Please touch my junk...

Today our hero gets all bell hooks up in this piece:

I suppose I agree with Kevin Drum about one aspect of the Transportation Security Administration namely that public outrage about the indignities it imposes seems to me to be 80 percent middle class white people not liking the idea of being placed in the subordinate position of a dominance hierarchy, 19 percent about yearning for America to adopt institutionalized racism as the lodestar of our transportation security policy, and maybe one percent about liberty.

Blah, blah, blah. The correct answer: It's 99% people being uncomfortable with government-employed strangers checking out their naked penises, boobs, vaginas, and butts. Everything else -- the calls for profiling, the blabber about liberty, all of it -- stems from this basic shyness. Are Americans dopey, cowardly, and probably homophobic for their shame-fueled anxieties? Sure! But so what -- distort the images and this whole thing goes away (except for the tinfoil-hat radiation crazies). Ydiot promises.

(And no, we're not sure what constitutes that last 1%.)

Today our hero boldly suggests a means by which a jurisdiction could rid itself of important services:

The income tax-deductibility of charitable contributions is, I think, more of a mixed bag than people generally realize but I think it does have a valuable role to play. But I wonder about the impact of these broader exemptions from taxation. Over and above the sort of revenue issues Dempsey is pointing to, when certain kinds of institutions are exempted from property taxes it can end up promoting very inefficient uses of land. Conveniently located space is a precious commodity, and there are widespread benefits to making sure that it’s generally occupied by high-intensity uses.

Because offloading churches, schools, and hospitals onto neighboring jurisdictions is a brilliant way of promoting the values of our hero's beloved New Urbanism. Imagine the possibilities: If you got rid of the FAA, too, children could commute to school on helicopters (no need to burden the pilot market with a "licensing" cabal, of course). People could stop going to the hospital for dire illnesses (think of the cost savings). Private popemobiles for every Catholic who wants to attend Mass in the next county over!

Echo chamber...

Today our hero:

I will say, though, that looking at any trade-related issues as a question of “China” versus “America” is always misleading. Industry employes just 27 percent of China’s workforce. Almost 40 percent of Chinese workers are laboring in agriculture, together producing only 10 percent of China’s GDP and thus being quite poor.

Subsistence farming doesn't count toward GDP, which is why we don't use percentage of GDP when we talk about poverty. We have also had this conversation one million times before, Matthew.

A modest proposal...

Today our hero throws poor people under the bus. The background: There's a large swath of land in DC that's open for development. It's adjacent to existing old homes. Our hero is mad because the people who already live there have a minor say in the development planning process:

Of course this is just one largish patch of land in one American city. But just about every single infill planning process in America suffers from the exact same bias. The views and interests of people who currently live nearby are represented, but the views and interests of the future-people impacted by the process aren’t. Consequently, each planning process is systematically biased toward permitting too-little development.

Was our hero really a philosophy major? You know, with thinking and stuff? On the one hand, the current residents are people who stand to have their lives substantially changed in ways they cannot control. They will have to endure construction noise, eyesore buildings, and thousands of inflowing Matt Yglesiases turning their neighborhood into a vomitous hipster shithole. Their lives will dramatically change, and there's little they can do to stop it. Somebody pass the PBR.

On the other hand, the "future-people" are a vaguely defined class who have a host of awesome, upscale available housing choices. Allowing neighborhood input in development means this group will have one of their thousands of housing choices slightly altered. Oh, the humanity.

(And lest we feel too sorry for the poor, disenfranchised upper-middle-class urban elites, it might do to remember that their interests are no doubt being at least slightly protected by the EXTREMELY WEALTHY DEVELOPERS who intend to sell them condos and lattes.)

No, screw YOU!

Today our hero screws over his readers:

Via James Downie, it turns out that not only is Charles Murray generally full of it, but elitism is on the rise as NASCAR ratings mysteriously plummet:

Note the first three words. The problem? This link was brought to our hero's attention days ago by one of his frequent commenters. Shall we take a moment to remember that just yesterday our hero lamented the failure of mainstream journalists to give proper attributions to bloggers? Apparently, readers don't deserve the same consideration -- certainly not when there's whoring to be done!

Whining...

Today some guy bitches and moans about something or other:

Writing about Bravo’s Millionaire Matchmaker, Amanda Fortini and the NYT manage to pull the classic MSM stunt of quoting a blogger without naming her.

We can only hope that this grave injustice is redressed with haste.


*Note: Image idea borrowed from some commenter on some Web site somewhere. We hope his or her parents are proud.

You know that if HE had it, he'd wear it out...

Today our hero swoons over Kathleen Hanna's crappy old sweater:

Buzzfeed reports that “13-year-old fashion blogger Tavi Gevinson met with the former Bikini Kill/Le Tigre front-woman during New York Fashion Week and scored her iconic ‘Feminist’ sweater and some zines.”

That’s nice of her, but like Kriston Capps I can’t help but think the sweater belongs in a museum or something.

Right, because the best way to capture the spirit of riot grrrl is to stick its most meaningless totems behind glass in a museum. And while you're at it, is there a better place to start than feminists' favoritest means of self expression, clothes? I didn't think so.

Sacked!!!

Today our hero gets all stupid about Juan Williams:

...As in the case of Rick Sanchez it seems to me that if you assume Williams has been doing valuable work all these years, firing him over this single incident is excessive. But as an NPR listener, I’m a good deal more familiar with Williams’ work than I am with Sanchez’s and it seems clear to me that Williams has not, in fact, been doing valuable work all these years. If Williams had never made these remarks about Muslims and NPR announced his firing this morning on the grounds of general lameness and lack of valuable contribution to their programming, I would have applauded the move so I’m hardly going to deplore what actually happened.

What if he'd been fired for being black? Would you deplore that, dumbass?

Let us explain. Our hero's position is: (1) Journalists should not be fired for making racist public statements*, (2) unless they are lousy journalists who deserve firing for lameness, in which case (3) it IS OK to fire them for making racist public statements. What a shockingly incisive logical mind.

*Note: This "single incident" business is ridiculous. Obviously, a "single incident" wherein one reveals belief in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories (Sanchez) isn't remarkable as a slip-up; it's remarkable as evidence of loathsome underlying qualities. It's wrong to fire people for isolated screwups, but it's fine to fire them for being terrible.

A defense of Rand Paul?

Today our hero asks us to watch an irrelevant campaign ad by Jack Conway. (You have to watch it, too.)




Then offers this defense:

This ad has the virtue—not that common in politics—of being accurate. It also has the virtue of raising actual policy issues about the consequences of Paul’s position on tax reform. It’s true that the implication that unorthodox religious belief should disqualify one from office is ugly, but it’s an implication that I think is extremely common in American politics.

Which misses the point that Rand Paul is probably not a sincere Aqua Buddha worshiper, as the ad implies. Conflating college prank BS, even disturbing college prank BS, with sincere religious belief is... inaccurate! Dishonest, too.

Next, our hero pivots to... China trade policy (‽‽‽‽‽ [they're interrobangs, sucka]):

Accusing one’s opponent of transferring economic opportunities from the United States to China (sometimes India) is a major feature of a huge number of 2010 campaigns. These attacks tend to be factually misleading, and also promote the widespread by definitely wrong misconception that the US and China are engaged in a zero-sum contest for prosperity. What’s more, even granting the factual and analytic premises of these ads their ethics is clearly mistaken. If it was the case that the US and China face zero-sum competition for economic resources, transferring resources from rich America to poor China would be morally praiseworthy.

Ydiot will boldly pretend that our hero is making a serious argument. The problem here is that everyone else is looking out for number one, sometimes (gasp!) at the expense of other countries. "Transferring resources" means putting a lot of trust in the magnanimity of people who don't have your best interests at heart, which is incredibly stupid. Think of it this way: Even if you're willing to redistribute some cash to the other players at the poker table, it's worth playing your hand well enough that you keep your hands on the deed to your house.

Prescription for stupidity

Today our novice swimmer goes completely off the deep end:

...we definite privilege doctors with our rules about who is allowed to write prescriptions. That particular set of regulations is both irrationally lax, allowing doctors to prescribe things that are outside of their field of practice and with no requirement that they stay up-to-date on new developments, and also irrationally stringent, often requiring a doctor when a lesser-trained medical professional with a lower salary would due. The way MDs win the prescription field both coming and going is a good sign that you’re looking at guild privilege rather than consumer protection.

Two things: (1) Lower-salaried nurse practitioners also write prescriptions, you numbskull. Evidently, the MD prescription-writing hegemony is incomplete. (2) The "prescription field" isn't about the right to sign the pad -- it's about the diagnosis and treatment design that precede that step (that whole "practice of medicine" thing). These are activities that might have a teeny, tiny, eensy little bit to do with consumer protection, no? And should doctors be expected to better keep up with developments in the field? Perhaps. But that's a discussion about the merits of more stringent regulation, not less.

One could certainly argue that anyone with a shingle to hang should be allowed to practice medicine -- and our hero will no doubt "argue" this if the cool-kid libertarians keep putting up with him -- but doing so would be ydiotic in the extreme.