First of all, Eli Lake, one of Washington's finest foreign affairs journalists a good friend to the late Hitchens, recently faced the Slurpee issue head on.

Now, y'know, I like to tease Amy about being a science cheerleader, because science is the realm of human experience —the distinct, solitary and singular realm of the human experience— which isn't improved by having a bunch of smiley & fertile young women flopping around in short skirts, acting all naive and sexually accessible. It's science; cheerleaders don't help.

(They maybe don't hurt, much, either... Rah rah! I mean, come on, did groupies ever do any damage to rock and roll? No! No, they did not. So no, cheerleaders probably wouldn't hurt science, either. Don't you wish you had cheerleaders at your job? Like a football game, when the actual work is happening, nobody pays attention. Not a problem.)

But they don't help. Science works because team enthusiasm is filtered. This principle applies up and down the chain, including publishing support.

Specifically: Men's Studies Press, cited on the blog in earlier years and described recently by Lobster as a "a scientific journal," is nothing of the kind. It appears to be a vanity publisher, operate by a man named Doyle who teaches business classes at this community college. He's listed on the school's website as a proud holder of a Ph.D in psychology from the University of Saskatchewan; I'll check on that in the morning.

But meantime, let's nobody get all fibby about the nature of academic citation, OK?

"He's listed on the school's website as a proud holder of a Ph.D in psychology from the University of Saskatchewan..."

Isn't this a form of credentialism, though? Yes, in the STEM fields, a college degree still does mean something, and a degree from, say, MIT means a bit more than a degree from State U (although it might depend a lot on which one). I've grown sensitive to this becuase one of the people who has done the most convincing work in the global warming debate is from a non-prestigious school (which happens to be my alma mater, full disclosure). And the global warming establishment routinely dismisses his work out of hand simply becuase he's not from an Ivy. It's pretty clear to me that they do this because his data is not telling the story they want to hear.

(And speaking of which, Anthony Watts caught NOAA making major changes to their North American temperature records and airbrushing their Web site without comment or explanation.

Slurpees are good and cold and completely awesome on the hottest summer days.

But, F.I.R.E. is en fuego! and awesome all year round.

"example, by drug companies, meaning that they don't hold back data that says their drug isn't actually so fabulous"

There is really good evidence that SSRIs don't work most of the time.

But pop those pills cuz your family doctor told you to!

Law and Order: SBU. That's right the SkateBoard Unit

Meanwhile, in academia, another aspect of the collegiate due process wars: college lawyers wondering how to pursue investigations they're not equipped to handle. According to the linked article, attorneys are frustrated partly because the lack legal power (e.g., subpeona power to obtain information) to investigate properly, and also because under OCR guidance, they have to investigate cases even when the police have concluded that there is no case.

Sorry, just a repost from the previous link thread, as it's interesting:

"... this is the best analysis of the Elliot Rodger murders I've seen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oybAUKZhaMA

As I had thought, it's clear his childhood was one of home/parental abuse ..."

The mother of one of Elliot Rodger's murder victims has posted the following response to that video to Stefan Molyneux:

"Hi Stefan, thanks for sharing. You've made some great points

I am mother of George Chen ( who was one of first three victims ). My family and I are experiencing the enormous pain of losing of our beloved son.
We agree that Elliott's miserable childhood ( such as: lack of love from his father, an abusive step mother, paternal abandonment, physical insecurities, extreme loneliness, etc ) had caused tremendous pain and hatreds inside him. In a way, Elliott's cold blooded and selfish father had turned the poor kid into a monster.

As a mother, I feel so sorry for the kids that are suffering from abusive parents. Although it is too late to save my son's life, but it is not too late to save other children. Please share your ideas on reaching out and help potential Elliott.

I have faith that with love and care and proper treatment, every child can have a beautiful life. Every child deserve a beautiful life.

You may also visit George Chen's RIP page in Facebook, and leave your messages there. Please support our goal of " To End Senseless Killing of the Innocence; To Love and Care for Every Single Child". Please, please"

"We agree that Elliott's miserable childhood ( such as: lack of love from his father, an abusive step mother, paternal abandonment, physical insecurities, extreme loneliness, etc ) had caused tremendous pain and hatreds inside him"

That's my whole childhood in a nutshell, yet I didn't turn into a self absorbed murderous monster.

Much like my bi-polar disorder I think these guys are just born that way. I think pedophiles are born that way too.

Crid: It seems that whenever I talk about child abuse, you have some sort of visceral emotional response, lashing out with insults. Either you're just trolling me, or the issue strikes some sort of personal chord with you. If you're just trolling then stop wasting my time, your constant troll comments just drag the entire level of discussion down here. If you have something useful to contribute to the discussion do it - but either use facts and reason to argue your point (if you even have any point), or STFU. If it's some personal issue then leave me out of it.

> That's my whole childhood in a nutshell, yet I didn't turn into a self absorbed murderous monster.

Like I said in the other thread, it takes a lot of straws to break a camel's back. Obviously many children endure abuse without becoming killers. But if abuse is a major ingredient, wouldn't it make sense to try remove one of the major ingredients?

Also, isn't it just enough to want to try help reduce the suffering of others, for its own sake?

These kids aren't born that way. If you actually watch that video (I know it's long), but if you actually watch it, one of the things that becomes very, very clear is that he wasn't just "born like that" - he suffered a lot of pain to become like that, and even at the end of it, he still just wanted to do good and 'love and be loved'.

I know some people have a very emotional reaction to any analysis that seems even vaguely "sympathetic" to a murderer ... it FEELS wrong to try "sympathize", yes, and it's understandable that people don't want to. But that's the whole point - we need to rise above those emotions, and look at this with brutal rational honesty - if this child indeed endured a lot of torment in order to end up where he did, then if we are intellectually honest we MUST take that into cognisance, and especially if we are to HONESTLY ask the questions like "how can we prevent this from happening again" or even just "how can we make a better world for our children to live in". Objectively desirable values.

> If you actually watch that video (I know it's long)

I perhaps didn't mention what the video is: It's a two-hour long in-depth, rational analysis of Elliot Rodger's own writing about his earlier childhood, as well as the facts surrounding his upbringing.

> rational analysis

What is it with you people?

You throw the words "rational" and "science" around with precisely the talismanic intent of a God-fearing Christian quoting Scripture.

Again: It doesn't help.

> If you have something useful to contribute
> to the discussion do it -

Well, in this thread, the contribution would be to note that your citations of "facts and reason" tend towards the bogus.

> STFU.

No.

> if we are intellectually honest we MUST take
> that into cognisance

Congisance! Our honesty must be deeply intellectual!

GRIPPING television!

> Isn't this a form of credentialism, though?

Um... Yeah. Who'd argue? But we're left to wonder why a teacher of business classes at a small-town continuing ed school with a degree (apparently unused) in psychology is being described as the publisher of "a scientific journal."

This smells like fraud... Even if the only victims are emotion-bot blog commenters pathetically confused about "intellectual honesty."

Anyway, I got a call into the University of Saskatchewan, they're gonna get back to me.

Remember: Rational!

"But we're left to wonder why a teacher of business classes at a small-town continuing ed school with a degree (apparently unused) in psychology is being described as the publisher of 'a scientific journal.'"

Point taken. I'm curious to hear what you find out.

The Metropolitan Museum in NY is showing early American guitar making, featuring very rare Martin guitars.

I don't live in NY and can't link to it, but it looks pretty interesting.

They've got a Stradivarious guitar in there too, IIRC. The story was that it was too old and brittle to string up and listen to.

Lobster,

Regarding his upbringing I grew up in a wealthy community, with lots of Eurasian kids, some who were like this kid. Parents divorced, smothering mother, cold father, mean step-mother.

This kid had money and therapists, lots and lots of therapists since he was a toddler. He had every psychiatric opportunity given to him and he still did what he did. He had money, good looks, therapy, an education, and a $40,000 car.

My entire teenage life I had tried in vain to get my parents to be nice to me, I'm not sure what kind solution you advocate for people who have abusive parents. Because there is no solution. My solution was just not to engage them often.

Abusive adults don't change because of some sentimental value about bullying. They tend to stay that way because they are that way.

He was "off" from the beginning, just like me (and my parents abuse only exasperated an already existing biological problem).

I agree, but people don't realize it could be anything from bad parents to a viral infection that triggers the genes.

He had all the therapy in the world at his disposal and it still didn't help.

But… You guys!

TV shows!

Lobster says "he still just wanted to do good and 'love and be loved.'"

Who's Greenland?

Um... Yeah. Who'd argue? But we're left to wonder why a teacher of business classes at a small-town continuing ed school with a degree (apparently unused) in psychology is being described as the publisher of "a scientific journal."

Yeah, its kinda like how climate change deniers point out most of the scientists who sign those global warming warnings dont have any training in climate science.

> I think these guys are just born that way

I think the majority of these things usually occur at a statistical confluence of multiple factors ... e.g. the Venn diagram here represents a helpful way to visualize the concept:

http://www.coloradonewsday.com/news/regional/58983-study-finds-autism-and-abuse-are-more-common-in-serial-killers.html

One key thing here is that to prevent a particular incident, even removing just one of the contributing causal factors can be enough. (This is why these killers are so rare in the first place, and also why I think very few of these psychos are just 'born that way').

Note that Elliot Rodgers was autistic, which happens to - apparently - be a contributing causal factor (obviously, again, most autistic people are not killers - but again, it's the confluence of causal factors thing).

Another thing that may have contributed is that Elliot Rodgers was on a psychiatric drug that has been shown by studies to possibly statistically increase violent behavior. Yet again, most people on those drugs don't become violent - but this all boils down to statistics. E.g. you take a population of 330,000,000 people, X percent have causal factor 'child abuse', Y percent have e.g. 'autism', Z percent are on some psychiatric drug that increases violent behavior, etc., etc., and at the confluence zones of these sets you find your problems emerge.

Note, Elliot Rodgers also had some bad personal philosophies. These also of course contribute (and this is one of the points in the video). So e.g. two otherwise identical people with identical causal factors, but one has 'bad philosophy' and one has 'good philosophy' - the one with bad philosophy goes on to become the killer. This is also why I think it's important to teach kids how to think - using actual reason - and with practical virtuous philosophies that help them.

> Abusive adults don't change because of some sentimental value about bullying. They tend to stay that way because they are that way.

This is called "defeatism" - the idea that you should throw hour hands in the air and declare a problem unsolvable, and that therefore one should just as well do nothing. I don't believe in defeatism. Some problems are unsolvable, sure - e.g. if a meteorite is about to destroy earth, we won't be able to do anything about it. But the idea that we can do absolutely nothing as a society to reduce levels of child abuse? I don't buy that for one second. I think there is a lot we could do.

> This is called "defeatism"

Incidentally, defeatism was one of Elliot Rodger's 'bad philosophies'.

He had all the money and therapy available. What more could have been done?

♥ Purp

Cindy Cashdollar plays 1927 Hermann Weissenborn guitar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSYbIhzpXeY#t=1m56s

Who has bought one of the 7-11 bananas just because you feel like it's being neglected, even though you don't like bananas?
Amirite?

For the last couple years, curved yellow fruit have sold for 19¢/ea at Trader Joe's. This always seems like a crazy bargain, so for the next week or so I'm like Dr. Potassium.

Thing is, I don't know if that price actually good (by weight). But somethingshinyHEY! Bananas here are only 19¢!

Flavor.

The trouble with today's praise music is it ain't got no stank on it.

And whaddaya know, there's a video that will teach you to stank up your praise jams!

> Cindy Cashdollar plays 1927 Hermann Weissenborn

1. It sounds like a lot of the folky/hippy music of my Hoosier hills childhood, but in an absolutely vapid and colorless way... Like how you might remember that one farmer's daughter, the one with glowy skin who never wore makeup and who looked so sexable in a gingham dress that one summer night in 1976, but you never much worried what became of her life after that, because there would be no experimentation.

2. No matter how agreeable the timbre at a casual hearing, no matter how gifted the player, I'd bet that musical instrument has precisely one mood. It shoots its wad all over your sportcoat as soon as you say hello... All those notes have to ring at each other that way every time, otherwise it's got no magic at all. Forty tunes written for it would sound the same, and you'd never whistle any of them.

And the problem isn't just (absent) dynamics... Though there are similar problems (to my ears at least) with the more typical slide boxes as seen to her rear in the video, and with banjo music. The best banjo picker in the world and hunnert-&-fifty-third best sound identically inventive (or not).

A few years (10+) ago someone released an album of Bach on banjo, and one hearing on public radio made it sound like a must-have... But when you actually listen to that kind of thing, it's not interesting... Never as interesting as on conventionally popular instruments.

(My favorite Bach is on a harpsichord, with dynamics just as limited... But it's still a better machine for Johann's pen.)

I think modern guitar, including electric, became world champion for all the right reasons. It could ring with this same churchy shimmer on a tune like "Ticket to Ride," and still bark with quiet seduction in the hands of Wes Montgomery.

I don't actually know who Weissenborn is, but I'm glad it was Lloyd Loar who got the attention in the Gibson factory.

Because guitar.

Also, I used the word "shimmer" before I heard her say it in the introduction. Honest.