My revised Ancestry.com results

Back in July I reported that I had gotten my Ancestry.com results and they had been as follows:

49% East Asian
22% British Isles
13% Central European
8% Finnish/Volga-Ural
8% uncertain

Yesterday I got an email from the company headlined:

"Come see your new Ancestry.com results."

Below, the text read, "AncestryDNA has evolved. And the results are amazing." 

This is basically their Marketing Department's way of saying, "We screwed up the first time. Here are your more accurate, detailed results, with our apologies." 

Here are the new results they sent:

REGION   APPROXIMATE AMOUNT

Africa  0%
Other Regions Tested:
Africa Southeastern Bantu  0%
Africa South-Central Hunter-Gatherers  0%
Senegal  0%
Africa North  0%
Ivory Coast/Ghana  0%
Benin/Togo  0%
Cameroon/Congo  0%
Mali  0%
Nigeria  0%

America  < 1%
Native American  < 1%

Asia  49%
Asia East  48%
Asia Central  < 1%
Asia South  0%

Europe  48%
Great Britain  15%
Iberian Peninsula  12%
Europe West  8%
Ireland  4%
Scandinavia  4%
Finnish/Northern Russia  2%
Italy/Greece  2%
Europe East  1%
European Jewish  0%

Pacific Islander  0%
Polynesia  0%
Melanesia  0%

West Asia 2%
Caucasus  < 1%
Near East  < 1%

There are two ways of looking at this. The first would be: geez, I'm even more of a mutt than I'd thought. The second would be to rejoice that I can claim kinship with so many different groups.

If diversity is indeed strength, then I must be truly powerful.

However, even the briefest glance at myself -- and my position in society -- puts the lie to that saying.

I'm almost -- almost -- a little disappointed not to be just a smidgen African. It would have provided a neat little defense every time someone accused me of racism: "What are you talking about? I'm part black myself!" -- spoken in a tone of injured wonderment at the unfairness of the accusation. 

It's surprising that one of the African sub-groups was described as "Africa South-Central Hunter-Gatherers." In this politically correct age, isn't that description considered a tad insensitive? Why was that the only group whose means of subsistence was mentioned? And, for that matter, in this country, doesn't "South Central" most commonly refer to that section of Los Angeles where the, uh, hunter-gatherers reside?

It turns out I do have some Native American blood, even if it's less than 1%. This is sort of ironic, considering I look somewhat like a Native American. Or, rather, Indian, as we prefer to be called. Personally, I don't even mind being called a "redskin" -- especially if it qualifies me to open up a casino.

The new results show that I'm 48% East Asian, and 1% Central Asian. I do try to overcome my Japanese heritage by being rude as often as possible. (This post is yet another attempt.)

I'll just assume the 1% Central Asian means that I'm a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. Expect me to emphasize that "fact" in the future -- especially when in my cups.

The 15% Great Britain is even less than the 22% in the original analysis I received in July, and that was far less than the roughly 50% I had believed all my life until a few months ago. 

The 12% Iberian Peninsula is the biggest surprise; the previous analysis had not mentioned that ethnicity at all, and I had no inkling that I had any Spanish blood. Again, it's sort of ironic, since I look vaguely "Hispanic." But Spaniards and Portuguese -- have little in common with the Central American Amerindians who are referred to as Hispanics in this country. And even though I look "Hispanic," I am part Iberian. So maybe I should learn to bullfight. Or rather, given my courage level, to do the flamenco.

Instead of being 13% Central European, I'm now 8% "Europe West" and 1% "Europe East." Europe West on the Ancestry.com map includes Germany, France, Austria, and the Czech Republic, but nothing east of that. I could go crazy wondering whether I'm French or German, since they are such culturally opposite places. But given that my father thought he was part "Pennsylvania Dutch," which is in fact German, it's probably Heil Hitler for me.

Europe East, on the other hand, ranges from Latvia to Bulgaria, Poland to the Ukraine. That covers a lot of territory. But considering that only 1/100th of me comes from there, I'm not going to waste much time wondering which country.

I'm 4% Irish. I suppose it makes sense that I'm such a watered down bottle of Guinness, since I only feel as if I've kissed the Blarney Stone around 1/25th of the time. (The other 24/25ths, I'm tongue-tied.)

I'm 4% Scandinavian. Even if Hollywood is not breaking down the door attempting to cast me as Thor, it's nice to know I'm distantly related to the Swedish Bikini Team.

I'm now 2% -- and no longer 8% -- Finnish/Northern Russian. Come to think of it, Moscow did seem a pretty alien place when I visited back in 1968.

I'm 2% Italian/Greek, also a surprise. Evidently Ancestry.com has not gotten to the point where they can separate those two ethnicities yet. And maybe, given the scope and dominance of both the Greek and Roman Empires, they'll never will.

Either way, it won't stop me from telling the Italians I know that I'm a paisan. Maybe I'll even start dressing a little flashier and hinting that I'm connected. ("You think you can talk that way to me? Hey -- I know people.") I draw the line at going full Jersey Shore, however.

And if a myopic person ever decides to tell me I'm built like a Greek God, I'll demur. But inside, of course, I'll be thinking: Ain't it the truth -- in more ways than one!

I'm roughly 1% "Caucasus." Given my ornery nature, that portion is probably Chechnyan. 

And while I'm 0% European Jewish, I am almost 1% "Near East." This means that while I have no Ashkenazi blood, there is a possibility of some Sephardic. So there's hope yet for a career in -- and positive coverage by -- the media. If my "Near East" is not Sephardic, I'll happily settle for being a member of the Saudi royal family.

I'm 0% Pacific Islander, which makes it a bit hard to explain my lifelong inchoate yearning for that part of the world.

Given my father's original belief that he was almost entirely British Isles-descended, my guess is that my Scandinavian blood came from the Vikings who invaded Scotland and Ireland, that the 2% Italian/Greek dated back to the Roman invasion of Britannia, and that the 12% Iberian was at least partly some form of "Black Irish" dating back to the Spanish Armada.

All of those groups demonstrated horribly bad manners with those invasions. But now that I know their blood runs in my veins, I find myself less inclined to castigate them.

Although I like to consider myself above such things, tribal identity does influence outlook.

Ted Cruz's expression

I know this will make me sound superficial and probably downright idiotic, but whenever I see someone who looks just extremely pleased with himself, I feel an immediate instinctive dislike. (I don't think I am alone in this reaction.) In many photographs one sees of Ted Cruz, he seems to just radiate conceit:

Cruz is probably best known for the recent government shutdown, the result of a particularly ill-conceived, unrealistic attempt to derail Obamacare. Did he really think that popular sentiment would be won when the media was inevitably going to blame the Republicans for the shutdown?

Obamacare has been a disaster in both conceptualization and execution thus far, but defeating it in the long run will require more adroit tactics. Cruz gives off the air of someone so narcissistic as to be unrealistic about what he can and cannot accomplish.

Barack Obama's self-satisfied look also reflects his personality.

Obama and Cruz may not have much in common politically, but they do seem to have a certain similarity of character.

Filial respect

Yesterday I raced my son for 200 meters. He beat me, 27.6 to 27.7. Immediately after the race I bent over, my hands on my knees, gasping for breath. He walked up behind me, and, in front of his uncle and sister, put his hands on my hips and made a pumping motion, to symbolically express what he felt he had done to me in the race.

When I told him that I hadn't had time to get in shape for the race, and that with another couple weeks' training I could have gone a second faster, he just shrugged and said, "Dad, if you had gone a 26.7 I would have just gone a 26.6."

This morning I finished the NY Times crossword in under five minutes, a good time for me for the Monday puzzle. Afterwards I jokingly exulted to my son, "I'm a freaking genius!"

His immediate response: "Dad, just 'cause you run like Stephen Hawking, that doesn't make you a genius."

Melba Ketchum, Part II: Sociopath alert

Three posts ago I mentioned that Melba Ketchum, the sasquatch hoaxer, was most likely a sociopath. Another blog, Top Secret Writers, has provided some background on her business dealings.

Ketchum's company, DNA Diagnostics, has an "F" rating from the Better Business Bureau:

The Bureau provided 16 factors in providing the worst business rating possible, not the least of which included accepting payment from customers without providing sufficient or any DNA results in turn. In most cases, Ketchum failed to respond to the Better Business Bureau’s investigations.

She had also founded a company called Biogen Diagnostics, which is “not in good standing with the State of Texas”.

In 2010, Ketchum had partnered with Robert Schmalzbach and Richard Stubstad in a business called Science Alive, LLC, where they originally noted a “statistical anomaly in mitochondrial DNA results”. Ketchum went on Coast to Coast in 2010 to call for more Bigfoot samples and made claims about Bigfoot which Schmalzback felt was premature. She disagreed with him, formed her new company, and cut Stubstad and Schmalzbach out of the loop. (This of course contradicts Ketchum’s claim that she never “went after” Bigfoot samples).

A record of dishonesty and disloyalty and irresponsibility like that usually spells sociopathy.

I was also struck by Katchum's picture:

You can ignore the dyed hair and bright red lipstick; these are, if garish, not uncommon. She has the "nothing behind the eyes" look that sociopaths are often said to have, though in this case that could be a function of this particular photograph. Another layman's expression for this is, "a smile that doesn't quite reach the eyes;" that seems to be the case here, too.  

But most telling is Katchum's cross. Most people who wear crosses tend to have a small cross on a thin necklace which they usually wear discreetly behind their shirt. Anybody who wears a fairly large cross on a longish gold chain on top of her shirt is generally advertising her Christianity -- her "goodness." 

And there's no one who advertises her "goodness" more than a sociopath. 

On both of these counts -- the blank eyes and the advertising of Christianity -- Ketchum reminds me of Karen Sypher, the sociopath who tried to extort $10 million from basketball coach Rick Pitino:

I wrote about Sypher here, back in 2010. 

(The two women also share the same taste in hair dye and lipstick, although these are, as I said, incidental.) 

Beware of those who brandish their religion like a shield, against any suspicion that they themselves might not be above reproach. 

Melba Ketchum

I got an email from my nephew two days ago asking what I thought about this article about the Sasquatch Genome Project, headed by one Melba Ketchum.

I had read a little about this study, but hadn't followed it all that closely because I'd heard of Melba Ketchum before, and gotten the impression she was a hoaxer. In any case, this latest "study" just confirmed that impression.

There are several suspicious things about this study. Why would NYU say they never received a DNA sample from Ketchum when she says she sent them one? And why would one of the other labs Ketchum cited, the North Louisiana Crime Lab, also deny that they had analyzed a DNA sample?

No serious scientist would lie like that. (And anybody with compelling evidence wouldn't have to lie.)

The group's video (which is embedded in the above-linked article) shows a big hump of "fur" which appears to "breathe" one time. Why wouldn't they videotape it from a different angle, which showed its face, or at least head? And why didn't they get a video of when it woke up, or when its mother came to get it? That would have made for an infinitely more convincing video. Also, if the group was able to take a video of a sleeping juvenile sasquatch, why not attach a tracking collar to it as well?

Ketchum claims that sasquatch is descended from modern human females. But it is hard to believe that a primate so vastly different from humans is fully human.

Note that Ketchum says others don't want to believe her because of what she terms "the Galileo Effect." Evidently, she sees herself as another Galileo. (Sorry, honey.)

Also, her moral posturing is troubling. She says that the fact that others don't believe her is "perhaps for the better," given that others might be tempted to hunt them if convinced of their existence. But if she really feels that way, why is she going to such an effort to prove their existence?

Verdict: a hoaxer. (And probably a sociopath, given her dishonesty and moral posturing.)

Perhaps Ketchum thinks the whole sasquatch phenomenon is a sham and just wants some attention. Or perhaps she believes in its existence and wants credit -- falsely -- for being a pioneer in the field. Either way, she is a hoaxer.

But there have always been hoaxers, and their existence doesn't change my belief in the existence of the creature.

My guess is that my nephew saw through Ketchum, and was merely curious as to how much of a "true believer" I am.

I am a believer, but my belief is based on the ample evidence for its existence, not on wishful thinking.

Talking to dogs

I've always regarded people who speak to animals as if they're humans as particularly idiotic. And those who speak to them as if they're cute little babies are even worse.

My wife is away for a week, so all the dog-walking and feeding duties have fallen on me.

When trying to get Tyke to come inside, or get him away from some particularly alluring smell by the roadside, I've found myself talking to him -- in English, which he doesn't understand -- using an emphatically expressive tone of voice. Somehow it just seems like the most natural thing to do.

I don't talk to him as if he's a cute little baby, though, but more as if he's a recalcitrant three-year-old.

Gotta draw the line somewhere.

An insult, or a compliment?

The NY Post reported today that President Obama said he "would consider" changing the name of the Washington Redskins, given that some consider the name offensive to Native Americans.

The article quoted Obama, and cited a recent poll, but didn't quote a single Native American on the subject. (I've heard that most Native Americans don't particularly like to be called that, and prefer to be known as "Indians." Evidently, "Native American" is an appellation concocted to soothe the sensibilities of white liberals, not Indians.)

Every now and then the suggestion pops up that the Kansas City Chiefs, Atlanta Braves, and Cleveland Indians change their names as well.

I've never quite understood the reasoning here. Sports teams often name themselves after people -- or creatures -- they admire. Some names can connote a point of local interest (such as the Houston Oilers, or the Houston Rockets, or the Denver Nuggets), but most teams name themselves after a creature with a notable fighting spirit -- a creature they want to emulate. Hence the abundance of teams nationwide named after lions, tigers, wolverines, badgers, timberwolves, bears, falcons, eagles, and jaguars.

Note that there are no teams named after worms, ants, gnats, stink bugs, mice, or cuckoo birds.

I've never heard anybody object to the name "Minnesota Vikings" on the grounds that this is hurtful to the feelings of Scandinavians. Nor have I heard any Irish-Americans wax offended about the Boston Celtics.

If liberals did object to the name "Vikings," I can just imagine what they'd say:

"Vikings were a violent people known for invading neighboring countries and for pillaging and raping. This is a stereotype we want to move away from, and we consider it highly prejudicial and offensive to the many good Americans of Scandinavian descent across the country."

But don't expect to hear this objection; most understand that the name is in fact a compliment to Swedes and Norwegians.

Just as naming your team the Braves, Chiefs, or even Redskins is a compliment to Indians.

"Pulitzer Prize winner: Osama raid 'one big lie'"

Seymour Hersh, who won a Pulitzer for reporting on the My Lai Massacre in Viet Nam, says that of everything the Obama administration has said about the raid in Abbotabad, "not one word of it is true."

Could he be right?

And what exactly were the lies? If it does turn out to have been in large part false, an awful lot of people would have had to have been in on it.

It will be interesting to see how the media react to Hersh's accusations. Will they just ignore them the way they've ignored Steven Jiminez's book about Matthew Shepard?

"Media almost totally ignore book claiming Matthew Sheppard murder wasn't a hate crime"

This comes as no surprise. Matthew Sheppard is the media's leading gay martyr, so they don't want his image sullied. Even more than that, they don't want the motive for his murder to be anything other than hatred of gays.

Q: If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

A: Not if the media can help it.

I'm all for gay rights, and I'm certainly against violence against gays, but sustaining a big lie like this is just disgustingly dishonest.

FEMEN's latest protest

From yesterday's NewStatesman.com:

Ukrainian feminist activist group Femen have continued their topless protests with an appearance at Nina Ricci’s show at Paris Fashion Week. Jumping onto the runway with ‘Model don’t go to brothel’ and ‘Fashion dictaterror’ painted across their chests, it was slightly unclear what the women were protesting against or why. However, it wouldn’t be the first time that they had merely taken issue with ‘the status quo’ (arguably a refreshing stance.)

The model who they attempted to involve in their protest, Hollie-May Saker, demonstrated a complete lack of amusement and later claimed on Twitter that she had ‘punched’ the ‘stupid bitch’ for getting her ‘saggy tits in my face’. When challenged by a follower and reminded that we are supposedly ‘all on the same side’, Saker replied that ‘If we are all on the same side then tell me why when I was doing my job did she come ruin it and lift up my skirt?’

Although it seems from the footage that Saker’s skirt was more the victim of crossfire than deliberately assaulted by Femen – caught in a topless woman’s wrist as she attempted to raise an arm of solidarity with the model – Saker clearly did not take kindly to having her job disrupted. ‘Have fun scrubbing that shit off your body bitch never been to a brothel in my life’ she tweeted, having already considerably over-used the word ‘bitch’. It’s fair to say that she won’t be signing up at the nearby Femen HQ, which moved last year to Paris, any time soon.

"Model don't go to brothel" doesn't quite make sense. Are they saying it in the sense of, "Models, don't go to brothels!" as a sort of warning? Are they telling young girls that modeling is the preferable alternative to becoming a prostitute? Are they somehow implying that the catwalk leads inexorably to the whorehouse? It's really not very clear. A little punctuation -- like a comma after the first word -- might have helped.

"Fashion dictaterror" is even less clear. Are they saying that the concept of fashion terrorizes models, and maybe females in general? Or are they saying that fashionable models tend to be a bit tyrannical? (That's been my experience, to be honest.)

I looked up "dictaterror," but alas, there is no such word. Which means, I guess, that it means whatever you want it to. Perhaps it means, "Please have sex with me." (One interpretation is as good as another.)

You have to wonder exactly what the thinking is behind this group. They seem a little confused.

Maybe they're frustrated models themselves, angry because they had to accept the second rate modeling assignment of protesting for FEMEN. They'd undoubtedly prefer to be making the bigger bucks that come with actually modeling Nina Ricci designs; but if they can't, they'll disrupt those who do.

Or maybe it's all just performance art -- a genre where making sense is not a priority. If that's the case, then their act is geared purely towards garnering attention, which is what most of modern art is about.

But, even though their message is garbled, they do seem to be Leftists. So at least we know they're Good People.

Still, one has to wonder who is behind them. Well, that mystery has evidently been solved.

From yesterday's Independent:

Femen recently came under controversy after 28-year-old male Victor Svyatskiy was 'outed' as the mastermind behind the group by Australian film maker Kitty Green. Ms Green alleges Mr Svyatskiy hand-picked the most attractive women "because the prettiest girls sell papers."

Click on that link ("controversy") and you'll find that Victor Svyatski both founded and controls the group. Ms. Green said that he "was quite horrible with the girls. He would scream at them and call them bitches." (Dictaterror?)

But the funniest, most ironic thing, is what Svyatski himself says about the women he hires: "These girls are weak. They don't have the strength of character. They don’t even have the desire to be strong. Instead, they show submissiveness, spinelessness, lack of punctuality, and many other factors which prevent them from becoming political activists. These are qualities which it was essential to teach them.”

It's certainly an interesting take from the head of a purportedly feminist group.

Another excerpt from the Independent article:

One of the Femen campaigners talks of the relationship between the women and the movement’s founder as being akin to “Stockholm syndrome”, in which hostages feel sympathy for their captors.

“We are psychologically dependent on him and even if we know and understand that we could do this by ourselves without his help, it’s psychological dependence,” she says.

When asked by Ms. Green if his motivation was “to get girls,” Svyatski replied, “Perhaps yes, somewhere in my deep subconscious."

My guess is that you don't really have to go that deep. And that what Svyatski is operating is essentially a brothel for himself.

Models, don't go to brothels!

Sociopath liberation

Given the benefits which accrue to those who cry discrimination, and given the escalating victimization sweepstakes which have ensued, it's a little surprising that more groups with well-defined mental maladies haven't applied for special victim status yet.

A few have. People with Aspergers have their advocates; people with Down Syndrome have their supporters as well. And the general push for civil liberties has resulted in a lot of schizophrenics ending up homeless on the streets.

But why haven't sociopaths agitated for special protected status yet?

If they do, perhaps their organizational manifesto could read something like this:

We are the real victims.

We are discriminated against for who we are, despite the fact that we have no choice but to be as we are. Is it our fault that we were abused as children, or didn't have a loving parent to bond with?

Is it our fault that we may have suffered frontal lobe damage? Do you blame the victims of auto accidents for the damage they undergo?

We deserve your sympathy, not your hatred.

Others criticize us, prosecute us, and hound us to the ends of the earth. We may murder at a higher rate, but we also get murdered more than any other group.

We are only 3% of the population, but we are at least 30% of those in prisons. And we are over 60% of those on Death Row. This is discrimination, pure and simple.

As the victims of oppression, we have a few demands. First, we no longer want to be known as "psychopaths" or "sociopaths." Those words have acquired too many negative connotations over the years. (Is it any wonder most of us feel compelled to stay in the closet?) Those terms should simply be banished, like all the other pejoratives which have been used to marginalize other oppressed groups. From now on, we simply want to be known as the "conventional morality-free."

We need to move beyond the old stereotypes: 

Don't call us manipulative; call us socially effective. (We make the best salesmen.)

Don't say we have low impulse control; just say we're spontaneous. (Why be a stick in the mud?)

Don't despise our dishonesty; admire out creativity. (We are artists.)

Don't call us glib; just bask in our charm. (We didn't even have to go to charm school; with us, it comes naturally.)

Don't think of us as shameless; think of us as living in the moment. (Isn't that what the poets tell us to do?)

Don't dwell on how easily we get bored; marvel at how we are never boring. (There is no group more exciting than us.)

We are many, and we are strong:

We aren't just Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy. In fact, we no longer want to be associated with them. We are political leaders, like Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich. We are business leaders, like Bernie Madoff and Steve Jobs. We are athletic heroes, like Lance Armstrong and Marion Jones. We are Frank Abagnale, the charming hero of Catch Me if you Can.

We are the Navy Seals who fell asleep in the helicopter ride on the way to get Osama bin Laden. We are the singers who never get stage fright. We are the clutch performers who never get nervous and choke. Don't hate us for our strengths (because we aren't weaklings like the rest of you).

We are the few (roughly, 2-3%). We are the proud (very proud).

We are the conventional morality-free.

And we no longer want to be stigmatized.

We want, instead, to be admired (lionized, actually).

Justice is blind; now so is law enforcement

Back in May, I linked a Wall Street Journal article which talked about a new trend: everyone, no matter how old, must be carded before drinking, since otherwise it's "discrimination" against younger people.

I had assumed that this silly trend died as quickly as it had appeared.

Not so.

Last weekend my wife ran a half marathon up in Rhode Island. They had set up a large tent at the finish where all the runners could gather for a post-race beer. My wife finished the race, and went to the tent, but was not allowed a beer because she didn't have a proper ID with her.

My wife is 57. While she looks good for her age, nobody would mistake her for a teenager.

The wonderful thing about political correctness is that it gives common sense a nice vacation. When political correctness takes over, common sense goes jetting off to some place like Fiji, where it's not even reachable by phone.

Carding 57-year-olds is the culmination of a non-discriminatory ethos which deems it evil to notice any human differences.

Another example might be how those TSA agents at the airports pay as much attention to little old ladies as they do to me.

Check out my picture on the right. I look vaguely like a guy who'd like to blow up a jet in order to get his 72 virgins. Okay, I admit it, I'm getting a little old for the virgins. But I still look kind of like I might have a soft spot for al Qaeda.

So please, frisk me -- and others who look like me. I'd far rather be the victim of racial profiling than the victim of a terrorist.

Let me put it this way: I'd prefer having to undergo a cavity search by a fat, ugly, old gay guy with warts on his fingers than having to sit on an airplane for several hours wondering when the bomb is going to detonate.

We need to send political correctness to Fiji, and invite common sense back home -- without asking it for an ID proving it's 21.

What's the diff?

One plastic surgery which seems to produce an inordinate percentage of bad results among celebrities is lip plumping:

Here's Donatella Versace, before and after:

And Lisa Rinna:

And Janice Dickinson:

The Mursi and Surma women of Ethiopia use lip plates for ornamentation and also to indicate social status:

The Suya men of Brazil sometimes wear lip plates as well, as a sign of their entrance into manhood:

The styles vary slightly from culture to culture, but one thing all these looks have in common is that none invite kisses.

Overconfidence

One question you used to hear debated a lot is, should parents tell children their IQ's? The arguments against basically boiled down to: if the number is low, the child's ambitions and confidence might be limited, and if it's high, the child might be tempted to coast.

My IQ tested well above average as a kid, and I was told my score. I honestly don't know whether that was a good thing. I suspect it has caused me to coast at times, since I never felt a need to prove myself academically. On the other hand, it has given me a lot of intellectual confidence -- probably much of it misplaced.

One of the results of my confidence is that I don't mind harboring -- and expressing -- minority opinions. Most people are reluctant to express offbeat opinions for fear that people think them somehow off-kilter.

My attitude is, so what? Let them go ahead and think I'm crazy. I don't really care, since I know I'm not. I also know I'm smarter than the people who think I'm crazy, so I care even less.

The confidence is probably good, but going through life with people thinking me odd has probably not been beneficial. (Not that I care enough to change.)

I don't know how many people have snickered at me after I've made the case for sasquatch. I do know how little I care.

I also don't mind expressing politically unpopular opinions. Go ahead and call me thoroughly disgusting, as the commenter above did; I know I'm right.

My confidence in my intelligence is pretty much unshakable. You can be right about five things in a row, and I can be wrong about all five, but I still know I'm smarter than you. (If that sounds incredibly obnoxious, I can't argue.)

You can be a world-renowned expert in some field that I know nothing about it. But I'll still feel I have a more well-rounded intelligence.

You can be more quick-witted than me. But that's okay, because I know that given the time I could come up with an even better line.

I can say the stupidest things, things I realize are stupid as soon as they leave my mouth, and write them off as temporary aberrations, not indicative of my intelligence. I can say stuff where even I am put off by my own stupidity or egotism (this post is not a bad example); so I can only imagine how others react. Yet it will not shake my belief in my own intelligence.

All of this makes me sound awfully narcissistic, but I actually don't have the other hallmarks of narcissism. I have no problem admitting when I'm wrong. And I know there are all sorts of things I positively suck at, and readily admit to those. (Type "Confessions of a beta male" into the search box of this blog and read about my low self-image.)

It's just my intelligence I'm so confident -- and quite possibly overconfident -- about. Is that good, or bad?

I honestly don't know.

(In the case of the commenter quoted above, however, I do have an opinion: it's neither good nor bad, since she's simply lying.)

Rumor mongering

The NY Post said today that Gennifer Flowers is claiming Bill Clinton told her that Hillary is bisexual.

The relevant quote from Ms. Flowers: "He said that Hillary had eaten more pussy than he had."

I tend to believe Flowers. I've heard that rumor elsewhere, too, including from a guy I know whose sister -- who adored HIllary -- worked at the State Department and said that there was no question she's a lesbian.

I wonder if this will become general knowledge by the time of the 2016 election.

If it is true, it would lend credence to the theory that Huma Abedin, Hillary's closest aide, is probably her lesbian lover. And if that is true, that gives credence to the theory that Huma's marriage to Anthony Weiner was merely one of political convenience. The marriage gave Weiner some powerful Democratic connections, and it gave Huma -- as well as HIllary -- some cover.

If all these thing are true -- and I suspect they are -- it also gave both Bill Clinton and Anthony Weiner good reason to stray. Anyone married to a lesbian can hardly be blamed for seeking sexual solace elsewhere.

The other rumor making the rounds recently is that Matthew Sheppard was not in fact murdered because he was gay by two homophobic men. According to author Stephen Jiminez, whose book is due out next week, the two men who killed him, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, used the "gay panic" narrative at their trial since they felt it would be their strongest defense. But in fact, McKinney himself had a sexual relationship with Sheppard, and both he and Sheppard dealt -- as well as used -- methamphetamines.

If this is true -- and I have no idea whether it is -- it would not only sully the image of the gay movement's number one martyr, it would bring into question his very martyrdom.

What were they thinking, Part II

More guesses as to the designers' thoughts as they came up with their unique outfits for NY's 2013 Fashion Week:

(Malan Breton): "We need to create an updated Little Lord Fauntleroy look. You know, for the schoolboy who enjoys receiving wedgies."

 (Mark and Estel): "The perfect outfit for women who want to appear more pear-shaped."

(Mathieu Mirano): "When I was a kid, I used to collect Barbie dolls. I had the Barbie Mermaid doll, and the Barbie Cowgirl doll, the Barbie Executive doll, and all the rest. But the one I always really wanted was the Barbie Prostitute doll with the see-through nightie."

(Naeem Khan): "Hey, I hear everyone is doing sheer this year. Let's outdo them by combining it with 40's glamour! Something like Bette Davis would have worn if she'd completely lost her mind."

(Nicholas K): "As long as everyone else is doing sheer, let's do a Flirty Pocohontas look."

(Ralph Rucci): "I wonder why the Fashion Week people are encouraging us all to feature at least one sheer outfit this year. Do they really think it's going to raise interest? Let's face it, guys who are interested in fashion really aren't all that interested in women's boobies."

(Ralph Lauren): "Let's bring back the Swinging 60's. Miniskirts, knee high boots, oversized sunglasses, the whole thing. You know, Carnaby Street. I wonder...are there any models who can still go-go dance?"

(Ricardo Seto): "I want to create a look for the guy who's tough. I mean, really tough. I'm talking, like almost as tough as those Jets and Sharks in West Side Story."

(The Art Institute of New York City): "Here's how we make a splash: we think of the most narcissistic, showoffy, shameless woman we know. Then we come up with an outfit that even she wouldn't wear."

(Supima): "This is actually a gift to husbands with acquisitive wives who like to attend auctions. No more arm raising for you, you spendthrift bitch! We'll disguise its true purpose by calling it the I Poked My Head Through the Top of the Tent look."

(Trina Turk): "You know what hasn't been done yet? The Delegate to the UN from the Poor African Country look. We just have to find the right model, shave her head, and then put some barbaric earrings on her."

(Zang Toi): "We need an outfit for the Prince Charming who'd really rather be a princess."

(Y-3): "Let's create a fashion that's the sartorial equivalent of that song A Boy Named Sue. Any schoolboy wearing this has to either get tough or die."

NY September 2013 Fashion Week: What were they thinking?

You often hear people ask about someone who has screwed up, "What was he thinking?"

Having just taken a look at some of the styles from New York's Fashion Week, I find myself asking the same question, not because any designers screwed up (that seems impossible on runway shows), but because I'm genuinely wondering what thought processes were at work.

My best guesses:

(Academy of Art University): "Hmm....let's take an outfit that fat ladies wear --  a baggy jacket, a loose-fitting untucked shirt, culottes, and a scarf to hide the double chin -- and put it on a skinny guy. Yeah, I bet that's never been done before!"

(Anya Caliendo): "What the public needs needs is a wedding veil for those brides who want to send the message that they're so horny they can't wait for their wedding night."

(Anya Caliendo): "We'll start a whole new trend: Triceratops Chic."

(Argentine Designers): "Let's see....if the Tinman from the Wizard of Oz tried to check his wife's oil when she wasn't in the mood, what would she have looked like afterward?"

(Betsey Johnson): "Hmm...let's dress up a model in hospital whites, to make her look like an escapee. We'll put a wig on her so she looks like that vacuuming woman in Something About Mary. We'll wrap her wrists and hands in gauze, like a boxer. We'll apply lipstick so garish her mouth will look like a bird's beak. We'll hang a small license plate around her neck. And we'll have her stride extra jauntily down the runway singing to herself. No one will think she has anything in that box but a severed human head. Yeah -- that's crazy!"

(Czar by Cesar Galindo) "Let's make a dress that a woman can't possibly walk in. All she'll be able to do is stand on a pedestal while people admire our creation."

(David Tlale) "Hmm....let's make something that's part dress, part negligee, and part veil, but make it sheer only around the breasts, so that no man can see it without thinking that he is basically being propositioned. We'll call it the So How Do You Like My Tits look."

(Elle Fashion): "First, let's create a top made out of sheepskin with sleeves about a foot too long. Then let's dye it to look as if some ink got spilled on it by accident. Then we'll add a sash that wraps around crookedly and doesn't quite match, or meet up in front. Then we'll gather up all the wool fabric clippings that have been left on the cutting room floor and stitch them together in a dress with uneven pleats and extra flaps sewn on. Then we'll combine that with samurai leggings and eskimo boots. We'll call it Expensive Homeless Chic."

(Falguni and Shane Peacock): "Let's put together a complicated design with two large dark spots on either side of the nipples with what looks like a large nose between them and some fat lips right below that. But the large nose will turn out to also be a torso itself with two nipples that could also be eyes. Then we'll put a dark triangle where her crotch is to add some allure. We'll call this the Fish Scales Rorschach Test look."

(Falguni and Shane Peacock, again): "This is the ultimate female assassin's outfit. At first glance it looks as if we're trying to create a Polio Chic look with those leg braces. But then the target's eyes will be drawn to the sight of her breasts, so she can quickly pull the knife out of her left "brace," which is actually a sheath, and run her target through. We're going to call this the Mata Hari."

(Fashion Shenzhen): "Let's find a model who looks as if she's been hypnotized and put her in a sheer dress with both her breasts and crotch line visible. We'll call it Sex Zombie."

(Female readers: just so you know, sheer tops are definitely in this year.)

(Jill Stuart): "Let's come up with a creation which is not appropriate for a single situation. It won't quite be a bathing suit, but won't cover up enough so that you can actually go anywhere in it either. We'll make it out of fine linen, too nice to wear for workouts. And the undies look will render it inappropriate for any sort of social occasion. This will stymie everybody!"

John Kerry now an aspiring male model

Has anyone else noticed that John Kerry just looks different now? He's gone from this:

To this:

Actually, in the process of getting those pictures I saw that a lot of people have noticed: when you type "John Kerry" into Google Image, the first three things that come up following his name are "facelift," "plastic surgery," and "Botox." (That means those are the three most commonly searched queries.)

To me, it's a change for the worse. With those puffed out feminine cheeks he looks less masculine. He looks less tough. He even looks less intelligent somehow.

(In the shot above, he looks like Grandma Kerry showing how big Grandpa Kerry's member used to be.)

I can't imagine his plastic surgeon is going to be displaying those before and after shots as one of his success stories in an effort to entice new customers.

What exactly was Kerry hoping to accomplish with that surgery? He always wanted to evoke the Kennedy's; he still does, although he now resembles late stage Teddy more than any of the others.

The one good thing he has accomplished with the surgery is that he looks less conniving. Before, he looked like the most evil, duplicitous, schemer who ever lived. He could have been picked by Central Casting to play Iago, or Machiavelli, or any number of want-to-take-over-the-world-type villains.

But wouldn't it have made more sense to get surgery before his Presidential run in 2004? It's not as if he's ever going to run for elective office again.

Could it be that as Secretary of State, he now wants to put foreign leaders off their guard? His previous face was certainly enough to scare anyone. (Though the new one is just as scary, in a different sort of way.)

The larger question is, what does this surgery say about Kerry? The first thing it says about him is that he's a liar, since he denies having had any work done. (He's literally now a big fat liar, with that face.)

What kind of guy gets plastic surgery at age 69? Did Kerry finally tire of having people describe him as looking like an undertaker? Did he think that he would be putting a friendlier face on the USA? Did he think that he would get more women this way?

It's a mystery to me.

All I know is that every time I see him on TV, I find it hard to concentrate on his words, and just find myself staring at his face.

If I were interviewing him, I'd probably say, "Okay, okay, go ahead and bomb Syria -- but what the hell happened to your face?!"

Fast food workers and the minimum wage

Most readers of this blog probably reacted instinctively against the fast food workers who went on strike last week, seeing them as part of the Left -- which they are -- and therefore as part of the problem. That was my reaction as well.

After all, higher minimum wages mean lower profits for corporations and fewer entry level jobs. And raising the minimum wage would go against the principle of free markets.

But no one should lose sight of the fact that employees at a place like McDonald's are working. They are choosing to work and earn money and pay taxes rather than just go on welfare or deal drugs. And for many, those are their only options. So these workers should be encouraged, not discouraged.

If raising the minimum wage is what it takes, maybe that's the answer.

Fast food workers are not like pampered United Auto Workers with self-serving no-work rules, lavish pensions, and, according to Obama's definition, "Cadillac" health care plans. They have jobs that can only be described as lousy.

There will always be tension between labor and management. Management's goal is to be as profitable as possible, and labor's goal is the highest-paying job possible. These aims are often at odds, but that is a healthy tension that makes businesses efficient. And ultimately, it makes this country strong.

I've seen too many analyses of how people who milk the system and get every possible government benefit have a higher standard of living than those who work at low level jobs. With that kind of incentive, who would opt to work for minimum wage?

Even worse is the way the welfare system in this country is set up: women too dumb and irresponsible to do anything else are basically paid to have babies. That's the long term death knell for this country.

In 2011 I announced that I was running for President, and outlined my platform here and here and here.  Much to my surprise, my campaign never took off. But I did distinguish myself in one respect: I became the first announced Presidential candidate to throw his hat in the ring and then, basically, just forget that he was running.

In any case, in that third link above this is what I said about corporate pay:

The highest paid employee of a company ought not to be paid more than forty times what lowest paid employee is -- which is the way it was forty years ago. And stock options and bonuses will be counted as part of their pay. This would not prevent an Edwin Land or a Bill Gates of a Steve Jobs or a Bill Hewlett or a David Packard or a Henry Ford from becoming fabulously wealthy, as they all deserved to be. They got rich by founding companies which they then grew. But it would prevent corporate climbers from taking advantage of a company's shareholders. These types tend to rise by virtue of their skill at corporate politicking, then tell us that their presence is invaluable to the company, and reward themselves outrageously. I have a hard time lying back and enjoying it when I get raped this way.

I have not changed my mind about this, despite the fact that it is actually an extremely Leftist position (too much so for most Democrats). We've all heard how back in the 1970's CEO's used to be paid roughly thirty times as much as the average factory worker, and now some of them get paid upwards of a thousand times as much. Have CEO's gotten that much better? Do they now put in 1000 times as many hours as factory workers? Are their IQ's 1000 times as high?

Maybe the solution is what I suggested in my platform above, which would both decrease CEO pay and increase the lowest paid employees' pay. And that should be combined, as I stated elsewhere in my platform, with a program to wean people off welfare both by turning it into workfare and by making the payments contingent upon taking some form of effective birth control.

A country with such huge wage disparities is as unsustainable as a country with ever increasing numbers of people on welfare.

In any case, and this is the main point of this post, there is no reason to resent the fast food workers. They just want to do an honest day's labor (unlike the welfare freeloaders) for an honest day's wage (unlike many corporate CEO's).

The next best thing

I just went to pick up my car from the local mechanic (Precision Performance, which is far more reasonable than the auto dealership when it comes to maintenance). There was a 1968 Pontiac GTO there being worked on. I went over to take a closer look at it. Up close it didn't look quite as good as it did from a distance; it was sort of a living reminder of how much safer and more efficient cars have become. Still, there was something cool about seeing a car from another era.

Occasionally on weekends in my hometown you'll see guys driving around in vintage cars, like that one, or Mustangs from the 1960's. These guys are inevitably white haired, and it's pretty obvious what's going on.

They fell in love with these cars in their youth, back when they couldn't afford them, and could only admire them from afar. Then, once they got older and put some money aside, they got a chance to buy the car of their dreams. So you'll see these guys tooling around from time to time, living out their youthful fantasies.

I suppose it's the next best thing to getting to have sex with the girls you worshipped from afar back in high school.