Jonah Goldberg points to this USA Today story about how an increasing proportion of murder victims themselves have criminal records. This suggests that crime is becoming more and more a gang phenomenon. Interesting, and that should make non-criminals feel safer, but this statement from the article is little disturbing:

The slaying of truly innocent victims is so unusual in Baltimore…

So if you have any kind of criminal record, and then someone murders you, you’re not a “truly innocent victim”?

John Lott (no relation to this blog’s namesake) refers readers to this Economist article about how women evolved into good shoppers:

WOMEN really are better than men at shopping. And they really do prefer pink. And, surprisingly, it is possible that these facts are connected. The first conclusion was drawn by Joshua New of Yale University and his colleagues. The second was drawn by Anya Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling of Newcastle University in England. The connecting theme is that in the division of labour that forms the primordial bargain of human hunter-gatherer societies, it is the men who do the hunting and the women who do the gathering.

Yet another brick in the wall of pro-conservative scientific findings. Everything you thought you knew about gender differences is absolutely correct!

Mother Jones has a terrific piece from Gary Greenberg about sexual orientation. It argues that homosexuality is in part biological, yet somewhat malleable.

Unfortunately, it alludes to rather than simply stating a growing scientific consensus: Men tend to be “gay, straight or lying,” whereas women have a bit more fluid sexual preferences. (more…)

Apparently “Chocolate Rain,” a YouTube clip from singer Tay Zonday, is the latest rage in the liberal blogosphere. It’s a five-minute song where the guy spouts off a bunch of left-wing talking points.

To his credit, he has a terrific, deep voice.

But to his detriment, he literally took five seconds of material and looped it into five minutes. And it’s obvious he’s never read The Bell Curve (he name-checks the 13-year-old IQ tome and misstates both its case and the case against it).

Personally, when I wanna get my progressive on, I prefer Brett Dennen.

This post (hailed by Matthew Yglesias) totally misses the mark on the Larry Craig case, arguing that it’s not illegal to solicit sex. Craig is being prosecuted out of homophobia.

Problem is, Craig is alleged to have solicited public sex. (The actual charge was the vague “disorderly conduct,” but the police report demonstrates that the sting was in response to reports of actual sexual activity in the restroom, not name and phone number exchanges. The signals Craig allegedly used were those of someone “wishing to engage in lewd conduct.”) It’s illegal, as it should be, to have sex in a public restroom.

Volokh Conspiracy has a similarly bad pro-Craig argument. Once Dale Carpenter spouts off a bunch of f***-the-police rhetoric (I’m fine with skepticism by all means, but “no presumption” that the officer isn’t lying? The cop wrote the report after finding out the suspect was a senator), he breaks out this argument:

A reasonable person faced with Craig’s alleged behavior would have moved his foot away and/or muttered a simple “no thanks” or “stop that,” which likely would have brought an end to it. A continuation of the unwelcome behavior might then have been enough to charge him with something, but again, that didn’t happen. In fact, the officer tapped his own foot in response, indicating the interest was mutual.

Again, the critic completely misrepresents the charge. The allegation isn’t that Craig was harassing the officer. The charge is that Craig was trying to have sex in a public place, regardless of whether his desired co-conspirator was receptive. (more…)

The U.S. has 90 guns for every 100 people, according to the latest Small Arms Survey.

The AP report is pretty interesting, spending some time on nonviolent countries with lots of guns:

On a per-capita basis, Yemen had the second most heavily armed citizenry behind the United States, with 61 guns per 100 people, followed by Finland with 56, Switzerland with 46, Iraq with 39 and Serbia with 38.

France, Canada, Sweden, Austria and Germany were next, each with about 30 guns per 100 people, while many poorer countries often associated with violence ranked much lower. Nigeria, for instance, had just one gun per 100 people.

You can see Wikipedia’s list of murder rates by country here, and GDP per capita by country here.

I’m too lazy to run a regression right now, but one source in the article comments that gun ownership may simply be tied to wealth. When you make more money, you buy more guns, but presumably you also commit fewer crimes. That would pretty much show the idiocy of trying to “control” citizen firearm ownership on a worldwide scale: The people likely to have guns aren’t the ones likely to murder. (more…)

I’ve been a supporter of the “Fair Tax” for a few years now, but this article from Bruce Bartlett completely changed my mind.

The Fair Tax is a system where the federal government eliminates the IRS, and instead gets its revenue from sales taxes. Proponents cite a number of benefits:

• Simplicity. Rather than fill out a complicated set of forms every year, on which rich people can find all sorts of loopholes, Americans would simply go about their lives. Whenever they spent money, a certain portion of it would go to the government.

• Savings encouragement. If you save your money instead of spending it, you don’t pay taxes. In the current income-tax-based system, you’ve paid taxes before you even see your money.

• Fairness. Rich people spend the most money, so they pay the most taxes. This is as opposed to a flat tax (supported by some economists of the libertarian bent), which charges everyone the same percentage income tax.

In other words, the Fair Tax is a flat tax that’s, well, fair.

It’s amazing how poorly thought out this line of reasoning is once someone of Bartlett’s knowledge lays it out. He spends much of the article criticizing the specific version of the Fair Tax that was recently proposed (it misleads the public on the size of the tax, and it would force the government to basically tax itself), but he goes much deeper and basically rips the entire concept’s guts out. (more…)

Or apparently Motley Crue will sue you:

According to the ABC Radio Networks, MÖTLEY CRÜE suffered a legal setback Wednesday (August 22) in its case against drummer Tommy Lee’s manager Carl Stubner. You may recall that the suit alleges the defendant cost the band millions of dollars and hurt their reputation by advising Lee to appear in his reality flop “Tommy Lee Goes to College” rather than tour with the group. But a judge has ruled that the legal papers don’t support a cause of action.

Great band, and his TV show really did suck, but wow. Wow.

I lead such an exciting life that I’ve spent most of today looking forward to tomorrow, when the third episode of VH1’s “The Pick-Up Artist” will air. In it, a man named “Mystery” teaches a group of losery guys how to pick up women.

His technique — basically, act like just a little bit of a jerk — is controversial. The underlying message of the show is that the contestants should psychologically prime random women to want to sleep with them, and I myself wouldn’t argue that’s a healthy way to live.

But I do think the show is pushing one simple truth out there: What women say they want (and probably think they should want) and what women react to “in the field” are two very different things. (more…)

UPDATE: Apparently Nixon Peabody has claimed copyright, and you can no longer hear the song via the links below. It’s still here though.

I don’t follow law firm news much, but this Nixon Peabody ditty (NOT A THEME SONG!) is freaking unstoppable.

Uh! Yeeeaaaah!