Rotundus.com

One complaint that I've come across a fair bit from Muslims over the past years is that people attack Islam in ways in which they wouldn't target other faiths. I disagree, and I'm wondering if perhaps a couple of articles published over the weekend might clarify this. Nicholas Kristof's NYT article Exploiting the Prophet had a fairly similar tone, but I think that the Wall Street Journal article Muslims, Mormons and Liberals: Why is it OK to mock one religion but not another? was first:

... if you can afford to shell out several hundred bucks for a seat, then you can watch a Mormon missionary get his holy book stuffed—well, I can't tell you about that, either. Let's just say it has New York City audiences roaring with laughter. The "Book of Mormon"—a performance of which Hillary Clinton attended last year, without registering a complaint—comes to mind as the administration falls over itself denouncing "Innocence of Muslims." This is a film that may or may not exist; whose makers are likely not who they say they are; whose actors claim to have known neither the plot nor purpose of the film; and which has never been seen by any member of the public except as a video clip on the Internet.

So the US Secretary of State attended a play mocking Mormons and, previously, Piss Christ was put together with government funding. (To be fair, It seems as though various threats were made about that "art" as well). It seems though that it's recently been put back on display under heavier than normal security. As far as I know there's been no request for removal made by the White House such as was made (and rejected by Google) over the Innocence of Muslims film.

I'm not a fan of the movement to get the UN to pass a resolution against "defaming religion" as in practice this sort of thing seems to lead to a fair bit of oppression. (Ironically this movement for a resolution against "defaming religion" seems to be led by countries with poor treatment of religious minorities). I was a little surprised though that Canada still has a law against blasphemy in place, though not enforced for quite some time:

... Canada still has a law against blasphemous libel in the Criminal Code – section 296 – though no one has been prosecuted under it since 1936. ... There were five attempts to enforce that law in Canadian history. This law deserves a cozy retirement in a nice museum. That would make it easier for Canada to speak out against the archaic blasphemy laws in other countries.

These sorts of survey results tend to be somewhat predictable. A recent British survey of that 75% of new mothers would stay at home to bring up their child if they could afford to. That survey came to the following conclusions (amongst others):

According to the research, six out of ten mothers who return to work after having a baby do so only to pay off debt or ease financial pressures. Just one in seven said they wanted to develop their career.
The findings, produced from a survey commissioned by uSwitch of 1,008 mothers, back up a series of opinion polls in recent years, all of which showed that a high proportion of new mothers would prefer to stay at home. ... The poll found that 75 per cent of new mothers said they would have stayed at home ‘if money was no object’. Only 12 per cent did not want to be full-time mothers. A further 13 per cent replied ‘don’t know’.

Then on the North American side of the Atlantic, also this month, a Forbes survey of 1000 American women, one third of whom were stay-at-home parents. What were the working women dreaming of?

84% of working women told ForbesWoman and TheBump that staying home to raise children is a financial luxury they aspire to.

People have talked about hypergamy before as being how women often lean (with men perhaps more often leaning towards promiscuity). The Forbes results also seemed to reflect this view, both in wives' views of their husbands and the sort of stay-at-home existence they were thinking of:

one in three [working women] resent their partner for not earning enough to make that dream a reality.

... As one (working) mom of two told me, she may dream of leaving work to take care of her kids, but the (financial) reality of it is not so ideal. “Sure, if my husband made so much money that I could spend time with the kids, still afford great vacations and maybe the occasional baby sitter to take a class or go out with friends, I’d be the first to sign up,” she said. “So maybe while it’s a luxury I do think about, it’s not one I would want unless it was actually luxurious. I don’t want to be a stay at home mom who clips coupons or plans her weekly menu to make ends meet… If that’s the case, I’d gladly go on working to avoid that fate.”

I've mentioned before and the article confirms actual stay-at-home parents tend not to be living the luxurious life that seems to be required to make stay-at-home parenting acceptable to many working women (clipping coupons... the horror!!!).

Interestingly the stay-at-home parenthood that so many women seem to aspire to might be a greater possibility were it not for many of government policies aimed at increasing the presence of women in the paid workforce as well as some of these women's personal decisions. Government-mandated maternity leave lowers women's wages, making it more difficult for women to save money to make such a life a reality. (It could involve things like paying down a mortgage more aggressively before kids arrive). Government-subsized daycare facilities also significantly increase the tax-burden. The Forbes piece mentions that for stay at home moms:

nearly 80% told us they spend less than $100 on themselves each month.

The average American cost of daycare per kid per year is $11,666 whereas in Quebec, for example, subsidized daycare facilities are allowed to charge at most $7 per child per day which suggests the government is probably kicking in over $9000 per year per child. What would happen if governments were subsidizing stay-at-home mothers to the same degree given that such seems to be a goal for more women? Subsidize it (working mothers) and you'll get more of it even if it doesn't align with their goals. Penalize it (stay-at-home parents due to the extra taxes extracted to subsidize working mothers) and you'll get fewer cases of it. Society as a whole might be strained as a result.

Also likely to make women's goals of stay-at-home motherhood less likely (again from Forbes):

Over the past three to five years we’ve seen highly educated women—who we’d imagine would be the most ambitious—who are going through med school, getting PhDs with the end-goal in mind of being at home with their kids by age 30.

Such will either result in high student debt load making it more difficult to become a stay-at-home parent or (in the case of government subsidies to education) require a higher tax load to sustain. Oh, and what are all these women in the workforce likely to be doing in the next while?

Of the 30 professions projected to add the most jobs over the next decade, women dominate 20. Many of these jobs (home care, child care, food preparation) replace things women used to do at home for free.

So in other words, they're being incentivized to stay in the workforce by government policy even if they on average would prefer to be stay-at-home parents, and then what they actually doing in the workforce seems to be largely the same stuff that they'd be doing were they living this dream of being a stay-at-home mother. More stay-at-home parents would definitely mess with GDP figures, but GDP may not be the only thing that matters.

Why not treat voters like grown-ups?

"Childlike credulity about presidents’ abilities to subdue turbulent portions of the world by projecting “strength,” or to “manage” the domestic economy, encourages political infantilism. This manifests itself in people seeking in public figures attributes pertinent only to private life. A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll asked respondents to say which presidential candidate “would you prefer to have take care of you if you were sick” and which “would you rather invite to dinner at your home.”"

An Autocrat, but Still an Improvement?

A debate on the sudject hosted by the NYT. Made me think a little up an upcoming Intelligence Squared Debate Better elected Islamists and dictators.

Why British police don’t have guns

If the data in this piece is correct, the public seems less opposed to all cops carrying guns than do the police officers themselves. As the piece notes about 5% of officers have firearms training there.

13 People Who Married Inanimate Objects

Given the modern "logic" as to what marriage is, there seems no justifiable way to remain consistent but exclude polygamy. I'm also a little unsure as to how you could justify prohibitions against including in a "marriage" some list of things including but not limited to a roller-coaster, a locomotive, a tree, radio, or pillow as long as all sentient spouses consent.

Not entirely sure of this is a real product or not or just a piece they threw together...