Antonin Scalia, Thinking Man

Salon reports some amazing cogitation on the part of Scalia:

[Peter Eliasberg, whose client objects to the cross suggests that] “a statue of a soldier which would honor all of the people who fought for America in World War I and not just the Christians.”

“The cross doesn’t honor non-Christians who fought in the war?” Scalia asks, stunned.

“A cross is the predominant symbol of Christianity, and it signifies that Jesus is the son of God and died to redeem mankind for our sins,” replies Eliasberg, whose father and grandfather are both Jewish war veterans.

“It’s erected as a war memorial!” replies Scalia. “I assume it is erected in honor of all of the war dead. The cross is the most common symbol of … of … of the resting place of the dead.”

Eliasberg dares to correct him: “The cross is the most common symbol of the resting place of Christians. I have been in Jewish cemeteries. There is never a cross on a tombstone of a Jew.”

“I don’t think you can leap from that to the conclusion that the only war dead the cross honors are the Christian war dead,” thunders Scalia. “I think that’s an outrageous conclusion!”

Truly the conservative intellectual at work.

The cross in question:

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I’m sure that many, if not most Jewish and Muslim veterans would look to this as a fitting memorial to their service in WWI… who could possibly view it in any other way!?! It defies belief.

Counting Calories

A recent study conducted in New York (with Newark serving as control) labeled menus with calorie content, and then questioned patrons whether they noticed the labels, and if they did: did they actually use them to make better choices?

As it turns out: not so much:

Those people that did notice the menu labels used them…to buy more calories. Not significant at this point, but disheartening to say the least. Sodium intake also increased.

I guess the answer is to label menus… but lie.

Ummm, huzzah for science!

So keep your guns, and buy more guns, and buy ammunition. […] Take back America. Don’t let them take the country into socialism. And I refer again, Hitler’s party was national socialism. […] And that’s what we are having here right now, which is bordering on Marxism.

Mike Huckabee, “man of God,” likely GOP presidential hopeful, probable nominee, and Fucktard

Drop a Dime

Absolutely fascinating Freakonomics…in which a little scamp of an aspiring economist runs right through the old saw about losing the penny like BJ McKay going through billboards. Turns out losing the penny alone doesn’t really help overall efficiency that much if we assume:

1. Some combination of coins must reach every integer value in [0,99].

2. Probability of a transaction resulting in value v is uniform from [0,99].

You could split some obvious hairs about (2), but (1) seems to me to be the real sticking point on getting rid of the penny: people see it as just another chance for everything to go up in price; everyone assumes they’ll always come out behind on any rounding scheme. And, let’s face it: everyone probably would.

So, what was the most efficient system? Prepare to be Obamazed:

The penny, 3-cent piece, 11-cent piece, 37-cent piece, and (1,3,11,38) are tied at 4.10 coins per transaction.

Now who could possibly argue with that arrangement? I DEMAND it be implemented. But, forseeing the loser, stick-in-the-mud attidudes that he’d receive once he announced that all payments to Death Panels are henceforth mandated to be rendered in 38-cent coins, the little scamp sorted down to some more reasonable options (among others):

(1,4,15,40) is the first “reasonable looking” combination, with 4.14 coins per transaction.
(1,3,10,35) also does well, with 4.16 coins per transaction.

[or, restricting ourselves to multiples of 5]

(1,5,15,35) at 4.50 coins.
(1,5,10,30) at 4.60 coins.

Fantastic. But, perhaps unsurprisingly, given the “lose the penny!” nature of conventional wisdom, what would you assume is the least worthwhile coin?

Why, it’s the dime, of course.

…losing the dime entirely only costs us ~0.8 coins per transaction in efficiency; it does the least good of the existing coins.

So: a two pronged attack is in order. We couple a bill that removes dimes from circulation whilst putting the serene visage of Reagan or Lord Jesus on the obverse…

The Lunatic is: IN

In amongst Michelle Cottle’s epic takedown (don’t get too excited, it’s 15 years too late by my count) of Betsy McCaughey, we have this tidbit:

Her standard m.o. (as “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart recently experienced) is to greet each bit of contradictory evidence by insisting that her questioner is poorly informed and should take a closer look at paragraph X or footnote Z. When those sections don’t support her interpretation, she continues to throw out page numbers and footnotes until the mountain of data is so high as to obscure the fact that none of the numbers add up to what she has claimed.

The natural linkup to this observation is in the activities of Sarah Palin, and Cottle goes there too:

…[Palin’s] scorching self-regard and ostentatious disdain for politics-as-usual infuse even her most self-serving fabulisms. Palin, of course, hawks homespun wisdom, faith, and common sense, in contrast to McCaughey’s figures and footnotes. But both women have an uncanny ability to shovel their toxic nonsense with nary a blink, tremor, or break in those dazzling smiles. People of goodwill and honest counsel don’t stand a chance.

The issue is really that these sorts of people feel safe in the assumption that they cannot be effectively countered given the constraints of the modern news cycle. They know that, no matter how prepared the host/anchor may be, they have to move on within 90 or 180 seconds and can thus be easily filibustered into oblivion. Muddy water: sprayed. It’s out there now; mission accomplished.

The solution, of course, is almost as pathetically obvious as it is unimplemented. CNN (and the rest; to keep it simple I’ll refer broadly to all the respectable, 24/7 news networks as “CNN” from here on out) essentially run on floating schedules. If they need to report for 6 hours on a car chase, they fucking do it. Wolf (or whoever) will just sit there and repeat that we’re waiting for, uh, something to happen. And then cut to some guy also waiting for something to transpire.

Sooner or later, then, they need to spend as much time as it takes to reduce McCaughey (or somebody like her) to tears on national television. Simply pull out every one of her page attributions. Turn off her microphone while you find it so she can’t further confuse issues. Dispatch that point. Move to the next. As long as it takes. She runs out of material or simply runs off the set. Either way: victory. Pyrrhic to be sure, but a step.

Sure, this will be gruesome live television, but excellent YouTube material. Somebody will edit it down to 90 seconds of pure joy. Which then, of course, fits back into CNN’s attention span. All it takes is the will to do the initial, extremely long-form interview. Jon Stewart could even do it, were he willing to call her back “on” and then expend a day wearing her down. Jim Cramer was easily cowed; he had a job to protect. McCaughey and her ilk are more like kamikazes. Occasionally they survive their attack run, but that outcome is purely incidental to them. They need to be made to see the fundamental hopelessness of such tactics such that they choose not to employ them in the first place. Realizing that they will simply be called to account on national television for as long as it takes will dissuade all but the craziest. That last subset will simply no longer receive bookings after being seen as fundamentally unhinged.

Such a trip to the woodshed would only need to be done once or twice. The worst of these offensive people would then dutifully scuttle back under whatever rock they live when not being offered a national audience.