The Liberal Order

Dating Tips for Single People

In fact, nearly half of all singles surveyed (46%) say their political views have not changed in the last 10 years — including men and women of all major ethnic backgrounds (African Americans, Caucasians, Asians, and Latinos fall into the 92-96% range) and those of different sexual orientation (94% of straight men, 96% of straight women, 93% of gay men and 89% of lesbians). So if you date someone across the political aisle from your own, accept that you probably won’t be able to change anyone’s beliefs one way or the other — and get ready to make some real compromises for the sake of your relationship. 

It seems that politics is a greater minefield for a couple to navigate than any other issues they may encounter. If you can't compromise and accept someone for their political differences, are you really going to compromise and accept someone for dysfunctional behaviors like smoking, drug use (illegal and legal), sports attendance and participation, and video game use?

From a different story comes this interesting item of note relative to the story above:  

Conservatives are far more open to reaching out to someone with a different point of view than a liberal is.” That is, when it comes to looking for love, conservatives are more open-minded than liberals. 

See here. (HT: Tyler Cowen for the second story.)

Strict Liability v. Negligence - An Example of the Latter

Watch the video below. (Caution: Language) It looks like a couple of joy riders or some suicidal person with a death wish. I'll say more after the video jump.

 

 

Apparently it's a woman who suffered problems with a diabetic attack. Now, had she ventured onto oncoming traffic and killed someone, would she suffer civil lebal liability? It depends.

Had she struggled with this problem in the past, it was then a foreseeable hazard for her to be driving. If, however, this was a first occurrence, and more importantly if she didn't even know she had diabetes, then the potential for accident was not foreseeable and she would likely not be held liable. That may be a tough burden to prove in either direction.

In the end, some enterprising lawyer would have devised some reason to sue the car company and the state for not removing snow from the median. Fortunately, she did not hit anyone.

MRE Directions

Thanks to Steve, I am now the happy recipient of one box of MREs (that is, meal-ready-to-eat). They are the nastiest and grossest looking meals, other than the candy that's included in some packages. I've also been informed that MREs are laced with chemicals or something to inhibit bowel movements. It makes sense; if you're out in the field you can neither leave yourself open as a target nor do you want to leave traces of yourself behind. But they're not happening with me.

Of particular interest and humor, each meal has its own chemically-induced heating mechanism. You take the meal, which is packaged well in a plastic bag, instert it in the plastic heating bag, add the chemical pack and then water, and then put it back in the box in which the meal came. After about ten minutes, the heat from the chemical reaction heats the meal. Oh yeah, but during that ten minutes while the food is heating, you're supposed to lean the package on a "rock or something." I wonder what "somethings" there are in Iraq and Afghanistan?

An Undeserved Stereotype

The quintessential drug addict in the United States is the black teenager strung out on crack in a low-income housing project in some city. This stereotype is false (and unfair).

"There is certainly still a myth out there that black kids are more likely to have problems with drugs than white kids, and this documents as clearly as any study we're aware of that the rate of ... substance-related disorders among African American youths is significantly lower ," said Dr. Dan Blazer of the Duke's Department of Psychiatry, a senior author of the study.

This is not the first study to find these same results. 

Dewey Bozella and the Innocence Project

Dewey Bozella is receiving a lot of press for his win at age 52 of a professional boxing match. Oh, and for his overcoming 26 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. 

This video is pretty incredible and says a lot about this man.

 

Steve Jobs 1955 - 2011

To honor Steve Jobs' passing, one of the greatest graduation speeches ever.

 

The Beautiful Consequences of Market Competition

The beauty of market comptition.

Forbes considers the Kindle Fire much ado about nothing.

Is the $99 iPad on the horizon?

Social Media Sucks At Driving Traffic to Your Website

Quite simply, when it comes to driving traffic to your website, social media sites like Twitter and Facebook kind of suck at it, at least according to a study done by a company called Outbrain.

Once the study is taken into account, even the Drudge Report, a much smaller operation by comparison, out does Twitter and Facebook combined. It should be noted that the king of traffic referrals is, of course, Google. So much so, in fact, they are lapping the rest of the field.

Comfortably.

Story here. 

Scott Adams Spanks Paul Krugman

In explaining his bias against certainty, Scott Adams explains,

I have a personal bias that only idiots have certainty about complicated issues. (The exception would be skeptics who don't believe in magic, religious or otherwise. I give them a pass for being 100% certain.) So when Krugman, who is brilliant, displays certainty on the economy - with his Nobel Prize and all - my brain automatically conflates him with idiots, and it weakens his argument.

Good point. But then again, I'm not certain about that; it may be a bad point. Or even just a mediocre point.

The Psychology Behind Marketing - Don't Be Fooled By Words

Often, the people choosing those words know a lot about how to get in your head. If you don't believe us, just take a look at the marketing curriculum at a business school: there's increasing emphasis on studies of "consumer behavior," and many of the faculty have backgrounds in psychology. For marketers, it's all about choosing the words that appeal to basic psychological impulses.

Words like "free," "limited time," and "new and improved," enter into our subconscious, eliciting an impulse to buy something you might not otherwise have purchased.

Here's another example of the psychology behind marketing from a previous post.