Thirty Three Things (v. 34)

It’s hard to talk about alcohol without talking about sex, and you can’t talk about sex these days without talking about alcohol. One of the most remarkable developments in the last twenty years has been the rapid rise of binge drinking not among college-age men, but among college-age women, 40 percent of whom have had more than 4 drinks in a row in the last week. I have a theory about this. I believe that drinking for college-age women is largely a way to make sex easier—to ease the pain of hooking up, the pain of anonymous sex. Sex with someone you’ve made no promises to, for whom you haven’t changed your name, is indeed anonymous, without-a-name sex. It’s also story-less sex, with no history and no future. When it stops feeling good, it hurts, because sex is made to change our names, to change our stories. And when it doesn’t change us, it leaves us empty and lost, stranded outside the story we were made to live in. It’s a shame—and because it’s a shame, it doesn’t just affect the individuals who choose it. It leaves all of us…stranded outside the best story.

(HT: JollyBlogger)

11. How To Make Giant Soap Bubbles

12. Worst Interview Ever? -- That's what NPR concluded after interviewing the band Sigur Ros:

[L]ast Friday the band showed up promptly at 11am (EDT) and commenced to give what is possibly the worst interview in the history of electronic media.

Seriously.

It was that bad.

Yep. It's that bad. (HT: Kottke.org)

13. Although the term "fundamentalist" is often meant as an insult, Anthony Esolen doesn't find it denigrating:

Yet I think I rather like that insulting name, "fundamentalist." It suggests -- whatever the insulter may intend -- a thinker, someone who does not wish to reside in the mushy middle of sentiment. That is, a fundamentalist is somebody who pays attention to foundations: he wants to know whether the floor beneath him has girders and posts and concrete anchors. He wants to know whether, when the wolf comes howling -- and the wolf does follow a well-noted lupine schedule -- his house will remain standing. The Christian householder, confronted with the question of whether it would be a good thing to drill a large hole in his floor, should be forgiven if he asks first what the cornerstone thinks about it. We come from various communions, and our houses look a bit different -- some are Italianate with fancy tiles on the roof, and some are as spare as a lone steeple in Kansas -- but we look to the Word of God, and the historical teachings of our churches, and, without depending too heavily upon it, the natural reason God endowed us with. These are our fundamentals, and we are flatfooted enough to believe that they do not contradict themselves, or one another.

14. An interactive Periodic Table of Elements. (HT: Siris)

15. A new study has found that women frequently judge a man exclusively by the first kiss:

"Psychologist Gordon Gallup, who led the study, said that for many men, the first kiss can be the one that makes or breaks the deal. 'While many forces lead two people to connect romantically, the kiss - particularly the first one - can be a deal -breaker,' the Daily Mail quoted him, as saying."

(HT: The View From Her)

16. Jeremy Pierce makes a prediction:

If Hillary Clinton becomes the next president of the U.S., I expect we're going to see a parallel to Bush Derangement Syndrome: Hillary Derangement Syndrome. (I'd call it Clinton Derangement Syndrome, except that's ambiguous.)

Anything that's bad will be attributed to her, whether she's responsible or not. Anything she says will be treated as uncharitably as possible, no matter how out-of-context it has to be taken. The consequences of her policies will be greatly exaggerated, and any other contributing factors to bad outcomes will be ignored. And what's worst about this is that the people who will be doing it will be mainly evangelical Christians.

I've thought about that same thing and agree with all but that last sentence. Evangelicals won't be the ones who suffer most from HDS. That will likely be talk radio hosts, pundits on FOX News, and anyone else who can make a living off the condition.

17. Picture Cartoon of the Week:

(HT: Cartoon Church via ProBlogger)

18. Confusing Words is a collection of 3210 words that are troublesome to readers and writers. Words are grouped according to the way they are most often confused or misused. (HT: The Presurfer)

19. Nat Torkington on the limits of social software:

The acquisition drive for social contacts reminds me of the acquisition drive for material goods. At the risk of diving into the highly questionable field of evolutionary psychology, it's because we were limited for millennia. We could only have so many friends, there was only so much "stuff" to have. Those with a drive to collect friends or material possessions prospered and spread their genes. Now, thanks to Twitter and Wal-Mart, there's an endless supply of people to interact with and plastic objects to accumulate. Facebook is the candy bar of the 21st century—it tastes good because for millennia it was rare and necessary, not because in the modern day and age we actually need it. And, like sugar, it won't go away no matter how much we fret about it.

(HT: Ross Douthat)

20. How to Break Bad Eating Habits

21. Dan Kahan describes the findings of a study that attempts to explain ways in which people's cultural predispositions affect their perceptions of facts:

[I]t shouldn’t come as news to anyone that people tend to listen to policy experts they find knowledgeable and trustworthy, particularly on relatively novel issues that turn on uncertain empirical claims. But our study helps to reveal what makes ordinary people find experts credible: an affinity between the experts’ perceived cultural values and their own. This finding too shouldn't come as a shock, yet it's a truth that is consistently missed by many public policy advocates, who tend to assume that all they need to do to persuade the public on some risk issue (global warming, gun control, etc.) is amass reams of evidence from people whose authority derives solely from their technical training and expertise. If those advocates make that same mistake here -- if they don’t take care to assure that public advocates in the HPV vaccine debate are perceived as having appropriate cultural credentials as well as appropriate scientific ones -- they’ll likely be left scratching their heads in bewilderment, and stomping their feet in frustration, once again as their message fails to get through.

(HT: Mirror of Justice)

22. TV Dinners: Researchers found that children in families who watched TV while eating meals together had a lower-quality diet than the children of families who ate together, but turned the TV off. Boys watching TV while eating family meals consumed fewer vegetables and grains, and more soft drinks, than those who did not watch TV; girls watching TV ate significantly fewer dark vegetables and more fried food.

23. Elizabeth Marquardt of Family Scholars Blog doesn't understand the appeal of violence in pop culture:

I understand why sex sells. I understand why people want to see naked images of beautiful people, even though it's really not a good idea for them to do too much of that. But I will never, ever, ever be able to understand in my head or in my heart why in a world so full of vividly real violence, so much suffering anywhere you turn your head, why anyone, much less millions and millions of people, especially young, impressionable people, want to tune into violence for entertainment. I will never understand it. And more than the random psycho killer, more than the cynical L.A. execs who produce this crap, that fact — why so many people eat it up — that fact is what troubles me the most, and it troubles me deeply.

24. Jonah Goldberg on patriotism and the culture war :

I've come around to the view that the culture war can best be understood as a conflict between two different kinds of patriotism. On the one hand, there are people who believe being an American is all about dissent and change, that the American idea is inseparable from "progress." America is certainly an idea, but it is not merely an idea. It is also a nation with a culture as real as France's or Mexico's. That's where the other patriots come in; they think patriotism is about preserving Americanness.

Yet the strangest and most ironic aspect of our national culture is that we have an aversion to talking about a national culture. Samuel Huntington, one of the country's premier social scientists, has become something of a pariah for constantly reminding people (in books such as "The Clash of Civilizations" and "Who Are We?") that the United States is a nation, not just a government and a bunch of interest groups.

Many liberals hear talk of national culture and shout, "Nativist!" first and ask questions later, if at all. They believe it is a sign of their patriotism that they hold fast to the idea that we are a "nation of immigrants" -- forgetting that we are also a nation of immigrants who became Americans.

(HT: Maggie's Farm)

25. LOLCat TheoLOLgian of the Week

Fred Sanders has more here and here.

26. Gore and the Nobel Prize (Part I) -- Björn Lomborg points out that Gore and his Nobel co-winners disagree on the effects of global warming:

Gore told the world in his Academy Award-winning movie (recently labeled "one-sided" and containing "scientific errors" by a British judge) to expect 20-foot sea-level rises over this century. But his Nobel co-winners, the IPCC, conclude that sea levels will rise between only a half-foot and two feet over this century, with their best expectation being about one foot - similar to what the world experienced over the past 150 years.

Likewise, Gore agonises over the accelerated melting of ice in Greenland, but overlooks the IPCC's conclusion that, if sustained, the current rate of melting would add just three inches to the sea level rise by the end of the century. Gore also takes no notice of research showing that Greenland's temperatures were higher in 1941 than they are today.

(HT: RedState)

27. Gore and the Nobel Prize (Part II) -- Don Bosch of The Evangelical Ecologist thinks it may have been a good thing:

I disagree with how he interprets UNEP's IPCC data and wields it to further his agenda. But that agenda has taken the discussion on climate change and the environment to an unprecedented level, and is worth acknowledging.

Notably, they didn't get the Nobel Prize for chemistry or physics, something that will befuddle many of the IPCC's scientists. That seems appropriate too. It says to me that Gore and the IPCC are more tapped into the social, economic, political, even moral issues on the environment than they are the hard science going on in the trenches at places like NOAA.

Look. For better or worse, Gore stimulated thousands of hours of focused scientific research worldwide on the complexities of how our climate works. The more we learn about this amazing world - including the atmosphere - the better we can take care of it.

And the more we can appreciate the One who made it.

28. Marc Andreessen has some questions for the producers of the new Bionic Woman:

Any organization that developed biomedical technology for instant healing and flawless body part replacement -- technology 20 years ahead of its time -- would be able to license it and generate hundreds of billions of dollars of income very quickly. Instead, they keep it secret and derive no real value from it. Why?

(On behalf of my childhood, I would also like to extend this same question to the producers of Knight Rider and Airwolf.)

(HT: Ross Douthat)

29. Marriage And Fatherhood Linked To Lower Testosterone Levels -- Marital status and paternal responsibility may have a significant effect on levels of testosterone and other hormones in men, according to two new studies published this fall by a researcher at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV).

30. Being paid by the hour changes the way we think about time -- If someone sees their time as having a financial worth, then it follows that any time they don't spend earning money is essentially lost revenue. DeVoe and Pfeffer found that of over 10,000 employees, those who were paid by the hour were significantly more likely to say that, given the choice, they would choose to work more hours for more money, rather than fewer hours for less money.

31. Human Urine As A Safe, Inexpensive Fertilizer For Food Crops -- Researchers in Finland are reporting successful use of an unlikely fertilizer for farm fields that is inexpensive, abundantly available, and undeniably organic -- human urine. Despite the 'yuk!' factor, urine from healthy individuals is virtually sterile, free of bacteria or viruses. Naturally rich in nitrogen and other nutrients, urine has been used as fertilizer since ancient times.

32. Starting University May Be Hazardous To Your Health -- Moving away from home and adapting to a new social environment are just two of the many challenges that new students face as they enter university. An innovative new study conducted at the University of Alberta has found that these challenges can actually have a negative effect on a student's health.

33. Procrastination