I’m rated WHAT??!?

Some people were annoyed that I included a link yesterday that led to a silly story that used strippers as an example of good marketing, that also included a photo of a woman in lingerie. It was very mild stuff, and I’m not going to apologize for that; the worst thing at the link was the sexism, and I will say that I do not endorse that at all. Sometimes I will talk about sex here, and although I’m not going to start sprinkling the articles with coarse and exploitive porn, I’m also not going to be shy about the frank talk.

Then Cocktail Party Physics had to ruin my self-image as an unabashed libertine by mentioning this site that you can run your blog through and get a rating. I’m afraid Pharyngula is …

What's My Blog Rated? From Mingle2 - Online Dating

Mingle2 – Online Dating

I feel so Disneyesque now.

Flounces for coelenterates? Squid bikinis?

Some clothing store called Diesel is supposed to have a fashion show tomorrow that will be streamed live to the web. Normally, I wouldn’t give a pickled pucker, but they advertise it as a “journey with us through time and liquid space to a futuristic world of bioluminescence, giant mechanic cephalopods, futuristic aquanauts and mysterious galactic polyps”…and the accompanying images are all of weird jellyfish looking things and strange organic blobs. Hummm. Well. That sounds somewhat interesting.

Denim jeans for squid, do you think?

Maybe skinny naked models draped with ctenophore tentacles, with the welts slowly rising as they strut down the runway to collapse in anaphylactic shock?

Whatever it is, I’m sure my imagination is much better than whatever they’re going to do.

(via Boing Boing)

You sickos!

Matt asks a weird question: he’s wondering who is the target of the sickest web searches. I should recuse myself, because I thought I got no perverts searching for me: after all, I think searching for “sex with a spider” or “penis tentacles” is perfectly normal. But I took a look at the search terms anyway, and I was appalled—there actually are several very common phrases people use to find their way here that I find objectionable.

[Read more…]

Pirate economics?

Normally, I can’t be motivated to read economics—no offense, economists, but I think the economics part of my brain got left behind on one of my many moves around the country, and it was locked in to one particular latitude and longitude anyway—but maybe adding a little swashbuckling and really bad puns in the title would help. Hilzoy has found some interesting examples, anyway. Here’s the abstract to one:

This paper investigates the internal governance institutions of violent criminal enterprise by examining the law, economics, and organization of pirates. To effectively
organize their banditry, pirates required mechanisms to prevent internal predation,
minimize crew conflict, and maximize piratical profit. I argue that pirates devised two
institutions for this purpose. First, I analyze the system of piratical checks and balances that crews used to constrain captain predation. Second, I examine how pirates
used democratic constitutions to minimize conflict and create piratical law and order.
Remarkably, pirates adopted both of these institutions before the United States or
England. Pirate governance created sufficient order and cooperation to make pirates
one of the most sophisticated and successful criminal organizations in history.

Maybe I should read that more carefully. If a group as anarchic as pirates could find a way to stably organize, maybe there are some hints for us atheists.

No, gang, boarding churches and looting them of their wealth probably isn’t a viable strategy to give us a unifying profit motive. We’re going to have to think about something more abstract. Although I do confess that a viking lifestyle does have some appeal…

In which I reflect upon my current environment

Chuck Colson has a list of the three greatest enemies of Christianity right now. They are:

  • Islam. It’s “evil incarnate.”

  • Atheism. It’s “virulent.”

  • Christian coffee shops??!?

OK, that last one is a little strange, but I had an epiphany. I’m sitting in a Christian-run coffee shop right now. It’s great for fairly good inexpensive coffee, it’s got an open wireless net, and some of the conversations around me are inspiring—I write some of my anti-religion screeds while the Bible Study Group meets at a table in front of me.

Gosh. Chuck Colson is right.