Condoms don't cause sex any more than umbrellas cause rain

Kristof, in today's NYT, touches on why our administration's program to fight AIDS in Africa is misguided.

President Bush is focusing his program against AIDS in Africa on sexual abstinence and marital fidelity, relegating condoms to a distant third. It's the kind of well-meaning policy that bubbles up out of a White House prayer meeting but that will mean a lot of unnecessary deaths on the ground in Africa.
...
The fact is that condoms have played a crucial role in the campaigns against AIDS that have been relatively successful, from Thailand's '100 percent condom program' to the efforts in Uganda, Cambodia and Senegal. And condoms don't cause sex any more than umbrellas cause rain.
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Perhaps the White House thinks it has the moral high ground when it preaches, completely irrelevantly, to women like Mrs. Sibanda about the need to be faithful. But it strikes me as hypocritical to pontificate about virtue while pursuing an ideological squeamishness about condoms that risks condemning Mrs. Sibanda and millions like her to die of AIDS.

As Sam's gymnastics teacher would say, Kristof nailed it! Link

To understand how significantly AIDS is effecting life expectancy in Africa, see this chart. It is a profoundly disturbing graphic.

Jewish regalia without Jews, and unintended consequences

The unofficial team logo of the Amsterdam soccer club Ajax is the Israeli flag. In fact, Ajax's fans, in jest, call themselves Jews and go to games in hats and shirts embroidered with Hebrew writing.

Few, if any, of these people are Jewish.

"About thirty years ago, the other teams' supporters started calling us Jews because there was a history of Jews in Ajax," explained Fred Harris, a stocky man with brush-cut hair and a thick gold chain around his neck, "so we took it up as a point of pride and now it has become our identity."

And the unintended consequence? Opposing fans are acting in bad taste and even the Ajax fans are disprespectful.

Ajax games have become so charged with such anti-Semitic displays that many of the team's Jewish fans now avoid the games altogether. The offensive behavior is not one-sided: during a game against a German team late last year, a group of Ajax supporters displayed a banner that read "Jews take revenge for '40-'45," a reference to the Holocaust.
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"A lot of Jews all over the world believe that Ajax fans are proud to call themselves Jews, but it's a kind of hooliganism," he said.

What an odd, yet intriguing, phenomenon. Link

Steven Levitt, Freakonomics

I'm part way through Levitt's new book "Freakonomics." It is a fun read, and I recommend it to all, particularly those, such as my friend Chris Russo, that think economics is "just supply and demand, dude." Still, I find the book frustratingly pithy. I know it is intended for a general, non-economist, audience, but it would be a better book were it to probe deaper into the nuts and bolts Levitt's research. In particular, I want to know how Levitt chooses a research topic, and how he develops his extraordinarily clever research methodologies. I also want a discussion that explains to the lay reader why Levitt's methods, from an applied economics perspective, are so clever.

On a positive note, the book offers a nice overview of Levitt's work, which is really fascinating stuff. See this post and this post for some tidbits on his work that are discussed in the book.

I think Dad, in particular, will enjoy the following bit, which deals with a fundamental difficulty in emperical research, that is, getting good data. The renowned sociologist William Julius Wilson assigned a graduate student to administer a multiple-choice survey to residents of Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods. The first question was “How do you feel about being black and poor?” and the five possible answers were “very bad,” “bad,” “neither bad nor good,” “somewhat good,” and “good”. After a day of trying to get answers to this question, the graduate student realized a sixth answer was needed: “fuck you.” Nice.

Terri Schiavo

I can't seem to muster a strong opinion on this matter. One the one hand, I agree with dubya that when in doubt we should choose to save lives, not take them. But on the other hand, dubya's explanation is based, I would gander, on a more limited evaluation than that of the courts, which have been struggling with this issue for years and have consistently ruled that her husband's decision is paramount.

Its worth noting some irony in this outcome, as articulated by this article on the MSNBC website:

Remember the recent debate about gay marriage and the sanctity of the bond between husband and wife? Nearly all of those now trying to push their views forward about what should be done with Terri Schiavo told us that marriage is a sacred trust between a man and a woman. Well, if that is what marriage means then it is very clear who should be making the medical decisions for Terri — her husband.

I could have done that!

What a great prank, and the guy makes front page of the NYT, to boot:

Banksy - who prefers to be called not an artist, but a 'quality vandal' - said he decided to invade those four New York museums for a simple reason.

'I've wandered round a lot of art galleries thinking, 'I could have done that,' so it seemed only right that I should try,' he wrote. 'These galleries are just trophy cabinets for a handful of millionaires. The public never has any real say in what art they see.'

He said he had entered all of the museums during normal visitors' hours. Asked how he was able to hang his works without being noticed by museum guards or security cameras, Banksy responded rather opaquely. 'You just have to glue on a fake beard and move with the times,' he said.

He added that he had thought about storming the Guggenheim, but was too intimidated. 'I would have had to appear between two Picassos,' he wrote. 'And I'm not good enough to get away with that.'

Link

New Scientist: 13 things that do not make sense

Some interesting puzzlers, each concisely summarized in 2-3 paragraphs. Link

The New Yankee (duct tape) Workshop

Its not really Norm Abram's "workshop", but if you've skillz and you like bling-bling, then check this out.

Save Toby

At first, this didn't appear that interesting, but as I read on the foolishness really struck a cord. Link to WaPo article.

Its about a man, James, his rabbit, Toby, and James' website www.savetoby.com which announces that Toby will be eaten unless people send James no less than $50K. Excerpt:

When Savetoby launched in January, a PayPal account was collecting money for the site. But after fielding complaints, [PayPal] took another look and decided in late February that the site violated its offensive-materials standards.

"I get a little sick to my stomach every time I look at that site," says PayPal spokeswoman Amanda Pires. "We have discontinued service."

Sick to her stomach... really? We're talking rabbit, Amanda. But the love for Toby gets even better. Read some of the hate mail James is getting. Link to hate mail. This probably sounds coarse and cold hearted, but the absurdity of this whole thing is kind of funny, particularly James' callous responses to the hate mail.

Update: According to snopes.com, the website's a hoax. Link

A Few Tips to Cope With Life's Annoyances

Another "dude! I totally relate!" article. This one in today's NYT. Excerpt:

When Seth Shepsle goes to Starbucks, he orders a 'medium' because 'grande' - as the coffee company calls the size, the one between big and small - annoys him.

Me too, Seth. Read the rest to see the lengths some kooky folks go to dish it back. Link

The grande/medium example reminds me of a similar annoyance told to me by my sister. In Kath's glory days she was an order taker at Arby's. In fact, I think she donned the Arby brown for like 2 or 3 firken years. Anyway, she made an interesting observation that there seemed to be a negative correlation between the perceived macho-ness of the customer and their willingness to request the horseradish sauce by the Arby name. Arby's called it "HORSEY" sauce. Yeah, its a pickle...you got to have that horsey sauce with your beef and chedder, but asking for it by name is so humiliating. Kath told me she would only give the customer said sauce if they requested it by name. "Again, what kind of sauce is that you'd like?" Hence, forcing the BMOC to say loudly those humiliating words, "I'd like some of that ... cough ... HORSEY sauce, please." I guess you had to be there.

Dancing Machine

This laugh-out-loud article so perfectly captures yours truly I had to post it. (However, for the record, our guitar-god debate centered on Hendrix, Page, and Townsend, no Allman. Not that there is anything wrong the Allman Bros.) Excerpt:

When I was a teenager it was extremely uncool to dance. It was almost unthinkable, like having short hair or being Republican or not liking Led Zeppelin. Dance music meant disco, and disco sucked, notoriously, being an art form epitomized by the Bee Gees, aka the Singing Mice. What was cool was to play air guitar and argue about who was the greatest guitar god, Duane Allman, Jimmy Page or Jimi Hendrix. (C'mon, dude, it's Duane.)

In college my policy changed, because a guy has to do whatever it takes to meet women, including something as onerous and humiliating and girly as dancing...

And what follows is pretty funny. Link

A St. Patty's Day Tradition

For my out of town family, and people such as myself that live here but have not previously taken the time to figure it out, here is a brief explanation of the beginnings of the green Chicago river tradition:

The tradition started in 1962, when city pollution-control workers used dyes to trace illegal sewage discharges and realized that the green dye might provide a unique way to celebrate the holiday. That year, they released 100 pounds of green vegetable dye into the river - enough to keep it green for a week!

Today, in order to minimize environmental damage, only forty pounds of dye are used, making the river green for only several hours. Although Chicago historians claim their city 's idea for a river of green was original, some Savannah natives believe the idea originated in their town.

They point out that 1961, Savannah mayor Tom Woolley had plans for a green river, but due to rough water on March 17, the experiment didn 't work and Savannah never attempted to dye its river again.

And to finish it off, a couple nice pictures of the river in all its green glory.

New Age Pong

If you wish to waste an hour or two of your day, just click on thru...Link

Happy birthday, Sam

On 1 March, Sam turned 5 years old. This past weekend we went down to Peoria to celebrate the big occasion with his cousins. Not to be outdone by his brother, Sam insisted on the crown.

Every parent's favorite gift

Sam and Nick keep things hoppin with an electronic version of "the wheels on the bus"...


Just me and my buddy-weiser


Did someone say FREEBIRD !!

What is wrong with this argument? (Offending Link)

I don't normally read, comment on, or link to articles by O'Reilly, but it appears that such links piss him off, so here goes.

Objecting to Congressman Barney Frank's objection to the Buster (the rabbit on Arthur) fiasco, Bill argues as follows (link to article):

Frank wrote a letter to [the education secretary] Spellings spelling it out: 'You have said that families should not have to deal with the reality of the existence of same-sex couples, and the strong implication is that this is something from which young children should be shielded.'

Well, yeah, Barn, that's correct. Many Americans believe that little kids should have a childhood and not be subjected to any kind of sexuality. I don't want to be offensive here, but who in their right mind wants to explain Norma and Barbara's lifestyle to their 4-year-old? Give the kids a break, OK?

...Introducing homosexuality into the little kid culture angers many Americans who believe sex in general is an inappropriate topic for small children, and that is a legitimate point of view whether Barney Frank or PBS likes it or not.

The sexualization of children is one of America's great scandals. Kids today are blasted out of a G-rated life far too early thanks to a greedy, irresponsible media and fanatical special interest groups. Yes, there is bigotry against gays, and kids must be taught to reject that at an appropriate age...Buster should absolutely stay out of sexual politics. It's OK to be happy, Buster, just don't be gay.

He makes a good point. If the couple were instead, say, Norm and Barbara it would be perfectly appropriate and not at all uncomfortable to explain to a 4-year old that Norm puts his penis in Barbara's vagina. It is the the nature of Norm and Barb's sexual intercourse that is the defining element their lifestyle. Actually, to more accurately capture their lifestyle, you probably need to diagram for the 4-year the particular positions Norm and Barb engage when they're having sex, how they satisfy each other sexually, etc.

LIfe Expectancy in Africa

This graphic is startling. Link

Now please remind me again, why our "faith-based" administration is tying aid in order to curtail the distribution of condems in Africa?

Love Fart Bomb

Ok, instead of a nuclear bomb, how about a "love bomb"? It would envisage an aphrodisiac chemical that would provoke widespread homosexual behaviour among troops, causing what the military calls a 'distasteful but completely non-lethal' blow to morale.

Strike that. Instead, how about a fart bomb? This bad boy would simulate flatulence. Oh yes, I forgot. It has a fatal flaw, since people in many areas of the world 'do not find fecal odor offensive, since they smell it on a regular basis.'

Hows that for thinking outside the box? Link

LA Times: Bono for the World Bank

Bono should be named the next president of the World Bank.

And it appears that they're serious. Read for yourself..Link

Huge Muthafirkin Euge, as read by Snoop D-O-Double-G, beeyotch

I bet you did not know that...

the Poles were probably tha first ta do research on tha transition n ta systematically examine its social n psychologizzles conseqizzles n' shit.

Link

Numa numa dance

Well then lets hope these links work. First, read Eric Zorn's intro and follow the link to the "numa numa dance." I shared the moment with Lesley (a coworker) and we both were laughing out loud.

For background and a follow up on this international phenomenon, read the article in yesterday's NYT. It appears that the kid no longer gives interviews or revels in his moment of fame, which as Zorn notes in a subsequent post, and I agree, is a shame because one would think that the world is laughing with him, not at him.