Ryan Overbey links to a story about the banning of amulet advertisments.#

Banning amulet advertisements that mention supernatural powers is like banning condom advertisements that mention sex. There's a reason people buy these things. But here's the kicker:

"The government should stop peddling lottery tickets before it tries to ban amulet ads," he said.

Bingo. That's a fantastic analogy.

Richard links to Amy who quotes from Letters to a Young Contrarian, by Christopher Hitchens.#

The excerpt is about why Hitchens is an "anti-theist, rather than atheist."

This arrogance and illogic is inseparable even from the meekends and most altruistic religious affirmations. A true believer must believe that he or she is here for a purpose and is an object of real interest to a Supreme Being; he or she must also claim to have at least an inkling of what that Supreme Being desires. I have been called arrogant myself in my time, and hope to earn the title again, but to claim that I am privy to the secrets of the universe and its creator -- that's beyond my conceit. I therefore have no choice but to find something suspect even in the humblest believer, let alone in the great law-givers and edict-makers of whose "flock" (and what a revealing word that is) they form a part.

Kevin Lawver writes that it is not Christian to be against gay marriage.#

I don't see how allowing a gay couple to have the same legal rights as a straight couples when it comes to survivor benefits, power of attorney and the rest of the legal rights that come with a marriage (to the state, really a "civil union" anyway), threatens our families. Homosexuals are easy targets because they're "different" and "not like us". If we really wanted to strengthen the "family", we should look at the problems that already afflict families. We should look at ways to decrease the divorce rate, which is currently well over fifty percent (meaning your marriage is more likely to fail than to succeed), provide more help for single parents, and look at ways to promote marriage over co-habitation (since a couple is 33% more likely to divorce if they live together before marriage than not).

The Binary Circumstance links to a surprise announcement from the Pope: "Gays Aren't Normal."#

And he said if he media does not exercise "restraint" the state should step in. The pontifical statement called for regulations to stop the media from acting against "the good of the family," although it said the pope rejected outright censorship.

What exactly is censorship if it's not state "restraint" of communications?

Dean Esmay writes about Jews, and says some things I was not familiar with.#

My own, take, for what it's worth: The real problem with the Jews is that theirs is an hereditary religion. You can convert to Judaism, of course. They are open to that. But a Rabbi is supposed to at least try to talk you out of it. Unlike Islam or Christianity, they don't go out of their way to get people to join--although, oddly enough, non-Jews are always welcome to come worship the God of Israel in (almost) any Synagogue without being asked to convert.

Anyway, the bottom line is, you mostly become a Jew through birth. Secondarily, sometimes through marriage. Simply doing it for personal reasons is rarest of all, and isn't very common. Furthermore, as with most religions, sometimes kids fall away from the faith. Thus you usually have "ethnically Jewish" people who really have abandoned the faith--and when a lot of those have kids, they cease to raise them as Jews, and wind up blending into whatever the majority ethnicity or religion is.

Bill Dennis on the Internet and the Real World.#

Every Tuesday, my day off, I get in my brand new used 1991 Chevy Lumina and hit Interstate 74 and begin a quest for wit and wisdom in the real world. I get about about halfway to Bloomington when I realize there isn't any. I turn around and head for home and my DSL connection so I can cruise the 'Net. There isn't any wit or wisdom there either, but I don't have to cough up gasoline money.

Richard Tallent proposes a few ways to better utilize technology in schools.#

Turns out that computers don't help in the classroom environment and may actually be harmful. Doh! We waste massive amounts of taxpayer money on technology that is outdated before it is even installed, we have generations of teachers who couldn't even install a printer driver to save their life, and most schools have no specific plans on how to use the technology, partially because their school board members are just as tech-illiterate as the teachers and students. It this any surprise?

Michael Feldman writes about the Adopt-A-Journalist scheme and has some recommendations at making older media organizations more blog friendly.#

The basic idea is that to counteract the relative anonymity and lack of accountability on the part of Major Media writers and reporters, Bloggers should choose a single reporter and monitor, repost and comment on all of that individual's journalistic output.

Come on! That's the most invasive, repugnant and counterproductive idea we have heard in the 'Sphere since paid subscriptions! Who appointed us to be the Thought Police? And Who is Going to Monitor the Monitors? What a misguided, uncivil and rude waste of time!

Richard stole the words from my keyboard with regards to social software.#

I'm fairly skeptical as to this whole social software idea, since it still doesn't seem to be designed to get people out of their chairs and into actual social situations. Besides, my weblog is my social software. Linking to others using the <a href=> tag has been far more effective for me in "meeting" new people than any other form of online conversation. Right now—and probably for the duration of my flirtation with Orkut—the only people on my "friends" list are #joiito members. Yes, I'm effectively saying I will not invite you or accept you as a "friend" unless you're a #joiito regular. It's been putting a face to the screennames, but of course I must factor in the possibility that at least one of the faces may be a "Kaycee".

Richard links to a slut who doesn't like being used: Phil Ringnalda.#

Commenting is also a great way to get yourself known among webloggers. If you write something interesting, or just write well, in someone's comments, I'm quite likely to click your link, to see what else you have to say. [...]

But, the inevitable but, I've been noticing lately that there are quite a few people who are spamming comments, only with a link to their blogs rather than to a casino, a pill, or a naked woman. If you only have six words to say to me, that's cool, but if I then see that someone in my blogroll has just updated, and I go over there only to find that you had six similar words to say to her, and searching for link:yoursite.com shows that there are dozens or hundreds of links to your blog, all coming from six-word, nothing-much comments, I'm going to feel used, and even a slut doesn't like to feel used.

The Author of ecto writes about spam and spammas:#

I'm starting to think that spammers do not spam for profit anymore, if ever. I don't see how bombarding innocent users with hundreds of totally uninteresting and often obnoxious emails could generate even a bit of dough. This is plain revenge. Spammers are the notorious salesmen, Yehova's witnesses, and their offspring. After years of getting the doors slammed in their faces, they have finally found a way to remain unconditionally pushy, annoying and irritating, and without even having to ring doorbells.

Al3xander P4yn3 writes about how you should not write about blogging unless you are an idiot.#

The next time I hear someone drag out one of those generic intellectual litmus test concepts that get tediously applied and re-applied to any new big thing that comes up ("gender and [x]", "race and [x]", "social justice and [x]", "geopolitics and [x]", "deez nutz and [x]") and apply it to blogging I'm going to break heads. Seriously. That shit's tired enough when the big thing in question is actually new and radically different (ex: the Internet). Something like blogging that's little more than offshoots and amalgamations needs no more mental energy wasted on its "analysis" than the aforementioned deez nutz (though admittedly the already substantial body of research and critical theory regarding deez nutz makes comparison difficult at best).

Michael Feldman points to a story about Bill Clinton's email experience.#

The archives of the Bill Clinton presidential library will contain 39,999,998 e-mails by the former president's staff and two by the man himself.

"The only two he sent," Skip Rutherford, president of the Clinton Presidential Foundation, which is raising money for the library, said Monday.

Clay Shirky wonders if the Dean campaign's use of the Internet actually hurt the candidate.#

When I was 19, I remember seeing a bunch of guys in a parking lot in New Jersey absolutely rocking out to Twisted Sister at top volume, "Oh we're not gonna take it, No, we ain't gonna take it, Oh we're not gonna take it anymo-o-o-o-ore" and I remember thinking the song was using up the energy that would otherwise go into rebellion.

Just rocking out to Twisted Sister so hard, and feeling so good about it, made those guys feel like they'd already stood up to The Man, making it less likely that they would actually do so in the real world, when the time came. And I'm wondering if the Dean campaign has been singing a version of that song, or, rather, I'm wondering if the bottom-up tools they've been using have been helping their supporters sing that song to each other.

Lance Arthur proposes a solution to President Bush's problem with gay marriage.#

My solution is, dare I say, both logical and elegant. Rather than spend $1.5 billion dollars educating straight couples who might be inclined to be legally wed anyway, why not send direct payments to every homosexual in the United States on the promise that we shall not marry another of our own sex?

The population of the United States is currently around 292.5 million. Taking the "10% rule" into account, that means that there are currently 29.25 million homosexuals.

Now you and I both know that many homosexuals, for reasons of their own which I'm sure have absolutely nothing to do with your administration's support of discrimination, intolerance and ignorance, choose to remain closeted (that means "in the closet") and, for the sake of argument, let's agree that 50% of the homosexual population would deny their homosexuality. This reduces the practical number to 14.375 million practicing (that means "doing it until you get it right") homosexuals.

Brent Simmons defends TV and criticizes the notion that the rest of the country must be stupid.#

I think I detect a subtext that bothers me. It goes like this imagined conversation:

A: Hey, TV is stupid, all sound-bites, no substance.

B: Yes, well, you know you can read about the candidate on the Internet, go to meet-ups, read some great stuff in print magazines, and so on. It's up to you find good information.

A: Oh, sure, I do all that. It's not me I'm worried about, it's Joe Sixpack who just watches TV that I'm worried about. He'll just believe whatever he's spoon-fed.

All I can say is, I know Joe Sixpack, and he's better than that.

Lead Ballons quotes Howard Dean, a particular quote that illustrates why he must be stopped: "We raised $40 million from ordinary people like you … We don't owe anybody anything."#

Lawrence Lessig writes about his Congressman who doesn't listen to his constituency.#

I live in the 12th Congressional District in California. We're a pretty sensible (you might call us liberal) bunch. Over 80% oppose the war. Almost 70% oppose the "Patriot Act."

Yet our Congressman — a wonderful and amazing figure, Tom Lantos — doesn't vote the way his district thinks. He has supported the war. He has supported the Patriot Act.

The New York Times reports that part of the USA Patriot Act has been struck down.#

Collins' ruling was the first of an expected string of rulings on cases now pending in courts across the country as the result of the Patriot Act.

Emily Whitfield, American Civil Liberties Union National Media Relations director, said more than 230 communities around the country, most recently Los Angeles, have passed resolutions calling for the repeal of certain controversial sections of the act.

The U.S. Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo said in a statement from Washington, D.C., that the Patriot Act is ``an essential tool in the war on terror'' and asserted that the portion at issue in the ruling was only a modest amendment to a pre-existing anti-terrorism law.

A very small change--yet essential? Get your facts straight.

British Politics writes about why Howard Dean deserves a comeback.#

I want a Howard Dean comeback in New Hampshire for one simple reason: The media coverage of his Scream has been completely over the top, and has featured pundits, columnists and writers deciding on the basis of 15 seconds of a campaign rally that a serious politician is not fit to be President.

I find this kind of coverage distasteful, pointless and irrelevant. Howard Dean may be the wrong man to be President, but it's can't be for that reason. It's gotcha politics at it's lowest, and driven, not by outrage at his policies, beliefs or campaign strategy but on the media equivalent of schoolyard bullying.

Rob Lawson writes about the transformation of the Democratic party.#

What has happened to the Democratic Party? Why do they keep moving farther to the left without any consideration for their conservative members? I believe the shift to the left started with the Jimmy Carter years. Bordering on socialist status, it's no wonder President Carter was such a screw up in his own Party. Not only did he fail the American people, he failed his own Party in such a manner that; in order for the Democratic Party to survive, migrating left was essentially their only option at the time. Ever since, the Neo Dems have had a hard time obtaining power in the White House.

Both parties are completely different beasts than they once were.

ScrappleFace reports that Renee Zellweger is just a few points behind John F. Kerry in NH according to a recent poll.#

Senator John F. Kerry, who still leads Ms. Zellweger by about three points in the polls, immediately attacked her military record.

"If I had been an actor in 'Cold Moutain'," said Mr. Kerry, "I would have pretended to fight for my country in the Civil War, instead of pretending to harbor deserters, like Ms. Zellwegger did."

Mr. Kerry, who has served as a Vietnam veteran for more than 30 years, refused to say which side of the war he would have pretended to be on.

Matt Stoller speculates about New Hampshire and what might happen.#

The most interesting storyline of this primary is actually what's happening to the primary process itself. Iowa shocked nearly everyone. I'm intrigued by the free media Kerry has received, jumping to the head of the national polls he barely registered on three weeks ago, as well as the piggybank and organization of Dean, who may be able to take the huge pounding he got in Iowa just because he won the internet primary this summer. The important new component here for both actors is the internet (not the momentum, which is a staple of primary seasons) - Kerry can translate momentum into cash to fuel his later state campaign through the web, and Dean can use the cash and organization that came from his earlier momentum to fuel his current campaign.

Matt Stoller writes about Wesley Clark's presidential campaign.#

The problems of achieving the Presidency are not just practical, or logistical, though there are those, and Clark has made tactical decisions to handle them, right or wrong. What's more profound is Clark now having nothing to talk about as a candidate; when you get right down to it, running for President is not just a job audition, it's an attempt to get the country to engage in self-examination and decide what it wants to make of itself. It is, more than anything, a strategic dialogue. And Clark, despite his spectacular accomplishments (and make no mistake, Clark is one of the most brilliant leaders this country has produced in the last half century), just isn't part of that discussion right now. He's bogged down in whether he grew up poor, or whether Michael Moore said something technically untrue, or some irrelevant conspiracy theory, or a million other insultlets capable of diminishing a Presidential candidate.

Mike Walsh writes something very funny about me.#

Have you ever picked up a book or a magazine that has been read by someone who likes to highlight or underline stuff. I used to have a colleague like that and it was fun to sit at his desk and flip through the magazines and books he had lying around.

The MakeOutCity experience is kinda like that.

Note: When I read I don't underline OR highlight, but I use a weird system of a bookmark where I notate things I want to remember. (I write PAGE-COLUMN-PARAGRAPH(description) [with parts to the right being optional] then to /'s between chapters.) It's a good way of keeping track of quotes and things without messing up a book.

The Dog of Justice writes about "reverse affirmative action."#

An oft-cited benefit of eliminating affirmative action is that the non-Asian/Jewish minority members who are admitted would no longer be suspected to be "affirmative action admits", of lesser expected competence.

I was shocked a few days ago when I realized that eliminating affirmative action does NOT in fact accomplish this!

Michael Watkins describes the tenure process at the Harvard Business School and why it does not seem to "foster excellence."#

What I will not miss is the culture of management-by-and-for-insecurity that pervades Harvard. The sad truth is that few people at Harvard are allowed, or allow themselves, to enjoy their accomplishments. The institution attracts driven, insecure people who then tend to reinforce each other. The result is productivity, albeit of a narrow form. I was able to isolate myself from its effects to a large degree, but I'm certainly not going to miss it.

Michael Watkins on the Sharon government's policies in Israel.#

Why is this the case? Because with our vetos and our encouragement of their conduct we are rightly seen as supporting the agenda of the Right in Israel. This includes their annexation (with the fence) of occupied territory in the name of security, their continued building of settlements, and their willingness to risk widening the conflict with strikes outside Israel.

Let me be clear here. The day that the Israelis begin to genuinely dismantle the settlements - which, with a few exceptions, are nothing but an ideologically- based land grab - is the day that the conflict will be on the road to a sustainable settlement.

Why is Chai Tea Latte so funny? Vote later.#

Couldn't follow the routine, so I just ended up making little silly happy dances up kinda like the routine all by myself in the back of the class. I turn, I pirouette, I twirl and jump. I do a mini-charleston and cha cha cha. Dadadadeedeedee. Stop. Facing windows of studio that open toward the rest of gym. The next class is staring at me.

The Black Saint records a conversation that took place on the set of That '70 Show.#

Topher: Hey, I don't need to star in goofy sci-fi films. I was in Traffic andOcean's Eleven.

Ashton: Ooooh. And, tell me, how much pussy did you get as a result of that?

Topher: What are you, twelve? See, I'm an actor and I'm in this because of a love of the craft. The chance to work with Steven Soderbergh or even Nathan Lane is more important to me than box office numbers or dating old women who were in St Elmo's Fire. Anyway, I only did this film to pay for my theatre work.

Ashton: So, really, how much pussy did you get because of all that?

Topher (lowers head): None.

Steve MacLaughlin writes about Dennis Miller's new TV show.#

Based on his hit-flop-hit-flop track record, something tells me Dennis Miller is due for a success this time around. But Miller's seemingly new found conservatism has some media pundits puzzled. Is Miller going with the flow or going with his heart? The trend of shows with conservative hosts on Fox and MSNBC gives critics fodder, but a look at Miller's political stances throughout his career would prove otherwise. Dennis Miller has also gone on record that 9/11 put a lot of things into perspective for him.

Oliver Kamm writes of "do-it-yourself economics."#

The government has economic duties that are important and extensive. Those I would list at a minimum are providing public goods, levying taxes in a way that is widely accepted as fair rather than arbitrary, controlling inflation, maintaining an adequate level of demand, managing public borrowing such that the budget balances over the course of the business cycle, dealing with negative externalities that aren't efficiently corrected through the marketplace, providing social benefits and redistributing income in order to tackle poverty. These are ambitious goals with no obviously correct way of accomplishing them; any government that could claim tolerable success in them will have done a worthwhile job and a public service.

To claim that in addition the government has a duty to 'help our businesses compete in overseas markets' is a gross and impertinent non sequitur. I have read Jones's article several times, and I have no idea why he issues this stern injunction. Actually, that's not strictly true: the clue lies in his preposterous designation of other countries as 'rivals'. So they may be on the football field; they are not rivals or competitors in the international economy.

Tyler Cowen writes about paintings and the current market for them.#

My take: The current generation of earners doesn't care much about uniqueness or the original image. Younger collectors love to buy photographs, and don't care if they don't "own the original" or if that phrase has meaning at all. Many prefer that an exact copy of what is on their wall also hangs in the Museum of Modern Art. So look for photography, and painting/photography hybrids to continue their run-up.

Tracy Adams posts a pretty picture.#

Sanjay Suri reports that the Human Rights Watch organization does not consider the Iraq War to be a humanitarian effort:#

"Military intervention in a humanitarian cause would be justified only if there was imminent fear of mass slaughter, if military intervention was the last reasonable option, if the humanitarian cause was the dominant focus of the intervention, if efforts had been made to maximize compliance with international law, if it was reasonable to believe that intervention would make things better, and if such intervention had been sanctioned by the United Nations or at least a large body of nations," Roth said.

"But there were nothing like the kind of killings taking place that happened in 1988 with the genocide against Kurds," Roth said. "Such interventions should not be used belatedly to address atrocities that were ignored in the past." Nor had other requirements been met, he said.