Jon Levine

I found this interesting blog post about who’s advising John McCain on economic matters. It should come as no surprise that it’s a bunch of fat-cat stiffs.  From the article:

Doug Holtz-Eakin source

Holtz-Eakin is a formerly respected academic and government economist who has been reduced to making distortionaryarguments to paper over the massive deficit black hole McCain’s tax cuts would create.

Arthur Laffer source
Laffer is the originator of the Laffer curve, the fringe view that claims government revenue increases when tax rates are lowered. There is zero empirical evidence this is true at current tax rates. McCain has repeatedly said that he believes this foolishness, but Holtz-Eakin has said (also repeatedly) that McCain does not.

Phil Gramm source
Gramm is a lobbyist who was vice president of one of the investment houses most heavily implicated in the mortage industry scandal. As a senator he pushed for the banking deregulation that contributed to the current crisis. See more here.

Kevin Hassett source
Hassett has been widely ridiculed for writing the book Dow 36000: The New Strategy for Profiting from the Coming Rise in the Stock Market in 1999, predicting that the Dow would hit 36,000 within five years, if not sooner.

Donald Luskin source
Luskin has been repeatedly named the Stupidest Man Alive by Brad Delong. See here for an example. I can attest based on my own interaction with him a few years back that in addition to being not the sharpest tack in the box, he is also an extremely unpleasant person.

Nancy Pfotenhauer source
Pfotenhauer is a pure distilled product of Koch Industries, an oil company which funds much of the right wing message machine. See here for details.

Carly Fiorina source
Fiorina was spectacularly fired from her previous job as CEO of HP. According to the Times,

… Republicans say Ms. Fiorina is using the McCain campaign to rebuild her image after her explosive tenure at Hewlett-Packard. They also say it is hard to see why a woman widely criticized for mismanaging one of Silicon Valley’s legendary companies is advising and representing a candidate who acknowledged last year that he did not understand the economy as well as he should.

Regarding Fiorina, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, the senior associate dean for executive programs at the Yale School of Management, says “What a blind spot this is in the McCain campaign to have elevated her stature and centrality in this way. You couldn’t pick a worse, non-imprisoned C.E.O. to be your standard-bearer.”

It’s an interesting read.  Seems like we’re on the brink in the country and McCain is putting his faith in the people that helped get us here.

So, I’ve been on eHarmony now for a month or so (for those that don’t know, I’m single) and I have to say that in all of my year’s experience of online dating, this has been the most laborious, annoying, testing, arduous, trying, interesting experience I’ve ever had.  

To start, and we’ve all seen the commercials, you need to fill out this exacting questionnaire that takes nearly an hour.  Now, I don’t want to sell this thing short, it does a pretty good job of fleshing out your true personality, but it’s a huge pain in the ass.  Not only is it long, but it’s one of those psycho-babble tests that ask you the same question four times, but phrased differently, to see how you answer.  Plus, everything is that ‘agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree’ -type of question.  However, after getting into the actual system, that part now seems to be the most enjoyable.

Once you’re in, eHarmony sends you your matches.  Supposedly, these are put together by their algorithm and are your ’soul mates’. You have a choice to either start communicating with these ‘matches’ or close them out.  When closing, you’re given a list of reasons to choose from of why you’re doing so.  Most women choose ‘other’ (I would assume that most men do as well).  I however, try and actually choose a reason thinking, just maybe, that the system will use my choice as a way to tweak their algorithm to present me with better matches in the future. Unfortunately, I don’t think this is the case.  I’ve chosen ‘no photo in profile’ about 20 times, yet it still presents me with matches who don’t show a picture.  As an aside, I think that they should change the reason from ‘no photo in profile’ to ‘what have you got to hide?’ or ’seriously, how ugly are you?’

This brings me to another point:  who in their right mind is choosing to date someone without a seeing a picture?  I mean, do blind dates really a) happen and b) work?  I understand that looks aren’t everything, but seriously, take a picture and put it up. However, don’t, under any circumstance, put up a picture of yourself with a better looking friend.  That’s an instant buzz kill.  I can’t speak for other guys, but if I see two girls in a picture, I want to date the better-looking one.  

So, once you start communicating, you’re taken through a series of ‘guided communications’.  Like the first step, you’re presented with a list of questions to ’send’ the person and they can either choose a pre-canned answer or write one in.  Obviously, everyone is on their toes (or at least should be), wondering what the questions they send and the answers to those questions say about them (is it better to go bowling, shopping, to a club, or to the opera? Personally, I like to bowl AT the opera).  Anyway, this process goes on and on with ever-increasing freedoms on the communications.  Eventually it leads to what they call ‘open communications’, which is their fancy way to justify charging you $60 a month to send someone an email.

What I do want to point out and, in truth, was the onus behind this post, is a process they call ‘Must Haves / Can’t Stands’.  They give you a list of about 60 items and you have to pick 10 that are deal-breakers, either for or against.  These range from how someone acts around people, to how tight they are with their money, to how important attractiveness is.  So, being the guy that I am, a few of my must haves were about sexual freedoms and attractiveness.  The key to this whole thing is being honest (or so I thought).

In step three, after you’ve started the initial contact and sent some questions back and forth, you send your Must Haves/Can’t Stands (MHCS). With my original set of MHCS, I got to stage three with four different women, but it stopped there.  This made me think that I was focused too much on the physical, so I adjusted them to put less emphasis on looks and sex. What do you know, the second group of women to receive my MHCS proceeded to step four.  However, the question remains: am I cheating myself.

If I went through this list of MHCS originally and the ones that I found to be important were physical, obviously, that matters to me.  So therefore, women who view this list and find it to be a turn-off should, theoretically, not be for me.  That being said, what if the turn-off for these women was not, in fact, that sex and attractiveness was important to me, but that I chose to focus on it?  On the flip side, am I cheating the women who I’m now continuing to communicate with because they don’t know my ‘true’ side?

I’m scheduled to go out on a few dates with the women from the ’second batch’.  I’ll keep you posted as to how it goes.

I’ve given this a lot of thought and I think I’ve come up with the three items that a man can carry that instantly makes him more attractive to the opposite sex.  In case you’re wondering: yes, I do have too much time on my hands.

3. Surfboard

Have you ever seen that guy walking along the beach carrying a surfboard? Yeah, that guy gets laid.  I don’t know if it has to do with the fact that surfing is physically intensive and the guys that do it are usually ripped.  Or, it could just be the shaggy hairdo’s, perpetual tans, and ‘no worries’ attitudes.  Regardless, carrying a surfboard scores points with the ladies.

2. The young of most species

Next time you’re out and about, walk around carrying a baby/puppy/kitten and watch the women flock.The young of any species is a big attractor of the ladies.  There are some exceptions, I mean, walking around with a baby tarantula ain’t gonna cut it.  Plus, with a baby, there’s the single dad/wife at home factor.  Though, sometimes even that works in your favor. Personally, out of the three, I’d go with the dog. Not only do they attract the girls while they’re puppies, but full-grown dogs work almost as well.  I know this because I have a dog who’s sole purpose in life is to get me laid.

1. Guitar

This one’s obvious.  Walk around with a guitar slung over your shoulder and the panties will pretty much take themselves off.  This correlates to my ‘guitar-and-microphone’ theory, which states: give an average looking guy a guitar and microphone, put him on stage, and he’ll need to have a second penis implanted to handle all the chicks.  That being said, walking around with a guitar, no matter where you are, is a big one.  It’s pretty indigenous to guitars, too.  Not that other instruments don’t attract the ladies, but you can’t really walk around with them on your back. A guy carrying a set of drums or a keyboard looks like a dork (or a mover). Nope, guitar is it.  I think I’m going to go and start taking lessons.