DOOM, narrowly averted. Remember, Mother Nature is always trying to kill you. If it's not asteroids, it's volcanoes; if it's not volcanoes, it's earthquakes; if it's not earthquakes, it's tsunamis. Disease, being eaten by wild animals or carnivorous fish, or just the implacable march of time: sooner or later, she's going to get you.

Walter Russell Meade: The crisis of young men is a crisis for us all.

While the markets obsess over Europe, China is on the brink. Tom Friedman is inconsolable.

Most of the unemployed have run out of benefits. (Via Truman North in the sidebar.)

A look inside the so-called “Super Committee”. It's pretty much what you expect.

Small businesses in Greece are being ruined as the catastrophe unfolds. I donÂ’t know why this is surprising to anyone: small private businesses are always the most vulnerable parts of any economy. ThatÂ’s why theyÂ’re good indicators of how well an economy is doing more generally.

The Euro: the case for the world's most hated currency.

So one week ago, I’m at a dinner in Amsterdam and, inevitably, the topic of Greece and the euro comes up. A Dutch book editor goes into a tart little diatribe about how outrageous it is for Greeks to have gladly taken massive loans yet now bristle at being forced to repay at least part of the money. I ask if she thinks Dutch people resent that. The Dutch, along with the Germans and other “responsible” northerners, are the likely ones to have to make up for whatever countries like Greece don’t pay. “Yes, we resent it,” she says. I pose what seems a logical followup: “Do you want out of the euro?” She and the Belgian translator across from her look stunned and reply in unison: “Of course not!”

Coming At You: "An Endless Series Of Hobgoblins, Most Of Them Imaginary".

Once the great goat rodeos and high melodrama (or, perhaps, farce) in which Washington excels die down the most likely result will beÂ… nothing. Washington lives to preserve the status quo. It feels a need to theatricalize preserving that status quo by flamboyant gestures worthy of Tom Sawyer professing determination to mend his rascally ways. Not really.

Posted by: Monty at 04:53 AM | Comments (307)
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It'll be interesting to see if Cain talks about specifics or keeps it at the level of general denials that he used for the other claims. As far as the primary election goes, Cain has been well-served by general denials thus far.

To be sure, Cain's response to the original Politico article and the subsequent events was totally unprofessional. It had all the telltales of someone with a credibility problem. His statements were inconsistent, evasive, and vague. His demeanor suggested a problem ("I enjoy flowers like everybody else."). He confirmed the facts of the original Politico article, even as he denied the whole dust-up as a media smear. And he made a solid attempt at destroying Curt Anderson's career in order to point the finger at the Perry campaign, and then was forced to backtrack on his disgraceful slur.

The amazing part is that this horrific fumble worked, at least for some people. Cain supporters rallied and so did many other GOP voters. I'm paraphrasing from Limbaugh's show yesterday, but a caller had this to say about the accusations:

All I know for sure is, the more accusations they throw at Cain, the more I know he's our man.

She went on to say something about being trained not to believe the media. She is, of course, not alone in distrust for the MSM and we've certainly spent enough time documenting the "Make Believe Media" here.

But look how far she went. Limbaugh's caller has a rock-solid conviction that the accusations are false, even though she has very little objective evidence with which to evaluate their accuracy.

It's like this. While we were criticizing Cain for utterly failing at keeping the story from blowing up, Cain was actually muddying the waters. He was making it more difficult for the casual observer to understand what this story was about, right down to the basic facts. Politico and the rest of the legacy media also helped muddy the waters, by printing perhaps a thousand articles about ever teeny facet of the allegations.

So to the casual observer, the person who claims to Pew pollsters to be "reasonably well-informed" about an issue, there is a lot of complexity, a lot of back-and-forth, a lot of "maybe yes, maybe no" to this story. The casual observer also tends to know about a story, but they may not know whether it's accurate or not.

With all of this complexity, evaluating the accuracy of the accusations and Cain's denials, hell, even parsing just which news reports Cain has confirmed (like, e.g., the Politico story) and just which reports Cain has denied, has become very difficult for the casual observer.

When things get so complex, we naturally look for proxies to take the place of an actual evaluation of the evidence. One of the most common proxies is source. The source may tell us whether or not to believe the content.

Here, Cain and Politico made this story very complex. Even here at the HQ, (definitely, better-informed than the casual observer) it's been difficult keeping this whole thing straight in light of all the different accusers, Cain responses, legacy media counter-responses, and Cain sur-responses. It's complicated. It's hard to tell who is giving accurate information. So the casual observer is going to turn to a proxy. And in this case, they turned to source.

For the casual GOP voter, like the lady on the Limbaugh show, it's easy to say: look we know not to trust the media, we've been trained not to trust the media, (and here's the leap) so we choose to believe that Cain must be telling the truth. That's great for Cain in the primary election; those folks circle the wagons. They assume that Cain is credible and that all these folks that the media is propping up can't possibly be credible. After all, everyone knows that the media is out to get Republicans and out to get true conservatives most of all. This explains why Cain's support did not erode much among the GOP primary voters.

Of course, folks not conditioned to reflexively distrust the MFM, like the average swing voter and even many Republicans, are going to run in the other direction. They're going to see Cain as the incredible source, particularly in light of the fumbled response and his obvious self-interest. That leaves the media and the accusers as more credible than Cain's blanket denials. Thus, the swing voter is going to tend to believe the media has been accurate, at least in the absence of any way of actually evaluating the accuracy of the charges.

Cain can change that sentiment among swing voters and the Republicans he hasn't convinced yet by getting specific and by dropping the obfuscation. Assuming that he hasn't actually done anything wrong.

Maybe that's what he'll do this afternoon at the presser. But keep in mind that if he does speak with complete and specific detail, he will make it easier to evaluate the accuracy of the claims. He might want that, if he's been completely honest about never having harassed anybody "period, end of story." On the other hand, if he actually has done something wrong, he'd be better off, at least as far as the primary election goes, keeping things complicated.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:37 AM | Comments (319)
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Stuck in reverse.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:40 AM | Comments (105)
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Well, not now, but the show's begun.

Kimmel is really going whole hog on the Cain stuff, which is going to make the interview awkward.

Meanwhile, rumblings from Bill Kurtis -- of Investigative Reports -- that he hears from people who know her that Sharon Bialek's veracity might be dubious. An almost too-perfect attack on her veracity from an unnamed emailer to MacsMind, who claims she would always "cry sexual harassment" when she didn't get her way. (MacsMind link fixed.)

I thought I shouldn't post that because it's uncorroborated, but then again, all of this is uncorroborated, including against Cain. So, fair is fair.

And to correct: I earlier said that Cain's statement did not address Bialek. But that column, it turns out, had been published yesterday, so of course it wouldn't.

Now this isn't really my fault as Cain sent this column around by email to news outlets, and Fox (from where I got it) reported it as current.

Nevertheless, the correction is still owed: That was published yesterday, so the claim I made that he was dodging Bialek's accusation is incorrect. (Note today's statement, denying "sexual harassment," still does that "let me deny a legal conclusion rather than a particular fact alleged" which I consider lawyerly parsing.)

Posted by: Ace at 08:06 PM | Comments (591)
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Why You're Fat

Well personally I blame the French - and society. But to be fair that's my go-to explanation for pretty much everything wrong with the world.

But now science is pointing at your biology (and probably your parents' genes) as the reason why it's so easy to gain weight and so hard to lose it.

Now the standard story is that calories is calories and that it takes 3500 calories burned or skipped to lose a pound of fat. But as someone who's never cut a svelte figure I can tell you that it's always been exponentially harder to lose 5lbs than it is to gain it. So while thermodynamically the equation must balance, there's very much a bias towards one particular side of the balance sheet.

So my theory has long been that gaining weight was mostly a rate problem between your calories burned and your body's metabolic set point i.e. how many calories it thinks it needs. And given a long-running battle between your willpower and your hypothalamus - well your hypothalamus is going to come out on top 99 times out of a hundred.

And now science is coming around to back this theory up:

According to the researchers, it is easy to gain weight unwittingly from a very small imbalance in the number of calories consumed over calories used. Just 10 extra calories a day is all it takes to raise the body weight of the average person by 20 pounds in 30 years, the authors wrote.

Furthermore, the same increase in calories will result in more pounds gained by a heavier person than by a lean one — and a greater proportion of the weight gained by the heavier person will be body fat. This happens because lean tissue (muscles, bones and organs) uses more calories than the same weight of fat.

In an interview, Dr. Hall said the longstanding assumption that cutting 3,500 calories will produce a one-pound weight loss indefinitely is inaccurate and can produce discouraging results both for dieters and for policy changes like the proposed tax on sugar-sweetened beverages.

If the 3,500-calorie rule applied consistently in real life, it would result in twice the weight loss that the new model predicts, the authors wrote. This helps to explain why even the most diligent dieters often fail to reach weight loss goals that were based on the old rule.

Now a scanty extra 20 calories a day doesn't seem like much, but over a year that's an extra 2lbs and over 20 years nearly 40lbs. And if that seems like the story of your life, well now you know why.

But I still like to blame the French.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:07 PM | Comments (870)
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Is nothing sacred? A guy can't even enjoy processed pork products in the comfort of his own home without some bunch of scowling asshats trying to lecture him about the dangers of anything even remotely pleasant.

An anti-bacon billboard in Des Moines, IA? What's next? Conservative billboards in Berkley, CA? Virulently anti-smoking ads in Cigar Aficionado magazine? Socialist street theatre & demands for "free stuff" on Wall Street.........oh, yeah. Well, you know what I'm sayin' here.

Some things are sacred, dammit.

If you already know what the "Castle Doctrine" is, you might appreciate my new proposal: "The White Castle Doctrine". Simply put, if you stick your nose in my business, I have the right to stick MY foot in YOUR ass.

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 05:41 PM | Comments (63)
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Friend to Israel 'n shit.

According to a Monday report in the French website “Arret sur Images,” after facing reporters for a G20 press conference on Thursday, the two presidents retired to a private room, to further discuss the matters of the day.

Â…

The conversation then drifted to Netanyahu, at which time Sarkozy declared: “I cannot stand him. He is a liar.” According to the report, Obama replied: “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day!"

That pain in the ass Netanyahu, such a crybaby, always saying "Waah, Iran's got nuclear weapons and is going to wipe out my country's entire population, waaah, waaah, change my diaper, I made a poopie!"

Bear in mind this is coming from a president who's apparently depressed over the fact that he has some adversity for the first time in his life.

Posted by: Ace at 05:33 PM | Comments (168)
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See, it's a strategy. You should support this because he's playing by his own rules and not letting The Media boss him around.

On the other hand, he's also not denying anything Bialek said.

When someone stops you on the street and hits you with an accusation like this, they subsequently write a story about the look in your eyes, and how many seconds it took you to speak some words in response. They go to “crisis management experts” who offer the usual sage wisdom about “getting all the information out” – as if you can get any “information” out (aside from telling them nothing happened, which they don’t want to hear) in response to allegations that are unsourced and nonspecific.

Then, when you haven’t “calmed the firestorm” – if only because the people wielding the blow-torches have no intention of putting them out – more experts are put on the air to say this proves you are “not ready for prime time.”
Maybe that would matter if I was trying out for the cast of Saturday Night Live. But this should be a slightly more serious undertaking than that.

Contrary to the belief of experts, so wise and learned in the ways of politics, I do know what the established rules say I am supposed to do. I simply refuse to do it. ThatÂ’s because the rules are ridiculous, and they produce leaders like Barack Obama, who play the political game like experts but govern like complete incompetents.

Sorry, I'm now kind of convinced of his guilt. He's trying to change the subject.

Not reassuring.

While he attempts to hoodwink you into thinking this is some principled stance, what I see is a guy who does not want to deny specific details (did he meet with Bialek? Did he upgrade her hotel room? Did the meeting end on a positive note or a negative one and if negative, why? ), because I see a guy who is worried that his specific denials will be proven false in turn.

So he keeps to the general. The vague. Even while he says he will not refer to his accusers' "vague" or "nonspecific" allegations, he ignores the specific and very un-vague ones, and will only offer "vague" and "nonspecific" demurrals in turn.

And what he's counting on is that the conservative movement is so dumb that it will elect him as a nominee without every figuring out what the damage and downside here will be, and you know what? There's a good chance he's right.

We have become pretty dumb. We're so damned eager to believe we seem to have forgotten that skepticism is pretty useful.

And yes, skepticism on both sides, not skepticism only towards his four accusers, while taking a completely unskeptical, believer-ish posture to whatever Cain says.

Guy can't even bother to tell me what Bialek said was false. He won't even say that. He writes a general slam of the media and expects the reader to conveniently read a denial in between the lines, despite it never actually being offered up.

We have a live, on-the-record accuser, who says Cain groped her vagina.

On the other hand, we have Cain, who... refuses to say whether he touched her inappropriately or not. The closest he'll come is...

Consider: I held various executive positions in corporate America for several decades. I had thousands of employees working for me. I canÂ’t even begin to recall how many conversations I had with people during that time, how many directives I gave, how much friendly banter might have taken place.

Yeah well she didn't accuse you of friendly banter, Hoss. She accused you of pawing at her genitals.

So, it's not a he said/she said anymore; it's a she said/he refuses to say and changes the topic.

Posted by: Ace at 02:28 PM | Comments (912)
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Right.

Let me tell you what this means, because I happen to know what this is. Older conservatives mean the ones who have not caved. Older conservatives, and he mentions Coulter, me, the older conservatives. This is not an age thing. We are the conservatives who haven't buckled. We're the conservatives who don't give a rat's rear end what the leftist media thinks of us....

So younger conservative means the conservatives who are concerned with being accepted by the liberal media, the younger guys, that's the code. The older conservatives, people like me are not cowed by it. Not to pick on Lowry, but we talk about this a lot. There are members of the conservative media in Washington who live there, and we know what happens when you live there. It's a town run by the left socially, politically, you name it. The elected Republicans, they're hell-bent on making sure they get their message out through the mainstream media. They're hell-bent on making sure the Washington Post, the Times and all that, like them. We older dinosaurs -- he-he-he -- yeah, we cannot be bent and shaped and flaked and formed and moved and watered down. We can't be diluted. That's what he means by that.

Check back with me in a week, Rush.

But I'm sure then you'll have a reason why you were Right in being Wrong.

So sick of this crap.

There is truth, and there is falsity. There is no special bonus points for speaking falsehoods.

Someone is right, and someone is wrong.

We used to mock liberals for claiming to be morally virtuous in being wrong about human nature and the efficacy of government. When they responded "But our motives were good!," we laughed at them.

What an absurd, guazy, soft standard! What happened to old-time hard record keeping of right and wrong, true and false?

No, they always insisted on the soft standard of having their motivations count.

So some are now setting up a standard whereby they'll be right, even though they were factually wrong.

"They'll tell us who they fear." How absurd.

Here's what I believe: Any idiot who kneejerkedly takes a position directly contrary to what they think the media is saying is just as much a prisoner of the media's mind-wash as the most goosestepping liberal.

If you always take a position contrary to what Mr. Media says -- if Mr. Media says x, so you decide "anti-x" -- then Mr. Media still controls your brain. Because by saying x they dictate you will, without a moment's thought, brainlessly parrot back "anti-x!"

Whether Herman Cain is innocent or guilty of what he is alleged to have done is wholly independent of whether the media "wants" him to be guilty.

Yes, of course they want him to be guilty.

But what the fuck does "want" have to do with anything?

Are we all children?

I wanted the Giants to beat the Patriots last night. Do you imagine my wanting that actually helped materialize the victory? Or do you think my "wanting" or "rooting" was entirely irrelevant to the outcome of the game?

I know many people want Herman Cain to be innocent. That is perfectly understandable.

But when did people start getting this bizarre idea that what they want to be true has any bearing on the truth?

So, kudos to Rush Limbaugh. He is now an out and proud wishcaster.

And when everything he's saying now is, uh, rendered inoperative by accumulation of facts, he will nevertheless tell the audience he's speaking falsehoods to that he was still right because his heart was pure in saying things that turned out to not be true.

Posted by: Ace at 12:06 PM | Comments (918)
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Most people are at work so they didn't see it.

If you can keep your boss at bay, you can watch the press conference here.

If you only have a minute or so, skip to 2:00, which is the actual accusation. Before that, it's background, about her seeking a job from Cain, and Cain upgrading her hotel room (she was visiting DC).

Via @allahpundit.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:41 AM | Comments (543)
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