Kudlow again

I know I've harped on his self-serving illustrations before, but I couldn't let this morning's Corner post pass:

Isn’t it funny that news reports this morning showing that Sen. Harry Reid will in fact allow a drill, drill, drill amendment to come to the Senate floor seem to have triggered a $3 drop in oil to less than $122 a barrel. Is this a coincidence? I don’t think so. More like cause-and-effect.

If I've ever heard a more fatuous analysis of the futures markets, I can't remember it. FYI, Larry, the oil price that you're referring to is for the front month contract that has a September 8, 2008 delivery date. So what you're claiming is that oil traders are dumping oil that is to be delivered in a little more than a month based on some possible legislation that might lead to an increased oil supply a few years down the road? Nevermind that the oil markets haven't been in contango since you Ivy types started getting the pension plans to 'invest' in commodities (badly, I might add).

Just to keep this in perspective, a 2.5% move in the oil markets is well within one standard deviation of the daily range. So this $3 drop Kudlow is swooning over can be entirely explained by normal daily fluctuation.

UPDATE: so now one day later, oil is back up more than three dollars. I wonder what Kudlow has to say about this...

Perception is inference

This article in the New Yorker about the itching sensation shows how recursive the questions in ontological philosophy are:

The account of perception that’s starting to emerge is what we might call the “brain’s best guess” theory of perception: perception is the brain’s best guess about what is happening in the outside world. The mind integrates scattered, weak, rudimentary signals from a variety of sensory channels, information from past experiences, and hard-wired processes, and produces a sensory experience full of brain-provided color, sound, texture, and meaning

More than 250 years later, we are still trying to come to grips with Hume.

Threadjack

...so I'm reading this high-larious snark offered up on Mommy Needs a Cocktail, wherein we all join in and laugh at some humorless scold who takes parenting VERY SERIOUSLY, when someone farts out this comment:

I think Holly is a man because that is such a man thing to say….and we all know what they know about parenting!!

blink...blink

Well Patti, I'm sure your husband just smiles and nods "Yes Dear" while you lock his shriveled little balls away in your bedside drawer, but some men might take exception to that attitude. Your experience may have varied, but then you probably spent the first part of your life repelling any man with self-respect and the rest of it changing the diapers of the infantile companion who puts up with your misanthropy. Gods above, I hope you don't have sons.

Oh, and you're fat.

This is why we have teh Internets

I know I'm a total link whore today, but there is so much good stuff out there today! Maybe it's because I took my meds. Anyway, this one (via Marko) gives me hope for humanity while making me laugh my ass off. As the man said "Why do we get an education? To get the jokes!"

Snort!

ZMFG too funny!
Instant move to the blogroll for the Postmodern Conservative. Thanks Ilko for the intro.