"[T]he question is not why do men stay for boys, but rather why mothers of daughters are divorcing more than mothers of sons."

Relax, they've figured out a female-favoring reason why couples with daughters are more likely to divorce than couples with sons. The old explanation that fathers prefer boys must give way to the new explanation: With a daughter at home, being good and supportive as daughters tend to be, a woman has less need for a husband. There, now, aren't you so much happier? The universe makes sense. Women, good. Men, bad.

"Why don't Americans pay more attention to growing income disparity? One reason may be our enduring belief in social mobility."

Timothy Noah wrings his hands and puzzles over the perplexing problem that he, himself, answers with astonishing ease.

"So, yes, I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse."

Marty Peretz, The New Republic's owner, opines about Muslims.

The Apple update that has made it impossible for me to watch video or open iTunes.

Thanks a lot. I can't even go anywhere on line without a pop-up window telling me what I already know: Your update sucks.

I woke up this morning thinking the charmingly mellow James Taylor song "Carolina in My Mind," started watching a video of it on YouTube, decided to buy it in iTunes, opened iTunes, got prompted to update software, and now iTunes opens only to crash immediately, so I can't buy it, and I can't even get to the YouTube video anymore. If I see the phrase "Plug-in failure" a few hundred more times, I may lose my mind... or my 25-year-long love for Apple.

ADDED: This and today's cool Google doodle have motivated me to try Chrome as my new browser. Safari had been crashing repeatedly even before the current update. Unfortunately, I still can't get Flash to work.

UPDATE: By the end of the day, Apple had an update (or updates) that appeared to solve the problem.

"Take the notion that children have specific learning styles, that some are 'visual learners' and others are auditory; some are 'left-brain' students, others 'right-brain.'"

It's junk science.

But there is good science to support the notion that you should study in multiple locations:

The brain makes subtle associations between what it is studying and the background sensations it has at the time, the authors say, regardless of whether those perceptions are conscious. It colors the terms of the Versailles Treaty with the wasted fluorescent glow of the dorm study room, say; or the elements of the Marshall Plan with the jade-curtain shade of the willow tree in the backyard. Forcing the brain to make multiple associations with the same material may, in effect, give that information more neural scaffolding.

More scientifically tested study tips at the link.

"Sarah Palin rips non-Muslim Obama over mosque while Lady Gaga remains silent."

Sorry. I'm just trying to rip off Howard Kurtz.

"Facebook is waging a 3-pronged war on websites."

Discuss.

Democrats attack homeless as unserious and fake.

In Arizona.

“It’s unbelievable. It’s not right. It’s deceitful,” said Jackie Thrasher, a former Democratic legislator in northwest Phoenix.... “...What’s happening here just doesn’t wash. It doesn’t pass the smell test.”

Doesn't wash! Doesn't pass the smell test! Wow. Just... wow.

Obama isn't rounding to the nearest billion dollars. He's not even rounding to the nearest 10 billion.

CNN: "Obama pushes $50 billion in infrastructure spending."

WaPo: "Obama to call for $100 billion business tax credit."

He's rounding to the nearest 50 billion dollars.

It's utterly terrifying. I keep seeing articles about how the Democrats are in a panic about the approaching elections. They should have panicked over their own proposals.

"You may be amazed at the lack of finger-wagging or reminders that acid was illegal and perhaps bad for you."

The Nation is surprised that the NYT had nothing but fun with the old story of Dock Ellis pitching a no-hitter while tripping on LSD.

If it seems almost routine to throw a no-hitter now, then consider one that was not.

Forty years ago, Dock Ellis of the Pittsburgh Pirates raised the degree of difficulty to new, well, heights. He threw a no-hitter with Richard M. Nixon calling balls and strikes and Jimi Hendrix, wielding a Fender Stratocaster instead of a Louisville Slugger, digging in at home plate.

Or at least that is what he thought while pitching under the influence of LSD.

Who knows what really happened, but it's Ellis's own voice that's the soundtrack of this animation by James Blagden:



And here's the Robin Williams interpretation:

Sunset on the E-Way.

Here's where we walked today:





"The 'E' in E-Way stands for Educational, Ecological, Esthetic and Environmental."

Obama: "They talk about me like a dog."

"That's not in my prepared remarks." Uh, okay. You just threw that in, then. But why?

IN THE COMMENTS: rhhardin said:

The Mickey Mouse microphone is mocking Obama's ears too.

Ha. And Meade is saying to me — out loud, in the flesh:

I'd like Obama to say exactly who said what and when. Be more specific!

Also I said: Poor Obama, he got so used to people treating him like he was so wonderful, and Meade said: "They treated him like a god, then they treated him like a dog." The old god/dog flip!

Hey!

I think I got the blog working again.

Did you notice it was out of service?

IN THE COMMENTS: Jason (the commenter) said:

Yes, it was taken over by some weird person who pretended to be you and marry one of the commenters. It's been a weird trip. Glad to have you back. (What have you been doing the last year or so?)

Palladian said:

Yeah, all the frequent posts concerning 893-mile bicycle rides through the Andes, 627-mile cross-country skiing trips through the Alpines, recipes for squirrel and morel mushroom en croûte cooked in the wild, 2800-mile drives to the middle of nowhere to collect pigment samples for house-painting projects, cutting turf with plow oxen to plant beds of sorghum... very, very distressing to those of us allergic to the unnatural lifestyles of healthy, happy outdoors-people.

Thank goodness we're back to withering, subtle mockery delivered while sipping coffee in cafes, the sort of thing that brought the better of us here to begin with.

"I can see why we should promote women's rights as a covert national security concept."

"But if 'they' know we're doing that, it will undercut the cause of women's rights."

A comment by me, on jac's "Why are young men often passionate about religion and war? Can women put an end to war?"

The doodler's dream job.

At Google.

"Cafes... have always been venues for conspicuous contemplation... places to read Camus’ most obscure collections of essays, places to doodle evocatively in your large Moleskin notebook."

Free WiFi users wreck the hip LoFi ambiance of the coffeehouse in Greg Beato's brain.


(Photo by John Althouse Cohen)

"Some Muslims said their situation felt more precarious now..."

"... under a president who is perceived as not only friendly to Muslims but is wrongly believed by many Americans to be Muslim himself — than it was under President George W. Bush."

[Eboo Patel, a founder and director of Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based community service program] explained, “After Sept. 11, we had a Republican president who had the confidence and trust of red America, who went to a mosque and said, ‘Islam means peace,’ and who said ‘Muslims are our neighbors and friends,’ and who distinguished between terrorism and Islam.”

Now, unlike Mr. Bush then, the politicians with sway in red state America are the ones whipping up fear and hatred of Muslims, Mr. Patel said.

So Bush was better, but somehow the problems are still the Republicans' fault. 

What's the difference between doing the right thing and doing the right thing so people will think that you're the kind of person that does the right thing?

"Craigslist, by shutting off its 'adult services' section and slapping a 'censored' label in its place, may be engaging in a high-stakes stunt to influence public opinion...."

I'm not asking whether shutting off the adult services ads is the right thing to do — not that you can't discuss that if you want.  I'm really wondering what's the point of accusing a business (or a person) of trying to influence public opinion when it takes some action that supposed to be the right thing to do.

I think the real accusation is that the action is only being taken because attention is being paid to a problem and that, later, when attention wanes, the business/person will go back to their old ways. But is that the situation Craiglist is in? If and when it goes back to its old ways, people are going to notice. Moreover, the recent attention has come in the form of threats of legal action, but Craigslist is obviously not liable (because of the Communications Decency Act, as explained at the link). It's not a matter, then, of trying to avoid these lawsuits by temporarily stopping (even assuming that would work). 

At the Crossover Café Café...

... there's nothing to be angry about.

On the Sugar River Trail.

We biked the Sugar River Trail today, from New Glarus Woods State Park to Albany and back — 33 miles.

"Will you quit annoying me?"

That line appears at 1:58 in this clip from the great Marx Brothers movie "Duck Soup":



It's a funny scene with all sorts of things in it, such as Harpo surreptitiously cutting off the man's pocket and using it as a bag for his peanuts. (Yeah, count the phallic symbols.) But that line — "Will you quit annoying me?" — has stuck with me for many years as a particular type of funniness. I was IM-ing my son John about it this morning.

Me:

do you remember the line "stop annoying me" --- finding that really funny? what movie and how would you explain why we thought it was so funny?

John:

"would you quit annoying me!!!"

Duck Soup [+ link to the above clip]

similar to W.C. Fields in It's a Gift saying, "I hate you"*

In a comedy you expect wit, wisecracks, innuendo .... So it's funny if someone blatantly says the obvious thing you've been watching for several minutes.

Me:

thanks!!!

it's the element of surprise, but the surprising thing is its flatfootedness

it's surprisingly ordinary

John:

Also, it's funny for someone to openly say what they think of someone as if there are no social inhibitions

Reminds me of a scene in The Office (last episode of season 2) where Michael Scott is talking to everyone in the office about they're going to have a gambling night in the warehouse....

Michael Scott: Oh, and another fun thing. We, at the end of the night, are going to give the check to an actual group of Boy Scouts. Right, Toby? We're gonna...

Toby: Actually, I didn't think it was appropriate to invite children since it's, uh, you know, there's gambling and alcohol. And it's in our dangerous warehouse. And it's a school night. And, you know, Hooters is catering. Is that enou-is that enough? Should I keep going?

Michael Scott: Why are you the way that you are? Honestly, every time I try to do something fun or exciting, you make it not... that way. I hate... so much about the things that you choose to be.

Ha ha.

Speaking of analyzing exactly why something is funny, I put a lot of thought into the title of that blog post last night with the praying mantis. Originally, I had "Non Compos Mentis Campus Mantis," then, thinking it might be off-putting to start in Latin, I made it "Campus Mantis: Non Compos Mentis." Then, this morning, I was sorry I switched it. "Non Compos Mentis Campus Mantis" seemed much better — kind of like a 3 Stooges title. Looking at all the 3 Stooges titles, I'm not really sure why.

_________

* The key segment is at 4:40:



CORRECTION: "Praying" changed to "campus" 3 times.

"Her exposed midriff that is the cynosure of all eyes has become the talking point in Bollywood."

Sorry, I've gotten absorbed in The Times of India this morning. I love the writing style. Cynosure. It has never in my life occurred to me to use that word.

cy·no·sure...
1. something that strongly attracts attention by its brilliance, interest, etc.: the cynosure of all eyes....

cynosure
1590s, from M.Fr. cynosure (16c.), from L. Cynosura, lit. "dog's tail," the constellation (now Ursa Minor) containing the North Star, the focus of navigation, from Gk. kynosoura, lit. "dog's tail," from kyon (gen. kynos; see canine) + oura "tail."

Her belly is the dog's tail of all eyes. What a melee of body parts!

"Many commercial sex workers in their 50s admit that they are like stale meat."

"Yet, they don't quit the profession. They see two or three clients a day, compared to eight to ten they were used to in their younger days. Their clients include young boys who are scared of the 'bullying girls' of their age. And this happens across the country." 

UPDATE: This link goes to a serious news article published at the Times of India, yet in July 2022, I received email from Blogger that said:

Getting the ax.

Literally and, then, figuratively.

***

“I hope the tribunal takes a rational decision on this. He has been punished more than what his mistake merited,” Mr. Baby said.

Mr. Baby.

"They can share a pool, movie theater, bowling alley and big backyard with friends."

"That's allowed the girls to have some good and happy relationships here in D.C."

Because it's so hard to be one of the popular kids.

"18 Signs That America Is Rotting Right In Front Of Our Eyes."

Pravda headline, a little too close to the truth to be funny.

Once upon a time, the American people worked feverishly to construct beautiful, shining communities from coast to coast. But now we get to watch those communities literally crumble and decay in slow motion. Nothing lasts forever...

Also in Pravda:

A restaurant in Germany has been conducting an advertising campaign for people to donate body parts which will be transformed into delicious dishes at a new restaurant called Flime.... [T]he donors will be considered “members” of a new dining cult. The “members” will declare themselves willing to donate “any part of their body” while the resulting hospital costs will be borne by the restaurant which is looking for “an open-minded surgeon.”

Campus Mantis: Non Compos Mentis.

It's Saturday night, and the praying mantis at the University of Wisconsin is restless and reckless. We try to help, but he seems lacking in rationality. (WARNING: 1 bad word.)

A Saturday ride on the Military Ridge Trail.

We began in Blue Mounds:



We got all the way to Ridgeway, 10 miles down:



And headed back:



To make a 20-mile ride...



... which seemed about right.

What made it especially nice? Llamas...



... and, on return home, pizza, Meade-made:



So beautiful!

At the Cool Reflection Café...

... you may coolly reflect (or spout off passionately). It's another open thread. That's all.

"I have no definitive definition of a masterpiece but, in my view, it is a work that permits diverse interpretations, indeed contradictions."

Ha ha. Get it? He (Laurent Le Bon, director of the Centre Pompidou-Metz) has to avoid tripping over his own concept. You can't have a "definitive definition" that is about diversity and contradictions. If you're into diversity and contradictions, how can you answer any of the questions that are asked?

And... "definitive definition" — isn't that a funny term? It should be a redundancy. If it's a definition at all, it should necessarily be definitive. If he can't give a definitive definition, he's not giving a definition at all, one would think. He's eschewing definition. He wants people to give diverse and contradictory meanings to the term used to name the show at his museum.

So... do you care what works of art get labeled "masterpiece"? If so, why and what would you put the label on?

"The older I get, the fewer books I finish, and the more I read highly selectively — fast forward set on high."

Writes Kenneth Anderson:

This is either the getting of wisdom — or the gradual shutting down of (what to call it?) one’s social and engagement functions as one gets closer to in-turnedness of dying, the inability of the aging to take in new stuff because we are too occupied trying to process the accumulation of the previous decades.

Do older people read differently? If so, why?

If older people are less likely to read straight through a whole book, it's probably because:
	The closer you are to death, the less reason there is to add more content to your brain.
	The more you've put into your brain over the years the harder it is to jam in new material.
	You've already read the things that have most influenced you, so the new things are less valuable.
	You're so experienced that you don't need all the background and explaining that pads out most books.
	You have less time left to live and more wisdom about when you are wasting it.
pollcode.com free polls

Do blogging lawprofs wield too much power?

Orin Kerr reports:

On August 19th, Justice Kennedy gave an address that included an interesting passing remark about the role of blogs. Justice Kennedy was talking about how law review case comments generally come out too late to be of use to the Court (especially in the context of deciding whether to grant certiorari in a case). As a result, when Justice Kennedy asks his clerks to look to see what the law reviews have said about a particular case, there isn’t any commentary yet. Justice Kennedy adds: “I’ve found, what my clerks do now, when they have interesting cases — They read blogs.”

This means that the lawprofs who keep up high-profile blogs have disproportionate influence. You have traditional lawprofs laboring over law review articles, but these articles come out too late to discuss a case that's pending in the Supreme Court. One answer — I'm not the first to say this* — is that law review articles should properly be about something other than the latest pending or just-decided cases, something more timeless and profound. But I think that most law professors would like to be involved in the legal developments of the day. It must be irritating to see that the lawprof bloggers have a special line to the Court.

This may stir up an old question that I know nags at some law professors: Will I be required to blog? Very soon after I started blogging, I heard the question is it acceptable for lawprofs to blog? and then, right after that, the question will I be required to blog? jumped up. In the minds of some non-blogging lawprofs, it preceded the question is it good for lawprofs to blog? — which seemed like a more appropriate question to me. But I can see why someone with a legal mind would ask will I be required to blog? before is it good for lawprofs to blog? It's the same reason lawyers think what do I want the answer to be? before they try to figure out what the answer is.

Anyway, Justice Kennedy's remark shows why it's good for lawprofs to blog, but it would be ridiculous to require lawprofs to blog. Wouldn't it? Or is it ridiculous to require lawprofs to write law review articles?

_________

*And I'm writing this too quickly to figure out who else has said this.

At the Water Garden Café...

... refresh yourself.

Bonus pic: Meade in the herb garden.

Bemoaning the loss of blue laws in the NYT.

"Sunday Shopping Linked With Less Happiness."

Good lord.

Sarah Palin versus the "impotent, limp and gutless."

Talking about reporters, thinking about dicks.

"At what point should you give up on your dream of becoming a lawyer?"

"It’s a question on many people’s minds lately. Whether they were laid off during the recession and haven’t been able to get back in, or if they’ve just graduated law school to the triumphant sounds of crickets, people are wondering when it’s time to stop throwing good money (and effort) after bad."

Above the Law, via Instapundit.

"What is that? It makes me angry, and I don't even know why."

That's what I said, as I overhead this video (which Meade was playing over there). "It's a Hillary for President ad," he said. It doesn't make me feel angry while looking at the video...



... but that was a weird experience. The music is the most heavy-handed kind of movie music, the stuff you hear in trailers for very big-budget sci-fi. Perhaps Hillary is a big-budget sci-fi project. Ever thought of it/her that way?

In any case, it's not Hillary presenting herself as a candidate, of course. Not overtly anyway. But she is a 2012 candidate, isn't she?

Hillary in 2012?
	Pure fantasy, and it's going nowhere.
	Hillary wants it, she'll jump in if she can, and I hope she does.
	Hillary may want it, but there's no hope for her, and I'm glad.
	Hillary is already running against Obama, and this ad is one sign of that.
	She and Obama made a deal. He'll back out of the 2012 race, then run again in 2016 or 2020 perhaps.
pollcode.com free polls

Emily Dickinson meets...

... Grand Theft Auto.

"Don't Be Evil?"

Nice — evil? — viral video for getting people to promote the cause of "Do Not Track Me" legislation. Via Wired:

It’s not the first anti-Google antic from the group, which is largely funded by legal fees, the Rose Foundation, Streisand Foundation, Tides Foundation and others. Last month the group announced it had parked outside lawmakers’ Washington-area residences to determine whether they had unsecured Wi-Fi networks that might have been sniffed by Google as part of the internet giant’s Street View and Google Maps program.

UPDATE, 9/4/10: Google just updated its privacy policy.

"A group of Radiohead fans went to a recent show in Prague 'on a mission to capture the band playing using as many different angles as possible.'"

"Radiohead found out about this and provided the audio so that the fans could piece everything together into proper videos."

Beautiful! I love when artists respond to the work of their fans like this.

"U.S. Lost Jobs in August, but Fewer Than Expected."

A NYT headline. 

What will it take for the media to notice how pathetically laughable it is to say the bad news is better than what was expected? How long will this go on? It's getting surreal!

UPDATE: Obama reacts:

“This morning, new figures show the economy produced 67,000 private sector jobs in August, the eighth consecutive month of private job growth. Additionally, the numbers for July were revised upward to 107,000. Now that's positive news, and it reflects the steps we've already taken to break the back of this recession.”

Surreal!

50% of NYC residents oppose the mosque near Ground Zero, and only 35% support it.

This NYT poll undermines the belief that the attitude toward the mosque is quite different in New York City and those of us who don't live there don't understand. Here, for example, is a comment written in an August 2d thread on this blog:

Do you live there Ann? No. So its actually none of your business. So you should just shut up about it.

I however, DO vote in that district. I own property in that district. That is MY community board. And I wholeheartedly support that mosque. The vast majority of those in that district support the mosque. And there is another mosque just one block away.

And it is not the Ground Zero Mosque. You can't even see the mosque from Ground Zero.

There was zero controversy about this mosque until the bigots made a stink about this. And yes, you're siding with the bigots now.

Obviously you no zilch about New York City. You have no connections to New York City. You are not a voter in New York City.

This mosque is trying to build bridges with the community. That means community board #1, who support this.

It certain does not mean YOU or Sarah Palin's "fake America".

So the bigots should just mind their own business.

Muslims in Community Board #1 have the right to pray in their neighborhood.

On the other hand, this commenter (downtownlad) can say the poll supports his position. If you break out Manhattan, 51% support the mosque and 41% oppose it.

***

And while we're on the subject of the mosque, did you hear Mark Steyn on the subject (as he was guest-hosting on the Rush Limbaugh show yesterday)? I can't find a transcript or long enough audio clip. He doesn't so much care about building the mosque. He's more concerned with the failure to rebuild on the WTC site and where Imam Rauf gets his money. Perhaps opposition to the mosque is displaced disappointment with America's failure to demonstrate its strength and its values with a dramatic, finished, brilliant architectural achievement that dominates lower Manhattan. It's been 10 years.

"RUSS FEINGOLD IS dodging Obama in Wisconsin."

Instapundit interprets the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's bland report: "A Labor Day schedule released by the staff of U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) indicates that while Feingold will be in Milwaukee for a Laborfest pre-parade on Monday morning, he will not be in town when Obama is expected to arrive."

In the Purple Garden...

... you can exaggerate all you want.

"[C]ovetousness, schadenfreude, anxiety, dread, and on and on."

"It’s the frequent fruitlessness of such feelings that the Buddha is said to have pondered after he unplugged from the social grid of his day — that is, the people he lived around — and wandered off to reckon with the human predicament. Maybe his time off the grid gave him enough critical distance from these emotions to discover his formula for liberation from them. In any event, it’s because the underlying emotions haven’t changed, and because the grid conveys and elicits them with such power, that his formula holds appeal for many people even, and perhaps especially, today."

Robert Wright, writing in the NYT, on a theme that has been big in the NYT: how technology is hurting our brains.

"You know what the greatest city in the world is?" asked NY Mayor Bloomberg.

"Scottsdale, Arizona. It's clean, it's not too big, it's got a couple streets with shops and restaurants, and the people there aren't fucking insane. This place is fucking insane. And by the way, that's not a reason to like it. Anyone who says that is a delusional dirtbag."

Downtown Indianapolis.

Architectural details, photographed last Saturday.

"Vibrating strings... point particles, 2-dimensional membranes, 3-dimensional blobs and other objects that are more difficult to picture and occupy even more dimensions of space."

Not God... vibrating strings... point particles, 2-dimensional membranes, 3 -dimensional blobs and other objects that are more difficult to picture and occupy even more dimensions of space.

M-theory, Stephen Hawking says, explains how the universe came to exist.

"Dodge Charger owner upset vehicle crushed by suicidal fall."

Here's a classic 15-minutes-of-fame:

A New Jersey woman is devastated that her precious sports car -- just repaired and fully gassed up -- was wrecked by a suicidal man's 40-story attempted death leap on the Upper West Side.

"I miss it. It's my baby," moaned Maria McCormack, who regrets lending her husband the 2008 Dodge Charger Tuesday for work. "I want to meet [Tom Magill] and say, 'Why? Why my car out of all the cars in the city?' "

It's not that she thinks he has an answer, like he picked her car, she just wants to say "Why? Why?" at him.

"I wonder how he feels now that he made it. Does he feel like an idiot?" said Maria. "I hope he's OK. But I just want to know why."

Well, Magill is in the hospital after having rods inserted in his legs and some operation to "relieve the clotting" in his groin, so maybe you could go over there and interrogate him about whether he feels like an idiot.

If you think this sounds like an episode of "Seinfeld," it's "The Bris":

"Well, I just got the estimate. It's going to cost more to fix that roof than the car's worth... Someone's paying for that damage and it's not gonna be me.... swan dives from twenty floors, lands right on to it. What do I have a bulls eye on there? He couldn't move over two feet? Land on the sidewalk. That's city property. What are the chances, what are the odds? He couldn't do it again if his life depended on it..."

Maria, how does it feel to be George Costanza? 

Governor Jan Brewer in her prepared opening statement in the gubernatorial debate...

... or... uh... unprepared statement...



Seriously, what is wrong with this woman? That is scary.

(Via Memeorandum.)

"Megan McArdle Really Hates Sex at Dawn"...

... is a funny title for an article, written by the author of "Sex at Dawn," which book title he declines to put in italics or quotes in his article title. I thought it would be interesting to discuss sex at dawn, in the literal sense, but I find myself confronted with an author who's miffed at a blogger who's dissing his book:

Her comments begin strangely, with the admission that she's "in the middle" of the book. Note the urgency to condemn it publicly, even before reading the damned thing! 

Oh, blah! I hate this criticism. McArdle is blogging, not doing the official book review for the Atlantic. A rule against criticizing books you haven't finished would overprotect authors, since you shouldn't finish a bad book, and it would also underprotect authors, since the critics wouldn't disclose that they hadn't read the whole thing.

But bloggers... bloggers can open a book to a random page, read one sentence, cogitate furiously, then open up their laptops — maybe right there at Borders, where they picked up the book they didn't buy — and tap out a free-association blog post saying anything that occurs to them and publish — using the WiFi they didn't pay for either. It's not the slightest bit strange. And it's not unfair either. It is what it is, and we know what it is. It's blogging.

And boy, does she lash out:

•    "It reads like horsefeathers . . . like an undergraduate thesis,"
•    "breathless rather than scientific"
•    "cherry-picked evidence stretched far out of shape to support their theory,"
•    "they don't even attempt to paper over the enormous holes in their theory."

Ouch! And that's just the first paragraph. 

Eh! There are only 4 paragraphs. By the way, "their theory" — if I can trust McArdle — is that "people are naturally polyamorous." The dispute continues with McArdle and the author (Christopher Ryan) throwing shit at each other in a fight about whether people are like bonobos. I'm just saying "throwing shit at each other" because that's how bonobos fight, and people are like bonobos, right? Not right? Advantage McArdle!!!!!

Anyway, as you've probably figured out by now, the book is not about sex at dawn — the practice of having sex upon first awakening in the morning — but sex and evolution — "dawn" in the sense of "the dawn of man."

So where am I going with this? It's a blog post. I'm a blogger. I'll go where I want, which is where I always go when this subject comes up, and I don't feel safe in this conversation no more...

Christina Romer, mystified.

Saying her good-byes.

When she and her colleagues [on the Council of Economic Advisers] began work, she acknowledged, they did not realize "how quickly and strongly the financial crisis would affect the economy." They "failed to anticipate just how violent the recession would be."

Even now, Romer said, mystery persists. "To this day, economists don't fully understand why firms cut production as much as they did or why they cut labor so much more than they normally would." Her defense was that "almost all analysts were surprised by the violent reaction."

Yes, we've noticed that every damned thing that happens is declared "unexpected."

That miscalculation, in turn...

What miscalculation?

... led to her miscalculation that the stimulus package would be enough to keep the unemployment rate from exceeding 8 percent. Without the policy, she had predicted, unemployment would soar to 9.5 percent. The plan passed, and unemployment went to 10 percent.

Unexpectedly and mystifyingly, it was quite a surprise.

No wonder most Americans think the effort failed. But Romer argued, a bit too defensively, against the majority perception. "As the Council of Economic Advisers has documented in a series of reports to Congress, there is widespread agreement that the act is broadly on track," she declared. 

The act is broadly on track is a helpful thing to believe if you want to experience every bit of bad news as a surprise.

Further, she argued, "I will never regret trying to put analysis and quantitative estimates behind our policy recommendations."

What?! I guess Romer, writing her speech, didn't predict the embarrassing ways those words would could be read. Surprise! Among the negative interpretations available for those words are: 1. They started with the policy preferences, then rustled up the numbers to support it, and 2. They had to choose what to put first, policy choices or professional analysis, and they chose policy choices.

But the problem is not that Romer did a quantitative analysis; the problem is that the quantitative analysis was wrong.

Well, if you did the quantitative analysis in order to support the policy preference you put first, then it's not... surprising that that your quantitative analysis was second-rate.

"Red meat, white meat, blue meat, meat-o-f**king-rama. You will eat it. Because not eating meat is a decision."

"Eating meat is an instinct! Yeah! And I know what it’s about. 'I don’t want to eat the meat because I love the animals. I love the animals.' Hey, I love the animals too. I love my doggy. He’s so cute. My fluffy little dog... He’s so cute — There’s the problem. We only want to save the cute animals, don’t we? Yeah. Why don’t we just have animal auditions. Line ‘em up one by one and interview them individually. 'What are you?' 'I’m an otter.' 'And what do you do?' 'I swim around on my back and do cute little human things with my hands.' 'You’re free to go.' 'And what are you?' 'I’m a cow.' 'Get in the f**king truck, ok pal!' 'But I’m an animal.' 'You’re a baseball glove! Get on that truck!'"

Denis Leary, quoted a propos of the James Lee, the now-dead manifesto guy.

"In a rather curious and confused way, some white people are starting almost to think like a minority, even like a persecuted one."

"... Saturday's rally was quite largely confined to expressions of pathos and insecurity, voiced in a sickly and pious tone. The emotions that underlay it, however, may not be uttered that way indefinitely."

At the Robin Tavern...

... you can try to blend in.

ADDED: The long view:

Pond shadows.

Late summer. Early evening.

The University of Wisconsin must include the Badger Catholic, a student group, in the distribution of student activity fees.

Says the 7th Circuit, in an opinion written by Judge Easterbrook.

Yay! Skeptoid takes on my favorite target for debunking: The Myers-Briggs Personality Test.

You can listen and also read an episode transcript here. Excerpt:

It's been found that 50% of test takers who retake it score differently the second time. This is because nobody is strictly an E or an I, for example, but somewhere in between. Many people are right on the border for some of the four dichotomies, and depending on their mood that day or other factors, may answer enough questions differently to push them over. Yet the results inaccurately pigeonhole them all the way over to one side or the other. This makes it possible for two people who are very similar to actually end up with completely opposite scores....

From the perspective of statistical analysis, the MBTI's fundamental premise is flawed. According to Myers & Briggs, each person is either an introvert or an extravert. Within each group we would expect to see a bell curve showing the distribution of extraversion within the extraverts group, and introversion within the introverts. If the MBTI approach is valid, we should expect to see two separate bell curves along the introversion/extraversion spectrum, making it valid for Myers & Briggs to decide there are two groups into which people fit. But data have shown that people do not clump into two separately identifiable curves; they clump into a single bell curve, with extreme introverts and extreme extraverts forming the long tails of the curve, and most people gathered somewhere in the middle. Jung himself said "There is no such thing as a pure extravert or a pure introvert. Such a man would be in the lunatic asylum." This does not support the MBTI assumption that people naturally separate into two groups. MBTI takes a knife and cuts the bell curve right down the center, through the meatiest part, and right through most people's horizontal error bars. Moreover, this forced error is compounded four times, with each of the four dichotomies.

Speaking of politics and phallic symbols...

... which I just was... check out the cover of Meghan McCain's new memoir:



What's dirty and sexy in this book? Nothing, I bet.

"All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions."

"In those programs' places, programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed. All former pro-birth programs must now push in the direction of stopping human birth, not encouraging it."

The hostage-takers manifesto.

ADDED: The guy seems pretty clearly crazy, and I hope no one dies and he gets the help he needs, because this manifesto — PDF —  is hilarious, but if anyone dies, it might be wrong to laugh.

Saving the environment and the remaning species diversity of the planet is now your mindset. Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.

Of course, the Squirrels. That's such a childish list of animals, and not just because of "Froggies." These are the animals in a children's picture book or Noah's Ark toy.

The humans? The planet does not need humans. You MUST KNOW the human population is behind all the pollution and problems in the world....

I disagree. Around my city, geese are crapping everything up. I notice that no birds got on Lee's list of favored creatures.

These are the demands and sayings of Lee.

How religion-y, and yet he hates religion:

Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is. That, and all its disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed. Broadcast this message until the pollution in the planet is reversed and the human population goes down! 

He hates everything that human beings have produced. It's all filth. Even the ideas. He gets his ideas from a gorilla:

The Discovery Channel and it's affiliate channels MUST have daily television programs at prime time slots based on Daniel Quinn's "My Ishmael" pages 207-212 where solutions to save the planet would be done in the same way as the Industrial Revolution was done, by people building on each other's inventive ideas.

Here's the book. A gorilla tells us what to do. Example from the pages cited:

We could pension off our teachers, close schools, and open up the city to our children. Let them learn anything they want. We could take that risk....

Quinn has been hyped by Oprah Winfrey: Here's an Oprah interview with  Quinn:

WINFREY: You say that y--hundreds of years from now, children will look back on our society and call us monsters. Why?

Mr. QUINN: I think so. Yeah, because we're g--we're--we continue to take and take and take and consume and consume and consume everything in sight. And in 100 years, if--if there are still people around to think about it, we're going to look back and say, `My God, these were terribly greedy people. What kind of people were they? They were hard to understand, who had no thought for us, for the future of--of the human race.'

WINFREY: How are we monsters? In what ways are we devouring the world?...

ADDED: The man was killed. The hostages all survived.

[T]he suspect had "metalic canisters" strapped to his chest and back. When Lee was struck by police bullets, one of the canisters "popped." Police have not confirmed if the canisters were a bomb, but Manger said the "device may have gone off" when he was shot.

I just scrolled through all 81 of these Emmy photos so you don't have to.

Lots of people have voted on what looks best, and to my eye, it's clear. For color, people want to see white or off-white. Definitely not purple. For style, they like simple. A strapless sheath, with beading for interest, is best. This ranks #1, and the rest of the voting plays out in accordance with how close you get to exactly that. So don't do this. Or this. Or this. And especially not this.

"A conscious decision was made by certain groups to destroy this presidency the minute it started."

"People say it was the health care bill – no, it wasn’t. I go to every county every year and hold a town meeting. Within days of the president being sworn in, I had people showing up at my town meeting with hats on, with tea bags coming out, saying this is going to be socialism.”

That's Russ Feingold, answering one of 10 questions posed by Jeff Zelenzy in  the NYT. Feingold is, as you probably know, struggling to keep his place representing my state, Wisconsin, in the U.S. Senate. The question was "What explains the difficult political climate for Democrats, considering that President Obama has implemented many policies he campaigned on?" The quote above was the second of 2 explanations Feingold offered. The first was the economy and the tendency people have to blame whoever is in power when the economy is bad.

But it's not the health care bill? Some people think "it’s pretty obvious that the Democrats’ electoral woes are directly tied to the passage of the health care bill." Ironically, that link goes to Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake, who is criticizing the health care bill from the left, that is, hoping for socialism.

Another NYT question for Feingold is: "Are there a lot of undecided voters out there on issues like health care?" He says:

Here in Wisconsin, there’s 40 percent who are locked in on one side, 40 percent on the other and roughly 20 percent independents, they’re not locked in at all. They are holding back and as you calmly and rationally explain, most people say, "No, we don’t really want to repeal that."

Caught in a rainstorm, ducking into a small-town libraray, I read the Utne Reader yesterday.

I used to subscribe back in the 80s, when I loved it. But what is it now? I found the cover pretty amusing:



I can't find a bigger picture of that at the site. Too bad! They should show it off. It's funny — Obama biting into a sloppy cheeseburger and cringing as the angry Michelle waves a bunch of carrots much like wives in old comic strips used to wield rolling pins. And you know what it means when a First Lady gets after the President to eat carrots.

Of course, the article inside isn't critical of Michelle Obama and her eat-your-vegetables shtick. It's critical of Obama, but not because he eats cheeseburgers, because he "loves up industrial agriculture." We're supposed to identify with the angry woman swinging her lo-cal phallic symbols at her man. (At least they aren't cut up phallic symbols like the ones Hillary famously foisted on Bill.) The cheeseburger Obama prefers — like the onion rings Bill Clinton preferred — is a symbol, a symbol of what he loves. In Obama's case, according to the article, it's agribusiness. He "loves up" agribusiness, that big sloppy, gooey cheeseburger.

It's Utne Reader, that magazine for aging lefties, and the article assumes you're into the anti-business agenda. The magazine assumes you'll identify with Michelle and her vegetables and is oblivious to the possible revulsion you might feel to the angry face they've given her. You're supposed to think:  Yes, Obama, come back to your lefty roots. (Note: Carrots are roots.) Your policies need to kick big business in the ass and embrace the local and sustainable and holistic.

But I didn't get that far into the magazine. The library was closing and the rainstorm was ending, and we needed to get back to the Glacial Drumlin Trail. I only had time to read: 1.  a letter from the editor by a subscriber who was sending back an issue of the magazine because it had Sarah Palin on the cover and she didn't want to look at that ever ever ever (though presumably the articles inside assailed the Alaskan), 2. "On Being Fat and Running: Abandoning insecurity for a full life," by Brenton Dickieson, from Geez, and "Sentenced to Life: A man ages in prison and outlives society’s fears," by Kenneth E. Hartman, from Notre Dame. But none of those things are accessible on line, so I can't send Utne Reader some traffic and set up some discussion about that here.

The Hartman article is a reprint, and — unlike the Geez reprint about running while fat — the original is on line, so you can read it.

Prison is a young man’s world, a world of physical violence and posturing, a world of brute strength and primal, unfocused rage. It is not a place to grow old, although more and more of us are doing just that: growing old in prison.

But Utne Reader is not a young man's world — or a young woman's world. It feels like an old person's place. I felt too young for it... and I'm old. Or it's for those other aging Americans... the lefties.  I see these people in Madison all the time. Do they feel left behind? Do you think the day will come when "lefty" will seem to mean left behind?

IN THE COMMENTS: lemondog has a way to get to an enlargement of the cover. Here's a closeup screen grab that shows Michelle's face:



The artist is Jason Seiler. Nice work. I notice the cigarette over the ear now. Ha.

Using lemondog's method, I can get to that letter about Sarah Palin. If you page forward in the magazine, you'll find it. You can see the cover that upset the poor woman so. She complains:

When the media gives air space, page space, and cover space (albeit in jest or irony) to crazies such as Palin, they are complicit in her plan to lend credence to the climate of ignorance, sensationalism, and just downright muddled thinking that is passed off as a national discourse these days — and which she is one of the most visible muddlers.

Jeez, the mere image of Sarah Palin unleashes hysteria.

AND: The image of Michelle Obama drives other people nuts. Women's faces. They're so provocative.

Things you get to read about yourself in the newspaper after you survive a 39-story jump from a building in Manhattan.

From today's Daily News, the story of a failed suicide:

1. The headline says the man — Thomas Magill — "lives to tell tale," but the "tale" he's told so far is "My leg! My leg!"

2. A construction worker who witnessed the fall has opined that the man survived not because he landed on a red 2008 Dodge Charger, but because the car contained a set of rosary beads.

3. He landed feet first, "twisted like a pretzel," in the backseat of the car. The car seat! That, not God, accounts for the soft landing, as shown in this reenactment:



4. The man's Facebook page shows that he regarded his interests as "being mean" and "making fun of people." Does that make you less likely to scold me for being mean and making fun of him? I am making fun of him, but I deny that I'm being mean. This post is part of my ongoing effort to deter people from committing suicide. I believe stories about suicide are full of the kind of sympathy that creates a romantic aura around suicide. I want to give suicide the kind of awful image that will make less easy to embrace than facing up to your problems in the material world.

"What Is Moderate Islam?" — a symposium.

In the Wall Street Journal. Excerpts from the 6 participants:

Anwar Ibrahim ("The Ball Is in Our Court"):

... Muslims must do more than just talk about their great intellectual and cultural heritage. We must be at the forefront of those who reject violence and terrorism. And our activism must not end there. The tyrants and oppressive regimes that have been the real impediment to peace and progress in the Muslim world must hear our unanimous condemnation.

Bernard Lewis ("A History of Tolerance"):

For the moment, there does not seem to be much prospect of a moderate Islam in the Muslim world. This is partly because in the prevailing atmosphere the expression of moderate ideas can be dangerous—even life-threatening....

But for Muslims who seek it, the roots are there, both in the theory and practice of their faith and in their early sacred history.

Ed Husain ("Don't Call Me Moderate, Call Me Normal"):

Normative Islam, from its early history to the present, is defined by its commitment to protecting religion, life, progeny, wealth and the human mind. In the religious language of Muslim scholars, this is known as maqasid, or aims. This is the heart of Islam.

I am fully Muslim and fully Western. Don't call me moderate—call me a normal Muslim.

Reuel Marc Gerecht ("Putting Up With Infidels Like Me"):

Tolerance among traditional Muslims is defined as Christian Europe first defined the idea: A superior creed agrees not to harass an inferior creed, so long as the practitioners of the latter don't become too uppity. Tolerance emphatically does not mean equality of belief, as it now does in the West.

Tawfik Hamid ("Don't Gloss Over The Violent Texts"):

Radical Islam is not limited to the act of terrorism; it also includes the embrace of teachings within the religion that promote hatred and ultimately breed terrorism. Those who limit the definition of radical Islam to terrorism are ignoring—and indirectly approving of—the Shariah teachings that permit killing apostates, violence against women and gays, and anti-Semitism.

Moderate Islam should be defined as a form of Islam that rejects these violent and discriminatory edicts....

Moderate Islam must not be passive. It needs to actively reinterpret the violent parts of the religious text rather than simply cherry-picking the peaceful ones....

Akbar Ahmed ("Mystics, Modernists and Literalists"):

Having studied the practices of Muslims around the world today, I've come up with three broad categories: mystic, modernist and literalist....

Muslims in the mystic category reflect universal humanism, believing in "peace with all."...

The second category is the modernist Muslim who believes in trying to balance tradition and modernity....

The literalists believe that Muslim behavior must approximate that of the Prophet in seventh-century Arabia. Their belief that Islam is under attack forces many of them to adopt a defensive posture. And while not all literalists advocate violence, many do. Movements like the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and the Taliban belong to this category.

Ahmed says he wants accurate categories and indicates that "moderate" isn't such a category. I'd need to hear more about that to understand, because it seems to me that there are ways of being moderate or extreme in all 3 categories. Do you really want to say that it's taking texts literally that is the problem? Would that extend to other religions (and to other texts, such as, for example, Constitutions)? And aren't there also ways of being "modernist" that can lead to trouble? Didn't history's worst fascists meld tradition and some concept of modernity? I don't mean to say that there's no insight to be gained in Ahmed's 3 categories, only that their existence doesn't convince me to stop caring about moderation.