The Little Joys

Masturbation in the 21st century is a lot like being a Ron Paul supporter: It feels good, even a little bit exciting. You're not at all embarrassed to admit that you do it often, but some people still have a hard time reconciling this fact about you. In the end, though, it's all rather pointless and unfulfilling.

Ron Paul

UPDATE (2213): I don't want to play this game all night, but it appears to be some truth to the claim that if you mention Ron Paul in your post (positively or negatively), you'll be saturated with his minions, who will no doubt set you straight about the great, honorable Ron Paul (aka Jesus Christ).

Howard Mortman and Lou Minatti have tried this experiment with similar results.

To be fair, I was rather nasty; I admit that. It would be reasonable for Ron Paul's supporters to take offense at me calling their man a lunatic.

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A friend of mine recently came up to me and told me how much he loves Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. He went on and on about the man's virtues, as though he were the second coming of Christ (though he is old enough to have probably met him). I felt sorry for my friend as I was starting to suspect he was developing some sort of psychosis. What sane person would support such a lunatic for the highest office in the land? How utterly irresponsible of my dear friend.

Everyone knows Rep. Paul's rantings about "terrorism" and "the gold standard" are nothing more than sheer lunacy.

Bell Curve Excerpt

This excerpt was taken from an FYI section in the introduction to the book The Bell Curve.

By the way, this is technically a test post. I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do with this thing.

Fact and Fiction About Immigration and Intelligence Testing

Two stories about early IQ testing have entered the folklore so thoroughly that people who know almost nothing else about that history bring them up at the beginning of almost any discussion of IQ. The first story is that Jews and other immigrant groups were thought to be below average intelligence, even feebleminded, which goes to show how untrustworthy such tests (and the testers) are. The other story is that IQ tests were used as the basis for the racist immigration policies of the 1920s, which shows how dangerous such tests (and the testers) are.

The first is based on the work done at Ellis Island by H. H. Goddard, who explicitly preselected his sample for evidence of low intelligence (his purpose was to test his test's usefulness in screening for feeblemindedness), and did not try to draw any conclusions about the general distribution of intelligence in immigrant groups. The second has a stronger circumstantial case: Brigham publish his book just a year before Congress passed the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924, which did indeed tip the flow of immigrants toward the western and northern Europeans. The difficulty with making the causal case is that a close reading of the hearings for the bill shows no evidence that Brigham's book in particular or IQ tests in general played any role.