Paying for it

John Tierney has another excellent idea:

"Journalists are supposed to have the judgment to deal with these problems, and money could help them do their job better. Money would give them more leverage than they have now over their sources, because they could withhold some of the payment until the story comes out and is proven correct. They would have access to more sources than the ones they so often rely on now: people peddling stories to further a political or personal agenda."

Because tempting government employees making shit pay with money for leaking, no that won't do any harm to our national security whatsoever. I can't see a problem with this plan at all. But my favorite part of the column?

"If People magazine hadn't been bound by the taboo against checkbook journalism, it could have exposed Deep Throat on its cover this week. Instead it gave its readers an exclusive story on Britney's craving for pickles and ice cream, and the singer got publicity that's probably worth more than what the Felts would have collected in cash."

Tierney, you are sooooo onto something. People magazine was totally hamstrung by this whole journalistic pseudo-ethics thing. And when a magazine known for its hardhitting news is undercut by such arbitrary rules, then something, something must change indeed.
And it gets worse. Rumor has it this week US Weekly secured a source in the British government, and planned to break the Downing Street Memo wide open. But now instead of Bush v. Blair, this news organization is reduced to Lindsay Lohan v. Jessica Simpson. Damn shame.

Women! Feast on Tierney's Double-word Score!

The state of nature. There are no rules, no hierarchy but what strength compels. Force is law; the strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must. Few will survive this Darwinian cesspool, where life is nasty, brutish and short. But those who defeat their enemies will rise from the battle to spread the fruit of their loins. The women, drawn to these fierce warriors, submit. Such is their fate in this society.

This is evolution. This is life. This is Scrabble.

It's a War on War

It seems John Tierney picked up the Peace and Conflict Report from the University of Maryland and is now an expert on trends in interstate warfare. And wow, does he have fantastic news! The “number and intensity of wars and armed conflicts has fallen once again, continuing a steady 15-year decline that has halved the amount of organized violence around the world.” What with the economic benefits of war plummeting, and the spread of us shiny happy democracies the world is becoming quite the peace, love and dope kind of place. So for those of us still building our bunkers in Montana, John urges us to come out and join the real world. Stop watching the media, with its suicide bombers and Darfur-genocide images. It’s not like you’re there or anything; let go of your neuroses and television sets, breathe the free air.

Sigh. John, I beg of you, write what you know. By the time your economic-prophet (with all due respect for the dead) predicted a decrease in incidence of war, he was foreseeing a trend that had been around for, oh, 100 years or so. Dionne Warwick could do no better.

And by the way, while war has been decreasing in duration and frequency, it has been increasing in severity. The logic of this is pretty simple—halberd v. M-16, there really is no contest. And the numbers might even be worse than they look—even the addition of a little thing called penicillin has morphed what were fatalities into mere casualties. Now, John, there still might be good news in all of this. As the severity of war increases, so does its cost, meaning that war does indeed become less rational. Nuclear weapons, of course, are the ultimate deterrent in this case.

But before we take a hit off of your peace pipe, John, consider the following. Big wars, throughout history, are like earthquakes—lots of little ones, occasional catastrophes. Whence the catastrophes? Try during big structural changes in power, when countries start balancing against threatening hegemonic powers. I mean, not that the US has been doing anything threatening as of late (that’s right, China, we’re looking at you. You have a problem with that? You want a piece of this China? Bring it on bitch).

But John, I’m sure you’re right, what with all of your convincing evidence and logic. As for me, I’m going to go check on that bunker now.

May Pseudo-Evolutionary Theory be With You

"So kids, check it out. Adam Smith totally got Anakin and his turn to the dark side. It was all about evolution, man. See, like Obi-Wan and Yoda completely just got the ideas of the markets--like, the force flows freely, like currency right? But, man, our genetic impulses just like drive us to the dark side through nationalist tendencies, er, I mean, love for Padme."

Okay, now it's time to smack someone. New York Times, is anybody actually editing this assclown? Does he have to run his ideas by anyone? Or is this just now a complete free for all on the Op-Ed page? I've read Adam Smith, I've seen all six movies (Lucas beats me), and you know what? They have nothing to do with one another.

Look, we all know you dated Maureen Dowd, but please, pop culture references are not your thing. Trust your instincts, John. Let go John...let go.

So Tell Us What We Want...

Oh yeah, John...mmmmm, that's what I like. Yeah, get all condescending, oh, you know I like that baby.

The question of today's column is as follows: "Suppose you could eliminate the factors often blamed for the shortage of women in high-paying jobs. Suppose that promotions and raises did not depend on pleasing sexist male bosses or putting in long nights and weekends away from home. Would women make as much as men?" The answer--evolution, baby: "You can argue that this difference is due to social influences, although I suspect it's largely innate, a byproduct of evolution and testosterone. "

I have to come out and say it--I agree with certain parts of Tierney's op-ed. Well, I like the part about restructuring the workplace so that we workers could spend more time with our families, our friends, our blogs. This, as far as I can tell, is not a gender issue. It'sTierney's pseudo-evolution logic that rankles me. Haven't these people bothered to check the research that shows in certain structural environments women are just as competitive and ruthless as men? Bottom line is that any women who survived junior high knows these studies are worth shit.

I’d say more, but frankly, I can't get any better than this.

Enron: The Nuclear Option

From the mind of John Tierney:

"But Washington decided that nuclear power was so good for the environment and national security -- how would America cope with the crisis when fossil fuels ran out? -- that it should be subsidized. The federal government exempted the industry from full liability for accidents and took responsibility for waste disposal."

Dude, have you even seen Erin Brockovich? What is it about the recent actions of the private energy industry that suggests they should be responsible for nuclear waste disposal?

If You Ignore the Suicide Bombers, They Can’t Hurt You.

You know, John you do have a point, at least in one respect. The chances are that you, sitting in front of your laptop reading this, are not going to get harmed by a suicide bomber, or any form of terrorist attack for that matter. As Jessica Stern said, you want to be safe? Quit smoking and wear a seatbelt.

But from here John makes a logical leap my 8-year old nephew would be proud of. It’s the media, dammit! Someone should put a leash on them. If they would just stop paying attention to these damn suicide bombers, we’d realize just what a wonderful world we live in. I mean, John’s certainly “not advocating official censorship, but there's no reason the news media can't reconsider their own fondness for covering suicide bombings. A little restraint would give the public a more realistic view of the world's dangers".

Riiiiight. And while we’re at it, what’s with this war on terror stuff anyway? In the United States, about 20,000 people die from the flu each year. There are 40,000 deaths from automobile accidents. September 11 was a horrific, unimaginable but improbable event that took 2,986 lives. But really, it was one incident. Let’s not dwell, shall we? Or could it be that political importance, not body count, should determine news coverage?

But, hell yeah, media, back off! I just can’t see why people deciding to blow themselves up in order to influence political outcomes is news. Certainly we shouldn't get too concerned when suicide bombings seem to be on the rise in Iraq. And the Michael Jackson trial is wrapping up now, and you're distracting me. Besides, if you want to create a world of unnecessary fear, leave it to the experts.