Power rationalization: trying to justify infidelity

This is absolutely pathetic. The author is talking about men’s desire for sexual variety:

An article of faith among the men with whom I discussed these issues (and an idea ignored, if not contested, by most of the women I know) was that the hunger for sexual variety was a basic and natural and more or less irresistible impulse. “I haven’t ever seen anyone who doesn’t deliver on every single demand their sexuality makes on them. We make the mistake of thinking some people have a stronger will, they don’t,” says a forward-thinking friend.

Ummm…completely wrong. I’d put my sex drive up against anybody’s – it’s a strong, persistent, nagging feature of my life. And like, I imagine, every other guy and gal, novelty in partners has been a staple in my fantasies.

But that’s as far as it ever needed to go. We all encounter temptation in our lives, and we all have a choice as to whether we succumb or not. And it is a choice: we’re not helpless pawns of our libido.

This horndog has written 8 pointless pages to try to justify the fact that he can’t keep it in his pants. “I can’t fight it,” he whines. “It doesn’t hurt anybody,” he bleats. “It’s all biological,” he whimpers. “The Europeans are much more open-minded,” he blithers.

Even in his own article his experts tell him that it is harmful to the relationship, that most men and women do remain faithful, that the European model isn’t necessarily better, and that his behavior is not uncontrollable. But he steams ahead in his quest to gather enough excuses to justify his wandering.

This whole thing reminds me of something Dr. Laura Schlesinger said more than a decade ago (yes, I know, she’s said a bunch of silly things, but this one was pretty good). She was talking to a listener who was bisexual but married to a woman: he wanted to know if it would be OK if he had sex with men. He felt that it should be OK, since he would be living an unfulfilled life if he didn’t explore his sexuality. She said (roughly):

“Cheating is cheating – it doesn’t matter what sex they are. Just because you have these feelings doesn’t give you an innate right or duty to act upon them.”

Now we see the author trying to apply the listener’s same errant philosophy to his own desires. Nice try.

The cheater says, “I couldn’t help it.” The faithful say, “Yes, you could.” The honest cheater says…well, there aren’t really any honest cheaters, are there?

Getting wistful over the Rasmussen Report

The poll could have quite a lot of relevance to the November elections:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 62% of voters would prefer fewer government services with lower taxes.
…
Sixty-two percent (62%) of voters think American society is generally fair and decent. Twenty-seven percent (27%) think it is unfair and discriminatory. Those numbers have become slightly more positive over the past month.

Three quarters of voters (75%) think people who move to America from other countries should adopt the nation’s culture. Just 13% think they should maintain their home country’s culture (see video report).

Let’s see…Lower taxes, smaller government, strong belief in America and American culture…

If only there were a political party that had those values in its platform.

Medvedev scurries off to China

So Medvedev has been President of Russia for what? Two weeks? And where does he go in Week #3?

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is scheduled to pay his first foreign visit to Kazakhstan and China this week.

That’s a fairly dramatic acknowledgment of the importance of the relationship between the two countries. The article (a Chinese propaganda puff piece) goes on to recite examples of the growth in Sino-Russian cooperation:

Chinese President Hu Jintao and Putin met five times last year and laid out the blueprint for the development of the strategic partnership of cooperation in the second decade after its birth.
…
In the economic sphere, bilateral trade volume surged from 10.67 billion U.S. dollars in 2000 to 33.39 billion dollars in 2006 and 48.17 billion dollars last year, according to the Ministry of Commerce of China.
…
Meanwhile, the two neighboring states hosted theme years for each other in a bid to consolidate bilateral ties, including the Year of Russia in China in 2006 and the Year of China in Russia in 2007.

Such theme events promoted substantial cooperation in such fields as trade, investment, energy, culture, education, healthcare, sports, tourism and media.

I especially like this part:

China and Russia have hailed their coordination and mutual support on an array of international issues such as preserving the authority of the United Nations (UN), countering hegemonism and settling conflicts in hot spots of the world arena.

“Countering hegemonism?”

Our ears should be burning.

Don’t know much about oil prices, but I know what I like

CNN Money has a nice, fair article on the root causes of the jump in oil prices. It’s worth a read.