Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Why Freakonomics sucks

It's not just their global warming idiocy. Ugh. I understand the logic of decriminalizing prostitution, but for these dudes to actually make a sales pitch for it? Very, very strange.

I'll admit that I enjoyed reading the first book, though I thought that the Roe v. Wade leading to crime dropping in the 1990s analysis was the only original and interesting assertion that the book made. It was pretty much trivial fluff that was amusing, but it was sort of a "Who cares?" kind of thing. So old people get voted off "The Weakest Link" more often. Meh. But the new installment seems to run afoul of common sense on several grounds--by suggesting that environmentalists don't understand the scientific consensus (they do) as well as this business. I think I'll skip it.

The Man, The Myth, The Bio

East Bay, California, United States
Problem: I have lots of opinions on politics and culture that I need to vent. If I do not do this I will wind up muttering to myself, and that's only like one or two steps away from being a hobo. Solution: I write two blogs. A political blog that has some evident sympathies (pro-Obama, mostly liberal though I dissent on some issues, like guns and trade) and a culture blog that does, well, cultural essays in a more long-form manner. My particular thing is taking overrated things (movies, mostly, but other things too) down a peg and putting underrated things up a peg. I'm sort of the court of last resort, and I tend to focus on more obscure cultural phenomena.