House of Eratosthenes

From third to fifth grades, I remember some experiences in which my classes did some exercises in voting. From that, we learned fundamental principles in democracy. We learned what happens when you take more than one vote about the same thing, and we learned how a vote can be split. We learned how, and why, people settle things in groups. I remember that by the time I started middle school, these things were all crystal-clear to me.

The years have done unkind things to this sense of clarity. I’m suffering, now, from a “one more time, why was this thought to be a good idea again?” kind of a thing, with regard to settling things in groups. As a species of thinking creatures, we seem to lack the ability to hold this activity aloft as some of our finest decision-making work.

The American Psychological Association is doing a great job of showing what I’m talking about. Last year, the APA enacted a policy about the work of professional psychologists assisting in military interrogations, clarifying the boundary of what is to be permitted in such a practice. This didn’t go over well with much of the membership, who apparently look upon assistance to one’s own country in wartime as something disfavorable.

The unrest stems from an APA policy, issued last year, that says that while psychologists should not get involved in torture or other degrading treatment, it is ethical for them to act as consultants to interrogation and information-gathering for national security purposes.

That stand troubles some members of the organization in light of the reported abuses at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.

“The issue is being couched as psychologists helping out with national security at the same time that psychologists are opposed to the issue of torture,” said Chicago psychologist William Gorman, an APA member who signed the petition and works with refugee survivors of torture. “That stance in the present context appears to me incongruous.”

News reports have said that mental health specialists who are helping U.S. military interrogators have helped create coercive techniques, including sleep deprivation and playing on detainees’ phobias, to extract information.

The American Medical Association last month adopted what many view as a stronger stand against physician involvement in prisoner interrogation, echoing a position held by the American Psychiatric Association, whose members are medical doctors. The U.S. military has indicated it will therefore favor using psychologists, who are not medical doctors and are not bound by the other groups’ policies.

The Physicians for Human Rights, a Cambridge, Massachusetts.-based advocacy group, issued a statement Wednesday urging APA leaders to “explicitly prohibit psychologists from participating in interrogations.”
:
Some professionals, including [APA member Steven] Reisner, a faculty member at Columbia University’s International Trauma Studies program and at New York University’s medical school, want the 150,000-member organization to rewrite the group’s ethics code to bar psychologists from any involvement in detainee interrogation.

Problem: There’s no call for a group, be it a decision-making panel or a far-flung association of professionals, to make moral decisions. Moral decisions are personal by nature, and anyway, groups bollix them up all the time. They always have.

Second problem: The group setting is being used to establish a moral equivalency between the kind of thing that went on at Abu Ghraib, and sleep deprivation. The “bridge” between these two extremes is the semantic term, “torture.” It’s no secret to anyone who has been paying attention that the name “Abu Ghraib” has been highly politicized, and it appears we’re in danger of losing track of what exactly happened there. Hint: It wasn’t just sleep deprivation.

Third problem: It’s a perversion of science. Suppose I’m an APA member. If the APA revises the policy on assistance to the military during interrogations, and the new policy sharply contradicts my personal moral outlook on it, as a thinking psychological scientist-type guy I should have the confidence that the group has handed down a decision that is worthwhile. If I don’t have this confidence, the group has demeaned itself by forcing me to conclude “I know this is right, but the group has voted it wrong, so they’re all messed up” — or, “I know this is wrong, but the group has voted it right, so they don’t know what they’re talking about.” The point is, it’s not human nature to surrender moral decision-making to a group. It’s human nature to expect everyone else in the group to do it, but for ourselves, we never do it. And so, the group is going to wrestle with weighty moral implications, over which it has no real authority because nobody’s going to really surrender their moral cognitions to the group. In so doing, it will not only reveal, but highlight, what everyone already knows to be true: Decisions will be made not based on rational arguments, but based on which faction within the group screams the loudest. Well, that isn’t how you decide what’s right and what’s wrong.

And last but not least, the fourth problem is that there are consequences for making the wrong decision, and they’re not confined to the ethereal realm of the merely theoretical. If we interrogate someone and fail to extract something, people might die. Is the APA doing something to take that into account as they vote on what’s right and what’s wrong? I see nothing in the CNN article to indicate such a thing. Allowing evil to happen, by inaction, would in itself be morally questionable to say the very least, right?

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Ten Types of Women You Need to Avoid
Sunday, July 30th, 2006

Ten Types of Women You Need to Avoid

Spot on.

10. The woman who is obsessed with getting married;

9. The woman who is always looking for a fight;

8. The woman who needs to be handled with kid gloves;

7. The woman who really needs to cover up;

6. The woman who is a constant drag:

…and five others.

In the comments section, there seems to be a debate raging amongst the female population about whether the article is sexist. I would say this debate is representative of an eleventh type.

That was one of the things I learned early on about women to avoid — there are women out there, who don’t like men, and aren’t willing to admit that they don’t like men. The best way to pick up on this, is through TIK #58 which, I think is the basis of the complaint these females have when they say the article is “sexist.”

Thing I Know #58. To insult a man says nothing about other men, but for some reason, anything said against one woman is perceived to be said against everything female who ever lived.

Just carry this attitude out to the logical extension if you’re thinking about dating this eleventh type. The article is “sexist,” because it says something negative about women. Okay. So the other article magically comes out, the one that says ten types of men are jerks. Anything wrong with that according to the eleventh type? Probably not. Refer again to TIK #58. So…you may say something bad against men, but not against women.

Now where does that lead? Well, obviously, she thinks she’s got certain birthrights and that she’s better than you. This is just a matter of consistency, and basic intellectual honesty. She belongs to a class which, it’s been declared already, is protected from criticism; you, dude, belong to another class, which is not. Is this the elegant Victorian brand of sex-discrimination, the Knights-and-Ladies variety, where women get special privileges because it’s acknowledged the men are stronger, and therefore actually good for something? Feh…don’t make me laugh. No, it’s the neo-feminist, ivory-tower-versus-primordial-muck brand of reverse discrimination. Thou shalt not say anything good about a man, nor anything negative about a woman.

The trouble with this is, it’s absolute. To comply with the rule a mere eleven months out of the year, or 23 hours in a day, simply won’t do. The other thing is, it’s self-delusional and contradictory. To discriminate, so long as it’s in the appropriate direction, is non-sexist. To call out a woman who irritates you, by doing the same thing an irritating man just did who you also called out, is sexist — even though your demonstrated non-favoritism is the very essence of neutrality. It’s the negativity. You can’t scatter it in the general direction of a woman, any woman.

Why is that a valid eleventh type? Well, think what life with a woman like that is like. The thoughts in your head are her business…which is fine, to a point, because she’s endeavoring to keep an anti-woman attitude from frothing up in the cauldron that is her mate. Very reasonable. The problem comes up when women do things that genuinely should piss you off and, before you comment about it, you have to check to see if your lady is out of earshot. What’s that say about womanhood? What’s that say about your day-to-day lifestyle? What’s that say about your feelings of togetherness and intimacy, as a couple? Nothing good.

What is life like throughout the day, anyway? You’re driving down the road and some dick cuts you off with a double lane-change, and you can’t kibitz about it until you pass him to make sure he really is a dick, so you can say something…because maybe it’s a stupid-ass bitch, and you aren’t allowed to notice what an incredibly stupid and dangerous thing she just did. TIK #58. Say something against one thing female, you say something against all things female. How about going the other way? What if you want to notice something good about another woman? Like she just changed her hairstyle or her perfume, and you want to give her a compliment about it in front of your better half? That’s suicide, of course. Tell you what, forget the compliment. You just want to mention something positive to your mate, about another woman. Like the other woman has nice-looking legs, or something. Heh. Just try it. So…you cannot notice anything good about women, you cannot notice anything bad about women. You are prohibited from acknowledging the existence of other women. You must live out your life, in the disguise of a straight man who is oblivious to the existence of women. It’s like the old Rodney Dangerfield joke about “when I met you I lost all interest in women.”

The joke is funny because it’s sad. And true. But a man whose wife says the list is “sexist,” has to be living that life. Things cannot go any other way.

I would say his list looks more like…

The woman who wants an anatomically-incorrect stuffed animal instead of a real boyfriend;

The woman who makes it her business to know everything in your head;

The woman who wants a sugar daddy;

The woman who is afraid of being happy;

The woman who craves constant attention.

And all of these are offshoots of the one basic problem, of being generally unhappy with life and unsure of what to do with it. Basically, not being ready for a relationship. And we’re not discussing a certain percentage of women here, therefore, we’re not saying anything against women as a whole.

The one thing I’d say about women as a whole, and it’s of enormous benefit to an available fella to understand this, is: Women have a tendency to send out the “vibes” signalling their availability for a potential suitor, with a vigor inversely-proportional to their genuine availability. That is to say, the “healthy” ones have a tendency to hunker down, not give off the vibe, and bellyache about how the good men all seem to be taken. The ones who give off the vibe, are the ones who have issues.

Which is just another way of saying that the act of engaging in the hunt, is something best left to the gentlemen. When it was recognized as being our job, men and women got along much, much better. When it was recognized that women should “take the initiative” and start scoping the field for potential mates, and actively seek them out, the male-female relations were sent off to a low nadir. The women who did the looking, never had much confidence in what they were doing from beginning to end. The guys who got found, were never the cream of the crop.

It also lists just one more area, wherein a fella who finds his luck with the ladies isn’t panning out that well and is honestly curious as to why this is, and what he can do about it — he’s probably going to find out the answer is to stop being so lazy. That’s what I’ve learned in my lifetime. When I’ve not getten along with women, it’s a symptom of laziness. In housework, in communication, in “self-matchmaking” if you want to call it that…in something.

Some things are best left to women, other things aren’t. Men are wired to see what needs doing, and get it done. Thanks to technology, we live in a time where nothing actually needs doing. And thanks to feminism, we live in a time where people who actually expect good things to be done by a man, are thought to have the wrong idea — so men aren’t expected to do anything, except damage. It turns out that in modern times, avoiding the gargoyle of sloth, even by a man generally recognized as “hard-working,” is a proposition much more easily said than done.

Anyway, that’s more a rambling than a rant. Great list. And if it passes for what’s called “sexism,” we could certainly use a whole lot more of it.

Update 7/31/06: I left this off the original post because it didn’t seem relevant, but popular demand persists. Wilting beneath the relentless onslaught of the hot breath and screechy windbaggery of the pantsuit-termagant crowd…as, I suppose, all thinking beings ultimately must…the author of the above list provides a companion list of Ten Types of Men to Avoid.

I’m a straight man. I have no experience dating men, and cannot comment on the accuracy of this list. He seems to be a straight man too, so I’m unsure how he was able to generate it. The much larger issue, however, seems to be whether the list simply exists or not, so there it is.

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Six For ‘06
Saturday, July 29th, 2006

Six For ‘06

Via Boortz: Democrats want to do the “Contract With America” thing, which I find kind of interesting. I mean, was CWA a success or was it a failure? Can you say it was both, and still be intellectually honest about it? I suppose you could if you drag the concept of time into the equation, since Republicans did use CWA to kick Democrat ass to hell-and-gone, but the staying-power of the platform wilted after awhile. Well, the strategy of the Democrats doesn’t call for any staying-power at all right now. Just the ass-kicking all by itself would be most welcome; ass groping would be most welcome. They’re so far back, they can’t even see the ass they’re supposed to do something to. People, regardless of how much Democrats ridicule them for being concerned about it, want to know about the terrorists. People have figured out “George Bush hasn’t found Osama bin Laden” is not a plan. They understand the Democrat plan to deal with Islamo-fascism, is to bully and coerce and intimidate the American voter into not thinking about it. We simply don’t trust them.

George W. Bush has screwed up a lot of stuff in the war against the Islamo-weirdos. It’s safe to say he’s gotten a lot more wrong than he’s gotten right. And yet his position in this whole conflict, is one of Marshall Wil Kane, marching through the streets of Hadleyville, while the cowardly citizens peep out at him from between the shutters. There is an element of trust involved in that, that endures unscratched throughout a devastating onslaught involving a smorgasbord of other topics, both related and unrelated; people don’t forget the tall, proud, quiet lawman marching through the streets. They understand a plan begins with this, or else, said plan has no shot at success. They don’t forget it. Even if they outwardly disagree with him, they respect him for his sense of principle in standing up for his beliefs.

It’s the quality we are supposed to think is possessed by Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn and Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan. They don’t really have it. President Bush does. He had no more to gain from going into Iraq, than Marshall Kane had to gain from facing off against Frank Miller. Cindy Sheehan had everything in the world to gain, from seeking the publicity she’s been seeking. Hollywood has everything in the world to gain, in the form of overseas ticket sales, with their pissy and petulant attitude toward their mother country. He’s got principles, the Hollywood/Sheehan crowd is missing theirs.

A lot of people pretend otherwise; a lot of people pretend the opposite. Deep down, everybody knows it to be true.

That is what Democrats need to fight if they want to win.

And so here they come with their version of CWA. Back in the day, they were opposed to the very concept. They called it “Contract On America.” So if you believe everything they tell you, but you happen to have a halfway-decent memory, I guess the Democrats want to order a hit on you. Whatever.

The version history on this critter is kind of interesting.

July 27, CNN: This is the version linked by Boortz. In this article CNN is a little to quick to say “Democrats have been pushing [the items] in various ways all year.” Well, I guess the “various ways” part might make it proper. But notice the first bullet. From whence did that come? It looks kinda new to me…I mean, when you compare it to things the Democrats have been pushing.

The document, which carries the title “A New Direction for America,” is a brief compilation of six themes Democrats have been pushing in various ways all year:

National security

Jobs and wages

Energy independence

Affordable health care

Retirement security

College access for all

Got that? Six tidbits, like six slices out of a small pizza. Short and sweet. You could commit them to memory.

Okay, let’s see how this thing has evolved over the last couple of months.

Now, House Democrats web site: On the website of the House minority party, they’ve created a whole separate section for complaining about the status quo, so they can concentrate on what they’ll do to fix things. Smart move. Even smarter, the complaining is done last. Another good move. Using this intelligent structuring approach, the Democrats have managed to squeak out eleven words before falling back on the name “Bush.” Hey, that says something about attitude right there. Something good? Up to the voters to decide, I guess. Anyway, this matches what’s been listed in the CNN story…except the order is a little different. It seems in summarizing, someone at CNN, or someone responsible for providing it to them, took the college thing and moved it to the bottom. In this one, it’s Bullet #3.

REAL SECURITY AT HOME AND OVERSEAS
Reclaim American leadership with a tough, smart plan to transform failed Bush Administration policies in Iraq, the Middle East and around the world. Require the Iraqis to take responsibility for their country and begin the phased redeployment of US forces from Iraq in 2006. Double the size of Special Forces to destroy Osama Bin Laden and terrorist networks like al Qaeda. Rebuild a state-of-the-art military capable of projecting power wherever necessary. Implement the bipartisan 9/11 Commission proposal to secure America�s borders and ports and screen 100% of containers. Fully man, train, and equip our National Guard and our police, firefighters and other first responders. Honor our commitments to our veterans.

BETTER AMERICAN JOBS - BETTER PAY
Prohibit the Congressional pay raise until the nation�s minimum wage is raised. End tax giveaways that reward companies for moving American jobs overseas.

COLLEGE ACCESS FOR ALL
Make college tuition deductible from taxes, permanently. Cut student loan interest rates. Expand Pell Grants.

ENERGY INDEPENDENCE - LOWER GAS PRICES
Free America from dependence on foreign oil and create a cleaner environment with initiatives for energy-efficient technologies and domestic alternatives such as biofuels. End tax giveaways to Big Oil companies and enact tough laws to stop price gouging.

AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE - LIFE-SAVING SCIENCE
Fix the Medicare prescription drug program, putting seniors first by negotiating lower drug prices and ending wasteful giveaways to drug companies and HMOs. Promote stem cell research that offers real hope to millions of American families who suffer from devastating diseases.

RETIREMENT SECURITY AND DIGNITY
Stop any plan to privatize Social Security, in whole or in part. Enact real pension reform to protect employees� financial security from CEO corruption and mismanagement, including abuse of the bankruptcy laws. Expand personal savings incentives.

June 16, Newswire: In a press release, Democrats identify “A NEW DIRECTION FOR AMERICA”. The sequence is re-shuffled significantly between then and now, but what’s even more interesting is the language. Someone was put in a position to make key decisions about the use of words in the June 16 release, and whoever that someone was, had some very definite ideas about what to use. But they were overruled by whoever worded the ones above. The odd thing is, one would think the phrases were tested in front of focus groups between June and late July, but when you go over the details, it seems the older version has a better shot in front of the focus groups. Maybe they used more focus groups, and got different results. Maybe they found the language was a little too polished.

One other thing. No mention of national security. Zilch. Nada. In it’s place, is something that would be jettisoned somewhere along the way, “Require Fiscal Responsibility.” Obviously, someone felt their office had something to lose politically, if the official platform didn’t have fiscal responsibility. I’m going to guess whoever that someone was, had been doing a lot of bellyaching and kibitzing about all the expenditures President Bush has been approving. Maybe extending the olive branch to the Libertarians and small-government types, something the Democratic party as a whole has not been doing. Someone else, probably everybody else in the party, thought it would be politically expensive to leave “national security” out of things. The second of those two someones came out on top. Well, that was probably a good thing for them.

But CNN says Democrats have been pounding these points all year. Perhaps. But it’s obvious they need to define some priorities.

Democrats offer a New Direction, putting the common good of all Americans first for a change and will:

Make Health Care More Affordable: Fix the prescription drug program by putting people ahead of drug companies and HMO’s, eliminating wasteful subsidies, negotiating lower drug prices and ensuring the program works for all seniors; invest in stem cell and other medical research.

Lower Gas Prices and Achieve Energy Independence: Crack down on price gouging; eliminate billions in subsidies for oil and gas companies and use the savings to provide consumer relief and develop American alternatives, including biofuels; promote energy efficient technology.

Help Working Families: Raise the minimum wage; repeal tax giveaways that encourage companies to move jobs overseas.

Cut College Costs: Make college tuition deductible from taxes; expand Pell grants and slash student loan costs.

Ensure Dignified Retirement: Prevent the privatization of Social Security; expand savings incentives; and ensure pension fairness.

Require Fiscal Responsibility: Restore the budget discipline of the 1990s that helped eliminate deficits and spur record economic growth.

I got an idea why that last one got cut: They were afraid of being found out. The language makes it sound like the budget is going to get cut, until outgo is in harmony with income. I think it would be wonderful for the country if that was actually done, but Democrats have never stood for it. How embarrassing it would be to engage in a debate about such a thing, as a Democrat, and then have your opponent inquire as to what is in your personal history that has something to do with budget discipline! Obviously, one Democrat will handle it better than another Democrat, and perhaps somewhere there is a Democrat who even has the glimmerings of a decent answer. But for the party as a whole, it’s a poison pill. Out it goes. Another good move.

June 16, Press Release from Nancy Pelosi: The release from the House Minority Leader offers “A NEW DIRECTION FOR AMERICA”. It lists the bullets above, with identical wording, a little bit more concise on the detail. This is the first mention of the phrase that always sent Ayn Rand into an apoplectic fit, and for good reason.

Democrats offer a New Direction, putting the common good of all Americans first for a change and will:[emphasis mine]

Great. Any converts who once-upon-a-time read Atlas Shrugged, and eventually “came around” to voting Democrat, have just been written off. I know some former objectivist/libertarian types who became “unselfish” and started voting for Democrats. I notice this thing about all evils in public policy, coming from a misguided sense of “serving the common good” — that never goes away. The converted libertarian/objectivist holds his nose, on this particular issue, before pulling the lever for a liberal. Once you see the light there, you never forget it. It’s an empty platitude that leads to great harm. The party would be wise to drop that, I think.

But what do I know.

June 10, Fired Up!: Now things get really interesting. A mere six days before the press release above, Widow Jean Carnahan, who won her congressional seat in her dead husband’s name, reported on her receipt of the platform.

I was surprised, pleased, encouraged…to read that Democrats will be coming up with a Contract-for-America-style agenda very soon. ABC correspondent Jake Tapper attributes the intel to Teddy Davis of their political unit.

The new proposal entitled “Six in ‘06″ is supposedly a pithy six-point program around which Democrats could rally�and perhaps even commit to memory — though, for the moment, there appears to be only five points, the sixth still being in limbo.

So here�s the Democratic version of Newt�s Manual for Reclaiming the Congress:

1. A minimum wage increase;
2. Repeal of portion of the Medicare prescription drug law that prevents Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices;
3. Implement all of the 9/11 Commission�s homeland security recommendations.
4. Reinstate pay-as-you-go-budget rules;
5. Make college more affordable, and
6. (The sixth plank, yet to be determined) [emphasis mine]

Now ain’t that a danged deal? You have more-or-less the same areas of concern that you will have six days from now; but look at the way things are worded. We don’t “help working families,” what we do, is specifically raise the minimum wage. Later, the raise in the minimum wage will be demoted to being just one dealy-bob within a whole package of stuff for the working families. There’s nothing, as of yet, about freezing congressional pay. There’s nothing about the childishly acrimonious attitude against businesses, nothing about ending “tax giveaways that reward companies for moving American jobs overseas.”

National security is gone. Nobody’s even thought of it yet. But you knew that, right. Maybe it metastasized from this thingy about implementing the 9/11 Commission recommendations.

The budget discipline is worded as “reinstate pay-as-you-go-budget rules,” which within a few weeks is going to be history. Speaking as someone who wants the Democratic party to go the way of the Dodo Bird, I couldn’t be more pleased. President Bush gave them a real shot at victory here, and they chose to canx it.

The dignified retirement is gone. Ditto for energy independence. Not sure about healthcare; I think it’s the Medicare thing.

You know what I think is really interesting, is the college deal. It is the Alan Alda within this thing, the one item staying unchanged from beginning to end.

I have spent a lifetime competing for jobs against the college-educated folks. Not intentionally, just being put in that position. I have found them to be incredibly insecure. I can feel them giving off the “vibe,” especially in setting where an orthodox education isn’t that important, but “thinking outside the box” is a little moreso. They would just as soon be working in a group with nothing but college-educated folks, lots of bright people but not too bright. What they want, is a guarantee that nobody else is going to come up with a good idea unless they’ve thought of it first.

Just something I’ve noticed throughout the years. And here comes a major political party, being given all this not-quite-merited fanfare from CNN about the agenda items it’s been pounding all year. In reality, the party has been grasping at straws just trying to get a consistent list going, across six or seven weeks.

But the one thing that stays carved in granite, is they’re going to help build a nice little ball-bearing society wherein all “working families” have received their lock-step orthodox how-to-think-like-everybody-else education, not through age eighteen, but through age twenty-two or higher. At first, it’s a platitude about making it more “affordable” — as in, more affordable to those who are truly dedicated and really want to go, like it has something to do with a career choice. Nowadays, they’ve dropped the act. It is worded as “COLLEGE ACCESS FOR ALL.”

Someone is pushing for that, and pushing hard. It’s not news, not to me anyway, that oftentimes a college education has very little to do with being creative — a lot of the time, it is antithetical to it. Not to pick on all the college-educated folk, some of them are pretty creative. But they didn’t pick it up in college.

Nor is it news, to anyone paying attention, that the Democratic party carries an inherent hostility to individual thinking. It gets in the way too much. Democrats say “Halliburton!,” and they don’t want to waste time sitting around jawing about, y’know, what the point they’re trying to make might be. They just like the buzz words.

Having dealt with the jealousy and frustration of college-folk who spent all that money out of Dad’s war-chest, and gosh darn it why am I in this crappy little telemarketing job after all that ~~booze~~ hard work I did, and all those ~~kegger~~ classes I went to…having dealt with that attitude for a couple decades now, I find that interesting.

What’s a “working family,” anyway?

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Too Close
Friday, July 28th, 2006

Too Close

Via Hell in a Handbasket, we learn about the adventure of Marine Lance Cpl. Christopher G. West, 23, who just survived a car bomb explosion in Karabilah last week. Corporal West is the nephew of Ricky, CEO, Chief Cook And Bottle-Washer of Toys in the Attic. Thank the body armor.

“When the explosion went off I couldn�t hear a thing afterwards for a couple of seconds but I remember being hit in the chest with something sharp,” said West, 23, from Calhoun. “I knew I was hit but I also knew that the body armor had stopped whatever I was hit with.”

Spare a quiet thought or two for service members like Cpl. West, and folks like him, as well as his close relatives, and folks like them. Just imagine the experience of golfing, or blogging, or peeling potatoes or what-not, and getting news like this. Holy cats.

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Onionizing
Friday, July 28th, 2006

Onionizing

Don’t know why I got out of the habit of hitting The Onion. It’s kind of like Saturday Night Live, you know. They hit one way out of the park, and then you partake in it some more, and some more…and one day you realize the material is barely worth a half-hearted “Heh.” But then they hit one way out of the park again.

I feel bad saying that about something like The Onion, which on average is still the best satire on the “innernets.” I also feel bad including the best of the latest issue word-for-word, below, instead of teasing it right. It’s too short to tease. But down below, I do something about that.

Report: Everything Made In Sweatshops
July 24, 2006
Issue 42�30

NEW YORK�A new U.S. Department Of Labor study revealed that Martha Stewart Living housewares, Tommy Hilfiger clothing, iPod music players, forks, diapers, telephones, and every other conceivable consumer good in existence is manufactured by people laboring in sweatshop conditions. “Long hours, low wages, and unsafe work areas are involved in producing everything our civilization uses,” Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said at a press conference Tuesday. “It is now literally impossible for anyone anywhere in this country to purchase any single thing that doesn’t infringe on someone’s human rights.” Chao added that even the few items still made in the U.S., such as designer T-shirts and certain Toyota sedans, are also produced in deadly squalor, mostly by illegal immigrants. The Department of Labor recommended no immediate course of action in response to the report, which was compiled by 135 government employees in an 20-by-80-foot Quonset hut without air-conditioning working six 18-hour shifts a week for $1.15 an hour.

Don’t miss the second-best thing on the Onion’s page, this issue. It’s almost as good. Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence.

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On Chicago
Friday, July 28th, 2006

On Chicago

Rush Limbaugh, for the second day in a row now, as I type this is addressing the minimum wage thing in Chicago by means of the Eighth Pillar of Persuasion which is the rhetorical question. His rhetorical question is that if the minimum wage is such a good idea, why stop at ten bucks? Why not twenty-five? Why not forty?

I find this to be persuasive, the way the Eighth Pillar is supposed to be. The power comes from the difficulty on the opposing side in composing a reasonable, cohesive answer. To say forty dollars an hour is somehow excessive, is to invite a fistful of other rhetorical questions, bound to be divisive amongst those who advocate minimum wages. Like…why ten and not forty? And…where is the line? And most damaging of all: If not forty, what are we afraid of when we stop short of forty? What’s the worst that would happen if we went ahead and did it?

That last one would be downright disruptive. The pro-minimum-wage guy who asserted the most reasonable of responses, “businesses wouldn’t want to hire people and they wouldn’t want to keep the people they already have,” would directly contradict the most outspoken among his bedfellows. Minimum wage isn’t supposed to have an effect on unemployment.

People cite statistical data to try to demonstrate the policy has little-to-no effect. This is silly, because when you examine it over the long term we don’t really raise the minimum wage. Not at the federal level, we don’t. We keep it in tight adherence to inflation, in fact, a point or two beneath that. This is by design, so the pro-minimum-wage people can continue to churn out studies that say it doesn’t have an effect.

Free of any political agenda, every honest economics expert is going to tell you when the price of a commodity goes up, people look for reasons not to buy it. Nothing has been advanced to logically assert the human commodity is any different.

You know what I find much more persuasive about Rush’s question, than the difficulty of his opposition in trying to answer it?

It’s the difficulty involved in turning it around.

Anti-minimum-wage people, not just Rush, ask the other side “Why not raise it to a zillion bucks an hour?” You don’t have to wait long for this point to be made. But very seldom do you hear a pro-minimum-wage person ask the opposite rhetorical question, “If you think it’s such a rotten idea, why not just get rid of it?”

You never hear that.

The anti-minimum-wage people would say, yup. Let’s go for it.

They know if it came to happen, the people who say the minimum wage is a lousy idea, would be proven right.

On the other hand, if the minimum wage is doubled — pointedly, that’s exactly what Chicago is doing — the people who say it’s a lousy idea, would again be proven right. Minimum wage is lent an appearance of credibility, through a careful sheltering from reality. It is only shown to maybe-not-suck, possibly, when & if it is kept more-or-less in nickel-for-nickel comportation with the inflation rate. Economists generally agree the minimum wage had the highest purchasing power in the late 1960’s.

Why not just get rid of it? Why, indeed. It’s a powerful question, made most powerful because it is carefully avoided by those who would be asking it — if they really believed in what they were saying.

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NOW 40
Friday, July 28th, 2006

NOW 40

This blog, which nobody ever reads anyway, would nevertheless be remiss in allowing the 40th anniversary of the National Organization of Women pass into the compost heap of history without comment.

And, since it takes so little effort and I happen to be lazy, a link to the Wall Street Journal’s first-hand account of the festitivities in Albany, NY, courtesy of Charlotte Hays.

Whereas younger feminists on college campuses are flocking to Eve Ensler’s hot-ticket play “The Vagina Monologues”…the exhibitors this year featured less frivolous fare: There was a stand for the socialist People’s Weekly World (successor of the Daily Worker), a midwifery booth (how I wish I hadn’t peered so closely at the frontal photo of a squatting woman welcoming a child into the world!) and a vendor of lesbian-themed quilts. New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney was the highest-ranking office-holder present. One might have thought that Sen. Hillary Clinton would show up — after all, Albany is her state capital — but she never did. Her office claimed that she had a scheduling conflict. I envy her.
:
For me, the most memorable session was the one entitled “Feminist Media Reform.” Although two NOW employees spoke, along with Kathy Bonk, a well-known feminist media specialist, the star of the session was Bree Williamson, who plays Jessica on the ABC daytime soap opera “One Life to Live.” (She has also guest-starred on a Toronto-based show called “Mutant X.”) Ms. Williamson, who went all pouty-face when somebody noted that TV heroines tend to be blue-eyed blondes, had a message: Write letters to producers telling them what you want to see. Talk about empowerment! If viewers of “One Life” start to see Jessica battling the patriarchy, they’ll know why. But one panelist implicitly questioned the effectiveness of such campaigns, lamenting that NOW failed to save Geena Davis’s series “Commander in Chief.” I don’t know what it means that I heard more about an imaginary female president than about Hillary during the course of the weekend.

Feminism is supposed to be all about choice, and here it is being twisted around into a fake-grassroots movement to muscle around free enterprise and tell it what kind of actresses to hire.

People support feminism when it has to do with women controlling their own bodies, and being paid equal-pay for equal-work. Controversy surrounds fifty percent of those two; but the fact remains that this is the doublet arousing widespread sympathy.

Gee, I just turned forty. People like to tell me what to do all the time. After four decades of me not listening, I’m not sure why the lesson hasn’t been learned, but the advice is still forthcoming, so obviously forty is still green enough for you to keep on collecting these well-intentioned tidbits.

So here is something for NOW. I note that my overall health, at forty years plus some change, seems to be much better than NOW’s right at the hash mark — so listen to your elder, NOW.

Stick to the choice angle. If I haven’t discriminated against any women in hiring/promotion practices or wages or admissions, and I haven’t forced anyone to carry my baby to term, when I go to Hooter’s your wrinkly mouths stay shut. If you have anything to say at all, it’s to celebrate the choice exercised by the young ladies who choose to work there, and the female stockholders who are making a King’s ransom off the success of the franchise.

Television shows? Pretend presidents? Midwifery? Quilts? Truly independent 9/11 investigations?

Trouble with this movement, is it’s trudging toward zero. All crusades may start with a zero and progress toward infinity, or else, start with a degree of filth and impurity and progress toward purity. They may cruise away from a bulls-eye, or toward it. This is a fundamental distinction to make amongst political movements. All political movements. At least all the ones of which I’ve come to be conscious. They are one or the other; they approach an undefined ether from a defined point-of-origin, or else aspire to a point-of-destination from said undefined ether. They explore, or they purify.

Political movements, however, have it in common that each generation of the movement desires to realize objectives wholly unimagined by the previous generation. This is a natural fit for movements, like the exploration of uncharted territories for example, that conquer wild frontiers, pave over them, and look for new frontiers. Fits like mustard on a hot dog. For the other category, where we aspire toward nirvana, approaching it from an outer ring of relative filth and impurity…it’s an inherent contradiction.

The malignancies have been removed. You, ladies, can be paid the same as a man. If someone discriminates, you can appeal, and their career will probably be ruined. You can have an abortion. If someone makes a law that says you can’t, the law will be overturned.

And yet the feminist movement, fulfilling the law that applies to all movements, searches for new frontiers inconceivable to the generations past, but it crusades toward zero rather than infinity. They do their best to overcome the inherent contradiction. Quilts. Huffing-and-puffing about “the new Supreme Court might turn the clock back.” Television shows about pretend presidents. Midwifery.

BOR-ING.

Trouble is, thinking people weren’t designed to trudge toward zero. We are explorers by nature. The first woman bit into the apple, and we ended up exiled from a point-of-origin, trudging toward the ether — not the other way around. And so our species is one of strangers to nirvana. We go out and not in. What our parents only dreamed of, we do; what was unimaginable to them, we dare to dream. It’s what we’re supposed to do. The instinct calls to those who have dedicated their lives to declaring an impurity cancerous, convincing those around them that it must be removed, and then so removing it. And then they have nothing to do, nothing at all, but to look around and find something else to declare cancerous.

And they end up making themselves into spectacularly silly people.

I feel bad for them, really. But I feel worse for society, as they get it all twisted around and lopsided, and start forcing people to do things under the banner of “choice.”

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Casey Approves Because I Said So
Friday, July 28th, 2006

Casey Approves Because I Said So

Ah…finally we have a bumper-sticker slogan for the Democrats this year. Quoth anti-war protester and bereaved war mom Cindy Sheehan, about the five acres she purchased seven miles away from President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, TX.

“We decided to buy property in Crawford to use until George’s resignation or impeachment, which we all hope is soon for the sake of the world,” Sheehan said in a newsletter set to be sent to supporters Thursday. “I can’t think of a better way to use Casey’s insurance money than for peace, and I am sure that Casey approves.” [emphasis mine]

Casey approves, his mom said so. Let’s have a national debate about this. Examine what Casey Sheehan did in his last two or three years on the planet, and from that speculate whether or not he’d approve of what his mom is doing. Let every man, woman and child make up his or her own mind, between his or her left ear, and his or her right ear. Let those who decide, in contradiction to what Democrats want everybody to believe, face the full wrath of left-wing moonbats everywhere, in full view of everybody. Let the continent be covered with Sheehan fans flinging their spittle and their bumptious rhetoric beginning with those three magic words, “how dare you,” emphasis on the second syllable, over and over again. I can’t wait for that to start.

I think it would be great truth-in-advertising. You vote for Democrats, you don’t vote for a policy, what you vote for is a way of thinking. So I say, let everyone see it, right before they go vote. Make it obvious that according to Democrats, you can decide what you want about what Casey Sheehan’s wishes would be, the same way as according to Henry Ford you could have whatever color car you wanted. Show that to everybody, then let’s open the polls.

Interestingly, some news editors don’t think it’s a good idea to carry that last little snippet. Can’t imagine why.

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Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself… XV
Friday, July 28th, 2006

Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself… XV

The first paragraph of this excellent Krauthammer column says all that needs to be said.

What other country, when attacked in an unprovoked aggression across a recognized international frontier, is then put on a countdown clock by the world, given a limited time window in which to fight back, regardless of whether it has restored its own security?

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On GroupsMonday, July 31st, 2006

Ten Types of Women You Need to AvoidSunday, July 30th, 2006

Six For ‘06Saturday, July 29th, 2006

Too CloseFriday, July 28th, 2006

OnionizingFriday, July 28th, 2006

On ChicagoFriday, July 28th, 2006

NOW 40Friday, July 28th, 2006

Casey Approves Because I Said SoFriday, July 28th, 2006

Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself… XVFriday, July 28th, 2006

On Groups
Monday, July 31st, 2006

Ten Types of Women You Need to Avoid
Sunday, July 30th, 2006

Six For ‘06
Saturday, July 29th, 2006

Too Close
Friday, July 28th, 2006

Onionizing
Friday, July 28th, 2006

On Chicago
Friday, July 28th, 2006

NOW 40
Friday, July 28th, 2006

Casey Approves Because I Said So
Friday, July 28th, 2006

Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself… XV
Friday, July 28th, 2006