To how many other people has Verizon been quoting their rates as 0.002 cents, when they meant $0.002? And of course, the stupefyingly defiant ignorance of basic mathematics is indeed frightening.

Via emailer Erik Max Francis, who notes:

Here’s the full customer service call recording on YouTube (which is long enough to get tedious but here it is for reference):

But here’s a YTMND entry that chops it up and only gets the juiciest bits (and despite most YTMNDs, isn’t obnoxiously flashy and annoying):

What’s interesting to me as a crank-watcher is how many people in the comments in the various blogs and places it comes up (like dogg.com and rec.gambling.poker) are actually siding with Verizon …

A long but interesting disquisition, by Christopher Hitchens.

He makes an interesting point that I’d never thought about before–that the male equivalent of childbirth for women is war.

A long but interesting disquisition, by Christopher Hitchens.

He makes an interesting point that I’d never thought about before–that the male equivalent of childbirth for women is war.

A long but interesting disquisition, by Christopher Hitchens.

He makes an interesting point that I’d never thought about before–that the male equivalent of childbirth for women is war.

Alec Rawls writes about the anti-Norman Borlaugs, Paul Ehrlich and Al Gore.

A Welsh theologian laments the lack of rational discourse in today’s society.

Donald Sensing runs the numbers on red wine and dark chocolate.

I made the mistake of wading into one of the typical sexuality threads over at Free Republic, in which I made my usual claim about the (obvious, to me) fact that sexual orientation is inborn (either genetic or in utero, or both). Someone asked me to cite a poll to that effect.

I wouldn’t have much confidence in the results of such a poll, though I’m sure that it would reveal some number of people who claim to be purely homosexual. But I suspect that many who are bisexual wouldn’t admit it. That’s why I prefer to estimate peoples’ sexual orientation by their behavior, rather than by polls. And the insight I got from this is that condemnation of gays on the basis that they have a choice and are making a bad one is a bisexual behavior.

Think about it. If someone claims that homosexuals have a choice (that is, it really is a “preference”), then how can they know that? The most reasonable supposition is that they themselves have a choice, and assume that everyone is like them. I know that I don’t, and didn’t have a choice in my sexual orientation (strongly het), and I imagine that homosexuals are just the same way, except they’re homo, rather than heterosexual. People who do have a choice are properly classified as bi, to one degree or another. Therefore (unless they’re being completely illogical–not outside the realm of possibility) people who believe that others have a choice must do so on the basis that they do themselves, and thus such a belief is a bisexual behavior (and ergo, bisexuality is a fairly broad characteristic among the population). I think it possible, perhaps even likely, that there are more bisexuals than heterosexuals. But most of them engage in heterosexual activity, because they can, and it’s more socially acceptable.

Further support for my theory is the behavior of many (but by no means all) men in the absence of women (e.g., prisons), in which they are willing to engage temporarily in homosexual behavior, though I never would. It also explains why there could be whole societies (such as Sparta) that encouraged homoeroticism. I’d have been out of luck there, but at least heterosexuality must have been allowed, or they’d have gone the way of the Shakers.

Discuss…

When Jim McGreevey declared that he was a “gay American,” I declared him a bisexual American, with much disagreement in my comments section (though Tammy Bruce agreed with me). Well, now it turns out that his “boyfriend” (who claims to be straight) says that I was right:

Through lawyers, Cipel had threatened to sue McGreevey for sexual harassment shortly before and after McGreevey’s resignation. A lawsuit was never filed.

“I think McGreevey had no choice. There was a sexual harassment lawsuit against him. And he didn’t know what to do, and his advisers told him, ‘come out first,’ and he would be perceived as the victim” and thereby gain control of the story, Cipel said.

While he said McGreevey did make sexual advances toward him on several occasions, Cipel said the former governor also frequently spoke about heterosexual encounters, including sex with prostitutes on trips to Germany and the Dominican Republic.

“I believe that Jim McGreevey is bisexual,” Cipel said.

Color me unsurprised.

A conversation with Bjorn Lomborg.

DDT is not dangerous to humans, but it is dangerous to some animals. So if you’re in a rich country where you have malaria under control, clearly you should ban DDT or severely restrict its use.

But our concern about DDT in the early 70s basically meant that most of the developing world restricted their use as well. That was probably an immensely bad judgement because yes, it harms animals like birds, but it also saves human lives. These actions undoubtedly led to many millions of lives lost. So that is one example of where we need to be very careful about what we do.

But I think we are doing a little bit the same thing with climate change discussions right now. We have spent so much time over the last 10 years trying to do something about climate change. We have a treaty that will essentially do nothing whatsoever about climate change and it will still end up costing us quite a bit. And you’ve got to ask yourself, couldn’t we have spent that amount of time and effort and consideration on addressing some of the issues in the world where we could have done an enormous amount of good?