Goodbye to Herman Cain, the gift who kept on giving

Original here.

Huffington Post: Herman Cain Suspending 2012 Campaign For President (VIDEO)

Herman Cain announced on Saturday that he is suspending his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

The news comes in the wake of Cain being accused of having an extramarital affair and sexual harassment charges from more than a decade ago resurfacing. The former CEO of Godfather's Pizza has vehemently denied any wrongdoing amid the controversy.

Well, crap. That's disappointing news, as Herman Cain was such fun to blog about. So long, Plan 999 from Outer Space!




I guess Rachel Maddow was right. Herman Cain was a performance artist.

Blast from the past: Pathology on the Right, a commentary on Krugman's "Two speeches and an editorial"

Time to pull out a blast from the past, in this case an essay I posted to Daily Kos back in January of this year, two months before I created this blog. It looks like a good day to re-post it.

Pathology on the Right: A commentary on Krugman's "Two speeches and an editorial"

In Two Speeches and an Editorial, Paul Krugman juxtaposed two quotations from President Obama about the importance he placed on empathy with the following sentence from the National Review Online on the same subject.

Empathy is simply a codeword for an inclination toward liberal activism.

Follow me over the fold for the observations of the commenters on one particular implication of Paul Krugman's point, including my own comment.

Two ways to buy gifts for otaku

CNN, which happens to be one of the sister networks to Cartoon Network, has some helpful advice in This is how to buy a gift for an otaku

So, the holidays are rolling around yet again, and you have an otaku in the family.

We can understand that you might feel a bit panicky about what to get them when it comes to the holidays. It's because you have no idea whose face is on those posters and the whole anime thing just seems like a universe unto itself.

How on earth do you delve into that? Or figure out what they like best? And even worse, what if you end up buying them something you think is cool, but they turn up their noses at?

There are all kinds of cute ideas here, including my favorite, the 2012 Studio Ghibli calendar, along with Neon Genesis Evangelion chopsticks, Domo-kun, and other geeky gifts. However, I have another suggestion--Wizzywig Collectibles. Of course, I'm biased, as I know the owners and my youngest daughter did an internship there, but I still recommend the store highly. You don't even have to go to Ann Arbor to buy anything from them. They do most of their business online, and most of the rest they do at conventions, although they won't be at any more conventions this year.

Yeah, I know this is a politics blog, but it's an economics blog as well, and this month's theme lends itself to my indulging my love of shopping. As much as I bag on Black Friday, I actually enjoy shopping, especially when it can be done sustainably.

Paul Krugman's and Robin Wells' gifts for GOP presidential candidates

In Political Holiday Gifts, Paul Krugman describes the gifts he and his wife Robin should be given to the GOP candidates this holiday season. They came up with some real winners:

Newt Gingrich fill-in-the-blanks divorce papers.

For beachwear, Mitt Romney flip-flops.

A Ron Paul Austrian-English dictionary.

For pet lovers, a Romney dog-on-car carrying case, and a Rick Santorum man … I think I’ll stop right there.

A Jon Huntsman invisibility cloak, just like the one he already wears.

A Rick Perry three-piece brain booster set, containing smart water, vitamin B12, and something else (we can’t remember what).

As you can see, he and his wife didn't think of appropriate gifts for Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain, but he did ask his readers for suggestions. There are currently 141 221 comments, so I'm sure there are plenty of good ideas among them.

Geeky Gifts from Alan Boyle of MSNBC

In last Saturday's Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Thanksgiving weekend 2011 edition) on Daily Kos, I included these excerpts from two of Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log posts dealing with geeky gift ideas. I recycled them over as Geeky gifts, including books at fandom_lounge on JournalFen, which I'm now reusing here at Crazy Eddie's Motie News. Yes, I'm an environmentalist. Why do you ask?

MSNBC: Cast your vote for the geekiest gift
By Alan Boyle

How about a dinosaur skull for the holidays? Or a handful of glow-in-the-dark uranium marbles? Cast your vote and help us crown the geekiest gift for the holiday season.

The gift suggestions for this year's Science Geek Guide are in line with a proud tradition here at msnbc.com. You can always find guides to Black Friday tech deals, or the top 20 toys of 2011, or the hottest holiday hostess gifts. But where else can get a line on a nuclear-powered plaything, or a six-dimensional paperweight, or brains to fit your budget?

Even better, this is a geek gift guide created by geeks for geeks, with some geeky prizes thrown into the bargain. Last week I put out the call for suggestions, and it'll be up to you to select the coolest, most offbeat prize from the top 10. The geek who made the top-rated suggestion will be eligible to receive a pile of books, including "Science Ink," "The Cult of Lego," "The Physics Book" and "The Case for Pluto" (autographed by yours truly).

Here are this year's 10 finalists:

• Uranium marbles
• Dinosaur skulls
• Elements Vault
• Magnifying glasses
• Mars lunchbox
• USB microscope
• Plush microbes
• Wi-Fi T-shirt
• Star Trek pizza cutter
• Pi plate

In Get into geeky gifts that glow, Alan Boyle announced uranium marbles as the winner, beating out the Star Trek pizza cutter by less than 50 votes out of 3,000 cast.

Also from MSNBC: Scientific tales come alive in ink
By Alan Boyle

Ready to crack open some inky tales of scientific lore and levity? Check out our holiday science book roundup — and add your own selections to the list.

A geeky holiday season to all of you!

Nablopomo for December: Gift

From Join Us for Daily Blogging with December's NaBloPoMo:

So what is the NaBloPoMo theme of the month?


GIFT

But we're not just talking getting presents: we're looking at how we treat ourselves, what are our talents, and what do we like to give others. What is the best gift you ever got? The best gift you ever gave? How do you like to open gifts? Are you a peeker? And what about all of those non-tangible gifts that we can bestow on one another throughout the day?

This will be a challenge. However, after finishing my third November of Nablopomo, plus participating in Nablopomo for 22 of the past 25 months, to say nothing of what went on in my real life the past three weeks, I think I'm up for the challenge.

A Day in Exquisite Insults of Objectivists

On February 11th of last year, Paul Krugman quoted Jonathon Chait, on the revelation that Paul Ryan is an Ayn Randite:

Ryan clearly has a passion for ideas and isn’t just interested in short-term positioning. It would be nice if the party had people like that who didn’t also happen to be loons.

The rest of Chait's post read as follows:

Last week, I called Republican budget sorta-kinda point man Paul Ryan "crazy but honest." Today, some of the intellectual influences behind the first half of that description are coming out. TPM reports that Ryan is a big fan of Ayn Rand and "Atlas Shrugged." The Daily Beast, interviewing Ryan, reports that he was influenced by Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism."

What do those works have in common? They're written by people who don't understand liberalism and the left at all, and are thus unable to present liberal ideas in terms remotely recognizable to liberals themselves. The specific lack of understanding lies in an inability to grasp the enormous differences between American liberalism and socialism or communism, seeing them as variants on the same basic theme. The historical reality is that the architects of American liberalism saw it as a bulwark against communism, and communists and socialists in turn viewed the liberals as in implacable enemy. (Yes, you can cherry pick a few data points of commonality, but these are the exceptions rather than the rule.) The result is a tendency to see even modest efforts to sand off the roughest edges of capitalism in order to make free markets work for all Americans as the opening salvo of a vast and endless assault upon the market system.

One of the commenters on Chait's piece posted the following about the comparison between Rand and Goldberg:

Jonah Goldberg is no Ayn Rand. Indeed, they are opposites. Ayn Rand's books are appealing (forget the politics), but her personality was nothing less than looney. Jonah Goldberg's personality is appealing (forget the politics), but his books are nothing less than looney.

Krugman also quoted the late Paul Samuelson on Alan Greenspan:

You can take the boy out of the cult but you can’t take the cult out of the boy.

We've seen this quote before. We've also seen the complete version of it in context.

And this brings us to Alan Greenspan, whom I've known for over 50 years and who I regarded as one of the best young business economists. Townsend-Greenspan was his company. But the trouble is that he had been an Ayn Rander. You can take the boy out of the cult but you can't take the cult out of the boy. He actually had instruction, probably pinned on the wall: 'Nothing from this office should go forth which discredits the capitalist system. Greed is good.'

While Krugman was done, his commenters weren't:

Travel is broadening, especially the food

In Travel is broadening, even the reading, I described the serendipitous periodicals I stumbled across. Now, I describe an experience that was just as expanding, but in a more deliberate way. When I was in Oaxaca, Mexico, I ate two insects that are considered to be local delicacies--grasshopper (chapulin) and mezcal worm (gusano). The grasshopper I ate because the superstition is that if one eats the grasshoppers, one will return to Oaxaca. The mezcal worm I ate because I was curious and wanted to show off. Both were actually quite tasty.

It seems that others think that eating insects might be a good idea, too, as this article from Discovery News via MSNBC indicates.

Another scoop of grasshopper? A push for us to eat more bugs
Company trying to remove 'icky, crunchy' parts to make insects more palatable in US
November 23, 2011

If you want to try something new for Thanksgiving, Matthew Krisiloff has a suggestion: add some insects to the meal.

Many Americans would respond to such a suggestion with a definite "Ew, no thanks," but not Krisiloff. The University of Chicago freshman is the president of Entom Foods, a startup encouraging people to seriously consider insects as a food source. He and four other students started the company last year.

Entom Foods aims to make Americans feel more comfortable eating bugs by removing elements that turn many people off — eyes, wings, legs and crunchy exoskeletons. Eventually, the company hopes to produce processed bug-based foods, such as insect cutlets. Krisiloff hopes marketing the insects in a familiar form will remove the "ick" factor and encourage more people to add insects to their diets.

The company plans to market insects such as crickets, mealworms and grasshoppers, which are already farmed commercially for use as animal feed.

As I wrote, the grasshoppers tasted delicious, and I didn't mind their crunchiness. I wouldn't mind eating them again--in Oaxaca. I'm not sure I'd eat the local ones here in the U.S., but I could be persuaded if someone knew how to cook them.

As for the mezcal worm, I was so taken with it and the drink associated with it that I bought a liter of Monte Alban mezcal on Thanksgiving, complete with worm. As it turns out, this might not be such a sustainable thing to do. From AlJazeera on YouTube.

Across Mexico, and in many world capitals, people are increasingly raisingly a glass of mezcal, a traditional Mexican liquor.

Connoisseurs of the strong drink say it tastes best when served the traditional way-- with a worm in it.

But the worm population is being pushed into decline, due to the drink's growing popularity.

Franc Contreras reports from Oaxaca state in southern Mexico.

The mezcal distillery shown in the clip just happens to be where I ate the mezcal worms. Small world.

Ayn Rand on love and sex

There is one part of Atlas Chugged I find worth revisiting.

15.Rand's descriptions of love making are truly screwed up; vicious acts of near-sadism. Reardon essentially masturbates using Dagny's body as a tissue and she likes it. Even when Dagny experiences the perfect physical bliss of sex with John Galt (and yes, that's in there too), it's pretty creepy.

Every time you throw up a little during a sex scene, drink. Or at least rinse your mouth out.

TV Tropes has noticed this. Under Author Appeal, there is this little gem.

Ayn Rand had a thing for The Red Sonja and "bodice-ripper" style ravishment sex, which her sex scenes usually involved. The rather violent sex scenes she wrote (especially the rather infamous Howard Roark/Dominique Francon sex scene in The Fountainhead) can plausibly be read as Rape Is Love, although this is debated by many (including anarchist-feminist Wendy McElroy).

• Additionally, Rand practiced consensual polyamory during the time she was writing Atlas Shrugged. The heroine of Atlas, Dagny Taggart, has multiple relationships over the course of the novel's plot.
• Rand's belief in Brains and Bondage female sexual submission shows in a passage of Atlas Shrugged that describes the diamond bracelet worn by Dagny as giving her "the most feminine of all aspects: the look of being chained." This belief was also expressed in an infamous essay condemning the idea that a woman might want to be President, on the grounds that life without a man to look up to would make a woman "unfeminine, sexless, metaphysically inappropriate, and rationally revolting."

There's more under the Red Sonja entry.

Ayn Rand is well known for this trope, as it falls in line with her personal fetishes. Rand liked strong, take-charge men and bodice-ripping, ravishment-type sex. Her works are sometimes accused of containing Rape Is Love, though it is a debatable matter.

• Dagny Taggart from Atlas Shrugged is a modernized version of this.
• Dominique from The Fountainhead.
• Parodied in The Illuminatus! Trilogy's Rand parody Telemachus Sneezed.
• Rand also wrote an essay arguing that no rational woman would ever want to be president because "the essence of femininity is hero worship — the desire to look up to man." A woman president, being the supreme authority of the land, would have no superior man to admire.

There's more under Rape Is Love, but in the spirit of a picture being worth 1000 words, I'll post the following instead.

Fox News viewers less informed than people who watch no news at all

In Pepper spray as a vegetable product: fat-free or fact-free?, I quoted David Frum in New York Magazine. Not only was he quoted by Paul Krugman at the New York Times, but also by Karoli at Crooks and Liars. Here's the quote again.

Extremism and conflict make for bad politics but great TV. Over the past two decades, conservatism has evolved from a political philosophy into a market segment. An industry has grown up to serve that segment—and its stars have become the true thought leaders of the conservative world. The business model of the conservative media is built on two elements: provoking the audience into a fever of indignation (to keep them watching) and fomenting mistrust of all other information sources (so that they never change the channel). As a commercial proposition, this model has worked brilliantly in the Obama era. As journalism, not so much. As a tool of political mobilization, it backfires, by inciting followers to the point at which they force leaders into confrontations where everybody loses, like the summertime showdown over the debt ceiling.

But the thought leaders on talk radio and Fox do more than shape opinion. Backed by their own wing of the book-publishing industry and supported by think tanks that increasingly function as public-relations agencies, conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics. Outside this alternative reality, the United States is a country dominated by a strong Christian religiosity. Within it, Christians are a persecuted minority. Outside the system, President Obama—whatever his policy ­errors—is a figure of imposing intellect and dignity. Within the system, he’s a pitiful nothing, unable to speak without a teleprompter, an affirmative-action ­phony doomed to inevitable defeat. Outside the system, social scientists worry that the U.S. is hardening into one of the most rigid class societies in the Western world, in which the children of the poor have less chance of escape than in France, Germany, or even England. Inside the system, the U.S. remains (to borrow the words of Senator Marco Rubio) “the only place in the world where it doesn’t matter who your parents were or where you came from.”

We used to say “You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.” Now we are all entitled to our own facts, and conservative media use this right to immerse their audience in a total environment of pseudo-facts and pretend information.

Right after I posted the above, I read Fox News Viewers Know Less Than People Who Don't Watch Any News: Study in the Huffington Post. I'd quote it, but both HuffPo and a commenter on Karoli's article linked to the original study, which is a press release and therefore can be quoted at much more length. Here are the highlights of "Some News Leaves People Knowing Less" from Farleigh-Dickinson University in New Jersey.

According to the latest results from Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind Poll, some news sources make us less likely to know what’s going on in the world. In the most recent study, the poll asked New Jerseyans about current events at home and abroad, and from what sources – if any – they get their information. The conclusion: Sunday morning news shows do the most to help people learn about current events, while some outlets, especially Fox News, lead people to be even less informed than those who say they don’t watch any news at all.
...
But the real finding is that the results depend on what media sources people turn to for their news. For example, people who watch Fox News, the most popular of the 24-hour cable news networks, are 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government than those who watch no news at all (after controlling for other news sources, partisanship, education and other demographic factors). Fox News watchers are also 6-points less likely to know that Syrians have not yet overthrown their government than those who watch no news.

"Because of the controls for partisanship, we know these results are not just driven by Republicans or other groups being more likely to watch Fox News," said Dan Cassino, a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson and an analyst for the PublicMind Poll. "Rather, the results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at all."

That's bad, but it gets worse. Fox News can't even inform people about news that they should be good at.

Only 55% of New Jerseyans are able to name correctly either Mitt Romney or Herman Cain as the Republican candidates most recently leading in the polls, with 37 % saying that Romney is ahead, and 18% saying that Cain is. Watching Fox News didn't help or hurt respondents on this question. MSNBC, however, helped: Watching MSNBC was associated with a 10-point increase in identifying Romney as the leader, and a 5-point drop in the likelihood of identifying Cain compared to those who got no exposure to news at all.

"Given the amount of time and effort the media spent covering these candidates, the fact that only about half of the public can name one of the front-runners is embarrassing," said Cassino. "The fact that Fox News, the preferred media outlet for many of the candidates, doesn't do better in informing viewers is very surprising."

Viewers of MSNBC, who are less likely to vote in the Republican primary than Fox News viewers, are better informed about the Republican field than Fox News viewers. That's pathetic.

Freedom from Facts, indeed.





Original at Hysterical Raisins.