How to cheat on the SAT test

Want an extra edge in the SAT test? More and more students are demanding extra time by claiming some dubious disability. There are psychologists, such as this one, who will give a mail-order diagnosis of some sort of learning disability. The the College Board folks have to give you extra time, or they'd be discriminating against the handicapped. As many as 10% of the test-takers take advantage of these procedures.

ABC News reports:

March 30, 2006 ? - When Ali Hellberg, 19, was in prep school, she said several of her classmates obtained notes from psychologists diagnosing them with learning disabilities, even though they didn't have any learning problems.

They faked learning disabilities to get extra time to take the Scholastic Aptitude Test, or SAT, in the hopes of getting a higher score, she said.

"I had a friend who is a good math student but is no math brain, and she got extended time and got a perfect score on her math SAT," Hellberg said.

That friend now attends an Ivy League school. ...

Approximately 300,000 students will take the three-hour-and-forty-five-minute SAT this Saturday; about 30,000 taking the test this year will be given special accommodations, including extra time.

3 claim boob doc D-formed them

NY Post reports:

Three angry women claim an Upper East Side plastic-surgeon-to-the-stars turned them into freaks by stuffing massive, Pamela Anderson-sized breast implants into their chests when they wanted only modest boob jobs. ...

"I wanted to leave with a 34B - but the day after my surgery, I was huge," said Felice Rosenbaum, of Manhattan, who claims her B-cup breasts were inflated to a whopping double-D.

"I was horrified," she said. "I went into my closet and I couldn't button anything.

They did manage to button their shirts in order to pose for a newspaper picture.

Basic Instinct advice

Sharon Stone is not embarrassed to give sex advice to teenagers. She ought to be.

The day we won the Cold War

Richard Reeves wrote:

At the end of 1987, Reagan's seventh year in office, Gorbachev came to Washington. There was a state dinner on Dec. 8, which ended with Gorbachev and his wife standing and belting out the lively "Moscow Nights" as Van Cliburn played the piano. Two days later, the best of the conservative columnists, Reagan's best friend in the press, George Will, wrote, "Dec. 8, 1987, will be remembered as the day the Cold War was lost."

In fact, it was the day we won the Cold War.

Attacks on Barry Bonds

The attacks on Barry Bonds continue. Mike Lupica wrote:

Barry Bonds is Bud Selig's Pete Rose. Selig has to go after Bonds, officially make him a suspect in the eyes of his sport, before another season begins, the way the late A.Bartlett Giamatti went after Rose, who denied and denied and denied his gambling the way Bonds has denied his use of steroids.

Now Selig has made Bonds an official suspect, and the media circus continues. Lupica continues:

Here is Bonds on May 21, 2001, ... On the same day, the same newspaper asked him about the possibility of breaking Henry Aaron's record of 755 career home runs someday.

"Hell, no," Bonds said in the Chronicle. "I promise you from the bottom of my heart I won't be in the game that long."

You believe nothing he says now.

Why is it hard to believe that 5 years ago, Bonds didn't think that he would be in the game long enough to break Aaron's record? In that 5 years, Bonds has played far better than anyone expected, and yet it is still doubtful that he will break the record. Some people think that he will retire at the end of the year, and he is unlikely to break the record this year.

The comparison to Pete Rose is also instructive. Rose and Bonds are two of the greatest players in baseball history. Both were savagely attacked by sportswriters for unproven allegations. I think that both players should be celebrated.

Low-context cultures

I talked to someone who took a grad psychology course in communicating with strangers. Apparently the textbooks say that America and Europe are low-context cultures, where people mean what they say and say what they mean. Other parts of the world are high-context cultures, where people try to communicate things that may be contrary to the plain meaning of their words.

We have a word for when someone says one thing and means another. It is called "irony". But it occurs so rarely in American speech that most people think that the word "irony" means something else.

Americans and Europeans also have different modes of communication. Americans deal in facts, and emphasize empirical realities to justify what they say. Europeans have their minds made up about various ideas, and ignore any facts that might get in the way.

Part of the difference is explained by American individualism.

This communication theory is supposed to explain why American have difficulty understanding the speech and behavior of foreigners -- we don't have the context to make sense of it. I am not sure whether the theory predicts that foreigners can understand Americans or not. I would think that it would be much easier to understand a low-context statement because the words have their plain meaning. But apparently many people in other countries have a lot of trouble with facts and plain language statements, and they just automatically translate everything that they hear into relativized meanings which are subject to their own personal prejudices.

Don't burn the food

Freakonomics blog says:

In a sample of 13 African countries between 1999 and 2004, 52% of women surveyed say they think that wife beating is justified if she neglects the children; around 45% think it's justified if she goes out without telling the husband or argues with him; 36% if she refuses sex, and 30% if she burns the food.

And this is what the women think.

American women should count their blessings.

Recanted child abuse testimony

Nashville news:

Sentenced six years ago to 55 years in prison for rape and sexual abuse, Ben Kiper's conviction rested solely on the testimony of his accuser, his 10-year-old stepdaughter.

There was no physical evidence, no medical exam and no testimony from any corroborating witnesses at his trial in 2000 in Butler Circuit Court.

So when the girl, now 16, recanted her allegations last October -- swearing under oath that her stepmother forced her to falsely accuse Kiper during a custody dispute -- you might have expected the 35-year-old inmate to go free, or at least win a new trial.

"It is simply intolerable if a state allows an innocent person to remain incarcerated on the basis of lies," one of his attorneys wrote a month later.

But five months after the recantation, Kiper remains at the Green River Correctional Complex in Central City. And he may well stay there, because courts have traditionally viewed such testimony with great suspicion. Some have said no form of evidence is more unreliable.

The thinking is that witnesses can be too easily coerced into changing their testimony. Plus, when witnesses change their story, it inherently calls their credibility into question.

Bill O'Reilly of Fox News is on a big campaign to pass Jessica's Law to mandate very long prison sentences in cases like this. He argues that anyone who disagrees must not care about children. He should have a guest on his program to tell the stories of men serving long sentences based on the flimsiest evidence.

Fuzzy thinking in dope-heads

The journal Neurology reports:

Neuropsychological deficits in long-term frequent cannabis users

The authors examined neuropsychological functioning in 20 long-term (LT), 20 shorter term (ST) heavy frequent cannabis users, and 24 controls after abstinence for ?24 hours prior to testing. LT users performed significantly worse on verbal memory and psychomotor speed. LT and ST users had a higher proportion of deficits on verbal fluency, verbal memory, attention, and psychomotor speed. Specific cognitive domains appear to deteriorate with increasing years of heavy frequent cannabis use.

The sample is small, but this just confirms that marijuana stays in the system for over 24 hours.

Using 911 tapes

Did you know that you can call 911, make a criminal accusation against someone, and send the man to jail? He can be prosecuted based on those 911 tapes without you ever having to testify at his trial.

The 6th Amendment to the US Constitution says that a criminal defendant has a right to confront the witnesses against him at trial, and the US Supreme Court is currently considering letting defendants Davis and Hammon exercise that right.

A couple of lawyers in the domestic violence industry argue:

Domestic violence accounts for up to 34 percent of all reported violent crimes, but it is notoriously difficult to prosecute, ... In the 1980's and 1990's, the refusal of victims to cooperate in the prosecution of their batterers may have resulted in the dismissal of as many as 70 percent of all domestic violence cases.

In recent years, however, prosecutors, police officers and advocates for domestic violence victims have developed techniques, together known as "evidence-based prosecution," that focus on the use of reliable evidence, like 911 tapes, to build cases that do not depend on the cooperation of the victim.

In other words, the US Constitution's ban on the use of hearsay evidence
is limiting the ability of feminist do-gooders to bust up marriages.
Sometimes a couple has a fight and then reconciles, but prosecutors
want to jail the husband anyway.

To convict Davis, the court had to justify the use of 911 tapes:

The Washington Supreme Court first determined that the purpose of an emergency 911 call "is generally not to 'bear witness'" but rather to obtain "help to be rescued from peril." ... The court rejected the ar gument that McCottry reasonably knew that her call would later be used to prosecute petitioner, finding "no evidence that McCottry had such knowledge or that it influenced her decision to call 911."

I think that most people know that 911 tapes can be used on court. If not, you'd better learn now.

Decline of patriarchy and birthrates

Phillip Longman writes:

Patriarchy does not simply mean that men rule. Indeed, it is a particular value system that not only requires men to marry but to marry a woman of proper station. It competes with many other male visions of the good life, and for that reason alone is prone to come in cycles. Yet before it degenerates, it is a cultural regime that serves to keep birthrates high among the affluent, while also maximizing parents' investments in their children. No advanced civilization has yet learned how to endure without it.

Through a process of cultural evolution, societies that adopted this particular social system -- which involves far more than simple male domination -- maximized their population and therefore their power, whereas those that didn't were either overrun or absorbed. This cycle in human history may be obnoxious to the enlightened, but it is set to make a comeback.

More here.

Another article describes women who have given up dating, and just look for sperm donors. Some of these women have dated 100s of men looking for Mr. Right, but decided that none of them were good enough to marry. My hunch is that most of them are feminists with bad attitudes.

Paternity registries

NY Times:

Under Florida law, and that of other states, an unmarried father has no right to withhold consent for adoption unless he has registered with the state putative father registry before an adoption petition is filed. ...

Although one in every three American babies has unwed parents, birth fathers' rights remain an unsettled area, ...

While women have the right to get an abortion, or to have and raise a child, without informing the father, courts have increasingly found that when birth mothers choose adoption, fathers who have shown a desire for involvement have rights, too.

But to claim those rights most states require a father to put his name on a registry. While about 30 states now have registries, they vary widely.

I never heard about those registries, the article explains that they are ineffective.

Choice For Men

Cathy Young writes about the Roe v Wade for men lawsuit:

I do think that the case illustrates rather strongly the unfairness to men of the current legal regime. With legal abortion, a woman who gets pregnant can get out of this situation with minimal consequences (unless you believe that an abortion is a profound trauma, which it does not seem to be for most women). For a man in his mid-20s to be ordered to pay $500 a month for the next 18 years -- and presumably more if his income increases -- is no trivial burden. It means a radically altered lifestyle, including seriously reduced opportunities to have a real family if he wants one.

She makes a number of sensible points. There are also some contrary comments. We need a public debate on this issue.

Anorexia is not a choice

Medical news:

Researchers studying anorexia in twins conclude that more than half a person's risk for developing the sometimes fatal eating disorder is determined by genes.

Most experts already believe there is a strong genetic component to the disorder, which mostly affects girls and women. The new study "hammers home the fact that these are biologically based disorders," said Cynthia Bulik, lead author of the study, who is a psychiatrist at the School of Medicine at UNC Chapel Hill.

"We need to stop viewing them as a choice. ... The patients feel guilty, the providers tell them things like they should just eat, parents are blamed, the insurance companies won't fund treatment because they think it's a choice. It's held us back."

If that is true, then I guess that I can quit trying to teach good eating habits to my daughter, and go back to making snide remarks about fat kids.

Bonds deserves to break Aaron's record

The MSM attacks on Barry Bonds are unrelenting. Among the silly suggestions, some sportswriters are arguing that Bonds should retire before breaking Hank Aaron's home run record. They always praise Aaron for breaking Babe Ruth's record in the face of criticism.

Aaron never got 1% of the media criticism that Bonds has received. The press hates Bonds, and has always hated him. I hope Bonds breaks Aaron's record.

Bonds has been a much better baseball player than Aaron was. Barry Bonds won seven MVP awards and finished second in the voting twice; Hank Aaron only narrowly won one MVP.

George writes:

Bonds has admitted to getting the "cream" and the "clear"
from Balco. He got his records by cheating. Are you condoning that?

There was a criminal investigation of Balco. If Bonds committed some crime, then he can be charged and prosecuted. If he violated some MLB rule, then MLB can suspend him or apply whatever other punishment is applicable. None of that has happened.

While Bonds is suspected of using steroids, so are a lot of other hitters and pitchers. Somehow Bonds has done better than all those other suspected hitters. Maybe his records are all the more impressive if he got his home runs off of pitchers who were using steroids. If Bonds tests positive, then he should just get the same penalties as other players who test positive. Otherwise, he is innocent until proven guilty, and should get credit for what he has accomplished.

Genetic imprinting

Harvard evolutionary biologist David Haig has a theory about genomic imprinting:

Dr. Haig also made some predictions about the sorts of maternal defenses that have evolved. One of the most intriguing strategies he proposed was for mothers to shut down some of the genes in their own children.

This strategy takes advantage of the fact that most of the genes we carry come in pairs. We inherit one copy from our mother and one from our father. In most cases, these pairs of genes behave identically. But in the past 15 years, scientists have identified more than 70 pairs of genes in which the copy from one parent never makes a protein. In some cases, a parent's gene is silenced only in one organ.

Scientists do not fully understand this process, known as genomic imprinting. ...

In many mammal species, females tend to stay in the groups where they are born and males leave. As a result, females tend to share more genes with other members of their group than males. A conflict may emerge between maternal and paternal genes over how the members of the group should act. Maternal genes may favor behavior that benefits the group. Paternal genes may favor behavior that benefits the individual. ...

Dr. Haig has enjoyed watching his theory mature and inspire other scientists. But he has also had to cope with a fair amount of hate mail. It comes from across the political spectrum, from abortion opponents to feminists who accuse him of trying to force patriarchy into biology.

"People seem to think, 'He must have a political agenda,'" Dr. Haig said. "But I'm not talking at all about conscious behaviors. I'm just interested in these mechanisms and why they evolved."

Funny how feminists can hate the idea that a father's genes might influence his children.

IQ in different academic fields

Someone has compiled a ranking of the IQ of grad students in different departments at elite universities, based on GRE scores. Here is Motl's version:

• 130.0 Physics


• 129.0 Mathematics


• 128.5 Computer Science


• 128.0 Economics


• 127.5 Chemical engineering


• 127.0 Material science


• 126.0 Electrical engineering


• 125.5 Mechanical engineering


• 125.0 Philosophy


• 124.0 Chemistry


• 123.0 Earth sciences


• 122.0 Industrial engineering


• 122.0 Civil engineering


• 121.5 Biology


• 120.1 English/literature


• 120.0 Religion/theology


• 119.8 Political science


• 119.7 History


• 118.0 Art history


• 117.7 Anthropology/archeology


• 116.5 Architecture


• 116.0 Business


• 115.0 Sociology


• 114.0 Psychology


• 114.0 Medicine


• 112.0 Communication


• 109.0 Education


• 106.0 Public administration

The precise numbers shouldn't be taken too seriously, but they do indicate the relative intelligence of people going into different fields.

Slobodan Milosevic dies

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has died mysteriously in prison, and people are saying that he killed 200k people in the last great evil slaughter of the 20th century.

I don't know whether he was guilty or not. But I do know that Pres. Clinton was unable to convince either Congress or the UN to goto war against him, and went to war anyway.

After NATO captured Milosevic, it put him on a show trial to justify the NATO invasion. After a four-year trial, the three judges were still unable to make a decision. If NATO really had convincing proof of his guilt, then it should have only taken a couple of weeks to present in court.

Fearmonger alert

NY Times reports:

Some leading climate scientists warn that we might be as few as 20 years away from a "tipping point," after which it will be too late to reverse catastrophic change.

There is a sign of hope. In 20 years, we shouldn't have to listen to these kooks anymore.

List of 20 Islamic inventions

UK paper:

From coffee to cheques and the three-course meal, the Muslim world has given us many innovations that we take for granted in daily life. As a new exhibition opens, Paul Vallely nominates 20 of the most influential- and identifies the men of genius behind them.

It is an impressive list. The last invention was 300 years ago.