This Just In: Pregnant Women Don't Tip Over!

We'd never know, but this article reports it is so. More seriously, the source is in the Dec 13 issue of Nature, and it's all about spine curvature. Well well...

Anecdotally, most men find something attractive about a pronounced curvature of a woman's lower back, just above the buttocks. If I understood this article correctly, that's another evolutionary marker of an efficient "baby-making machine". Other such markers I've heard of before are full lips and a high hips/waist ratio; all of them are correlated with fecundity, as well as universally considered attractive.

We men may be pigs, but it is in the noble function of propagating the species. Our tastes evolved. Guys, when women tell you to evolve, you should retort, "I already have. This is the final product." (So far, of course, but the same is true of women.)

At Least Saddam Can't Use Air Conditioning Any More

Solar Power Rocks has an amazing graph comparing R&D investments in energy to the cost of war in Iraq.

Since you won't be able to see the whole thing on the screen at once, you may be left with the question "Wholy shit! But how do those things compare if you don't have to scroll?" Answer: imagine a dog house next to Sears Tower. And make sure it's a small doghouse.

Robertson Endorses Giuliani: History Repeats Itself

First time as farce:



And the second time again as farce:



For more detailed captions, see the first comment.

What's My Image?

PZ Myers infected me with this meme: google for the image that comes up first for your name. And so I did:


Wow, that really could be me. The resemblance is uncanny.

What Breed of Liberal Am I?

Utterly unelectable but delectable:

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Reality-Based Intellectualist, also known as the liberal elite. You are a proud member of what’s known as the reality-based community, where science, reason, and non-Jesus-based thought reign supreme.

Take the quiz at www.FightConservatives.com

Are Metal Detectors Just A Pain In The Ass?

In the building where I work, there is (of course) a metal detector at the entrance.

Keys don't set it off.
Coins don't set it off.
Preparation-H wipes do.

Required Reading on Race

In a comment on Pharyngula, Lance perfectly illustrates the universal folly of human nature. Quoted in full:

Being a white guy married to an African (Ethiopian) woman I have read along with great interest and occasional amusement. Having visited the African continent on three occasions certainly doesn't make me an authority on the intelligence of its residents but I have had the good fortune of interacting with a great number of African people in Africa and here in the US.

I personally know a good many highly intelligent Ethiopian folks. What is funny is that they disparage the intellect of their African neighbors of different tribes. The dominant "highland" tribes of Ethiopia and Eritrea, the Amhara and the Tigray attribute lower intelligence (and bigger penises) to their southern "low land" neighbors the Anyuak, Walita, Omo and the Jinka. They look down on them as "baria" or black people.

There are over eighty separate tribes and languages in Ethiopia alone. Some of these tribes have been genetically separated for thousands of years and are quite visually distinct from on another. Even a "farange" like me can easily identify the physical characteristics of many of these distinct populations.

Are there true differences in intellectual ability between these tribes? I have no idea but I kind of doubt it based on my interactions with the people from these different groups. What I find interesting is that the different tribes have definite opinions of the relative intelligence of each tribes.

They have recently been exposed to Chinese workers and engineers and have decided that they are very intelligent as a "race" if revolting in appearance.

Having been immersed in their very hospitable culture I can say that people are people and this whole topic is interesting at first blush but quite absurd in practice.

Oh, by the way they think we "faranges" are about as bright as the highland tribes but much less civilized. After spending time in their society I tend to agree with them.

Ignorant, Stupid, or Deluded

In a certain context (Which Shall Not Be Named), we often hear that you can't expect to be taken seriously if you assert that a great majority of Americans are ignorant, stupid, or deluded. People seem to assume it just can't be true, and refuse to examine the evidence that it is. But that assumption is wrong, and here is proof, in a different context.

In the Oct 13 LA Times, Jonathan Chait reminded us that

A poll in late 2001 found that 76% of Americans preferred Bush over Gore as a war leader.

Now, is there any way to explain this other than to admit that, in late 2001, 76% of Americans were ignorant, stupid, or deluded?

Oh sure, they could have also been malevolent. But evil doesn't exist as a Platonic form, so malevolence itself requires some explanation, and a reasonably charitable and optimistic first approximation is that it is usually caused by one of that obnoxious trio - ignorance, stupidity, and delusion.

Naughty Lama

From the news:

When asked if he had a message for Chinese President Hu Jintao, the Dalai Lama playfully patted a reporter on the cheek and said, "You are not a representative of Hu Jintao."

Cute. No big deal. Really. But wait, would anyone else doing the same be described as sympathetically? Suppose George W. Bush "playfully patted a reporter on the cheek"? Or, god forbid, if the reporter was female, imagine Bill Clinton in Dalai Lama's place. Wouldn't the press describe the "incident" as "harassment"?

(If the reporter was male, try Senator Larry Craig.)

Framing, Damn Framing, and Statistics

I am not the least bit opposed to framing in principle. However, framing gurus should take care not to feed the (fairly common) opinion that framing equals paltering. Matt Nisbet fails that task with this graph:


Nisbet is showing this to support his thesis that there are "two Americas" and that only the one that agrees with Al Gore politically has become more concerned about climate change in recent years. But that is not a valid reading of the graph unless the relative numbers of the Democrats and Republicans have been stable over the period, and data from the same source suggest that they haven't. There are fewer Republicans now than a few years ago. If we assume that most of the party-switchers are moderates and that most moderates are concerned about climate change - and both assumptions seem reasonable - then the remaining loyal Republicans are, on average, more partisan and more dogmatic than before, and the divergence of the two lines in the graph just illustrates that corollary.

There are more conclusions that can be drawn from that graph, but none of them is about Al Gore's ineffectiveness.