Hotel privacy

In which I find myself in rare agreement with Megan Mcardle:

I travel a lot, and I’ve had housekeepers walk in on me in various states of undress, especially in hotels with turndown service (yes, yes, now that I’m a more seasoned traveler, I try to engage the chain or the deadbolt before I undress). Not a big deal for me, but I’m sure it could happen to a male traveler perfectly innocently. So could a wardrobe malfunction–the robes in many hotels are not exactly overgenerous, especially for the burgeoning middle-aged physique of a chairborne warrior.

Just last month, I was traveling and staying in a hotel. Despite the fact that I had not checked out yet, the door was locked, and checkout was not for another two hours, I heard housekeeping fumbling with the door as I stepped out of the bathroom fresh from a shower.

And even though I twice called out that I was in the room, the woman unlocked the door, opened it, and walked in on me, before apologizing and retreating in some disarray. I thought nothing of it at the time, but I have no doubt that had I been the one entering the locked room, many women would have considered it a case of sexual harassment and near rape. Especially since there was no “do not disturb” sign on the exterior doorknob.

“The door was locked… I even told him TWICE that the room was occupied, but he INSISTED on entering!”

I’m not attempting to defend DSK’s actions in any way, shape, or form, but it is downright ridiculous to insist that it is the women who are entering locked rooms are somehow the victims of the men they occasionally surprise. I’m not saying that there are no exhibitionists – male or female – staying at hotels whose behavior is objectionable, but I would be willing to be that the greater part of those who are surprised sans clothing are perfectly innocent hotel guests who are operating under the erroneous assumption that a locked door is sufficient to provide them with privacy.

The Ultimate Hunt can’t be far away

Mark Zuckerberg is challenging himself:

When he’s not too busy connecting people across the universe, Mark Zuckerberg is pursuing a new “personal challenge,” as he calls it. “The only meat I’m eating is from animals I’ve killed myself,” says the Facebook founder and CEO.

It’s an odd dietary direction for the 27-year-old Internet billionaire, but since he has taken to killing goats, pigs and chickens, “I’m eating a lot healthier foods. And I’ve learned a lot about sustainable farming and raising of animals,” he says. “It’s easy to take the food we eat for granted when we can eat good things every day.”

Zuckerberg’s new goal came to light, not surprisingly, on Facebook. On May 4, Zuckerberg posted a note to the 847 friends on his private page: “I just killed a pig and a goat.”

I give him five years before he’s hunting humans on his private island off the coast of Africa. In the meantime, he can a) attempt to best Tiger Woods’s off-course record, b) score all 249 stars in Guitar Hero Metallica, and c) dedicate himself to becoming the Ultimate Champion.

Corrupt like a senator

Public Enemy had it right. Congress is shamelessly crooked. This also explains why they behaved in such a shamelessly slavish manner towards Wall Street when their supposed masters, the American public, were vehemently against TARP and the bank bailouts:

An extensive study released Wednesday in the journal Business and Politics found that the investments of members of the House of Representatives outperformed those of the average investor by 55 basis points per month, or 6 percent annually, suggesting that lawmakers are taking advantage of inside information to fatten their stock portfolios.

“We find strong evidence that members of the House have some type of non-public information which they use for personal gain,” according to four academics who authored the study, “Abnormal Returns From the Common Stock Investments of Members of the U.S. House of Representatives.”

To the frustration of open-government advocates, lawmakers and their staff members largely have immunity from laws barring trading on insider knowledge that have sent many a private corporate chieftain to prison.

It’s that last sentence that shows America is not only dead, but well into a state of rigor mortis. Congressman are not only breaking the law, they have openly declared themselves to be above the law as well. And they are getting away with it.

Why Vox Day is chick crack

Over at Alpha Game, Susan Walsh has posted about a recent scientific study which delineated certain aspects of male and female appeal for the opposite sex. The key summary, at least as it related to the post title, was provided by the headline of one article related to the study.

“Brooding, Proud Guys Score High on Sex Appeal”

As I mentioned in the comments to Susan’s post, this provided Spacebunny with no little amusement, given her observation that my tendency to brood is apparently on par with that of Heathcliff and Darcy. My protests that I merely engage in the moderate amount of contemplation that is necessary to anyone dwelling in this vale of tears were met with a) a burst of incredulous laughter, and b) an appeal to the dictionary: “to dwell on a subject or to meditate with morbid persistence”. Emphasis, it would appear, on the morbid….

(Full confession: I tend to think of “brooding” in the sense of incubating eggs rather than a gerund indicating contemplative activity, which in part accounted for my protest.)

As for the other part, well, I am informed that every so often, I am inclined to comport myself in a manner that is indicative of an inclination to consider myself in a rather favorable manner. I would merely point out that these things are relative and is not that I think so well of myself, only that I am so often given reason to think little of others.

In any case, this new scientodical expansion of scientage may help explain why women continue to email me and send me their pictures after expressing their outrage concerning my written opinions and threatening not to have sex with me. I’d like to say that it is hard being an intellectual sex symbol, (although let’s face it, the bar is an extraordinarily low one), but frankly, my dears, I don’t give a damn.

Godlessness is more than a-theism

One thing I always enjoy about atheists is the shameless way they perform the Atheist Dance. They are such hopelessly muddled thinkers that they constantly define and redefine words as it happens to suit them at the moment, not infrequently contradicting themselves multiple times in a single article, blog post, or book. An atheist will claim that there is absolutely nothing that can be determined about him by the mere fact of his atheism except for his non-belief in a creator God, then immediately turn around and insist that of course he doesn’t believe in the power of crystals or Noah’s Flood… because he is an atheist and therefore obviously doesn’t believe in anything insufficiently “proven” by science… except for historical events that a sufficient number of people believe to be true… except for those related to religion. And so forth.

The observation that most atheism is little more than a juvenile psychological disorder tends to be supported by the fact that left-wing politics are far more central to most atheists, including some of the most outspoken ones, than their “atheism”, whatever that might actually happen to be. Consider the Fowl Atheist’s recent statement that godless goals are progressive goals:

All the big shots in the secular organizations I’ve met seem like rather progressive individuals who would agree entirely with Watson’s [radically pro-abortion] position, and I’ve seen some published statements here and there that support such liberal (i.e., rational) causes as women’s rights and gay rights and equality in general, but otherwise, these particular civil rights issues seem more assumed than advocated by the major organizations — they certainly don’t oppose them. I can understand how a non-profit might have to tread carefully on political claims (they can’t come out and damn the Republican party, after all), but Watson has a point.

Maybe there should be more overt activism for civil rights in general, in addition to the more focused attention given to atheist/humanist issues. Freethought movements should be about human dignity and freedom in all domains, not just religion. We should own these issues; we need to be on the right side of history….

Of course, such a move would piss off the libertarian/conservative wing of the atheist movement, but I can’t see a down side to jettisoning them, anyway.

That’s fine with me. I’d quite pleased to have libertarian atheists and conservative atheists on my side; they are proof that godlessness is not completely antithetical to political sanity. And it is amusing that PZ thinks that murdering unborn children is “the right side of history”; I have absolutely no doubt that the atheists of the future will be denying that pro-abortion equalitarians were motivated by their atheism in much the same way that atheists today deny that rabidly murderous Communists were motivated by their atheism.

Calling a feminist a feminazi is an insult to the German National Socialist Workers Party. The feminists and equalitarians have FAR more blood on their hands than the National Socialists ever did. Consider that in India, there are only 893 girls born for every 1,000 boys. In China, the girl/boy birth ratio is .855. And the more educated and wealthy a woman is, the more likely it is that she will murder her daughter.

“That decrease was even more marked in families where the mothers were wealthier and had 10 or more years of education compared with a poor and uneducated mothers – presumably because the wealthy are more easily able to obtain illegal abortions.”

In the name of progress and equality, up to 12 million Indian girls have been slaughtered in the last 30 years. This is not about human freedom and dignity, it is not “the right side of history”. It is nothing less than the greatest crime yet committed by humanity against itself. These progressive atheists and equalitarians will forever bear the curse of the hundreds of millions of innocents whose deaths they have not only demanded, but celebrated.

Cracks in the Euro

A Greek official finally admits the obvious:

Greece must take tough measures to deal with its debt crisis or it will have to return to the drachma, the EU’s Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki said on Wednesday. “I am forced to speak openly,” Damanaki was quoted as saying in a statement by the semi-official Athens News Agency. “Either we agree with our lenders to a programme of tough sacrifices … or we return to the drachma.”

I’m hoping Italy will return to the Lira, myself. I still have a few of them sitting around somewhere in the old filing cabinet. Anyhow, this “forced restructuring” is the only valid option since the ECB, the EU, and the bond-holding banks have repeatedly refused to cut Greece’s debts in a manner sufficient to permit repayment.

Homeschool or die vol. 7

If any other activity was this directly connected to increasing the teen mortality rate, it would be illegal:

Every two hours, a teenager in America takes his or her own life. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among youth, and the rate of teen suicide has roughly tripled since 1960…. Scientists have identified many contributing factors: Discrimination, the number of sexual partners, substance abuse, being dumped by a romantic partner, parental divorce, child physical and sexual abuse, bullying and even excessive video-gaming play a role. Scholars at the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center have offered a novel contributing factor to teen suicide: high school.

In a careful and persuasive paper released last fall called “Back to School Blues: Seasonality of Youth Suicide and the Academic Calendar,” Benjamin Hansen and Matthew Lang point out that suicides for 14- to 18-year-olds drop abruptly during June, July and August.

“The decrease in suicides for 14- to 18-year-olds during the summer months is stark, while the 19- to 25-year-olds see a slight rise in suicide rates during the summer,” the authors point out. “The fact that 15- to 18-year-old suicide rates decrease in the summer, but the 19-year-old suicide does not, suggests that the high-school calendar is playing a prominent role in youth suicide,” they conclude.

Given that the summer vacation reduces the teen suicide rate from 6.22 per 100,000 to 4.71, this means that banning public school would save 1,092 lives per year. This is far more lives than can be saved by most of the usual actions advocated by the save-the-children crowd. Since we are so often told that various laws are justified if just one child’s life is saved, and we also know that homeschooling is an academically superior method of education, how can anyone possibly argue in good conscience that eliminating the public schools is not an imminent moral imperative?

Banning public school will save more children’s lives on an annual basis than every vaccination program put together, in fact, it would save more children’s lives than seatbelt laws and child safety seats. Banning public school, or at least barring public school attendance after sixth grade, would reduce the third leading cause of youth death by 25 percent. And let’s face it, it’s not as if they’re even learning how to read or do math there anyhow.

A very good week in books

The Mises Institute released The Turgot Collection in both hardcover and epub format and I finally noticed that Umberto Eco’s latest novel, il cimitero di Praga, is in the bookstores.  (Spacebunny would like to point out that she informed me two months ago; I was under the impression it was a collection of newspaper columns in the mode of la bustina di Minerva.)  The best thing about having learned Italian is that I no longer have to wait a year for the English editions to be released.

A humble man

And one with much about which to be humble, most notably his governance of Minnesota:

Tim Pawlenty is in. So far, he has been talking tough — although his response to Paul Ryan’s House budget a few months ago was to jam his hands in his pockets, shuffle his feet a little, and then point and yell, “Look over there, at the debt ceiling!” (Also, I am secretly worried that Pawlenty’s ex-mullet will now write a tell-all book about him.)  And while his introductory video is effective at positioning himself as a “truth teller,” it contains one of my foremost pet peeves in political commercials: the “I’m from humble beginnings” talking point.

I have no desire to go into the specifics underlying my contempt for Tim Pawlenty, but suffice it to say that to my certain and personal knowledge, he is a conflict-avoidant coward, a mediocre, hands-off manager of the executive branch, and moreoever, one with zero regard for the letter of the written law.  Republicans who hope to ride this bland dishrag of a pragmatist to the White House will almost certainly find themselves badly disappointed, as the man has even less principle and backbone than George W. Bush.

Stay away from career women II

Yesterday a few working wives took exception to the logic which suggests that because working wives tend to have more affairs than non-working wives, it is wise for the man who is interested in marrying to eliminate career-oriented women from his list of prospective mates. This was entirely unsurprising, but not entirely unamusing.

On a seemingly unrelated note, I have been reading Umberto Eco’s On Literature this past week, and one passage in particular will surely remind the Dread Ilk of why I regard him as a writer worthy of a regard that comes perilously close to idolatry. (Bear with me, this will all make sense soon.)  “Our only commitment is, by serious and continued work, without giving in to any blackmail, to humiliate those who are our inferiors.”

Thus spake Umberto. And as an Award-Winning Cruelty Artist and Internet Superintelligence, I have little choice but to heed the Zarathustranesque call. Hier steh ich, ich kann nicht anders, weil es ist mein Los.

So. With that in mind, let us now consider the claims made by a few of the various female critics yesterday. Connie asserted: “The percentage of men who cheat on women still outnumbers the percentage of women who cheat on men by at least double.”

This is simply wrong; as I correctly concluded on the mere basis of her sex and passive-aggression. Connie is a statistical illiterate. The most recent figures I have seen report that 20% of married men and 15% of married women have been unfaithful. This means that men are 33% more likely to cheat than women, which is significantly less than “more than 100%.” But more relevant given the context of the post is the fact that men between the ages of 25 and 44, (the age range in which most marriage and marital unfaithfulness occurs), are also 21% more likely to be a participant in the labor force. This tends to support the reported link between increased female labor force participation and increased female unfaithfulness.

This link is further bolstered by a 2005 report which shows:

1. “Working women are more than three times more likely to be divorced than their stay-at-home counterparts.”

2. “The longer hours women work, the more likely they are to be divorced.”

3. “Compared to non-working women, those with a full-time job have a 29 per cent higher odds of divorce.”

Now, obviously not all divorces are the result of extramarital affairs, let alone affairs by the wife. But the statistics are conclusive and clear. If a man elects to pursue a relationship with a woman who intends to continue working full-time, he will significantly increase the chances that his wife will be unfaithful to him and that he will eventually end up divorced. Furthermore, he should also know that if his marriage survives, his wife will make for an inferior mother, as his children will be 23% less likely to pass college entrance exams, 29% more likely to be unemployed, and will weigh an average of four pounds more at age 11 than children whose mothers care enough about them to stay at home and raise them.

(For the Nth time, this should not be taken as criticism of single mothers who have no choice but to work and provide for their children. One cannot condemn a nonexistent choice. However, most working mothers who are married do not have to work, they have instead made a lifestyle choice that happens to place a priority on other things than personally raising their children. While it is their right to make such a choice, it is not their right to pretend they have not made it.)

BJ attempted to respond by relying upon the always humorous, but logically invalid Appeal to Individual Nonexistent Hearsay approach, as she wrote: “Sorry, but my husband has yet to tell me that a co-worker hit on him, but rather a customer (i.e., stay at home moms who are good wives and superior mothers).”

BJ’s argument is based on four central assumptions:

1. BJ’s husband as likely to report being hit on by a co-worker, who would be a regular threat to their marriage, than a customer with whom he spends far less, if indeed any, time. This may be true, but it is by no means certain.  And BJ is not a reliable determinant of her husband’s inclination to keep her informed on the subject.

2. BJ’s husband is equally attractive to his co-workers as his customers. This is questionable. Since his work brings him into regular contact with stay-at-home wives, his employment status is probably relatively low, an observation supported by our knowledge that BJ herself works and supplements the marital income.

3. BJ’s husband has a similar number of female co-workers and customers. This is unknown, but unlikely. But it’s an important assumption, because even if he had been hit on 10 times more often by stay-at-home wives than by his female co-workers, the logic would still remain relevant if he had 100 female clients and two female co-workers. While 10>1, 10%<50%.

4. BJ’s husband’s experience is statistically relevant. Since we are dealing with a sample size of one, it is obvious that her entire objection is completely spurious. In my own anecdotal and equally statistically invalid experience, I have never been hit on by a stay-at-home wife while I have been the recipient of definite indicators of sexual interest from working wives on many occasions. Of course, I have always been of relatively high employment status and my work seldom brings me into contact with stay-at-home wives, so it should come as no surprise that my experience would significantly diverge from that of BJ’s husband.

Connie next attempted to appeal to studies that equate women’s “equality” with national “happiness”. “The happiest societies on earth, those that were surveyed quantitatively on quality of life across a variety of factors, correlate strongly with the societies having the most equality for women.”  This is partially true, but as you might correctly conclude, it depends entirely upon how “happiness” is defined. Given that Egypt and Saudi Arabia were rated the 12th and 13th happiest nations on Earth by the New Economics Foundation, (the famously equalitarian nation of Sweden was ranked 53rd), her assertion is as dubious as it is irrelevant to the subject of whether working women are a reasonable bet to make good wives. Most “happiness” metrics are little more than a measure of societal wealth, and since only wealthy societies can afford the economic and societal ills of equalitarianism, (even if only for a few decades before the inevitable structural collapse), it should come as no surprise that the correlation is mistaken for causation by the illogical and statistically illiterate.

But without question my favorite response was the quintessentially feminine one from Betty, who apparently takes an ad hominem approach to ascertaining the truth of any and all things. “After reading vox’s blog about women in the workplace (talk about painting a “Scarlet S” with a wide brush) I can’t in good conscience buy the argument [the column on Herman Cain] above. Being a member of MENSA doesn’t make him unequivocally correct.”

It is absolutely true that my daunting superintelligence is no guarantee that I am correct on any given matter, it merely indicates that those of lesser intelligence, a subset of humanity which includes approximately 6.92 billion people if one rounds up from the nearest hundredth, should at least be open to the possibility that they are wrong when their opinion diverges dramatically from my own. However, neither the vastness of my intellect nor my statistically sound conclusions have anything at all to do with the wisdom of electing a former Federal Reserve executive to fix a problem that was primarily caused by the Federal Reserve, still less a Fed official who believes that the Fed has done nothing questionable, let along wrong.