Best comment yesterday came from Dalton: Yakov Smirnoff’s relevance died with the Soviet Union. And he knows it, which is why he’s apparently now giving motivational talks entitled “Happily Ever Laughter: The Neuroscience of Romantic Relationships”. You can even watch … Continue reading
Jay “should replace the Brooks brothers on the NYT op-ed page” Livingston writes: There it was again, the panic about the narcissism of millennialas as evidenced by selfies. This time it was NPR’s podcast Hidden Brain. The show’s host Shankar … Continue reading
The last time we encountered Slate columnist Shankar Vedantam was when he puzzled over why slightly more than half of voters planned to vote for Republican candidates, given that polls show that Americans dislike the Republican Party even more than they dislike the Democrats. Vedantam attributed the new Republican majority to irrationality and “unconscious bias.” But, actually, this voting behavior is perfectly consistent with there being some moderate voters who prefer divided government. The simple, direct explanation (which Vedantam mistakenly dismisses) actually works fine.
I was flipping through Slate today and noticed a new article by Vedantam headlined, “If parenthood sucks, why do we love it? Because we’re addicted.” I don’t like this one either. Continue reading
Shankar Vedantam writes:
Americans distrust the GOP. So why are they voting for it? . . . Gallup tells us that 71 percent of all Americans blame Republican policies for the bad economy, while only 48 percent blame the Obama administration. . . . while disapproval of congressional Democrats stands at 61 percent, disapproval of congressional Republicans stands at 67 percent.
[But] Republicans are heavily tipped to wrest control of one or both houses of Congress from the Democrats in the upcoming midterms.
Hey! I know the answer to that one. As I wrote in early September: Continue reading