NFL Week 4

Last Week: 10-4. Season: 27-19. Fantasy: 2-1.

W-Cincinnati Bengals over Houston Texans
W-Tampa Bay Buccaneers over Detroit Lions
W-Indianapolis Colts over Tennessee Titans
W-New Orleans Saints over Buffalo Bills
W-Baltimore Ravens over New York Jets
W-Atlanta Falcons over Minnesota Vikings
Carolina Panthers over Green Bay Packers
L-Jacksonville Jaguars over Denver Broncos
L-Seattle Seahawks over Washington Redskins
San Francisco 49ers over Arizona Cardinals
W-Philadelphia Eagles over Kansas City Chiefs
L-Dallas Cowboys over Oakland Raiders
W-New York Giants over St. Louis Rams
L-New England Patriots over San Diego Chargers

These picks are still subject to change. I'm not sure about Dallas over Oakland, I need to look into the Eagles' injury situation a little more and I've probably got the Carolina-Green Bay game too low. I've yet to speak to my partner Chokechain too, and he'll surely have some insane insights that I'd do better to ignore.

The triumph of the third-rate

It seems to me that the lightweights have all but taken over the conservative media. Set aside the historical absurdities of Malkin and the overt inanities of Shapiro, consider today's National Review Online. There are a grand total of twelve articles cum columns on its homepage. Of these, one is dedicated to the Grand Theme of the present administration, the war. Two are dedicated to Katrina. There is one generally silly piece that appears to deal with media bias and one long stream of rumblings - including some eyebrow-raising praise for the Old Left - from the resident curmudgeon, John Derbyshire. Two columns on Tom Delay's travails, one solid piece disemboweling the logic of static tax models and no less than four (4!) television and movie reviews.

Furthermore, The Corner is filled to the brim with a discourse that is not remarkably deeper than what one might expect at an MTV-related blog, minus the vulgarities and nUsp33k. I was almost embarrassed to be reading it, and I regularly write about fantasy football!

Now, there are several possibilities here. As the Fraters Libertas-nominated official columnist of the National Organization for Women, I would be remiss if I did not point out that NRO now has a woman editor, and as everyone knows by now, I expect female intellectuals to be rather more interested in the latest revelations from the idiot box and People Magazine than in such small and passing matters as death, war and taxes. (Knowing that this statement will cause some inadvertant panty-bunching, I went back to look at who wrote what and discovered that the only three pieces written by women are those focused on - hold your breath - the Oliver Twist movie, the Truman Capote movie and the Geena Davis TV show. If I'm such a stupid mysogynist, then why are my baseless suspicions always confirmed so readily?)

However, I suspect that the embrace of silliness on the part of NRO is more than the current editing-by-chick from which it suffers. The more insidious problem is that conservatives have been betrayed by their standard bearer, so they are in a period of doubt as to what conservatism even means these days. Hence the coining of new modifying adjectives, the appearance of neo-compassionate, strong government, pragma-conservatives and inevitable falling away of the true conservatives, such as Pat Buchanan and Ann Coulter.

I find it very interesting that while the three most popular WND writers - Pat, Ann and me - regularly excoriate the Bush administration, the "leading" conservative publication is largely silent on the negatives, preferring instead to focus on the rapidly decreasing number of positives when it's possible and blathering on about ephemeral trivialities when it's not.

Or perhaps it's too many years of weak opposition, after all, successfully engaging the liberal Democratic line these days doesn't exactly require a mind honed like a katana made by a Japanese swordmaster. All I know that I don't regret giving up my NR Digital subscription last year. I didn't do it out of anger or even annoyance, it was simply the realization that I'd accumulated twelve weeks worth without once feeling the desire to read one.

My mind may not be clean, but at least it's not full of fluff. Forget the Lesser Evil... Cthulhu in 2008!

And why, exactly, is this our problem?

Israel wants to put the US military in action:

The United States and its allies must act to stop Iran's nuclear programs -- by force if necessary -- because conventional diplomacy will not work, three senior Israeli lawmakers from across the political spectrum warned yesterday. As a last resort, they said, Israel itself would act unilaterally to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear arms.

Here's the question. If a nuclear Iran is a serious and direct threat to Israel - and I'm not arguing that it isn't - why is it the United States' responsibility to deal with it? Israel clearly has the ability to deal with the threat, as its lawmakers readily admit, so why should the responsibility devolve upon Americans?

Blessing Israel, as Christians are called to do, does not involve blind obedience to Israeli lawmakers anymore than giving to Caesar what is Caesar's requires paying taxes one does not owe.

The reality is that nuclear technology is very close to being beyond the control of the nation-state. While this is somewhat frightening, as chaotic periods of historical transition are usually quite unpleasant, the truth is that it is actually likely to increase individual freedom in the long term. As Carroll Quigly points out in his insightful Tragedy And Hope, the cheap and ready availability of military-level weapons technology to the masses has always had the tendency to decrease the ability of central governments to use force to oppress their people.

The problem lies in the governments' inevitable attempts to retain the upper hand, which can often be quite violent. I do not think it is an accident that it should be at this time of a teetering status quo that the leaders of Australia, the UK and the USA should be publicly making noises about using their militaries to suppress civil liberties in their countries.

It seems we live in interesting times, unfortunately.

Enjoy the silence

We apologize for the recent service outage. Although it somehow seems to escape nearly everyone's attention, I do have a Real Job which occasionally necessitates blogging downtime. The reason I do not ever write about it is that, as with the Destroyer in Macroscope, the intellectual content would sear your brain, albeit from utter boredom instead of a conceptual mind-scrambler.

I did, however, spot a nice used Ferrari on offer today as I was out and about. It was an elegant grey beast, but not nearly flashy enough for my liking. Let's face it, if you're going to drive Italian, you've simply got to be obnoxious about it.

Be afraid, be very afraid

National Review reviews the anti-Hillary Clinton commercial:

In the glorious future, with the issues so perfectly framed, “Democrat” and “liberal” have withered away, and everyone presumably knows that their choice is between upright, sincere independents (like Allen) and icy, extremist Republicans. Ah, to dream.

Liberals are serious about human rights in this world too. Working out a subplot, Allen’s aides keep reminding her about the Nigeria situation: In accordance with sharia, Nigeria is about to put a woman to death for committing adultery. Allen is concerned.

Throughout, Allen is shown confidently ordering around generals and positioning aircraft carriers (see, this is why stereotypes are bad). And as Commander limps through its 38th minute, she brings the Nigerian ambassador to a Joint Chiefs’ meeting and proceeds to illustrate how the Marines will storm his country if the woman isn’t released immediately.

While many people labor under the idea that the world would be a more peaceful place if women were in charge, I have my suspicions that the opposite is likely true. I don't think we should have invaded Iraq simply because the Ba'ath dictatorship got its kicks by going Fargo on its citizens, but there apparently there are more than a few women who fantasize about sending in the Marines because a country applies a law supported by one-sixth of the world's population to a single individual.

Fortunately, Hillary will probably be too occupied with oppressing the American citizenry to bother playing Global Mommy, although it is true her spiritual godfather was able to invade countries and slaughter civilians at the same time. Perhaps her total lack of a maternal instinct will be one plus for the Lizard Queen as president.

Is there anyone here who actually plans to watch this show? I certainly don't.

False erudition

A Jay Nordlinger reader exposes Dan Brown yet again:

My colleague Christopher Howse has pointed out that you can tell that The Da Vinci Code is rubbish just by its name. Students of art refer to the man in question as 'Leonardo', 'Da Vinci' being simply the identifier of his town of origin. So Dan Brown's title is the equivalent of a book about Jesus being called Of Nazareth. [That is much better than my "of Orange" example.] To be fair, though, these things do not follow a common rule. A friend of mine who had done a thesis on Correggio applied for an art history fellowship at a well-known university. One of those interviewing him for the post asked, 'So where did Correggio come from?' My friend replied truthfully, 'From Correggio.' He sensed at once that he should have spared his questioner's blushes. He failed to get the fellowship.

I never consciously thought about it that way, but it might be one reason why I could never bring myself to bother reading The Da Vinci Code despite the fact that I'll cheerfully plow through the complete John Norman or Patrick O'Brien in a matter of weeks. I'm no literary snob, but one does have to draw a line somewhere... although I rather feel as if I'm biting the hand that doesn't exactly feed me, but does toss me a few treats now and then, considering that Pocket has amassed a fair amount of the coin of the realm thanks to Mr. Brown.

Martial law: coming soon to a country near you

From the Washington Times:

President Bush yesterday sought to federalize hurricane-relief efforts, removing governors from the decision-making process. "It wouldn't be necessary to get a request from the governor or take other action," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said yesterday. "This would be," he added, "more of an automatic trigger."

Mr. McClellan was referring to a new, direct line of authority that would allow the president to place the Pentagon in charge of responding to natural disasters, terrorist attacks and outbreaks of disease.

I wonder how long after this law passes there will be a terrorist attack that sets off the automatic trigger. Six months? Six days? At some point, even the most naive, pro-government American has to seriously consider that perhaps the administration is enacting laws such as these with a specific purpose in mind.

But, of course, who could question the good intentions of George Bush after he said that the philosopher who had influenced him most was "Christ". Now, it is certainly not for me to judge another man's heart, but I always harbor a certain amount of skepticism about self-professed Christians who nevertheless seem to avoid the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth like the plague.

On an increasingly tangential note, I also wonder, when Paul repeatedly warns that the Church will be attacked by many enemies within, why Christians spend so little effort contemplating who those treacherous wolves in sheep's clothing in their own local church might be.

Mailvox: it's all a sham anyhow

Someone who knows a lot more about this stuff than I do weighs in:

The national strategy to place a democracy in Iraq has no bearing on military strategy right now. I don’t know if that was ever in the plans – certainly wasn’t when I was in on the planning. The current strategy on the ground is to establish a government, any government that can stand on its own long enough for us to get our finger off of it and run like hell. (I guess I look at it like teaching the neighbors kid how to ride a bike, doesn’t matter if it’s a nice kid or a bully, as soon as he starts going by himself, we’re out of there before he crashes on a major scale)). Although, running like hell simply means withdrawing to a few heavily fortified bases so we can project power at a later date.

I say this for a few reasons: 1) Saddam is going to be tried in an unwestern style court, and probably executed promptly after without much appeal. 2) Iraqi ministry of interior forces conduct interrogation of terrorists/collaborators in ways that even make me cringe – right in front of US intelligence personnel… And ministry of interior personnel are expanding along with secret police outfits. 3) We declined to create their constitution for them (Germany, Japan) knowing full well, the Iraqis may very well vote themselves a Shiite theocracy…quite a lot of griping by senior commanders about that one. 4) State Department constantly interfering with the war effort, doing things like putting Muqtada Al Sadr on a do-not-kill list, etc…

Anyway, I conclude that our “grand strategy” is simply to hold on long enough that secret police outfits, MOI intelligence agents and the IP/ING have enough of (an iron) grip on the population that we can withdraw. Government type is really irrelevant at this point.

This suggests, unsurprisingly, that yet another purported rationale for the Iraqi invasion and occupation is nothing more than political smoke and mirrors meant to entertain the unthinking masses. It also suggests that the administration knows perfectly well the absurdity of its own public position, and that bringing "democracy" to Iraq won't make a bit of difference with regards to future acts of terror.

I've never understood how it made any sense to claim that the administration's briar-patch strategy would make Americans safer when it is a voluntary decision for jihadists to engage American troops there. How does a base in Iraq prevent a cell leader in Syria Jordanian or Saudi jihadist to attack Cleveland?

Mailvox: the wider war

SAM wants to know more about withdrawing from the Middle East:

I'm been reading your columns relatively recently, so I am not sure how much of this you have covered or how much you would like to pursue this in these Emails, but I'm not sure what you mean by withdrawing from the Middle East. Do you mean withdrawing of all troops from Iraq? and other bases in the region? or withdrawing monetary support for tyrannical Arab governments such as Egypt? or do you mean withdrawing support (spiritual and economic) from Israel? But I am also unsure what effect withdrawing from the Middle East (in any of the above ways) would have on the wider war on terror. For example, would withdrawing from the Middle East prevent the Islamic jihadists from killing Christians in the Philippines, Sudan, Nigeria, or Pakistan? Would it prevent jihadists from killing Hindus in Bali or India or Kashmir, or the killing of Buddhists in Thailand. You see my point. Islamic Jihad involves more than Middle East issues.

By the way, there has been an increase in terrorism since the Iraqi War, but strangely enough. there has been no further attacks in the US. This is inexplicable to me. As I say, I am unsure how far you want to pursue this here, but I do appreciate your responses thus far.

What I mean by withdrawing from the Middle East is withdrawing completely. Bases, troops and financial support for every government in the region. I appreciate the Christian concern for Israel but Israel won several wars without our help, it is an untrustworthy ally in the geopolital sense and is genuine cause for grievance with the USA on the part of its enemies. I find it very difficult to stomach the incomprehensible thinking on the part of those who insist that while Israel is a vital US ally, our alliance with Israel does not cause its enemies to target us. Besides which, if we are giving nearly the same amount of financial and military support to Egypt as we are to Israel, how does the net effect benefit Israel in the first place?

Now, withdrawing from the Middle East will not prevent jihadists from killing Hindus in Bali or Buddhists in Thailand. On the other hand, it should be obvious that occupying Iraq has not prevented this either.

As for the absence of attacks in the USA since 9/11, the combination of our open borders combined with the demonstrated inability of Israel to prevent hundreds of terrorists attacks every year suggests at least one of three possibilities. One, that radical Islam is not as interested in attacking America as the jihadists claim. Two, that the jihadists are biding their time and are in the process of preparing a spectacular attack of great magnitude. Three, 9/11 was a false flag operation and the jihadists were not responsible for it despite their later claims. Far less credible than any of these possibilities is the notion that American security is so magnificent that it is preventing dozens of attempted attacks every month.

It is true that the Islamic Jihad involves far more than the Middle East. But the administration decided from the very start that it was not interested in mobilizing the nation to support the Clash of Civilizations that many war cheerleaders mysteriously seem to believe the administration is waging, in spite all of the evidence to the contrary. Occupying Iraq will no more bring an end to the global jihad than occupying a single, not terribly important German state such as Schleswig-Holstein would have brought an end to the Third Reich.

Mailvox: a disingenuous device

OBG is aghast:

Are you suggesting that we change all governments to autocracies to eliminate terrorism? Surely you jest.

Yes, obviously that's the entire point of my column today. The fact that ignoring national sovereignty and forcibly installing quasi-democratic regimes will not solve the problem of terrorism, but likely make exacerbate it instead, is obviously secondary to my secret dreams of world autocratic revolution.

How synaptically challenged do you have to be to either a) think I'm going to fall for this sort of juvenile disingenuousness, or b) seriously believe everything is utterly bipolar. (As if autocracy and democracy are the two poles in the first place).

The desirability of democracy is completely beside the point if one is pushing democracy on the basis of ending terrorism. The historical facts indicate that democracy not only does not reduce terrorism, but is in fact uniquely vulnerable to it.

My suggestion for ending terrorism is simple. If you don't want to get stung repeatedly by hornets, then take your hand out of the hornets' nest! Furthermore, it would be wise to avoid bringing loads of hornet larvae into your house. Since it has become apparent that the USA has no will or desire to directly confront radical expansionist Islam, which may well burn outself out again on its own, Americans who wish to see terrorism brought to an end would do well to stop interfering in Arab-Islamic affairs and leave the Middle East to its own devices.

The Human-Dolphin war begins

Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico. Experts who have studied the US navy's cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying 'toxic dart' guns. Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet's smartest. The US navy admits it has been training dolphins for military purposes, but has refused to confirm that any are missing.

Dolphins have been trained in attack-and-kill missions since the Cold War. The US Atlantic bottlenose dolphins have apparently been taught to shoot terrorists attacking military vessels. Their coastal compound was breached during the storm, sweeping them out to sea. But those who have studied the controversial use of dolphins in the US defence programme claim it is vital they are caught quickly.

Whatever happened to so long, and thanks for all the fish? Ungrateful blowholing bastards!

Mailvox: showing a little kneejerk

Miraclewhip can't get her head around the S/D curve:

The likelihood of this advice being taken to heart is actually DECREASED though, when it is "bolstered" by cockamamy economic arguments such as "women in the workforce are driving real U.S. wages down more than the exportation of textile, IT, electronics, furniture-making (are there any North Carolinians in the room tonight?) industries today, or the swelling of federal programs and the attendant tax increases in the 70's."

I don't recall Miraclewhip being a feminist, but her defensive reaction here might as well be. I'll try to put this in very simple terms. The 1970 US workforce was 78 million. 34 million women entered it in 30 years. Had every other variable remained the same, this would indicate a 44 percent reduction in wages. But real wages did not fall 44 percent, they've only fallen 16.3 percent since 1973 because there are a number of other factors involved, including positive factors such as economic growth and negative factors such as immigration and outsourcing.

It is a mathematical fact that women working is a bigger effect on wages than immigration. It is an open question as to whether outsourcing or women working has had a more deleterious effect on wages, but no one has given the slightest bit of evidence that more than 34 million jobs have been lost to outsourcing in the last 30 years. Still, we can make some extremely rough estimates considering the following effects on wages:

1. The economy doubled in size. +100 percent
2. 24 million more American men. -31 percent
3. 34 million more American women -44 percent
4. 21 million immigrants -27 percent

This would leave -14.3 percent unaccounted for, which we would presumably ascribe to the outsourcing factor. That effect would be even higher if, as I suspect, those 21 million immigrants are already factored into (1) and (2). After all, immmigrants are either men or women. In that case, outsourcing would account for a putative 41 percent of the change in American wages, roughly equal to the expected effect of 34 million women entering the work force.

Miraclewhip also fails to note that for a household, a second income inherently involves a tax increase thanks to the progressive taxation system. Neither the swelling of federal programs nor the attendant tax increases are completely unrelated to women entering the workforce, indeed, working women heavily supported both.

I would hesitate to describe Miraclewhip's economic argument as "cockamamy", however, as she simply hasn't made one.

Discuss amongst yourselves

Week Three

Last week: 9-7. Season: 17-15. Fantasy: 1-1.

Indianapolis Colts over Cleveland Browns
Philadelphia Eagles over Oakland Raiders
Seattle Seahawks over Arizona Cardinals
Tampa Bay Buccaneers over Green Bay Packers
Carolina Panthers over Miami Dolphins
San Diego Chargers over New York Giants
Jacksonville Jaguars over New York Jets
Buffalo Bills over Atlanta Falcons
Dallas Cowboys over San Francisco 49ers
Pittsburgh Steelers over New England Patriots
Denver Broncos over Kansas City Chiefs
St. Louis Rams over Tennessee Titans
Chicago Bears over Cincinnati Bengals
Minnesota Vikings over New Orleans Saints

Mailvox: Productivity and job exportation

Miraclewhip asks for an explanation:

The number of women who will never work outside the home is not negligible, but I didn't quibble by choosing a ratio like 0.75 women : 1 man. It wouldn't have mattered even if I did, because I was making a comparison between two ratios, 1 American female : 1 American male vs. 1 X ORDERS of MAGNITUDE foreign workers to whom US jobs have been outsourced to countries employing slave, child, or extremely cheap labor : 1 male worker.

I am puzzled why people here keep ignoring the fact that women in the workplace is a drop in the bucket compared to the impact of mass exporting of jobs. Maybe I'm just stupid, or missing something, but I honestly wish someone would show me what that something is.

No, you're not stupid, because this is a relevant point and a very good question. And yet, it is easily answered by one of superior intellect and a modicum of research. Given that I speak three languages, you didn't really think I'm completely unaware of that concept which goes by the misnomer "globalization", did you? As for what you're missing, the first clue is the US unemployment rate, which is closer to historic lows than historic highs.

Note the following from an article on Chinese exports: "Exporting footwear creates millions of jobs for citizens who lack sophisticated skills. According to some reports, a total of 34 million export-related jobs have been created in China, with exports to the U.S. alone accounting for over 20 million jobs in the last decade."

Now, Americans are still wearing shoes, so those imported shoes definitely cost some American jobs, but not as many as you might think. 20 million Chinese jobs do not equate to 20 million lost American jobs, because the productivity of the machine-assisted American worker is much higher.

Productivity is notoriously difficult to calculate, but if we use the simplest possible national estimate, GDP/civilian worker, it's clear that even today, the American worker annually produces about $86,000 ($11.75 trillion/136.49 million) in value.* By comparison, if we assume that a similar percentage of the Chinese population is employed in the labor force - if anyone has an actual statistic, let me know and we'll plug it in - that indicates the average Chinese worker produces $212.77 annually, (1.21 trillion/568.7 million). This would put the number of American footwear manufacturing jobs lost at 49,500 if Chinese productivity had been at its current levels since 1970... which it hasn't, having quadrupled since 1978. So, the actual number of American jobs lost to these 20 million Chinese workers is probably somewhere around 20k to 25k.

Now keep in mind that the entire Indian IT market is smaller than this single Chinese footwear market, while the same productivity math applies. The American labor force is bleeding and this certainly may portend trouble for the future, but it's still more akin to a nasty cut on the hand, not a hemmorhage, and fails to account for the greater part of the historical decline in wages. These job losses are certainly not nothing, but their cumulative effect is still a relatively small one when compared to 21 million immigrants and 34 million women entering what was a workforce of 78 million in 30 years.

*This analysis is simplistic and fatally flawed by the fact that GDP measures consumption, not production, but the two have been commonly used as equivalents in Keynesian macroeconomics for fifty years, so bear with me. Also, that's a 2004 GDP figure and 2002 labor force. But the numbers are available and they suffice to clarify the relevant issue here.

Mailvox: The Republican blondes did it!

Now, wouldn't this be fascinating if it turns out to be true? Someone emailed me a link to this story of an intriguing arrest... it's clear that the most important unanswered question is the whereabouts of Ann Coulter on September 11, 2001!

French and American intelligence agents have arrested Barbara Olson, the wife of a former Bush administration official, a few days ago on the Polish-Austrian border, according to agents close to and with knowledge of the incident.

The alleged 9.11 Pentagon crash victim was found to be in possession of millions in fake interbank Italian lyra currency, according to the agents.

Olson was also reportedly in possession of a fraudulent Vatican passport and was held on charges of counterfeiting. The former Fox News TV commentator and Independent Women's Forum activist was said to have called her husband Theodore Olson from her plane to seek help in countering hijackers who had allegedly taken over American flight 77 which the Bush administration said was crashed into the Pentagon- although the impact only left an opening approximately 16 feet across.

Mrs. Olson's alleged cell phone call to her husband was employed by the administration and the 9.11 Commission as partial proof that American 77 crashed into the Pentagon, despite physical evidence to the contrary. The Pentagon crash evidence was ignored and obstructed by both the Commission and previously by the Joint Congressional Intelligence Committee in its own separate probe.

Due to the ongoing sensitive nature of the arrest, investigation and questioning, one source who declined to be named for this story, told TomFlocco.com that Olson's call to her husband was a fraud and that another projectile impacted the Pentagon other than Olson's plane. The agents were said to have closed in to arrest the former television pundit because the evidence of counterfeiting and passport violations was obvious and that the timing was right.

According to the agents, Barbara Olson is reportedly considered to be a conspirator to the obstruction of justice in the mass murders of 3,000 individuals on September 11, 2001 in the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the alleged crash in southwestern Pennsylvania.

Olson's arrest and potential appearance at trial in the United States would undoubtedly have a profound impact upon current "Able Danger" hearings in the Senate and past probes by both the Joint Congressional Intelligence Committee and the 9.11 Commission.

However, aside from the obvious way in which this news report flies in the face of the Official Story, I'm wondering about that reference to Italian lira. Unless it's a reference to some sort of bearer bond of which I'm unaware, I don't know why anyone would be carting around lira in any quantity.

And who knows if it's actually Barbara Olson or someone pretending to be her for some strange reason. Either way, it will be interesting to see if Fox News sees fit to cover the story.

UPDATE: this guy appears to have smelled a rat with regards to Barbara Olson back in 2002. Regardless of the real reason or reasons for its publication, the story seems to have matured a lot since the first decoy news release by CNN early on September 12, 2001. Here we have considerably more detail, some of which is frankly impossible. In the alleged words of US Solicitor General Theodore Olson: “She [Barbara] had trouble getting through, because she wasn’t using her cell phone – she was using the phone in the passengers’ seats,” said Mr Olson....

But it is at this juncture that we finally have the terminal error. Though the American Airlines Boeing 757 is fitted with individual telephones at each seat position, they are not of the variety where you can simply pick up the handset and ask for an operator. On many aircraft you can talk from one seat to another in the aircraft free of charge, but if you wish to access the outside world you must first swipe your credit card through the telephone. By Ted Olson’s own admission, Barbara did not have a credit card with her.

It gets worse. On American Airlines there is a telephone "setup" charge of US$2.50 which can only be paid by credit card, then a US$2.50 (sometimes US$5.00) charge per minute of speech thereafter. The setup charge is the crucial element. Without paying it in advance by swiping your credit card you cannot access the external telephone network. Under these circumstances the passengers’ seat phone on a Boeing 757 is a much use as a plastic toy.

Perhaps Ted Olson made a mistake and Barbara managed to borrow a credit card from a fellow passenger? Not a chance. If Barbara had done so, once swiped through the phone, the credit card would have enabled her to call whoever she wanted to for as long as she liked, negating any requirement to call collect.

No taxation on breast augmentation

In which I dissent from Rich Lowry's lamentation of raunch culture:

In her Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, Levy asks how it is that if feminism won, so many unenlightened, bimbo-loving guys are so happy. She reports from the front lines, traveling with the crew of Girls Gone Wild, which films young women flashing the camera for videos sold on late-night TV. They are eager to perform. “It sounds like a fantasy world dreamed up by teenage boys,” she writes. “Any hot girl you see will peel off her bikini top, lift up her skirt … all you have to do is ask.”

“A baseline expectation that women will be constantly exploding in little blasts of exhibitionism runs throughout our culture,” Levy argues. “‘Girls Gone Wild’ is not extraordinary, it’s emblematic.” Women strive to look the part. Breast-augmentation procedures zoomed from 32,607 a year in 1992 to 264,041 last year.

While I will admit that I am extremely pessimistic about the ultimate fate of the Equalitarian Society, I find it impossible to lament the fact that significantly more American women are now sporting finely sculpted C- and D-sized breasts. I know a fair number of women who have upsized on the topside, but I had no idea how popular the procedure was becoming.

I wonder how long it will be before some grim-faced politician somberly declares the War on Porn? Like the War on Drugs and the Bush administration, that will be another disastrous, invasive and liberty-destroying beast embraced by deluded conservatives.

Confusion is what happens when you deny reality

From a Salon writer's interview with Benjamin Kunkel:

I have a sense that particularly in New York -- though I'm sure it exists this way in Boston and in San Francisco -- there is a super-abundance of attractive, intelligent young women whom a man is very unlikely to be worthy of, who nevertheless set a higher value on him than he sets on them. This makes any sort of decision very difficult. Because to constantly be exposed to people whom you are unworthy of to begin with, yet who want you more than you want them, is confusing.

That assumption, that generally young men are unworthy of their female counterparts, is certainly in your book. I would get hanged for saying it, but there's an uncomfortable truth there.

Yes. As far as I can tell.

So you're a guy. Tell me what makes these men unworthy?

Men are unworthy in the sense of being more unfinished as people [and] in the sense of being, as romantic partners, bumbling and dishonest in a way that women are maybe not as often. The ideal of a couple that we subscribe to is one that I think is likelier to satisfy women on the whole more than it is men ... So rather than men claiming that for a deal to be made they are going to insist upon certain rights or options that would sound sleazy -- mainly some mild sort of institutionalized promiscuity -- rather than insisting on such terms as a fundamental aspect of whatever contract is being worked out, the man basically [winds up] feel[ing] as if his desires aren't quite the right ones....

For all our generalizations, I'm speaking very specifically, about my peers who live in New York City and at 30 are almost all single. It's possible that I just have really unmarriageable friends.

But probably not.

No, probably not, in that they are hot and successful: desirable by commonly held human standards

I find this exchange to be tremendously amusing. Rather than apply Occam's Razor and reach the correct conclusion, that those "commonly held human standards" are actually commonly held female standards and that the writer's friends are, in fact, unusually unmarriageable, it's necessary to - surprise, surprise - diagnose yet another male psychological disorder.

Now, it is surely possible that men are threatened by these shining examples of glorious female humanity, and in realizing themselves unworthy of such superior demigoddesses, dare not approach them. On the other hand, it is arguably more likely that what these women believe should be attractive to men is not, in fact, attractive to them. When a man dumps a junior executive VP in favor of an aerobics instructor, it's usually for the very simple reason that he likes the aerobics instructor better. These women think they're intelligent, and they can't figure that out?

Not that I particularly care about the problem of the New York single woman, but that's easily explained as well. Last year, I warned a friend in New York who was pursuing a new romance with a man who had recently moved there that people go to the Big City to have adventures and experiences, not to settle down. New York, London and Tokyo are probably the three worst places to find a man who wants to get married as a woman's odds of finding a handsome and intelligent man interested in marrying her are probably better in a farm town with a population of 500.

Needless to say, my warning was futile and she was shocked when she was informed six months later that he thought it would be a good idea if they started dating other people.

If you find yourself continually confused about something, chances are that one or more of your base assumptions are incorrect. The value of any theory is its ability to explain and to predict; if yours can't do either, you should probably look for a better one.

Who feels threatened?

Three polls from the safest country in the world:

The Swiss do not feel less safe despite a rise in crime. But according to a new study, a growing number want to see the death penalty introduced.

Did not feel safe:

2005 – men 6% women 20%
2003 – men 3% women 19%
1999 – men 12% women 31%

Hold me, Fritz! I'm here, Rolf....

Mailvox: run away, little girl

SC is too strong to defend herself:

Do you honestly believe you can look at just those two variables and draw substantive conclusions about them? Have you ever heard of globalization? The shift away from manufacturing and toward service industries? You really think that women in the workforce are causing your problems? Sounds like fear to me.

The entire problem on this blog is men who fear strong women. Fortunately I think most of the world is a little more rational. So you boys have fun blaming all your shortcomings on women and government - I have to go back to the real world now."

Is anyone else surprised that SC is incapable of anything but yipping like a toy poodle? She has to make everything personal, so a discussion of average wage rates is suddenly transformed into a personal problem worthy of a pop psychoanalysis, mostly because that is the only field on which this "strong woman" is capable of engaging anyone.

Yes, one can look at just two variables and draw substantive conclusions about them when those two variables are Price and Supply. Globalization affects both supply and demand while service industry wages are not necessarily lower than manufacturing wages - who gets paid more per hour, a high-class prostitute in Switzerland or a shoe assembly-line worker in Vietnam? The fact that Demand (in the form of GDP growth) has skyrocketed only underlines the seriousness of the effect.

The idiocy of SC's position is easily demonstrated, of course. Given that everyone rightly believes 21 million immigrants since 1970 have had a depressing effect on American wage rates, SC will find it very difficult to convince anyone with an IQ over 30 that 34 million women have been able to enter the labor force over the same period with absolutely no similar effect.

Run away, little girl. Run away and tell everyone how you scared the big bad mans.