that it resulted in "free elections" in which "moderates" won with the hope of creating a democracy - ignoring the chaos and bloody conflict that soon followed. She also made the evidence-free claim that using military force to create no-fly "safe zones" in Syria would "get the Russians to the table" and would not, as critics charge, simply be pouring more gasoline on the Syrian fire.

The Democratic debate was a good start and I can hope for more, but fear that more may not come for three reasons. It will not come from Republicans, since party has become captive of neo-conservatives and the Evangelical right. These movements have substituted facts with ideology. They see the world through a primitive lens of good and evil and have replaced diplomacy with the simplistic use of force. Added to this, too many Republicans have become xenophobic, demonizing Arabs and Muslims, in addition to Hispanics. Today's GOP is not the party of George HW Bush and James Baker.

But Democrats also have a problem. For too long its political leaders have ignored dealing with the uncomfortable complexities of the Middle East because it simply didn't serve any political advantage to know about Arabs and Muslims. All they had to know was that we had an "unbreakable bond with Israel". Seeing the Arab World through this lens led too many politicians to either remain ignorant of Middle East realities or, if they did know, to shy away from elevating these issues into the national debate. As a result, Democrats can debate the use of military force, but are either uncomfortable with or averse to questioning Israeli policies or the treatment of Palestinians, or discussing the political dynamics that shape Arab political realities, or identifying the root causes of conflict in Syria or Iraq.

Finally there is the role played by the media and their paid commentators who are all too often mere purveyors of conventional wisdom. Because they frequently know less than the candidates they are covering, they are ill equipped to challenge them or to report on their dangerous and/or trite responses to critical foreign policy questions. As a result, while I'm pleased that we are seeing at least Democrats having a substantive discussion on the use of force in Middle East conflicts, it’s still not the serious and comprehensive discussion about US policy in the Middle East we so desperately need.

Republicans have forced Hillary Clinton release all the emails from her time as Secretary of State in the hopes that somewhere in amongst them might be something they could turn into a scandal and derail her campaign for President. That never materialized, as her emails have been mundane. But it turns out she inherited emails from her predecessor Colin Powell. And that email trail reveals that George W. Bush committed treason.

The secret emails in question date back to 2002. Colin Powell and George W. Bush are shown to have been conspiring to work with British Prime Minister Tony Blair to mislead the American public into believing that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, as a pretense for tricking the nation into supporting an invasion of Iraq. It’s been long established that there never were any such weapons in Iraq, but to some extent the Bush administration had the deniability of claiming that it had made an error. However this email trail suggests that Bush, Powell and Blair spent an entire year laying the groundwork for deceiving the public. Lying to congress in order to get it to approve a war is considered treason.

Whether or not the email trail is solid enough evidence to get anyone convicted of a crime, it’s certainly enough to lead Americans to conclude that the Iraq war was even more of a sham than previously believed. This email exchange might never have surfaced if not for the fact that the republican party forced Hillary Clinton to turn over everything she had. So while the republicans have failed to do any serious damage to Clinton’s chances, they may have just made it that much harder for any 2016 republican candidate to explain away their party’s culpability in Iraq.

Madison — Milwaukee Bucks center-forward John Henson said Monday in an Instagram post that he was the victim of racial profiling at a Whitefish Bay jewelry store.

Schwanke-Kasten Jewelers president Tom Dixon released a statement Monday night expressing his regret over how the incident unfolded. The Whitefish Bay Police Department also released a statement to explain why officers were watching the area around the store and what happened Monday.

Henson detailed on Instagram how he was denied access to the jewelry store at 417 E. Silver Spring Drive when he went to buy a Rolex watch.

He posted this on his account:

Went to @schwankekasten jewelry today in White-Fish Bay during regular business hours . They locked the door and told me to go away . After I rang the doorbell twice everyone went to the back. No answered the door or told me what was going on. This was followed by two police cars pulling up and parking across the street and watching me for 5 minutes ( I assumed they were called by the store ) . I was then approached by 2 officers and questioned about the dealer vehicle I was in which is apart of my endorsement deal with Kunes country Chevrolet and asked me what I wanted amongst other things that were just irrelevant to me being there just trying to shop at the store like a normal paying customer would do . I told them I was just trying to look at a watch. He then had to go in the back and tell them to come out it was safe but this is after they ran my plates and I overheard them talking about doing more of a background check on the car. The employees finally came out of the back and proceeded to conduct business like they previously were as we walked up . This was one of the the most degrading and racially prejudice things I've ever experienced in life and wouldn't wish this on anyone . This store needs to be called out and that's what I'm doing . You have no right to profile someone because of their race and nationality and this incident needs to be brought to light and I urge anyone who ever is thinking of shopping here reads this and doesn't bring any business to this discriminatory place .

Apparently there are no limits to Scott Walker’s tendencies towards cronyism & nepotism.

Gov. Scott Walker’s two college-aged sons were paid about $1,500 a month to campaign for their dad during his brief run for president.

Walker’s campaign finance report filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission shows that both Matt and Alex were paid roughly $1,500 a month by the campaign.

The report shows Alex Walker was paid $4,819 between June 30 and September and Matt Walker was paid $4,824.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker raised $7.4 million for his short-lived presidential bid but spent his cash as quickly as it came in, leaving the campaign with a debt of at least $1 million once all the bills roll in, according to sources and a report filed with federal elections officials Thursday.

As of the end of last month, the campaign had spent $6.4 million, with more unpaid bills still showing up. The campaign burned through about $90,000 a day without even running major broadcast ads, doing so months before the first votes are cast. The full extent of the deficit may not be revealed until the campaign files its next report with the Federal Election Commission in January. Sources familiar with the campaign's situation said it will take many months to pay off the more than $1 million debt and described it as a "campaign nightmare."

The figures provide perspective on the challenges and missteps that undid the state's first major presidential candidate in generations and on a debt that could serve as a drag on Walker's political prospects going forward. He dropped out of the race on Sept. 21, unable to sustain financially a candidacy that had soared early but then plummeted.

Contributions to Walker's campaign peaked in July with $2.4 million, but dropped by 50% in August, the month when he was deemed to have given a tepid performance in the first GOP debate. Donations dropped even further in September, but spending stayed strong. The governor's campaign manager made more than $50,000 for 71 days of work, while Walker's sons, Matt and Alex, drew nearly $10,000 in salary between them over those 10 weeks.