Direction of Causality

Direction of Causality

Dr. Helen (Instapundit's wife, a psychologist) has an article up at PajamasMedia arguing that porn doesn't destroy marriages. I think there is a tendency in some circles to emphasize porn as the destroyer, while failing to see that porn is often a symptom of more serious marital problems.

Nonetheless, the comments (and there are hundreds now) reveal that there are a lot of very upset men and women out there, doing a lot of blaming. Selfishness is the biggest enemy of successful marriages. It's bigger than porn, or alcohol, or marijuana, or football games--because when you ignore the needs of your spouse, it tends to come back and bite you later.

UPDATE: A very funny comment by someone satirizing the way that romance novels (such as the Twilight series) create unrealistic expectations in women--but there is little criticism directed at that genre:

Fortunately, I have the ability to satisfy my wife’s emotional needs at all times by sparkling in the sunlight, flying with her in my arms through the trees when the mood strikes, defending her against all external attacks by werewolves and evil vampires-in-law.

I do this by being idle rich but having no visible means of support; owning the coolest and biggest modern house deep in the woods; being 400 years old yet forever young and virile and, finally, by thinking about her 24 hours per day because, as I do not sleep, I simply watch her…to bask in her remarkable attractiveness.

UPDATE 2: Another riotously funny comment:

Like Italian sports cars, new lovers are great fun for about 1 week. Then the bills start. The parts require constant tweaking. The paint job requires protection from the weather, sun and all touching. The dollars per mile cost is unbelivable. Half the time the car won’t start for one reason or another, and it will leave on it’s own to be in “the shop”. The car never pays for what happens in “the shop” but it keeps going back. It’s always in your mind, and sometimes in her conversation, that to really drive the new model to the limits, you need to be one of a handful of highly trained professionals, with incredible natural gifts. Like her previous driver, not the current one.

And, of course, sooner or later they always get stolen. Usually sooner.

Bad News...Copernicus Was Wrong

Bad News...Copernicus Was Wrong

I was looking for a video explaining why the Ptolemaic system used all the stupid epicycles to explain the "loops" that planets make as we go through opposition...and I had the misfortune to discover that there are lots of websites devoted to demonstrating that not is evolution wrong, but the Earth is at the center of the universe, and not moving. Like this one:

Many huge Banks once thought to be too big to fail, have failed and others are teetering. So also with a long list of other large commercial enterprises… (and even a growing list of bankrupt countries!)

But what about False Science? That is to say: What about ALL "science" that is based upon or dependent upon the Pharisee Religion's Big Bang Paradigm of 15 billion years of Evolutionism!?[1] Is it possible that all of those lies will be revealed and replaced with the truth of a Biblical Cosmos with a non-moving Earth at the center?[2] You know: The never disproved Biblical Model where the sun, moon, and stars go around the Earth just as observed by everyone who has ever lived?[3]

And the rest of it is in that same breathless, 9/11 Truther tone. Wow.

PajamasMedia Article

PajamasMedia Article

"Today's Medical Care: Like Star Trek's Sick Bay"

Java Question

Java Question

Somewhere in recent history, Java compilers started to spit out warnings when you use unparameterized Vectors. For example:

Vector params = new Vector();

params.add(new Integer(randomValue));

The code works--but from a type safety standpoint, this is dangerous. If you retrieve an item from params, but assume that it is a String, you are risking an exception--and of course, you only find out about it when the code executes--not at compile time. The preferred strategy now is:

Vector<Integer> params = new Vector<Integer>();

params.add(new Integer(randomValue));

This gives you type checking at compile time, and prevents someone who does maintenance on your code from retrieving the wrong type--and not finding out about it until runtime.

However, what happens if there is a legitimate reason to have a multitype Vector? For example, params is a list of parameters to be passed to an SQL stored procedure, some of which are integers, some are strings, some are characters. You can just leave the Vector unparameterized, and ignore (or disable) the warnings.

My thought is that it would be best to define a type that includes all of the types that would be valid in this instance. For example, you know that the only valid object types to add to params are Integer and String. That way, you could get the benefit of type checking at compile time that would allow you to add either Integer or String type objects to the Vector, but not other types.

In C, you would somewhat approximate this with a union. Any ideas how you do this in Java? Or is this really not possible, and I should just leave these multitype Vectors as unparameterized?

UPDATE: One reader says use <object>--the other says use <?>. I'll try on Monday.

UPDATE 2: The answer is <object>. This is still not what I consider optimum--it just shuts up all unparameterized references. It would be much better if you could identify a set of object types that are legal to add to or get from a Vector.

A Chance To Poke Rev. Fred Phelps in the Eye

A Chance To Poke Rev. Fred Phelps in the Eye

You may recall that the Rev. Fred Phelps, who runs the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, decided that showing up to picket the funerals of gay people wasn't sufficiently annoying, so he started picketing the funerals of soldiers. His claim is that 9/11 is God's punishment of America for allowing homosexuality.

A number of states has passed laws setting limits on how close such protesters can get to a funeral. I don't have a problem with such laws at all. The father of Lance Corporal Matthew A. Snyder filed a civil suit against Phelps and his band of crazies for emotional suffering caused by their incredibly offensive signs. At trial, Mr. Snyder won his claim for damages--but predictably enough, the U.S. Court of Appeals decided that this was protected freedom of speech--and stuck Mr. Snyder with a more than $5000 bill for legal fees.

I find this argument utterly specious. As I have repeatedly discussed, the nearly anything goes notion of "freedom of speech" that the ACLU has largely managed to get the courts to buy into is not originalist. It is a curious mixture of the post-Sedition Act broad view of freedom of speech that was not generally held in 1791, with liberalism's current enthusiasm for the notion that almost anything is okay: virtual child pornography, for example. (But, at times, not political speech, if said by a business--one category of speech that in 1791 would have been generally recognized as protected.)

You can help Mr. Snyder by making a contribution here. I've already made a modest contribution. If 20% of my regular readers kick in $10, we'll be well on our way to wiping out this debt. I'm not sure what to do about the bigger problem of the Supreme Court's often bizarre misreading of history.

Michelle Obama's Inactive Status

Michelle Obama's Inactive Status

I mentioned a few days ago about President Obama retiring as a lawyer in 2008--and that it was a bit curious. Those who found Michelle Obama's court-ordered inactive status in 1993 suggested all sorts of dark reasons for this. I have updated that posting with information that pretty well demonstrates that her movement to inactive status was not the result of a disciplinary hearing or action.

Google Has Changed Its Name!

Google Has Changed Its Name!

Great April Fool's Day gag when you go to Google today.

UPDATE: I mean, I'm assuming it's an April Fool's Day gag.