Here’s today’s Tasty Tidbits I’ve thought worth memorializing:
- Sexing up girls
- Trickle-Down 2.0
- Crazy like foxes.
- Lighting one candle on energy.
- All (or at least many) things Michelle.
- Modern obesity.
- Hangin’ out with some really thuggish sorts.
- St. Gregory Palamas University?
- Soft on poltergeists.
1
The purveyors have an incentive to suborn “studies” proving that pornification is harmless, and such is the role of sex in our psyches that we’re inclined to buy those studies. So those who love their smutty entertainment will be unpersuaded by the story of a Hollywood star who has turned his back on it, and become an advocate for the rape victims he thinks Hollywood multiplies.
2
Is Gordon Gecko our friend? There is a pretty interesting video at this entry on the Volokh Conspiracy blog, that starts with the surprisingly fertile question “what would I have to pay you to give up the internet for the rest of your life? It argues that the early adopters (who adopt at outrageous prices) are our benefactors. (I consider the title of the video dubious because what they’re describing is not distinctly “capitalist.”)
3
Maybe GOP budget negotiators aren’t so crazy or reckless after all. Ross Douthat gives four reasons to think they’re not — and that Obama is playing along. (From the New York Times, so it may count toward your freebies.) I think he’s hit what Kathleen Parker missed over at the Washington Post.
4
Goodness knows I’ve cursed our energy darkness often enough, lamenting not only that we’re running out of oil, but that we built our infrastructure and communities around its abundance (killing off railroads in the process) and are largely oblivious to what’s going to hit us.
And goodness knows I’m skeptical about the modern research university’s status as a corporate lackey.
But we’ve built an economy that needs lots of energy, and the third world would like to get into the action, putting further strains on resources. Some alternative energy sources look less like boondoggles to me than others (e.g., ethanol). Fusion is one, despite its history of producing some of science’s biggest quacks and frauds. (From the New York Times, so it may count toward your freebies.)
But it will take some government funding for basic research to get there, won’t it? That’s spending I can support even in hard times.
5
I don’t intend to obsess on Michelle Bachmann, although I’ve supported her and been later disappointed (what else is new?), but she’s getting a lot of press.
I wish she was reading Chesterton and Belloc instead of von Mises, but at least she’s reading, and not always sources she agrees with. Unless she’s lying, which she has been known to do.
Contrary to slopply reports, she did not sign a pledge to ban all pornography. If you think she’s unworthy or unready to be President, you’ll have to find a new reason or you‘ll be guilty of lying.
And contrary to self-reports — well, maybe not “contrary” but “the rest of the story” — the “tax litigation attorney” on her resumé is a euphemism for “publican.” (WSJ, Bachman’s Tax Attorney Job Was Collector for the IRS; behind a pay wall, I think)
6
Poor people used to be skinny, rich people fat. Hard to believe? What happened? Type II diabetes in kids, too.
7
Mama always told me you’re known by the company you keep. Max Boots always seems to be hanging out with some really ugly, relentlessly hawkish arguments. Is there any level of defense cuts he would not consider “suicidal”?
8
An Eastern Orthodox College or University in America! Sounds like a swell idea! Right?
Not necessarily, says podcaster Clark Carlton. Our public education system is tainted at the root — calculated to produce producers (and consumers), not educated persons.
9
Is Obama soft on poltergeists?
Bon appetit!
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 