Everything you need to know about the subprime mortgage crisis, with poorly-drawn stick figures (h/t Volokh).
Those poor Norwegian villagers…
Subprime crisis for dummies
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Author Archives: wellsdc
The real problem with ID
I have been following the renewed ID/creationism/evolution “debate” with much interest, mostly so I can further educate myself about science and the fascinating array of knowledge and experience to be found in the natural world, but also to marvel at the colossal waste of time and energy expended in an ever-increasingly-desperate effort to keep evolution out of children’s minds. The particulars of the “debate” have been discussed ad nauseam, but for me it really comes down to one, simple, painful conclusion.
Intelligent design is supremely, fantastically boring.
The basic premise seems to be this: This biological mechanism is so apparently complex that I cannot conceive of a natural means by which it may have evolved; therefore, an Intelligent Designer must have created it.
That’s it. Whatever science has not yet been able to explain (and in most cases of supposed “irreducible complexity,” already has explained) must be the work of some supernatural desginer. End of story. Go grab some chips & queso and see what’s on TV.
Seriously, what’s the point? How does this help anything?
46.6%!
The purity test (h/t Kerry Howley), which guided my way through college, is back, and it’s grosser than ever. (The bar is way lower at Rice, as I score a 25% on that test.) This was something all Rice freshmen were supposed to take during orientation, to be used for comparison with your score upon graduation (I dropped by about 67% in four years!)
I’m now 17.48 points less pure than the average test taker, as it turns out.
OMFGWTF
I can’t not share this story from AP (excerpted because it’s really gross):
NESS CITY, Kan. – Deputies said a woman in western Kansas sat on her boyfriend’s toilet for two years, and they’re investigating whether she was mistreated.
Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said a man called his office last month to report that something was wrong with his girlfriend.
Whipple said it appeared the 35-year-old Ness City woman’s skin had grown around the seat. She initially refused emergency medical services but was finally convinced by responders and her boyfriend that she needed to be checked out at a hospital.
“We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital,” Whipple said. “The hospital removed it.”
***
“She was not glued. She was not tied. She was just physically stuck by her body,” Whipple said. “It is hard to imagine. … I still have a hard time imagining it myself.”
He told investigators he brought his girlfriend food and water, and asked her every day to come out of the bathroom.
“And her reply would be, ‘Maybe tomorrow,”’ Whipple said. “According to him, she did not want to leave the bathroom.”
The boyfriend called police on Feb. 27 to report that “there was something wrong with his girlfriend,” Whipple said, adding that he never explained why it took him two years to call.
This may turn out to have been a serious case of abuse or neglect, in which case I’ll probably feel bad for making fun of the situation.
But still…
TWO YEARS???
Didn’t I see something like this on TV once?
That was a little different (woman spending three years on a sofa, not two years on a toilet).
The real question (that I know you’re wondering about) is whether the boyfriend’s place has more than one bathroom. And if it doesn’t…
Actually, let’s not go there. Let’s not go any further with this. I’m out.
UPDATE: More info from AP. Apparently the woman has a phobia about leaving the bathroom.
Remembering Gary Hart
I’m reminded, as I read about Der Spitzer’s downfall, of what some comedian in the ’80s suggested Gary Hart should say in response to his scandal (it later became a bumper sticker):
Yeah, I fucked her. Vote for me.
At least it’s honest. And slightly less humiliating for the other parties involved.
Would you pay $4,300 to *********?
We really don’t know anything more than we knew yesterday about Mr. Spitzer that’s actually useful, but at least the AP’s shameful hounding of the call girl’s family has yielded the revelation that she’s pretty hot.
$4,300 hot? Eh, maybe.
Of course, leave it to Fox News to include pictures of all the other agency ladies. Still, any excuse to plaster the news media with hotties is fine by me. Courtney Friel, anyone?
How would Jesus curse?
Skepchick has a funny piece on whether non-theists should invoke the name of God or his ilk when cursing:
My hubby was on a message board the other day where someone was telling him that when an atheist says “Goddammit,” it implies at least some vague belief in God.
I find that notion somewhat nutty, and perhaps a bit self-contradictory. Truth is, though, that a good hearty G/D is sometimes the most effective way, on the spur of the moment, to express one’s true feelings. She offers some alternatives to the old standards, of which the following are my favorites:
“Holy Curie’s Isotopes!”
“Mother of Galileo!”
“Great Merciful Hawking!”
One commenter recommends dropping into another language (vaffanculo!), which can be both effective and amusingly confusing to your listener. I will admit to dropping some ordinary German and Russian exclamations (Scheisse! Жаль.), but my favorite came from a Spanish-speaking friend back in college. Just try saying it:
¡Hijo de la fregada!
Babelfish translates it as “Son of the mopped one,” but I’ve also been told it means “Son of that which bothers me.” What it shows, though, is that in this crazy, technological, postmodern world, there are more than enough cursewords to go around, in just about any language. Try using a completely innocuous, yet reasonably uncommon, foreign word as a swear, and see how soon it starts to sound a little inappropriate in polite company. Imagine you just swung a hammer straight into your thumb, and then recite the following words:
Shishkebab
Portobello
Melange
Ensalada
Lieblingsfarber
Humuhumunukunukuapua’a
See what I mean?
In closing, I have to note that the Wikipedia entry on the cumbersomely-named Hawaiian fish above states that its name is one of the longest words in the English language. Do I really need to point out that it’s not in the English language?
Malum prohibitum: Why is the basic transactional part of prostitution illegal, anyway? – UPDATED
It’s pretty much par for the course nowadays that more than a few authority figures love the outside-the-mainstream kinky stuff. I have about as much sympathy for Eliot Spitzer as I did for Larry Craig (i.e. none). Still, there is a looming and largely unasked question here: Why is the act of two consenting adults, in private, agreeing to exchange money for sex a crime? Above all, why is it a federal crime in this case? Glenn Greenwald explores this question in some depth, as does Digby. I also recommend Digby’s post for its historical review of the Mann Act, the archaic 1910 federal law invoked to federally prosecute prostitution-related offenses.
In all seriousness, while I think Eliot Spitzer deserves to be hoisted upon his own petard (I never get tired of that phrase), doesn’t the federal government have better things to do? Isn’t there a war still going on or something?
Some discussion of the question (thanks to a quick and highly unscientific Google search) can be found here, here, here, here, here, and here. A common thread among arguments for keeping prostitution illegal involves legalization’s supposed windfall for pimps and its further demeaning effect on women, not to mention an increase in human trafficking. I don’t want to pick on this site too much, because I know they do a lot of good work, but their “10 Reasons for Not Legalizing Prostitution” do not hold much water. A more in-depth look at this page may come in a future post. There is absolutely no denying that human trafficking and the continued subjugation of women is a problem all over the world. These are terrible problems that deserve smart, effective soultions. Wiretapping a guy who spends $1K-5K per hour for the services of an “escort” is not one of those solutions. Going after the traffickers, educating the women most likely to be victimized by said traffickers, and working to alleviate the conditions that might cause women to fall prey to a trafficker are more likely to help. But they won’t make for prurient headlines.
In a final note for the moment, I present further evidence regarding the death of irony (or at least one of its more pathetic gasps): Newsweek has commentary on the whole sordid affair from Heidi Fleiss.
UPDATE (3/13/08): Ditto everything Glenn Greenwald says here. Viva sarcasm!
A friendly reminder
“When the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb, for then he can rely only upon his own constitutional powers minus any constitutional powers of Congress over the matter. Courts can sustain exclusive presidential control in such a case only by disabling the Congress from acting upon the subject. Presidential claim to a power at once so conclusive and preclusive must be scrutinized with caution, for what is at stake is the equilibrium established by our constitutional system.”
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., et al v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 637-38 (1952, J. Jackson, concurring)
cdesign proponentsists
Perhaps the most astute, and tragic, observation I’ve seen out of this whole ID/creationism kerfuffle:
ID is “creation science” is “creationism” is “God dun it.” Teaching that as something provable beyond faith in a science curriculum is a big reason future Nobel winners will pour out of China and India, and not Kansas.
I have many, many thoughts on this whole matter, but it really boils down to a single question, which is this: What will be the state of science, medicine, technology, and our whole freakin’ infrastructure in America in a generation if the ID crowd has their way?
By the way, if you’re wondering about the title of this post, it refers to an intriguing intermediate form between creationism and intelligent design.