Half Sigma

Where's the baby?

To set the record straight, the only source for Bristol actually giving birth is that Colleen Jones, Bristol’s great aunt, told People magazine that she gave birth. As far as we know, Colleen has not personally seen the baby. No reporter has actually talked about the birth with anyone closer to Bristol. Sarah Palin refused to comment—why wouldn’t she even acknowledge that she’s now a grandmother? (Assuming she isn’t already a grandmother.)

Alaska Daily News hasn’t even confirmed the story, it just reported that there was a People magazine story.

But now, ADN reports that the $300,000 for the baby pictures story is bogus.

People managing editor Larry Hackett said the magazine has had "conversations" about photos with a Palin representative but no deal has been made and no money has been given to the Palins.

"Would I like the pictures? I would love the pictures but I don't have them," he said.”

Perhaps the reason why there are no pictures is because there is no baby?

A Palin conspiracy scenario

"as" writes:

"Maybe Trig was born earlier than that, maybe Trig is someone else's baby." [quoting me]

This makes no sense. If Trig was born earlier in the year, you're saying that Bristol is pregnant for the second time? Do you think she's that stupid and highly sexed? And if Trig isn't Bristol's baby, then why would Sarah cover for her?

Assuming that Sarah did fake her pregnancy, then Bristol is the most likely mother of the Trig. This would explain why she mysteriously dropped out of high school in the middle of her senior year, why, in the photos of the Palin family it always seemed that Bristol looked at Trig with the loving eyes of a mother.

Bristol is proven to be stupid and highly sexed, so if she can get pregnant once, she can get pregnant twice. This is more likely than an old woman like Sarah getting pregnant at all.

I think the most likely set of events is that Bristol actually gave birth several weeks before April 18th, the official Trig birthdate. This would explain why there was no birth announcement at the hospital. Trig wasn't born that day.

Originally they would have planned to give the baby up for adoption. But no one wants to adopt a Down Syndrome baby. That's when Sarah decided on the pregnancy scam.

We don't know what set of circumstances would have caused Sarah to make up such a stupid lie about her water breaking at the governor's conference. Maybe she's just a bad liar, and wanted to tell a dramatic lie instead of a boring lie?

Note: serious comments attempting to debunk this hypothesis are more than welcome. Comments in the nature of "Half Sigma, you're a moron" will be deleted.

It's not private

AP report

The governor's office said it would not release information because it considers the baby's birth a private, family matter. Palin family members, hospital employees and spokespeople for the governor's former running mate, John McCain, either would not confirm the birth or did not return messages from The Associated Press.

Thus no independent confirmation of the birth, and Palin insists its "private."

But if it's so private, then why this:

According to one source, bidding for the baby photos began at $100,000. People won out in the end ...

“The bidding started well before the baby was born, but once Levi’s mom was arrested — well, then you had a story,” says one editor.

As for how much teen parents Bristol and Levi made from the deal — most estimates hover around the $300,000 range (none of the magazines would confirm the exact figure in the end, which is standard).

Offering photos of the baby to the highest bidder means they don't care about privacy. Sarah Palin didn't care about Bristol's privacy when announcing her pregnancy was convenient to disprove rumors that Sarah faked a pregnancy. The official reason for not giving out any information about the baby is another Palin lie.

Did Palin direct the arrest of Sherry in order to increase the value of the baby photos?

How long would Levi have to work at his high school dropout job to earn $300,000?

Tripp Johnston's mysterious birth

Named after a character from Star Trek Enterprise. Why is the last name Johnston if Palin and Levi aren't married?

If the baby was born on Saturday, as People Magazine says, why didn't we find out about it until today? Was someone hiding something?

This announcement proves nothing. There's no proof it's Bristol's baby, and even if it is Bristol's baby this certainly doesn't prove that Trig is Sarah's baby, it only proves that Bristol didn't give birth on April 18th earlier this year. Maybe Trig was born earlier than that, maybe Trig is someone else's baby.

Steve Sailer, a blank slatist?

Three days ago, Steve Sailer wrote:

[Palin] has the time to put herself through a lengthy educational process similar to the one Mrs. Thatcher undertook. If she succeeds in it, then she's Presidential Timber.

People born with average-intelligence genes don't become magically smart through more education. Has Steve Sailer given up on the theory that intelligence is a genetically inherited trait?

It should be pointed out that Margaret Thatcher was a tax laywer, a high-intelligence occupation, before she became a politician. Palin, on the other hand, has never done anything that demonstrates high intelligence.

End of the U.S. in 2010?

The most emailed article at the Wall Street Journal: Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S.

He ways that in 2010 there will be a civil war caused by "mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation."

But wait, won't Obama save us all? "Americans hope President-elect Barack Obama 'can work miracles,' he wrote. 'But when spring comes, it will be clear that there are no miracles.'"

I don't buy into this scenario. (1) Americans are have become too wussy to ever take up arms and fight each other the way we did back in the 1860s; and (2) why on Earth would California become part of China?

More evidence that pregnant Palin photo is a fake

Audrey posted on her blog the report of an alleged photoshop expert. (I say alleged because the photoshop expert's identity is not revealed.)

According to the report, there is evidence that that photo showing Palin's big belly is a composite photo, that Sarah Palin was added into the photo.

Also note that in the two photos, taken 3 minutes and 14 seconds apart according to the EXIF data (which can be faked), Palin is wearing a necklace with a cross on it in the second photo but not the first photo.

Audrey has also confirmed from Fuji that the Fuji Finepix S9000 camera doesn't have a default date, that when you turn it on for the first time, it prompts the user for a date. Thus the March 19, 2005, 11:26 PM time doesn't make any sense if it was a real camera that someone was using to take snapshots.

There is no necklace visible

3 minutes 14 seconds later, a necklace appears!

Here the link to the mysterious Flickr page with the photos. No one has claimed ownership of the photos. The tall guy in the photo is Dan Carpenter, a news cameraman who can be seen here. If Dan posted the photos, why the cloak and dagger with the name erik99559? (99559 is the Zip Code of Bethel, Alaska, a place truly in the middle of nowhere, but it's where Andrea Gusty (the female reporter) was born! Did Andrea Gusty post this photo, pretending to be Dan Carpenter?)

Meanwhile, it's 6:40 PM on December 28th, many days after the December 18th or December 20th due date, and there is no news of Bristol giving birth.

Santa Claus gunman was an alpha male

Although the comparison of the Santa Claus gunman to the Michael Douglas character in the movie Falling Down initially seemed obvious, apparently it was incorrect.

Spungen writes in a comment:

I think you want to do a bit more research before affiliating with this guy. This is not some downtrodden nerd who had enough. His wife divorced him in part because he was hiding a handicapped illegitimate son whom he had nothing to do with except for claiming him on his tax returns, despite paying no support. The guy had a Hummer AND an Escalade in his driveway. And he did NOT have a master's -- he lied on his resume, according to a source at his former employer's. He was a grandiose nut who wore a pleasant mask.

Indeed, I read the following in a more recent news article:

"He was quirky and different, but a super-nice guy," said Rachelle Maxheimer, 40, a former roommate.

She described him as something of a ladies' man, preferring younger women and dating several at once.

We see that if the woman married a real nerd instead of a macho guy who had sex with many women and drove Hummers, she and her family would still be alive.

Why do women study abroad more than men?

A few weeks ago, there was a blog post at Marginal Revolution on why twice as many women as men study abroad. (See also Inside Higher Ed source article.)

Tyler Cowen was stumped (or pretended to be), but the reason for the discrepancy seems pretty obvious to me. Studying abroad is expensive, and women like spending money more than men, and parents give their daughters more money than they give their sons.

Revenge of the nerd

The Santa Claus gunman: it's Falling Down come to real life:

Pardo's resume was found at the location as well, Raney said. The document indicates he worked for Pasadena-based Jet Propulsion Laboratories from 1985 to 1994 and had a bachelor's and master's degree in engineering.

He was last employed by ITT and worked on foreign government radar system projects. Police said he was terminated from the company in October over fraudulent documents.

Michael Douglas in the movie Falling Down

UPDATE

It turns out that the Santa Claus gunman was not a nerd, but really an alpha male.

Sherry Johnston: oxycontin dealer

The Alaska Daily News reports the details of Sherry Johnston's Oxycontin dealing. Sherry Johnston is the mother of Levi Johnston who is the alleged father of Bristol Palin's alleged baby which was allegedly due on December 20th (according to Bristol's grandfather) or December 18th (according to earlier news reports) but which hasn't been seen yet.

Sherry continued selling oxycontin despite being thrust into the national spotlight.

Johnston complained that unusual media and other public attention was cramping her business:

"Hey, my phones are tapped and reporters and god knows who else is always following me and the family so no privacy," Johnston wrote in a text message to a customer.

Sherry sold oxycontin to informants on Oct. 11, Oct. 22 and Nov. 26, according to the article. If she had wisely stopped the drug dealing after being thrust into the national spotlight, she wouldn't be facing a trial for felony drug dealing. These people from Wasilla aren't very bright.

Is this woman hot?

Peter Paul Rubens
Flemish, 1577-1640
Venus and Adonis

Venus, assisted by Cupid, vainly tries to restrain her mortal lover Adonis from setting off for the hunt, knowing that he will be killed by a wild boar.The painting is inspired by Titian's picture of the same subject in Prado, Madrid, which Rubens saw and copied during his stay in Madrid in 1628 and 1629 (a version of Titian's painting is in the Metropolitan Museum). The broad execution and vivid color of the present painting indicate a date in the mid- or late 1630s. Radiographs reveal that Rubens gave Adonis a somber expression, which was repainted at a later date. The picture was presented by Emperor Joseph I to the first Duke of Marlborough.

Adonis is depicted as a muscular young man. You could picture an actor like that starring in a Hollywood movie. He kind of looks like a young Brad Pitt.

Venus is quite plump. You would never see a plump woman like that starring in a Hollywood movie.

It's interesting that the male standard of beauty hasn't changed much in 400 years, but there has been a dramatic change in what the ideal woman is supposed to look like.

Which body type are men genetically programmed to appreciate? The plump Venus in Rubens' painting, or skinny women Calista Flockhart of Gwyneth Paltrow? Whichever the case, it's obvious that what we find attractive in women is heavily influenced by our environment. This woman who was considered uber-hot back in the 1630s would be subject to disparaging remarks from the likes of Roissy.

Boys better at math than girls

Some guy who calls himself La Griffe du Lion sent me a link to his new article debunking the notion that there are no sex differences in math ability.

Doing some Googling, I found a report about the latest SAT scores (from the class of 2008).

Girls continue to outperform boys on the writing section of the SAT (501 vs. 488). Girls' average score on the reading section was 500, while boys' was 504. But that was a narrowing of a gap that stood at 7 points a decade ago. Girls continue to lag in math, where boys on average scored 33 points higher (533 vs. 500).

These results show important sex difference in abilities. Boys score 29 points higher on the math section than they do on the reading section. Girls score exactly the same on both sections. This is not a huge difference, but a difference of between one-third and one-quarter of a standard deviation will show up at the highest levels of ability--for example, there will be a big shortage of girls who are mathetmatical enough to attend a school like MIT, thus explaining the unfortunate (for horny male students) male to female sex ratio at MIT.

Because people value what they are good at, and because women rather than men control what society considers prestigious (because men have to compete for women in order to mate), the result is lack of prestige of mathematical oriented professionas (such as computer programmers and engineers) compared to verbal oriented professions (such as lawyers).

Why do girls outperform boys on the writing section? My theory is that girls have better handwriting, and the graders are more kindly disposed when they can more easily read the essays.

* * *

The most interesting thing about the sex differences, which the Lion mentions in his article, is that they don't show up until the age of puberty. Obviously, sex hormones somehow affect the mathematical development of the brain. Boys have much more testosterone than girls, but the stereotypical math nerd is a low testosterone male. Boys enter puberty later than girls. Entering puberty probably harms the mathematical development of the brain.

The blog is not broken

A certain commenter thinks the blog is broken. As far as I can tell it is not. However:

(1) I notice that Firefox 3.0 behaves strangely about the expires headers on Typepad blogs. If you don't see any updates on the blog, try pressing the F5 key to refresh the blog. Or use Internet Explorer 7.0 which seems a lot more stable than the newest version of Firefox.

(2) Comments are now being moderated, so they don't appear right away. I know that this ruins the give and take of the conversation, but it's not open to debate. Look on the bright side: if a comment is deleted, it means that I actually read it.

In the comments to this post, you may discuss technical issues involving web browsers, but you may not discuss the comment moderation policy. Steve Sailer moderates his comments for the same reason. Sorry.

It's official: NY Times agrees with Steve Sailer. Financial crisis caused by minority home ownership

According to The New York Times, the financial collapse is Bush's fault for promoting minority home ownership. In 2002, Bush unveiled "a plan to increase the number of minority homeowners by 5.5 million."

Huh? This is in the New York Times? This is what Steve Sailer has been writing about for the last two months.

What the NY Times does not mention is that Bush was enacting liberal-inspired policies and that Bush is not really a conservative at all. Very strangely, the NY Time admits that liberal policies are to blame for the financial crisis, but somehow only a Republican is blamed for it.

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After writing this, I looked at Steve Sailer's blog. Yup, he has a post bragging about his prescience. Congratulations Steve, way to go!

The Moon Trilogy by Edgar Rice Burroughs

I just finished reading Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Moon Trilogy, which consists of the following three books: The Moon Maid, The Moon Men and The Red Hawk. You can download these books for free at this link.

The first book in the series, The Moon Maid, reads like a clone of the Mars series. The hero crashes on the moon, discovers strange races, meets a beautiful alien princess, falls in love with the beautiful alien princess. But it’s somewhat darker than the Mars series.

The trilogy takes a completely different turn in the second book, The Moon Men, which takes place many years after the first book ended, after the evil race of moon men took over the Earth and established a totalitarian government. It’s an extremely interesting commentary on what it’s like to live under a totalitarian government, and there are also some very offbeat views on religious worship. I had always assumed that Burroughs was an atheist, but this book makes you wonder what his true beliefs might have been. It may just be that Burroughs was anti-communist rather than pro-religion. The Marxist revolution took place in Russia only a few years before Burroughs wrote these, and the Marxists closed down the churches and put the priests in prison.

Of course, these are still Edgar Rice Burroughs pulp fiction books, so each book features a beautiful girl for the manly hero to fall in love with. All relationships are chaste. There is no sex, just the occasional kiss. I guess back in the 1920s, sex wasn't something that could be discussed in the open.

The thing I like so much about Burroughs is his political incorrectness. Race realism and Darwinism run through all of his books. The Caucasian race is considered the superior race, and miscegenation is frowned upon (except between whites and the equivalent superior race of the Moon or Mars). In the Moon Trilogy, the Earth is taken over by an inferior race of moon men, and in the final book of the series, The Red Hawk, the only solution to the problem is the complete genocide of the race of the moon men. No one in the book questions the wisdom of this. The moon men are able to interbreed with humans, and the half breeds also must all be killed in order to purify the planet. It’s wonderful stuff, and no one would ever write from this point of view today.

It was oxycontin

The Alaska Daily News reports that Shery Johnston's arrest was oxycontin related.

The National Enquirer previously reported that Track Palin was addicted to oxycontin, and there were rumors that Bristol used it also. Was Sherry Johnston their supplier?

Bristol Palin's future mother-in-law charged with drug crimes

According to the Anchroage Daily News:

Sherry L. Johnston was charged with six felony counts of misconduct involving a controlled substance.

Johnston is the mother of Levi Johnston, the Wasilla 18-year-old who received international attention in September when Gov. Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, announced their teenage daughter was pregnant and he was the father. Bristol Palin, 18, is due on Saturday, according to a recent interview with the governor's father, Chuck Heath.

Reading between the lines, it sounds like she was running a meth lab in her home.

As much as Obama's left-wing policies disgust me, I am still glad that this white trash family isn't going to be living at the Naval Observatory.

I wonder if that baby is really going to be coming out on Saturday?

Bernie Madoff, Malcolm Gladwell, Mike Davis, and Sarah Palin

Steve Sailer compares Bernie Madoff to Malcolm Gladwell:

One thing that stands out is that Markopolous wasn't alone. He was just the guy who kept complaining about it. Markopolous's 2005 letter cites numerous experts, either by name or by position, who figured out this was a fraud. But Markopolous was one of the few to do anything about it.

Also, at least two journalists, one for Barrons and one for a trade paper, exposed this scam early in this decade, but nobody cared.

There's just not much of a market for debunking. People want to believe in geniuses. Look how many people believe Malcolm Gladwell is a genius. If he isn't a genius, everybody asks, how come he's so rich? Hunnh? Hunnh?

I bought Gladwell's book The Tipping Point, discovered it was all bullshit, and never bought another Gladwell book again. If only the rest of the world had as good bullshit detectors as I do.

It's obvious that the people at the SEC thought that Markopolous was a kook, or even worse, a "truther," who had some sour grapes reason to go after Madoff and thus wasn't to be taken seriously. This is the way people take my posts about Palin's pregnancy, so I know what it feels like to be in the position.

I thank Mike Davis (aka Walter Waldhauser) for opening my eyes to the world of BSAs (bullshit artists). Mike Davis told his fellow law students that he was a rich retired guy, but in fact he was convicted of murder and got out of prison early. Only my friend B knew something was up:

My friend B was the only person I know who was in any way suspicious of him. “There’s something suspicious about Mike Davis” he told me. “How so?” I asked. B explained that Mike Davis claimed to have a lot of money, but B saw him waiting on line at the financial aid office to pick up a student loan check.

B also knew that a woman we both knew was making up a story about being married:

... I realized that most of what Polly herself told me about her life was completely false. Yet another lying classmate from law school. Her biggest whopper is that she told me she was married. To a white guy construction worker with long blond hair and a tattoo. “Did you ever see the husband?” my friend B once asked me. “No” I said. “Then she’s probably making up the story.”

B knew long before I did that when people say stuff that doesn't really add up, they are probably lying about something. That's how I know that Palin is lying about something regarding her pregnancy, because all of the stories don't add up. Did she fake a pregnancy or is she hiding something else? Who knows. But if a woman can make up a story about being married, another woman can make up a story about being pregnant.

Did Palin look pregnant?

Here is my transcription of part of the audio from the press conference that's alongside this Alaska Daily News article about Trig's mysterious birth.

Q: Just a clarification, you flew commercial Alaska Airlines ... did you have to hide your pregnancy because you were so far along?

A: Well, you know I, I, I never felt nor do some people say I ever look like I was that far along so no purposeful way or need to hide that I was pregnant. Um some, I know that some airlines would have some hesitancy to let me a nine months pregnant person get on board, but it wasn't nine months, so.

So Palin stumbles through the question, and insists that she didn't look that far along.

But she looks VERY far along in the picture below:

Palin's statement about not looking very far along does not match the photographic evidence.

These photos were allegedly taken on the last day of the Alaska legislative session, April 13th.

This (and the other photo in the flickr account) are the only known photos where Sarah Palin appears very preganant looking. And they appeared very mysteriously after McCain selected her and the rumours started flying. They were obviously posted for the purpose of squelching rumours. Right-wing blogs immediately knew about the photos, and wrote "ha ha, look Palin is pregnant, Daily Kos people are loonies." Obviously the person who posted the photos informed the blogs.

The photo date says March 19, 2005. Is this the camera's default date when the settings are reset? Why didn't the person who owned the digital camera properly set his date? Was the camera intentionally reset to hide something?

Were these photos staged in August? This would mean that a lot of people are in on the conspiracy. Andrea Gusty from CBS11, the camera man, Bill McAllister her press secretary, and "Erik" who took the photos and appears in one of them. What could be their motives for helping her? Obviously the promise of important jobs in Washington.

Bristol Palin's due date is tomorrow, December 18th. I wonder if she will give birth during the next 24 hours? Even if she does, it doesn't prove that Palin gave birth to Trig, it just proves that Bristol didn't give birth to him. And why aren't Levi and Bristol married yet? I thought they were supposed to get married so the baby woudn't be born out of wedlock.

Return of Lyndon B. Johnson

$10 billion more government spending per year for "early childhood education." It's the reaction that disgusts me even more:

“People are absolutely ecstatic,” said Cornelia Grumman, executive director of the First Five Years Fund, an advocacy group. “Some people seem to think the Great Society is upon us again.”

The Great Society was a huge disaster which led to the destruction of traditional families through the welfare state. Anyone who waxes ecstatic about its return disgusts me.

Notice how it's only after the election that the NY Times starts comparing Obama to Lyndon B Johnson. Has the liberal media pulled a fast one on the voters? Well I wasn't fooled. That's why I voted for McCain, despite the fact that his running mate was a moron not qualified to be president.

When the massive money spent results in no quantifiable improvement in long-term outcomes (an easy prediction given what we know about long-term outcomes from Head Start) there will be silence, or perhaps anger at Republicans for not letting Obama the Lightworker spend enough money.

Sullivan on Kennedy

Andrew Sullivan writes:

I just hurled. [Caroline] Kennedy is not as dumb, crass or as uneducated as Sarah Palin. But she is less qualified to be a Senator than Palin. I am so sick of this nepotism. What are we, some kind of neo-monarchy? Clinton got her seat because of nepotism and now Kennedy gets it be the same methods.

Less qualified than Palin is pretty unqualified.

The unanswered question: why do liberals like nepotism in politics so much? (In contrast, most Republicans are sick of the Bush family by now.)

Bernie Madoff comment

I left the following comment on Steve Sailer's blog:

Steve, the lesson to learn here, again and again, is that even smart people are susceptible to the HERDING INSTINCT.

If everyone else you know is doing something, then the INSTINCTIVE response is to assume that everyone is doing the right thing and to follow a long.

This is also why it's so hard for the HBD message to gain traction. The smart herd has gone with the false belief that all races are exactly equal in intelligence and in fact it's EVIL to even investigate otherwise.

Some of Steve's commenters are, unfortunately, trying to turn this into an anti-semitic thing. As if there are no WASP white collar criminals. (Enron?) Or Catholic white collar criminals. (Tyco?)

Don't homeschool your kids

This YouTube video shows why it's a bad idea to homeschool your kids. (It's hilarious, a must-see.)

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This was just a joke, some people are taking it too seriously.

Prole funerals

Proles can now be buried in a casket featuring the logo of their favorite baseball team.

Was Palin really pregnant?

Here's a Palin photo where her "pregnant" belly looks more like fake padding.

Note that there's not a single pregnant photo where Palin is not wearing some sort of jacket. Was she trying to hide the area from close inspection?

McCain won't give support to Palin for president.

McCain refuses to support Palin if she runs for president.

Once can only read between the lines and assume McCain is really saying the following: "I made a big mistake selecting her. Now that I realize how stupid she is, I know that she's not qualified to be President. However, I can't say that out loud, because it would be disloyal to the Republican Party and make me look like an idiot for selecting her in the first place."

Liberal vocabulary lesson

Bush has cronies, but Obama has friends.

The future of books

EBooks, so far, have not caught on. People don’t like to read books on a computer screen. I read lots of stuff on computer screens, but for some reason, it’s not such an enjoyable experience, and reading a novel while sitting in front of the computer doesn’t seem appealing. But now comes the invention of eBook readers, like the Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle, which use new “e-ink” displays. My Sony Reader, while lacking a little in contrast, provide sharp easy to read text.

Doubters insist that few will pay $300 just to read books when you can just buy the book and not have to spend $300. But they seem to be selling. At the Columbus Circle Borders where I bought my Sony Reader, they only had two other Readers left in stock. And at Amazon.com, the Kindle is completely sold out, and none will be shipping for another “11 to 13 weeks.” (Boy did Amazon.com screw up big. You don’t want to be sold out of something at Christmas. A lot of customers who would have bought a Kindle will buy a Sony Reader instead.)

I predict that the prices for these things will drop sharply during the next few years. You can now buy a digital camera for under $100, and an mp3 player for only $17, less than the price of some CDs. Probably in a few years, you’ll be able to buy an eBook reader for less than the price of a book.

What will happen to the book publishing industry when eBook readers become widespread? The music industry has lost a great deal of revenue because music is so easy to copy and pirate. The newspaper industry is losing money because you can read the news for free online. Why buy the paper? Will the same thing happen to book publishing?

I investigated the current state of pirate eBooks. All of the eBooks I found were not copies of commercial eBooks, but rather scans of paper books that were then OCRed and turned into eBooks. The quality, thus, leaves something to be desired, because OCR scanning is not perfect. In the world of music, every CD is a copy-protection-free source of digital files. In the book world, you can’t buy a DRM-less eBook, and so far, no one has cracked the DRM scheme for either the Sony BBeB format, the Amazon Kindle format, or the Adobe Digital Editions format. I understand that Microsoft .lit files have been cracked, but none of the pirate eBooks I looked at were from decrypted .lit files. Probably, the pirater checked the book out from the library. One wonders why someone would go to so much trouble to break the law with no personal pecuniary gain. I guess it’s just the pleasure of sticking it to the man.

But once eBooks become the predominant way to buy books, and once the black hat programmers develop programs that can decrypt them, then the door will be opened to widespread eBook piracy and the collapse of the book publish industry. On the other hand, maybe no one will ever be able to crack the DRM

The hookup culture and the coming downfall of Western civilization

There was an op-ed article in yesterday’s NY Times on the “demise of dating.”

It turns out that everything is the opposite of what I remember. Under the old model, you dated a few times and, if you really liked the person, you might consider having sex. Under the new model, you hook up a few times and, if you really like the person, you might consider going on a date.

I asked her to explain the pros and cons of this strange culture. According to her, the pros are that hooking up emphasizes group friendships over the one-pair model of dating, and, therefore, removes the negative stigma from those who can’t get a date. As she put it, “It used to be that if you couldn’t get a date, you were a loser.”

I don’t really think there are any long term benefits to this new paradigm, and I think that even the short term benefits mentioned above are illusory.

I suspect that the old system benefitted young men who were shy and less aggressive, because the structure of dating allowed them to get comfortable with a girl. The new system only rewards aggressive sexual seduction. The young man who can’t game a girl into bed for a quick hookup remains a virgin, but because there is no boyfriend/girlfriend paring off, his consolation prize is that his loser status is less obvious.

Another benefit of dating is that it prepared young men and woman for a future life of marriage. But I guess this is no longer needed because marriage is a custom which is also dying off. Single motherhood is now the norm in the United Kingdom and will soon be the norm in the United States.

This trend will lead to the downfall of Western civilization. The beta-male characteristics which led to orderly civilization will be rapidly bred out of the gene pool, because under the new social regime, a disproportionate percentage of the fathers will be aggressive and impulsive alpha males. When the genes of the most-alpha 20% become the genes of the majority in a generation or two, our capacity for cooperation and orderliness will have been bred away.