Mot Juste du Jour: Enlightened Social Commentary Edition

Of course it's hard to think of Indonesia as a muslim country; they're too rational. Case in point: "Some protesters set tires on fire in a city on the capital's outskirts and others screamed 'Hillary is terrorist.'"

James

Ladies, as a matter of fact, I *am* your perfect mate...

Balls and brains

Dec 4th 2008
From The Economist print edition

The quality of a man’s sperm depends on how intelligent he is, and vice versa

Link here.


I won't bother to summarize. It's self-explanatory. The Money Line is this:

Ms Arden sought to test this idea in a way that excluded intelligent choice and got directly at any correlations between intelligence and health that operate at the physiological level. She chose sperm quality because it is both easily measured and about as far from intelligent choice as it is possible to imagine...

samples had been collected and analysed from unvasectomised men who had... answered all the necessary questions for her to test her hypothesis, namely that their g values would correlate with all three measures of their sperm quality.

They did. Moreover, neither age nor any obvious confounding variable that might have been a consequence of intelligent decisions about health (obesity, smoking, drinking and drug use) had any effect on the result. Brainy men, it seems, do have better sperm.

I think if I make photocopies of this article and distribute it to women I might randomly meet, my odds for successful procreation will increase. Let the experiment begin...

Happy VI Day!

I don't usually go for "causes" and I'm not terribly activist in my blogging. But sometimes you just see something you believe in and so you just have to say something about it.

Instapundit linked to a post which I didn't immediately get - I'm not much of a history buff. But the cause is just, and the message true: I believe this is something I should be endorsing and proclaiming.

So, I figure I might as well join what I hope will become a widely-recognized bandwagon:

HAPPY VICTORY IN IRAQ DAY, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2008!

Mot Juste du Jour: Department of Redundancy Department edition.

Interestingly enough, I'm finding my current job to be interesting enough.

Me, in email correspondence with a friend

Mot Juste du Jour: Paradoxical Recursion edition

Her: You're such a fraud!

Me: I never claimed to be otherwise...

Random Im exchange in my little world

Something fascinating...

... and something... rather not.

The fascinating bit comes from this article on CNN.com. The very brief summary of the article is that scientists have found that physical warmth in the hands can affect how warmly one person judge's another's personality.

Think about this for a second: simply altering how the physical environment impacts a person. can alter a person's cognitive and emotional reactions.

I have to admit I don't find this nearly as earth shattering as perhaps most people will. Partially it is because I'm no stranger to the thesis that our cognitive processes are much more closely tied to our physical bodies than is commonly thought. Still, it is fascinating.

Speaking of understanding how our minds work, This was on Yahoo News' front page today:

Beyoncé changes her name

The singer's new album reveals an alter ego which she says allows her to take more risks. » What it is

• See a more voluptuous Beyoncé
• Beyoncé uses Ciara's song title

The name is intentionally withheld in order to generate clickthroughs. When these techniques no longer work, when people can avoid such blatant manipulation to the extent that it is no longer profitable, humanity will turn a corner in its evolution.

And yes, this was not fascinating. I'll try very hard to avoid, as long as possible, finding out what it is. I did not click on the link.

Mot Juste du Jour: Reboot edition

Some guys do extreme sports. I date redheads.

Me