Men's mate preferences change when situations change. Today, a woman's paycheck may be more appealing than her perfectly-baked brownies. Men's wages have been stagnant or declining for 15 years now, and the "family wage" of the industrial age has been replaced by the job insecurity of the global age.

Most couples require two paychecks to stay in the middle class, a math lesson that is not lost on men.

Judge Richard Posner, author of a book on the economics of mating, "Sex and Reason," suggests, "economics is not divorced from mate selection. People change their behavior as costs and benefits change."

J-Date, the popular online national dating service, automatically requests information on women's incomes, because their male clients ask for it.

Mary Balfour, director of Drawing Down the Moon, an executive dating agency based in London, says that college-educated and professional men in their 20s and 30s now want women who match their intellect and earning abilities. "It is only those in their 50s and 60s who tend to take a deep breath when introduced to powerful women," she says.

posted by John McCreery 3:25 AM

What is her job again?

We all know about the al Qaeda operative who was working with Pakistan, making real and useful contacts for them, and who was rendered useless when his name was published in the New York Times. We know about this because Reuters told us, after talking to Pakistani officials (Juan Cole is providing detailed and damning coverage in his blog). Were U.S. officials the first to "out" him, or did they merely confirm what Pakistan revealed? Frankly, I think either is gross incompetence, but apparently, this is all I should expect, considering this exchange between Wolf Blitzer and Condi Rice on Late Edition:

BLITZER: Had he been flipped, in the vernacular, was he cooperating with Pakistani intelligence after he was arrested?

RICE: I don't know the answer to that question, as to whether or not he was cooperating with them.

WHAT?? She doesn't know? I know!

How does the President's National Security Advisor constantly get away with making statements about her own incompetence on national news programs? (Yes, that's a rhetorical question. Don't strain yourselves.) posted by Opus (& Louise) 2:49 AM

Unabashed Solicitation

It's campaign season. Everybody and his brother wants your hard-earned dollars. Me, too. Please get out your plastic, click
Contribute to Democrats Abroad, and help us get out the overseas vote to put John Kerry in the White House and take back the House and Senate, too.

Democrats Abroad is the Democratic Party state committee that represents the five to seven million American citizens who live and work outside the United States. Why give your money to us?

*The Republicans have Dan Quayle running around the world saying that the overseas vote could swing this election.
*We Democrats abroad are inclined to agree. In 2000, the difference in Florida was 537 votes. We already have more than 400 Florida Democrats on our roles in the UK alone.
*Since the start of this year, we have grown from 30 to over 70 country committees, including start-ups like Donkeys in the Desert, our committee in formation in Baghdad.
*Republicans say that Americans overseas tend to vote Republican. We say that they are talking through their hat. Not only is our membership growing by leaps and bounds. Every time we hold bipartisan voting assistance events, we've got people lining up at our tables, while their folks sit twiddling their thumbs.

To make a long story short, we are doing so well that we have become, would you believe it, a targeted state, asked to participate in a coordinated campaign. Our assignment is to raise US$167,000 for get-out-the-vote advertising in international media and IMHO we ought to be able to do much better than that.

It sure would help, though, if friends and friends of friends, would join us in this effort. So once again, let me fall on my knees and beg, plead, cajole--Please get out your plastic, click Contribute to Democrats Abroad, and help us get out the overseas vote to put John Kerry in the White House and take back the House and Senate, too.

John McCreery is, among other things, International Vice Chair of Democrats Abroad

posted by John McCreery 2:18 AM

Keep on Fighting, Keep on Fighting

If your Republican friends seem a little down at the mouth, it could be news like this, reported in The Birmingham [Alabama] News.

But don't relax for a second. We want an absolutely, positively, totally crushing landslide, and we don't want to feel sandbagged because we left something undone.
posted by John McCreery 2:11 AM

30th Anniversary... Nixon Resigns

After a visit from a GOP congressional delegation that told him it was time, an increasingly isolated, martini-saturated, cottage cheese and ketchup eating Richard M. Nixon resigned the presidency thirty years ago today. We now have a sitting president who has done far worse than Nixon in terms of lying to Congress and the American people about his unilateral war in Iraq. We now have a Democratic challenger who avoids discussing the wrongness of the Bu$h "war of lies" in Iraq on the campaign trail because it is too divisive. Let's see if Shrum, From and the rest of the "brain trust" think it's too divisive to mention Watergate while on the hustings today. posted by Groom Lake 12:37 AM

Sunday, August 08, 2004

Go Get 'Em, Howard! YEAARRRGH!

Here's a bit of "must-see TV" for today: On CNBC's "Topic A" this evening, Dr. Howard Dean is guest-hosting in place of Tina Brown. Dean's guests include: Bev Harris, of blackboxvoting.org (who will demonstrate how quickly and easily touchscreen voting can be hacked into, and the results changed); California Sec. of State Kevin Shelley; Jon Stewart, of "The Daily Show"; and comedienne Margaret Cho.

Something tells me the Good Doctor had a hand in selecting his guests . . .

posted by Michael Scott 3:23 PM



 
 

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