Gratuitous
 

Keep telling yourself that.

Lemme guess -- in the South the Dems got all the beer-swilling frog-gigging bubbas, and the Repubs got the people with graduate degrees. Right?

Gratuitous
 

In the South we got both. Nationally, the exit polls show we won for Bachelor's or HS and you won for grad degrees and no degrees. I don't equate a grad degree to higher IQs than bachelor's.

Gratuitous
 

You's impossible, Hank.

"we won for Bachelor's or HS"

Which was it? Or do you mean both? I'd say you meant the GOP won both, but later you write:

"you won for grad degrees and no degrees"

...which tends to indicate that you didn't mean "both Bachelor's and HS" in the earlier part of the sentence.

Clarify please. And use bullet points.

Gratuitous
 

I try and post conversationally, since I'm pretty sure some of the lefties here are of the "no degree" type.

Gratuitous
 

What do you try? You're a funny guy. A really funny guy.

That is a huge pet peeve. I make many grammatical/typo errors, but when I hear sopmebody say "Why don't you try and do it this way" or "I'll try an do that" its like fucking nails on a chalkboard. Nothing is worse.

OK... maybe "Lets go down the shore" (a phrase favored by Philadelphia area idiots) is worse.

Gratuitous
 

My MIL hates "You've got a friend in Pennslyvania."

Gratuitous
 

That ain't saying much.

Gratuitous
 

Cite please.

Gratuitous
 

Not necessary. Hank lives in a blue state.

Gratuitous
 

If what you meant was "Bush won among HS grads, those with some college and those who graduated college; Kerry won among those without a HS degree and with post-gradutate degrees," that result was also true for Bush/Gore in 2000.

To do the detail (because why not):

HS dropouts: 50/49 Kerry
HS grads: 51/48 Bush
Some college: 53/46 Bush
College degree no grad degree: 51/47 Bush
Some grad school: 55/44 Kerry

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pag.../epolls.0.html

Interestingly, I also note that the groups which had a noticeable (1% when rounded) vote for Nader were those with at least a college degree and income over $100K.

BR(Third Party Candidates: the choice of the intelligent rich - and, I'm sure if they ran the numbers, beautiful - people)C

Gratuitous
 

Very interesting chart.

Can we all agree that the people who voted for Bush despite saying they "strongly disapprove" of his handling of his job, and the ones who voted for Kerry despite "strongly approving" Bush's job, need to be euthanized?

There's Something Happening Here
 

Meanwhile, the rebuilding of Iraq is going so well that the U.S government has decided that the road from Baghdad to the airport is too unsafe to drive, and that U.S. personnel henceforth will be transported there by helicopter. Just another success in our effort to turn Iraq into a beacon of stability and democracy for the Arab world.

There's Something Happening Here
 

Is Khatami really the one to blame? Or is he just the only one they can criticize publicly without getting beaten?

There's Something Happening Here
 

I think a little of both. I understand he's walking a very narrow line these days.

1. What, the insurgents ran out of anti-aircraft missiles? That's pretty hard to believe. I'd rather drive, land mines and ambushes be damned.

2. Nation-building sucks. Has it ever worked, with the possible exception of Germany post-1945 where everything had been bombed completely to shit?

Gratuitous
 

honestly- was my original post that unclear?

Not that it changes your point, but I think all the Axis powers really fall under this, along with (South) Korea

Gratuitous
 

A little, though I managed to figure it out without spraining anything.

New Blog
 

Showing that any two-bit hack can now have a blog, here is the latest.

From Nobel Laureate Gary Becker and Judge Richard Posner

New Blog
 

Wow. Who could have predicted this? From Posner:

"A rational decision to go to war should be based on a comparison of the costs and benefits . . . ."

Policy analysis
 

From the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

Projected Economic Costs Due to Health Consequences of Teenagers’ Loss of Confidentiality in Obtaining Reproductive Health Care Services in Texas

• ABSTRACT
  
  Background We wanted to focus on the potential consequences of recently enacted legislation in Texas that limits adolescents’ ability to obtain confidential reproductive health care services.
  
  Objective To assess the potential economic costs that result when adolescents do not seek reproductive health care services because their confidentiality is compromised.
  
  Design We developed a cost model to estimate the projected costs of parental consent and law enforcement reporting requirements based on data from the literature, the Texas Department of Health, and publicly funded family planning clinics in Texas. Univariate and multivariate sensitivity analyses explored different scenarios.
  
  Setting The state of Texas.
  
  Participants Projected costs were estimated for all girls younger than 18 years using publicly funded reproductive health care services in Texas.
  
  Main Outcome Measures We determined the projected number of additional pregnancies, births, abortions, and untreated sexually transmitted infections and resulting pelvic inflammatory disease and calculated the associated economic costs of these projected outcomes.
  
  Results The potential costs of parental consent and law enforcement reporting requirements in Texas were estimated at $43.6 million (range, $11.8 million to $56.6 million) for girls younger than 18 years currently using publicly funded services.
  
  Conclusions As policymakers throughout the United States search for ways to curtail adolescent sexual activity and its adverse consequences, this analysis suggests that the limiting of medical confidentiality and the resulting restricted use of reproductive health care services potentially have serious health and economic consequences.

Follow the link to the full article. It's amazing how terrified we are in this country of kids having sex.

Policy analysis
 

No, it's amazing that we think that if kids aren't able to learn about sex or obtain protection from pregnancy/STDs, they will abstain from sex.

Policy analysis
 

With an appropriate disclaimer that I would give the same sex ed that you would, you're sounding like that guy who wrote "What's The Matter With Kansas", in which he says that all the red-staters voted against their own interests, but in which he made the mistake of thinking that he knew what their interests were as well as they did. I think they might say that you are judging by the wrong criteria.

Policy analysis
 

While I follow your general point, I think the situations are a bit different.

Unlike the Kansasan (Kansasanian?) example, here I think it's less of a leap to assume that significantly more unintended pregnancies, and their attendant costs, were either a neutral or beneficial byproduct of the legislature's goals of, ah, preventing teen sex.

Policy analysis
 

If your point is that many people care more about the message sent rather than its real-world effects, I agree. But there is also some truth to the idea that those people don't like to put it that way, and instead pretend that sending the right message will result in only the best of all possible worlds.

Policy analysis
 

Which criteria am I judging incorrectly: The additional cost ($43.6 million)? The number of STIs (3.11 more cases of chlamydia, $980 per 100 girls, HIV wasn't included in the modelling because the incidence in 2002 was too low)? The number of pregnancies (increase of 11.45 pregnancies, 7.44 births and 2.29 abortions at $60,952 per 100 teens)?

The model that they used may be wrong, and I am not certain that they are interpreting relevant statutes correctly (at least I hope not, because otherwise I have a lot of phone calls to make to clients tomorrow who will not be happy that they're going to have to rat out their patients and patients' sexual partners to law enforcement), but I do not think that the intent of the legislation was to increase teen pregnancy and STI.

Policy analysis
 

Bilmore thinks you are more interested in attacking the people who voted for the more restrictive laws than you are in the laws' actual effects in the real world.

Policy analysis
 

I haven't read the book, as it seems somewhat cheesy. But I saw the author on the Daily Show (for a few minutes -- like most people, he gives a crappy interview on that show) and got the impression that he says that the "red staters" voted against their economic interests.* Not against their interests overall, or more accurately not against what they define as their interests.

Kind of what the Romans called "bread and circuses."**



*I'm not sure I agree with him on that, either. Response one would be "farm subsidies." Response 2 would be "you think the blue-staters will let the red states keep sucking on the federal teat forever if they could do anything about it?"

**Not really, but I like saying "bread and circuses." It's the ancient equivalent of tits and beer.

Policy analysis
 

Is that what the enlightened Bay Area folks are calling that new Hooters joint down by the Wharf?

Policy analysis
 

Like the rest of Fisherman's Wharf, no self-respecting Bay Area resident would be caught dead down there.

Tyranny of the Minority?
 

• In an appearance before Congress in February, when the controversy over Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl moment was at its height, Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell laid some startling statistics on U.S. senators.
  
  The number of indecency complaints had soared dramatically to more than 240,000 in the previous year, Powell said. The figure was up from roughly 14,000 in 2002, and from fewer than 350 in each of the two previous years. There was, Powell said, “a dramatic rise in public concern and outrage about what is being broadcast into their homes.”
  
  
  What Powell did not reveal—apparently because he was unaware—was the source of the complaints. According to a new FCC estimate obtained by Mediaweek, nearly all indecency complaints in 2003—99.8 percent—were filed by the Parents Television Council, an activist group.
  
  This year, the trend has continued, and perhaps intensified.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mediaweek/h..._id=1000731656

Wonderful
 

This Should be Getting Lots More Attention
 

Wonderful
 

Tres amusant.

This Should be Getting Lots More Attention
 

Should we also be paying attention to the fact that his government doesn't control large portions of the country, or is that the sort of thing that we should be quiet about lest our enemies find out about it too?

This Should be Getting Lots More Attention
 

Always half full with you.

This Should be Getting Lots More Attention
 

Re Afghanistan, the truer test of a democracy is whether power is surrendered peacefully. That's why what has been happening in Ukraine is far more meaningful and momentous than what has been happening in Afghanistan.

This Should be Getting Lots More Attention
 

I agree with you, but you have to remember that Ukraine has been working towards democracy for a decade longer than Afghanistan.

This Should be Getting Lots More Attention
 

Fine, but you were the one posting about Afghanistan, not Ukraine. And you're not saying much at all about Iraq lately, which is no surprise. Donald Rumsfeld just promised that our troops would be home within four years. When Kerry said something similar the conservative press attacked him for wanting to cut and run, but I don't suppose there's any point in waiting for criticism of Rumsfeld on the same score.

Obviously, we've all taken to heart the idea that in order to win the war in Iraq, it's dreadfully important that we pretend to be winning it, lest the insurgents learn from our media that they actually are winning, and proceed to win even more as a result. Consistent with this strategy,

• it's worth noting how far we've gone toward lowering the goalposts for "success" in Iraq. If you'd said before the war that over a year (and 1,000 U.S. fatalities) after the fall of Baghdad, U.S. forces would still be taking large numbers of casualties in an effort to create a government dominated by Shiite fundamentalists that has little capacity to exercise control over broad swathes of Iraqi territory you would have been labled a major-league pessimist about the venture. Now that's the hope of the optimists.

Yglesias in TAPPED.

Democracy in Iraq is right around the corner, right?