Dangerous Curves and Roosters.....ahead (NSFW)

Normally I don't post NSFW stuff on the blog (it's a family friendly blog after all!), but I thought this was interesting.

Some colleges are just more fun/interesting/risqué then others, but my hats off to the industrious students at Bard College as Huffington Post and Jezebel report:

Jezebel: Why did you start Boobs@Bard? Is it just for fun? is there a political message behind what you are doing?

Boobs@Bard: [It] was initially conceived as an alternative to Bard's "nudity and body politics" magazine The Moderator. The nude student models in The Moderator always seem uncomfortable, weirdly bent over tree stumps, posing in recognizable campus locations. Additionally, the political nature of The Moderator was a bit of a turn off; I wanted to see my naked peers unabashed, not participating in hurried photo shoots to fit articles and deadlines. I wanted people to feel comfortable viewing these images in a variety of ways, from an appreciation of the female form to masturbatory purposes. Anonymity is the most important factor in my creation of the site, and I attribute much of the success of the site to this feature. The anonymity requirement has allowed numerous ladies the chance to exert their sexuality/femininity/womanhood/silliness in a creative way where other outlets have failed them.

Personally, the more public nudity we have the sooner it will lose its stigma. In this country we have so many social taboos on nudity and sexuality; the more desensitized that we become to nudity, the healthier our discourse on the subjects of sexuality and sexual health will be.

It's not like it will cause a major earthquake or anything!

So check it out here. And not to leave the ladies out in the cold so to speak.

-Cheers

The Double Down has nothing on this.....

My arteries hurt just from this (h/t Balloon Juice):

• 1 1/2 pounds ground beef
• 3 tablespoons freshly chopped parsley leaves
• 2 tablespoons grated onion
• House Seasoning, recipe follows
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 3 eggs
• 6 slices bacon, cooked
• 3 hamburger buns
• 3 English muffins
• 6 glazed donuts

Seriously, someone came up with this and thought, "You know what, we need more butter!".

-Cheers

Oh...but you knew that already...

There is a lot of talk on the interwebs about conservative epistemic closure (see here, here, here , here, here and here), some riveting stuff and interesting to watch the debate.

Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic encapsulated some of the things I have been thinking about over the last couple of years about the conservative/republican movement.

Can anyone deny that the most trenchant and effective criticism of President Obama today comes not from the right but from the left? Rachel Maddow's grilling of administration economic officials. Keith Olbermann's hectoring of Democratic leaders on the public option. Glenn Greenwald's criticisms of Elena Kagan. Ezra Klein and Jonathan Cohn's keepin'-them-honest perspectives on health care. The civil libertarian left on detainees and Gitmo. The Huffington Post on derivatives.

I want to find Republicans to take seriously, but it is hard. Not because they don't exist -- serious Republicans -- but because, as Sanchez and others seem to recognize, they are marginalized, even self-marginalizing, and the base itself seems to have developed a notion that bromides are equivalent to policy-thinking, and that therapy is a substitute for thinking.

It is absolutely a condition of the age of the triumph of conservative personality politics, where entertainers shouting slogans are taken seriously as political actors, and where the incentive structures exist to stomp on dissent and nuance, causing experimental voices to retrench and allowing a lot of people to pretend that the world around them is not changing. The obsession with ACORN, Climategate, death panels, the militarization of rhetoric, Saul Alinsky, Chicago-style politics, that TAXPAYERS will fund the bailout of banks -- these aren't meaningful or interesting or even relevant things to focus on. (The banks will fund their own bailouts.)

The elevation of bromides and slogans over actual policy is the most disappointing aspect. I have said it before, and I will say it again, I want there to be a sane conservative party. I think it is necessary to avoid this sort of insular group think that we are seeing the Right exhibit.

So I am even more dismayed when I see stuff like this:

In a study evaluating the program's effectiveness, Opower researchers compared power use before and after the HER reports began arriving, and further compared this change with a group of control households that never received the reports. On average, the HER households reduced their consumption in the months that followed by a little less than 2 percent. Not bad, but probably not enough to save the planet.

Working with the same utility as Opower, Costa and Kahn matched up information on the households in the pilot study to data on political affiliations and a database of past charitable giving to environmental organizations. The economists found that the 2 percent average decline in energy use obscured significant differences in the responsiveness of different types of households to the conservation message. Registered Democrats who give to environmental organizations and live near other liberals reduced their consumption by 3 percent. For liberals who started out as heavier-than-average consumers, the reduction was almost 6 percent. Republicans who live in conservative neighborhoods (and hence had no neighborly pressure to conserve) and had no record of giving to environmental organizations actually increased their consumption by 1 percent.

Why would some energy-conscious Republicans all of a sudden become power hogs? One explanation is that many conservatives don't believe that burning energy harms the planet, so when they learn that they're better than average, they become less vigilant about turning the lights off. That is, they're simply moving closer to what they now know is the norm (what psychologists call the boomerang effect). Costa and Kahn also look for guidance from the patron saint of right-wing fundamentalists, Rush Limbaugh, who encouraged his listeners to turn on all their lights during Earth Hour. Costa and Kahn suggest that ardently right-wing electricity customers might respond to paternalistic nudges by burning more energy, just to thumb their noses at Big Brother.

So if you wonder why it is I get angry watching the news, this would be why. When I see Republicans espouse blatant falsehoods and anchors let that pass I get more and more infuriated.

-Cheers

With great awesome, comes even greater awesome....

I know I am an evil person, but these made me laugh......

-Cheers

Too True...Too True...

Some things need no explanation (h/t The Daily Dish).

-Cheers

Dance Lessons!

From James Brown (h/t Cation).



I think if I did the funky chicken I would break my hip.

-Cheers

Perfection

Sometimes in life you come across something that is absolutely perfect. This is one of those things!

A graphical representation of the differences between dork, nerdness, and dweebdom!


The perfect combination of semantic argument and Venn diagrams. I am pretty sure and angel got its wings when this graph was made.

-Cheers

April 15

Cause I think everyone could use this as a reminder today.



-Cheers

/face palm

I am still lying (click for a larger version h/t The Atlantic).


I just have a feeling these people have not actually looked at any serious policy questions. Setting an arbitrary limit on the length of a bill is juvenile at best. I also like how there are never specifics on what is going to get cut, and the limited government fetish is just annoying. Smaller government, for the sake of smaller government just seems foolish.

More efficient government?

Sure. Sign me up!

But that is never the crusade. It is always for smaller, with no comment on what that would entail or the price associated with a reduction of government sponsored services. So by less government, do they mean less policemen, firefighters, or teachers?

Anyway this neo-libertarian, conservative palaver is just profoundly unserious. Some problems are complicated.

P.S Some Paul Anka for you!

-Cheers

This one is for Andy....

So I am a liar, I came across this article and had to share it.

To repeat, no one likes paying taxes. Yet we all want the benefits that they provide. There is always a lot of misinformation swirling around about taxes, especially during this time of year. Despite what cable channels and certain ideological pundits may claim, you are paying less taxes now then you would have last year or 5 years ago or 20 years ago etc.....

If anything, the government numbers I’m using here exaggerate how much of the tax burden falls on the wealthy. These numbers fail to account for the income that is hidden from tax collectors — a practice, research shows, that is more common among affluent families. “Because higher-income people are understating their income,” Joel Slemrod, a tax scholar at the University of Michigan, says, “We’ve been overstating their average tax rates.”

State and local taxes, meanwhile, may actually be regressive. That is, middle-class and poor families may face higher tax rates than the wealthy. As Kim Rueben of the Tax Policy Center notes, state and local income taxes and property taxes are less progressive than federal taxes, while sales taxes end up being regressive. The typical family pays a lot of state and local taxes, too — almost half as much as in federal taxes.

There is no question that the wealthy pay a higher overall tax rate than any other group. That is an American tradition. But there is also no question that their tax rates have fallen more than any other group’s over the last three decades. The only reason they are paying more taxes than in the past is that their pretax incomes have risen so rapidly — which hardly seems a great rationale for a further tax cut.

So why are those radio and television talk show hosts spending so much time arguing that today’s wealthy are unfairly burdened? Well, it’s hard not to notice that the talk show hosts themselves tend to be among the very wealthy.

Anyways, it bares repeating. I know, no one likes taxes but we should at least be able to agree upon what is and isn't actually true about those taxes.

-Cheers

Mental Health Day

In the lead up to Tax day, I will be posting lots of lounge music. You have been warned.



-Cheers

Conservative vs. Liberal....part 483

You know, in ever political discussion, when talking about the ideological right and left. There is a consensus that the both behave equally as bad. There is always an implied equivalence of the two sides.

As it is well know, I do not agree with that. Some times one side is worse than the other. Some times one side steps way beyond the bounds of reasonable dissent.

I hope that this, is some sort of hoax, cause if it isn't then we all have a lot more to be worried about.

Last Friday, someone going by the name "dermdoc" posted a thread on a message board for Texas A&M students and alumni with this topic: "Laid off my first Obama voting employee today."

"Our reimbursement rates are spiraling downward, taxes are projected to go up with Obamacare, so I did it," the person wrote. He later added: "I made this decision because I can."

"It is kind of interesting watching their face as you explain to them the economic consequences of the policies of the guy they voted for," wrote dermdoc.

Hotsheet reached out to the person who we believe to have been responsible for the posting, but our requests for comment went unanswered. Late Wednesday afternoon, after Hotsheet's inquiry, the thread appeared to be removed from the TexAgs.com Web site. (The original link was here.) We took screen shots before the removal; you can view the full first page of comments here.

The posting prompted 20 pages of comments, some celebrating dermdoc's initial post and others questioning whether it was appropriate for him to have laid off an employee seemingly on the basis of his or her politics.

I am fairly certain that is illegal. On top of showing a stunning lack of knowledge about the issues he purports to care about.

But to the main point. I do not recall, even at the height of Bush's tenure, these sorts of things being bandied about in the liberal community. Jokes about moving to Europe/Canada? Sure. Firing people, or intimating that if you vote for someone I don't agree with, that in and of itself is a fireable offense? What?!

This is the fever swamp that the modern day conservative/republican inhabits. Liberal/progressives are not people with whom they disagree, they are sinister agents who wish ill on the country have no love for said country and who posses ideas that are fundamentally evil.

This is no way to have a debate. The idea that the electorate is going to reward this sort of behavior just shows how far we have fallen, and has the air of oppression to it.

-Cheers

Misunderestimating Our Governmental Economy.

Over the last year or so, the elephant in the room has been our pending budget crisis. So I thought I might post a couple things in relation to any conversation on the subject that everyone should know.

Here is a graph (h/t The Daily Dish) of what citizens say they want cut versus the actual federal budget:
So when talking about spending cuts it is important to know what the main drivers are in our fiscal picture. As you can see above, the overwhelming majority of respondents want to see foreign aid cut. Yet you see how tiny a piece of the budget it is. Basically I think Dr. Krugman, once again gives a succinct way of viewing the basic issue:

The basic picture of the federal government you should have in mind is that it’s essentially a huge insurance company with an army; Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid — all of which spend the great bulk of their funds on making payments, not on administration — plus defense are the big items.

Unless we are willing to seriously address Medicare, Medicaid and Defense spending we have no hope of solving our budgetary issues. It absolutely is going to take some combination of spending cuts and tax increases to dig out this hole.

-Cheers

A New Nerdy Post...

So maybe I am the only person who would find this article interesting but over at the New York Times they have a series starting, in which they talk about calculus.

In middle school my friends and I enjoyed chewing on the classic conundrums. What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? Easy — they both explode. Philosophy’s trivial when you’re 13.

But one puzzle bothered us: if you keep moving halfway to the wall, will you ever get there? Something about this one was deeply frustrating, the thought of getting closer and closer and yet never quite making it. (There’s probably a metaphor for teenage angst in there somewhere.) Another concern was the thinly veiled presence of infinity. To reach the wall you’d need to take an infinite number of steps, and by the end they’d become infinitesimally small. Whoa.

They had me at this picture:


-Cheers

This is why you shouldn't be taken seriously.....

No comment.

-Cheers

Left versus Right: Quote of the day.

I always struggle when trying put into words some of the structural differences between right and left ideologies. So it was like I was hit with a lightning bolt when I saw these little paragraphs by the inestimable Dr. Krugman.

"On the right, people are for smaller government as a matter of principle — smaller government for its own sake. And so they naturally imagine that their opponents must be their mirror image, wanting bigger government as a goal in itself.

But it’s not true. I don’t know any progressives who gloat over increases in the federal payroll or the government share of GDP. Progressives have things they want the government to do — like guaranteeing health care. Size per se doesn’t matter. But people on the right apparently can’t get that."

This is a large part of it. Liberals and Progressives do not want a bigger government for the sake of bigger government. Specifically I want a smarter government. If it is big or small I do not really care as long as it works and does the things I deem are necessary. If a larger government infrastructure is required then so be it. It is not the size that I am preoccupied with, it is its efficacy that matters to me.

So to dispel the myth, I do not want a bigger government, just a better one. Somethings require more governmental intervention.

-Cheers

To the Pain....

So after a couple of tooth related mishaps for co-workers in the past week, I thought this was a bit funny. Peeps over at hyperbole and a half decided to update the tried and true pain chart.

You all may be familiar with the classic:


They updated it to provide a bit more information for the medical personel:

11: Blood is going to explode out of my face at any moment.
Too Serious For Numbers: You probably have Ebola*. It appears that you may also be suffering from Stigmata and/or pinkeye.

Ebola is such a colorful disease, it really gets your point across. Nothing says, "Help I am dying a horrific painful death. Get me immediate assistance or shoot me in the face!", quite like Ebola. Also the descriptions they have up
for the charts win at the funny...

-Cheers

A mind is a terrible thing to waste....

If you are a student, soon to be a student or know a student, you should probably read this article.

As mentioned before with the signing of the ACA (Affordable Care Act) and the reconciliation piece that followed, a major overhaul of the student financial aid system was also passed in to law.

There is some interesting and much needed changes in there. Here are some of the high points:

What's In
The compromise version of the
student loan legislation contains:

• $36 billion for Pell Grants
• $2.55 billion for historically black and other minority serving colleges
• $2 billion for a grant program for community colleges and career training programs
• $1.5 billion to expand income-based repayment options for student loan borrowers
• $750 million for College Access Challenge Grants
• $50 million to help colleges make transition to direct loan program

The whole piece bares reading, there might be some nuggets in there to help make you college journey a bit less expensive. So the short form is there is less money going to bank overhead an more money flowing directly to students.

Also I would like to wish Ed Whalen a blog-belated Happy Birthday. May his loins be girded, and may he be hail and hearty for years to come.

As well as preemptive congratulations to Scot Camp.....err...Doctor Scot Campbell on successful completion of his doctoral defense and dissertation deposit. Good job sir!

--edit: Oh What the hell...in honor of Ed and Single T a little youtube aeronautics for yo' ass!




-Cheers

Lying Women?!?

This is an interesting read and actually makes a whole lot of sense.

With the changes over the last several decades in social opportunities, this shouldn't be surprising. I guess the socialization has its blind spots. I would not have guessed that the numbers were so close.

In particular I found this section compelling:

The truth is that we have always lied about our sex lives. British men consistently claim to have had more partners than women - the current average is 13, while women claim to have had only nine.

Plainly, someone is lying here. While men might exaggerate their sexual conquests, the bigger liars are women.

When studies about sexual partners or fidelity use a mixture of face-to-face interviews and anonymous computer questionnaires, men will give the same answers to both, but women will report much higher numbers when the answers are anonymous.

Capt. Obvious alert>>> I guess women are just better liars them men.

In case you are wondering why I was perusing this article it all started with this post from Matt Yglesias. I tend to agree with Mr. Yglesias. The reason we don't see more female politician sex scandals, is because we a very small pool of female politicians.

There are differences between men and women, don't get me wrong, but politicians tend to be unified in a couple traits that are ripe for sex scandals. Huge massive egos, and Guido levels of narcissism.

-Cheers