Virginity = $3.7 million

Fair market value?

Natalie Dylan, 22, claims her offer of a one-night stand has persuaded 10,000 men to bid for sex with her.
Last September, when her auction came to light, she had received bids up to £162,000 ($243,000) but since then interest in her has rocketed.
The student who has a degree in Women's Studies insisted she was not demeaning herself.
Miss Dylan, from San Diego, California, USA, said she was persuaded to offer herself to the highest bidder after her sister Avia, 23, paid for her own degree after working as a prostitute for three weeks.
She said she had had a lot of attention from a wide range of men, including "weirdos", "those who get really graphically sexual about what they want to do to me" and "lots of polite requests from rich businessmen".
Miss Dylan said she did not think it was particularly significant to be willing to sell your virginity and insisted that she was happy to undergo medical tests for any doubters.

Miss Dylan should consider switching her major to economics or marketing. She has, at least, established an argument useful in abstinence education, namely that innocence has value, the supply being finite and the demand . . . well, not infinite perhaps, but substantially greater than the supply.

All right, feminists: Attack!

UPDATE: Not a feminist, and not an attack, but Alan Colmes:

And she wants to be clear on one thing: This is not about having a relationship. It’s a one night stand, and that’s it. Is one roll in the hay really worth millions of dollars?

Poor Alan -- still can't get past that obsolete Labor Theory of Value, can he? Now that he's retired from TV, perhaps he will have time to read Mises, Hayek and Friedman.

UPDATE II: Not a feminist, but an attack on her "peculiar mercenary streak" from Paul Cella:

One could note that only in the modern age could someone claim that it is “shocking” for men to prize purity and chastity, which are exemplified above all in virginity. One might observe that the whole impetus for her offer was a keen insight into how highly prized purity still is, even refracted through a distorting lens of degradation.

One could and one might, but someone will still collect $3.7 million, eh? (Notes for planned essay: "Wheres my bailout?" Pun on "whole impetus"?)

RELATED: 'Science' and teen sex

UPDATE III: I keep watching Memeorandum, waiting for Feministing or some other feminist site to jump on Miss Dylan. The apparent indifference is beginning to seem suspicious. Has the sisterhood suddenly converted en masse to free-market economics? Is the auctioning of sex viewed as some sort of "liberation"? (Bob Dole: "Where's the outrage?") Meanwhile, we have to make do with the un-outraged liberal Ron Chusid:

She does find it surprising that men will pay so much. . . . What she might not realize is that the majority of bids are being placed under assumed names by Eliot Spitzer.

Rimshot!

UPDATE IV: James Joyner points out that Natalie's offer was reported four months ago at Digital Alchemy -- and who says bloggers don't do reporting?

UPDATE V: Linked by Jules Crittenden, Fausta Wertz and by The Week.

UPDATE VI: Still no feminist outrage, but at long last Ace of Spades has taken notice. 

UPDATE VII: My new column about Natalie.

The Edwardsville Cargo Cult

You remember how Edwardsville, Alabama -- "It ain't even a wide spot in the road" -- decided it needed $375 million in federal money for "green" projects? Well, now (via Michelle Malkin) the much-mocked folks of Edwardsville (pop. 194) are defending their proposal. What caught my attention was this:

Phillips went on to discuss that in various ways, long-term planning must be incorporated into cities and towns so they will not later be faced with congestion and high-cost road construction. "By incorporating golf cart paths into community design, such as the acclaimed Peachtree City in Georgia, planned green community residents can do almost all their local errands without the use of polluting and traffic congestive cars. Having recharging stations is an integral component to success when cities consider these planning options."

Can you say, "Cargo cult"? The fallacy:

• Peachtree City is a wonderful place;
• Peachtree City has Policy X; therefore
• If we enact Policy X, we'll be wonderful, too

Peachetree City was built as a town self-consciously upscale, an entire community of planned development, and drew lots of Delta pilots from nearby Hartsfield-Atlanta airport. The extreme stringency of zoning in Peachtree City was notorious in the region by the late 1970s. (I'm an Atlanta native.) So, yeah, a posh suburb of booming Atlanta has golf-cart paths throughout. Some relevant Census data:

• Peachtree City: Median household income, $76,458; median home value, $190,900.
• Cleburne County, Ala.: Median household income, $34,138; median home value, $71,300.

You cannot zone your way to wealth. It doesn't work that way. And if you build upscale golf-cart communities in Edwardsville, you'd better start by figuring out where you going to find affluent residents who can afford to live there, because they sure ain't the folks living there now. And if you did attract a bunch of rich outsiders, what does it mean for your current taxpayers? That their children will have the privilege of saying to the newcomers, "Want fries with that?"

If there is a legitimate demand for upscale housing in Cleburne County, Ala. -- Yankee retirees looking for low taxes, or folks working in Douglas County, Ga., who want a more rural lifestyle -- the market will supply that demand without any $375 million stimulus from Uncle Sugar. As it is, you're working on a fallacious theory of causation so shockingly primitive in its backwardness that I'm amazed any literate person would fall for it.

Golf-cart trails in Edwardsville? Oh, puh-leeze.

Much better idea: Dirt-bike trails -- with mudbogs!

Good-bye, fakies

Melissa Clouthier reports on one positive result of the recession:

Perky breasts, like hemlines, are going down--reflecting the economic slump. Plastic surgeons are quite confident the problem is economic. Women just can't afford to do what they want to do which is to have glorious, hard, round, mounds of silicone.

An overdue return to reality.

Ohio: The Open Borders State

The news that Rob Portman is running for the Ohio Senate seat being vacated by Sen. George Voinovich is being celebrated by some Republicans, including Quin Hillyer. But Portman's C-minus grade on immigration by Numbers USA is only marginally better than the D-plus grades of Voinovich and ex-Sen. Mike DeWine.

What's the matter with the Ohio GOP? Is there something in the water that causes testicular atrophy?

Prince Harry the Hater?

So they would have us believe:

Taking the prize in the indignation derby was British Muslim activist Mohammed Shafiq of the Ramadhan Foundation. "I am deeply shocked and saddened at Prince Harry's racism which upsets and offends many British Asians," Shafiq said in a statement. "The use of this sort of racism has no justification and I am saddened by those that are advocating using this term is not racist. … It's time for real remorse."
Among Harry's few defenders was Ingrid Seward of the royal-watching magazine Majesty, who told the BBC that the prince and his academy friends "were having fun and … calling each other nicknames." She pointed out that Harry's reddish-blond hair had earned him the nickname "Ginge or Ginger." (In the video, the prince-lieutenant pretends to give orders to his army comrades and then asks if there are any questions, to which one of them responds: "Are your pubes ginger, too?") Alas for Harry, "gingers" don't have quite the kind of ethnic clout in Britain as Pakistanis these days, and the revelation of his nickname prompted no demands that anyone apologize. . . .

That's from my latest column at Pajamas Media, and you should read the whole thing. Maybe Harry's been swept up in that "racist backlash" we've been warned about.

The irrepressible P.J. O'Rourke

Even with cancer, he's still funny:

Bringing the government in to run Wall Street is like saying, "Dad burned dinner, let's get the dog to cook."

Lots more where that came from.

Femiinist says 'yes' to extinction

You can't make this stuff up:

Thus as I realized how the cultural imperative on starting a family was unfair to women and the poor, I felt an instinctive aversion to it. That is the emotionally conditioned response that could override our responses to needs and instincts that make us want to reproduce. And if we rule out the biological 'instinct', which is strictly only to have sex and not to reproduce, my case for saying no to reproduction becomes much stronger.

The La Bea Tar Pits of feminism.

Darlene at PW: "Help! My uterus is oppressing me!"

UPDATE: Ace of Spades never misses a chance to mock Feministing. Let's face it, those idiots need to be mocked, and mocked often, by someone who knows how mock.

Kate Winslet is Golden

Golden Globes for both best supporting actress ("The Reader") and best actress ("Revolutionary Road") go to Kate Winslet -- pictured here in "Titanic," for which she should have gotten an Oscar for Best Costume.

In which I call bullshit on the SPLC

BUMPED (UPDATE BELOW): The Washington Post today quotes as an "expert" Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center -- a tautology the debunking of which would require more effort than it's worth, which is not very much at all. As to the substance of the Post story, the world-renowned expert Don Surber comments:

The Washington Post reported that a bad economy may spark hate groups. But the KKK thrived in the 1920s, and it almost died out in the Depression. Of course, Hitler rose in the Depression. But al-Qaida rose in the affluence of the 1990s, just like the Weather Underground rose in the 1960s.

To report on what "may" happen in the future is a job for psychics, not journalists, but if I feel like the urge after I make a run to the store, I may update this post. I'm open for suggestions in the comments as to whether I should update, but I defy any expert to predict whether I actually will do so. You've got about an hour before I get back from the store, so I'll let you experts gaze into your crystal balls and read your tarot cards until then.

UPDATE: Well, I had other business to attend to when I got back from the store, but if you predicted I'd update, congratulations -- you're an expert!

Many hands make light work, as my mother-in-law says, and here is LoneWacko to lighten the load:

What Carrie Jonson forgot to mention is that the SPLC's definition of a "hate" group is rather fluid, and it basically means any group that opposes the SPLC; the rise in their numbers is more a reflection of them lashing out at those who oppose them. Johnson also forgot to mention that Mark Potok has been caught misleading about statistics in the past. And, when discussing immigration matters, it would be helpful to point out that the SPLC has an indirect link to the Mexican government.

While watching Memeorandum for additional laborers, I'll just add my two cents by explaining why Potok's expertise is tautological. When did he become an expert on "hate"? When he went to work for the SPLC, and "hate" is whatever an SPLC "expert" says it is. Maybe I should put in an application with Dees & Co., so I can become an expert, too.

Also, do you think maybe one reason the SPLC is seeking publicity by hyping hate (its modus operandi) is because the recession has diminished contributions to the Church of Morris Dees? We know that the Madoff swindle has hurt major liberal donors and their pet beneficiaries. Could it be that even the SPLC's $100-million-plus endowment has taken a hit? Is this why they're pushing the absurd notion that -- unless you give generously now to the SPLC! -- America is on the verge of a Ku Klux coup d'etat?

Well, I'm no expert. But I do wonder. Don't you?

UPDATE II: Sweetness & Light notes that the SPLC/MSM axis have been pushing the "explosion of hate" meme for a few months, including a USA Today article from October. Understand that, if Obama had lost the election, the result would have been trumpeted as proof of America's endemic racism. Now that Obama has won in a landslide, of course, brace yourself for the backlash from America's endemic racism.

Everything that happens is explained by America's endemic racism. Why, just recently those evil racists killed a 14-year-old Asian honor student and a 63-year-old widow named Havenstein in the redneck stronghold of Montgomery County! Paul Mirengoff is shocked!

Praying for Conor Friedersdorf

Conor Friedersdorf and I have been going 'round for what seems like forever, and today he jumps on me about Sarah Palin:

I don't think this is aimed at Sarah Palin detractors like me, since unlike the people that Robert Stacy McCain names -- David Frum, Peggy Noonan, David Brooks -- I've never been a George W. Bush booster, or a Republican speechwriter. Still, I've agreed with much of what those pundits have written about Sarah Palin, so let me say this: I neither fear nor loath the Alaska governor, and am rather impressed by her rise to head her state, but my misgivings about her qualifications and capacity to serve well in national office are quite conciously grounded, in part, in my belated recognition of just how bad a president George W. Bush has been.

So, he grants the basic point I made, that the failures of the Bush administration are a factor in the scapegoating of Sarah Palin. As long as Bush was popular and (perceived to be) successful, the whole down-to-earth, straight-shootin' Texas cowboy style was an acceptable mode of political discourse to the Republican elite, especially when that discourse was scripted by their friends and allies. Had Palin burst upon the national stage in 2002-04, we may surmise, the moose-huntin' Wasilla hockey mom would have been enthusiastically embraced by the Frums and Noonans of the GOP commentariat.

The ship aground
Ah, but somewhere between "Mission Accomplished" and "heckuva job, Brownie," the wind shifted and those whose political notions are meteorological in nature have been blown in another direction.

These fair-weather helmsmen were at the rudder when the ship foundered upon the rocks, yet now they insist that they -- and only they -- are qualified to steer the ship to safety (assuming the hull can be sufficiently repaired to make her seaworthy once more). My contention, by contrast, is that the folks in the luxury cabins are responsible for the wreck because they ignored the warnings of the experienced deck hands who tried to tell them for years that the ship was veering dangerously off-course.

Among those old salts was one Al Regnery, author of Upstream: The Ascendance of American Conservatism (which you should buy immediately), whom I interviewed in the May issue of the American Spectator (to which you should subscribe immediately). From that interview I quote:

"You look back in the earlier times, there were no opportunities, so there were no opportunists," Regnery says, noting how liberals heaped abusive epithets on Buckley, Goldwater, and other early conservative leaders. "Later on, you have all these people who figure it's probably a pretty good political thing to do. And so they start talking about being conservative when they're running [for office], but they really aren't. So when they get to Congress or wherever they go, they're pretty easily dissuaded."

Exactly, and what Regnery says of politicians can be applied in some sense to certain intellectuals who boarded the S.S. Conservatism in the belief that the ship would deliver them to their desired destinations: Book contracts, think tank sinecures, White House gigs, the op-ed pages of major newspapers, lucrative speaking fees, and/or a regular spot on Jim Lehrer's show.

Well, a fellow's got to make a living somehow, and some folks have not merely made a living, but made a killing, by marketing themselves as "conservative intellectuals." And as we who have gazed steadily upon the scene behold these people in 2009 uttering things quite different from their utterances of 2003 or 1998 or 1994, we are moved to ask ourselves: To them, is "conservative" a set of firm beliefs, or merely a career description?

The slow road to Damascus
Unlike some people, I came to the conservative movement not from ambition, but by persuasion. Picture me, dear reader, as I was circa January 1994: A 34-year old Democrat, happily plugging away as a writer and editor at a daily paper in Georgia, my hair down to my shoulders and a Clinton/Gore bumper sticker plastered proudly on the bumper of my '78 Impala.

Now consider what a powerful revolution was wrought in my mind so that, by November 1996, I voted for the Libertarian presidential candidate, Harry Browne, because I couldn't bring myself to vote for that moderate RINO sellout Bob Dole, "the Senator from Archer Daniels Midland," a/k/a "the tax collector for the welfare state." There was not one "road to Damascus" moment, no train to the Finland Station in my personal revolution. If in hindsight it appears to have occurred suddenly, the process as I lived through it was gradual but steady.

My mentors were chiefly people I've never met: Thomas Sowell, William F. Buckley, Jr., Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Richard Weaver, Ayn Rand, John Stuart Mill, Edmund Burke, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and John Locke, to name a few. A few friends offered advice (thanks, Tommy Toles, Jim Arp, Tito Perdue, and others), but there were no professors, no scholarships, no internships, no seminars; just some magazines, some columnists, and lots and lots of books.

The result? By January 1997, I was most thoroughly miserable, finding myself in increasingly furious arguments with my newsroom friends, with whom I used to chuckle amiably over jokes of the Republicans-as-Nazis variety. Out of a sense of frustration, I logged onto my new home Internet connection, located the Web site of America's only conservative newspaper, found the e-mail address of an editor, and sent him a 5-point brevis of my resume. On thing led to another, and in November 1997, was hired as an assistant national editor at America's only conservative newspaper.

'I've served my time in Hell'

Within four years, I found myself smeared as a hatemonger by the Southern Poverty Law Center and -- please pay attention -- forbidden to respond to the smear. To understand this, you must understand the concept of loyalty.

I was smeared because I was employed by America's only conservative newspaper (the SPLC would never have bothered smearing an obscure journalist with a small mainstream daily in Georgia, and certainly not when I was a Democratic journalist). This was understood by my employers, who realized that to respond to the SPLC smear would only be to publicize it, and so -- chastened for having given Morris Dees "a stick to beat you with" and warned against further error -- I was ordered to bite my tongue and ignore it.

Well, welcome to the Internet age. Over the course of five years, the smears were expanded and elaborated so as to encompass those who had ordered me not to defend my good name. The smears were disseminated across the Internet, repeated (with laughable errors of addition) by liberal bloggers, and these smears were then circulated, with gossipy augmentation, by certain disgruntled employees of the same newspaper. No point in naming names, when the point is that I was maligned by fellow employees whose frustrated ambitions motivated them to attack the same newspaper that employed me, when loyalty required me to remain silent.

Which is more important, the reputation of one journalist, or the preservation of America's only conservative newspaper? Duty and honor sometimes require a heavy price, and others have paid far more than I was asked.

But -- oh! -- the bitterness. The rarest sentence in the English language is, "Gee, Stacy, why don't you tell us what you really think?" And yet here I was, portrayed to the world as a rank bigot, my employers smeared by association, and I not allowed to make any explanation. There is a bit of doggerel popularized by GIs during World War II that captures how I feel looking back:

When we get to heaven,
Saint Peter we will tell:
"Another Marine reporting, sir --
I've served my time in Hell!"

The religious reference is perhaps appropriate here, because that experience certainly made me reliant on faith in a serious way. There was a point, in April 2006, when I found myself praying for angels.

A Ned Flanders moment

The Psalmist appeals to God as "the lord of hosts,"and the "hosts" refers to the angels who serve Him. And I felt myself at that low ebb where, powerless to help myself, I needed some kind of miraculous intervention:

They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty . . .

Well, God can answer a prayer quite literally, and you wouldn't believe it if I told you, but "some have entertained angels unawares." Pardon me for what I call a "Ned Flanders moment." I am but a wretched sinner, yet I have faith, and I know that things don't happen by accident. God rebukes and chastens those He loves, and there was a purpose in my chastisement.

At some point, reflecting on the smears against me, I said to myself, "Wait a minute! How dare they accuse me of 'hate'? Hate is against my religion." Pride and anger can get the best of me, but . . . hate?

No. "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you." In the whole Bible, there is perhaps no commandment more difficult than that. Certain as I was that, whatever the SPLC claimed, I had never been so foolish as to hate entire races of people -- especially since I have so many friends of so many different races --yet it occurred to me that in my resentment and wrath, I had fallen far short of loving my enemies. Had I said any prayers for Heidi Beirich? Or George Archibald? Or any number of other people I felt had wronged me?

Well, though she still occasionally throws a smear my way (hey, she's got to make a living, too) Heidi Beirich is my Facebook friend and I've promised her that the next time I'm visiting kinfolk in Montgomery, we'll go out and sing karaoke together. And at CPAC 2007, when the ballroom was packed to fire-code maximum for a big speech, I intervened to make sure that Max Blumenthal (also Thomas Schaller and Garance Franke-Ruta) got inside.

Ask yourself this: Does anybody really want enemies? I wish that everyone in the world was my friend, and if somebody is my enemy, is that their fault or mine? If I'm faithful -- doing good even to people who hate me -- it can't be my fault, can it? So if someone is my enemy, it is by their choice and not mine.

The gospel truth

After the crisis of April 2006 passed, there came a time when I found myself granted liberty to talk to one who had chosen to be my enemy, and I told Max Blumenthal: "I'm too lazy to be evil."

That was my only quote in his story and, as a colleague remarked, it was the only thing in the whole story that she knew to be the gospel truth. Evil is just too strenuous -- all that plotting and scheming and grudge-holding and trying to keep track of your lies -- and life is too short to be lived that way. Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez!

Then there came that morning a year ago when America's only conservative newspaper decided it wanted to be something else, and it was if God said, "Go!" I'd prayed to get that job, and I prayed some more before quitting, so I certainly can't lament that I've missed the opportunity to work for Jeffrey "Real Journalistic Standards" Birnbaum (who nevertheless deserves to be remembered in prayer).

And thus, back around to Conor Friedersdorf. When last we left him, Conor was making The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage, and now he is back at work on another long-term project of his, The Conservative Case Against Sarah Palin. Clearly, my brothers and sisters, he is a man standing in the need of prayer. There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is The Conservative Case for the Re-Election of Barack Obama.

Is Conor too far gone in his wickedness to be beyond hope of redemption? Is he simply a bad seed bearing evil fruit? Nay, my brethren. He has gotten in with a bad crowd, and followed some of those Pharisees who have seduced him, the blind leading the blind. Yet if he would open his eyes, he might still avoid falling in the ditch with them. Do not condemn him too harshly, dear brothers, for such were some of ye once, and I myself was once that foul and loathsome thing, a Democrat.

So, just as we know that Sarah Palin is praying for Katie Couric and Christopher Buckley and Andrew Sullivan, we must all pray for Conor Friedersdorf. Don't doubt that your prayer will be answered, but remember -- as I had to explain to one of my Christian conservative friends who was praying for John McCain's election in October -- that "no" is an answer, too. Was Conor foreknown and predestinated? Or is he doomed? Either way, he needs your prayer.

Love your enemies. It'll drive 'em nuts.

Sinatra and a pint of Guinness

Bono writes with some eloquence on Frank Sinatra's "My Way." I've never much cared for Bono as a singer, and care even less for his campaign to out-Geldof Geldof in the save-the-world sweepstakes of ostentatious humanitarianism, but as an essayist, he shows tremendous promise.

Of chicken salad and kindergarten

In a previous discussion of elite contempt for Sarah Palin, I derogated President Bush's No Child Left Behind initiative:

NCLB was nothing but pandering to soccer moms who sincerely want to believe in a Lake Woebegone world where "all the children are above average."
The same unconservative belief that informed NCLB -- that human beings are so many lumps of clay who can be magically transformed by the proper government interventions -- has also, when you think about it, informed U.S. policy in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In response, Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog expresses outrage at my skepticism toward "the belief that children are actually moldable beings who can be changed through the efforts of government institutions known as 'schools'!"

Steve: My dear Aunt Barbara spent decades as a teacher. My cousin is a state educational administrator. Two of my best friends from childhood are married to teachers. My wife works at a school, we have homeschooled our own children, and our 19-year-old daughter is a college sophomore majoring in education. I spent years as an education reporter, and in fact once considered majoring in education myself, taking several classes in the field, including developmental psychology. What I say about education, I say from knowledge, not ignorance.

However "moldable" children may be, they are not infinitely moldable, even if that molding begins at infancy -- an observation I derive from the clear personality differences between my twin sons, who are fraternal rather than identical and yet so closely resemble each other in appearance that, especially in early childhood, it was very hard to tell them apart. Since they were raised in the same home environment and were treated equally (it being impossible to discriminate between two peas in a pod), their basic differences can only be described as innate.

Given how innate differences are manifested in two simultaneous products of the same womb, who have been provided with the same upbringing, how much more can such differences manifest themselves among a disaparate two dozen 5-year-olds reporting for their first kindergarten class? Yes, in a 180-day year of five daily hours in school, each kindergartner is to some extent "molded," but the school's influence is not omnipotent when set against the influence of the child's inborn characteristics and home environment.

Try a thought experiment, Steve:

• Suppose that you and I were both kindergarten teachers at a school where, on a summer day before the start of fall classes, the parents were expected to bring their prospective kindergartners for a daylong registration and orientation session.
• Forty children attend the session, and there will be two classes formed from this group, with you and I each teaching 20 children.
• Further suppose that, as senior teacher, I had the privilege of choosing which 20 children I would teach, with you taking the balance.
• After interviewing the parents and observing their children during the orientation, I choose for my class those 20 children who seem to me to offer the brightest educational prospects, leaving for you the dummies and prospective discipline problems.
• Now, suppose that at the end of the ensuing school year, all of these children were given a standardized test.

Assuming that I am even moderately competent as a teacher, I think you would agree, Steve, that on this end-of-the-year test, my class of 20 handpicked geniuses would substantially outperform your class of 20 culls and rejects. And by this hypothetical experiment we would have proven scientifically what the ordinary American knows by common sense: You can't make chicken salad from chicken manure.

(Incidentally, that colorful expression is one I first heard from a high school football coach who used it in the same sense that another coach once told me, "You can't coach a 4.4 forty." Prep coaches are also required to teach academic subjects in most schools, and among the coaches I once dealt with as a small-town sports editor were some top-notch teachers of history and mathematics. Based on extensive off-the-record conversations with these career educators, I can assure you that what is true on the athletic field is true in the classroom. There are limits to what can be accomplished through intstruction, which is what is meant by the chicken salad/chicken manure metaphor.)

When I derogated NCLB as being based on an "unconservative belief," what I meant was that it was based on a counterfactual belief -- a belief inspired by sentiment or ideology, rather than by facts. Every educator, however sincere in his desire to do the best for each of his pupils, understands that there are inherent limits to what can be accomplished in the classroom. It is not controversial to say, "Children differ," but because of the politicization of education, it has become controversial to say that children differ non-randomly in ways that profoundly affect their scholastic achievement, even though every teacher knows that this is true.

If you are friends with an astute kindergarten or first-grade teacher, Steve, you may inquire directly into this matter. Such teachers have told me that, with a high degree of accuracy, they can identify almost immediately those children who are destined for academic excellence. The bright kids simply show up on Day One more ready to learn than their peers, and there is only so much of the variation in outcomes between children that can be attributed to the difference in the quality of instruction.

Facts are sturdy things, as John Adams observed. Leave it to a liberal, however, to be offended by the expression of sturdy fact even when such an expression impugns the policies of President Bush, whom they otherwise excoriate at every opportunity.

Like one of those apologists for Marxism who always distinguishes between the ideal blessings of socialism and the real misery that socialism inevitably produces, Steve contends that the egalitarian fallacy at the root of NCLB was less responsible for the policy's failure than the specifics of how the policy was "actually designed and implemented." That is to say, Steve appears to believe that the objectives of NCLB could be accomplished -- just not by a Republican administration.

Well, good luck with that hypothesis. Let the Obama administration labor with all diligence and sincerity, augmented by federal coercion and our tax dollars, to bring about the Lake Woebegone utopia where all children are above average. It requires only common sense, not expertise or clairvoyance, to predict the result: They will fail to overcome the sturdy facts and, in the end, will be left to make sandwiches of chicken manure.

Sugar Daddy update

Six weeks after "Melissa Beech" wrote her Sugar Daddy tell-all at the Daily Beast, and three weeks after my own essay examining the outraged reaction, the folks at Slate's "XX Factor" blog continue to debate the social, economic and moral implications of Sugar Daddydom.

Why do they continue to obsess over this idea? Frankly, most of them are artsy "creative" types who once sneered at the crude allure of Mammon. Liza Mundy writes:

My own favorite, albeit fictional, example is the playwright-actor played by the playwright-actor Wallace Shawn in My Dinner with Andre. Back when he was a rich kid living on the upper East Side, the Wally character marvels, "all I thought about was art and music," and in this he was strikingly like Ellin and her cohort, or really any writer who grew up in upper-middle class comfort. But now that he's a middle-aged writer, and knows how hard it is to keep the lifestyle to which he'd become accustomed, "all I think about is money."

Here is Ellen Tarlin:

And, believe me, some days I kick myself because frankly, it never ever in a million years occurred to me to marry for money or even to look for a guy with money or even to think about money. . . . I was always attracted to artists: actors, musicians, filmmakers, writers.
More than being poor, I was terrified of being ordinary, normal, middle-class, like everyone else. . . . I remember saying to my punk high school boyfriend . . . that I was worried that someday I'd end up living in the suburbs married to a fat doctor. Would that I was married to a fat doctor now! Preferably one in private practice!

Which is to say, there is a generous helping of sour grapes on that envy salad.

'Paki' is now racist?

BUMPED (UPDATES BELOW) England's Prince Harry has apologized for calling an Army colleague a "Paki":

A statement from St James's Palace, with regards the term "Paki" said: "Prince Harry fully understands how offensive this term can be, and is extremely sorry for any offence his words might cause.

Uh, is this not just a shorthand term for Pakistani? How does the omission of two syllables change this from a description of someone's nationality to a racist epithet? What am I missing here? If Harry could call someone from Scotland a Scot without giving offense, what's the deal with calling some from Pakistani a "Paki"?

Perhaps it would not have been so offensive if, instead of specifying the other person's nationality, Harry had just used the generic term "wog"? My God, Winston Churchill would never survive in modern England.

UPDATE: Commenters at Ann Althouse discuss Prince Harry as a "royal Kowalski" (Clint Eastwood's character in Gran Torino, a movie whose subject, I assume, is a mediocre Ford muscle car from the early '70s). Perry de Havilland quips: "Who would have thought it? Prince Harry is just a normal bloke in spite of the weird circumstances of his upbringing."

UPDATE II: I am mystified that none of my moron friends at Ace of Spades HQ has weighed in on PakiGate. Probably too busy beating up hobos and hatin' on Scandis, I suppose.

Supplying non-demand?

Arnold Kling points out an obvious fallacy in Keynesian economic theory. Of course, Keynesians are so thoroughly wrong that debunking their fallacies is like shooting fish in a barrel. (Via Instapundit.)

Isn't this cute?

This won an Australian film festival:

Bernie Madoff, pro-lifer?

Sort of by accident:

Fallout from the exposure of investment manager Bernard Madoff's massive $50 billion Ponzi scheme threw many individuals and charities into financial distress. The fraud has also deprived funding from several pro-abortion rights groups and projects.
The Florida-based Picower Foundation, listed as the 71st-largest in the nation by the Council on Foundations, claimed assets of $1 billion, the New York Times reports. It was forced to close in December due to financial problems with its assets, which were managed by Madoff. . . .
Nancy Goldstein on Wednesday reported that abortion advocacy groups are facing financial shortfalls because of the Picower Foundation's collapse.
"Picower was one of a handful of foundations willing to stick their necks out and significantly fund the three organizations that handle virtually all major reproductive rights-related litigation and legal advocacy in the United States," the pro-abortion rights Goldstein wrote. "Now the Center for Reproductive Rights needs to make up a $600,000 shortage in 2009; Planned Parenthood is out $484,000; the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project is off $200,000."

Michelle Malkin sees a silver lining, not only caused by Madoff but also by the economic downturn: Planned Parenthood is laying off 20% of its staff.

Joe the Journalist

PJM CEO Roger L. Simon:

In the midst of something of a media uproar, Joe Wurzelbacher AKA Joe the Plumber has landed or is about to land (depending on when you read this) at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport. PJTV and Pajamas Media have been deluged with interview requests for Joe, ranging from Geraldo At Large and the Associated Press to Israel's Channel 10 and Germany's ZDF television giant.
Before Joe left he was interviewed by Fox and CNN, among others. The CNN reporter, particularly, derided the lack of the plumber's professional journalistic experience. Yes, that's CNN - the "professional" network that just yesterday broadcast a video of evidence of supposed Israeli brutality from a Gaza hospital that was entirely fake - a Pallywood production.

Michelle Malkin has more on the anti-Joe jihad among journalists. I guess part of their problem is just raw envy. Hey, I'm also a professional journalist and I'd love it if someone sent me on assignment to Israel. "Foreign correspondent" is kind of a hard gig to get in today's environment of journalistic downsizing, and I'm sure some people in the industry are envious of the celebrity interloper. But that's their problem, not Joe's.

Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk

'Science' and teen sex

Thursday, I wrote about how liberals were spinning the latest teen pregnancy statistics as an argument against abstinence education. I had missed Bill McGurn's take on how research results have been misrepresented in the media:

A medical journal starts it off by announcing a study comparing teens who take a pledge of virginity until marriage with those who don't. Lo and behold, when they crunch the numbers, they find not much difference between pledgers and nonpledgers: most do not make it to the marriage bed as virgins.
Like a pack of randy 15-year-old boys, the press dives right in.
"Virginity Pledges Don't Stop Teen Sex," screams CBS News. "Virginity pledges don't mean much," adds CNN. "Study questions virginity pledges," says the Chicago Tribune. "Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Finds," heralds the Washington Post. "Virginity Pledges Fail to Trump Teen Lust in Look at Older Data," reports Bloomberg. And on it goes.
In other words, teens will be teens, and moms or dads who believe that concepts such as restraint or morality have any application today are living in a dream world. Typical was the lead for the CBS News story: "Teenagers who take virginity pledges are no less sexually active than other teens, according to a new study."
Here's the rub: It just isn't true.

Liberal reporters, McGurn explains, don't look past the bullet-points on the press release to examine the underlying methodology of the study. The researchers pulled some hocus-pocus by comparing the pledge-taking teens not with the general population of teenagers, but rather with a "control" group who were matched demographically and socio-economically with the pledgers:

The first to notice something lost in the translation was Dr. Bernadine Healy, the former head of both the Red Cross and the National Institutes of Health. Today she serves as health editor for U.S. News & World Report. And in her dispatch on this study, Dr. Healy pointed out that "virginity pledging teens were considerably more conservative in their overall sexual behaviors than teens in general -- a fact that many media reports have missed cold."

In interviewing professionals in the science/medical/health fields, I've found they are almost unanimous in loathing the way the MSM report on research. Often, research that merely indicates a possible correlation between two facts -- say, between coffee drinking and cancer rates -- ends up with a headline implying that scientists have proved a cause-and-effect relationship: Coffee prevents cancer!

What is true in reporting on medical and scientific research is even more true in reporting on social science research. As one criminologist has remarked, social scientists can "prove" anything. Trying to isolate cause-and-effect in sociological research (which is what this abstinence-education study purports to do) is a damned difficult task. There is a disturbing tendency among liberal journalists to cherry-pick research -- hyping research that seems to confirm their own biases and downplaying contradictory results.

Given the high correlation between delaying sexual activity and positive socioeconomic outcomes (i.e., completing high school, obtaining full-time employment, avoiding drug abuse, etc.), there is clearly a social good to be obtained by discouraging teen sex. Much of the media, however, think of this as a "Republican" or "conservative" objective, and therefore bring to bear the usual liberal bias. Since when did it become "liberal" to be indifferent to kids messing up their lives?

UPDATE: Laura Gallier of Inspiring Abstinence e-mails:

I see a huge contradiction in the medias' response to the issue of teen sex, two primary contradictions to be exact. For one, the media cries out for answers when teen pregnancy rates are on the rise but then seems to go out of their way to undermine abstinence programs. Two, the same media that reports that we must find answers to the teen sex crises then turns around and includes sexually based images and comments in nearly everything they produce.

Indeed, one of the rich ironies is how TV producers, on the one hand, claim that their sex-saturated programming doesn't influence kids' behavior, but on the other hand, collect billions in advertising revenue by telling clients that a 30-second commercial can influence consumer behavior. Either TV influences behavior or it does not, so which is it?

BTW, Ms. Gallier is the author of a new book about abstinence called Choosing to Wait: A Guide to Inspiring Abstinence.