We Just Kept Looking and Looking for a Connection That was NOT There

Interesting.  No systematic connection between junk food and obesity.

These researchers sat on the result for two years, trying to torture the data to make it come out "right."

Nod to the Blonde.

Best athlete out of Russia since Maria Sharapova!

This crow is the absolute bizzle:

Tumblr of the Day

Pizza Fractals!

Look, This is Not Complicated

Let's spell it out.

If you are invited to go on the Jon Stewart Show, you should go. It will be fun, Jon asks softball questions, it will be great, you will get to talk about your book

If, on the other hand, John Oliver, or Asif Mandvi, or Jason Jones, want to talk to you, just laugh at loud and hang up the phone. Do NOT talk to them. Do not do an interview. Do not even answer questions in writing. They already have an angle. They are smarter than you are, or at least they will seem smarter after they finish editing the interview.

Why do otherwise smart people convince themselves that they are going to be anything other than reamed? Froma Harrop is revealed here to be an unbelievable hypocrite and a self-important fool.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

She just couldn't believe anyone could disagree with her, and be anything but a "terrorist." She even goes so far as to say that that was NOT a metaphor. She meant it literally: disagree with me, and you are a terrorist. Didn't we all make fun of George Bush when he tried that same stupid line?

Now, I have always just thought Froma Harrop was another economically illiterate lefty journalista. Given that she never took any actual courses in college, it's not her fault.

But.... it turns out she is actually a really, really scary lady. Thanks, Jon Stewart, and thanks to John Oliver! Don't ever call me, by the way. I won't answer, John O.

Lagniappe: From Wikipedia.... Harrop is the President of the National Conference of Editorial Writers. One project of the NCEW is the Civility Project, aimed at restoring civility to America's public discourse. Her position was criticized by the Wall Street Journal, which noted the contrast between this role and her comparison of the Tea Party to terrorist groups such as al-Qaida. In her response to the criticism, Harrop stated, "I see incivility as not letting other people speak their piece." She subsequently deleted all the comments from the post and shut down the commenting feature of her blog.

On Computers / WiFi in Class

It is so important to this professor that people only pay attention to him in all his narcissistic glory that he forced the class into a smaller room....

JUST so there is no wifi.

Wouldn't it have been easier to stay in the large class and ban laptops? Or make it possible to jam wifi somehow? It can't be hard.

Or, you could just let the students decide. As I argued before.

Lee Siegel Is An Idiot

You don't have to be an idiot to write for the NY Times.

But it helps. P-Krrog, for example, is certainly not an idiot. But he has to act like one to publish in the Times.

Being an idiot is the only qualification I can see for Lee Siegel writing a column.

Some analysis, from NO MORE MISTER NICE BLOG.

A lagniappe: Here is Mr. Siegel being an idiot on the Daily Show. Now that "Kim Jong Il Looking at Things" won't have any new entries, perhaps someone can have a blog entitled "Lee Siegel Being An Idiot." It would have daily entries.

9 ball, corner pocket!

Hashtag of the day

OccupyNigeria

Darned Tricky Numbers

Sometimes people wonder what kind of people want to write for the lefty bed-wetting press. Why would such a talented person want to "give" so much of themselves, taking a low salary just so they can speak truth to power? Those guys must be VERY good people....

Or perhaps they are just another idiot who got some fraudulent "______ Studies" major. And so they never learned how to calculate percentages or hold a real job. Now they blame the system for how much their little lefty lives suck.

An example:

Survey: Illegal Corporate Campaign Contributions Up 400%

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Jan 12, 2012 at 6:41 pm

In 2009, just 1 percent of respondents to National Business Ethics Survey — a large industry study funded by major corporations like Walmart — said they had witnessed illegal corporate political donations. This year, that number quadrupled to 4 percent. Management-level employees at large, publicly traded companies were most likely to see the illegal activity, with seven percent of senior managers saying they had witnessed it.

If this guy had not majored in International Relations (at Brown, no less, the home of "Studies Studies"), he would know that this is:

(4-1)/1= 3

3 n.e. 4

But of course the actual numbers don't matter. It's the truthiness of the scare tactic that's important.

A complicating factor is that the Dems got FAR more corporate money than the Repubs in 2008. The problem for the bed-wettery is not that corporations can give money. The problem is that corporations can give money to Republicans. THAT cannot be allowed.

Nod to Chateau

Fair Trade Frolics

This is just remarkable. Mr. Overwater did convince me of the importance people on the left attach to good intentions, regardless of whether the consequences are actually good. I think that is a big explanation of the popularity of "fair trade": I am paying more for this, an act of sacrifice and therefore of virtue. The fact that essentially none of the money actually makes it to the farmers is beside the point. I sacrificed, and therefore I am a good person.

But it's bizarre that people actually think the fair trade scam makes food healthier, or that it has fewer calories. Wow. You bedwetters believe that whatever lame secular god you worship will bless you with thinness, because you performed the good work of paying more for regular old coffee that happens to have a "fair trade" label on it.

The “Fair Trade” Effect: Health Halos From Social Ethics Claims

Jonathon Schuldt, Dominique Muller & Norbert Schwarz
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming

Abstract: The authors provide evidence that social ethics claims on food packaging (e.g., fair trade) can promote the misperception that foods are lower-calorie and therefore appropriate for greater consumption. In Study 1, participants evaluating chocolate provided lower calorie judgments when it was described as fair trade — a claim silent on calorie content but signifying that trading partners received just compensation for their work. Further establishing this effect, Study 2 revealed that chocolate was perceived as lower-calorie when a company was simply described as treating its workers ethically (e.g., providing excellent wages and health care) as opposed to unethically (e.g., providing poor wages and no health care) among perceivers with strong ethical food values, consistent with halo logic. Moreover, calorie judgments mediated the same interaction pattern on recommendations of consumption frequency, suggesting that amid the ongoing obesity crisis, social ethics claims might nudge some perceivers to overindulge. Theoretical and applied implications are discussed.

Nod to Kevin Lewis

Romance is Costly?

Does the number of sex partners affect educational attainment? Evidence from female respondents to the Add Health (older version, ungated)

Joseph Sabia & Daniel Rees, Journal of Population Economics, December 2011, Pages 89-118

Abstract: We use data on young women from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to explore the relationship between number of sex partners and educational attainment. Using the average physical development of male schoolmates to generate plausibly exogenous variation in number of sex partners, instrumental variables estimates suggest that number of sex partners is negatively related to educational attainment. This result is consistent with the argument that romantic involvements are time consuming and can impose substantial emotional costs on young women.

Not sure this is right. Not directly a "cost," as much a correlate. Wasting time on promiscuity is dangerous and a sign of poor judgment, maybe also an artificially short time horizon. People with good decision making skills and a longer time horizon just aren't tempted to be promiscuous. This isn't sex, this is NUMBER of sex partners.

So, it's not, "Ya know, I could go to a bar, pick up a guy I've never met, and then do the bouncy-bouncy until daylight. But that would cost me too much time that I should spend studying for my PhD in physical chemistry. I would prefer to go out, of course, but I'll stay home." Rather, someone with ambition would just never consider doing those things. It's not appealing.

What I am trying to say is that the level of appeal of random hook-ups is the same for every woman, not that great. What differs is access to something else, an ambition for a career, which may come from having role models or parental encouragement from a young age. The hook-ups thing is just not that much fun.

Blogoverse needs Pritchett

Lant Pritchett is guestblogging up a storm about conditional cash transfers.

Check out these two excellent (albeit perhaps slightly contradictory) posts here and here.

Self-recommending.

A NOTY problem

Name of the Year. You can vote, America.

WARNING: NSFW. NSF anything, really. Utterly pointless. But if you read this blog, that must be attractive to you.

As our correspondent M-Ka notes, "I know from following your blogs every day, and listening to you on EconTalk, that you and Dr. Grier disdain both frivolity and low culture. But I do think you might like to promote this on KPC:

I voted for La'Peaches (check out the link to her), and Monsterville Horton IV (because of his obvious aristocratic status). And Vernon Lee Bad Marriage Jr. won his round!"

Thanks, M-Ka!

White Girl Problems

Okay, I'm not proud of this.

But if I need a pick me up, no more than twice a day or so (no, really), I just crank up Twitter and watch #whitegirlproblems . It's extremely rewarding. Some are likely serious, some are certainly not. But rewarding.

In five minutes, you will laugh out loud at least five or six times.

Things like:

I prayed for your forehead last night.

Pulled up to a stop light, blaring Lil' Wayne, & 2 black guys just broke up laughing.

If only I could unf**k you

So pale.... so pale

Kindle wouldn't connect to wi-fi, so I had to buy an actual book

Too busy to work on job applications

It's art, actually.

David Theroux: Secular Theocracy II

"Secular Theocracy: The Foundations and Folly of Modern Tyranny”

As a reminder, here again is Part 1...


The full article with footnotes is here

Krueger on Inequality

This would be Alan ("Nominal") Krueger, not Anne ("Real") Krueger. The problem is that Alan is not adjusted for infliction (of nonsense).

His screed on inequality and its causes.

The slides for the speech.

The topic is an important one. Dr. K's presentation of the problem are interesting. Not sure why he decided to go all simplistic on the "causes," tho. This is complicated.

(Nod to E-Chris)

There is no great stagnation II (DJ style)

Check out these amazing turntable decks made from LEGOS! This one came from Germany and has a construction manual available here along with more pics:

This one is from the good old USA (more info here):

There is no great stagnation

Every single day of my life I thank the universe with Tebow-ish fervor that I was not doomed to live in an age when THIS was considered entertainment:

Let us now praise famous men

My main man, co-blogger, and friend of over 30 years, Mungowitz really outdid himself by sending me this *awesome*, nearly life-sized, David Freese world series bobblehead. 

Feast your eyes, people. Feast your eyes.

(clic the pic for an even more glorious image)

Che says, "Down with capitalist pigs! Buy my merchandise!"

umm....this kind of stuff happens all the time

Headline on Yahoo this morning condemning "human zoo" where indigenous people danced for tourists in exchange for food.

People, to different degrees, this happens all the time all over the world. Mrs. A and I have seen it advertised in Africa, Asia & Latin America. Heck it happens in Hawaii quite a bit!

I don't like it. We avoid such suggested outings, and have at times simply left our hotel when groups were brought in to perform. I feel like the people must hate doing it and that makes me embarrassed to watch/listen. (I have enjoyed gamalan concerts in Bali and traditional dance performances in Bali though (at places where you went and bought a ticket) so maybe I am a hypocrite here?) It is usually very hard to convince local people that you don't want to go to the "show".

But, food is good. Money is good. If the "performers" aren't slaves and choose to do their thing in exchange for the offered remuneration, how is it like a zoo? By my refusal to attend, am I sending people home to be hungry?

Every day, all over the world, millions of people voluntarily do things we generally consider unseemly or unsafe or undignified. This is one reason why, to me at least, global economic growth is still imperative.

Penn Jillette, Atheist

I don't think you are TRYING hard enough

Fuel companies fined for their petty refusal to an additive in gasoline.

Look, the law says they have to do it. Stop fooling around, guys.

Of course, their lame excuse is that the additive does not actually exist.

The answer is that if your government is smart enough to imagine what it wants, the least you can do is actually make the stuff.

(Nod to Anonyman)

Hashtag of the day

People, check out the tweets at #ronpaultroofs

Here's one I especially liked:

"Ron Paul gave George Washington Carver his first peanut." 

and another:

"If you smoke like Ron Paul smokes, then you're high, like, every day."

Why Is This So Difficult?

Three suggestions about things you never say, or always say, or should say, to a potential mentor.

This week...THIS WEEK... I have gotten messages or had phone conversations that violated all three.

In particular, I suggested we meet at 10 am. Two different people wanting advice said, "No, that's too early for me. Can we do it some other time?"

Sure, we can do it during that time when I otherwise would have been writing you a pretty good letter of recommendation. Because now it is NOT going to be a good letter of recommendation.

Just read this. The guy has it right. And hopefully you are angling for being mentored by somebody WAY better than I am anyway, so it will actually matter!

Get your money out of PIMCO....

....because its CEO, the ubiquitous Mohamed El-Erian is a nincompoop!

Check out this gibberish in today's WSJ:

"Fat tails"—the technical term for the extremes of an outcome distribution—are risks for any global system that loses its anchors. Economies and markets function differently, companies and households feel unsettled, and policy measures become less effective.

Oh my. Where to begin.

First, "fat tails" is not a "technical term". The technical term is excess kurtosis. Fat tails is the colloquial, layman's term.

Second, fat tails is decidedly NOT a term for "the extremes of an outcome distribution"! The normal distribution is an outcome distribution. It does not have "fat tails". In fact it is the lack of fat tails in the normal distribution that lead so many models to go astray

How can this dude spew nonsense like this and get away with it? He's failing Stats 101.  It must be the 'stache.

Finally, the second sentence is even weirder than the first. I cannot make out what he is saying. Is he trying to say that recent events have changed the shape of the "outcome distribution"? Or that when we realized the outcome distribution had fatter tails than was previously thought, people changed their behaviors? The second interpretation at least makes some sense.

My Guy Tom Ferguson Analyzes Rick Santorum

From Alternet.... Tom makes a lot of sense.

Blind mole rat.... heh. Heh heh.

Americans Against Logic

Okay, so a tactical tip: If the Jon Stewart show wants to interview you, say no. Because not only will you be reamed, you will be complicit in your own reaming. I cannot understand how JS can find such self-important idiots. The Republican here... wow.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

I think Republicans are hypocrites, yes I do.
I think Republicans are hypocrites, how 'bout YOU?

(Nod to Anonyman)

Faking It

The Economics of Faking Ecstasy, Hugo Mialon, Economic Inquiry, January 2012, Pages 277–285

Abstract: In this paper, we develop a signaling model of rational lovemaking. In the
act of lovemaking, a man and a woman send each other possibly deceptive signals about their true state of ecstasy. For example, if one of the partners is not in ecstasy, then he or she may decide to fake it. The model predicts that (1) a higher cost of faking lowers the probability of faking; (2) middle-aged and old men are more likely to fake than young men; (3) young and old women are more likely to fake than middle-aged women; and (4) love, formally defined as a mixture of altruism and demand for togetherness, increases the likelihood of faking. The predictions are tested with data from the 2000 Orgasm Survey. Besides supporting the model's predictions, the data also reveal an interesting positive relationship between education and the tendency to fake in both men and women.

So, I wondered a couple of things.
1. This would not apply just to het couples. Is it different for gay men or for lesbian women?
2. It took me a minute to realize that the "2000 Orgasm Survey" was referring to a year, not a benchmark.
3. I asked the LMM, "You never fake, do you!" She said, "Of course not! Then she went upstairs and closed the door, but I could still hear her laughing.

Lagniappe: Here is a video of the author presenting the above paper...


(Nod to Kevin Lewis, who never fakes)

Can Men and Women Be Just Friends

On the Utah State U campus, a team of crack investigators ask the question, "Can men and women 'just' be friends?"

Women say "yes." Men laugh at the very idea. Men are not good people.



Now, the Bishop and I know that married men can be just friends with women.

First, we fear our wives enough to know we had better not even think about anyone else.

Second, if we piss off our wives, we are going to be "just friends" even in our houses for several nights. "Honey?" "Don't touch me..."

(Nod to the Blonde, who is not surprised by any of this.)

Regulatory Capture Video

KPC friend Susan Dudley on regulatory capture. Nicely done, ma'am!

D-Bro Loses His Mind

David Brooks says this:

"If you believe in the centrality of family, you have to have a government that ... SUPPLIES WAGE SUBSIDIES TO MEN TO MAKE THEM MARRIAGEABLE." (ellipsis/emphasis added to make sure you don't miss it.)

You can look it up. He says that.

Thanks to Jim D for pointing this out. I had missed it. I thought it was just a run-of- the mill paean to Santorum. The collective values, the communitarianism, that's all fine.

But D-Bro raised it to a whole other level. We have to PAY men to get married. He actually comes close to saying, "If you are getting the milk for free, why buy the cow?"

Funny or Die

We need a new scare for funny.

This, for example, is veryveryvery funny, and outrageous.

But then this is even funnier.

And the commercial in that clip above, starting just after 3 minutes in, with Mike Tyson as Herman Cain...we need a new word. Mr. Tyson totally nails it.

Made me laugh, it did.

More good news

Wow! The December 2011 jobs report is out.  200,000 net new jobs. Pretty good. Unemployment rate falls to 8.5%. 

Good news for president O. 

 

Surge Pricing

Tremendous example of the complexity of price as a moral principle and a rationing device. Courtesy of Reihan Salam.

Long, Huang Eat Pussy, Long Goes Down, Huang Hung

Wealthy Chinese man dies after eating poisoned stew made from slow-boiled cat.

A Chinese billionaire is dead after apparently ingesting some slow-boiled cat meat stew — though it wasn’t the cat meat that killed him.

Police in southern China have detained a local official on suspicion of poisoning the stew at the restaurant where the two were eating in Guangdong province on Dec. 23.

Agriculture official Huang Guang, billionaire Long Liyuan and a third diner were sharing a cat meat hot pot — a local delicacy — when Huang allegedly dropped some toxic herbs into the stew, the BBC reported.

Long, who ran a forestry company, was taken to the hospital after feeling dizzy and sick and later suffered a cardiac arrest. Huang and the third diner were hospitalized as well, though both survived.

According toFlickr user MowT the New York Times, Huang had apparently eaten some of the poisoned stew himself to avoid suspicion.

Police detained Huang on Dec. 30, after discovering evidence that Huang had embezzled money from Long.

Police initially took the restaurant’s owner into custody on suspicion of serving unsanitary food, according to the BBC. Long’s family, not believing he died simply of food poisoning, offered a $16,000 reward for information and insisted police keep the case open.

(Nod to the Blonde, who of course was mostly all excited about the title. I think she rented this movie last week.)

(UPDATE: Yes, I was thinking of Tom G. when I wrote this)

would you believe?

Would you believe me if i told you that, before roasting and eating that marshmallow, Kanzi the bonobo had (a) collected the wood, (b) built the fire (c) grilled up some burgers, and (d) ate them?

How about if I told you after he was done that he put the fire out with a bottle of water?

Well, it's all true!

Kanzi apparently lives in Iowa and to my mind is much more qualified for the GOP presidential nomination than any of the other "primitive creatures" who just left the State.

Okay, NOW You Can Kill Eagles (But Not Bats), To Show You Love Gaia

So, if all you are doing is building a factory that will create hundreds of jobs, and produce something people want to buy, you will be blocked by the Endangered Species Act. In fact, you may even have to close an existing golf course, because the nice froggies might not like it.

But if you want to build a "wind farm," which actually is a net loss of energy (counting the costs of construction and decommissioning), and produces almost zero jobs, then the feds will happily WAIVE the ESA. Kill all the eagles you want! (But not bats, apparently. Interesting.)

Now, in my view, the ESA is a death sentence, a stupid law that kills more creatures than it saves, by far. But still, if you believe the ESA works, why suspend it for such a marginal "industry" as wind?

Unless of course the whole thing is fake and all you really care about is the costly signal of worshipping Gaia, the Earth Mother? In that case, building an idiotic temple of wind and sacrificing eagles to Gaia actually count twice. We worship you, Gaia! And higher costs mean we love you more! Abraham was only willing to sacrifice his son. WE are willing to sacrifice eagles!

(Nod to the Blonde)

Great Essay by Ta-Nehisi Coates

It's in the Atlantic and it's called "Why do so few blacks study the civil war?"

It rejects the idea that the war was a tragedy; that is was a result of a failure to compromise, or of misunderstandings, the romanticizing of the gentlemanly southern generals.

Money quote:

For African Americans, war commenced not in 1861, but in 1661, when the Virginia Colony began passing America’s first black codes, the charter documents of a slave society that rendered blacks a permanent servile class and whites a mass aristocracy. They were also a declaration of war.

The final part of Charles Mann's excellent 1493 gives a good overview of the war between Europeans and slaves fought across the Americas.

Gun Control, Okie style

When faced with a home invasion, this Oklahoma woman, grabbed the family shotgun and pistol, called 911 for directions, and then shot and killed the person who kicked down the door to her home.

The intruders seemed to be targeting her house because her husband had just passed away.

Mrs. Angus and I go target shooting at a local firing range, and the gender mix there is easily 30% female.

By the way, Mrs. Angus is a pretty good shot!