Links of the week
I know that my internet browsing is pretty limited compared to many, certainly compared to the readers of this blog. It's gotten worse since Yahoo! took down its news feed-- used to be that headlines were in the top right corner of the page, then moved to the bottom middle, and now a whole click away, replaced by "features" and "lifestyle", both of which seem to be celebrity gossip every day. So I need a new homepage to channel my browsing in new and interesting directions--any suggestions? (The current frontrunner is MSN.com, J's pick but she gets the final call.) Anyway, besides gmail, my banks, and my friends' blogs, I don't usually get much further than Slate, the Trib, SMH, and ESPN. When I have to look something up, it's either Yahoo!7, Wikipedia, or Google Maps. Unless someone sends me something interesting, I rarely venture out of my comfort zone. Does this make me boring, narrow-minded, focused, busy, or something else? I don't know.
I found this short SlateV video, which splices footage from Hillary Clinton and Tracy Flick from the movie Election, to be quite funny. I also agree with this biting article, which makes argues that Hillary's claim of superior "experience" than Barack is totally bogus, despite her having convinced the public by a 40% margin over him that she is prepared for the job. I'm not as eloquent as the article, but she doesn't have any foreign policy experience (trips as the first lady really don't count), her 8 years in the Senate have not been significantly more fruitful than his, and in fact she's served in elected office for a shorter period of time (compared to his 11 years). You can't claim experience through osmosis.
I also liked the last couple posts by Steven D. Levitt on his blog, Freakonomics, where he expands on the idea that legalised abortion in the 70's decreased the crime rate in the 90's, suggests that a promise to donate to the Nazi Party if breaking a diet resolution might be the best way of meeting your goals, and expounds on how Major League Baseball could stop steroid use if it really wanted to.
Finally, J pointed me towards a link from one of her favourite blogs, which is a survey that measures the safety of your alcohol drinking patterns. The survey tells me that my drinking patterns are hazardous or harmful to my health, and that 92.5% of the adult population and 87% of men drink less than me. I wish it used softer language, like "might be hazardous," which J got. I know I drink less than most of my co-workers, who I would not consider hazards, but I do know that the most common profession of alcoholics is accounting. So in the last week, I've been cutting back, which has been fine and somewhat uplifting to be assured that I can do so without any side effects. Also, my new year's resolution is to give up drinks for the month of April. April for 2 reasons: I'm not aware of any fun parties in April that I'd be missing, and this way I don't have the chance of breaking my resolution for at least 3 months. I guess I also feel better because in the comments to the post, everyone else also ended up over the 90th percentile, which might say something about the survey or might say something about the type of people who read a post-feminist blog about "celebrity, sex, fashion--without airbrushing."