Will's Girlfriend Now Objectively Hot

The Hill has released its 50 most beautiful people working on the capitol, and included is the charming Ayame Nagatani. Though the list contains about a dozen inexplicable misfires, Ms. Nagatani is not among them. She is probably the least self-absorbed among the deserving members of the list (you should see Obama preen in the WSC locker room mirror) and even takes care of Will when he's drunk. A special lady, my friends.

The Loosh Spot salutes Ayame Nagatani: Top 50 in a photo, Top 50 in life.

Echinacea Buyers Feel Dumb

The established herbology prescriptions are well known.

Tired? Ginseng! Depressed? St. John's Wort! Losing your memory? Gingko! Cold season? Echinacea!

Ever since the alternative medicine craze took off a decade ago folks have bought echinacea by the barrel, believing that ingesting the root boosted their immune system so it could ward off potential colds or fight the one they already had (I have a bottle at home).

It appears we were wasting our money.

A study in today's New England Journal of Medicine suggests that if anything helped our colds it was the water we used to swallow the pills.

Dr. Stephen E. Straus, director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the government agency that sponsored the new research, says he for one is satisfied that echinacea is not an effective cold remedy.

"This paper says it will not pre-empt a common cold, and it stands on top of prior studies saying it doesn't treat an established cold," he said, adding, "We've got to stop attributing any efficacy to echinacea."

Pass your friend in echinacea sales some St. John's Wort...

Fall in Love with Costco

Why should you love this man? Because Jim Sinegal runs the 29th highest earning corporation in America (Costco), pays his employees $17 an hour, and himself only $350,000. (If that sounds steep it could easily be $50 million.) The health benefits and other perks for employees are amazing. But somehow Costco manages to be pretty amazing for the customer too. The prices are unbeatable! On a recent trip I got one of the very largest and tastiest hot dogs available in the free world--w/medium soda--for $1.50. As Austin Powers once said so rightly:
"Yeah capitalism!"

Read the fascinating NY Times sketch of Sinegal and his refreshingly generous-yet-competitive business here. It's an encouragement to those concerned with a "living wage," and a further incentive to go buy 48 bags of M&Ms for $10 this weekend.
But drive past Sam's club and get your goodies from a Costco. Four of the 10 richest Americans are Waltons, and they don't share like Sinegal. If you read this article I'm sure you'll want to give your business to him. And I'm almost positive he offers the better in-store hot dog...

Most Painful Reputation Killing Performance in a Soft Drink Commercial

And the award goes to... G-Love!!

Yes Mr. Love, the grammatically challenged Philadelphian who eschews normative speech patters in pursuit of a hipper brand of whiteness, has created a horrifically embarassing commercial for Coke Zero called "Chilltop." (The commercial updates a 1971 ad "Hilltop" that featured youngsters on a hill singing "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing.") This trainwreck of an attempt at reaching young viewers missess the mark by about 5 miles and features Mr. Love, brow furrowed in concentration, bobbing his head and singing:

I'd like to teach the world to chill
Take time to stop and smile
I'd like to buy the world a Coke
And chill with it awhile.

If the words went by quickly it would be much less painful. They don't. These four mind-numbingly stupid lines take twenty seconds to spill out. If they flashed the home phone number for G-Love's mother halfway through you'd dial her up and just tell her how sorry you were. The coterie of carefully selected multicultural friends who goofily nod their heads along in assent to their side-burned cult leader make this commercial even worse.

50 year old sitting in ad agency board room: "We put a bunch of diverse young people on a rooftop--downtown in a city! Then we bring in this guy G-Love, who sounds much cooler than a grown up white person, and we use the word "chill" egregiously. It's gonna be GREAT. The kids will love it."

The commercial is awful. When a writer for Business Week says you've failed to be hip, you've really failed to be hip. Coke tries to explain their thinking here, and you actually can see this monstrosity online. Click on "chilltop" to view the g-love disaster in its entirety, or click "chillosophy" to read about the spiritual underpinnings of this diet beverage (seriously).
G's not embarassed by his ad--"we've gotten a real good positive response"--and sees it as a sign of his blossoming entrepreneurship.

Since I first decided at 16 to make it in music, it's been all about getting into the game, getting your hustle on. I think I finally got a handle on it... Am I a businessman? I'm a musician who knows how to handle my business.

Less clear is whether Coca-Cola still knows how to handle its business.

Word "Consultant" Rapidly Losing Meaning

Ask a guy at a bar what he does right now he'll probably say he's some kind of consultant. Oh he may tack on some preceding descriptor--"an investigative consultant," "a research consultant,"--but the odds are 4 in 7 that you're gonna get that professionaly sexy c-word.

And that's why it's becoming stupider and stupider with each new day.

Case in point: Yesterday my friend Will and I observed a ceaseless flow of middle-aged women wearing matching white t-shirts that implored us to "Live the Magic!" in bright pink letters. When we finally queried one "Live the Magic" wearer we learned that the women were at the adjacent hotel for a convention of private sellers of a certain line of candles (Candle Avon ladies). But don't say sales or retail around these part-time professionals. Not sure how to phrase their line of work Will started, "so you..."

"We're independent consultants," she answered.

Ah. Independent consultants.

Most shallow college students today are eager to enter the field of "consulting," and 1/20 successfully land work at firms paid by corporations or goverments to propose strategic solutions to problems and give business advice. Apparently the other 19/20 just become cubicle monkeys and decide to (why not?) throw consultant on their business card anyway. Actually it's not even the employees who do this as much as the businesses, who now call coffee retreivers "research assistants" and photocopiers "investigative analysts." I guess you can't post a job opportunity for a paper slave, you need to be hiring an "information consultant." Hey look at this job--sounds impressive!

In today's world of overblown corporate language if you cat-sit one week for your Aunt, it just may end up as a buzz word-laden item on your resume in two months:

Feline Resource Distribution Enginer:
Had primary role in the management and oversight of food and water disbursement to a team of feline clients. Also had a supervisory caretaking role with the team.

The net effect is that every working American is an analyst or consultant, and everyone's managing or leading something. Oh, and every employer is some type of "firm." Make video games? Congratulations! You have a software development firm. This makes the 25 year old game makers "partners" and the 15 year old game testers "research consultants." (I can't wait till a middle schooler hops off a skateboard to hand me his "consultant" business card).

The bottom line is that words like consultant will mean nothing in 2 years.

For the time being, though, I'm happy to report that a recent promotion has elevated me to the level of "consultant" within my DC-area "firm." And I just ordered my consultant business cards. They should be here in 3 weeks.

John Roberts Nominated for Supreme Court

After weeks of intense anticipation, President Bush has nominated John Roberts to be the next Supreme Court Justice. (Who is he? NPR answers best.)

The expectation had been that Bush would nominate a woman (Laura's request) or a Hispanic judge, but instead he went with the well-credentialed, difficult to criticize Roberts, who graduated from Harvard in 3 years, Harvard Law with high honors, and clerked for Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist (yeah, he's smart).

Several analysts called the pick "clever" or "shrewd," expecting the sexy (seemingly) pro-life WASP to give the Democratic opposition fits with his strong resume and short judicial case history. As expected, reactions to his nomination have been varied widely.

*Sandra Day O'Connor: "That's fabulous!"
"He's good in every way, except he's not a woman"

*Pro-Life groups: yeah.
*Pro-Choice groups: nay.

*New York Times: a "modernist" better than Scalia/Thomas.
*Chicago Tribune: prudent.
*CBS: "safe."
*MoveOn.org: "fringe and extreme."
*NPR: "brilliant legal mind" with "unquestioned integrity."

*DNC: diversion from Rovegate (or Plamegate or whatever we're calling the red hot non-scandal of the moment).
*Dean: "impressive legal credentials, but also sharp partisan credentials."
(wait--Bush nominated a Republican?)

Most agree that the confirmation process will end up being a debate on abortion, or more specifically an attempt to figure out just where Roberts stands on the issue. Though the advocacy groups on both sides describe an abortion opponent, Roberts' own comments at his 2003 confirmation hearing leave a very murky picture (relevent excerpts at SF Chronicle).

Tuition for Chastity

A member of Uganda's parliament has proposed a novel reward to combat the spread of HIV: free college for virgins.

"The criterion is that a student must be a virgin and from Kayunga district," Bbaale County MP Sulaiman Madada told the state-owned New Vision. He also later clarified the deal was only for the ladies. Madada would have a gynecological examination administered by health workers to verify virginity (yikes!).

(above left: the forlorn look of eligibility lost)

Africa Tells Bono It "Just Needs A Little Space"

Rock concerts aimed at fighting African poverty usually don't make popular targets for critics, but the chorus is starting to grow a little bit louder among those who have come to see Live 8 as little more than a music-based multi-continental orgy of patronizing moral superiority and self-congratulation. More specifically, many see it as a chronically misguided way of approaching the continent's problems, trying to fill a hole by enthusiastically plunging a shovel into its bottom. (hint: if the problem is oppressive dictators hoarding resources, the solution probably isn't shaming Western dignitaries into sending more resources to said dictators)

A must-read is Jean-Claude Shanda Tonme's stunningly sharp piece in today's Times: "All Rock, No Action." From the closing:

...the truth is that it was not for us, for Africa, that the musicians at Live 8 were singing; it was to amuse the crowds and to clear their own consciences, and whether they realized it or not, to reinforce dictatorships.

National Review editor Jonah Goldberg was on the case last week.

White House Scandals Going Downhill

When I was growing up, scandals at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue were the stuff of Cinemax movies. Wronged women on talk shows, old business associates carted off to prison; crimes were seedy and "proof" meant lies on videotape or Presidential DNA left in the worst of places. It's time to acknowledge the truth: Presidential scandals have gotten pretty lame.

Today's uproars are caused by the Deputy Chief of Staff instead of the Commander in Chief. Instead of defiled blue dresses and infamous cigars we have vague private e-mail conversations and cryptic internal memoes from foreign governments. Excuse me for yawning.

I realize people have been dying to take down the wildly unlikeable Karl Rove, but let's consider the extent of this horrendous crime, the much ballyhooed Rove leak (no, it's not "worse than Watergate," Mr. Frank Rich).

1. Diplomat Joseph Wilson writes a damaging editorial revealing that he had taken a trip to Niger to investigate the claim of an attempted Iraqi uranium purchase, had found it completely unconvincing, and had reported these facts to the White House, or more specifically the Office of the Vice President. They knew from his report, he said, that the Iraq uranium purchase claim was false, and yet the Bush Administration used it to bolster their case for war.

1B. As we now know, Mr. Wilson's findings in Niger were absolutely correct. His report, however, did not convince the CIA, and as such, never reached the Vice President.

2. Wilson claims during his subsequent book tour that he was dispatched to Niger by the Office of the Vice President. The administration quickly rebuts this claim.

3. Time magazine Reporter Matthew Cooper, writing a story about Wilson's Niger trip, queries Karl Rove on this point and is informed that Mr. Wilson's trip had not been planned or arranged by the administration, but simply by Wilson's "wife, who apparently works at the CIA."
(OH DEAR GOD, NOOOO!!! I'm moving to Canada!!)

The Bush folks didn't want to look like dopes for ignoring a report ordered up by the VP, so they wanted it known that the Niger trip was actually planned over eggs in the Plame/Wilson house. That Rove would say such a thing in a private e-mail to a reporter he trusted should shock and awe no one. The objective in bringing up the identity of Wilson's wife was to portray the Niger report as the latest volley in a petty CIA-White House squabble.

The real weasel here is Bob Novak, who got his hands on the same information as Cooper and ran a story dropping that Wilson's "wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction."

Novak achieved his point of refuting Wilson's "Cheney-sent-me-to-Africa" claim, but committed a cardinal sin in exposing a clandestine intelligence operative. The greatest question in this whole debacle is why two other reporters who followed his story were ordered to jail while he sits back in his chair and smiles. Why isn't anyone calling for his job?

*Updates*
Today's Washington Post editorial cuts this "scandal" down to size more clearly and succinctly than I did above. It's a very helpful read (July 15).

John Tierney also helps set the record straight, dubbing this flacid scandal "Nadagate" (July 16).

It has now been reported that Rove learned Plame's identity from Novak (July 15).

France Tough on Terror and U.K. Soft?

The director of the Middle East Forum, Daniel Pipes, makes a counterintuitive, but fairly convincing case.

Falling For An Obscure Government Official

I try to be prepared for all sorts of situations. And if aliens invaded and forced me at laser-point to start a family with a government executive...well I've got mine all picked out.

I'll be perfectly honest and admit that I have no idea what a Chief Privacy Officer does, but at the Department of Homeland Security it is the mysterious and stunning Nuala O'Connor Kelly. From her DHS profile photo Ms. Kelly appears to be a fetching 26 year-old, but somehow still possesses a Bachelors from Princeton, Masters from Harvard, and J.D. from Georgetown Law. She's also worked for two D.C. law firms and served as Chief Privacy Officer at the Department of Commerce before taking the position at Homeland Security.

In addition to her pulchritude and staggering resume, Ms. Kelly is a native of Northern Ireland and has a really cool first name, Nuala, which means "lovely shoulders." Though the official DHS photo does not allow for conclusive analysis, I'm betting she's aptly named.

If this should find her, please know, Ms. Kelly, that I also am a smart, beautiful servant of domestic security, am usually not creepy, and share a deep appreciation for ensuring privacy. (If we ever share coffee I promise not blog about it.)

Who's Afraid of Outsourcing?

Suketu Mehta has one of the best columns of the year, thoughtfully pondering the historical context of the jobs migration to India and flawlessly cutting to pieces the lazy narrow-mindedness of the Western outsourcing hysteria.

Crushed By The (Wedding) Bells

If you are a male aged 20-28 years and were conscious during the Saved By the Bell years, you will no doubt be crestfallen to learn that Kelly Kapowski (AKA Tiffani Thiessen) has gone and married some guy. Though there are surely other perky and wholesome volleyball players with wide smiles and t-shirts fallen-off-the-shoulder no one can touch the original and best.

And who exactly is actor Brady Smith, 33? I have no idea, but I'm sure of two things:
1) I'm not him, and
2) He will not enjoy this tremendous feat one little bit because each morning he is doomed to wake up and fall pitifully short of Zack Morris in all he says and does.

I choose not to envy you, actor Brady Smith, 33, because you will every day be measured against the ghost of Zack Morris until your married days expire in death or divorce. Let this pride-withering realization haunt you in sleepless nights of self-doubt and fantasies unfulfilled. And know that it is not really Kelly Kapowski you're sleeping next to, but some hollow actress that never would have been kind to Screech or passed up her prom to save her poor father money. And she probably doesn't smile in real life and can't play volleyball at all. And she won't dance and lip sync "I'm So Excited" for you. Not even on your Anniversary.

You will not enjoy this actor Brady Smith, 33!
(I hate you.)

Americans Rally to Save Actresses

A swelling grassroots movement is quickly gaining steam in hopes of freeing Katie Holmes from Tom Cruise. What started as a funny t-shirt has now spawned two websites (freekatie.net and freekatie.com) which have gained national exposure. Those close to the actress are worried by her starry-eyed embrace of Scientology, and her restriction from communicate with anyone without Scientology-appointed handlers hovering. Evidence of both from a recent interview (CNN):

Holmes, who co-stars in "Batman Begins," has said she's taking lessons in Cruise's faith of Scientology. "I'm learning to celebrate my own spirit, my own being," she says.

During the W interview, the actress wouldn't part from Jessica Rodriguez, who is described as her "Scientologist chaperone." Rodriguez's role in Holmes' life remains vague, though Rodriguez says they're "just best friends" since meeting around the time Holmes met Cruise.

"You adore him," Rodriguez told Holmes when the actress was at a loss for words to describe her love.

Yikes. The saving celebrities grassroots spirit has also picked up a less grave, but equally important case--restoring weight (and can we add freckles?) to Lindsay Lohan.

Yes the folks at FeedLindsay.com have now gathered over 12,500 signatures urging the actress "to please pick up a sandwich and eat it, or ice cream, or any food that might put those oh-so-cute pounds back on.'' Like the Free Katie campaign it has spawned a myriad of t-shirts, stickers, and knock-off websites.

Please continue to keep your fingers crossed for a single Katie and a curvy Lindsay, and in the meantime follow the links and buy a funny shirt.

Best Place to Live in America

Congratulations, Moorestown, New Jersey. CNNMoney says it's you.

Far more interesting to me were the lists of top 10 U.S. cities in categories like income, safety, and education spending. Not surprisingly, several states have a stranglehold on certain categories. Arizona has the hottest, Minnesota the coldest, Maryland and Massachusetts share the most educated citizens. California's got the priciest houses. Illinois apparently has all the golf courses.

On the negative side, pollution seems to settle in the battleground states. Judging by the staggering filthiness of Florida and Ohio, the candidates in '08 might want to talk more about clean air...

The Catholic Church and Evolution

Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna caused something of a stir recently when he wrote a New York Times editorial on the Catholic view of evolution. To read the Times mournful follow-up piece one got the impression that the Vatican had issued a policy reversal--now rejecting evolution instead of accepting it. "Leading Cardinal Redefines Church's View on Evolution" screamed the headline, as the article proceeded to survey a series of gravely concerned members of the scientific community, expressing trepidation at this deep slide back toward the dark ages.

What Schonborn actually did was clarify what he considered a popular misconception of the church view. The Church accepts the concept of evolving species and common ancestry; what Shonborn takes issue with is one particular cornerstone of neo-Darwinian theories--that the process was, in his words, "an unguided, unplanned process of random variation..." Unguided. Unplanned. Random. These are the words that cause problems.

The Cardinal had reportedly grown irritated over the years reading references to the Catholic Church's acceptance of evolution, references he thought implied a wholesale endorsement of neo-Darwinian theories. Hoping to re-emphasize the church's core belief in a Divinely-guided process he conferred with the new Pope Benedict and penned his article. Schonborn, suspicious of the currently prevailing evolutionary theories, wanted to make clear that the Catholic Church insists on God as the guiding force in the creation of all nature and life.

His piece has caused a lot of consternation but I'm not sure how much disagreement actually exists if the two sides would only drop their points of emphasis and use softer language.

The reason the Schonborn essay provokes such loathing in the scientific community is because it makes appeal to the concept of intelligent design. Intelligent Design is a movement to observe in biological nature an order and sophistication that bears the unmistakable sign of a higher cause. The most usual form of Intelligent Design has a stronger claim--that the evidence demands, or requires, a Creator. That it (in a sense) proves the existence of a Creator God. Unfortunately scientists currently only know this theory and movement as a means of assaulting Darwinian evolution, which is a shame. The current crop of biologists will not be convinced that random natural selection is insufficient to have produced the full range of species we see today (an implication of the design hypothesis). Thus there is a considerable impasse on this point.

But I'm not sure Schonborn and others would reject the following statement about the origins of life: that God created life on earth by a seemingly random process of natural selection spanning thousands of years. Christians can surely maintain their rock solid faith that God orchestrated the creation of all life without insisting that the available evidence on earth demands the conclusion. And it seems equally possible that cool-headed biologists could embrace an entirely naturalistic explanation of origins without definitively closing the door on the God question.

It seems to me that most biologists wouldn't care to make the point either way if they didn't feel that they were backed against the wall by opponents of Darwinian evolution who insist that the natural world answers the existence of God question, definitely and affirmatively. And this, I believe, is the Christian mistake.

For someone like myself, a mountain range, an ocean, or a sunset is a work of Divine art--I can't look at the world any other way. Seeing the natural world as God's creation heightens my own appreciation of its splendor. But it would be foolish to seek in this beauty a God proof. In fact I think it's an important aspect of Christianity that we lack an objective proof of God's existence.

Intelligent Design could be a wondrous undertaking for scientists of faith who wish to trace the hand of the Creator they trust in. But as an antagonistic prop in the culture war, it surely fails to achieve its greatest purpose, which should not be to target and implode another theory, but instead to cast light on the wonder of life.

By appealing to design language Schonborn frightened many. Only a change in the attitude of that movement, and of those who sneer at it, will help that fear cede. But Christians also should not be afraid to entertain this thought: that God created the world perfectly and exactly according to his intention, but that observable biological phenomena might not objectively require such an interpretation. This concession, about available evidence and not metaphysical truth, would do much to cool the fears of secular science. Here's hoping for a cease-fire.

L'il Kim Going to Big Pr'isn

Yes the tiny female rapper famous for sexually profane lyrical content sinking even below that of her y-chromosomed counterparts has been sentenced to a year in jail for lying to a federal grand jury about a 2001 shootout involving her posse. (Ms. Kim may like to stroll Hollywood red carpets with nothing but paint above her waist, but she ain't no snitch.) Biggie's former squeeze told authorities she had no idea her manager Damion Butler was at the Hot 97 radio station, but security footage of him opening the door for her did a l'il bit to undermine her credibility there.

The unsigned AP writer gets mad props for being down with the lingo...

Hot 97 is the same station where the posses of 50 Cent and The Game traded bullets in February.

...But clearly got his/her game pulled down by the editors:

[Kim's] 1996 debut album, "Hard Core," was laced with sexually explicit lyrics and became a big hit, thanks to songs like "Crush On You" and others with unmentionable titles.

The apologetic Grammy award-winning magdalen will serve a one year sentence, which is light considering the 20 possible for her convictions.
(but astonishing for someone who's been in People magazine)

No word on whether she's requested an orange jumpsuit with no front.

Foreskins Obsolete?

A recent study found that circumcision reduces the risk of HIV by 70%! Researchers had earlier hoped to produce a vaccine reducing HIV risk by 30%, but the classic surgical procedure proved more than doubly surpassed even this goal in the study, before it prematurely concluded. According to the San Francisco Chronicle:

the study under way in Orange Farm township, South Africa, was stopped because the results were so favorable. It was deemed unethical to continue the trial after an early peek at data showed that the uncircumcised men were so much more likely to become infected.

In other words, the results were so clear so fast that researchers felt compelled to halt the study and give the uncircumcised men a chance to get snipped and join the (much) safer half of the sample.

Either God or Abraham gets credit for being super smart and being out in front on this bandwagon. Way to think outside the box!

P. Diddy and Tommy Hilfiger Unite

To Create a McDonald's Uniform? Seriously, it may happen.

Are Men Bisexual?

A study to be published in the journal Psychological Science says not really. A team of researchers in Chicago and Toronto tested just over a hundred men--1/3 self-identified as straight, 1/3 gay, and 1/3 bisexual--and found that straight men exhibited physical signs of arousal in response only to erotic images with women, gay men responded only to images with men, and bisexual men responded to...men.* While there may be things that attract self bisexual men to have relationships with women, the researchers say it's not raw sexual desire. The study backs up the theory that bisexual man are gay men leaving a straddling life of quasi-denial, but other researchers urge caution.

Interestingly there does appear to be authentic bisexuality in women. An earlier study by the same team found that bisexual women responded physically to images of both men and women. Non-creative screenwriters, attention-starved girls at clubs, and all other purveyors of beer commercial frat boy fantasies can breathe a heavy sigh of relief. Cheap cliche saved!

*correction: apparently a small sub-group (about 1/5) of the "bisexual" participants were actually closet heterosexuals, only responding to women.