Tech analyst fears Apple Computer

The LA Times reports that Steve Jobs has lost weight:

After his keynote address, investors and Apple fans scrutinized Jobs' appearance almost as closely as they did the new iPhone. One tech analyst (who declined to be named out of fear of angering Apple) told me that after seeing photos of Jobs from the event, his clients were so worried that they searched the Web for old pictures of him. Their conclusion: If he were a boxer, he'd be fighting in a lower weight class.

Wow, he fears angering Apple? Just what does he think that the lean-and-mean Steve Jobs is going to do to him for mentioning the weight loss?

Hot dog contest is a scam

The biggest food eating competition is Nathan's Famous 4th of July Hot Dog Eating Contest. They have 13 qualifier contests in the preceding 2 months. But I tried to sign up for one about a month ago, and discovered that they are by invitation only!

I emailed someone in the company, and was told that all the contests were booked up, and I could only get on the waiting list. It seems to me that they ought to be able to accommodate anyone who wants to enter the contest. Is there some shortage of hot dogs?

Whoever wins is not really the champ. He will only have beaten those who were allowed to compete.

Learning from gay unions

The NY Times pretends that research supports same-sex marriage:

A growing body of evidence shows that same-sex couples have a great deal to teach everyone else about marriage and relationships. ...

Notably, same-sex relationships, whether between men or women, were far more egalitarian than heterosexual ones. In heterosexual couples, women did far more of the housework; ... With same-sex couples, ... the partners tended to share the burdens far more equally.

So what exactly does this teach us? That wives should adopt the same interest (or lack of interest) as their husbands? That same-sex marriages are better because they are more egalitarian? If they find that same-sex couples often wear each other's clothes, will they say that regular husbands and wives should do the same? This is wacky stuff.

18 million cracks

I am still waiting for the wise-cracks about Hillary Clinton saying:

Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it.

I guess that she is saying that she got 18M primary votes, but only about half of them were women.

California ballot measure could ban same-sex marriage

A long article in the Wash Post about legal uncertainty in California same-sex marriages says:

The language of the measure does not seem to suggest revoking marriages that take place between June and November, legal experts say. But such a move would depend on the courts' interpretation of the proposed amendment.

Experts say that if the measure passes, the state may choose to recognize the marriages, creating a pocket of married same-sex couples.

What the article does not include is the actual text of the Nov. ballot measure:

Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

So how do they find legal experts to say that this requires recognizing same-sex marriages? If the measure passes, the plain language says that no same-sex marriages can be recognized in California.

No California same-sex couples will be inconvenenced, no matter what happens. They can always register as domestic partners, and still be effectively married even if the ballot measure passes.

The mindreading astronomer

The Bad Astronomer blogger has this tirade against a proposed Oklahoma law:

Let’s be very clear here: this legislation is not well-intended. It is intended to undermine the Constitution. It’s that simple. These people want religion taught in the classroom, and they want to do it at the expense of science and of reality. For them to say anything else is dissembling at the very least. Do you really think they want kids ...

It is amazing how unscientific these scientists are once they stray from their core expertise.

He bases his whole attack on his supposed ability to infer the intentions of the bill's sponsors. But his readers are scientists who are unlikely to believe that he has any mindreading skills. Why not simply explain the harmful effects of the law?

Better to repress feelings

Physorg reports:

It's okay to keep those feelings inside, new study suggests

Contrary to popular notions about what is normal or healthy, new research has found that it is okay not to express one's thoughts and feelings after experiencing a collective trauma, such as a school shooting or terrorist attack.

In fact, people who choose not to express their feelings after such an event may be better off than those who do talk about their feelings, according to University at Buffalo psychologist Mark Seery, Ph.D., lead author of a study to appear in the June issue of Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.

The study investigated the mental and physical effects of collective traumas on people who are exposed to a tragedy but who do not experience a direct loss of a friend or family member. It focused on people's responses to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but the results may generalize to include responses to other collective traumas.

If the assumption about the necessity of expression is correct -- that failing to express one's feelings indicates some harmful repression or other pathology -- then people who chose not to express should have been more likely to experience negative mental and physical health symptoms over time, the researchers point out.

"However, we found exactly the opposite: people who chose not to express were better off than people who did choose to express," Seery says.

Moreover, when the researchers looked only at people who chose to express their thoughts and feelings, and tested the length of their responses, they found a similar pattern. People who expressed more were worse off than people who expressed less.

Freudians promote the idea that repressing feelings causes them to smolder in the unconscious mind, causing neurosis many years ago. Research shows the opposite. The Freudian view is wrong.

Sales tax measure had misleading description

My local county just passed a sales tax measure with this ballot description:

Countywide Library Improvement/Continuation Measure.To support and maintain local public libraries and library services through acquiring books, children’s educational materials, computers and technology; increase and improve children’s reading, adult literacy, senior and other educational programs; and upgrade local library facilities, shall Ordinance No. 1 of the Santa Cruz County Public Library Authority be amended to continue the existing ¼ cent sales tax for libraries with no increase?

The official pdf is here.

I think that voters were deceived. It was really a measure to make a temporary tax permanent. Ten years ago, we passed a sales tax increase to support libraries, instead of supporting them out of general funds. The tax was scheduled to expire in fifteen years. The vote this week was to prevent the expiration five years from now.

I guess that it is debatable whether to call this a tax increase or not. My real problem with the description is that it claims that the measure will increase library services and upgrade facilities, and do it at no increase in taxes. It makes it sound like we are getting something for nothing, and only a fool would oppose it.

It uses the word "increase" to have two opposite meanings. We are only going to get that increase in library funding five years from now, when we get the tax increase. Meanwhile, we get neither the increased funding nor the increased taxes. The deception is that the measure brags about increased funding that only happens five years from now, and then brags that there is no tax increase, hiding the fact that the tax increase kicks in after five years.

The libraries must have bribed whoever wrote the ballot summary. Someone should sue to void the election.

What did you do to provoke him?

Here is the latest from a bad advice column:

DEAR ABBY: My children and I were living with a maniac who threatened to kill me if I took the kids and ran. We reached out to his family, ...

His father said, "What did you do to provoke him?"

That was a fair question. The writer did provoke her husband by threatening to kidnap his kids. It sounds like she wanted her father-in-law to do something without hearing the whole story.

Men are slobs unless they are gay

The main character in the first episode of the new TV show In Plain Sight gives this inspirational speech:

Okay, look. Here's the thing. Men lie, they cheat, they start wars, they're slobs unless they're gay, and there are precious few of them walking the planet that are worth putting on lipstick for.

I guess that is why Hollywood likes gays so much -- they are the only men who are not slobs!

Why boys do better at math

For decades, researchers and educators have debated why boys tend to perform better than girls in math. ... Girls living in countries where there is more gender equality perform better in math, sometimes outpacing boys, than girls who live in countries with more male-dominated societies. ...

According to Sapienza, she and her colleagues were somewhat surprised by the findings.

"At some level, we were looking for it," she said. "We were surprised at how strong the correlation was."

What she is trying to say is that she was hoping that the points in the above chart would fall in a straight line, and she was surprised at how close it is to being a line. Does it look like a line to you?

A comment says:

"In Turkey, which scored low in gender gap equality, girls performed the worst: on average, 22.6 fewer points than boys." Maybe there really is a big disparity between the genders in mathematics. What else could explain the researcher being unable to interpret her chart correctly (hint: Brazil has a bigger gap than Turkey)?

Dietary fat does not cause cancer

More reseach debunks another myth about fat causing cancer:

There were no statistically significant associations between intakes of total fat, the subtypes of fat, of the P:S ratio [polyunsaturated to saturated] and risk of prostate cancer.

Thus, the totality of the evidence indicates that a higher intake of dietary fat is not a risk factor for prostate cancer.

Texas tries to justify its raid

Here is how the Texas CPS justifies seizing kids from the FLDS YZR. In its own brief before the Texas Supreme Court, it cites its own experts:

Angie Voss, supervisory investigator of the Department... The girls refused to answer questions ... The children gave no explanation ...

Ms. Voss testified it would not be safe for "any child to return to the ranch" because the adults on the ranch expressed that they "aren't doing anything harmful to their children", and that the "practice of children being united and having children is part of their culture and belief system".

Dr. Bruce Duncan Perry is a child psychiatrist who specializes in child maltreatment and child development. ... Dr. Perry testified that when you are raised in an environment where it is a blessing to have children and to be compliant to your father and the prophet, free choice is not really possible.

I think that it is clear that the authorities want to shut down the cult for its beliefs. If they could prove criminal charges, then they would do so, and skip these other bogus arguments.

Texas cult kids to be released

USA Today reports:

Children removed from the polygamous sect in West Texas will start going home Monday, under an agreement reached today.

An attorney for Texas Child Protective Services said parents will need to show identification, pledged to take parenting classes and stay in the state, according to the San Antonio Express-News. The agency is to be allowed access to the children 12 hours a day.

Okay, but the Texas Supreme Court ruled that it was illegal to seize the kids. Why haven't they been returned immediately? Why are there any conditions? The parents should not have to attend classes to assert their constitutional rights.

School reports mom as abuser for missing a meeting

The NY Post reports:

May 25, 2008 -- Bronx HS of Science senior Michel Dussack has a "B" average, an 1890 SAT score and an almost full college scholarship for the fall.

But Dussack's mother was accused of "educational neglect" two weeks ago and was reported to the city's child-services agency - because she missed a scheduled meeting to discuss her son possibly failing gym.

Karen Dussack, 40, is now under investigation by the Administration for Children's Services, the city's welfare agency that protects kids from neglect and abuse.

These agencies are out of control. There is no law requiring attendance at parent-teacher conferences.

Silly gripes about an honorary degree

Chancellor Mark Wrighton of Washington University, St. Louis has put out this lame statement:

I apologize for the anguish this decision has caused to many members of our community.

In bestowing this degree, the University is not endorsing Mrs. Schlafly's views or opinions; rather, it is recognizing an alumna of the University whose life and work have had a broad impact on American life and have sparked widespread debate and controversies that in many cases have helped people better formulate and articulate their own views about the values they hold....

One student complains about the voting:

The committee's recommendation of Ms. Schlafly was based on a complicated voting system. Voting occurred in two stages. In our first meeting, we ranked our preferences from approximately thirty names. The nominees were ranked based on the first balloting, and the top five were collected in a slate. We voted yes or no on the entire slate. An objection by one student was met with hostile opposition. The block of five names was then approved unanimously.

This list of protest letters includes these gems:

First, let us state clearly and firmly that our opposition to the selection of Mrs. Schlafly is not based on a rejection of her political, social, and ideological opinions. ...

When Mrs. Schlafly writes in her nationally syndicated column in 2006 that "Boys [sic] do not want to go to a college that eliminates the macho sports," she insults so many in our community: members of presumably non-macho male sports teams, ...

Mrs. Schlafly writes in a 2004 column that "For years, the universities have sanctimoniously proclaimed the sanctified value of diversity, but they define diversity to mean only giving space to radical leftwingers and feminists." ...

(Signed by 40 faculty, staff, and students in Arts & Sciences and the GWB School of Social Work)

Here is a bitter female writing prof who is mad at the world:

I hope I'm not telling your something you don't already know when I say that Washington University is not an ideal climate for women, although it is not unlike the world at large. The discontent that women academics feel here is chronic and grating.

Mary Jo Bang, Professor of English and Director of the Creative Writing Program

This engineering prof is worried that he'll lose grant money if Wash. U. loses its left-wing reputation:

Finally, let me mention a concern near to my heart as an active, federally funded researcher. Every grant application that I submit to the National Science Foundation must address the broader impacts of my work, including how it supports the education of women and underrepresented minorities. ... I shudder to think of how our actions today may bias the reviewers of future grant proposals from Washington University.

Jeremy Buhler, Associate Professor, Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering

The Social Work profs say that different opinions are encouraged, as long as no one disparages college profs:

She routinely disparages whole groups of people, such as ... college professors ... Universities are places where people are invited to voice opinions across the political spectrum.

The Art profs don't like her style of art:

Moreover, she has brought zeal to her denunciations and often mocks those with contrasting views. We know a performance artist when we see one, and Ms. Schlafly qualifies as such.

The English dept. chairman took offense to this column:

What was the motive behind 23-year-old Cho Seung-Hui's killing of 32 students and teachers at Virginia Tech? Why was he consumed with hate, resentment and bitterness?

Cho was an English Department major and senior. As a frequent lecturer on college campuses, I have discovered that the English Departments are often the weirdest and/or the most leftwing.

He complains that her opinion is "unnuanced" and disrespectful of opposing views:

have raised my voice in part because graduating English Majors, and others among our students, expressed their shock at Mrs Schlafly's comment about the Virginia Tech murderer (I presume I don't need to repeat it here), and bewilderment that the university can be honoring one who can write such things. I cannot think of anything more offensive directed at my professional discipline and my students throughout my career. I do not believe that the expression of that opinion, which is corrosively irresponsible, assists any process of rational civic discourse whatsoever. What complicates the free speech defense is that opinion is sometimes the enemy of truth; and manufacturing such opinion, unnuanced and polarizing, has been Mrs Schlafly's work. Her disrespect for opposing views is unhappily evident even from today's newspaper. I doubt that she would share your value of diversity; but thank you sincerely for restating it.

David Lawton, Executive Director, New Chaucer Society, Professor and Chair, Department of English

A law prof's main objection is that she criticized the protesters:

Ms. Schlafly's principles are antithetical to the values for which Washington University purports to stand.

Indeed, Phyllis Schlafly's recent statements referring to the protesters - hundreds of faculty and students - as "a bunch of bitter women," "a bunch of losers," who need "to get a life" only highlights how antithetical her views are to those of rational discourse that should prevail in a great university.

Richard Kuhns, Professor of Law

Mary-Jean Cowell complains about her not support female college sports enough:

Moreover, considering that much of the WU achievement in collegiate sports in recent years has been the gift of our female athletes, we certainly do not show them respect in honoring a woman who is far from a supporter of equal participation for women in sports.

There are more wacky letters. They just prove how narrow-minded leftist academics can be.

New study says some girls don't like math

The Boston Globe reports:

Now two new studies by economists and social scientists have reached a perhaps startling conclusion: An important part of the explanation for the gender gap, they are finding, are the preferences of women themselves. When it comes to certain math- and science-related jobs, substantial numbers of women - highly qualified for the work - stay out of those careers because they would simply rather do something else.

One study of information-technology workers found that women’s own preferences are the single most important factor in that field’s dramatic gender imbalance. Another study followed 5,000 mathematically gifted students and found that qualified women are significantly more likely to avoid physics and the other “hard” sciences in favor of work in medicine and biosciences.

Is this really "startling"? What else did people think?

Salt is good for you

ScienceDaily reports:

Contrary to long-held assumptions, high-salt diets may not increase the risk of death, according to investigators from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. They reached their conclusion after examining dietary intake among a nationally representative sample of adults in the U.S. The Einstein researchers actually observed a significantly increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease (CVD) associated with lower sodium diets. ...

After adjusting for known CVD risk factors, such as smoking, diabetes and blood pressure, the one-fourth of the sample who reported consuming the lowest amount of sodium were found to be 80% more likely to die from CVD compared to the one-fourth of the sample consuming the highest level of sodium.

It is a big myth that table salt is unhealthy. The only known adverse effect is on those with high blood pressure, and they can compensate by taking high-blood pressure drugs.

Man-hating advice columnist

The Minneapolis newspaper has this Ask Amy column:

Dear Amy: My boyfriend and I were watching my 5-year-old niece. She came to me and told me that my boyfriend said he was going to punch her in the nose. I know that when my boyfriend is playing with the kids he plays around and says things, but he is adamant that he didn't say that.

I spoke with my niece's parents, and we chalked it up as a misunderstanding.

But now my boyfriend does not want her playing with him, and he refuses to watch her unless someone is with him every minute.

He is in law enforcement and says he sees things like this all the time, ...

Amy says: Most of what young children say has some basis in reality. ... this incident highlights his own immaturity.

I do agree with him about this one thing, however: He should not be alone with your niece because he can't be trusted to treat her well.

Amy's advice justifies the boyfriend's paranoia. If adults are going to automatically believe the false and petty accusations of a 5-year-old with an overactive imagination, then he has good reason to be cautious.

Update: Amy Dickinson is also criticized by Glenn Sacks.

Bernie Ward was caught in the act

KGO radio host Bernie Ward was recently convicted on child pornography, and today Brian Copeland, one of his fellow hosts, revealed on KGO that Ward was once caught masturbating while doing his Sunday morning "God Talk" religion show! He was on the air talking to callers, and doing perverted sex chat at the same time.

Ward is an Angry Left Bush-hater, and his story is that he was distributing child pornography as part of his research into right-wing hypocrisy.