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Dispatches from the Culture Wars is still hung up on cars and hot babes:

Okay, this is quite amusing. Someone posted a link over on [Vox Popoli] to my previous little dig at him and his crying need to bring up his Porsche (turbo, even) as proof that he isn’t bitter toward women. And this was his response:

Do better than what? The guy didn’t say anything. He clearly missed the point of the Porsche comment, which was to skip the usual red herring whenever a topic critical of feminism is broached. Perhaps I should have just explained that I have Real Ultimate Power and I pork hot babes without even thinking twice about it. Perhaps then Mr. Braydon (sic) would been able to follow the logical sequence.

I nearly spit my iced tea all over my monitor laughing at this. Let me assure you, [Dispatches, apparently having little Greek or Latin, seems to think he’s outing me or something], I got the “logical sequence”. The problem is that it just isn’t terribly logical. It was obvious that the point you were trying to make is that you “pork hot babes” a lot and therefore could not hate women or have a bitter attitude toward them. But that is, of course, a non sequitur. Most of the really promiscuous guys I know hate women, even if they won’t admit it. So since your mention of the fact that you drove a Porsche serves no logical purpose, it can only function as your means of striking the stud pose. And that’s pretty damn pathetic. Which was my whole point. I’m sure this will bring even more of them over here to make juvenile comments about horse manure, but hey, it’s kinda fun watching them make asses of themselves. It’s even more amusing to watch them gather around him and assure him that despite what that mean man said, he really is cool (and also “hot”, according to one commenter).

Now I’m beginning to suspect that Dispatches not only has issues with Porsches, but women as well. I’ll try typing even slower, as this poor guy hasn’t even made it past the first two paragraphs of Monday’s column yet. Even Lisa Lisa, despite her proclivity for ankle-swallowing, managed to do better than that.

1. When a male columnist writes a column critical of women, women’s rights or feminism, he inevitably receives many responses asserting that he has only done so because he is bitter, not in a general sense as Dispatches has interpreted, but specifically because he has had insufficient sex with women over the course of his life. This has happened every single time I have written a column on any such subject, dating back to the notorious Spiting Their Pretty Faces column in February 2003. One woman even made the accusation when I was on a Toronto radio show following that column.

2. Young men with expensive sports cars and recording contracts with record companies attract a lot of attention from young women. When they play on stage, women bare their breasts, attempt to sneak backstage before and after the show to give them their phone numbers and home addresses and so forth. These women also tend to be far more attractive than the run-of-the-mill mall shopper. Many men wish this was not the case, but everyone from Mick Jagger down to the guy who sings Van Halen covers on Tuesday nights at the local dive can testify to the truth of this.

3. I was fortunate enough to have possessed both an expensive sports car and record contracts with Wax Trax! Records and TVT Records soon after graduating from university. I have written several songs that appeared on various Billboard charts (although not the one that really matters, unfortunately), my band’s music was featured in several movies and video games and we even won a Minnesota Music Award for which Prince and other notable musicians were also nominated. My experience in the music world was a typical one.

4. Despite my morally objectionable past, I was fortunate enough to subsequently encounter a beautiful blonde girl who was willing to sign on as my permanent partner-in-crime.

5. As I wrote in the article, I brought this up only to avoid the red herring on which Dispatches From the Bunker is presently choking. Interestingly enough, this is the first column on the subject wherein my many female critics did not make a single insinuation about my romantic life or lack thereof.

5. Ergo, it defies logic to conclude that one can dismiss the contents of the column because the author has been granted insufficient access to slake his male lust on willing women’s bodies, even if it made any sense to do so in the first place.

If we can assume that Dispatches is capable of working his way through that tortuous forest of logic laid out above, perhaps he will deign to actually try addressing the substance of the column. As it stands, he now even admits to having made no attempt to do so: “I didn’t really attempt to make a factual argument in response to his position on women’s rights…. I didn’t address his position at all, nor did I intend to.” We shall follow his future progress with interest.

This strange reaction to a single mention of automotive excellence rather reminds me of the Mensa issue, which still surfaces from time to time. In this case, one reference to past Porsche ownership in four years of columns and 18 months of blogging is somehow magically transformed into a deep psychological issue. This is especially strange considering that I got rid of that particular car years ago.

I suppose it would be a mistake to tell him about the Ferrari….

Lupa has the solution:

I’m a woman, thank you very much, and to be completely honest with you–I’m perfectly happy with present marriage trends. I don’t want to get married. I have a BA in English; I graduated Magna cum laude. I’ve been living completely by myself and have maintained good credit doing so since I was 25. I’m almost 27, and before my 28th birthday I’ll have a book published and another in the works. I’ll have moved from Pittsburgh to Seattle as I have wanted to do for years, and I’ll be working on starting a home-based business.

If I had been expected to get married right out of high school–or even out of college–I would have not been able to accomplish anything I’ve managed to do the past few years. Doubly so if I’d had children soon thereafter.

I’m not bemoaning anything. The women’s magazines, the media–that’s not a wholly accurate portrayal of what women want. I’m assuming that’s where you’re getting a lot of your information about what women outside your own social circle want, since obviously you can’t talk to us all. I know of my own social circle there are only a couple of married women (median age is probably 26 to 28) and the rest of us aren’t in any major hurry…..

And as for population decline….the answer, as I see it, is adoption. There are thousands of unwanted children just in the US, let alone worldwide, who have no family. Why should there be pressure on me to have a child I don’t even want just because we’re not getting closer to having a billion people here? Why should I sacrifice my goals and dreams because someone who doesn’t even have to worry about giving birth thinks it’s my responsibility to do so?

Instead of saying women need to go back into the home and be barefoot and pregnant (which I realize you didn’t say verbatim, but you amy as well have) why not try coming up with ways to adjust the economy to accomodate the genie that sure as hell isn’t going back in that confining little bottle?

I’m not quite sure where to start on this one, but since Lupa was so polite, I shall do my best to rein in my more sarcastic instincts. Personally, I don’t see where getting married is a complete bar to a BA in English, maintaining good credit, publishing a book or even moving to Seattle, although I have to confess that I have not managed either a BA in English or a move to Seattle, so who am I to contest the point?

As to her proposed answer to the problem of American women maintaining sub-replacement birth rates being the adoption of unwanted American children, I can only marvel in awe at the way in which this neat solution demonstrates a total failure to understand the nature of the problem. With regards to the foreign aspect, there are two difficulties, one being that America has the highest birth rate of any Western nation, the second is that the non-Western nations which see us as rivals are not likely to be keen on handing over their future generations to us simply because Lupa and her liberated friends can’t be bothered to propagate the species.

(Perhaps the answer here is to merge Lupa’s solution with Ben Shapiro’s. After establishing global empire, Americans can simply take children from their third-world mothers – who probably won’t even notice one or two going missing – and ship them to America and their loving day care centers.)

My point, again, is that the women’s rights genie is almost surely going back in the bottle one way or another, regardless of what educated, liberated, upper middle class women want. It is a societal dead end, and societies that embrace it will eventually be swallowed up by those that don’t.

The argument isn’t really with me, it’s with the mathematics. If I have the demographic math wrong, then my argument dissolves in a splash of corrective red ink. If it is correct, then it doesn’t make one little bit of difference what anyone thinks, including me.

Depending on your perspective, women’s rights in America began either as early as 1920 or as late as 1973. I have chosen the latter date, as it is when the women’s rights package of voting, working and infanticide all became widely available throughout the West and their effects had become visible in all the relevant statistics. We are only 32 years into the grand experiment and already it is showing definite signs of failure. One would not think that it would be possible to invent a less viable societal system than Soviet communism, which only lasted 70 years* from start to finish, and yet the feminists appear to have done just that.

*At least, version 1.0. Uncle Vlad appears to be working hard on a 2.0 release.

Highlights from Bill Simmons latest mailbag:

Q: Which do you think we’ll see first, a female president or a female head coach of an NBA, MLB, NFL or NHL team?

SG: What would I rather see? That’s easy — a female NHL coach. How would she dress? What would her mullet look like? Would she end up looking like a mustache-less Jeff Foxworthy wearing Paula Poundstone’s clothes? At the very least, let’s dress Barry Melrose up in drag for a few games and give this idea a test run.

What will we see? That’s easy — a female president. If you don’t think Hillary Clinton will be running the country in four years, you’re crazy. Ever been stuck in a room full of women when they decide on something ridiculous like “Andie McDowell has been the most beautiful woman in Hollywood for the past 15 years” and they will absolutely stick together until the death when you’re posing counterarguments? Well, I think that’s how the 2008 election is going to unfold — Hillary is going to be Andie McDowell-ed right into the presidency. If she becomes president, that means any woman can become president. It’s too important not to vote for her. So they’ll vote for her.

(And just for the record, I probably will, too — I miss having Bill Clinton around. Imagine having him on tour as the First Man? How much trouble could he get into? It would be just as if he was the president again, only without any responsibility. Think about it — even when he did have responsibility, the whole Lewinsky debacle happened. As the First Man? Anything’s possible.)

Q: Just a clarification about my earlier e-mail on my desire for a special edition DVD of “Night Shift.” In no way should my comments be construed as a rip on either Winkler or Keaton. I can just picture Keaton reading my comments, realizing I go to Kent State like he did, and showing up at my door in the Batman costume to beat me up. On second thought, that would be pretty cool.

SG: I’m beginning to think that none of my readers could pass a drug test. Not a one.

The amazing thing about Simmons is that his uniquely convoluted reasoning leads him to the correct conclusion far more often than not, as long as the Celtics and Red Sox aren’t involved. His point on the electability of the Lizard Queen is more salient than anything I’ve read from any of the professional political consultants and commentators.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with The Sports Guy, he is the author of the mantra which inspired Monday’s rather popular column.

Now, I’m no Republican. I probably spend more binary ink on excoriating the sins of the elephantine National Democrat party than I do on the asinine International Socialists, simply because they are less obvious to the casual observer. And in the interest of helping my poor, benighted fellow humans on the left wing of the political spectrum, I’ll provide them with a few points of political consulting advice.

1. They can call you gay. You can’t call them gay. It just doesn’t stick. Because even if a few of their gala coordinators are a little light in the Bass Weejuns, they still don’t have Tinkerbell the Transvestite wearing fishnet stockings and a rainbow ribbon while announcing the votes of the great state of New York at their national convention. Everybody knows who is more likely to march in the Pride parade, and let’s face it, it ain’t Republicans.

2. Nobody with an IQ of more than 35 buys into the Christian Right = the Taliban notion. Remember the Passion? Yeah, that campaign worked out, didn’t it. Look, there’s about 100 million of them out there and if they wanted take over the country and establish a theocracy, they would have done it already. It’s like worrying about an invasion from Mars. Give it a rest.

3. Republicans are not, on average, stupid. Yes, Democrats have the egghead academic crowd, possibly the most annoying one percent of the population, but the Republicans have both the self-made wealthy and the college grads. Simultaneously bitching about how Republicans are a) stupid and b) rich only makes it look as if you hail from the Democrats lower echelon. You know, the stinking masses who didn’t graduate from high school.

4. Being the party of Hollywood isn’t as cool as it sounds. Sure, people like to look at them, but people also like to look at train wrecks. And speaking of train wrecks, do not EVER let them talk. Take their money, have them smile for the cameras and leave it at that.

5. Class warfare works in nineteenth century economies when people are starving in the streets. Look around you, does anyone look like they’re starving? It is also the twenty-first century. It’s time to start thinking about Plan B.

Perhaps I can explain this on a point-by-point basis, some of those critics suffering from knee-to-chin disease will be able to grasp that this has nothing to do with my attitude towards women in general, but is a straightforward economic and demographic issue.

1. When the supply of something increases faster than the demand for it, the price goes down. This is called the Law of Supply and Demand and no one has seriously argued about it for more than two hundred years. You might as reasonably argue against the Law of Gravity.

2. The US supply of labor increased by 58.1 million workers from 1970 to 2000, an increase of 70.2 percent or 2.34 percent per year.

3. The percentage of the population active in the US workforce rose from 60.4 percent to 67.2 percent in the 30 years from 1970 to 2000. This percentage increase was due solely to women entering the workforce; had the percentage of women working in 1970 remained the same in 2000, the percentage of the population active in the workforce would have dropped to 58.4 percent. (See Labor Force Change, 1950-2000 by Mitra Toossi).

4. The theoretical demand for labor, in the form of consumption measured by spending*, also grew. GDP increased from 5.03 trillion to 11.75 trillion in 2005 dollars. This 4.43 percent annual economic growth should have created more than enough demand to absorb the 2.34 percent annual increase in labor supply without affecting the price.

5. However, the exporting of jobs abroad, and more importantly, productivity gains thanks to technology have also reduced the demand for domestic labor. Another aspect of globalization, the negative balance of trade may enter in, but net imports only add up to five percent of the GDP and are already accounted for as per the basic formula C+I+G+(X-M). Unfortunately, these productivity gains are impossible to quantify given that the official statistics are literally complete fiction.

6. Therefore, it is logical to conclude that entry of women into the workforce, compounded by the exportation of jobs and increased productivity, that has lowered wages and requires women who do not belong to the financial elite to work whether they want to or not.

Now, obviously there are two ways of addressing this problem, one on the supply side and one on the demand side. The second demand-side aspect is not a possibility, as the technology genie cannot be put back in the bottle.

The reason that the supply side offers a more reasonable solution is that a) it does not require foreign countries to cooperate against their own interest, b) it is in sync with the desire of most women not to work, c) it is in the interest of children to be raised by their mothers, d) it is in the interest of a society that is teetering on the edge of demographic decline to encourage young women to have children.

Furthermore, attempting to address the issue on the demand side is dangerous, as unilateral efforts to restrict trade have historically served as a precedent to war, and given the ease with which modern computer technology crosses borders, may not even be possible.

*I say theoretical because equating spending with production is an increasingly flawed concept, especially in a service economy.

Ben Shapiro dreams of Rome:

But now, America faces a crossroads. Since the death of the Soviet Union, we are unquestionably the world’s only superpower, the world’s remaining empire. Acquiring an empire requires a different mindset than maintaining and expanding one. Empires either decline or they grow. If America is to survive and flourish, Americans must realize that empire isn’t a choice: It’s a duty….

No one said empire was easy, but it is right and good, both for Americans and for the world. Forwarding freedom is always important, but it is especially important where doing so ensures America’s future security — as in Iraq. Maintaining American empire will require Americans to recognize the dangers of impatient isolationism.

Does anyone have any more doubts about the likelihood that we will bear witness to the dying throes of the Republic? Ave Caesar! I do find it curious, however, that Mr. Shapiro doesn’t see this duty extending so far as to actually serve in the military himself.

There are times when the chickenhawk accusation isn’t fair. This is not one of them.

It never ceases to amaze me how almost any topic can be magically transformed into a furious debate about abortion, evolution or the civil war. At least this time the demographic effects of abortion, and specifically sex-selected abortion, was tangentially related to the first of the Three Inevitable Topics.

Also, do leave serious questions and insults about other posters’ religion, appearance and personal idiosyncracies out of it. Such cracks are not interesting, they’re almost never funny and they merely sidetrack the discussion. There are some notable exceptions to this rule, they know who they are and if you’ll notice, half the time I’m their target anyhow. You all already know what I think about ‘equality’ so this is the last place you should expect to find it, right?

Bane and the White Buffalo are artistes of the poisoned tongue, simply appreciate their genius, don’t cheapen their work by attempting to imitate it.

Deborah Robinson didn’t call a doctor, prosecutors said yesterday, when her daughter botched an attempt to pierce her own belly button and a life-threatening infection set in. She didn’t call one when the girl, in excruciating pain, took to the living room couch three weeks ago and basically stopped eating or moving, prosecutors said. And she didn’t call when her daughter lost control of her bowels; instead, prosecutors say, Robinson put her 13-year-old in diapers….

”She walks her kids to school and picks them up every day,” said Pamela Gray, a friend and neighbor who said she has known Robinson for nine years. ”She was really involved.”

Um, wait a minute…. okay, never mind, call off the media hounds.

Lisa Lisa tickles her tonsils with her toes:

Yes. It’s defintely the influx of WOMEN into the workforce that casued this low ‘real wage’. It’s not:

a) the exponential increase in child births
b ) the exponential influx of immigrants (both legal and illegal)
c) the increase in the retirement age, thus putting exponential increases of people working later in life in the work force
d) the exponential growth of corporations in this country
e) drops in economy because of exponential offshoring of jobs

Jesus….for a woman….I just made this guy look like an idiot. I better get back in the kitchen. What are these shoes doing on my feet?

Let’s deal with this intelligent, liberated woman’s points one at a time, shall we?

a) US birth rate 1970: 18.4. US birth rate 2004: 14.1. It would appear that Lisa Lisa is making use of a hitherto unknown usage of the term “exponential increase”.

b) Immigrants increase consumption demand as well as labor supply. This mitigates their impact on labor pricing. Domestic women, already being consumers, can only drive the price of labor down by increasing its supply.

c) “Census and Social Security data show that between 1975 and 1990, the labor force participation rate among 55- to 64-year-olds changed differently by gender. Men’s labor force participation rate fell to 68 percent from 76 percent, while that of women rose to 45 percent from 41 percent. For women older than 65 years, the labor force participation rate rose slightly to 8.7 percent from 8.2 percent, although among men older than 65 years, it fell to 16 percent from 22 percent.” Again, Lisa Lisa has it backwards. The net effect of changes in the retirement age was beneficial to the price of labor.

d) More corporations = less labor? (shakes head in disbelief)

I have to go mow the lawn, so I’ll address e) in a bit, as well as provide some BLS statistics I’ve got somewhere for c) that cover the full range of years from 1972 to 2003 and make the picture more clear.

But she sure made me look stupid, didn’t she! I don’t think it would be wise to leave this woman alone in the kitchen with sharp objects, let alone a voting booth.

UPDATE: Where were we? Ah, yes, BLS statistics… let me see….

c) In 1970, 83 percent of men 55-64 and 26.8 percent of 65+ men worked. In 2000, those numbers had dropped to 67.3 percent and 17.5 percent. Women went from 43 percent (55-64) and 9.7 percent (65+) to 51.8 percent and 9.4 percent. As I already stated, the net effect on the price of labor was positive.

e) Globalization is a mixed bag. Jobs go elsewhere, reducing demand for labor, but the opening of foreign markets to US products also creates demand for it. This is Lisa Lisa’s one potentially salient point, but its net effect cannot quantified or even characterized with any degree of certainty, whereas supply/demand effects are pretty obvious. The labor force grew from 60 percent of the population in 1970 to 67 percent in 2000, a 11.7 percent increase. Only those completely ignorant of basic economic theory could believe that the simultaneous 16.3 percent decline in real wages is purely coincidental.

From Drudge:

Workers repairing a sewage pipe in the old city of Jerusalem have discovered the biblical Pool of Siloam, a freshwater reservoir that was a major gathering place for ancient Jews making religious pilgrimages to the city and the reputed site where Jesus cured a man blind from birth, the LOS ANGELES TIMES reports.

The pool was fed by the now famous Hezekiah’s Tunnel and is “a much grander affair” than archeologists previously believed, with three tiers of stone stairs allowing easy access to the water, according to Hershel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archeology Review, which reported the find Monday.

“Scholars have said that there wasn’t a Pool of Siloam and that John was using a religious conceit” to illustrate a point, said New Testament scholar James H. Charlesworth of the Princeton Theological Seminary. “Now we have found the Pool of Siloam … exactly where John said it was.” A gospel that was thought to be “pure theology is now shown to be grounded in history,” he said.

You’d think those foolish scientists would have learned by now. From Assyrians to Hittites, from obscure Greek honorifics to the Pool of Siloam, the Bible repeatedly proves to be more reliable than the conceit-filled opinions of modern archeologists.

That’s an impressive series of coincidences for an ancient book of fairy tales with no historical value whatsoever.