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Tuesday, September 16, 2003

[Amy, 12:47 AM]
Taken out of context:

"Using simple linear regression, we find that about half of the variation in Quality is a function of Easiness and Sexiness."

And here's the context.

[Amy, 12:31 AM]
Republicans:

In the wake of this weekend's Republican convention, newspapers are rife with speculation on whether or not Tom McClintock will step down to clear the field for Arnold.

However, despite the fact that McClintock's withdrawal would probably ensure a republican victory, such a move is, I think, highly unlikely. For the conservative core of the Republican party--the Bible-thumping moralists who never met a tax cut they didn't like--Swarzenegger would literally be no better than a democrat. Not only is he unacceptably liberal on the hot-button issues such as abortion, gay rights, and gun control, he hasn't even promised not to raise taxes. For the Republican party to force out McClintock to clear the way for Swarzenegger would alienate their most faithful, committed, and energetic members. At that price, I suspect that the party hierarchy will find the governer's mansion too dear.

Of course, all of this sort of speculation may become irrelevant, as the ninth circuit has approved an injunction to delay the recall election.

Saturday, September 13, 2003

[Amy, 1:44 AM]
Sex:

Sara Butler recently commented on this article by Jennifer Roback Morse criticizing the hook-up mentality. The author's main point:

The major premise of the sexual revolution is that sex is nothing more than a pastime. But the presence of date rape crisis centers demonstrates that no one really believes this. If sex were really just harmless fun, then being talked into it shouldn’t be any bigger deal than being talked into a basketball game. The issue of consent wouldn’t loom so large nor be so difficult to discern.


Let's assume for a moment, along with Sara, that one can, as Ms. Morse does, differentiate between "unwanted" and "coerced" sex (a plausible assumption), and that date rape crisis centers do not exist primarily to dea with coerced rather than unwanted assumption (a bit less plausible assumption, but perhaps). For the claim, however, that date rape centers prove sex is inherently meaningful, to make any sense, one must also assume that the same people who feel it necessary to visit a crisis center after an unwanted (though not coerced) sexual encounter are the ones who claim that sex is a recreational activity on par with watching a basketball game.

Given that my experience has shown that people hold a wide range of views on the significance of sex, this seems like a rather implausible assumption. I certainly agree that someone who visits a rape crisis center after unwanted sex is demonstrating that, for them, sex carries a deeper meaning beyond recreation. However, this does not mean that another person, after the same experience, cannot deal with it by regaling the crowd gathered for Saturday morning brunch in her college cafeteria with a hilarious account of exactly how unappealing she found Friday night's hookup to be, when seen by the light of day, and facetiously swearing of alcohol and frat parties, at least until next weekend.

What I find infuriating about this article, though, is that Ms. Morse's claim for the correctness of her view rests not on on any substantive reasoning about the dangers of casual sex (other than a few vague comments about emotional harm) but rather the assertion that everyone (or at least "every reasonable person") already agrees with her! If this is really the case, why did Ms. Morse bothered to put fingers to keys? And if it is not the case, then all one can really conclude about hooking up is that it's not for everyone, a point with which I think Ms. Morse would be hard-pressed to find someone to disagree.

[Amy, 12:38 AM]
Classics:

Ted Barlow's post on Amazon reviews reminded me that I needed to visit the always-amusing Amazon World blog, where one can find a graphic demonstration of why classics do not recieve five star ratings.

Hint: Bitter, barely literate high school English students seem to make up a significant portion of the reviewing demographic.

Thursday, September 11, 2003

[Amy, 2:17 AM]
And while we're on the subject of stupid people...

As someone who wants to advance the cause of human knowledge, reading a website like this (link via Oxblog) is enough to make me want to go out and shoot myself. How can I possibly make any difference in the world when people continue to believe sincerely that projects such as "My Uncle Is A Man Named Steve (Not A Monkey)", "Women Were Designed For Homemaking", and "Using Prayer To Microevolve Latent Antibiotic Resistance In Bacteria" constitute science? And to perpetuate such a massive deception on children! It's enough to make me want to found a new religion, one whose theology will allow me to imagine closeminded bigots who corrupt innocent children burning in the deepest, darkest pits of hell for all eternity.

But enough ranting for one evening. No name-calling in my next post, I promise.

[Amy, 1:56 AM]
Honestly, People:

A certain blogger, who may at this point be glad he is anonymous, linked approvingly to this Washington Post article, which makes the following claim:

With $166 billion spent or requested, Bush's war spending in 2003 and 2004 already exceeds the inflation-adjusted costs of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish American War and the Persian Gulf War combined, according to a study by Yale University economist William D. Nordhaus. The Iraq war approaches the $191 billion inflation-adjusted cost of World War I.


If this is actually what Mr. Nordhaus claimed (reporters do sometimes make misrepresent the opinions of their sources), he is a colossal idiot whose mere presence at Yale should be cause enough to have Yale's Ivy League status revoked. As an economist, Mr. Nordhaus should realize that costs encompass more than cash outlays. In considering a war, for instance, one might also want to consider such costs as casualties, or property damage. In fact, let us consider such costs for the Civil Wars--just one of the wars Mr. Nordhaus mentions. Approximately 620,000 American soldiers died during the Civil War. If we conservatively estimate the monetary value of the life of one young man at $1 million, then the cost of this one aspect of the war alone equals $620 billion. Nor does this figure include economic losses due to disruption of trade, conscription, rationing, severe shortages of basic necessities, or widespread property destruction. Remember Gettysburg? Antietam? The Union Blockade? The siege of Vicksburg? The burning of Atlanta? Sherman's march to the sea? Do you still wish to say that the Civil War "cost less" than Gulf War II?

Even if we charitably interpret the meaning of the word cost to be limited to direct government expenditures, it is still grossly misleading to say that the Civil War cost less than the current Iraq war. The price tag of the war may, strictly speaking, carry a lower number, but we are also a much richer country than we were in the middle of the nineteenth century. A car of any sort is an expensive purchase for a recent college graduate, but a BMW sports car makes a negligible dent in the fortunes of a successful corporate executive. And if this war is so much more expensive, how much of the difference comes from the fact that the Union Army during the Civil war subsisted on hardtack, salt pork, and not much of it. Nowadays, soldiers in Iraq complain because there aren't enough vegetarian options in their meal service.

In Iraq, we are buying ourselves a BMW war, because we can afford to do so. Yes, the tax cuts are silly, and yes it would have been nice if the administration had been more forthcoming about the costs of the war. But to compare the cost of the war to that of the Civil War in such a fashion is more than the usual sophistic drivel spouted by partisan hacks--it is just plain wrong.

Tuesday, September 09, 2003

[Amy, 1:49 AM]
Don't Forget Paris:

Much has been said about David Bernstein's original post regarding lack of efficient price discrimination by movie theaters. Of the cities in which I've spent significant amounts of time, Paris was the one that had what seems to be the most efficient price discrimination policy. As in many U.S. cities, the first showing of the day is quite cheap (at the going rate of exchange when I was there in 2001, tickets were about two dollars). Furthermore, Sunday evenings through Thursday afternoons, children, students, the retired and the unemployed (all of whom one imagines would be particularly responsive to price) can buy discounted tickets--usually about five dollars, though this varied by theater. However, even with this system, to the best of my observations, Paris movie theaters only seemed less empty at off-peak times than American theaters because they tended to be smaller, and on Friday and Saturday nights the theater lobbies rivaled the subways at rush hour for crowdedness.

[Amy, 12:51 AM]
Delightful Dahlia:

Slate's Dahlia Lithwick is back in fine form with her coverage of the arguments in the campaign finance reform case currently before the Supreme Court. But what we really want to know from her is when we get to see the pictures.

The baby pictures, of course. Not pictures of the interesting goings-on in the first floor women's restroom.

Monday, September 08, 2003

[Amy, 1:36 AM]
New York Times Watch:

Two recent New York Times articles have been getting lots of interesting responses from the blogosphere.

First is Catherine Orenstein's feminist critique of Sex and the City, ably refuted from two very different perspectives by Timothy Burke and Sara Butler.

Second is this piece on happiness research that has so far drawn comments from Tyler Cowen, Alex Tabarrok, and Stuart Buck.

Bloggers certainly seem to enjoy whining about the New York Times, but they might do well to consider that it's solid, debate-provoking pieces such as these, not the slant of the front-page stories, that make it the must-read paper for the educated elite.

Saturday, September 06, 2003

[Amy, 2:20 AM]
Tyler Cowen comments in his new blog on auctions:

The median lot at Sotheby's sells for $4,177, at Christie's South Kensington, a branch, the median lot sells for $2,259. More than ever before, collecting is no longer the exclusive province of the wealthy.


Cowen is right. Not only can the wealthy participate, so can the rich, affluent, moneyed, prosperous, well-heeled, and well-to-do!

Collecting could also be for us fresh-out-of-college types, if we were willing to blow between four and eight month's rent for a piece of furniture. Please understand that I'm not bitter about this. In fact, I hold out hope that at some point in the future I too will be able to contemplate a four digit price tag on a knickknack, and consider it a splurge rather than a joke. When that time comes around, I hope that I still have the perspective to call myself what I would be--wealthy.

Friday, September 05, 2003

[Amy, 5:52 PM]
Sad, Sad Day:

Chocolate as we know it is ending. Not that us Americans used to that dreadful imitation chocolate peddled in this country under the name of Hershey's ever had much chance to know chocolate in the first place...

[Amy, 1:33 AM]
What Else You Should Be Reading Today:

Sara Butler (whom I welcome back to the blogosphere--she has been missed) on the history of marriage .

Virginia Postrel, who has been on a roll lately.

[Amy, 12:37 AM]
Why I am not a Texas Republican:

Ted Barlow over at Crooked Timber has posted excerpts from the 2000 Texas GOP platform, which are quite amusing in that sad, alarming sort of way. What I don't understand, though, is the sarcasm I detect in his demands that members of the Texas Republican party denounce this platform. I think this is an entirely reasonable demand to make, and should President Bush ever decide to do so, I might in turn reconsider my current decision not to support him. Absent such an action, it seems to me entirely reasonable to to cast my vote in the 2004 election for one of the other candidates for president.

Mr. Barlow, however, seems to think that this is illogical, given that in earlier posts he asserts that Cruz Bustamante's failure to denounce MEChA's platform should have no bearing on Californians' decision to elect him governer, and in this post draws an explicit parallel between the two situations. Does he believe that Americans should support Bush in spite of his support for extreme rightwing views? Or perhaps that we should oppose Bush, but only because he got bad grades at Yale?

In point of fact, I think there are more compelling reasons than a college affiliation with a group of slightly alarming extremists to oppose Bustamante (like his blatently tax-the-rich budget scheme), but I think the ideas and platforms a politician supports (or fails to oppose) are important, and should be the basis for one's decision to support or oppose. The alternative to me seems to be voting on the basis of nebulous concepts like leadership and likability, which is what got us Bush in the first place.

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