The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Against Radical Egalitarianism

Posted on | August 30, 2011 | 4 Comments

A friend responded to my earlier post about the so-called “gender gap” with an e-mail pointing out several other statistical problems in that feminist argument. Replying to my friend’s e-mail, I found myself elaborating an argument that eventually reached nearly 1,200 words. Because it explains a lot of the fundamental principles involved in my political orientation, I thought I’d share the e-mail with readers:

Good points all, Adrienne. The real key here is understanding that the “gap” is about average differences between groups of people. This involves a sort of social-science artifact that, when reported sloppily (as is too often the case), creates illusions of widespread unfair discrimination.
It’s like aggregated test scores as a measure of school performance. We are often led to think that if School A reports that its 5th-graders average 93 on the standardized test while School B’s 5th-graders score 83 on average, then School A is “better” than School B. Yet you can come back and check test scores five years later and find that, while neither the personnel nor the curricula have undergone any significant change at either school, School B’s average will have increased to 89 while School A has declined to 87.
What happened? Well, a low-income apartment complex was built in the School A district, while a new upscale development of McMansions was built in School B’s district. So what was previously the clearly “better” school now has a larger number of 5th-graders from a lower socioeconomic background (and standardized test scores tend to reflect such factors), while the previously inferior school now has a few more 5th-graders from privileged backgrounds.
This kind of statistical perception problem occurs whenever we aggregate people into categorical groups — sex, race, whatever — and then make the differences between group averages the basis for a policy aimed at bringing about equality between these groups. But such policies almost never achieve their stated goals, and in the process usually have harmful unintended consequences, not the least of which is the fostering of unnecessary resentments between members of the groups which become playthings in these social enginering experiments. Read more

Category: Conservatism 101, Economics

What Accounts for the ‘Gender Gap’ in Pay? Statistics Prove: It’s Lazy Women

Posted on | August 30, 2011 | 16 Comments

OK, the statistics don’t actually prove the assertion in the headline — although it sure got your attention, didn’t it, ladies? — and neither do statistics “prove” the common feminist claim that discrimination explains the so-called “gender gap.” But if we examine the number of hours worked per week, two highly relevant statistics emerge:

  1. Men are more likely to hold full-time jobs — According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), about 60 million men were employed full-time in 2007, compared to about 42 million women. Men were thus 42% more likely than women to be working full-time.
  2. Men work more hours — “Full-time” is defined as working 35 hours per week or more. The BLS reports that among the 21.8 million people working more than 40 hours per week, 15.3 million are men (70%) and 6.5 million are women (30%).

So the feminist assertion that women are paid 75 cents on the dollar (or 87 cents or whatever other number is used) compared to men is an absurdity, based on invalid apples-to-oranges comparisons that don’t take account of average differences in the actual working experiences of men and women.

Kay Hymowitz explains this in an article at City Journal called, “Why the Gender Gap Won’t Go Away. Ever.” Hymowitz makes the point that many women choose what has been called “the Mommy Track” in occupational specialties, so that feminist ax-grinders who constantly grumble about the “gender gap” are, in fact, arguing against women’s own choices.

One final point: Being a mother is hard work in its own right. For several years, my wife stayed home with our six children. She would sometimes encounter people — usually other women — who, when they learned of her “just a mom” status would say, “Oh, you don’t work? That must be nice.” As if being the mother of six children wasn’t harder work than is done by most full-time employed people (including her husband).

To understand feminism as a war against stay-at-home motherhood, read Carolyn Graglia’s excellent book, Domestic Tranquility. Being “just a mom” is a choice that feminists don’t want women to have.

P.S.: When I include Amazon Associates book links at the end of an item like this, it is not merely because I get a 4% commission on sales, although I make no apologies for being a shameless capitalist blogger. But I include the links because as Ronald Reagan said, it’s not that our liberal friends are ignorant, rather that they know so many things that aren’t true. I want to provide liberals an opportunity to discover how many “facts” they have been indoctrinated to believe are actually lies, and I also want conservatives to acquaint themselves with facts and logic that debunk common liberal misconceptions.

Category: Economics, Feminism

Vice President Marco Rubio?

Posted on | August 30, 2011 | 12 Comments

by Smitty

That’s Krauthammer’s take:

He checks all the boxes. We saw his charm. He’s got the right ideology. He’s well spoken. And he’s got a great story, second generation immigrant. I mean, he gives a story of hope and restoration, which would be I think his theme. I think he’s prohibitively the favorite for number two. And at the very least he’ll be the keynote speaker if he’s not going to be number two.

I don’t know. The GOP ?/Rubio ticket is going to have tough sledding against the Democrat’s Wasserman-Schultz/Schumer ticket. Just sayin’.

Category: Uncategorized

Lowlife Who Pirated My Video Apologizes for Smearing Michele Bachmann

Posted on | August 30, 2011 | 126 Comments

Nothing like an attorney’s letter to produce contrition:

I want to apologize for misusing Stacey Robert McCain’s original video . . . I was angry so I decided to take Mrs. Bachmann’s line out of context to make her seem more overtly racist in light of her recent signing of that Iowa marriage pledge that said black children were better off under slavery than in Obama’s America. Whether or not I dislike Michele Bachmann, it wasn’t right to deliver a dishonest blow like that. I wanted to apologize to Mr. McCain and all of you directly. . . .
I have removed the video from my Youtube channel.

My attorney is considering what further action will be necessary, and I have contacted the Bachmann campaign. There are two injured parties, you see. This “On Knees” blogger’s claim that his misleading distortion of Bachmann’s speech was retaliation for her having signed the Iowa marriage pledge is rather interesting in terms of demonstrating malice. But Bachmann’s potential claim for libelous defamation is irrelevant to my potential claim of copyright infringement in having my video pirated for such a purpose.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!


Category: Michele Bachmann

Libertarians In Space

Posted on | August 30, 2011 | 24 Comments

by Smitty

Yesterday I wrote a post generally lamenting the fact that the U.S. space program is languishing. That we’ve traded the gosh-wow inspiration of boldly going where no human has gone before in for standing in socialist lines, where everyone has gone before, consuming a significant chunk of their lives.

And I mentioned that I was glad not to be libertarian on this topic, which was deemed a careless friendly-fire incident on Twitter by @GaltsGirl. I asked that she use this as a teachable moment, and she did: Read more

Category: Uncategorized

‘Books Have No Real Future’?

Posted on | August 30, 2011 | 31 Comments

Excuse me for disagreeing with Bill Quick about that, as I sit in my home office surrounded by a vast personal library of hundreds of books. The idea that we are transitioning permanently and irrevocably to an electronic future, where words printed on paper are of no value, would seem contradicted by various facts.

Is your computer hooked up to a printer? How often do you buy ink cartridges and paper for that printer? Is there a a book, magazine or newspaper within arm’s reach of where you’re sitting this very minute? Do you have a business card — ink on paper — in your pocket or purse? Do you have printed memos or presentations on your office desk?

Digital enthusiasts are to be forgiven for loving what they do and doing what they love, but you can love your Kindle without succumbing to active hostility toward the dead-tree medium, per se. And it struck me years ago, after reading Sven Birkert’s brilliant book The Gutenberg Elegies, that there are certain intrinsic values of the printed book which may be lost by a hasty abandonment of dead-tree publishing.

Having learned to read with books, and having learned to write with pencil and paper — an experience I share with all literate adults, including Bill Quick — I am skeptical that current or future youth would obtain the same educational value, qualitatively, by learning their lessons from electronic media.

We see evidence of this problem already: Some educators have increasingly abandoned old-fashioned drill-work and recitation, based on the assumption that students don’t need to know facts, but rather need only the “research skills” to look up whatever they wish to know. Unfortunately, that pedagogical stance doesn’t encourage kids to develop the knowledge base necessary to evaluate critically whatever turns up on Google.

We have witnessed a plague of plagiarism and cheating among college students, and have also seen astonishing incidences of young journalists publishing plagiarized or fictionalized “news.” Many kids nowadays aren’t taught the value of knowing — committing facts to memory — and this deficit, an unforeseen consequence of the skills-based approach to education, impedes their intellectual abilities in many ways. Excuse me for thinking that this problem is closely related to the digital enthusiasms encouraged during the 1990s (after  Al  Gore invented the Internet), and fostered by the thoughtless cut-and-paste habits that too many students employ routinely when doing online research.

Pronouncing the doom of the book may be emotionally satisfying to those of us who nowadays write mainly for an online readership (and read mainly online writers), but excuse my old-fashioned mind for the concern that something valuable might be lost in a too-hasty race from print to pixels.

(Hat-tip: Instapundit, whose frustrations with an automated phone-tree ought to be an object lesson in the perils of technological “progress.”)

Category: Books

LIVE AT FIVE – 08.30.11

Posted on | August 30, 2011 | 6 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Irene’s Flooding Stuns Inland Areas

People walk along a section of US 12 in Berlin, Vermont

Severe damage in upstate New York, Vermont from flooding; 4.5 million still without power as death toll rises to 40
Some FEMA Funds For Joplin On Hold In Irene’s Wake
State-by-state breakdown of damages, dangers

Japanese Diet Confirms Noda As Prime Minister
Faces gridlocked legislature, warring factions in DPJ, reconstruction burdens and a weak economy

Libyan Rebels Warn Algeria On Gadhafis
NTC says harboring leader and his family “an aggressive act”



POLITICS
Romney Follows Perry In Speaking To VFW Convention

Governor Mitt Romney

Romney was only declared candidate at the time VFW was organizing convention; Perry spoke as host state governor

Judge Pleases Both Sides With Alabama Immigration Law Hold

President Picks Labor Economist To Help On Jobs Front

Obama’s Drunk-Driving Uncle Held On Immigration Detainer

DOT Scraps Traffic-Sign Deadlines

House GOP Revs Up Repeal, Reduce And Rein-In Agenda For The Fall



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Wall Street Stock Index Futures Signal Lower Open
European Stocks Expected To Rise On Asian, US Gains
Gold Bounces Back After 2% Drop
Consumers Ramp Up Spending
Small Business Hiring Slows In August, Wages Dip
Credit Suisse Warns Against Investing In Greek Banks
Amazon’s Tablet New Great White Hope In Tablet Wars; Could Ship 5 Million Units In Q4
Samsung’s ChatON Latest Entry In Crowded Mobile Messaging Field
Nokia Hacked, Significant Number Of Records Stolen
HP Update Boosts Functionality Of Orphaned TouchPad



SPORTS
The Eagles’ $100 Million Man

Eagles QB Michael Vick

Vick signs for six years, $100 million with $40 million guaranteed

Sharapova Gets Past Teen, Kvitova Out

Yankees Edge Orioles 3-2 For Split

NBA, Union To Meet Wednesday

Angels’ Rookie Closer Feeling Strain Of Long Season

Hudson Does It All As Snakes Keep Streaking

Nationals Park Beer Vendor Saves Choking Child
No truth to rumor he’s being considered to replace Johnson as manager



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Courtney Stodden Turns 17

Courtney Stodden, a/k/a Mrs. Doug Hutchinson

Happy birthday, kiddo

Bravo Special To Address Russell Armstrong Suicide

VMAs Score MTV’s Biggest Audience Ever

Jay-Z: I Refuse To Clap For Chris Brown

George Clooney Dropping Out Of “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”

Josh Brolin To Star In Spike Lee’s Remake Of “Oldboy”

New “Dancing With The Stars” Cast Leaked; Nancy Grace To Face The Music – And DWTS Judges

Demi Lovato Defends Her Current Weight



FOREIGNERS
Algeria’s UN Envoy Defends Refuge Decision On Qadhafis
Syrian Protesters Shot After Eid Prayers
Hazare Launches New Campaign: Recall Of PMs Sought
Suspect In Mexico Casino Fire Says Attack Caused By Failure To Pay Extortion Money
Police Arrest 274 During Notting Street Carnival; Anticipated Major Disturbances Don’t Materialize
Israel, Egypt Reinforce Sinai Border Against Expected Jihadi Attack



BLOGS & STUFF
Allahpundit: Romney’s Attack Strategy against Perry – Mediscaring?
PJ Tatler: Why Is “Resign” Not On This List?
Weasel Zippers: Obama Snubs VFW
Walter Russell Mead: New Blue Nightmare – Clarence Thomas And The Amendment Of Doom
American Power: JPost Writer Fired For Justifying Palestinian Terror
Lonely Conservative: Warren Buffett Betting On A Bailout? (Updated)
Atlas Shrugs: Gaza Jihadis Getting Anti-Air, Anti-Armor Weapons From Libyan Rebels?
Don Surber: Democrats Start Feeling Like Republicans
iOwnTheWorld.com: What Racial Story Can Be Told?
NRO Corner: Perry Opposes “Military Adventurism”
Sister Toldjah: Barack Obama – The Harvard Daze


SOTD – Secret World

Category: Live at Five

MY VIDEO of Michele Bachmann’s Christian Testimony Used in SMEAR JOB

Posted on | August 29, 2011 | 79 Comments

This is so shocking I don’t know how to begin to describe it. Regular readers will recall that on Friday, Aug. 5, I covered an appearance by Michele Bachmann at the Spirit Midwest Christian Music Festival in West Des Moines, Iowa. It had been raining all afternoon before Bachmann arrived and gave her Christian testimony, which I recorded on video and posted the next day.

Some vicious monster ripped off my video and edited it, so that when Bachmann begins by jokingly asking the crowd, “Who likes wet people?” — because everybody was soaked to the bone, including me — instead there is a caption, “Who likes white people?”

Ken Layne of Wonkette then spread that smear all around the Internet.

Thank goodness, Chris Moody of Yahoo News spotted the lie and posted the truth.

Now, who do I sue for copyright infringement, piracy and fraud?

UPDATE: Linked by Da Tech Guy, by Eternity Matters and by Lisa Graas at The American Catholic and welcome, Instapundit readers! I’ve also written this up at Right Wing News and cross-posted at the Hot Air Green Room, concluding:

[A]fter I learned that my video had been stolen and misused for such a defamatory purpose, I put up a blog post denouncing the smear, and sent an e-mail to the anonymous proprietor of the “On Knees” Web site. He then deleted his first lie and substituted another vicious smear as a “correction.” But his pirated and re-edited version of my video — a clear violation of my copyright, and of YouTube’s terms of service agreement — is still online. I have spoken to an attorney and fully intend that the perpetrator of this crime will be brought to justice.

And I want the creep who did this to understand that he has just forfeited whatever legal right he had to anonymity. In pursuit of legal action, my attorney informs me, we can subpoena YouTube to get the actual name of this pseudonymous monster, who has made the mistake of picking the wrong dude to rip off in pursuit of his vile purposes.

By the way, Bachmann’s campaign manager is Ed Rollins, a guy who isn’t likely to take this kind of crap too kindly, either.

UPDATE II: Linked by Roxeanne de Luca and by Joy McCann at the Conservatory — thanks!

UPDATE III: Linked by Duane Lester at All American Blogger and by Bob Belvedere at The Camp of the Saints — thanks!

UPDATE IV: Lowlife Who Pirated My Video Apologizes for Smearing Michele Bachmann — we’ll see what my attorney says about this.

Linked at Pirate’s Cove — thanks!


Category: Michele Bachmann
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