A study (almost certainly paid for by you, so you might as well hear about what you bought) finds that overly-cute images cause rage.

Dyer said she and her colleagues arenÂ’t yet sure why cuteness seems to trigger expressions of aggression, even relatively harmless ones. ItÂ’s possible that seeing a wide-eyed baby or roly-poly pup triggers our drive to care for that creature, Dyer said. But since the animal is just a picture, and since even in real life we might not be able to care for the creature as much as we want, this urge may be frustrated, she said. That frustration could lead to aggression.

[...]

Or the reason might not be specific to cuteness, Dyer said. Many overwhelmingly positive emotions look negative, as when Miss America sobs while receiving her crown. Such high levels of positive emotion may overwhelm people.

My guess would be simpler: People do not like to feel they are being manipulated and super-cute images are designed to be an easy-peasey lay-up of manipulation. See the cute puppy, say "Aaah."

People can of course be manipulated, and will even pay to be manipulated (Hollywood is built on this principle), but when the manipulation becomes obvious, people react negatively.

Thus, people will celebrate a film for being "moving" -- by which they mean the film successfully manipulated their emotions -- and scorn another movie for being "manipulative and cloying." And what they mean by the latter is simply, "I detected the machinery of manipulation, and I was offended by it."

In cute pictures, the gears of manipulation are right up front and out in the open.

Okay, I like cuteness some, but now I am sort of feeling angry. The shoe is too much.

I think this happens with pets and children, both of whom use Cuteness to get what they want. When you don't detect their agenda, it's adorable.

But the second you realize a kid -- or a dog -- is just being Cute to get a Treat, suddenly it's not adorable. You feel snookered.

(By the way, I just realized how much you guys indulge me by letting me literally write whatever pops into my stupid head. I tend to forget this a lot, and forget how much you do indulge me, and forget how lucky I am to be able to do this job. So now that you've indulged me twice in a row I'll try to find something more political.)

Thanks to @harrietbaldwin.

Actually... This same reaction explains positive and negative reactions to the same political speech. Friendly partisans want to be "moved" and buy into all of the manipulative content in the first place; whereas unfriendly partisans aren't in the mood to be moved, and, more importantly, don't make the buy-in into all the manipulative catchphrases and rhetorical equivalencies.

The unfriendly partisan sees it as what it is-- a piece of craft designed to elicit as specific response, not much different from a simple con -- and feels hostility towards it.

Posted by: Ace at 11:12 AM | Comments (192)
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All copies of the filmed ending were destroyed (well, some say that one copy survived), but this blog now publishes the script for the scene. It was in fact shot, but Kubrick thought better of it and cut it out.

It's a very anti-climactic scene -- by design. Kubrick (the blog tells us) liked Danny and his mom, and wanted a scene at the end to reassure the audience that they were okay and were recovering nicely from their shock. So that's the scene -- they're okay and recovering nicely from their shock.

It's about as interesting as that sounds.

Not a very horror-ish ending. A bit like the very long deflation at the end of Psycho where An Psychiatrist explains to us everything we already pretty much understood about Norman Bates and his Psychological Problems.* Kubrick realized that and cut the scene from all the prints and ordered them destroyed.

I find it interesting that even good directors film these unnecessary scenes-- that they don't realize in the scripting phase they're unnecessary, but only realize it when they see the filmed footage cut together as an unfinished cut. James Cameron filmed a whole unnecessary introduction to Newt's family for Aliens, the family doing some surveying and prospecting work prior to the alien infestation. Apparently his original thinking was that if he doesn't show the audience Newt's family, the audience will not really accept that Newt once had a family.

Only later did he realize the audience was very willing to accept that a little girl must have come from somewhere and thus the family didn't need to be "proven" to have existed to the audience -- Newt could just say she lost her family, and people would be okay with that.

I watch a lot of deleted scenes when I watch DVD's and they almost all are completely unnecessary, often in a "Why would you even think you should film this?" way. But I think that's partly just because I already know the way the movie is "supposed to go" so I'm biased against these Scenes Which Don't Belong. Still, while I (and most other people) would have that bias, there's usually a real pointlessness to deleted scenes. They seem so obviously misconceived it's surprising that anyone, especially solid professionals, spent a few hundred thousand or even a million to film them.

I can't prove this, but I bet you would find a high correlation between mediocre-to-poor movies and a bunch of deleted scenes on the DVD. My theory being, movies with a lot of deleted scenes were never really properly thought out in the scripting phase, and the filmmakers were still trying to "find the story" in the editing bay. Whereas in most movies that really succeed, the story was always present and obvious in the script, and so nothing really needed to be cut for the finished product.

But then, bad movies are always cut down, often to the bone (and often cutting crucial plot-explaining scenes, which is why bad movies tend to make even less sense than they might have), the theory being that if you've got a bad product at least don't keep the audience for too long.

From Lilieks' blog.

* There's a theory that in a detective novel, the murder represents moral chaos, and the detective becomes the agent who restores moral order to the chaos.

But very often -- so often it's almost de rigeur -- horror intentionally leaves the moral order in chaos; the heroes may survive, but it's not the case that It's All Better Now. In fact this dark outlook is one of the defining characteristics of horror -- even if you survive, you're permanently scarred.

So these Everything's Back to Normal Again endings (including the psychiatrist in Psycho, restoring the moral order by rationally explaining Bates' complexes in a reassuring manner -- that which can be named and categorized can be mastered, a lesson we know from Adam) seem out-of-place in horror movies.

What the hell I am yammering about now? Someone please stop me.

Look, sorry. But when you're writing all day, any random thought you have more than five words to say about becomes a post.

If I think more than five words about hawks, then I'm probably going to write a post about hawks.

Anyone know anything about hawks?

Posted by: Ace at 10:23 AM | Comments (268)
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And criticizing Obama (as we know) is "racism."

There's just no legitimate grounds whatsoever to criticize our president or his inferior servants.

Yes, indeed, this is precisely what an advanced liberal society is supposed to look like. Not Orwellian at all.

More... Palace Guard duty from the supposedly-independent press here, here, and of course from Andrea Mitchell.

Posted by: Ace at 09:43 AM | Comments (231)
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@iowahawkblog notes that this coffee mug, containing at least one characteristic of a so-defined "assault weapon" (a military-style pistol grip) should be categorized as an assault beverage.

Kind of funny.

I'm trying to build on his joke: Can we do the same thing? Can we take anything we don't like and throw the "assault" designator in front of it and get it banned?

Here's some proposed legislative language:

"An 'assault advocate' shall be defined as a public advocate possessing any two of the following three features:

-- a 'military-style' pistol grip;

-- a cloying and entitled attitude;

-- a rail permitting the attachment of 'tactical' features such as a laser-sight or bayonet;

-- the belief that paying $4.00 for birth control at Wal*Mart is some kind of dealbreaker;

-- a "military-style" triangular stock with interior angles greater than 25 degrees;

and

-- a face that looks like a shoe, and not a nice shoe, but one of those sad shoes you see hanging from telephone wires, the sort of hanging telephone wire shoes where you say, "Boy, there must be a backstory on that, and I don't want to know what it is."

CNN Fails Again: @jaycaruso linked this piece.

Feinstein, who authored the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban that Congress declined to renew 10 years later, displayed weapons that would be banned, such as a Bushmaster automatic rifle, at Thursday's news conference.

It's not automatic. God. They just really do not care to do the most minimal research into a subject area where they want to enact wholesale bans, do they?

If you missed Andy's update this morning on the Mensa Chapter Presidents at the Chicago Tribune, check it out. It's both sad and funny.

Posted by: Ace at 09:15 AM | Comments (248)
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Makes sense.

“He was attempting to explain himself . . . then he said, ‘Well, I think we all know that the media in the United States has made a big deal of this and we know the media of the United States is controlled by certain forces and they don’t view me favorably,’” Coons said. [ . . . ]

“He did not say [the Jews], but I watched as the other senators physically recoiled, as did I,” he said. “I thought it was impossible to draw any other conclusion.” [ . . . ]

“The conversation got so heated that eventually Senator McCain said to the group, ‘OK, we’ve pressed him as hard as we can while being in the boundaries of diplomacy,’” Coons said. “We then went on to discuss a whole range of other topics.”

He was being asked about his various comments on Jews, including his 2010 exhortation that babies must be "nursed on hatred for the Jews."

W.R. Meade observes:

he reality is that insane anti-Jewish conspiracy theories are the motherÂ’s milk of political analysis in Egypt and in much of the rest of the Middle East. The emotional, visceral reaction against what is seen as IsraelÂ’s shaming, alien presence in the Arab world has fused with ugly and backward western anti-Semitism to create a turbo-charged fear and hatred of Jewish influence and Jewish power. A political and religious culture which cannot help but see the survival of a Jewish state in the region as a badge of humiliation and failure takes comfort in exaggerated ideas about Jewish power.

It is that, but more fundamentally: The Muslim world is currently very primitive. What are the only two important occupations in a primitive culture? The Warrior, and The Shaman. Advanced cultures still have those occupations, of course. But in advanced cultures, The Warrior becomes The Soldier, an occupation marked by professionalism and ethics and discipline more than individual glory; so too do Shamans become priests, and try to become wise like the aged man, rather than angry like the young man.

Furthermore, and more crucially: In an advanced culture there are many occupations which are valued, and many, many are valued more highly than The Warrior and The Shaman. In fact, it's a mark of an advanced culture that traditionalists have to argue strenuously on behalf of the importance of Soldiers and Preachers, because general society tends to look down on them.

In an advanced culture, there are hundreds of ways a man can feel successful in his work; in more primitive ones, the only pathways open are that of The Warrior or The Shaman. Women, of course, have no roles at all open to them for success in work; their only pathway to success is through motherhood (aka, producing Strong Warriors and Fire-Breathing Shamans).

The Muslim world is locked into a primitive paradigm in which The Warrior is the secondmost cherished personage in the culture, but -- here's where the psychological problems start creeping up -- but they're not accomplished in war and do not have the tradition of success that a warrior culture needs to feel healthy and good about itself.

If you're very bad at one of the only things you credit as making a man worthy, then of course your lives will be filled with daily humiliations.

This is not a problem that will be fixed soon. The pathologies of cultures are generally rooted in that culture's failures, and its insecurities and inferiority complexes about those failures, and correcting social failures is a process that takes decades, not years -- if it ever happens at all.

A Little Background: I learned something when I visited Beirut. A professor explained there was a certain inferiority complex (or perhaps he used a less derogatory word) in Arab Muslims because their region was dominated by three local Great Powers -- Turkey, Iran, and Israel -- and none of them was Arab. The Turks are Turks (whatever they are, I don't know, I'm not Joe Turkeman), Iranians are Persian, and Israelis are, of course, "Other."

Posted by: Ace at 08:34 AM | Comments (326)
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Reed Exhibitions, the organizer of the Eastern Sports & Outdoor Show in Harrisburg, PA, thought it would be a good idea to be all sensitive and caring by banning Evil Black Rifles™ from this year's show, which was scheduled for Feb. 2-10.

This decision proved highly unpopular with the show's exhibitors, who began cancelling in droves.

So many canceled, in fact, that Reed Exhibitions has now postponed the show with this weaselly statement on their website (emphasis added):

Reed Exhibitions has decided to postpone, for now, the Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show given the controversy surrounding its decision to limit the sale or display of modern sporting rifles (also called ARs) at the event. The show was scheduled to take place February 2-10 in Harrisburg, PA.

“Our original decision not to include certain products in the Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show this year was made in order to preserve the event’s historical focus on the hunting and fishing traditions enjoyed by American families,” said Chet Burchett, Reed Exhibitions President for the Americas. “In the current climate, we felt that the presence of MSRs would distract from the theme of hunting and fishing, disrupting the broader experience of our guests. This was intended simply as a product decision, of the type event organizers need to make every day.

“It has become very clear to us after speaking with our customers that the event could not be held because the atmosphere of this year’s show would not be conducive to an event that is designed to provide family enjoyment. It is unfortunate that in the current emotionally charged atmosphere this celebratory event has become overshadowed by a decision that directly affected a small percentage of more than 1,000 exhibits showcasing products and services for those interested in hunting and fishing.

“ESS has long been proud to participate in the preservation and promotion of hunting and fishing traditions, and we hope that as the national debate clarifies, we will have an opportunity to consider rescheduling the event when the time is right to focus on the themes it celebrates.”

Ummm, no, asshat. Everyone even tangentially involved in the shooting sports is "directly affected" by the anti-second amendment agenda of the left, and we're united in opposition to it. As evidence that things are different this time around, note that the list of sponsors who told Reed Exhibitions to get bent includes companies like Ruger, who went along with the Clinton-era "assault weapons" ban and have obviously realized the error of their ways.

I'd encourage everyone to seek out and do business with the vendors on the list of boycotters and also to continue giving the finger to Reed Exhibitions and anyone else who makes the mistake of trying to divide and conquer on the second amendment.

Update - Hollowpoint puts us some irony in the comments:

What's funny is that there likely wouldn't have been many Evil Black Rifles for sale anyways- they're all sold out.

Posted by: andy at 07:59 AM | Comments (262)
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Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:59 AM | Comments (698)
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As an update to yesterday's post on the gun experts at the Chicago Tribune, they've issued a correction of sorts.

It's pretty funny itself. Take this, for instance:

In our description of the flash suppressor placed at the end of the gun’s muzzle, we said the device breaks up the explosion that results from firing the gun. We also said that “some find the suppressor controversial as it could also make the flash from a shot less visible, allowing a shooter to conceal his position.” One very knowledgeable and articulate reader took issue with that statement, as concealment is not the suppressor’s primary function — it’s a safety device to prevent fires. We never said it was the suppressor’s primary function, only that it conceivably could make a shooter more difficult to locate, which is why it’s controversial.

No. No. No!

The reason flash suppressors are "controversial" goes back to the definitional problem of "assault rifle" vs. any old semi-auto rifle and the original assault weapons ban.

According to the Dems, this is an assault rifle:

... and this isn't:

Both are centerfire, semi-auto rifles with detachable box magazines, but only one of them looks scary to liberals.

So in the original assault weapons ban, the Dems threw in a laundry list of cosmetic features that distinguished an "assault rifle" ... pistol grips, bayonet lugs, flash suppressors, etc. Any 2 of them, and you had an "assault rifle".

That's it. That's the source of the supposed controversy about flash suppressors. But bayonet lugs kill dozens every week. Google it!

Posted by: andy at 02:32 AM | Comments (348)
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I just saw Instapudnit post this and thought of you.

So, "mixed-weight couples." Good idea or not?

Mixed-weight couples have rockier relationships than same-weight couples, a new study has found. But here's the clincher: The problems only seem to crop up when it's the woman who's overweight, and not the other way around.

"However many advances we have made, body image issues abound, and women, unfortunately, are more vulnerable to the societal pressures," Ruthy Kaiser, senior therapist for the Council for Relationships, based in Philadelphia, told Yahoo! Shine. When it comes to being overweight, then, "that makes it harder in a relationship for the woman, and easier for the man."

Sometimes those "societal pressures" include murder.

Posted by: Ace at 04:17 PM | Comments (338)
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What a coincidence!

Howard Kurtz says nothing untoward was agreed to, and you should believe him, because he's never lied to you before except for every single time.

There were absolutely no conditions for my interview with Jill Kelley. And I don't agree that the piece was favorable -- it was an opportunity for a woman who has been thrust into the vortex of a scandal to tell her side for the first time.

Posted by: Ace at 03:54 PM | Comments (126)
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