Although we recognize that patriotism is often the handmaiden of dehumanization, we haven’t yet given up the notion of Manichean struggle between evil and good. – Zach Weiner
Surprised to see this on Monday? Next week it’ll be on Tuesday, and so forth until it arrives back in its normal Sunday slot on March 17th. The reason for this is that I wanted to do something a little different while the TW3 columns are borrowing the Links columns’ numbers, and beside it’s nice for a change. We’ve only got one video this week, but that’s OK because I really wanted to share this large graphic of Venn diagrams which Radley Balko discovered on Reddit; the graphic puts Balko just barely ahead of Grace this week because each of them contributed three links (Balko the three above the graphic, and Grace “old people”, “crumpled paper” and “spiders”). The video (a parody of early ’70s anti-drug films) and the link just above it were provided by my cat, and the links between the graphic and the video by Amy Alkon (“Hello Kitty”), Popehat (“printers”), Eugene Volokh (“Uncanny Valley”), Michael Whiteacre (“Shirley Temple”), Mike Siegel (“drug war” and “Leviathan”), Nun Ya (“flaming cheese”), Jesse Walker (“lone villain”), and Brooke Magnanti (“bakemono”).
- Kindergartener arrested for wearing the wrong color shoes.
- Another great moment in correlation vs. causation.
- Headline of the week.
- Women who write crap like this on Jezebel are the same ones who think that hookers are “exploited” and that clients have “power” over us.
- Japanese official says old people should hurry up and die to save the government money.
- Kindergartener suspended as “terrorist” for talking about her pink “Hello Kitty” bubble gun.
- Schoolgirl called “murderer”, threatened with arrest for crumpled paper.
- There are 86,000 unprotected printers you can access via the internet.
- Masahiro Mori’s seminal robotics article, “The Uncanny Valley”.
- Shirley Temple joins Twitter, asks who Honey Boo Boo is.
- Obviously, the drug war isn’t quite bad enough yet.
- Flaming cheese shuts down Norwegian highway.
- “The lone villain with an army of automata.”
- A rare victory against Leviathan.
- Bakemono fashion.
- More of this, please.
- Wendy McElroy on zombies.
- A little learning is a dangerous thing.
- The most beautiful spiders you’ll ever see.
- Gareth Morgan, feline genocide proponent.
From the Archives
- A two-part debunking of a “sex trafficking study” which relies on the respected scientific methodology known as “wild guessing”.
- When the Long Island killer first appeared, the newspapers blamed Craigslist and the DA blamed the victims.
- The only realistic estimate ever done of the number of American whores.
- British cops seduce women under false pretenses in order to bust them.
- Queensland cops use loophole in law to harass and victimize whores.
- Jacob Sullum slams Kristof as a proponent of laws that harm women.
- Busybodies mind other people’s business most when sex is involved.
- An English nun helps streetwalkers without trying to “rescue” them.
- Washington, D.C. AG admits a prohibitionist law is unconstitutional.
- Meet Wanda, a call girl who specializes in very exceptional clients.
- Three politicians vow to do all they can to increase the rape rate.
- Clara Ward, who went from debutante to princess to courtesan.
- An “app” designed to automate callouts misses one vital point.
- CNN’s contribution to the grand tradition of yellow journalism.
- Is it wrong to offer a homeless young woman money for sex?
- Competition pole dancers claim they’re better than strippers.
- High-ranking Swedish official busted for running brothels.
- American prisons punish prisoners for masturbating.
- Marriott announces it’s discontinuing in-room porn.
- What can a woman do about painful intercourse?
- German porn star dies during her sixth boob job.
- A catalog of essays and studies about sex work.
- New hope for men with Peyronie’s syndrome.
- Serial rapist of prostitutes caught in Florida.
- The Great New England Bestiality Panic.
- How is a moral panic like a rhinoceros?
- The gentrification of Nevada brothels.
- Walking stereotype sues whore.
Oregon and cigarette bans …
I pretty much disdain cigarettes but people should be allowed to do what they wish in their own homes at least. I kind of hope that Oregon adopts this law precisely because it’s so ridiculous. With Oregon passing laws against tobacco, and New York City banning everything under the sun (apparently only by decree of “His Holiness” Bloomberg) … with California banning consensual sex (pretty much) …
The rubber band is tightening and there WILL be a backlash eventually – so more please.
By the way – there are already some people waiting to capitalize on the proposed ban on high-capacity magazines …
http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/121171/3D_print_high_capacity_magazines/
So what do you think the government response to this will be? Why – implementing bans and restrictions on 3d printers!! Would not surprise me at all that someday we may be required to “register” our 3D printers with the BATF.
Nice graphic.
The little red dots are the correct sizes, but that last one should really be *fully* inside the pink circle, now, tell the truth.
Not true; the most recent school shooter stole his weapons, and others can as well.
Maybe Earth makes a distinction between “have” and “own”. Someone who stole a gun “has” it, but doesn’t “own” it, if that makes sense to you (English is not my native language, so I wouldn’t know whether that disctinction is common or indeed relevant).
However, the text inside the last one should be “People who have guns” rather than “People have have guns”.
That’s exactly why I ignored the distinction between “have” and “own” (you are correct in that it’s a relevant one); it was pretty clear to me the designer threw this together quickly and didn’t proofread it, so I assumed he really meant “who own” rather than “have have”.
Whether it’s “own,” as you assume, or “have,” as the graphic actually says, matters hardly at all.
A case where a gun was stolen is what is called “an anecdote” — that is not data.
The data are very clear: the mass shootings we are quite rightly very concerned about are being done by people who “own” guns. A case of a stolen gun doesn’t change that.
I love you and what you do, but libertarianism is a religion and like all others it blinds us to some truths.
Insisting that human beings have natural rights is not a “religion”; pretending that they are doled out by “lawful authorities” at their whims is.
On zombies, I can’t let this pass without posting this…
On the Japanese urban disguise as a vending machine… What happens if he puts money in and doesn’t get product out and then punches the machine???
Why does it not surprise me that a AUSA who would hound a “defendant” (read victim) to suicide would also be complicit in trying to steal a family business under color of law?
Isn’t there also a link between the reduction in the number of pirates and global warming? I’m sure that the reason temperatures have leveled out in the past decade has to do with the rise of the Somali Pirate! Those global benefactors…
Loved the story about Wanda. But back in the day Larry Niven wrote about one potential problem with these relationships, as recounted here:
http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html
“Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex” is a classic. I was picturing Wanda’s clients as the less-godlike tier of superheroes, though. 😉
But… where do they get the money? Many superheroes seem to have trouble making ends meet (the ones who are filthy rich are the exception, I think).
Reread the passage about payment. IMHO most superheroes wouldn’t have trouble getting money if they set their minds to it.
As far as I know, being a superhero doesn’t pay the bills. So unless they have a way to use their talents unobtrusively to make money while they’re passing off as normal or have a sponsor, I still don’t see where they get the means (as superheroes wouldn’t steal or extort – though supervillains wouldn’t hesitate).
We can all think of ways that superheroes could use their powers to earn money: the Flash would make a superb courier, Superman could always buy a little coal and get rich in a hurry by making a few (not too many!) diamonds, and so on.
Now we should ask ourselves: why don’t comic book superheroes do these things?
Weird about those synchronies – I hadn’t heard mention of that article since The Watchmen came out. Yesterday, I was reading Luminosity – a Twilight reimagining with Bella being a highly intelligent rationalist – and she mentioned that article by name, in regards to why she was definitely going to hold off on any intense physical intimacy with Edward.
Adults have been bitching and moaning for decades that schools need to “get tough” with kids, instead of coddling them. Well, they got their wish.
Yes, you COULD send random butt pics to all those unsecured printers, but I like that in the comments, several people suggest better uses for this security gap than pranking.
I am of course familiar with the Uncanny Vally (the movie Beowulf comes to mind), but now I can read the actual essay, in an English translation approved by Mori himself. Thank you.
Well, now I want to try Brunost.
What I object to isn’t the love villain, but the way robots are almost always portrayed as evil. On a (very tangentially) related note, Col. Klink wouldn’t be a war criminal.
God bless Judge Dein.
I’m not in the habit of wearing skirts, but now I want one of those vending machine skirts.
Gee, there goes that mail-order nutmeg idea I was playing with.
They have bright colors, but they’re still creepy, hideous, and repulsive. Spiders, ICK!
“What hope is there for environmentalists in conversation where our side wants to take people’s kittens away?”
He doesn’t want to take you kittens away, NZers. He wants you not to replace that kitten after it grows up, grows old, and dies like they always do. But know, people will replace these purring killers, and cry when THAT ONE dies, and then buy another, eternally. They will spend money and put up with endless annoyance, just so they can cry when it dies. People are freaking masochists.
That video has me wanting to swing by PetCo. Cue Laura to start laughing.
An episode of Getting High With Greg features Greg (duh) testing what happens if one smokes catnip. It has to be seen to be (not) believed.
PetCo…LOL…wink (too early for me to feel up to looking for the winking head code…LOL)
;) will give you 😉
When typing on a QWERTY keyboard, your right pinky rests on the semicolon, and the right parenthesis is just SHIFT+8 again on the QWERTY part, not the separate number group of keys.
OK, thanks! it’s easier to look this up than go through my e-mails to find the codes.
Salticid spiders are awesome. They are tiny (the link has one sitting on a thumbnail, for comparison). They jump (they are hunters, not web-spinners). And you look at them, they look back. Rather than having eyeballs like us, their retinas are mobile. When you see their eyes change from grey to black, it’s because they have moved their retina around to the point where they are looking at you.
Cutest spiders evar. I get ’em running across my desk at work occasionally. Here’s a link, but it has no pics 🙁 http://www.biodiversity.org.au/afd/taxa/SALTICIDAE
I mean, just put “salticid” into google images and tell me you don’t go ‘Sqeee!’. Look at this little fella: http://salticidae.org/salticidaeOrg.gif .
Less ‘squee!’ and more ‘eek!’
The only spider I like is named Peter Parker, and even then I try not to look at his chest too much.
I’ve always thought wolf spiders were kinda funny – the way they won’t back down and keep turning to face you and making little jumps in your direction. It’s like the little teacup dog that thinks he just as tough as the great dane next door. I always catch the wolf spiders and put them outdoors. Black widows, Hobo Spiders and such, though, it’s a case of yah eeh yah SQUISH. Not having any of that in the house!
I’m convinced: I’m swearing off the ‘nip. I don’t want to be stuck in the tub.
As you are aware, being acquainted with logical argument, the entire contigency tree needs to be taken into account when inferring association.
Hence, one also needs to look at the numbers of people who shoot kids that don’t own (or have easy access to) guns. That number would be very close to zero…in fact probably actually zero.
The same can’t be said for the other variables in that graphic.
Therefore the graphic is a rhetorical device designed to draw attention away from the other half of the contingency table, and to spuriously lump an important variable in with ones that are not – straight out of any logical fallacy or “how to lie with statistics” type book.
Wholly ingenuous? I have doubts.
The Venn diagram is not accurate. In that last one, “people who have guns”, the “people who shoot kids” circle belongs entirely inside the bigger circle.
No, it doesn’t; it clearly means “own guns” rather than “have in their possession at the moment”. The last school shooter stole his, and he’s not alone.
Sorry. I guess it just wasn’t clear to me. THe word was “have”, not “owns”. It remains the case that every fatal shooting is done by someone with a gun, and therefore someone with access to a gun.
The Jezebel link – Jesus. Took her 9000 attempts before simply asking the guy to leave, which he promptly did. And to do so, she had to dehumanize him to “asshole”.
See https://encyclopediadramatica.se/Almost_raped .
And he’s “an asshole” because he didn’t get her hints. Her very womanly hints. IOW, he’s an asshole because he isn’t like a woman.
Some women should be lesbians.
Actually, I thought he was an asshole from the moment he was asking about the lesbian friend (from her description). Doesn’t change the fact she should have asked him to leave right away, instead of trying to drop subtle hints (I wouldn’t have understood the thing about tea if she hadn’t explained).
He wasn’t exactly subtle himself, and yeah, a bit assholish. But every missed clue (an offer of tea means “I don’t want to have sex with you?” Maybe I should start offering Tracy something else) made him more evil in her eyes. And, asshole or not, when asked to leave, he did with no trouble (except the booby request).
A whole, whole LOT of women do the subtle clue thing. I’ve missed opportunities to have sex with some real cuties and some real sweeties (oftentimes the same woman) because I finally got the hint an hour or so too late.
Correlation vs Causation… did you catch Satoshi Kanazawa’s recent (March 3) article about that? It’s slightly overstated, but mostly right.