Cheetohs I just want to stake my claim to my small contribution the language of the blogosphere.

"Cheeto Stained Fingers" and its subsequent variations was introduced by your's truly.

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 or 4 years ago, I left a snarky comment at the General's site using the phrase. The General quickly co-opted it and has never looked back. Now, just about every comment thread throughout the lefty blog scene with a sophomoric tone brings it up.

Seriously though, seeing a little thing like this weave its way into the culture of the web is an odd feeling. I never thought that my contribution to the political discourse in this country would take the form of a play on an old masturbation joke. Mom would be so proud!  ¶ 8:21 AM**by Def: |

 
Math Atrios looks at Mr. Oxycontin's latest claim about the so-called-liberal-media's bias in covering Iraq. In a nutshell, Mr. Hillbilly Heroin claims that the 204,000 accidental deaths in this country over the last three years are just as newsworthy as the approximately 2300 US fatalities in Iraq.

Atrios points out that there are a lot more people over here than soldiers in Iraq. So, if US soldiers were dying at the same rate as US accidental deaths, how many would have died in the last three years?

88.

Oxycontin must make it hard to do arithmetic.  ¶ 2:23 PM**by 9Driver: |

 
Homer Simpson Once Said "It's funny, so it has to be true!"

In the 1960s Jack Block and his wife and fellow professor Jeanne Block (now deceased) began tracking more than 100 nursery school kids as part of a general study of personality. The kids’ personalities were rated at the time by teachers and assistants who had known them for months. There’s no reason to think political bias skewed the ratings — the investigators were not looking at political orientation back then. Even if they had been, it’s unlikely that 3- and 4-year-olds would have had much idea about their political leanings.

A few decades later, Block followed up with more surveys, looking again at personality, and this time at politics, too. The whiny kids tended to grow up conservative, and turned into rigid young adults who hewed closely to traditional gender roles and were uncomfortable with ambiguity.

The confident kids turned out liberal and were still hanging loose, turning into bright, non-conforming adults with wide interests. The girls were still outgoing, but the young men tended to turn a little introspective.

Block admits in his paper that liberal Berkeley is not representative of the whole country. But within his sample, he says, the results hold. He reasons that insecure kids look for the reassurance provided by tradition and authority, and find it in conservative politics. The more confident kids are eager to explore alternatives to the way things are, and find liberal politics more congenial.

Via Atrios and Suburban Gorilla  ¶ 6:12 PM**by Def: |