Archive for January, 2008
People Don’t Kill People, Bats Kill People
Thursday, January 17th, 2008Well, they can hurt people, anyway.
Boomers Bust?
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008Megan McCardle writes the best article I’ve read about the implications of the Baby Boom generation on America. A snippet:
One of the greatest challenges for the country will be creating good jobs for seniors, ideally ones closer to where they built their skills and knowledge than the aisles of Staples or Home Depot—ones in which they’ll be the most productive. There’s no national bureau that can bring about this change. It must emerge organically, from companies learning to accommodate their older workers on the one hand, and finding creative ways to mask or reduce the emotional impact of pay cuts on the other. And from changed expectations on the part of 60-somethings about career paths and hierarchy.
Until that happens—and even once it does—our politics are likely to be contentious, because to many people, spanning several generations, it may feel as if there’s not enough money to go around. And indeed there’s no getting around these facts: in 1945, the year before the Baby Boomers began entering the world, each retiree in America was supported by 42 workers. Now each retiree is supported by three. When the Boomers are fully retired, each of them will be supported by just two.
Read the whole thing.
H/T Instapundit
Gratitude
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008One of the chief ways to be happy is to be grateful. Unhappiness comes from concentrating on what we don’t have rather than what we do have. So, today in the middle of January, when the reality of Christmas bills, a slowing economy and the gray sky blahs set in, it’s time to be thankful. Time to look at what’s all around us and see the good and be grateful.
For my part, this last year and even now, my life has been filled by renewed friendships. That has filled me with extraordinary gratitude and thankfulness. And even better, I’ve made new friends. You all know who you are and I want you to know that I am profoundly thankful for you!
On The "Moral Instinct"
Tuesday, January 15th, 2008Scientists work feverishly to unravel the mysteries of the mind and they are many. In The Time’s Magazine this week, Stephen Pinker writes about what motivates man’s moral decisions. He calls it the “moral instinct”. Instinct implies that men are born encoded with morality–it’s instinctual. Perhaps. My thought is that man is born with the bias toward morality.
So there are five factors that appear to be encoded to people’s moral sense no matter where they live in the world:
When anthropologists like Richard Shweder and Alan Fiske survey moral concerns across the globe, they find that a few themes keep popping up from amid the diversity. People everywhere, at least in some circumstances and with certain other folks in mind, think it’s bad to harm others and good to help them. They have a sense of fairness: that one should reciprocate favors, reward benefactors and punish cheaters. They value loyalty to a group, sharing and solidarity among its members and conformity to its norms. They believe that it is right to defer to legitimate authorities and to respect people with high status. And they exalt purity, cleanliness and sanctity while loathing defilement, contamination and carnality.
The exact number of themes depends on whether you’re a lumper or a splitter, but Haidt counts five — harm, fairness, community (or group loyalty), authority and purity — and suggests that they are the primary colors of our moral sense. Not only do they keep reappearing in cross-cultural surveys, but each one tugs on the moral intuitions of people in our own culture.
So every culture exhibits these traits to one extent or another. However, buried in the midst of the article is this fascinating tid-bit:
The ranking and placement of moral spheres also divides the cultures of liberals and conservatives in the United States. Many bones of contention, like homosexuality, atheism and one-parent families from the right, or racial imbalances, sweatshops and executive pay from the left, reflect different weightings of the spheres. In a large Web survey, Haidt found that liberals put a lopsided moral weight on harm and fairness while playing down group loyalty, authority and purity. Conservatives instead place a moderately high weight on all five. It’s not surprising that each side thinks it is driven by lofty ethical values and that the other side is base and unprincipled.
So, Republicans do value a broad-based morality after all. Well, according to the writer, not so fast. Morality, even Hitler’s, is relative and can be understood:
At the very least, the science tells us that even when our adversaries’ agenda is most baffling, they may not be amoral psychopaths but in the throes of a moral mind-set that appears to them to be every bit as mandatory and universal as ours does to us. Of course, some adversaries really are psychopaths, and others are so poisoned by a punitive moralization that they are beyond the pale of reason. (The actor Will Smith had many historians on his side when he recently speculated to the press that Hitler thought he was acting morally.) But in any conflict in which a meeting of the minds is not completely hopeless, a recognition that the other guy is acting from moral rather than venal reasons can be a first patch of common ground. One side can acknowledge the other’s concern for community or stability or fairness or dignity, even while arguing that some other value should trump it in that instance. With affirmative action, for example, the opponents can be seen as arguing from a sense of fairness, not racism, and the defenders can be seen as acting from a concern with community, not bureaucratic power. Liberals can ratify conservatives’ concern with families while noting that gay marriage is perfectly consistent with that concern.
So there is no objective right or wrong, morality is subjective. What Pinker fails to acknowledge is how to come to a moral decision when both parties feel morally correct. Clearly, there are psychopaths, clearly. But maybe the psychopath believes he’s being moral–how many serial killers exact their form of “justice” on prostitutes? And who are you to say he’s wrong?
Who is any man to decide, indeed? The whole article is worth reading, but like most things scientific, don’t expect any answers to the big questions. Expect more questions.
The Racist, Sexist Democrats–UPDATE
Tuesday, January 15th, 2008If you’re black, does it mean you’re going to vote for Barack Obama?
If you’re a woman, does it mean you’re going to vote for Hillary Clinton?
Big feminists line up behind Hillary. How surprising! Blacks line up behind Barack Obama. And this is all on the Left. I seem to remember this little speech by this historical figure who said this:
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
I’m guessing that Martin Luther King wasn’t interested in his children being judged by their reproductive organs, either, but if they’re members of the current Democratic party, they’ll be making judgments on exactly that. Democrats are all about skin color and gonads. Integrity and character seem of secondary concern.
These days, you can be a “wrong” kind of Democrat–Hillary just got booed in New York at the Martin Luther King Rally. And people are reacting to Hillary and Obama’s “tussling” over who understands black America better. Are we really having this conversation?
We’re having this conversation. The Democrats might be snickering about the Religious Right’s hold on the Republican party, but the ideal held by Democrats–that we’re defined not by character but by our form–is currently tearing them apart.
When one of them wins the nomination, will the opposition within their own party be able to be healed? It seems like this election has the potential to divide more than red and blue. This election has the potential to divide black and white, men and women, young and old.
Civil rights leaders a generation ago dreamed that one day blacks and women would have equal opportunity to be anything, do anything. And look! Today, in America, a black man and a middle-aged woman run to be the ruler of the free world. It should be a day to celebrate. Instead, the Left is being torn asunder by concentrating on the gender and color instead of the character of their candidates. Of course, if they focused on character, they’d have other problems.
UPDATE:
As usual, The Anchoress is reading from the same page and putting it together better. Here’s what she says:
Okay. I doubt I’m alone in wondering how much sub-conscious bigotry is being unearthed by Obama’s candidacy – but that’s for another post. Certainly, since Obama is a Democrat, we will not see the sort of racist cartoons and offensive photoshopped images the left have offered up to depict Condoleeza Rice or Michael Steele, so that’s a mercy, anyhow.
And about Hillary Clinton (long quote, but I want you to read it):
I recall reading that Hillary Rodham Clinton was a graduate of Yale School of Law and a partner in the prestigious Rose Law Firm, in Arkansas.
So, it was a little surprising to see her say this while pandering at a job-training center in California:
Clinton…said she understood borrowers who didn’t read their mortgages. “I’ve got to tell you, I skim my mortgage papers. I didn’t read them. I didn’t know there was all that fine print and those pages and pages of legalese,” she said.
[emphasis mine - admin]
So, after – by her count – 35 years of public life, Hillary has “found her voice,” and her voice is full of shit.
Hillary wants to be president so badly that she’ll even pretend to be stupider than the meanest caricature of George W. Bush if that’s what it takes. I read that quote and wondered if she’d thought to put on buckteeth and her ghastly hillbilly twang while she unloaded that disingenuous bit of horse manure.
The only politician I can think of who is more manure-laden than Hillary is her husband; the amount of it they shoveled this weekend alone could fill a truck.
Couple all that with these racial gaffes. Once upon a time Mrs. Clinton would pander to the African-American voters, declaring “I don’t feel no ways tired” (try listening to that today – it’s shudder-inducing) and “you know what I’m talkin’ about,” Lately, Mrs. Clinton, in her new voice, seemed to minimize the work of Dr. Martin Luther King and ascribe the success of the civil rights movement to President Lyndon Johnson.
This election is turning over the Democrat’s rock and revealing a lot of nasty stuff.
Fred Thompson’s Hotness Factor
Sunday, January 13th, 2008
I want Fred Thompson to win the Republican nomination. (Did you hear he’s surging in South Carolina?) And it’s not just that the other candidates stink for various and sundry reasons–which I’ll run through momentarily–or that he’s the best of the worst or something. I want Fred for his own reasons.
Let’s run through the problems with the other guys:
John McCain: He marches to his own little drummer who doesn’t know the conservative rhythm. Of course there’s McCain-Feingold that nifty little piece of legislation who’s chief beneficiary was George Soros, but there’s this other little thing: his only consistent conservative feature is his military stance, which I admit I admire. It’s not enough.
Mitt Romney: Tall, presidential looking, good hair, smart. I should love him, but I don’t. My suspicion isn’t evangelical in nature–ewww, he’s a Mormon, he frightens me! It’s more, ewww, he succeeded in Massachusetts, he frightens me! Also, he came across as bitchy in the last debate.
Rudy Giuliani: I like him. He gives the press heck. He won’t back off a fight. He possesses the right kind of moral indignation at psychopaths routinely given a pass. Still, he’s no conservative. But he’s better than most.
Ron Paul: He’s a loon.
Mike Huckabee: He’s a loon with a TV evangelist grin, but boy can he smile. His post-loss speech in New Hampshire was euphoric hope–like Obama but pasty, white, and Boomerish.
And then there’s Fred Thompson. Fred Thompson has it all. He has conservative cred. He has experience. He can communicate. He gives journalists the respect they deserve.
But there’s more. A president has to have a certain je ne sais quoi. Fred has it. He’s middle American. He has the slight lilt. He comes across as real. He’s likable. Guys can imagine going out for a beer with him. Girls dig him.
Now, that above assessment might bug you, but it’s important, especially in the general election. Voters dig Alpha Males and so do certain bloggers. Can you imagine going for a beer with Romney, Huckabee, or Paul? No. How about Edwards, Clinton or Obama? Maybe Obama, but it’d be a martini or glass of wine, let’s be real, here. Giuliani could have a good time at the bar, but aren’t you just a little afraid he might go on a bender? Thompson would have a drink, talk sports, know the waitress’s name and go home to his wife.
About women. I dig Thompson. He’s not conventionally cute. Heck, none of the candidates are that great looking save Romney. Thompson has that easy talk, the relaxed authority that is fun to be around. He’s the guy girls choose and the other dudes marvel.
I happen to think that the more people learn about Thompson, the more they’ll like. Soon we’ll have a Huckabust. And then Romney will loose his zip. McCain will hang in like the pit-bull he is. Giuliani will have misplayed his cards and gambled too big. And Ron Paul will be recommitted to the institution he broke out of to campaign for President–oh yeah, that would be the House of Representatives.
Thompson has a chance.
Cross-posted at Right Wing News.
Losing Freedom One Bureaucrat At A Time
Sunday, January 13th, 2008Canada offers a text-book way to make sure the bad guys win: constrain the good guys. You don’t have to even kill the good guys, just muzzle them. (This is a MUST view.)
The link above relates to the Mohammed cartoons that so offended Muslims. Rioting, murder, and general mayhem ensued (Mark Steyn says it better). And now, the insanity of the out-of-control Muslims aren’t being questioned, but the brave publishers who had the nerve to share news is being questioned. And the questioner has a part right out of a Tolstoy novel.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
H/T Instapundit
Expect More Tears
Friday, January 11th, 2008Hillary Clinton’s tears moved me. They did. I watched her lilting performance and felt bad for her. She cares. She has a serious vision for the country. She’s a working woman busting her butt in a male-dominated industry.
My empathy lasted for all of 20 seconds. Then I wondered: Who coached her? Wow, they must be good. She’s crying because she’s seeing her ambitions thwarted. Hmmmm, the reporters are eating it up.
Given the nature of this election and the nature of our Oprah-fied culture, I’d say that we should expect more Hillary histrionics. They’ll happen. Rest assured.
I don’t like tears from public servants. I didn’t like them from George Bush or Rudy Giuliani and I don’t like them from Hillary Clinton. I like my public servants stoic, QE2 style. But that isn’t what works.
Emotional manipulation works and emotional manipulation is what we’ll get–whether it’s Obama earnestly opining about change or Hillary sniffling because no one gets her grand vision (for herself).
And I’m just writing this because everyone seems to be writing on it. Let’s face it, the press overplayed their hands. All the Obamisms clouded their vision about the Democratic field. The press is still blind–they see what they want to see and report what they want you to see. And if Hillary comes back around to being on top, they’ll relearn to love her because she’ll be the only anecdote to the poison they perceive on the right.
This mind-numbing reliability is why I took a brief hiatus.
iPhone Two Months Later
Friday, January 11th, 2008Shhhhhh, don’t tell my husband, but I dropped my iPhone while running today from about three feet, in motion, onto the cement. It’s fine. Nary a scrape. Whew. The thing does seem nigh to indestructible.
You might like to know how the iPhone is going. The touch screen is no problem, not great yet for blogging, but still, I use it to email and surf and it’s fine. And there’s cool new aps for it. (More here.) I’m not a Starbucks fan, but the idea of ordering my drink, pushing a button to pay for it and then picking up the coffee is way cool. I’m still waiting for Apple to create a teleportation device that just puts the drink in your car cup-holder, but I think they’re still working on it.
Update: The iPhone just didn’t change phones, it changed the industry. Perhaps the most annoying group of businesses in the U.S. is in the Telecom industry. Archaic and abusive to their customers, they need shaking up. The iPhone is just the start.
Republican Debate
Thursday, January 10th, 2008Impressions:
