a passover miracle

in honor of the holiday, a small selection of passover articles:

http://www.slate.com/id/2248901/ ("Scientific explanations for the miracles of Passover")

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/us/politics/28seder.html ("Next Year in the White House: A Seder Tradition")
and, http://www.slate.com/id/2248903/ ("Get through the Haggadah in two minutes flat"), with my favorite part being the comment suggesting an  "even more abridged version, which some would argue applies to pretty much every Jewish holiday:  Once upon a time, the goyim tried to destroy us, they failed. Let's eat."

and as a follow up to last week's post:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/opinion/28rich.html ("The Rage Is Not About Health Care")

really, really, ridiculously good looking

Reading "Above the Law" earlier today, came upon a post entitled "Attractive People May or May Not Be Better Lawyers, But They Do Get Paid More."

This initially got me excited as, "Well I guess it all started the first time I went through the second grade. I caught my reflection in a spoon while I was eating my cereal, and I remember thinking 'wow, you're ridiculously good looking, maybe you could do that for a career.' ... Be professionally good looking."

However, the news for really, really, ridiculously good looking ladies like me, is not all good.   In fact:

"[S]tudies of attractiveness and earnings" showed that " for women, being very attractive means they are less likely to make partner. The data on this was bell shaped. The least attractive and most attractive women were least likely to make partner. This was not the case for men. The more attractive guys are, the more likely they are to make partner."

The study author posits that this is the case because "the very good-looking women are probably getting married.”  Of course there's no reason why married women can't be partners, so I'm assuming he means "getting married, having kids, and being deemed the primary caregiver for those kids," or "getting married and assuming the position of non-working trophy wife."  Actually that second one sounds great...    

politix

by way of disclaimer, i'm about as politically illiterate regarding american politics as an otherwise well-educated person can be (especially one that has undergraduate degrees in political science and international relations). the reason? irrationality drives me nuts, and that's exactly how i view about 90% of politics (irrational arguments to irrational people).

nonetheless, in light of a rather epic development (i.e. health care), i'm trying to force myself to read up a bit. a few articles that i enjoyed more than not:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/opinion/23herbert.html (ranting on some of the same things i find disgusting about american politics, albiet laying most of it at the door of the GOP)
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/the_costs_and_benefits_of_the.html (discussing the political costs and benefits/game theory of opposing the health care bill)
http://www.slate.com/id/2248566/ (an optimistic caution against "shorting" Obama)

and a couple basic FAQs those other political illiterates out there:
http://www.slate.com/id/2248560/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/your-money/health-insurance/22consumer.html

lyrics i love

ok, i'm a sucker for good lyrics or even just a good line.  not to the extent that the musical aspects of the song are irrelevant (on the contrary, i love a good beat, lyrics aside), and i'm not even talking about lyrics that would make a good poem standing alone, but basically the ones that for some reason stick in my head.  probably my favorite lyrics are radiohead's talk show host (let's not engage in a detailed psychological analysis of that... or maybe let's???), but i'm going to keep posting other ones that catch my ears below.

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/notoriousbig/hypnotize.html  (excellent self praise: "hah, sicker than your average")
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/kanyewest/throughthewire.html (on having a jaw wired shut: "I drink a boost for breakfast, and ensure for desert.  Somebody ordered pancakes I just sip the sizzurp.")
http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Scenario-lyrics-A-Tribe-Called-Quest/382A5195284EEA5D48256893002D3BFE (more excellent self-praise and solid smack talk, including our college cheer "don't violate or you get violated")
http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/pepper-lyrics-butthole-surfers/1b93e4b36cc553b348256d0a00310b24 ("Some will fall in love with life And drink it from a fountain That is pouring like an avalanche Coming down the mountain")

in the meantime, share your own in the comments?

time suck

i'm sure many of these links have been around for months, but they were all brought to my attention this week.  i had an incredibly busy week at work and it's really amazing i got any work done at all in light of all this outstanding fluff:

muzak:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NGSl3CldFY (TROLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLO)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w (this too shall pass v.1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJKythlXAIY (this too shall pass v.2)

puppies:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUCRZzhbHH0 (slo mo puppies)

http://hipsterpuppies.tumblr.com/ (ironic puppies)

http://www.raincitystory.com/flash/screenclean.swf (slurpy puppies)

and finally:

http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/  (can't sum it up any better than that)

well this is depressing

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/in-obesity-epidemic-whats-one-cookie/

so this article takes the position that good but small changes in diet and exercise (like those heralded by Michelle Obama and just about everyone else) don't equal long term weight loss because your body adapts:

A person’s weight remains stable as long as the number of calories consumed doesn’t exceed the amount of calories the body spends, both on exercise and to maintain basic body functions. As the balance between calories going in and calories going out changes, we gain or lose weight.

But bodies don’t gain or lose weight indefinitely. Eventually, a cascade of biological changes kicks in to help the body maintain a new weight. As the JAMA article explains, a person who eats an extra cookie a day will gain some weight, but over time, an increasing proportion of the cookie’s calories also goes to taking care of the extra body weight. Eventually, the body adjusts and stops gaining weight, even if the person continues to eat the cookie.

well, hell.

the oldies and the goodies

this topic comes courtesy of mer and neva, who both forwarded/posted this link:

http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2010/02/16/the-case-for-an-older-woman/

neva, taking the glass half-full approach, refers to it as "OK cupid's (statistically-based) argument for older women." of course another way to look at it is "OK cupid's collection of statistics showing that guys are predisposed against older women."

that said, i enjoyed reading it in combination with OK cupid's earlier post:

http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2010/01/20/the-4-big-myths-of-profile-pictures/

then scan down to the section entitled "the cleavage shot," which states:

Like the Ab Shot, the Cleavage Shot is very successful, drawing 12.9 new contacts per month, or 49% more than average. But unlike the Abs Shot, this positive effect actually trends against the effects of age.

As you would expect, women get fewer and fewer new messages as they age (which is a topic for another whole post!), but this decrease in new contacts is substantially slower for women with cleavage pics. A 32 year-old woman showing her body gets only 1 less message a month than the equivalent 18 year-old; an older woman not showing off gets 4 messages less, a large relative fall-off in popularity.

so, i have two takeaways from this combined info. one, if i ever resurrect my OK cupid profile, the girls should be on display to counterbalance my "aging." second, and more generally, i should invest in some more revealing clothes!