A recent episode of NPR's Talk of the Nation focused on the consequences of the "Arab Spring" one year out. In response to a caller's question about how the overthrow of ruling regimes has affected women's rights, a correspondent in Egypt replies:I think it's an extremely important question [AE: I wish reporters like this Garcia-Navarro would be asked why, exactly, is a question like this "extremely important"? Surely there are many other potential...
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Inductivist points to a new article in the journal Intelligence that finds that recreational drug use and alcohol consumption correlate positively with intelligence up to a certain point before trending in opposite directions again at the right end of bell curve, the thought being that openness to experience is a personality trait that tends to be associated with higher IQ, and drug use is a way to open oneself up to more novel experiences.I'm not...
Friday, January 27, 2012
As someone of a conservative traditionalist bent, I find contemporary Mormonism encouraging. Not for its theological aspects--if I have a spiritual bone in my body, I've yet to find it--but instead for its practical expression. As Jack Cashill memorably said in response to a question about Mormonism's relationship to Christianity at a mock debate in which he played Mitt Romney,...
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
++Addition++Noah offered some much needed guidance as to what geographic areas constitute "the beltway". Due diligence has now been done. I've cleaned up the FEC zip code areas to better reflect what the post was trying to show (and now more accurately does).---We hear plenty of grumbling from the conservative 'grassroots' about those referred to as Washington insiders, beltway conservatives, and the like. Before imploding, in fact, Herman Cain explicitly...
Monday, January 23, 2012
Having a little more fun at the FEC website, I calculated the total dollar amounts received by presidential candidate through the end of November 2011 from individuals* who listed "lobbyist" as their occupations:Presidential candidateLobbyist $1. Rick Perry$25,5002. Tim Pawlenty$11,7703. Newt Gingrich$11,5004. Mitt Romney$8,0005. Rick Santorum$3,0006. Herman Cain$2,5007. Barack Obama$1,1508. Jon Hunstman$5009. Michelle Bachmann$25010. Charles...
Today Roissy (look, if I start writing "Heartiste, the artist formerly known as Roissy", the next time I step onto the field I'll have to expect the divine justice I receive when someone inevitably drubs my faggy ass!) wrote on the comparability of benefits received from marriage and long-term cohabitation, pointing to a previous post here as evidence of what happens when that comparability is ignored. My response follows.---My man, I realize you’re...
Saturday, January 21, 2012
OneSTDV wonders:There's some controversy over whether higher intelligence and depression correspond. From reading the "intellectual" sphere, generally defined as people who engage in self-analysis, one would surely conclude that such a correlation exists. Arriving at this conclusion, unfortunately, demonstrates how problematic relying on a few anecdotal data points to arrive at generalized conceptions often is. On top of a prohibitively small...
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Reading Mangan's recent post contrasting the top sources of campaign contributions for the Romney and Paul presidential campaigns, I was surprised to find that the Texas congressman's three largest boosters are the Army, Air Force, and Navy. As Dennis points out, the lists compiled by OpenSecrets.org are comprised of donations from employees, family members, and organizations' political action committees, not from the actual organizations themselves.Ron...
Monday, January 16, 2012
The strategy is as simple as it is obvious as it is disingenuous. Continue to urge Republicans to abandon immigration restrictionism and instead Hispander at full bore. It's inevitable that Hispanics are going to continue growing not only in absolute numbers but also as a share of the US population, so best not to do anything to offend them:Mitt Romney "is done," said DeeDee Blase, founder of Somos Republicans in Arizona. "He'll be lucky to get...
Sunday, January 15, 2012
With the conference championships teed up for next weekend, here are correlations between several stats and wins during the 2011 NFL regular season. This isn't a sports blog, and I'm not making any audacious claims about being able to provide special insights. Just the raw correlations for entire teams here, next to the same for last year for comparative purposes:Offense201120102009Team passer rating.79.68.81Team points scored.77.71.88Yards gained...
Saturday, January 14, 2012
In an essay adapted from the forthcoming Coming Apart:The State of White America, 1960–2010, Charles Murray writes:Finally, there is the most lovable of exceptional American qualities: our tradition of insisting that we are part of the middle class, even if we aren’t, and of interacting with our fellow citizens as if we were all middle class.Murray argues that this phenomenon...
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Thinking about Razib's post at Discover magazine and then responding to Razib's subsequent comments on the same, Parapundit's Randall Parker wonders how stable social values are across countries:It occurs to me that stability in how countries poll in world values surveys is an argument against the idea that the world is inevitably going to become liberal. There are changes in wording in most of the survey questions by wave (that is, years in which...
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Apparently reeling a bit from a publicizing of the uptick in deportations that have taken place under the Obama administration, the department of homeland security announced that it will abnegate deportation proceedings against some 215,000 El Salvadorans illegally present in the US through at least late 2013, citing damage from earthquakes--earthquakes that occurred in the Central American country several months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks...
Sunday, January 8, 2012
In an intriguing article where he wonders if "disgust homeostasis" is inherent in human nature, the Derb writes:My impression of educated younger Americans is that they don’t mind homosexuality at all.That impression is assuredly correct, but TAE's raison d'etre is to validate stereotypes, so please indulge me as I do just that.The GSS doesn't explicitly ask respondents how they feel about homosexual acts, but support or lack thereof for same-sex...
Saturday, January 7, 2012
++Addition++Razib explains why the quest for the representative state is doomed to fail.I should point out that I'm not arguing much of anything in this post but instead have created a list that does just what it is purported to do--show by what amount each state deviates from the national mean when it comes to the racial composition of its population. And yes, I'm aware that Hispanic is technically a linguistic and/or cultural label, not a racial...
Friday, January 6, 2012
Santa brought me P90X2 for Christmas. I won't actually dive in until next week after I've made the necessary additions to my home gym, but it seems as relevant a time as any to pick a bone with those leveling criticism at cardio workouts as being something that should be avoided. In a post entitled "Why the P90X exercise program is overrated", Vin Miller writes:Don’t Do the...
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