Discrimination in Psychology

Looking into the skewed number of conservatives in social psychology.

I would say “look who’s figuring things out”, but then I read the comments.

“Anywhere in the world that social psychologists see women or minorities underrepresented by a factor of two or three, our minds jump to discrimination as the explanation,” said Dr. Haidt, who called himself a longtime liberal turned centrist. “But when we find out that conservatives are underrepresented among us by a factor of more than 100, suddenly everyone finds it quite easy to generate alternate explanations.”

Alternative explanations include Fox News. LOL

“Clueless on Cairo”

That’s the title of Victor Davis Hanson’s post up at Pajamas media today.

After this weekend, that’s pretty much what it all feels like. From Benny Avni of the NYPost.

Is Mubarak a dictator? No, according to Vice President Joe Biden. Yes, according to all other administration officials.

Must he quit? Yes, as soon as “yesterday,” according to press secretary Robert Gibbs. He should think about his “legacy,” says Obama.
But he should remain in office to maintain stability, according to Obama’s special envoy, Frank Wisner. Then again, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicates that we might be fine if he stays in office but allows Vice President Omar Suleiman to run things.
Until when? Last week, unnamed “senior officials” said elections must take place in three months. Now, Clinton says the long-planned September date might do just fine.

As Ed Morrissey notes:

The White House would rather stick to their own decisions in this crisis, which so far look like attempts to climb onto whatever bandwagon still has wheels at any given moment.

(I wish there was a bus analogy in there, but no, not yet)

Here’s VDH

n turn, the president seems to voice the last advice he was given, and so we are to assume two things: one, his make “no mistake about it” declaration will change and soon be rendered obsolete as conditions on the ground in Egypt change; two, he will artfully inject himself into the breaking news by the overuse of the now accustomed “I, my, mine” as he is self-constructed to be the catalyst for all that is becoming good and a long harsh critic of all that is turning bad. In other words, Obama will talk far too much and seek to turn someone else’s revolution into a showcase of his own rhetoric. And in adolescent fashion, Obama will reveal private conversations he has had with Egyptian leaders, both breaking confidentiality and portraying his interlocutors as either agreeing with his own advice or nodding to his dictates and directives.

Obama has shared so much of himself these last 2 years that we all are capable of reading his inner workings. It isn’t pretty. Benny Avni is giving him credit for probably working behind the scenes. I pretty much doubt that.

I’m sticking with my prediction from January 31st.

Anyway – I’m getting the feeling that Mubarek will ride this out but not run in September when elections are scheduled.

If I were state, I would work with that. Give the Egyptians credit for wanting sanity in their uprising. Push Mubarek to quit torturing people in prison and to start creating the steps to the coming election so that there is a clear path to independence there.

California

This is the time of year I miss CA.

Right now, though, the creeks are full. The waterfalls are running. The rattlesnakes won’t be out until April. The first flowers are breaking up the scenery along the sunnier trails. They’ll be replaced by the later flowers, but this is the time for rich clusters of lavender canyon pea, full bushes of pinky-violet wishbone flower and meadows of yellow-gold fiddlenecks.

It IS this spectacular.

Warning to the Future

You will be getting the bill.

Coyote Blog is the link.

Update: So in other words, I was hiring people in Florida in August of 2009, and will not find out until sometime in 2011 the true cost of this labor, because only now am I being told what taxes I have to pay on this labor. And people wonder why businesses are reluctant to hire. We may think we have a Constitutional ban on ex post facto law, but businessman know this is BS.

Obama/Reagan

I remember the Reagan years. They were not “all hail Reagan”.
There were tons of dissenters and people who thought he was a half wit and a danger to the world. Frankly I was one of them. And Iran/Contra still ticks me off.

Michael Kinsley writes honestly in the LATimes about NOT wanting Obama to be emulating Reagan. Apparently in Obama’s image control to the center he’s convinced the media to compare him favorably with the man.

I’d say in one major way, Obama does well.

He decides on a course of action.
When the law or Congress says “nyet”, he just does it anyway. Reaganesque indeed.

In foreign policy….he decides on what is required and then does what is needed to get there no matter who gets screwed. (UK? Israel?)

[UPDATE: Maybe not. ABC news is saying this is and old agreement and everyone new about it.]

Although the treaty [New START] was not supposed to have any impact on Britain, the leaked cables show that Russia used the talks to demand more information about the UK’s Trident missiles, which are manufactured and maintained in the US.
Washington lobbied London in 2009 for permission to supply Moscow with detailed data about the performance of UK missiles. The UK refused, but the US agreed to hand over the serial numbers of Trident missiles it transfers to Britain.

Seeing as how this was in Wikileaks yet the Telegraph has the scoop, can we assume American Journalists are just not bothering with research at all?

“What is it with girls who put clothes on dogs?”

“Seriously mom, I’m a very big, tough looking dog who now looks like a doofus!!”

“Well ok, as long as I can still ‘attack!’”

The Army of Davids

Glenn Reynolds wrote An Army of Davids a few years back.

Today, Daniel Henninger notes who’s winning. (that would be the Davids)

Barack Obama and the Democrats just got hit with the same disruptive force in the U.S. Whatever the health-care bill’s merits, Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues legislated as if living inside the old status quo when no one beyond the Beltway understood what their lawmakers did. In the 1960s, when Congress created Medicare and Medicaid, can there have been 100 nonspecialists who had any clue what Congress was doing? But for a year millions read daily ObamaCare’s arcane details and shared opinions. That engagement fed directly into the historic November election shellacking.

………………..

Nor is any of this a revelation. But somehow people in positions of political authority, whether Hosni Mubarak or foreign-policy establishments everywhere, including our State Department, act as if this is just troublesome background noise. Understandably so. It is hard to ascribe primal power to things with goofy names like Twitter and Facebook.

Go – enjoy the whole column.
Glenn, – go ahead and gloat.

Drinking

I’m not much of a drinker, but these cold nights have made for a nice spot of port before bed.

My cognitive abilities have appreciated it!
From the newest dietary guidelines:

The Guidelines, created by America’s leading health researchers, state: “Alcohol consumption may have beneficial effects when consumed in moderation (up to two drinks daily). Strong evidence from observational studies has shown that moderate alcohol consumption is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. Moderate alcohol consumption also is associated with reduced risk of all-cause mortality among middle-aged and older adults and may help to keep cognitive function intact with age.”

Corporate Welfare

GE and Obama…linked at the hip.

Because Obama wants access to your money to make certain the right people are using it.

Stories from days gone by

Of El Baradei, John Kerry, George Bush and some “missing” explosives.

go and read Cliff May.

The whole Al Qaqaa issue was a complete fraud; the explosives, if they ever existed, were gone by the time U.S. forces captured the depot. Once the election was over, not a single moment was wasted by anyone, worrying about the “missing” weapons. But here is the point: who started the Al Qaqaa fraud? Mohammed El Baradei. The Democrats’ claim was based on a letter from the IAEA that was leaked.