Change Detected in Conservative Brain

Researchers at the Center for Neuro-Acoustical Science in Scarsdale, New York announced today that they have detected a dramatic shift in the conservative mind.

Explained the Center’s Director Dr. William Raybould, “In years past when we have exposed subjects with a conservative frame of mind to a battery of inconvenient truths, our highly sensitive sound equipment has consistently picked up from areas of the brain associated with the subconscious a repeated intonation at a frequency consistent with if not identical to that of the la la la la la uttered to protect oneself from information running counter to one’s world view.

“Whether the truths in question have come from the realms of science, politics, economics, or even athletic performance or geography, the conservative responses have not varied by more than a hertz or two in either direction.”

Added lead researcher Dr. Hilary Reid, “Certainly the la la la’s have gotten louder over the years as our long-term participants have been repeatedly subjected to such bits of information as the truths that money sent upward to rich people does not trickle down or that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 or that the world is more than 6,000 years old. The la la la’s can get very loud in response to the truth that blatant and widespread electronic voting fraud gave Ohio to Republicans in 2004 and that Condoleezza Rice is a war criminal.

“But up until recently these la la la’s, however loud, have remained exclusively in the domain of the subconscious.  Suddenly, however, not only are the sounds we’re picking up not the la la la’s of yesteryear, but they’re also clearly emanating from a space in the conservative brain known to be associated with conscious thought.”

“Subject after subject,” explained Dr. Raybould, “when exposed to the truth, for instance, that Barack Obama is not a Muslim or that there is no good explanation for why Karl Rove is not behind bars or that Paul Ryan is a pathological liar, is now emitting a very conscious sound completely indistinguishable from a so-called raspberry, or a Bronx cheer if you prefer. And increasingly, this sound is being followed by one with the unmistakable sonic signature of a derisive horselaugh.”

Said Dr. Reid, “At this rate, our conservative subjects will be unabashedly vocalizing their deep disdain for inconvenient truth out loud well before this election cycle is over.

“Interestingly,” she added, “we seem to have found where the subconscious la la la’s have all gone. They’ve taken up residence in the liberal mind.”

Explained Dr. Raybould, “When subjected to the inconvenient truth that Barack Obama is himself committing a crime when he lets war criminals off scot free or that Predator drones are killing innocent people by the hundreds, study participants with a liberal frame of mind are beginning to sound exactly like their right-wing counterparts did a generation or so ago.”

In other science news, a team of University of Chicago researchers grown frustrated in their fruitless search for dark matter recently turned their machines and expertise to the task of detecting the storied magic hand of the unfettered free market.

“We have not yet found a magic hand matching the description provided by our colleagues over in Economics,” said Dr. Trina Hamilton at the Enrico Fermi Institute. “The data from our thoroughly decontaminated, regulation-scrubbed free market lab, however, clearly indicates the presence of what would perfectly fit the description of a fist if the third finger of the hand were not locked in an upright position.”