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Mailvox: what’s a woman to do?

Retha wonders how a Christian woman can appeal to men:

I find the comments interesting. I am a Christian woman in my mid thirties. When I was young, I did not look out for a man – was too busy doing ministry work in my spare time to look for boyfriends. For that reason or some other reason, men did not approach me for dating/ courtship either. My attitude about marriage was “If we can serve God together, I may consider marrying some day. Otherwise – no way.”

I now realize that I actually want to marry and have kids, but I don’t even know how to meet men. I want to ask the Christian men here: What- except effort with my looks- can I do to be at all the kind of woman that a man who love God will want to marry?

One thing that Christian women often fail to understand is that a single-minded devotion to Jesus will drive away most men almost as effectively as a feminist woman’s narcissistic devotion to her education and career. This is true of Christian and non-Christian men alike. It’s not that men don’t respect your devotion, it’s just that they tend to consider you off the market as a sort of Protestant equivalent of a nun. You’re basically telling them that they will never be as important to you as they would be to pretty much any other woman, so it should come as little surprise that they tend to pursue those other women in preference to you.

After all, what sort of man wants to build a life with a woman who makes it unmistakably clear that his wife’s priority will always be others, not her marriage? I suppose it’s possible that you might theoretically meet a man who puts the same emphasis on ministry to others that you do, but if you consider how many men go seriously into ministry, it’s pretty clear that the odds are stacked against you. It’s about as realistic as the girl with the MBA who will only consider marrying a CEO. The fact is that there just aren’t very many of them.

So, what can you do. First, you can’t simply wave off the looks aspect. That’s the single most important element of a woman’s attractiveness to men, not so much where you rate on the 1-10 scale, but rather what sort of signals you are using your appearance to send. Most women make it very clear that they dress to please other women, not men, so if you do the opposite you will definitely stand out. I’m not talking about “going to a nightclub on Miami Beach” clothing, as much as I personally like that style, but rather wearing your hair long and down, wearing clothes that flatter most of whatever assets you happen to have, ignoring whatever the latest styles are, and paying far more attention to what the men around you happen to think looks good on you than you do to what your female friends tell you. Unless you’re trying to attract a woman, don’t dress in order to please them and their neurotic insecurities.

On the behavioral side, try to be aware of the presence of men in your vicinity. Don’t huddle with other women in public places like a herd of musk oxen trying to defend themselves; if you’re with a group of women, sit a bit back from them and scan the crowd occasionally to see who is checking out your group. Don’t look away from men who look at you. If a man is looking at you and you want to give him a shot, meet his eyes directly and smile. If he’s interested, he’ll approach you, if he’s not, he’ll smile politely, nod, and turn away. If he looks away quickly, he’s probably a gamma and may or may not approach you; if he does he’ll do so in a shy, hesitant, and overly polite manner that will make you want to kick him. Regardless, you’ve given the “all clear” signal, that’s all you really have to do. Be friendly and straightforward, and don’t be afraid to talk about your faith. If nothing else, it will protect you from all the players.

As for meeting men, I strongly suggest taking up a hobby or two that is male dominated. You’ll meet lots of men at martial arts studios, gaming stores, sports bars on game nights, car shows, and the free weight room. Set aside one evening a week to adventure into alien territory and you’ll meet more new men in a month than you have in the last year. I’ve never quite understood how people try to meet the opposite sex in places that the opposite sex never goes. If you’re hunting ducks, you don’t go to the desert, after all.

Now, you are who you are. You’re not going to change that now. But if you present yourself in an attractive and open manner, refuse to let yourself be a bitch or a wallflower, and content yourself with men who are in your physical and social league, you should be able to find what you are seeking. The Bible even says “seek and ye shall find”, so the question you have to ask yourself is if you have really been seeking or not.

And the academy trembled

I have no serious academic credentials and I see little value in them, given the vast quantities of demonstrable nonsense produced on a regular basis by the credentialed. Which tends to make this particular syllabus rather amusing:

INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

I. Course Overview

This course examines the relations between international politics and international economics. It provides an overview of the main international political economy approaches. We begin with a theoretical introduction to political economy in the first part of the course, then we explore the evolution of the international economic system and its political implications. A particular focus is devoted to the so-called ‘globalization debate’ and its evaluation, with a specific focus on trade and finance issues, as well as development and inequality. Also part of the course is dedicated to the interaction of economic issues and security.

The following books are required for the class and are available for purchase at the bookstore:

* Gilpin, Robert. 2002. The Challenge of Global Capitalism, Princeton University Press.
▪ Day, Vox. 2009. The Return of the Great Depression. WND Books.
▪ Bhagwati, Jagdish. 2007. In Defense of Globalization. Oxford University Press.
▪ Stiglitz, Joseph E. 2003 (2nd Edition). Globalization and its Discontents. Norton

I suppose I should be pleased, but mostly I just hope the professor doesn’t find himself in too much trouble.

Criminal scientists

So much for the Climategate denialists claim that the global warming email scandal didn’t reveal any wrongdoing or anything outside the scientific norm:

The university at the centre of the climate change row over stolen e-mails broke the law by refusing to hand over its raw data for public scrutiny. The University of East Anglia breached the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to comply with requests for data concerning claims by its scientists that man-made emissions were causing global warming.

The Information Commissioner’s Office decided that UEA failed in its duties under the Act but said that it could not prosecute those involved because the complaint was made too late, The Times has learnt. The ICO is now seeking to change the law to allow prosecutions if a complaint is made more than six months after a breach.

The Climategate denialists are not only defending frauds and liars, but criminals. This is now a fact. I have known this from the start, because man-made global warming is simply not taking place and therefore anyone who claims it is is either deluded, mistaken, or lying. In the case of the so-called scientists, it’s quite clear that they fall into the latter category.

The fact of the matter is that scientists are no less likely to be full of BS than anyone else, and scientists whose access to outsized incomes depends upon reaching specific predetermined conclusions are no more trustworthy than investment bankers touting a company in which they hold significant equity. For example, Phil Jones, the lead charlatan at the heart of Climategate, is reported to have collected 55 endowments amounting to $22.5 million for his pseudo-scientific crimes. The more insidious problem is the possibility that the Climategate denialists are telling the truth and that these sorts of shenanigans probably is the scientific norm.

Laughing at the hippies

I have to admit that I do find this sort of self-destructive political action to be amusing:

On Tuesday, unions in Oregon won a charred earth victory that will drive already troubled Oregon, straight off the cliff. Oregon voters passed Measure 66 which raises tax rates on individuals who earn more than $125,000 and couples with incomes greater than $250,000. Voters also passed Measure 67 which increases business taxes.

The worst thing is that Measure 67 taxes gross revenue. So, if a business is losing money, it still has to try to come up with money from somewhere in order to pay its tax bills. Or, it could just, you know, close. I wonder what will happen to the Oregon unemployment rate? I mean, who could possibly foresee what the consequences of tax hikes in a difficult economic environment might be.

And when Portland looks like Detroit, the stinking, filthy left-wing masses will rage at the evil John and Jane Galts who either left or quit working in order to sustain them. I can’t believe that anyone still believes in the myth of progress after watching people voluntarily commit the same idiocies over and over and over again.

Even an atheist knows better

I don’t think it’s any secret that I am contemptuous of Christopher Hitchens’s intellect as well as his capacity for constructing a rational argument about religion. And yet…

Maryiln Sewell: “The religion you cite in your book is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make and distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?”

Christopher Hitchens: “I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.”

So, what does it say about liberal Christianity that its representatives don’t even rise to the intellectual and theological level of the New Atheists?

Sex in the City vs Science

I found the juxtaposition of these two Telegraph articles to be more than a little amusing. First is one Becky Pugh expressing an all-too-typical female opinion on the wisdom of settling for a husband rather than holding out for the Sex in the City dream of a tame Alpha who is chastened by the near-loss of the precious snowflake he almost permitted to get away:

Time and again, Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw could have walked off into the sunset with kind, wholesome Aidan. But she didn’t. Instead, she valiantly endured years of pain while she listened to her instincts and waited for Mr Big. She was right: just look at them now (as far as we know they are living happily ever after, which is where we left them at the end of the first movie). Like Jane Eyre and Carrie Bradshaw, most women would rather wait for Mr Right, and risk ending up alone, than settle for dependable, passionless Mr Second Best…. it’s easy to see how the temptation to skip down the aisle with Mr He’ll Have To Do Because He Is The Only Impregnator Available To Me is a strong one. But, even so, Gottlieb’s watershed age of 30 is fantastically mean.

I note, with a straight face marred only by the occasional twitch to indicate the degree of silent inner mirth I feel, that Jane Eyre and Carrie Bradshaw are both fictional characters and it just may possibly be sub-optimal for a woman to base her relationship philosophy upon them. Can you even imagine what women would say if a man wrote a column recommending men to base some of their most significant life decisions on the lifestyle choices of Aquaman and the Green Lantern? And if she thinks Ms Gottlieb’s watershed age of 30 is “fantastically mean”, one wonders how she’ll describe the latest scientific research on age and fertility.

While they may continue to produce eggs throughout their 30s and 40s, the reservoir of potential eggs from which they are taken has shrunk to almost nothing, it suggests. As the body chooses the best eggs from the reserve, the likelihood is that the quality of the eggs will suffer as you get older increasing the difficulty of conception and the risk of an unhealthy baby….

It shows that on average women are born with 300,000 potential egg cells but this pool declines at a much faster rate than first thought. By the age of 30 there is only 12 per cent left on average and by the age of 40 just three per cent. Dr Hamish Wallace, the co-author, said: “Our research shows that they are generally over-estimating their fertility prospects.”

If there is one thing that a single woman between the ages of 18-25 badly needs to understand, it is this: there are plenty of girls on the girl tree. They make new ones every day. And it probably wouldn’t hurt that single woman to keep in mind that while there will always be men who will be interested in her, the social status and perceived quality of those men will begin to decline drastically somewhere between the age of 25 and 30. Ask a gamma male; they all know that a woman at 30 is much more in play for them than she was five years before. In fact, that’s precisely the sort of thing they rely upon in order to land a halfway-attractive woman.

Mailvox: curiouser and curiouser

A professional energy analyst shares his professional perspective, which is an excerpt from a note he sends to their clients:

Have you seen the report today? All the media sees out of this is that the economy is expanding. Two minutes of gazing at the stats shows the opposite. Manufacturing should rally from September through February as part of the seasonal cycle. To have December choke is a very negative indicator.

Here’s an excerpt of my daily note to clients: Our longer-term bearish outlook on industrial natural gas demand continues after the Federal Reserve release today of industrial capacity utilization. The number rose from 71.5 in November (revised down) to 72. The optimists out there will tell you that 72% is the highest in a year. We’ll tell you that seasonality plays a part in that, manufacturing usually increases through February’s end. We’re also quick to point out that we were at 72.7 in December a year ago… and the economy was abysmal a year ago — we’re currently trailing even that. Even more disappointing is the fact that some industrial plants have permanently shuttered. That creates a smaller denominator in the capacity calculation and an appearance of greater growth than was really there. A 7% annualized growth rate for Q409? That’s great. But annual output dropped 9.7%, the worst slide since 1946 when the WWII defense machine relaxed.

The real kicker to the report comes from the Fed itself: Industrial production increased 0.6 percent in December. The gain primarily resulted from an increase of 5.9 percent in electric and gas utilities due to unseasonably cold weather. Manufacturing production edged down 0.1 percent, while the output of mines rose 0.2 percent. That’s right. They’re telling you that manufacturing was down, but the number went up on utility output of energy. What does the media take away from this? An actual headline: “Industrial output rises for 6th month in a row.” That is a fact. A fact that smells like horse manure when you consider the implications on present industrial natural gas consumption.

Being a complete amateur when it comes to this sort of sector analysis, I find it very interesting that the professional opinion happens to coincide rather closely with my take on the overall economy. The numbers just seem to keep getting curiouser and curiouser….

Newsflash: women can spend other people’s money

Forget the possibility of feigning offense, I don’t think this female Democrat understands the subtext of what she said:

A female Democratic lawmaker in footage released Sunday said Congress could pass healthcare if female lawmakers “sent the men home.”

Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-N.H.) said that both Republican and Democratic women members of Congress understand how to care for relatives and thus want the healthcare system to change.

“We go to the ladies room and the Republican women and the Democratic women and we just roll our eyes,” she said. “And the Republican women said when we were fighting over the healthcare bill, if we sent the men home…” at which point she was interrupted by loud applause.

I’m all for this idea. In fact, I think it should be significantly expanded. I think every male politician in America should resign his office and let the womenfolk run things for as long as they want to do so. Because that will be the fastest and easiest way to end the disastrous women’s suffrage experiment that I can imagine. There are two words that describe a matriarchal society and those two words are “grass huts”.

First, voting is not freedom. Second, voting is far from the defining aspect of a society. Would you rather have the right to vote between eating leeches and eating worms accompanied by dirty rainwater, or be served an excellent steak accompanied by an elegant red wine? The states are supposed to be the laboratory of democracy. So, let’s try a scientific experiment. In ten states, only women vote for women leaders. In ten states, only men vote for male leaders. In ten states, everyone votes everyone like it is now. In ten states, only women vote in a direct democracy. In ten states, only men vote in a direct democracy.

I would bet that the superior system would be apparent within 7 years and conclusive within two decades.

The statistical game expands

The Market Ticker suspects shenanigans beyond the usual chicanery:

On January 5th the durables report for November was ‘released’. It showed a 0.2% increase. I didn’t write on it at the time, as it didn’t appear to be particularly consequential. The report, of course, came in the middle of the first-week January market rally. But now, in the dark of night, the number has been revised – to a decrease of 0.7%. The reason is a claimed “statistical error.” This, by the way, should have been obvious from the retail sales report, which I did write on.

Here’s the ugly – the Census’ link to the report is now listed as missing (that is, intentionally removed!) and what’s worse the link they refer you to, the “Historical M3 Releases” does not have the corrected November data – it only has releases through October on it.

That is, November’s report has disappeared.

I demonstrated the fictitious nature of government statistics in the chapter of RGD entitled “No One Knows Anything”. I suppose it’s easier to simply not bother making anything up, though. Since so few people even understand what the numbers are supposed to represent, why not just periodically shout “The Dow is at 12,000 and all is well!”

It would probably be more convincing anyhow.

I suppose it would hurt if I could still feel anything

Sure, the more one thinks about how the Vikes gift-wrapped the game and gave it away, the more irritating it is. But the angst, pain, and general soulsickness doesn’t even come close to comparing to 1998, 1975, or 1983. As hard as it may be for younger Vikings fans to understand, this loss doesn’t even rank in the top ten. And as Chev reminded me, I never expected anywhere nearly as much out of Favre as he delivered this season. After all, this is how I answered when I was asked before the season if I was excited about Favre becoming a Viking:

“All I know is that as a Vikings fan, I never feared Brett Favre. Never. Sure, sometimes he’d beat you with a lightning strike from that cannon arm, but just as often – more often – he’d beat the Packers with an untimely interception.”

Upon reflection, I’m shocked that he didn’t do it more often this year. The reality is that Favre is the anti-Manning, the anti-Elway, the anti-Two Minute Tommy Kramer. For an elite quarterback, he’s actually a relative choke artist dating back to the Green Bay Super Bowl loss to Denver. I’m glad we had him this year and I hope we have him the next year, but I’m not at all surprised that he would turn out to be the goat, insofar as any Minnesota player can be said to be the goat. In my opinion, none of them were. AD, for example, had either the best three-fumble or worst three-rushing TD game in playoff history.

I thought game itself went pretty much how I broke it down, barring all the crazy fumbles and the inability of the Minnesota defensive line to actually sack Brees. I’ll go over each aspect later, but obviously the thing that I got most wrong was giving the Saints a +1 advantage for coaching. It should have been a +3, enough to swing the balance in New Orleans favor. The true goat of the game is Favre’s fellow choke artist Brad Childress. While he did a pretty good job surmounting his natural tendencies over the season, under pressure he reverted to his terrible tendency towards hyper-controlling micromanagement. The strategy on that last drive was terrible from the start; the seeds of the problem were planted before that dreadful timeout called after Chester Taylor’s first down at the Saints 37. There were actually FIVE big coaching mistakes at the end that cumulatively cost the Vikings the game:

1. Calling timeout. The Saints were visibly reeling after the Taylor first down put the Vikes in field goal range. AD probably could have gone off tackle and into the end zone, not just merely gained the 10 yards to make the field goal a gimme for Longwell, if Childress hadn’t given them the chance to regroup. When the opponent’s morale is shaken, that’s the moment to strike and the very last thing you should do is give them time. Military leaders have known this for more than two thousand years, so why don’t football coaches?

2. After the timeout, the Saints stacked the line since Sean Payton knows that Chilly is from the Schottenheimer/Turner school of playing not to screw it up. I was SCREAMING at the screen for a play-action pass to the FB in the slot or a WR on a buttonhook. Naturally, they ran it up the middle twice for no gain, which makes one wonder if anyone on an NFL staff ever pays any attention to history. That play was straight out of Schottenheimer’s “how to lose a playoff game” book. You don’t play to win the conference championship on a 51-yard field goal. You simply don’t. It’s stupid.

3. The 12-men penalty. This is the one that everyone is talking about. Yes, it’s stupid. But no, it’s unfortunately not as surprising as it should be considering how the Vikings sideline was described as “chaos” at the end of last year’s playoff game against the Eagles. The penalty was inexcusable and it was entirely on the coaching staff.

4. The interception. Yes, it was a classic Brett Favre choke; there is absolutely no question that he should have run the ball. As a second option, he should have thrown it to the receiver who was in man coverage eight yards past the line of scrimmage. But it shouldn’t have been news to Childress that his quarterback is Brett Favre, who tends to throw amazingly idiotic interceptions at critical moments like those. Every serious Vikings fan has known this self-destructive flaw of Favre’s for years, so why didn’t Childress call the play accordingly? The roll-out call was actually fine, but if you haven’t given explicit orders to a) run if they give you an opening and b) not throw across the field, you’re just not doing your job correctly.

5. Griffin’s injury. Why is your #1 cornerback (given Winfield’s injury), on the kickoff coverage team? Would they have given up 50 instead of 40 if he wasn’t?

The fumbles were infuriating, but they weren’t the reason the Vikes lost. They were the reason the Vikes didn’t win by 17. A few of the penalties were ridiculous, especially the phantom pass interference call at the end, but the refs were shaky all night and they would have been irrelevant if Childress hadn’t pulled a Denny Green. The dropped interception was bad, but that, too, should have been irrelevant.

The reason the Vikings lost was a frightened, micromanaging coach trying to play it safe instead of playing to finish off the opponent and win. I expect Childress will probably learn from the experience – given his contract extension, I certainly hope he will – but that’s little consolation now. Anyhow, I can’t fault the Saints for accepting Chilly’s Gift, and I’m pleased to see them finally get the chance to play in the Super Bowl instead of the NFC East teams of whom I am so thoroughly sick. And let’s face it, this game looked suspiciously like playing for the right to play sacrificial lamb against the Manning-machine. Even so, I’d like to congratulate the New Orleans Saints and their long-suffering fans on their NFC Championship and wish them the best of luck in upsetting the Colts.