Fun with statistics

Here is an image of my one and only tattoo, which I designed myself and which I got to celebrate the attainment of my private pilot's licence. It's several years old, but I love it and am anticipating the day in the not-too-distant future when I'll have to get it sharpened and re-coloured. Here we have an article about "tattoo remorse" and the booming tattoo removal business:

Among a group of 18- to 50-year-olds surveyed in 2004, 24 percent reported having a tattoo and 17 percent of those considered getting their tattoo removed.

Sounds like a lot of people regret getting tattoos. The only problem with the way they report this statistic is that, of the nearly one quarter of people who have tattoos, 83% of them are at least moderately happy with their choice. That's a pretty decent number. A lot better than the approval ratings of most politicians. Gotta be careful how you read these fluff articles sometimes.

Textbook future

The Canadian dollar is about to equal the value of the US dollar for the first time in my memory:

TORONTO — The Canadian dollar moved decisively above 99 cents US Thursday, flirting with parity with the American dollar for the first time since November 1976.

I'm no economist, and I don't know whether that's a net positive or negative for Canada, and I know it has more to do with the US dollar tanking recently, but it sort of makes me a little bit proud.

Back when I was in high school, I remember a textbook that predicted this would happen by the year 2000. When I thought ahead to 2000 and imagined my 28-year-old self, it seemed a long way off. I thought perhaps I'd be married with children, all settled-down and responsible.

Well, the dollar prediction eventually came true, 7 years late (though as of 2002, it looked like a very wrong prediction). My own expectations about my life haven't come true, though; Settled-down and responsible I'm probably not. Thank goodness for that!

Sweet neo-con, light of humanity

Well I just love this, posted by Jamie Kirchick on Andrew Sullivan's blog:

Today, it seems that a "neo-con" (at least in the fevered imaginations of the net-left) is someone who frequently calls attention to the unprovoked aggression of despotic regimes (e.g. Iran and Syria), the violation of human rights in other countries, and advocates the moral superiority of democratic countries in international affairs. A "neo-con" is now anyone who dares make an issue out of the aggressions and inhumanity of despotisms without explaining them away, and for advocating America do something about these aggressions and inhumanities.

That's it! The 'fevered' people who label the neo-conservatives (as juxtaposed with the sensible, pragmatic, and serene neo-cons themselves) are using the term as a way to denigrate those who see injustice in the world and have the nobility and good-heartedness to want to "do something" about it. The neo-conservatives are the champions of international human rights; With pure hearts, they advocate for the moral superiority of the correct political system, American-style democracy, and stand up for non-aggression and humanity. And yet all they ask is that we "do something" instead of explaining away.

Clearly, people who disparage these latter-day saints as neo-conservatives, in their fevered and addled liberal way, oppose human rights, democracy, peace and humanity. The neo-cons are like Clark Kent in a phone booth. The collective "net-left" are like the Axis of Dr. Evil.

Poor Jamie.

The disingenuousness of this should be self-evident, but I feel like responding so here goes: The neo-conservatives, people who founded organizations like the Project for the New American Century, are self labelled. That's what they call themselves. So, you'll have to excuse everyone else who uses the term. They advocate for the use and projection of American military power to remake the world in America's image. The purpose being to benefit America and American commerce, and to perpetrate a "new American century". All this guff about human rights and peace is packaged on the premise that it will come to pass if necessary through force, intimidation, and (if necessary) torture -- a form of "soft empire".

They are mainly ex-liberals. They support liberal-style interventionism. They called themselves neo-conservatives. They were the 'intellectual' force behind the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and are still pushing for a ludicrous military confrontation with Iran. And they are largely discredited. Think Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. Think Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. For the fact that some people use that label as an insult, they have only themselves to blame.