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My kind of woman. Well, one of them, anyway.

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I was startled to realize that stock photo and video purveyors actually create material in anticipation of demand. (I’d somehow failed to consider that stock pictures could be made, not just found.) These suppliers of the world’s commercial imagery are making bets on what life will look and feel like in the near future. Which made me wonder: What else, besides an ongoing technological dystopia, do they imagine waiting ahead?

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While checking in on a recent Northwest Airlines flight I was surprised to see they’re offering yet another level of upgrade.  Despite my stated preference for an aisle seat I somehow got booked into a center one on a 4-hour flight.  It’s one thing if none are available, but as I checked in I saw loads of open aisle seats on this particular flight and all of them were marked with “$25 Upgrade” icons.  That’s right.  The seat just to the left of my center seat is available for an additional $25 fee.  I wondered why this was the one leg of my journey where I couldn’t make a seat selection during the website reservation process.  Now I know why.

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More nannystatism in the Land of Fruits and Nuts.

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Damn if the boy don’t sound like a Republican.

He sure can talk the talk, can’t he?

Steve Sailer‘s take on the whole second-language thing.

For example, even though India is growing in importance, it doesn’t make sense for Americans to learn an Indian language because there are 15 national languages in India, and everybody who is anybody knows English. In China, there are a number of wildly different-sounding dialects, and, besides, be serious, you are never going to get anywhere with studying Chinese. It might make sense to learn Japanese, since so few Japanese learn English, but the Japanese are creeped out by the sight of white people speaking Japanese fluently, so why inflict that upon them? Lots of 19th Century scholars in gloomy Europe fell in love with Arabic, with its beautiful alphabet, but America has its own desert, so we’ve never put much emphasis on Arabic.

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A column in the Sunday New York Times from the newspaper’s public editor Clark Hoyt is essential reading for anyone concerned with modern journalistic practices of taboo avoidance.

Jerry Pournelle has come up with a great term — don’t know whether it’s original to him — to describe the parasites of the Overclass who live off of the rest of us: ‘tax eaters’ (as opposed to ‘taxpayers’). I love it.

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An ugly term for a false distinction. But the cartoon is funny.

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Around 40 per cent of people with European origins have “high risk” versions of the genes, which affect the brain’s sensitivity to nicotine.

Well, that explains a lot.

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And we think we’ve got immigrant problems….

The sweetest voices in the universe.

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Remember that next time some Muslim whines about women being made to remove head coverings for identification purposes. Muslims are great at gaming a system that allows them to do what they themselves wouldn’t be foolish enough to allow.

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Is there anything in the modern world that someone won’t sue over? If so, I haven’t seen it.

Of course, the guy involved is a lawyer, so he may be just drumming up business.

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My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

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There is something very disturbing about this, although I can’t quite put my finger on it.

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Designed by General Electric Fanuc (GEF) and programmed by Nuvation Research, this thing has been able to crush any human opponent that dared step up to its 32-bit automated ways. In fact, it can typically score around three times as many goals as even the mightiest Earthling, and while folks have been smart enough to find loopholes in the 8-bit software, this guy is pretty much invincible when running the real deal.

I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking “air defense control system”.

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You might find it natural to wonder about an industry that depends on deception to sell their products.

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After failing to help, of course, they’ll be the first to whine if any of their antiquities get damaged.

Perhaps we could persuade them to act as human shields.

Randall Parker has an excellent idea.

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Things must be getting Really Bad in Britain.

Steve Sailer takes a hard look at some recent trends in education … and politics.

One theory for why states and cities are raising their high school graduation requirements (Los Angeles now requires passing Algebra II to graduate) is that they are hoping to persuade their dumber students to move somewhere less demanding, and keep people with dumb kids from moving to the state in the first place.

The theory isn’t very plausible, however, because there’s little evidence that California’s politicians and educators are smart enough to understand it.

Steve Sailer makes the excellent point that Iran, by threatening America and Israel, is driving up the price of the only product that will bring them in hard currency.

They may be crazy but I’m not convinced that they’re stupid.

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I can think of nothing more pathetic than being part of a “fat pride” group. I suppose that, in these degenerate modern times, there would be “stupid pride” groups as well, did they but have the wit to form them.

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I wonder whether it could be used to engrave some sense on the forehead of Barack Obama, so he’d see it every morning in the mirror.

Probably not.

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“What is your target market for the iPhone 3G?”

“Journalists who have to write about it, and white people with more money than sense. We work the same demographic as posh restaurants with rude waiters.”

“So you anticipate brisk sales?”

“Certainly. There’s a lot of affluent insecurity out there, and we hope to tap into that.”

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When a bureaucrat’s job depends on him (or her) giving away money, then they’re by God going to find people to which to give money.

On a no-doubt-entirely-unrelated note, the federal deficit for this year appears to be twice what was anticipated. Just sayin’.

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Notice how, when the WaPo writes about somebody in a Third-World shithold, they never write about people who are actually doing manual labor — craftsmen, manufacturers, famers, ditch-diggers, goatherds. They always interview artists, poets, actors, playwrights, “journalists”, editors … or, as here, booksellers. If it’s not someting you can do downtown in a major American metropolis, they have no interest in it or anybody who is involved with it.

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You may not think it was a problem but it was.

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Forest supervisor Leanne Marten said when approving Savoy’s application that the project wouldn’t significantly harm the environment and the company would be required to keep noise to a minimum.

But the judge ruled the Forest Service didn’t consider how degrading the area could harm tourism, and said the agency did a “woefully inadequate” job of evaluating how the drilling might affect the Kirtland’s warbler, an endangered songbird that nests in the area.

Like $4 gas? Be prepared for $6 gas. And don’t forget, you’re paying these people’s salaries.

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Tell the truth — we’ve all wanted to do that.

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Over the past several years, the highly educated coastal rich have been engaged in a little culture war with the inland corporate rich. This is a war over values, leadership styles and social networks.

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A woman was prevented from taking her own son to school because she hadn’t been screened for a criminal record.

1. Thank God you don’t live in Britain.
2. Without eternal vigilance, it could happen here. Probably in New York.

Megan McArdle has the numbers.

Gee, when tax rates go down, tax revenues go up. Isn’t that amazing.

Too bad Democrats can’t count.

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Another stage in the campaign by the left to cancel the Industrial Revolution.

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Well. There it is.

Steve Sailer understands the essence.

Read it.

Let us assume that Saint Al of Gore and the IPCC are correct in their direst predictions and that Lord Stern and his ilk are correct in their assessment of the cost of global warming. What possible benefit can result from slashing emissions in the west when India and China are committed to industrialisation and its consequential CO2 production?

A really excellent question.

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I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked.

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Darwin Award nominee.

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It is certainly comforting to know that someone is taking action on this vital and pressing issue.

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PSYCHIATRISTS have detected the first case of “climate change delusion” – and they haven’t even yet got to Kevin Rudd and his global warming guru.

Gotta love Australians.

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Update: A more comprehensive explanation of the issues is here.

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Needless to say, carotene is a valuable dietary supplement.

Needless to say, regressives call it “frankenfruit” and want it made illegal.