Fat Is The Last Taboo
Maybe it's because people think of obesity as a disease (which helps squeeze money out of Medicare for obesity treatments).
Even Sarah Silverman, who tells retarded baby jokes, and makes mention of her father's genitals on stage, is offended by fat jokes (or should we say, jokes about "people of mass" or the "differently weighted"?) From CNN.com:
When asked by CNN if anything offends her, Silverman said one category of jokes does strike her as offensive and unfair."I don't really care for like fat jokes about women, specifically," she said.
"Because I feel that we live in a society where fat men deserve love, and fat women do not deserve love -- at least in white America. And so I feel like that's an ugly thing, and it doesn't make me laugh."
Sarah slept through anthropology class, it seems, where they taught how men prioritize beauty in women and women prioritize money and mojo in men. (Just wondering, do unemployed men and men with low-on-the-totem-pole jobs "deserve" love, too?)
For those trying to lose weight, good news from investigative science journalist Gary Taubes (from p. 454 of the hardcover of Good Calories, Bad Calories: "Insulin is the primary regulator of fat storage. By stimulating insulin secretion, carbohydrates make us fat and ultimately cause obesity. The fewer carbohydrates we consume, the leaner we will be."
More evidence-based dietary medicine here, from Dr. Michael Eades.
And, check out cardiologist Dr. William Davis' blog here, which I found via Dr. Eades.
From Bushels Of Carats To The Stick
Warren Buffett feels (as I do) that it's been too easy for CEOs to risk their company's money and future because there's been no cost to those CEOs for failure; sometimes, just the opposite: golden parachutes and "More champagne, sir?"
Colin Barr writes for Fortune that Buffett thinks the bank accounts of CEOs running those too-big-to-fail banks should be put on the line:
The Obama administration last month proposed separating banks' proprietary trading activities from their federally subsidized deposit-gathering and lending ones. Other proposed rules would increase the amount of capital banks hold against losses and how much cash they carry to deal with a surge of withdrawals.But Buffett said there's a simpler way to cap risk-taking: Forcing lavishly compensated CEOs to take responsibility for assessing the risks at their firms -- and putting their own wealth at stake, to boot.
"It is the behavior of these CEOs and directors that needs to be changed," he wrote. "They have long benefitted from oversized financial carrots; some meaningful sticks now need to be employed as well."
The comment reflects a theme that has run through Buffett's letters to investors over the years: Shareholders are best served by managers who think like owners. More often, he has said, they are ill served by executives who instead pursue value-destroying mergers or pile up debt in a bid to boost returns.
Buffett, 79, is the controlling shareholder at Berkshire and has received $100,000 in annual salary for the past quarter-century. Since he took over Berkshire in 1965, the company's net worth has increased at a 20% compound annual rate.
So it's no surprise when he heaps scorn on the bankers who made tens of millions of dollars annually as they steered their financial supertankers onto the rocks. The four biggest financial "fiascoes" -- presumably including the bailouts of AIG (AIG, Fortune 500), Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) and Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) -- cost investors more than $500 billion, by Buffett's count.
Shareholders didn't cause those meltdowns, but "they have borne the burden, with 90% or more of the value of their holdings wiped out in most cases of failure," Buffett wrote. "The CEOs and directors of the failed companies, however, have largely gone unscathed."
Buffett wrote about this in his 2009 letter to his shareholders, excerpted at WallStreetPit.com:
"In my view a board of directors of a huge financial institution is derelict if it does not insist that its CEO bear full responsibility for risk control", Buffett wrote. "If he's incapable of handling that job, he should look for other employment. And if he fails at it - with the government thereupon required to step in with funds or guarantees -the financial consequences for him and his board should be severe.It has not been shareholders who have botched the operations of some of our country's largest financial institutions. Yet they have borne the burden, with 90% or more of the value of their holdings wiped out in most cases of failure. Collectively, they have lost more than $500 billion in just the four largest financial fiascos of the last two years. To say these owners have been "bailed-out" is to make a mockery of the term.
The CEOs and directors of the failed companies, however, have largely gone unscathed. Their fortunes may have been diminished by the disasters they oversaw, but they still live in grand style. It is the behavior of these CEOs and directors that needs to be changed: If their institutions and the country are harmed by their recklessness, they should pay a heavy price - one not reimbursable by the companies they've damaged nor by insurance. CEOs and, in many cases, directors have long benefitted from oversized financial carrots ; some meaningful sticks now need to be part of their employment picture as well."
Full text of letter is downloadable here: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2009ltr.pdf
The Mobile Savage
Here's a site -- passiveaggressivenotes -- with some for people barking into cell phones in public who need to be told with signage to have manners.
And here's a photo from "The Mobile Savage" chapter of my book -- a sign from the door of Just Tantau in Venice, California.
via @KateC
Want Easy Access To Health Care?
Grow four legs and a tail. Here's Ted Balaker's reason.tv video on why your pet has better access to health care than you do. Of course, it's government regulation that's the problem -- legislation Nixon signed that regulates hospitals right out of opening:
On the upside, if you're a doctor, your clients are unlikely to bend around and lick their own balls.
"Genius Is Misunderstood As A Bolt Of Lightning"
Smart Seth Godin post on what it really takes. An excerpt:
Genius is actually the eventual public recognition of dozens (or hundreds) of failed attempts at solving a problem. Sometimes we fail in public, often we fail in private, but people who are doing creative work are constantly failing.
Sometimes people ask me to edit their stuff and I explain that I charge large sums of money to do that -- or anything that takes me away from my own writing.
"But, it's just X pages," somebody will sometimes say. Yeah, and it took me 25-plus years to develop as the person who has the ability to edit it like I can. (I edited a friend's first chapter of her next book, and she sent it to her agent, who wrote back that my edit was "bloody, but brilliant." Heh. I like that.)
To apply some of what I do, borrow some writing wisdom from the guy I borrow it from: Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing
What's great about the latter book is that Bell makes it clear that it isn't magic to come up with a plot; it's a technique you can learn. And he writes well, and lays it out well.
I consider writing poorly to be pretty rude -- if you're not just writing for yourself; if you're expecting somebody to buy your book or spend time on some article you wrote. And, by that I mean, a whole lot of poor writing is due mainly to the laziness and arrogance of the writer, thinking "It's good enough, just read the damn thing and quit complaining."
I, on the other hand, write with complete low self-esteem, going over passages thinking, "That's not funny, that's not very good, that has to be better," and then I work the thing and work the thing until it is. It's painful, it's horrible, but it's respectful of the reader.
Come See Me In Sacramento(ish) On Sunday
Free! Doing a reading/talk and selling my book from 2-5 pm, Sunday, Feb. 28, at Venezio Vineyards. Details here:
Venezio Vineyard's & Samantha Dunn are proud to present the 2nd installment of our writer's series, "The Grape Gatsby", featuring Author/Advice Columnist AMY ALKON! She will be featuring reading, Q&A, book sales & signing, from her book, "I See Rude People". Light appetizers, locally roasted coffee from cool beans, delicious wine for tasting or for sale by the glass, will be paired with this literary treat!!! From 2:00-5:00, free to all who love wine, books, and the beauty of the foothills!!!
Directions here.
"Miss Manners With Fangs"
Love that. That's the headline on Gendy Alimurung's wonderful piece on me in the LA Weekly, accompanied by a pretty fantastic photograph of me by Kevin Scanlon. It's really great in the print edition. Page 11, I think!
Here's the blog item mentioned in the piece about the guys who woke me (and probably half my block) at around 2 a.m.
When they didn't apologize, I said, "Clearly, you were badly raised."
Amazingly, the guy wonders why I'm mad, and reaches right for the race card: "Are you saying that because we're Asian."
"No, I said. Because you're loud, inconsiderate ASSHOLES!"
Standards Are So Haaarrrd!
A student arrived an hour late to a class at NYU and the professor told him to vamoose and come to the next class. The student whined by e-mail to the professor (Scott Galloway, founder of e-tailer redenvelope). The professor wrote a reply, chronicled on deadspin. Here are both. First, the student's:
Sent: Tuesday, February 9, 2010 7:15:11 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: Brand Strategy FeedbackProf. Galloway,
I would like to discuss a matter with you that bothered me. Yesterday evening I entered your 6pm Brand Strategy class approximately 1 hour late. As I entered the room, you quickly dismissed me, saying that I would need to leave and come back to the next class. After speaking with several students who are taking your class, they explained that you have a policy stating that students who arrive more than 15 minutes late will not be admitted to class.
As of yesterday evening, I was interested in three different Monday night classes that all occurred simultaneously. In order to decide which class to select, my plan for the evening was to sample all three and see which one I like most. Since I had never taken your class, I was unaware of your class policy. I was disappointed that you dismissed me from class considering (1) there is no way I could have been aware of your policy and (2) considering that it was the first day of evening classes and I arrived 1 hour late (not a few minutes), it was more probable that my tardiness was due to my desire to sample different classes rather than sheer complacency.
I have already registered for another class but I just wanted to be open and provide my opinion on the matter.
Regards,
xxxx--
xxxx
MBA 2010 Candidate
NYU Stern School of Business
xxxx.nyu.edu
xxx-xxx-xxxx
The professor's reply:
From: To: "xxxx" Sent: Tuesday, February 9, 2010 9:34:02 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: Re: Brand Strategy Feedbackxxxx:
Thanks for the feedback. I, too, would like to offer some feedback.
Just so I've got this straight...you started in one class, left 15-20 minutes into it (stood up, walked out mid-lecture), went to another class (walked in 20 minutes late), left that class (again, presumably, in the middle of the lecture), and then came to my class. At that point (walking in an hour late) I asked you to come to the next class which "bothered" you.
Correct?
You state that, having not taken my class, it would be impossible to know our policy of not allowing people to walk in an hour late. Most risk analysis offers that in the face of substantial uncertainty, you opt for the more conservative path or hedge your bet (e.g., do not show up an hour late until you know the professor has an explicit policy for tolerating disrespectful behavior, check with the TA before class, etc.). I hope the lottery winner that is your recently crowned Monday evening Professor is teaching Judgement and Decision Making or Critical Thinking.
In addition, your logic effectively means you cannot be held accountable for any code of conduct before taking a class. For the record, we also have no stated policy against bursting into show tunes in the middle of class, urinating on desks or taking that revolutionary hair removal system for a spin. However, xxxx, there is a baseline level of decorum (i.e., manners) that we expect of grown men and women who the admissions department have deemed tomorrow's business leaders.
xxxx, let me be more serious for a moment. I do not know you, will not know you and have no real affinity or animosity for you. You are an anonymous student who is now regretting the send button on his laptop. It's with this context I hope you register pause...REAL pause xxxx and take to heart what I am about to tell you:
xxxx, get your shit together.
Getting a good job, working long hours, keeping your skills relevant, navigating the politics of an organization, finding a live/work balance...these are all really hard, xxxx. In contrast, respecting institutions, having manners, demonstrating a level of humility...these are all (relatively) easy. Get the easy stuff right xxxx. In and of themselves they will not make you successful. However, not possessing them will hold you back and you will not achieve your potential which, by virtue of you being admitted to Stern, you must have in spades. It's not too late xxxx...
Again, thanks for the feedback.
Professor Galloway
High Glycemic, Low Glycemic, It's All Bad
I discovered The Heart Scan Blog via Dr. Eades. The author is Dr. William Davis, a Milwaukee cardiologist.
Here's an excerpt from a post he had on the mistaken notion that certain carbs (low glycemic ones like oatmeal or whole wheat something-or-other) are good for you:
There are several fundamental flaws with the notion that low-glycemic index foods are good for you:1) Check your blood sugar after a low-glycemic index food like oatmeal. Most non-diabetic adults will show blood sugars in the 140 to 200 mg/dl range. The more central (visceral) fat you have, the higher the value will be. In other words, an apparently "healthy" whole grain food like oatmeal can generate extravagantly high blood sugars. Repeated high blood sugars of 125 mg/dl or greater after eating increase heart disease risk by 50%.
2) Foods like whole wheat pasta have a low glycemic index because the blood sugar effect over the usual 90 minutes is increased to a lesser degree. The problem is that it remains increased for an extended period of up to several hours. In other words, the blood sugar-increasing effect of pasta, even whole grain, is long and sustained.
3) Low-glycemic index foods trigger other abnormalities, such as small LDL particles, triglycerides, and c-reactive protein (a measure of inflammation). While they are not as bad as high-glycemic index foods, they are still quite potent triggers.
Low-glycemic index foods trigger the very same responses as high-glycemic index foods--they're just less bad. But less bad does not equate to good. Low-glycemic index foods cause weight gain, trigger appetite, increase blood pressure, and lead to the patterns that cause heart disease.
High-glycemic index foods are bad for you. This includes foods made with white flour (bagels, white bread, pretzels). Low-glycemic foods (whole grain bread, whole wheat crackers, whole wheat pasta) are less bad for you--but they are not necessarily good.
Don't be falsely reassured by foods because they are billed as "low-glycemic index." View low-glycemic index foods as indulgences, something you might have once in a while, since a slice of whole grain bread is really not that different from a icing-covered cupcake.
Me? I eat dessert about once every week and a half. If I'm going to have something carb'y, it'll be that cupcake. Well, truthfully, I actually try to avoid eating flour even for dessert, however, and will try to have a gelato or pot au creme or something dairy and not flour'y.
Otherwise (tragically!), I maintain my slim physique and the blood pressure of an elite athlete the tough way: Yes, it's just bacon, bacon, bacon, eggs, steak, hamburger, cheese, cheese, salami, hot dogs, and lots of green vegetables drowned in butter.
Low-fat diet? Nuh-uh. Tastes like crap, and it's likely to kill you.
What, no fruit? Nope. Here's another excerpt from one of Davis' posts, "Diabetes from fruit":
While fruit is certainly better than, say, a half-cup of gummy bears (84.06 g carbohydrates, 50.12 g sugars), fruit is unavoidably high in carbohydrates and sugars.Take a look at the carbohydrate content of some common fruits:
Apple, 1 medium (2-3/4" dia)
19.06 g carbohydrate (14.34 g sugar)Banana, 1 medium (7" to 7-7/8" long)
26.95 g carbohydrate (14.43 g sugar)Grapes, 1 cup
27.33 g carbohydrate (23.37 g sugar)Pear, 1 medium
25.66 g carbohydrate (16.27 g sugar)Source: USDA Food and Nutrient Database
Fruit has many healthy components, of course, such as fiber, flavonoids, and vitamin C. But it also comes with plenty of sugar. This is especially true of modern fruit, the sort that has been cultivated, hybridized, fertilized, gassed, etc. for size and sugar content.
When you hear such conventional advice like "eat plenty of fruits and vegetables," you should hear instead: "eat plenty of vegetables. Eat a small quantity of fruit."
I eat none. I just feel too good from not eating carbs. And on the infrequent occasion I eat sugar, it's going to contain chocolate.
There Are Places You Really Don't Need To Sparkle
NSFWUYWFMOSLM (Not Safe For Work Unless You Work For Me Or Someone Like Me). Spas have found a new thing to charge women for -- glueing rhinestones around their waxed vaginas. They call this "getting Vajazzled." Story and pix here.
via Instapundit
Defending Europe: The "Not Me!" Principle
I'm always a bit amazed by people who say they are anti-war. Not that I'm pro-war. But, I do recognize that war is sometimes necessary to keep the peace, along with essential freedoms.
It's fashionable for Europeans to be anti-war, but Europe's gone too far in demilitarizing, said U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, speaking at the NATO Summit on Thursday:
"One of the triumphs of the last century was the pacification of Europe after ages of ruinous warfare. But, as I've said before, I believe we have reached an inflection point, where much of the continent has gone too far in the other direction. The demilitarization of Europe--where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it--has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st. Not only can real or perceived weakness be a temptation to miscalculation and aggression, but, on a more basic level, the resulting funding and capability shortfalls make it difficult to operate and fight together to confront shared threats."
Meanwhile, we're diving further and further into debt and your grandchildren or great-grandchildren will, if we keep spending at this rate, be indentured servants to the Chinese. Judy Shelton writes in the WSJ about the financial mess we've allowed ourselves to get into, and the potential consequences:
But China's angry response to the news that Mr. Obama will meet with the Tibetan spiritual leader tomorrow in Washington goes straight to the point. "If the U.S. leader chooses this period to meet the Dalai Lama, that would damage trust and cooperation between our two countries," said Zhu Weiqun, a Chinese Communist Party official at a Feb. 2 press conference. "And how would that help the United States surmount the current economic crisis?"In other words: China sees a clear link between America's ability to stand up for human rights and its economic interests--and Beijing isn't afraid to exploit it. Mr. Weiqun was bluntly reminding the U.S. to take a close look at its balance sheet before indulging in any displays of moral support for an exiled Buddhist monk deemed a "dangerous separatist" for seeking Tibetan autonomy.
...China holds nearly $755 billion in Treasurys--more than one-fifth of the total held by foreign nations. "China is now the largest creditor nation to the United States," noted Victor Gao, a former top official in the Chinese foreign ministry, in a recent CNN interview. "Just imagine if China buys less of the Treasury bonds or stops buying the Treasury bond for a couple of months."
Actually, China has apparently started doing just that. Yesterday the Treasury Department reported that China had significantly reduced its holdings of U.S. Treasury securities in December. The big drop--$34.2 billion--means China has moved to second place behind Japan. The big question: Will China continue to cut back?
...To lose confidence in U.S. capital markets is to lose faith in democratic capitalism. We are the nation most trusted around the world to champion free markets and free people; standing up for principle and coming to the aid of beleaguered allies is part of the American creed.
Pot Paranoia In Los Angeles
From reason.tv:
These are not gang members getting pot at these dispensaries. It's lawyers, professors, and accountants and very sick people who are no longer getting it from gang members.
Enough with the prohibition, already.
In other prohibition silliness, New Yorkers still can't buy a bottle of wine in the grocery store. Per Gothamist, they sure want to:
By a 58-39 percent majority, voters across the political spectrum support allowing grocery stores to sell wine, according to a Siena Research poll. [pdf] Governor Paterson proposed the change as part of his budget proposal, estimating it could bring in $250 million in taxes, but wine store owners and distributors fear losing business.
And not being able to charge up the butt for wine, which they do, without competition.
Nancy Pelosi Gropes For The Pet-Crazy Vote
She was talking in a forum with the President, Harry Reid, and others, televised on CNN, speaking about the middle class:
"Many of them are at the end of the line, with their insurance, with their cats..."
With their cats?
Don't Pay Through The Nose For Your Eyes
I used to be able to read a matchbook from across the street, and that's really not that much of an exaggeration, but once you hit your 40s your vision goes to South America for a little vacation, and never comes back.
I got my eye exam and prescription at Kaiser for $25, but even there, getting it filled costs hundreds of dollars. Nuh-uh.
At eyeglassdirect, I paid $35 for prescription glasses (to see the subtitles on French movies I tape on TV) and $43 for prescription sunglasses ($8 extra for the sunglass coating). They give you 50 percent off the second pair, and I went extravagant and paid the extra dollar for Priority Mail shipping back to me, and the grand total was $66.45 to make the glasses I'm sending them into prescription ones.
You can order various styles off their site, but I like to pick mine out. I went to the drugstore, found Borghese reading glasses for $14.99. Voila! I can see again. Stylishly. And for a song.
Yes, there are cheaper places, but they did a great job the last two times I ordered glasses. If you have a reliable site that you like (and you are a regular commenter, not a spammer) feel free to post it below. One link per comment, please, or you will likely be kicked to my spam folder.
And psssst! Here are discounted reading glasses
Now There's A Rent-A-Parent
There's an article in Details, Are You Raising A Douchebag, that echoes a lot of stuff I say in "The Underparented Child" chapter of my book, and that also mentions a new sort of job, the brat tamer. David Hochman writes:
Sharon Pieters sees kids with terrible behavior make the turnaround week after week, and it has everything to do with parenting, she says. The former nanny runs Child Minded, a parent-coaching company that goes into homes to vanquish the Scylla and Charybdis of offspring hell: disrespect and boorishness. For $1,200 a day, Pieters will help parents tame their brats. Whether it's a problem with too much stuff ("I visited some kids in Long Island who had their own moon bounce," Pieters says) or incessant back talk ("Some children's vocabulary is limited to 'Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!'"), the solution is the same: "Set limits and stick to them." The hard part for most moms and dads is admitting there's a problem in the first place. Borba, the parenting writer, says, "The last thing parents today want after a day of work is to come home and be a cop. They think it's going to hurt the child's self-esteem to get a hard no. But you have to look at your kids and say, 'Are they turning out the way I want them to turn out?' If not, it's up to you to start to change things."
Does Apple Really Need To Parent Your Children For You?
Apple has nanny-ed away the small-time, independent developers of "adult" apps for the iPhone, removing thousands from the iPhone store (although the big, established companies like Playboy remain). Very uncool. From the BBC:
When asked why some apps with adult content had remained intact he said that Apple took into consideration how "well-known" companies were as well as whether they had "previously published material".ChilliFresh is an Australian company that creates apps for the iPhone, including the recently banned Wobble, which allows users to add 'wobble' functionality to any picture. The firm markets the app by suggesting people can use it to wobble women's breasts.
"I'm now worried the eco-system is run by puritans and is not fair to all players," developer Jon Atherton said on its website.
"And worst of all it is not a secure source of income. It can drop to close to zero if they decide to change the rules," he added.
The firm was making £320 a day out of its apps, a figure which has dropped to £5 since the ban, he said.
"On Friday evening we got an e-mail out of the blue which basically said, thanks very much but we don't want you any more. Apple said it was removing all overtly sexual apps," he told the BBC.
He said that if Apple was serious about protecting young customers it should allow parents to set controls for devices.
Or don't give your kid a damn iPhone.
Girls Just Wanna Have Funbags
I just posted the question I answered for my Advice Goddess column from a girl who's considering implants. Thanks to all who weighed in on my blog about their feelings on bought breasts. An excerpt:
It's understandable, after weight training and Weight Watcher-ing yourself down to where you can wear a bikini instead of using it for an eye shield, that you'd like to fill it with "nice boobs." According to hundreds of comments from men on my blog and elsewhere, those are probably the ones you have, even if they are on the small side. The consensus? Bought breasts tend to feel hard and unnatural, and (eeuw!) a bit cold to the touch. Sure, some guys love big honkers so much, they don't mind if they're fake. And, even guys who don't like fake'uns will tell you they can look pretty boobtacular in a sweater. But, when they're naked or peeking out from triangles of Lycra, they tend to look freaky and make guys wonder what's wrong with you that you felt compelled to hire somebody to slit you open and insert sandwich baggies of salt water or silicone.How much time, exactly, do you spend in a bikini? Got a day job traveling to convention centers and sitting on top of cars? Is your workstation a greased pole? Keep in mind that all surgery has risks. Just ask the Argentinean model who went under the knife to get a little extra junk in the trunk. Oh, sorry -- you can't because, in the words of her friend Robert Piazza, she's a woman who "had everything" but "lost her life to have a slightly firmer behind."
You're unlikely to die getting a little more junk in the top bunk, but you may suffer complications like a buildup of scar tissue, which can cause painful tissue contraction and -- whoops! -- deformed breasts. Mmmm, sexy! And then, like toupees and car tires, implants eventually need to be replaced. Maybe every 10 years; maybe more often if you're one of the lucky ones who springs a leak. (Are we having funbags yet?)
Given the potential costs of breast augmentation, you might first try bra augmentation. Maybe even see a breast psychic. Okay, there's no such thing, but the little old Eastern European ladies at bra specialty stores come close. You can walk in bundled up like Nanook of the North, and Ludmilla will march over, bark your size at you (the size you really wear, not the size you think you wear), and strap and cup you until you almost believe somebody at the gym turned in what you lost on the treadmill.
Comments are live where the full column is posted.
People Of Color Kept Out Of College
It's not because their test scores aren't high enough. Their test scores are higher than those of other kids. But, these particular "people of color" are Asians. Babson College teacher Kara Miller writes for the Boston Globe:
SAT SCORES aren't everything. But they can tell some fascinating stories.Take 1,623, for instance. That's the average score of Asian-Americans, a group that Daniel Golden - editor at large of Bloomberg News and author of "The Price of Admission'' - has labeled "The New Jews.'' After all, much like Jews a century ago, Asian-Americans tend to earn good grades and high scores. And now they too face serious discrimination in the college admissions process.
Notably, 1,623 - out of a possible 2,400 - not only separates Asians from other minorities (Hispanics and blacks average 1,364 and 1,276 on the SAT, respectively). The score also puts them ahead of Caucasians, who average 1,581. And the consequences of this are stark.
Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade, who reviewed data from 10 elite colleges, writes in "No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal'' that Asian applicants typically need an extra 140 points to compete with white students. In fact, according to Princeton lecturer Russell Nieli, there may be an "Asian ceiling'' at Princeton, a number above which the admissions office refuses to venture.
Emily Aronson, a Princeton spokeswoman, insists "the university does not admit students in categories. In the admission process, no particular factor is assigned a fixed weight and there is no formula for weighing the various aspects of the application.''
A few years ago, however, when I worked as a reader for Yale's Office of Undergraduate Admissions, it became immediately clear to me that Asians - who constitute 5 percent of the US population - faced an uphill slog. They tended to get excellent scores, take advantage of AP offerings, and shine in extracurricular activities. Frequently, they also had hard-knock stories: families that had immigrated to America under difficult circumstances, parents working as kitchen assistants and store clerks, and households in which no English was spoken.
But would Yale be willing to make 50 percent of its freshman class Asian? Probably not.
And that's wrong. The best applicant for the job, or for the position at the college, should get in. Anything else is racism. And you don't fight racism with racism.
So, Religion Teaches Morality?
Sorry for the annoying music, but the video is otherwise right on. Meet the Bible and God, too, who gets "his" in the end.
Turn The Page For Less
Magazines, super cheap, at the Amazon February Magazine Sale
Warning: Everything And Anything Can Kill You
It's tragic that a 4-year-old, Eric Stavros Adler, died after choking on a hot dog, but the American Academy of Pediatrics has come up with a completely ridiculous "solution" -- "sweeping changes" in the way food is labeled and designed to minimize children's risk of choking. Lindsey Tanner writes for the AP:
Some food makers including Oscar Mayer have warning labels about choking, but not nearly enough, says Joan Stavros Adler, Eric's mom....Choking kills more than 100 U.S. children 14 years or younger each year and thousands more -- 15,000 in 2001 -- are treated in emergency rooms. Food, including candy and gum, is among the leading culprits, along with items like coins and balloons. Of the 141 choking deaths in kids in 2006, 61 were food-related.
Surveillance systems lack detailed information about food choking incidents, which are thought to be underreported but remain a significant and under-appreciated problem, said Dr. Gary Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
Smith is lead author of a new policy report from the pediatrics academy that seeks to make choking prevention a priority for government and food makers. The report was released Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
Doctors say high-risk foods, including hot dogs, raw carrots, grapes and apples -- should be cut into pea-sized pieces for small children to reduce chances of choking. Some say other risky foods, including hard candies, popcorn, peanuts and marshmallows, shouldn't be given to young children at all.
Federal law requires choking warning labels on certain toys including small balls, balloons and games with small parts. Unless food makers voluntarily put more warning labels on high-risk foods, there should be a similar mandate for food, the pediatrics academy says.
Mothers I know seem to know to cut or mash their toddlers' food up. Again, very sad and awful that this mother lost her child -- they say there's no loss like that kind of loss, and the rest of us not in that situation can only imagine. But, the answer is not prohibiting the sale of hot dogs and only selling "Hot Dog Bitz!" or something along those lines.
More on the hot dog redesign here, by Liz Szabo at USA Today:
"If you were to take the best engineers in the world and try to design the perfect plug for a child's airway, it would be a hot dog," says statement author Gary Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. "I'm a pediatric emergency doctor, and to try to get them out once they're wedged in, it's almost impossible."..."No parents can watch all of their kids 100% of the time," Smith says. "The best way to protect kids is to design these risks out of existence."
Though Smith says he doesn't know exactly how someone would redesign a hot dog, he's certain that some savvy inventor will find a way.
Janet Riley, president of the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council, supports the academy's call to better educate parents and caregivers about choking prevention. "Ensuring the safety of the foods we service to children is critically important for us," Riley says.
But Riley questions whether warning labels are needed. She notes that more than half of hot dogs sold in stores already have choking-prevention tips on their packages, advising parents to cut them into small pieces. "As a mother who has fed toddlers cylindrical foods like grapes, bananas, hot dogs and carrots, I 'redesigned' them in my kitchen by cutting them with a paring knife until my children were old enough to manage on their own," Riley says.
Right on.
Now maybe this is just a clever publicity ploy to get the attention of lax parents who need to cut up their children's foof. Let's hope. Because children are also killed running into the street to chase a ball or a kitty. Should we eliminate use of motor vehicles near homes? What about roast beef? Children sometimes choke on roast beef, and steak, too. Will we all be eating only babyfood soon? ("Thanks, I'll have that jar of prime sirloin.")
How Much Longer Will You Have To Work To Fund Public-Sector Employees' Golden Years?
Nick Gillespie blogs at reason on the obscene-and-growing costs of public-sector employees' retirement benefits:
Hard-fact time: Taxpayers everywhere are shelling out many, many, many more real dollars per student for public education than they were 30 years ago (with no clear improvements in outcomes [see this and this]). Indeed, inflation-adjusted costs per pupil have gone up over 200 percent since 1970, while student achievement is flat (at best). Can you think of any other part of your life (especially one in the private sector) where you are paying twice as much for the same freaking outcome? Say what you will about rising medical costs, but the pills that cure our ills nowadays are so much better...As we've noted here, this is a story that is only going to gain in regularity as the gap between public-sector and private-sector compensation grows (public-sector already has a 70 percent advantage!) and as private-sector workers increasingly fund their own retirements via 401(k)s.
The basic bargain about public-sector work, hammered out decades ago in a very different world, is supposed to be: You give up status, upward possibility, and compensation now for job security and payoffs later in retirement. That has never really been true and is certainly less so now. Yes, public-sector jobs ofer more security than their private-sector counterparts, but compensation is also higher on average and the benefits, especially in retirement are gold-plated to the nines. That bargain, which is unsustainable economically, is going to hit the rocks. The only question is: Who is going to pay? Taxpayers or the public-sector workers?
And hate it as I do, there were agreements made with these employees' unions. Do states just get to break them?
The Ladies Of The Mossad
Some women are living the secret agent life I only imagined for myself. Gordon Thomas serializes his new book, Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad
Arguably the most famous female kidon was Cheryl Ben-Tov, code-named Cindy. Born in Orlando, Florida, Cheryl moved to Israel to study Hebrew and Jewish history. At 18 she fell in love with an Israeli who worked for the Internal Security Service, Shin Beth.A year after they married, Cheryl volunteered to join Mossad. Her motivation, she later told me, was "the thrill of its mystery".
Her training taught her, among other skills, how to construct a waterproof strip of microfilm that could be left buried in the side of a river bank. She also learnt how to change her facial appearance by inserting cotton wadding in her cheeks. She became adept at posing as a drunk and chatting up men in nightclubs, then disengaging herself outside their hotel.
With an IQ of 140, and her ideal psychological profile, Cheryl was invited to join the kidon. On the day she was trucked out to its base in the Negev, she was questioned about her sexual experience. Would she sleep with a stranger if her mission demanded it? She answered truthfully: there had been no one before her husband, but if she was convinced the success of the mission depended on it, then she would. "It would purely be sex, not love," she explained to me.
In 2004, Cheryl joined a team of nine katsas - field intelligence officers - in London. Their task was to entrap Mordechai Vanunu, who had worked at Israeli's top-secret nuclear facility in the Negev desert, but had fled to London to try to sell his story. Mossad had to stop him from doing so, and Cheryl was chosen as the bait to trap him.
Using her seduction skills, she "came alongside" Vanunu in Leicester Square. Their relationship quickly developed, and Vanunu suggested they spend the night together. Cheryl agreed, saying they should go to Rome and "enjoy a few romantic days in the city of love", as she put it to me.Five members of the Mossad team were passengers on the flight Cheryl and Vanunu took to Rome. In the old quarter of the city, Cheryl led the way up to an apartment she had told Vanunu belonged to her sister. Already waiting inside were the Mossad katsas from the flight. They overpowered Vanunu, injecting him with a paralysing drug. Three days later he had been tranferred to Haifa in Israel. A swift trial and a life sentence in solitary confinement followed. Cheryl Ben-Tov disappeared back into her secret world.
She resigned from Mossad after the Vanunu case. It had "burned" her as an agent, she told me. Today she lives back in Orlando, with her husband and two daughters, running a real estate business.
Letters To Sebastian
One of the things I talk about in my book is how you can make very small efforts that make a big difference in other people's lives.
My friend Sergeant Heather's son is autistic, but he happens to be an autistic savant, which means that at 5, he can read way above his level. He also happens to love elephants, and after I learned that, well, the elephants started writing Sebastian letters.
These letters come in the mail about once a month, addressed directly to him, and are typed in big text on hot pink paper (yes, the elephants happen to have a computer and typing paper) and are signed in messy Sharpie all over the untyped-on remainder of the page; usually with "P.S. something or other."
Anyway, Sergeant Heather suggested I save these (I hadn't been), and I'm so weary of all the ugly "adults" these past few days, I thought I'd share a few. Here's one from last week.
Dear Sebastian,We were in Michigan to go hear your mom's friend with the red hair do a show at the Opera House, and we went out afterward with her for lemonade, and we all decided we had to get you a present. We hope you like it, and it will help you remember your little friends in the jungle with the floppy ears. Well, okay, we're not so little!
Love, your friends the elephants
(The present was a little marble with an elephant and elephant facts on it -- one of those edu-toys. His mom said he loved it and he slept with the letter. Awww!)
Here's one I wrote on Thursday, to send sometime next week:
Dear Sebastian,Okay, we are leaving Michigan, that state that is shaped like a mitten, to go back to Africa. We had lots and lots of fun sliding around on the ice and throwing snowballs at each other with our trunks. Our mom found it a little hard to find sweaters in our size so she got blankets and tied them around us. Mine was pink with little elephants on it. Do you have a blue blanket with pictures of little boys on it? Just wondering!
The only bad thing was when we got in trouble for eating a lady's flowers. They were very pretty so we ate them. Unfortunately, they gave us a really bad stomach ache, plus our mom scolded us, so we pretty much got punished twice. Boohoo.
We hope you are having fun and we wanted to say hi to your sister. We hear she is pretty cool, and we hope if we meet her, she will teach us to dance. We are not the most graceful animals on the planet, but we do try!
Love, your friends the elephants
The Barbarians Were Restless
Free speech doesn't mean the freedom to stop others from speaking by shouting them down -- except, that is, for the Muslims Students' Union members at UC/Irvine. Nice try. Law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky writes for the LA Times:
Eleven individuals were arrested, and those who are UCI students are facing disciplinary action. In the last week, I have been deluged with messages from those saying the disruptive students did nothing wrong and deserve no punishment, and also from those saying that the students should be expelled and that others in the audience who cheered them on should be disciplined.Both of these views are wrong. As to the former, there are now posters around campus referring to the unjust treatment of the "Irvine 11" and saying they were just engaging in speech themselves. However, freedom of speech never has been regarded as an absolute right to speak out at any time and in any manner. Long ago, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes explained that there was no right to falsely shout "fire" in a crowded theater.
The government, including public universities, always can impose time, place and manner restrictions on speech. A person who comes into my classroom and shouts so that I cannot teach surely can be punished without offending the 1st Amendment. Likewise, those who yelled to keep the ambassador from being heard were not engaged in constitutionally protected behavior.
Freedom of speech, on campuses and elsewhere, is rendered meaningless if speakers can be shouted down by those who disagree. The law is well established that the government can act to prevent a heckler's veto -- to prevent the reaction of the audience from silencing the speaker. There is simply no 1st Amendment right to go into an auditorium and prevent a speaker from being heard, no matter who the speaker is or how strongly one disagrees with his or her message.
The remedy for those who disagreed with the ambassador was to engage in speech of their own, but in a way that was not disruptive. They could have handed out leaflets, stood with picket signs, spoken during the question-and-answer session, held a demonstration elsewhere on campus or invited their own speakers.
Here's the video:
And just a thought, where's the outcry for the Muslims being murdered in Africa? Oh, sorry -- those are black Muslims, and they're of little or no concern to Middle Eastern Muslims. Not to worry, Muslims! Israel is granting citizenship to hundreds of black Muslim refugees as a humanitarian gesture, just like they provide medical care for Palestinian sick people in Israel hospitals.
Is anybody high enough to think the Muslims will take in any Jews?
Chairman Of The Board, Cheap
22 classic Sinatra tunes, $2.99: Nothing But The Best [The Frank Sinatra Collection]
(The Chairman Of The Bored
The Muslim Brotherhood: It's All There In The Motto
Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the WSJ on the Muslim Brotherhood and the kind of Egypt they really want:
'Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope." So goes the motto of the Muslim Brotherhood.
I'm Liking This Trend
Now it's the undershowered getting kicked off planes. From CNN.com:
Air travelers already have to deal with unruly passengers, excessively talkative ones and many other types who make flying miserable.But a new low may just have been reached for weary road warriors: The overwhelmingly smelly passenger.
A man on Jazz Air, a regional airline in Canada that also serves U.S. cities, was reportedly kicked off a plane earlier this month because of his strong body odor.
"People were just mumbling and staring at him," said a woman who sat near the man, according to The Guardian, a newspaper in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, where the flight originated on February 6. It was a very uncomfortable situation, she added.
Another passenger described the smell as "brutal."
And yes, I've heard about the Mitt Romney thing ("Did not! Did, too! Did Not! Did, too!")
Tiger Woods' Apology
I'm sorry, or I'm sorry I got caught? Footage is here, on CNN, along with a few pundits' thoughts on it.
Text of his statement is here, in the Telegraph. The beginning of it:
Good morning, and thank you for joining me. Many of you in this room are my friends. Many of you in this room know me. Many of you have cheered for me or you've worked with me or you've supported me.Now every one of you has good reason to be critical of me. I want to say to each of you, simply and directly, I am deeply sorry for my irresponsible and selfish behavior I engaged in.
I know people want to find out how I could be so selfish and so foolish. People want to know how I could have done these things to my wife, Elin, and to my children. And while I have always tried to be a private person, there are some things I want to say.Elin and I have started the process of discussing the damage caused by my behavior. As Elin pointed out to me, my real apology to her will not come in the form of words; it will come from my behavior over time. We have a lot to discuss; however, what we say to each other will remain between the two of us.
I am also aware of the pain my behavior has caused to those of you in this room. I have let you down, and I have let down my fans. For many of you, especially my friends, my behavior has been a personal disappointment. To those of you who work for me, I have let you down personally and professionally. My behavior has caused considerable worry to my business partners.
To everyone involved in my foundation, including my staff, board of directors, sponsors and most importantly, the young students we reach, our work is more important than ever. Thirteen years ago, my dad and I envisioned helping young people achieve their dreams through education. This work remains unchanged and will continue to grow. From the Learning Center students in Southern California to the Earl Woods scholars in Washington, D.C., millions of kids have changed their lives, and I am dedicated to making sure that continues.
But still, I know I have bitterly disappointed all of you. I have made you question who I am and how I could have done the things I did. I am embarrassed that I have put you in this position.
For all that I have done, I am so sorry.
It continues, and he says there was no domestic violence on his wife's part.
My take? Decide you like lots of skanky women BEFORE marrying the nice Swedish woman and making babies with her.
UPDATE: Here's a new question. Why do you think he did it? (In light of how, when you're famous, everything you do becomes famous -- or is likely to.)
Me At 75
Here's the video.
"Should Fat People On Airplanes Be Treated Like Tall People?"
25 inches from unreclined back to front on my US Air flight to NYC. The sweet black guy seated in front of me kindly (and without being asked) didn't put his seat back (nor did I), and I was able to work on my computer during the flight. I thanked him when we were disembarking.
Saletan at Slate asks the question:
If a tall person sat behind you on an airplane and asked you not to lean your seat back, what would you do?How about if a fat person sat next to you and asked you not to lower your arm rest? Same thing?
In the last week, two well-known travelers--movie director Kevin Smith and New York Times columnist David Pogue--have used Twitter to tell the world about their bad flying experiences. Pogue was rebuked by a tall passenger seated behind him. Smith was ejected from a plane for being fat. Thanks to their popularity--Smith has more than 1.6 million Twitter followers, and Pogue has more than 1.3 million--the two men have stirred up plenty of debate over the incidents. Their juxtaposition raises an interesting question: Do we treat excessive length and width differently? If so, is that unfair?
I voluntarily do not recline my seat, no matter the size of the person behind me, because I unfortunately must fly coach, and coach doesn't leave much room for anyone. But, again, that's something I do voluntarily -- because I realize that you really don't get much out of that recline, and I'd rather not box in the person behind me any further than they already are for the little I would get if I did. You, however, may choose to recline your seat, and that's your prerogative. Airplane seats do come with a recline function, which means that recline space is part of your flight you paid for. And therein lies the difference.
Which is why what I won't have is somebody taking over have my seat by oozing into it, or have their arm meat all over me. That little space between my arm rests? All mine. If you are flying tall, do as basketball player Bob Lanier did in Detroit when it came time to buy a car -- pay more for transportation space that fits you, or suck it up. Is that "fair" that taller or fatter people need to rent bigger spaces? No less fair than how girls with big breasts have to wear really expensive bras, and the flatter chested ladies aren't helping out with the purchase price.
What To Do For A Living If You're Stupid
Go into governmentm of course, where stupidity is so often the gold standard. Here's a piece by Katherine Mangu-Ward at reason, in which she takes that tiny little extra step to process what it really means, the way government is plans to "protect" you when your flight is delayed on the tarmac. Whoops, she figures out it's all the way to having you sleep on the airport floor. Maybe for days. Mangu-Ward writes:
Are three hours of your time worth $27,500? If they're spent in an airplane on the tarmac, then the U.S. Department of Transportation says they are. In December, the government announced that it would soon begin enforcing new rules that fine airlines per passengers for any tarmac delay that lasts more than three hours. The fines go into effect on April 29, meaning that a delayed 747 jammed full of people headed to their summer vacations could cost the airline more than $13 million.But wait! If a flight is canceled, then the fine is void. Too bad no one can see the future to know what will happen next. Just kidding. We know exactly what will happen next.
So let's just go ahead and make this an official announcement: Starting in April, every flight that is delayed more than three hours in the United States of America is canceled. The flight that was delayed for the rainstorm that shows signs of clearing at 2 hours and 55 minutes? Canceled. The flight delayed for a repair that will take 3 hours and 4 minutes? Canceled.
And, of course, should an airline violate the delay rules and be forced to pay the fine, the cash won't go the passengers. But the passengers sleeping on the floor of the airport will enjoy the full realization of their "fundamental right to be treated with respect," according to Department of Transportation spokeswoman Maureen Knightly.
As for who's going to pay the $13 million fine, do you really think the chairman of the airline is going to sell his house in the Hamptons? Or that maybe they'll pass it on to all the schmucks on the plane; say, by charging for air, or whatever they have yet to nickel and dime all of us for?
The Attack On My Book
Grown adults, like a 52-year-old unsuccessful actor in New York City named Carl Salonen, are part of an attack at Amazon by the Tiny Little Thugs (aka SadlyNo.com) in hopes of hurting the sales of my book. Their blog item is here.
Salonen, most vilely, posted a "review," now removed, calling me "Arnold Alkon," harkening back to their old attacks at their site calling me a tranny and asking whether I have a penis, etc. There's another "reviewer," Loretta Serrano, who has a number of blogs actually dedicated directly to her alleged behavior and comment on the various names she goes under. She also has a book on Amazon, under the name Loretta Dillon, and yet, she thinks nothing of hurting the sales of mine.
These are leftists, all these losers, and while I'm neither left nor right (I'm fiscally conservative and socially libertarian), it's my experience that people on the right will tell me they think I'm an idiot right to my face or openly, on a blog (because I was against the Iraq war, for example), while the left has resorted to denigrating me by trying to hurt my livelihood. And they do it anonymously.
And then, there's the manner in which they do it, by using transsexuality in hopes of derogating me. Who has a harder time in this world than somebody who's born one sex and feels very strongly they're another? They're using this to put me down? Ugly. And they're the left?
Now, I have no problem with people taking issue with me or my writing and posting critically about me on some website, nor do I have a problem with people who've actually read my book and have gripes about what I wrote posting them in a review. That's just the territory, being a public writer and speaker, and publishing a book.
But, who goes around trying to hurt somebody's employment (which is what they're effectively doing with these "reviews" at Amazon, and with their call to their followers to vote up the negative reviews so they'll be at the top)?
More about this at the wonderful, tireless, fearless Patterico's site: "Help Amy Alkon Beat the Scum at Sadly, No." Also, these sick fuck adult losers did this to John J. Miller's book as well.
Amazon needs to take steps to stop the abuse of their review system. It's supposed to be a way of reviewing books people have actually read, not of exacting revenge, reviewing the author as a person, or getting even for a blog post the author has written. And it's become all of those things.
UPDATE: Amazon has removed some of the reviews, like Carl Salonen's intimating that I'm transsexual. And I forgot to mention this before -- vis a vis the irony that this is coming from the left. Isn't calling me that...lookist? And sexist? And about five other things?
Sticking It To The, Uh, Boy
Paternity fraud has reached a new low, and that would be seven years old. That's the age at which a Florida man supposedly fathered a child. From a UPI story:
Rusty Cole, a National Guardsman from Port Orange, Fla., said his tax return was delayed by the state because officials told him he owes support payments for a child born in 1995 -- despite the fact that Cole was born in late 1987, Central Florida News 13 reported Wednesday.Cole said weeks of phone calls and office visits failed to yield any results.
"They were like, 'Oh, yes, we have it on here that you are the father,' and I was like, 'Ma'am, there's no way,'" Cole said to News 13.
He said an e-mail message to Gov. Charlie Crist finally yielded him an apology from the department of revenue and the promise that his return would be processed.
Now maybe this is just a mistake on the part of the state, but It's pretty vile that even this guy's case above takes serious effort on his part to clear up.
It's hard for the average person to believe the stories of paternity fraud that are out there, but it's absolutely sick, what happens -- and it does happen. A woman can name a man as the father of her child -- even a man she's never met, let alone had sex with -- and if he doesn't contest it in the correct amount of time (often 90 days, depending on the state), he's on the hook for child support.
And never mind ordering a DNA test after they declare him on the hook. And never mind if he never even got the paperwork to contest the paternity fraud. It happened to Tony Pierce. Matt Welch wrote about Pierce's case and paternity fraud in general in a terrific piece in reason magazine.
Oh, and if this case above wasn't paternity fraud, just government bureacracy doing what government bureaucracy does, think twice about whether you really think health care brought to you by Uncle Sam (and administered on a local level by, say, Uncle Okeefenokee) is a good idea. I'm always amazed by people who assume government will solve their problems instead of causing them.
via ifeminists
How Long Are Fillings Supposed To Last?
Anybody have any idea? I have mercury amalgam ones put in by good old Dr. Fontanesi (looked like Pavarotti, great dentist) in Southfield, Michigan, back when I was a teenager, and they're still going strong.
However, one put in my by So Cal dentist in 1999, on one of my smaller, near-the-front molars, just popped out when I was flossing on Monday night. It had one sharp side edge the floss has always caught on (sorry if that's TMI, but when I give advice to somebody, it helps to have all the details, so there you have it).
The dentist, through his assistant, conveyed that I would be paying full price for refilling the filling on Friday. Doesn't seem quite right to pay twice for him to fill the same tooth -- or am I mistaken?
P.S. Nebraska Dentist Dan Peterson says the kind I have (which are pictured) should last 12 years or longer. I've seen other sites say 15 years.
Named One Of 101 Woman Bloggers To Watch For 2010
By We magazine. Thanks!
Sexual Harassers Get Younger Every Day
It's not enough that we're turning teenagers who send nude photos of themselves into "sex offenders." A 6-year-old boy was deemed a sexual harasser for putting two fingers in the waistband of a little girl's pants.
Maria Papadopoulos writes for the Brockton Enterprises that this idiocy ended up costing the city $180K in a lawsuit. (It is one way to gin up a kid's college fund!)
The elementary school student, accused of sexually harassing a classmate as a first-grader in 2006, will receive a total of about $160,000 in a legal settlement reached with the city. His parents received $20,000.The boy, then 6, was suspended from the Downey Elementary School for three days after school officials accused him of sexually harassing a classmate. The principal said he had violated sexual harassment policy by touching a female classmate inside her clothing waistband during a class.
Excuse me...we have "sexual harassment policy" for elementary school children?
The incident occurred on Jan. 30, 2006. In an interview with The Enterprise at that time, Berthena Dorinvil said the principal called her to pick up her son and told her the boy had been sitting behind the girl on the carpet in a classroom with a teacher and about 20 students present. The girl complained to the teacher about the boy touching her.Dorinvil said the principal told her that her son had put two fingers inside the waistband of the girl's pants and touched her skin.
"She said to me, 'That's sexual harassment,'" Dorinvil said at the time. The school suspended the boy for three days.
After The Enterprise reported on the case, the story went worldwide and a media debate erupted over whether a child that age can sexually harass someone.
Later, the school department revised its policy on sexual harassment among students.
The idiot principal was not "revised" out of her job, just made to write 100 times on the blackboard...uh...actually...
Diane Gosselin, still the Downey School principal, would provide a "personal, private letter of regret" to the family for applying the sexual harassment policy to the Jan. 30, 2006 situation.
Shouldn't blithering lack of judgment be grounds for firing from one's wisdom-requiring position?
via Overlawyered
Jury Duty Scam
They aren't coming to take you away. They're leaving you where you are and cleaning out your bank account.
According to news reports, the jury duty scam is back. From the FBI from 2006:
The phone rings, you pick it up, and the caller identifies himself as an officer of the court. He says you failed to report for jury duty and that a warrant is out for your arrest. You say you never received a notice. To clear it up, the caller says he'll need some information for "verification purposes"-your birth date, social security number, maybe even a credit card number.This is when you should hang up the phone. It's a scam.
Jury scams have been around for years, but have seen a resurgence in recent months. Communities in more than a dozen states have issued public warnings about cold calls from people claiming to be court officials seeking personal information. As a rule, court officers never ask for confidential information over the phone; they generally correspond with prospective jurors via mail.
The scam's bold simplicity may be what makes it so effective. Facing the unexpected threat of arrest, victims are caught off guard and may be quick to part with some information to defuse the situation.
"They get you scared first," says a special agent in the Minneapolis field office who has heard the complaints. "They get people saying, 'Oh my gosh! I'm not a criminal. What's going on?'" That's when the scammer dangles a solution-a fine, payable by credit card, that will clear up the problem.
With enough information, scammers can assume your identity and empty your bank accounts.
"It seems like a very simple scam," the agent adds. The trick is putting people on the defensive, then reeling them back in with the promise of a clean slate. "It's kind of ingenious. It's social engineering."
via Shermer
But Will They Also Be Swabbing Your Ass?
TSA is going to swab passengers' hands for explosives residue, reports CNN. A handy alert for terrorists, who can now be sure to swallow their explosive material in a bunch of condoms, like drug mules. Once on the lips, forever on the...KABOOOM!
Once again, I'm reminded that the Israelis look for terrorists, not for the materials of terrorists, and do a pretty stellar job of keeping their planes unhijacked and unexploded. Then again, they also hire people out of a pool that doesn't otherwise look for jobs saying "Want fries with that?"
On a related note, wouldn't it be nice if "moderate Muslims" spoke up about how wrong it is to murder people for Allah? Of course, it's not wrong per the Quran, just according to Western values. Could that be why they don't? Could it be that all of these "moderate Muslims" are afraid of being murdered by other Muslims for "insulting Islam," and aren't willing to risk having to go into hiding like Wafa Sultan, who, most courageously, speaks out against the barbarianism against non-Muslims commanded by the Quran?
More Dumb Stuff We Believe
We have an irrational fear of baby-snatching, and it's costing us big with high-tech security and massively fortified birthing centers (with that as a big part of a hospital's sales pitch). Daniel Engber writes at Slate:
The truth is that no one is trying to steal your baby. It doesn't matter what kind of ID tags your hospital employs, or how many surveillance cameras are mounted in the hallway. The incidence of nonfamily infant abductions is so impossibly low--the actual crime so rare in practice--that it hardly matters at all. Yes, the attempt at Fort Hood points to the fact that a small handful of newborns are stolen every year. Yet our obsession with security has turned the figure of the baby-snatcher into a paranoid fantasy. The precautions that are now in place aren't merely unjustified. They're doing more harm than good.Consider the stats. The NCMEC has systematically compiled information on every case of baby-snatching (PDF) since 1983, a 26-year stretch in which it has recorded a total of 267 incidents. Over the same period, 108 million babies were born in the United States. That is to say, the chance a stranger will steal your newborn--from your hospital room, your home nursery, or anywhere else--is about one in 400,000. That's a very, very small number. Here's some perspective: Your baby's odds of getting snatched are considerably smaller--five times smaller, in fact--than her odds of being struck and killed by a lightning bolt.
The reason behind all this panic hospitals are ginning up? The money, honey...of course.
So began the "Maternity Wars." Birth centers across the country were renovated and ramped up to attract market share, and the maternity ward started to resemble a luxury hotel. Hospitals advertised single-occupancy rooms with flat-screen TVs, plush bathrobes, and deep Jacuzzi tubs. (The unspectacular New York City hospital where I was born in the 1970s now sports Italian glass tile, elegant sconces, and decorative mirrors.) Once all these perks were in place, enhanced infant security was a logical next step. Come for the lakeside views, the fresh-baked cookies, and the motion-activated surveillance cameras ...A competitive marketplace for moms has turned the baby-snatching panic into an expensive arms race: If Mercy West is using umbilical transponders, what kind of parent would risk delivering at Seattle Grace? Now we're seeing hospitals shell out for infant protection and identification systems with six-figure price tags. Those investments, along with the rest of the money that goes into birth center perks, shake out in higher insurance premiums. That's not the only source of increased medical spending: The inflated standards for infant safety may leave some institutions more vulnerable to baby-snatching lawsuits--and multimillion-dollar settlements--in those very rare cases when abductions do occur. According to risk-management expert Fay Rozovsky, some hospitals are buying liability insurance to hedge against this scenario.
The panic over baby-snatching carries a further emotional cost for young parents already dumbfounded by the living, breathing, gurgling creature that just entered their lives. Following the NCMEC guidelines, many hospitals are now stoking our more natural anxieties by warning parents against posting photos of their babies online or decorating their front yards with "signs, balloons, large floral wreaths, and other lawn ornaments." (These might "call attention to the presence of a new infant in the home.")
Oh, please. So does leaving the home with your infant and going to the diner. Who knows how many people will see you there -- people with cars and trucks and the ability to follow you home. On the bright side, this might keep screaming children out of the diner. Try to remember that when you get your health insurance bill and you're wondering why it's so damn high.
Thanks, Number Six
Anybody Had Their Health Insurance Cancelled For An Expired Credit Card?
Trying to help a friend. Just wondering. Guy's in California, if that matters (should anybody here know anything about this).
Had a nice long original blog post that got eaten by a kernel panic -- and I'm not even on the computer that's been having all the kernel panics. Will try to redo it tomorrow in the morning.
Better Living Through Chemistry
Of course, the worry surely will be that this nasal spray to help people with autism will be used by people who don't have autism to be more socially comfortable -- and I don't have a problem in the world with that, nor do I have a problem with any sort of better living through chemistry.
The idea that what's natural is good is called "the naturalistic fallacy." An example that neatly debunks it (which I generally use on nitwits who go on about Big Pharm and are all sweet on what they don't recognize as Big Health food, because it's purveyed by gray-skinned hippies) is poison mushrooms. If what's natural is good, well, fry up a heaping plateful of those things and say your goodbyes.
On a related (anti-tech) note, some college professor recently posted a comment about how he makes all his students handwrite their papers. Absolutely idiotic. The computer allows me to edit in a word or sentence without retyping the entire document. It's an enormous time-saver, and makes my life easier in myriad ways. I asked, did he also make his students walk to school instead of taking the bus, and spear their lunch instead of running out to the cafeteria or the 7-Eleven? (He never replied as to why he makes them handwrite his papers -- and I hope my taking him to task will make him stop.)
Here's the WaPo Rob Stein article on that nasal spray:
A nasal spray containing a hormone that is known to make women more maternal and men less shy apparently can help those with autism make eye contact and interact better with others, according to a provocative study released Monday.The study, involving 13 adults with either a high-functioning form of autism or Asperger syndrome, a mild form of the disorder, found that when the subjects inhaled the hormone oxytocin, they scored significantly better on a test that involved recognizing faces and performed much better in a game that involved tossing a ball with others.
Although more research is needed to confirm and explore the findings, the results are the latest in a growing body of evidence indicating that the hormone could lead to ways to help people with the often devastating brain disorder function better.
Will The Feds Ban Your Pain Meds?
Great video that debunks some of the crapthink about how taking pain pills will automatically ruin lives: reason.tv's Ted Balaker:
I saw my dear friend Cathy Seipp suffering terribly from lung cancer, and her Oxycodone helped ease her suffering. It's unthinkable that she wouldn't have had this to help her.
I deal with some of the anti-drug paranoia surrounding my own ingestion of Ritalin. Sure, some people abuse it, but it helps me focus so I can write. And I've been taking the same 10 mg. dose for about 10 years. Better living through chemistry. It's simply fantastic that I can take a pill, with almost no side-effects for me, apparently (according to an epidemiologist friend) and be better at what I do.
Folk Wisdom That Isn't True
Okay, I'm a mooch. A literary mooch.
I need bits of folk wisdom...or, basically sayings you hear, that really aren't true or aren't always true. Stuff people believe and pass around.
A relationship version of what I'm looking for is, "If she cheated with you, she'll cheat on you."
Perhaps some of you believe that, but it's actually not necessarily true.
Here's another example:
Nietzsche's "That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger" is another example, you could respond "Drink poison and your liver is fucked for life."
I'm looking for Snopes/Urban myth type beliefs/quotes as well.
Any help you can give me in this matter would be much appreciated.
He Refuses To Graduate Idiots
Love this man. I was in Rochester, Michigan, on Sunday, and saw this Rochelle Riley column on the Detroit Public Schools' emergency financial manager Robert Bobb, who's putting an end to the practice of "social promotion":
Bobb's action comes one week after the Free Press reported the story of a Denby High School student who graduated without being able to read her diploma. She is 22-year-old Amiya Olden, who walked into ProLiteracy Detroit, the city's largest center for adult reading, and began working to improve her reading. She advanced from a second-grade reading level 18 months ago to a fifth-grade level now. Amiya said she was pushed to act by not being able to read restaurant menus and movie marquees. She also wanted to improve her chances of finding a good job."The things that she said really, in terms of what she was unable to do, they really speak to the heart and soul of why reading is so important," Bobb said. "How do you get someone from preschool all the way through high school without learning to read?"
I speak to "at-risk" kids, as they're called, at a high school in Los Angeles. Last time I spoke, it was to a class of 11th graders mostly reading at the first, second, and third grade level, which I find tragic.
That's why I'm all for Caitlin Flanagan's point of view, from her recent Atlantic piece, that we have no business teaching kids to farm during school hours; not the kids that haven't yet learned to read, anyway. Charter school kids want to learn to grow green beans, with maybe a lesson or two about Mendel on the side? Have at it.
People Aren't Blowing Up Airplanes For Isis Or Gaia
Love this. The very people whose holy book commands them to convert or kill the rest of us (those of us who don't believe in Allah), have their "scholars" telling them the new airport scanners violate their religious beliefs. Amazingly, taking advantage of all the technological advances of western culture -- like airplane travel -- apparently does not. These people sure do pick and choose.
Niraj Warikoo writes for the Detroit Free Press:
In a move that could complicate airport screening, a group of Muslim-American scholars issued a religious ruling this week that called upon the faithful to not go through body scanners because the scholars said the machines violate Islamic rules on nudity.A growing number of body scanners -- 450 more of them this year -- are to be introduced in airports in Michigan and across the U.S., say Transportation Security Administration officials. Their increased use comes after the Dec. 25 bombing attempt on an airliner over Detroit, heightening fears of terrorism. The suspect in the failed bombing is a Nigerian Muslim.
The Fiqh Council of North America -- a national group based in Indiana -- said the scanners contravene Islamic law, which is grounded in the Quran. The council consists of an executive council and a council of 10 scholars, two of whom live in metro Detroit. It's an affiliate of the Islamic Society of North America.
"It is a violation of clear Islamic teachings that men or women be seen naked by other men and women," reads the fatwa. "Islam highly emphasizes haya (modesty) and considers it part of faith. The Quran has commanded the believers, both men and women, to cover their private parts."
All the better to blow you infidels up, my dear!
They Can Study The Effect Of Inaction On Scientific Progress
Check out a Colorado school's list of science fair rules, from my friend Lenore Skenazy at FreeRangeKids:
For safety: Project displays and posters may NOT contain any of the following: NO: Organisms (living or dead). NO: Microbial cultures/fungi/molds/bacteria/parasites. NO: Plants in Soil. NO: Chemicals. NO: Flammable Substances.So I guess if you are doing a science experiment involving the effect of dust on a desk, you're ok.
Or maybe they have the kids stand around and imagine what it would be like if they did a science experiment.
A New Kind Of Spam
People are apparently getting their address books hijacked. Got this sort of spam from two people this morning, with the name of some person I've never heard of (and I bet they never have) in the header:
Subject: Sally Boultbeehttp://df-informatique.net/go.friend.php dave molesworth
Don't go to the link. When I did on the earlier e-mail, it went to some site selling something.
Too Fat To Fly?
Southwest Air threw director Kevin Smith off a flight. He tweeted it. It's got to be embarrassing, awful, inconvenient, and more to have this happen, but well, I sure don't enjoy, as I put it in my book, sitting next to somebody so big they "annex your seat like they're Germany and you're Poland." Here are his tweets:
• Dear @SouthwestAir - I know I'm fat, but was Captain Leysath really justified in throwing me off a flight for which I was already seated? about 3 hours ago from Echofon• Dear @SouthwestAir, I flew out in one seat, but right after issuing me a standby ticket, Oakland Southwest attendant Suzanne (wouldn't give
• last name) told me Captain Leysath deemed me a "safety risk". Again: I'm way fat... But I'm not THERE just yet. But if I am, why wait til my
• bag is up, and I'm seated WITH ARM RESTS DOWN. In front of a packed plane with a bunch of folks who'd already I.d.ed me as "Silent Bob."
• So, @SouthwestAir, go fuck yourself. I broke no regulation, offered no "safety risk" (what, was I gonna roll on a fellow passenger?). I was
• wrongly ejected from the flight (even Suzanne eventually agreed). And fuck your apologetic $100 voucher, @SouthwestAir. Thank God I don't
• embarrass easily (bless you, JERSEY GIRL training). But I don't sulk off either: so everyday, some new fuck-you Tweets for @SouthwestAir.
Found a photo. The man isn't exactly slim.
Really, Really, Really, Really, Really, Really, Really, Really, Really, Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Big Goverment
Jake Tapper writes on ABCNews.com that Obama signed the bill into law raising the public debt limit from $12.394 trillion to $14.294 trillion:
Check out the National Debt Clock, which tells you your share of that -- roughly $40,000 per citizen, $113,000 per taxpayer.The bill also establishes a statutory Pay-As-You-Go procedure requiring that new non-emergency legislation affecting tax revenue or mandatory spending not increase the Federal deficit - in other words, that any new spending or tax cuts be paid for with new taxes or spending cuts.
Horrible, Horrible, Horrible
I just can't understand how you have it in you to do what these people did. Terrible story of the murder of a disabled woman. She was tortured, forced to write her own suicide note, and then stabbed to death. More details at the link. More about the woman, Jennifer Daugherty, below, by Saul Relative:
The killing of Jennifer Daugherty may very well be one of the most brutal and heinous acts one might ever encounter. Given the 30-year-old woman's mental disposition -- she was mentally disabled -- and her reported calm and caring manner, it might be difficult to understand why anyone would even want to kill her. But six people did kill Jennifer Daugherty and have been charged with criminal homicide, kidnapping and other related charges in Greensburg, Penn.Bobby Murphy is still attempting to make sense of it all. He said that Jennifer had the mentality of a 12-14-year-old girl. "Jennifer was just a gentle, laid-back person," he told Time. "There wasn't a mean bone in her body."
And the final question from the piece:
What possible reason could six people have for wanting to brutalize and kill a 30-year-old mentally disabled person?
Is Sunshine "The Best Disinfectant" Or The Worst?
As those of you who comment here often know, I'm a free speecher. If you don't come over here as part of a mob intent on destroying speech on my blog, and are merely, say, a BUTTHOLE (as a certain commenter sometimes, most appropriately, refers to himself), you are highly unlikely to be banned here. You can just post your butthole-isms and the rest of the non-buttholes will go about taking them apart.
Personally, I believe ugly speech is best aired because the ugly thoughts are still there if they're unspoken, and only when they're aired can they be debated. Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith
"It's ... empowered pranks and pseudoscience and bad information because every person on the Internet can sort of find the people like them and everyone can find an audience so there are certain forms of ignorance that would more or less be unthinkable without the Internet. Global jihad has been massively empowered by the Internet. Even things like the 911 truth conspiracy. That, to my mind, is an Internet phenomenon. No one would publish those books. This is something that is born of Web sites and Internet commentary."It's yet to be seen whether technology's overall effect on humanity has been good or bad, he said.
Thanks, I'll take the technology. Internet technology and all the rest. Unlike Emilie du Chatelet, who translated Newton, and died in her early 40s in childbirth, I can choose not to have children and take advantage of technology to prevent it. There are countless other ways science and technology improve my life -- especially in how I am able to research my column. I used to drive to college libraries and spend and entire day tracking down a single book or a couple of studies. Now, I just e-mail the professor across the world and ask him or her to e-mail me a PDF.
Oh, and by the way, while we're on technology, I'm unmoved by all the alarmist articles about how kids have lots of devices and are connecting on Facebook, etc. It's simply a medium for connection and a new way of connecting, and has a whole lot of positives, like the way people who maybe don't make friends easily in person can connect with other nerds and outcasts and whatever, and be part of a community.
If you're a parent, and your child is spending so much time on the computer or whatever that they are not eating, sleeping, or going outside, well, then, parent them. But, I have people I consider great friends who comment on this blog -- most of whom I've never met in person or spoken to on the phone. And I met Marlon Brando, my lawyer, and a number of good friends of mine on AOL message boards or chat rooms in the early 90s.
Still, I do have areas where I'm on a bit of a tech diet. For example, while so many people live on their cell phones, I don't want to talk to on my cell phone or home phone to anyone who doesn't live a continent away, or isn't a friend with a problem they need to hash out pronto. If you're my friend, I will e-mail you and vice versa, and we'll get together for a drink, face to face, eye to eye, and we'll pay attention to each other. Devices in purses on vibrate and all that. It's really quite nice. If you haven't done it since you got your iPhone or Verizon whatever, you might try it.
Advice Goddess Free Swim
Great day and night in Traverse City, with nearly 550 people who paid to come see/hear me at the Opera House, according to Doug Stanton. A little too tired to blog, so have at it with topics/comments below!
*If you post links, one per comment, please, so you won't get spam-kicked. Second link? Please post second comment.
For 72 Virgins And The Glory Of Allah
Muslims mass-murdered 3,000 people, following the directive of The Verse of the Sword from the Quran (which, by the way, abrogates any nicey-nicey verses before it). Chilling new aerial photos that ABC News got with an FOIA request. The AP story here.
Nanook Of The Northern Michigan
Sorry to be wearing the same skirt as I was photographed in the other day, but I'm fresh out of snowmobile suits.
Photo by Gregg Sutter
As a friend of mine said, "I don't know what they're all whining about in Washington." I'm in Traverse City, Michigan, where they've brought me in for the Traverse City National Writers' Series, and where the wonderful Northern Express up here has been running my column almost since I started (second paper to pick me up).
Northern Express' Erin Crowell interviewed me and did something interesting few interviewers do -- she put in pretty much everything I said, unedited. I figured she'd cut the in-between stuff out, but I think it's pretty funny that she didn't. I talk to my little-girl neighbor in the middle, tell Lucy to stop barking (the neighbors kids started throwing a kickball next to my house, which always awakens Lucy from sleeping diva mode and sets her off into Yorkweiler mode). And the name of the Groundwork coffee they serve at the place I write is actually "Bitches' Brew," but close enough!
Anyway, everyone here has been just lovely, and then some. They've most appropriately put Gregg and me up in a mental asylum (gorgeous yellow-brick place, refinished into offices and condos). Place is beautiful -- see link for photos.
Finally, here's the window at the almost 50-year-old Horizon Books, where I'll be signing books from 10 am to 11 am on Thursday. 
Cool, huh? If you're in town, or within a 300 mile radius, please come to the event Thursday night at the Traverse City Opera House, where I'll do a short, funny reading, chat with best-selling author Doug Stanton and investigative reporter Anne Stanton, and take questions from the audience.
Promise to make you wet your pants laughing, or at least spot.
Valentine's Day?
My take on it? The very special day for people who treat each other like crap much of the rest of the year.
If you love somebody, show it with regularity on any old Tuesday morning, Wednesday night, and Sunday afternoon, and you won't have to buy them overpriced flowers and all the rest on February 14.
He's Everybody's President, Not Black People's Especially
Some in the black community are upset that Obama isn't offering any special programs just for blacks. Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes in The New York Times:
On Capitol Hill, members of the Congressional Black Caucus have expressed irritation that Mr. Obama has not created programs tailored specifically to African-Americans, who are suffering disproportionately in the recession. In December, some of them threatened to oppose new financial rules for banks until the White House promised to address the needs of minorities."I don't think we expected anything to change overnight because we had an African-American in the White House, but the fact still remains that we've got a constituency that is suffering," said Representative Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland. "I think he could do more, and he will do more."
Some black scholars say Mr. Obama has failed to lead on the race issue. The Kirwan Institute, which studies race and ethnicity, is convening a conference on Thursday to offer policy prescriptions. After analyzing the State of the Union address, the institute's scholars warned that "continued failure to engage race would be devastating."
Michael Eric Dyson, a Georgetown University sociologist and longtime supporter of Mr. Obama, is exasperated. "All these teachable moments," he said, "but the professor refuses to come to the class."
In an interview in late December with American Urban Radio Networks, a group of black-owned stations, Mr. Obama conceded that there was "grumbling" among African-Americans, especially about his jobs policies. But he rejected the idea that he should pay special attention to them -- an argument that Earl Ofari Hutchinson, a black author and political analyst, called "disingenuous at best, and an insult at worst."
Mr. Obama framed it this way: "I can't pass laws that say I'm just helping black folks. I'm the president of the United States. What I can do is make sure that I am passing laws that help all people, particularly those who are most vulnerable and most in need. That in turn is going to help lift up the African-American community."
For Anybody Wasting Their Money On Nitrate-Free Bacon
Somebody in the comments talked about going to Whole Foods and buying that pricey nitrate-free bacon. I don't know about you, but I don't have dollar bills I'm particularly interested in getting rid of, so I buy the cheap-ass bacon at the supermarket (low-sodium, if I can find it, because it's really salty even in that variety).
I actually read a study that relates that I think is behind this portion of this New York Times piece, but I'm running out and I can't remember which one it is or where I found it. Luckily, Harold McGee is there to clear things up:
Then there's the ongoing saga of nitrite and nitrate, which give hams, bacon, hot dogs, bologna and other salt-cured meats their special color and tang. Nitrite reacts in the meat tissue to form nitric oxide, which binds tightly to the iron in myoglobin and turns it a stable red. Nitrite is also toxic to many microbes, including the bacteria that cause botulism, so it's a critical preservative in cured sausages. For centuries meats were treated with a liberal mixture of salt and saltpeter, or sodium nitrate, which bacteria on the meat converted into nitrite. Nowadays manufacturers generally use very small quantities of pure nitrite, or a mixture of nitrite and nitrate.In the 1970s, the nitrite and nitrate in cured meats fell under the suspicion that they might cause cancer. Later research showed that we get far more of these chemicals from vegetables like celery, spinach and lettuce. Their abundant nitrate comes from the soil and is turned into nitrite by bacteria living in our mouths.
Nevertheless consumers remain wary of nitrite-cured meats. And United States Department of Agriculture regulations forbid the use of pure nitrate or nitrite in foods labeled "natural" or "organic."
So ingenious manufacturers figured out how to replace the pure chemicals with a mix of nitrate-rich vegetable extracts and bacterial cultures that convert the nitrate into nitrite. (Celery-juice powder, for one, is especially rich in nitrate and has little flavor of its own.) As a result, natural and organic hot dogs that once were quite drab are starting to look better.
According to a review from the American Meat Science Association, recent studies at Iowa State University show that careful formulation and processing can produce vegetable-cured hot dogs and hams that are quite similar to their nitrite-cured models in color and flavor. They are not, however, free of nitrites or nitrates, no matter what the label suggests.
Here's Sandy Szwarc on the topic. (I don't normally link to her because she doesn't understand copyright law or fair use, and I don't want to put her panties in a wad -- see the statement at the bottom of her page.)
UPDATE: Dr. Michael Eades, who is just fantastic at cutting through the accepted dietary crapthink, sent me this study from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition: "Food sources of nitrates and nitrites: the physiologic context for potential health benefits."
An excerpt from the abstract:
The strength of the evidence linking the consumption of nitrate- and nitrite-containing plant foods to beneficial health effects supports the consideration of these compounds as nutrients.
You're Fat Because Kellogg's Hasn't Been Doing The Math For You
First of all, if you're eating carbohydrates as a way to be thin, you're making the biggest mistake of all (see Taubes and Eades below, and go read them, too, for the actual evidence-based science on how to eat, as opposed to the hearsay-based version you get from so many doctors and "authorities"). And, by the way, carbohydrates are binge material -- the stuff that keeps you munching until you "can't believe (you) ate the whole thing."
But, forget the science and the Oreos lite for a moment. William Neuman writes in The New York Times of the FDA's wanting to bring serving sizes in line with how Americans really eat:
So to get ready for front-of-package nutrition labeling, the F.D.A. is now looking at bringing serving sizes for foods like chips, cookies, breakfast cereals and ice cream into line with how Americans really eat. Combined with more prominent labeling, the result could be a greater sense of public caution about unhealthy foods."If you put on a meaningful portion size, it would scare a lot of people," said Barry Popkin, a nutrition professor at the University of North Carolina. "They would see, 'I'm going to get 300 calories from that, or 500 calories.' "
The problem is important because the standard serving size shown on a package determines all the other nutritional values on the label, including calorie counts. If the serving size is smaller than what people really eat, unless they study the label carefully they may think they are getting fewer calories or other nutrients than they are.
And if manufacturers increasingly push key nutrition facts to the front of packages -- as many have begun doing -- the confusion could be magnified. Rather than helping fight obesity, it may simply add to the perplexity over what makes a healthful diet.
"If people don't understand the serving, whatever number they get for fat or calories is misleading," said William K. Hubbard, a former F.D.A. official who consulted with the agency last year.
Consider the humble chip: most potato or corn chip bags today show a one-ounce serving size, containing a tolerable 150 calories, or thereabouts. But only the most disciplined snacker will stop at an ounce. For some brands, like Tostitos Hint of Lime, that can be just six chips.
Here's a little assistance: If it says "Tostitos" anywhere on the package, it's bad for you.
Loved this bit:
When it comes to cereal, she said, many children probably eat two cups or more.Parents who glance at a box of Frosted Flakes and see that it contains 110 calories per serving may not realize that their children may be getting several times that amount each morning at breakfast.
If you send your children off to school on a breakfast of Frosted Flakes, you and your children have more problems than accurate serving size.
I've been rereading Gary Taubes
That's the first problem. But there is a problem much greater than that. One that AC isn't aware of because he doesn't really have any real-world experience in doing nutritional studies in a hospital.When subjects are studied in 'metabolic wards' they aren't locked away and under constant observation. In fact, often enough, they aren't even in a hospital at all. A 'metabolic ward' is simply a part of the hospital set aside to do nutritional studies. And often it isn't even a specific part of the hospital. Subjects can be scattered about among the other patients. Subjects can have visitors, can roam through the hospital, can even go to the cafeteria. A 'metabolic ward' study can mean anything from: careful observation; to check into the hospital for a couple of days; to get trained on the diet then follow it at home; to check in, go to work all day, then come stay in the hospital all night. They are definitely not the strictly-controlled studies AC thinks they are. He confuses them with 'metabolic chamber' studies, which are a horse of a different color.
The opportunities to cheat in a 'metabolic ward' study are, for the most part, as great as the opportunities to cheat in an outpatient study, especially since many of the subjects are outpatients most of the time. There is a difference though. When people are on outpatient studies they are more likely to at least admit their cheating and record what they cheat with than they are in 'metabolic ward' studies. Some of the studies AC sites are formula diet studies in which shakes made of specific caloric and macronutrient composition are provided to subjects throughout the day. (Or are given to them to consume outside the hospital at work or wherever.) These are the kinds of programs you wouldn't want to report cheating on. And these subjects do without question cheat. The fact that the data is reported as coming from a 'metabolic ward' study gives it a veneer of accuracy that it doesn't really deserve.
How About Some Identity Theft With That Catheter Change?
Government clearly can't run the health care they're already in charge of, so...let's have government run even more!
The latest? California health officials have accidentally disclosed the Social Security numbers of 50,000 people. From the LA Times' L.A. Now blog:
The numbers were printed on the outside of envelopes sent to elderly patients of the Adult Day Health Care program, many of whom are blind or have Alzheimer's disease or other cognitive disabilities. The Department of Health Care Services sent the envelopes, which contained change-of-benefit notices, Feb. 1.Officials have since sent follow-up letters advising recipients to destroy the envelopes and are advising patients to contact credit agencies to put a freeze on new accounts.
Um, many of these people have dementia, and can't recognize the person they've been married to for 50 years, let alone recalling where they lived 10 years ago and writing it down for Experian.
Can we please have our health care managed by the least incompetent people possible -- which means leaving it in the private sector?
What kind of deluded idiot thinks government does much of anything well, if you don't count "screwing things up, but good," as somebody's granny would say.
A Kinder, Cuddlier President
Matt Welch writes in reason of how it was supposed to be in the Obama years, and how it's actually turning out:
Obama's approach was supposed to produce a more cooperative Tehran and Moscow, fewer terrorists in the Muslim world, and vast new initiatives to fight global poverty. Instead, Iran has murdered dissenters while speeding up its nuclear program, Russia hasn't discernibly budged even after the U.S. abandoned its missile shield in the Czech Republic and Poland, a Muslim suicide bomber was stopped at the last minute from blowing up a plane over Detroit on Christmas, and global gatherings have produced even less concrete action than usual....The Copenhagen crackup was a dream killer in more ways than one. Not only did the breakdown give the lie to the notion that a cranky Texas oilman was the single greatest impediment to international cooperation and enlightened environmental policy; it laid waste to the argument that yoking the developing world to a "do as we say, not as we did" policy of energy consumption will somehow prove to be an economic and environmental "win-win."
...In the truer-believing regions of the progressive political world, the broad agenda of carbon price hikes, centralized health care, greater regulation, increased taxes, and government-mandated diversity in boardrooms are not just sound and moral policy. They are inherently popular, if only the usual obstacles to justice and reform can be neutralized or removed. Back when he was still considered a plausible stand-in for "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" (enough to win 2.7 percent of the presidential vote in 2000, much of it from progressives disgruntled at New Democrat policies), Ralph Nader insisted on a daily basis that his agenda was essentially "majoritarian."
Such fantasies can serve as a salve when you live on the margins of the policy debate. And as long as you remain on the sidelines, the underlying proposals tend to go largely unchallenged. But now that progressive economic thought has its first real foothold in Washington since the 1970s, many long-marginalized ideas are being dusted off for real-world testing, from taxing stock transactions to "getting people out of their cars." If we're lucky, those debates will take place before the ideas are cemented into law. Better yet, maybe the growing unpopularity of central planning will dissuade the enthusiasts from inflicting their experiments on the rest of us in the first place.
Whoops, it seems "not George Bush" is not enough to qualify one for the office of president. My hope? For as little change as possible. For about as much as Senator Obama effected during his time in the Senate.
Watch Out For That Pete Townshend!
A Florida group called "Protect Our Children" sent out postcards to residents close to Dolphins stadium to warn them that The Who's Pete Townshend would be in their hood to perform at the Superbowl.
Townshend admitted to visiting child porn sites, but said he was doing research for a book. Lame, yes, but he doesn't seem to have any history of being a kiddie diddler, and, in fact, wrote essays about protecting kids from Internet porn that he posted on his personal website. He wasn't convicted of anything, but he was placed on a UK sex offender list for five years.
For every "sex offender" there's a trumped-up furor about (like all those sexting teens who have their prospects shot because they sent around a cell phone self-portrait of some girl's titties), we water down what it means to be a sex offender who's actually a danger to others, and maybe give those people and their whereabouts less attention, to boot.
Of course, it's obvious what this organization was after -- attention -- and not for the internationally famous supposed pedophile who came to town.
via Palm Beach Post
Even Keynes Would've Rolled Over In His Grave
Carnegie-Mellon economist Allan Meltzer weighs in on how the Obama administration is neglecting a key part of Keynes' plan -- that you can't run up a debt without a way to cover it. An excerpt from his conversation with CNN's Shawn Tully:
If Keynes were alive today, what would he think of President Obama's fiscal policies?He would roll over in his grave if he could see the things being done in his name. Keynes was opposed to large structural deficits. He thought that they chilled rather than stimulated the economy. It's true that we're stuck with large deficits now. The goal should be to reduce them, not to take on new spending that makes them worse.
Today, deficits are getting bigger and bigger with no plan to significantly lower them. Keynes understood what the current administration doesn't understand that the proper policy in a democracy recognizes that today's increase in debt must be paid in the future.
We paid down wartime deficits. Now we have continuous deficits. We used to have a rule people believed in, balanced budgets. And now that's gone.
Welcome To Soft Jihad
Heidi Blake writes in the Telegraph that a Muslim bus driver in the UK locked passengers on the bus after he stopped it, took off his shoes, knelt on a prayer mat, faced Mecca and started to pray:
Passengers said they looked on in stunned silence, fearing the driver may be preparing for a terrorist attack on the bus. No one was able to get on or off the vehicle during the five-minute prayer session....TfL has apologised to all the passengers for the delay to their journey and the driver has been reprimanded.
A spokesman said: "A route 24 bus was delayed following a decision by the driver to stop the bus to pray.
"The bus company - London General - has had a word with the driver as this is not something that should be happening."
Muslim drivers have been reminded that they should pray during rest periods between journeys to avoid delays, TfL said.
Note how coopted and PC British society it that the driver has simply been reprimanded and allowed to continue in his job. Jihadists everywhere are laughing -- and coming up with their next trick.
Air Space
As annoying and hellish as flying's been lately, I'd really rather take off in one of these -- well, except that it's actually a restaurant at LAX, called Encounter. (Pretty groovy, too -- right out of the Jetsons, inside and out.)
photo by Gregg Sutter
A Dad And His Daughter Are Soon Parted
Tragic and horrible story of a guy accused of abuse by his wife of 20 years. On iFeminist. A few excerpts:
As many know, my wife of 20 years filed false claims against me of violent abuse against her one unforgetable day in August of this year.Molly, my wife, did this in order to acquire a tactical advantage in a divorce she clearly wants that I was completely unaware of until she filed a retraining order against me that prevents me from having any contact whatsoever with my daughter as well, whose name is Hayley.
My wife told her free army of legal professionals that she suspects that child abuse was happening by me against Hayley. This particular claim is far more absurd than the abuse claims Molly made about me, which included a claim by Molly that I tried to kill her one night.
So of course, I ended up in jail in the first time of my 43 years soon after these false allegations were made against me by Molly. The second night I was in jail, I decided to write Hayley a letter.
Now, writing Hayley fractures the restraining order falsely issued against me, since this is contacting Hayley in this manner. But since I was already in jail, I really was not concerned about breaking this abusive enforcement of psychotic laws now against me.
As I wrote her that night, I was not the fun dad I usually am with Hayley due to my state of mind. However, I never wrote anything to Hayley indicating hatred or anger towards her mother, Molly. Nor did I, in my words to Hayley, debate her mother's false accusations against me.
My undergrad is in child psychology, and I learned with my education that it is never a good idea to attack a parent in any way during a split of the parents, which is what is happening with our family right now. So I wrote to Hayley that I will always love her mother because her mother gave Hayley to me almost 12 years ago. This is the woman who put me in jail.
I also wrote to Hayley that the destruction happening to our family right now is difficult to understand for both of us, but we should try and grasp this situation together in time. I told Hayley with my writing to her that I loved and missed her, and that I hoped she would write me back soon.
I mailed this letter to her grandparent's house. These are Molly's parents, and are very wonderful people who have been married for more than 60 years. They understand the importance of a father in a child's life.
I only mailed this letter to Hayley after trading my breakfast the next day in order to get a stamped envelope from another inmate.
...As I was released from jail, I was told never to write my daughter again. This violates the restraining order, the judge told me. I'm still in shock by this order to me by the judge via my wife's free prosecutor. I create joy in the middle of great pain, and I'm told to discontinue creating such joy.
This is unacceptable, this order against me with such acts. I'm being punished for loving my daughter. I'm being punished for assuring the well being of Hayley mentally and emotionally.
These are the laws that exist in our country, and they must be discontinued.
Obamacare, North
From a 2007 CBC story, headlined, "Wait times for surgery, medical treatments at all-time high. Compared to 1993, wait times in 2007 are 97 percent longer, report finds":
Ontario recorded the shortest wait time overall (the wait between visiting a general practitioner and receiving treatment) at 15.0 weeks, followed by British Columbia (19.0 weeks) and Quebec (19.4 weeks). Saskatchewan (27.2 weeks), New Brunswick (25.2 weeks) and Nova Scotia (24.8 weeks) recorded the longest waits in Canada.Despite have one of the shorter waits among the provinces, Quebec's 19.4-week wait shows that despite more money directed at fixing the problem, there hasn't been any improvement, Tasha Kheiriddin, the Quebec director of the Fraser Institute, told CBC News Monday.
She says Quebec has invested millions of dollars over the past few years in efforts to reduce wait times, but that inefficiencies in the public system are proving to be obstacles.
Really? There's a surprise.
Maybe that's why the premier of Newfoundland is choosing to have his heart surgery in the USA.
Life Is A Formal Occasion
Met Gregg at the Farmer's Market for a drink and a snack, then went on through the pouring rain to the Apple store at The Grove (where we first met) and Barnes & Noble, where he took this picture. 
A Religion Of Hate
Text about this at Militant Islam Monitor, where Emerson Vermaat writes:
It was in 2007 that Patrick Pouw joined a group of young Salafists in the Dutch city of Utrecht and followed a yearlong Salafist course given by Suhayb Salaam, son of the radical Salafist cleric Ahmed Salaam. Pouw managed to win Suhayb's trust and the trust of his Salafist fellow students, and they usually did not conceal their real views. Pouw recently published a shocking book about what he heard from Suhayb and his students. There is, for example, a wide gap between what they say in public and what they say and believe in private or when they are among themselves. Publicly, Suhayb condemned violence preaching tolerance and "multiculturalism" but when he was lecturing to his pupils in that small classroom in the city of Utrecht he said that those who "betray" Muslims must be beheaded. Such people are "spies" and decapitation is the only proper punishment for them, Pouw heard Salaam say. "I saw how his eyes were cold and full of hatred, just like they were on that other occasion when he called on his students to burn Bibles."In another lesson Suhayb told his students that Allah had declared war on the infidels. All infidels are enemies of Allah. Muslims must hate the enemies of Allah, they must see them as their own enemies. That is an obligation, Suhayb emphasized. Those unbelievers who oppose Allah and Islam must be utterly detested. And those unbelievers who do not fight against Allah and his prophet, must be hated, too, yet they must be treated with respect. It is up to Islamic scholars to decide on the question who opposes and who does not oppose Allah and Islam. "We must follow their opinion on this issue," Suhayb told his students. After Patrick Pouw had written a summary of what Suhayb had said and handed this text over to him, he (Suhayb) just commented: "Very good." Suhayb was opposed to any attempt to organize a "dialogue" between Muslims and non-Muslims. That is "Haram", forbidden, and dangerous, he said. Do not discuss private matters with unbelievers, Suhayb advised his students. Select your friends with care, create more distance between you and your non-believing friends. Suhayb also said more than once that he distanced himself from any Muslim who lives among the infidels. He advised his students to leave Holland and go to a Muslim country. Yet, he and his father refuse to do so themselves. His father once refused to pay taxes, yet he did not object to receiving Dutch welfare money. Both father and son fled to peaceful and tolerant Holland after they felt persecuted in their home country Syria, and now they advise others to leave the very country that sheltered and protected them. This attitude is typical for the kind of hypocrisy among many Salafist Muslim clerics. They are quick to advise others to do or not to do certain things, yet they rarely set the example themselves.
Concealing your real feelings and views, or "takiyya," is also typical for the behavior and tactics of these fanatics. When Ahmed and his son Suhayb were interviewed on Dutch television, they said quite different things than what Pouw had heard from them privately. On TV they were not talking about hating the infidels or the obligation for Muslims to leave Holland. Instead, they suddenly emphasized "unity in diversity" and "integration."
The same thing happened when Salaam was interviewed by Dutch TV for the second time. The reporter asked him critical questions about Patrick Pouw's new book. "Did you say all these things (to your students)?" the reporter wanted to know. "No, I did not," Salaam said. The reporter then quoted from Salaam's written teaching material which he had used in his own classroom. Salaam quickly and lamely said that this material was not for public consumption.
...In another lecture Suhayb said that unbelievers who are living in an Islamic state have only three options: become a Muslim themselves, pay protection money or leave for another country. If they do not make a choice, the only option left for them is persecution by the Islamic state. When a student asked Suhayb: "Isn't there freedom of religion?" he resolutely replied: "No, there is not." This is the totalitarian mind of Muslim fanatics who publicly preach peace and harmony in the West where they are being sheltered but what they really want is nothing else but to abolish our democracy and freedom replacing it by a Taliban like state.
Oops, We Did It Again!
TSA in San Diego, in a really weird story, lets through a fake marshal who "deports" a real woman to the Philippines. Jose Arballo writes for San Diego News Network:
A Hemet man who passed himself off as a U.S. Marshal was able to enter the international airport in San Diego with a "prisoner" after convincing airport security officers he was a federal agent, a TSA spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday.Suzanne Trevino, spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration, said in a telephone interview that an investigation has revealed that someone who presented "falsified law enforcement documents" was able to get past security and eventually make it to a gate with a prisoner. The individual presented himself as a law enforcement officer and followed the proper procedures, including logging in, she said.
The agency learned about the incident after being contacted by "local law enforcement" about the potential breach in security.
Apparently, the woman's family called them in the wake of his coming to her home and making off with her, under the pretense that he was law enforcement. He drove her to a border patrol office and tried to get them to take her into custody, telling them she was in the country illegally. And they did confirm she was illegal, and then refused to take her into custody. Nice!
Hemet investigators were then told that the suspect ultimately drove the female victim to the International Airport, where he escorted the handcuffed victim through the airport and to the gate of a departing flight, Wisehart said. At this point he un-handcuffed the victim and she boarded the plane that was headed to the Philippines.Wisehart identified the woman as Cherriebelle Hibbard and anshe apparently has remained in the Philippines. Wisehart said the victim's family, believing the woman was being deported by federal officials, paid for the airline ticket.
Act First, Think Later
Richard Cohen in the New York Daily News on the administration's dimwittery in terrorist prosecution:
Bit by bit, circumstances are forcing President Obama and his aides to come to grips with reality. The original plan to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the so-called 9/11 mastermind, in New York City has apparently been aborted. It finally occurred to the Justice Department that cordoning off much of lower Manhattan and placing a security perimeter around the Financial District not only would cost something like $200 million a year, but would destroy the economy of the area. A trial there would give KSM, as he is called, a second shot at devastating downtown New York.It is amazing that no one thought this through. Published reports say that the Justice Department informed Mayor Bloomberg of its plan just about the time it was announced. This alacrity was clearly the product of some excitement down at Justice - yet another chance to show the world that George W. Bush was gone and with him the odious attempts to treat terrorists as if they were, well, terrorists. A civilian trial! Right in the heart of Manhattan! Obama ought ask his friend Attorney General Eric Holder what in the world he was thinking.
In a similar example of poor judgment, an undoubtedly delighted Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was told he had something called Miranda rights and could, if he so chose, cease talking about allegedly attempting to blow up a jetliner as it approached Detroit on Christmas Day. Abdulmutallab was Mirandized after just 50 total minutes of interrogation and he, having probably seen more than his share of "Law & Order" episodes, promptly shut up.
The motive here? I think Cohen is right -- for the Obama administration to prove the Obama administration is not the Bush administration. I didn't like George Bush, but he at least knew better than to treat terrorists like car thieves.
These Tits Are Made For Blowing
Could it be true? Via thereligionofpeace.com, a WND report says Muslim female suicide bombers are going to get surgically implanted explosives:
LONDON - Agents for Britain's MI5 intelligence service have discovered that Muslim doctors trained at some of Britain's leading teaching hospitals have returned to their own countries to fit surgical implants filled with explosives, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.Women suicide bombers recruited by al-Qaida are known to have had the explosives inserted in their breasts under techniques similar to breast enhancing surgery. The lethal explosives - usually PETN (pentaerythritol Tetrabitrate) - are inserted during the operation inside the plastic shapes. The breast is then sewn up.
As I said recently, here we are spending big on scanners, while it will soon be necessary to have exploratory surgery before you board a plane. Bye-bye, American airline industry.
(Of course, we could do what the Israelis do, and look for terrorists instead of looking for bombs.)
One Step Forward And Two Steps Barack
George Will tracks the president's habit of saying one thing one day and another thing entirely the next. Does he think we have such a short memory or that nobody's writing this stuff down?
On Day One of his vow to take "meaningful steps to rein in our debt," Barack Obama asked Congress to freeze portions of discretionary domestic spending. This would follow an astonishing permanent expansion: Republicans on the House Budget Committee say appropriations bills Obama has signed, along with his stimulus spending, have increased discretionary domestic spending 84 percent. He almost certainly will not keep his promise to veto spending bills when Congress, as it almost certainly will, largely disregards his request.On Day Two, taking a break from the rigors of austerity, he was in Tampa, promising $8 billion for high-speed rail projects there and in a dozen other places. Four days later, he released a $3.8 trillion fiscal 2011 budget that would add an additional $1.3 trillion to the national debt. The budget reveals that the deficit emergency is not so great as to preclude another stimulus, a.k.a. "jobs bill."
Or to require that middle-class tax cuts enacted under The Great Alibi (George W. Bush) be allowed to expire. Or even to scrub from the budget such filigrees from olden days as $430 million for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which perhaps made some sense 42 years and 500 channels ago, when public television meant for some Americans a 33 percent increase in channels, from three to four.
I Don't Have To Keep My Heterosexuality A Secret
I never had to come out to my parents or my friends or acquaintances as straight. In fact, I don't talk about my sexuality much, although I will, in the course of conversation, sometimes mention my boyfriend. And gays and lesbians I know don't mention they're gay, or talk about it much, except in passing to people they know.
I find it weird and awful that gay people are expected to lie about and hide their sexuality -- running totally contrary to the military's honor code, directing them to be truthful.
We need to repeal the awful "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" that Bill Clinton put in place during his time in the Oval Office. From the WSJ:
Adm. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee he believed the "don't ask" restrictions--which require gay troops to keep their sexual orientation a secret--could be eliminated without harming military morale, recruitment or readiness."It is my personal and professional belief that allowing homosexuals to serve openly would be the right thing to do," Adm. Mullen told the Senate panel. "No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens."
This includes all those translators of Arab languages they drop-kicked because they happen to be attracted to people of the same sex.
More from Mullen:
Adm. Mullen expressed confidence that most members of the military would adjust to the change, citing his own experiences serving alongside closeted gay troops throughout his 42-year military career.The officer argued that forcing gay service members to live in fear of being outed and then discharged from the military was "inconsistent" with military values.
As for the argument somebody's going to make about attraction and the showers, here's one from commenter Lee Warren on the WSJ site:
Why don't you ask my father, Bob? 33 years in the Navy as a chaplain, retiring 30 years ago, and agreeing that it is the right thing to do. Why? Because he knew gay men who served back then and knew there was never the problem of "arousing gay peers." It is called professionalism. I'll guess that you're straight, at least outwardly. Tell me, do you ogle every woman with whom you work(ed) and have trouble containing your passions?I have had gay roommates and friends in the past and I never was troubled by the thought of sharing dorm showers with them or having to tinkle in a public bathroom. They knew I was straight and, therefore, it wasn't an issue.
I'll trust the professionalism of gay service members over the passionate pleas of pants-peeing moralists who make excuses for prejudice.
And here's one from limited governmenter Barry Goldwater:
"You don't need to be 'straight' to fight and die for your country. You just need to shoot straight."
Here's Goldwater's 1987 op-ed on the issue. And here's Israel's.
Why They're Going To Be Selling Your Grandchildren To The Chinese
Your tax dollars paid for this nine-page document for CDC employees on how to use Twitter.
How did I learn to use Twitter? I signed up for an account, took about 30 seconds to look at what other people were doing, and tweeted away.
Yes, it's true, I really figured it out without a document from the government including this:
Twitter Terms
The following are common terms related to Twitter activities:
•Tweet: an individual post or update on Twitter
•Follower: a Twitter user who subscribes to follow another user
•@ Reply: A response to a tweet that is sent out. Using the "@" symbol and username creates a direct link to that user's profile
•ReTweet or RT: The act of reposting another user's tweet and giving them credit, usually by using the phrase "RT @username" or "ReTweet @username"
•"#" or Hashtags: A way to categorize posts around a certain topic; individual Twitter users create a hashtag that can be added to posts on a specific topic
And then, as a mark of my unique genius, I figured out Facebook all by myself -- as have millions and millions of 9-year-olds.
Political Commentary From The Heartland
The other McLaughlin Group:
How Should Electronic Books Be Priced?
Well, ideally, so those of us who write books can earn a living doing it instead of working as waitresses and making writing a hobby. Virginia Postrel, in The Atlantic, weighs in on why Amazon wants to charge less than Apple does -- even cater to readers who want books for free:
As many commentators have noted, Amazon is not just selling e-books. It's also selling the Kindle. To encourage sales of its device, the company has even been willing to sell Kindle editions for less than the wholesale price it pays for them. It's presumably maximizing profit on the whole system, not just each individual title.Apple, too, is a system seller, and a device company to boot. But it doesn't have to sell a single book for the iPad to succeed. Books are just one app among many. If you're one of those old-fashioned people who read books without pictures, you can download a novel between watching videos, playing games, visiting websites, or looking at photos--all the things the visually oriented iPad was really designed for. The iPad is exciting not as a way to sell or read books as they currently exist but as a tool for reinventing them as multimedia. The book angle also helps generate good press, since journalists are desperate for any evidence that writing will pay in the future.
Apple doesn't need to maximize book sales. It simply needs to keep publishers happy enough to maintain an impressive sounding inventory of titles while waiting for entirely new forms of publishing to develop. After all, as Steve Jobs famously put it, "people don't read anymore."
On a related note, here's the New York Times article Virginia links to on how most of the best-sellers on Kindle are being given away for free.
"They Just Haven't Had Time To Westernize!"
Mark Steyn reveals what lazythink it is to rationalize Muslim women's wearing of the hijab, pulling out a piece of his writing from a few years back:
The other night at dinner, I found myself sitting next to a Middle Eastern Muslim lady of a certain age. And the conversation went as it often does when you're with Muslim women who were at college in the sixties, seventies or eighties. In this case, my dining companion had just been at a conference on "women's issues," of which there are many in the Muslim world, and she was struck by the phrase used by the "moderate Muslim" chair of the meeting: "authentic women" -- by which she meant women wearing hijabs. And my friend pointed out that when she and her unveiled pals had been in their 20s they were the "authentic women": the covering routine was for old village biddies, the Islamic equivalent of gnarled Russian babushkas. It would never have occurred to her that the assumptions of her generation would prove to be off by 180 degrees -- that in middle age she would see young Muslim women wearing a garb largely alien to their tradition not just in the Middle East but in Brussels and London and Montreal.
He adds:
That's an anecdotal observation. So now look at these two pictures: First, the Cairo University class of 1978, with every woman bare-headed; second, the Cairo University class of 2004, hijabed to the hilt.
Yes, the wheels of progress sometimes go in reverse.
Do You See Rude People?
Michael Schlesinger does. He e-mailed me:
File it under Instant Karma. I was walking down Hollywood Blvd. one afternoon and arrived at Highland; the light was red. Two motorcycle cops were in front of the vehicles facing me. Shockingly, there was no traffic on Highland. While I'm waiting for the light to change, some punk kid (death metal T-shirt, ripped jeans, lotsa tats and piercings; you know, a walking cliche) comes up, looks, then steps off the curb and starts to jaywalk. Being a Good Samaritan, I pointed to the officers and said, "Dude, there're cops there." (I don't normally call people "Dude," but I felt it was necessary to speak his lingo.) To my utter amazement, he spat back, "Go fuck yourself," and proceeded to cross. Not to my utter amazement, one of the cops pulled out and nailed him, and the little ringworm ended up with a ticket because he couldn't wait four seconds for the light to change.. By this time, I was in the crosswalk myself, careful not to make eye contact with him as I laughed to myself. Aah, good times.
Just Being Good Isn't Good Enough
I'd wanted to go to grad film school, but my parents found the idea hilarous that they'd pay tens of thousands of dollars for me to watch movies, so I got a job, right out of undergrad, producing commercials, and learned on other people's dime.
I worked with some really good casting directors back then, one of whom happens to be Latino. She got hired by me and lots of other people because she's really good, not because she's Latino. Now, it seems, she has to use the Latino thing. I'm on the list for her company, and I got this today:
[Our company] has worked all these years without minority certification but in the past year many of our clients have asked if we were certified. Since the company fits the criteria for these recognized organizations I applied and now have certification. Hope you enjoy our announcement to inform you of our new status...and maybe to give you a chuckle for the day.I hope you will include us in your vendor diversity list and that we get to work together in the near future.
"Vendor diversity list"?
Gross.
More on "minority certification" here.
Acting Your Age Continues To Be A Felony
I keep posting about this because it keeps happening. From the Chicago Tribune, yet another case of teens being recast as child exploiters and kiddie pornographers. Who are they exploiting? Um...themselves. Kristen Schorsch reports:
Last week, two middle school students in Valparaiso, Ind., were caught sending nude pictures of themselves to each other on their cell phones. The students were caught when the 13-year-old girl's cell phone rang in class, and her teacher confiscated it, according to a police report. The girl cried that she would get in trouble because a 12-year-old boy sent her a "dirty picture."The boy sent the girl a picture of his genitals and requested that she do the same, the report said. The girl then texted him a picture of her naked, police said.
The students have been charged with child exploitation and possession of child pornography, both felonies. They were referred to the county's juvenile probation department, which will determine whether authorities pursue or drop the charges, Gensel said. If convicted, the students could be required to register as sex offenders, he said.
If, increasingly, sex offenders are just teens who got caught goofing off, the label "sex offender" should eventually lose some of its stigma. Uh...don't think that's a good thing, and it's especially not a good thing that a minor violation that should be dealt with with a stern talking-to by parents ends up dogging kids for the rest of their lives.
We're really funny about nudity in this country. As I wrote the other day, a sturdy blonde lady felt me up at the Vegas airport to make sure that it was just boob material in my bra; that I wasn't going to go all exploding breastesses for Allah.
Well, I don't like being touched by people I don't want to be touched by, so I offered to just lift up my sweater and show her my boobs. Declined. Firmly declined. And I got the distinct impression that there might be an arrest in my future if my sweater and I lifted and separated.
Meanwhile, in France, there are exposed nipples on the subway (Relax! They're in posters!), and their society isn't collapsing. Well, not from the exposed nipples, anyway.
Obamaspeak
Obama's doublethink, doubletalk, from reason.tv:
Breakfast With Bin Laden
SFO Sunday morning.
It was bad enough that I had to be on what I now refer to as "Muslim Time" (getting to the airport sickeningly early so they could make sure I wasn't going to blow up the plane for Allah).
I ended up ordering bacon and eggs at an airport restaurant where they took that extra precaution that I wouldn't try to bring down the plane with one of those steel knives that give you a bit of a challenge when you try to slice through a pat of butter. 
Of course, the most absurd version of this knife-a-noia and blind rule-following is "Ask The Pilot" Patrick Smith's experience when the TSA nimrods took away the knife he totes around with him to use at his hotel. The knife from the airplane's First Class section. Taken from...the pilot! Who doesn't need a dull knife to bring down a damn plane, because...he can just steer it straight into the ground!
Central To Islam: Repression, Cruelty, And Fear
That's what the courageous Muslim apostates Nonie Darwish and Wafa Sultan point out in their new books, reports Leslie S. Lebl on City Journal.
Sultan's book: A God Who Hates: The Courageous Woman Who Inflamed the Muslim World Speaks Out Against the Evils of Islam
Darwish's book: Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law
And an excerpt from Lebl's piece, out of Sultan's book:
She describes an incident soon after she arrived in the United States, in which an Arab neighbor took her to the supermarket:We went into a Vons market and, once there, she began to open every packet she could, then she began to make holes in the lids of cartons of milk, Jell-O, and cream.
Then she made holes in a number of bags of potato chips, packets of paper handkerchiefs, and packets of spaghetti.
I shouted at her disapprovingly: "Dina, what are you doing?"
"May God curse them. They stole our land!"
"And are you doing this to try to get it back?"
"I'm trying to hurt them! You're still new here. Don't you know the owner's Jewish?"This hatred of Jews is not peripheral or dependent on Israel or Israeli behavior. Rather, it is deeply rooted in Islam, which divides the world into two parts, Muslim and non-Muslim. As Sultan recalls from her own childhood: "Jew must be one of the words Muslim children hear most frequently before the age of ten. It is also one of the hardest words they hear, as in their imagination it conjures up visions of killing, depravity, lies, and corruption. When one person wishes to express his disdain for another, he will call him a Jew."
With some humor, Sultan describes how, early on, she bolted out of a shoe shop in Hollywood, one foot bare, upon discovering that the shop assistant was an Israeli Jew. "We imbibed with our mother's milk hatred for the Jews," she writes, "and for anyone who supported their cause. We justified this hatred by devising a conspiracy theory, and we called anyone who disagreed with us a Zionist agent. This conspiracy theory helped keep Muslims inside the straitjacket in which Islam had imprisoned their minds."
Darwish agrees. She quotes the Koranic verse, "O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and Christians for your friends and protectors: They are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them." She thinks Westerners who dismiss the influence of such passages on Islamic attitudes are deluding themselves: "Don't even think for a second that the above verse does not cause a major divide between Muslims and non-Muslims. Those apologists who claim it has little effect on Muslim society are in denial and are unable to see Muslim society objectively."
"Pamela Anderson If She Had Red Hair And A Brain"
I just love Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa's subhead on his Psych Today blog item with his review of my book. Even better is the headline: "Applied Evolutionary Psychology at its Best." I worked really hard to get the science right, and build a theory of why people are rude out of it, and Satoshi gives me a passing grade, and then some. And included links and pictures, too!
I See Rude People At Bank Of America
Identity theft expert Mari Frank's radio show I taped airs Monday morning, Feb. 1, on KUCI radio, Orange County. That's 8-9 AM, Pacific Time on 88.9 FM in Irvine, with live audio streaming at www.kuci.org.
There should be a link to the show up afterward. Please, somebody, remind me to post it, because I'll be crawling under furniture looking for better verbs (aka on deadline).
