Sixteen Volts

I have noticed that when somebody is pushing me a new credit card, a fun thing to do is to look puzzled and say that I already have a credit card. What do you mean, I need two?

Half Sigma has recently been looking at correlation between IQ and some other measurable things. The post "Religion and intelligence: a short rant" notes that intelligence and religiousness are negatively correlated, and is puzzled why the political left doesn't bang the drum about this to mock Christians. Well, duh. Remember which groups tend to be the most religious and superstitious: women and blacks. It is merely a historical accident that white men wear the collars and fill the pulpits, but it's women and blacks who fill the pews. If somebody ever reminded leftists of this embarrassing fact, I guess their explanation would be that the capitalist patriarchy forces these poor oppressed groups to become religious, since these groups certainly have no free will or moral agency of their own.

The Danimal, who was himself a fundy before the logical incoherence of Christianity just became too much for his brain to bear, has often pointed out this numerical sexual disparity in the religious community. Since Christian women really have to compete for good Christian men, many of them end up having rather "Clintonian" notions of premarital sex and chastity, which can make churches surprisingly effective meat markets for men who are capable of throwing away their prejudices and apply some lateral thinking. (Plus, there is all that hugging after the service!) The fellow GTA conservative blogger "Dispatches from the Hogtown Front" has a post "Are you a man looking for a wife? Here's a tip. Become a born-again Christian" that offers simple advice for men who are looking for a good wife.

The site "The Saddest Thing I Own" showcases objects that come with a sad story on the side.

As I mentioned earlier, the looneytune "peace activist" James Loney is being given the Fearless Award at the Pride Week for being able to hide his homosexuality so successfully after he was kidnapped by a band of virulently homophobic Muslims who would have killed him like a dingy dog if they had found out that he was gay. Later, we have learned that "James Loney accuses Catholic camp of shutting down because he is gay". Now, which one do you think is going to elicit an angrier response from the local gay community: the fact that the Muslim kidnappers would have tortured and killed James just for being gay, or that some Catholics around here don't want to employ him as a camp counselor since they don't approve of gay marriage? Well, that one's pretty much a "duh" again.

What will Google be like in the future? The picture "Google 2084" gives one possible answer.

Udolpho recently reviewed the movies "The Break-Up" and "Cars". The latter review includes the insightful paragraphs

The plot of Cars is that old standby about a fast lane hotshot who's full of himself getting stranded in the sticks and suddenly discovering that life here is more precious and wonderful, because people care about each other.

Ever notice how these stories are always written by people who wouldn't live in the sticks under threat of torture? How they always indulge in the acrid self-pity of small towns resentful that modernity has left them behind? How the writers strain to prove that rural areas – in modern life deposits of dysgenic filth – are genuine and sensible places while cities are filled with mindless assholes?

Appropriately enough, I started reading Jim Mullen's book "It Takes a Village Idiot", a humorous story about a Manhattan cityman whose wife buys them a... rustic weekend home in the Upstate New York. Money paragraph:

What do we need a weekend house for? I don't understand that. People in Indianapolis don't have weekend houses. You know why? Because they like the house they have, that's why. People in Omaha don't have weekend houses. They do the smart thing --- they buy a house they like and live in it.

The book then goes on the describe the countryside and people there in a way that reminded me of the following paragraph from William Hazlitt's essay "Observations on Mr. Wordsworth's poem, 'The Excursion.'" from 1815-17, which is still the best explanation why I don't want to live in the countryside:

All country people hate each other. They have so little comfort, that they envy their neighbours the smallest pleasure or advantage, and nearly grudge themselves the necessaries of life. From not being accustomed to enjoyment, they become hardened and averse to it -- stupid, for want of thought -- selfish, for want of society. There is nothing good to be had in the country, or, if there is, they will not let you have it. They had rather injure themselves than oblige any one else. Their common mode of life is a system of wretchedness and self-denial, like what we read of among barbarous tribes. You live out of the world. You cannot get your tea and sugar without sending to the next town for it; you pay double, and have it of the worst quality. The small-beer is sure to be sour -- the milk skimmed -- the meat bad, or spoiled in the cooking. You cannot do a single thing you like; you cannot walk out or sit at home, or write or read, or think or look as if you did, without being subject to impertinent curiosity. The apothecary annoys you with his complaisance; the parson with his superciliousness. If you are Poor, you are despised; if you are rich, you are feared and hated. If you do any one a favour, the whole neighbourhood is up in arms; the clamour is like that of a rookery; and the person himself, it is ten to one, laughs at you for your pains, and takes the first opportunity of showing you that he labours under no uneasy sense of obligation. There is a perpetual round of mischief-making and backbiting for want of any better amusement. There are no shops, no taverns, no theatres, no opera, no concerts, no pictures, no public buildings, no crowded streets, no noise of coaches, or of courts of law, -- neither courtiers nor courtesans, no literary parties, no fashionable routs, no society, no books, or knowledge of books. Vanity and luxury are the civilizers of the world, and sweeteners of human life. Without objects either of pleasure or action, it grows harsh and crabbed: the mind becomes stagnant, the affections callous, and the eye dull. Man left to himself soon degenerates into a very disagreeable person. Ignorance is always bad enough; but rustic ignorance is intolerable.

It was true back then almost two centuries ago, and it is still true today.

Posted by Ilkka Kokkarinen on Thursday, June 22, 2006 at 9:03 AM