"...female, non-violent prisoners will do about 25-percent of their sentence.."

Lindsay Lohan was sentenced to 90 days in jail and 90 days in rehab:

According to Steve Whitmore, spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's department, Lohan will serve her time at the Century Regional Detention Center in Lynwood, California and will be segregated from the general jail population.

Lohan may only end up serving a few weeks of her 90 day jail sentence -- Whitmore noted that "female, non-violent prisoners will do about 25-percent of their sentence" because L.A. jails suffer from "an overcrowding situation."

According to this article, "non-violent" male prisoners serve more time:

The Los Angeles Times reports that most women only serve 20 percent of their jail sentence. Up until last week, male inmates were serving at least 80 percent of their jail time, but recently the sheriff's department began freeing men who were sentenced for non-violent offenses after they served only 50 percent of their time.

I don't think letting people off early is such a good idea but shouldn't the time served be uniform across the board regardless of sex? Isn't this blatant discrimination?

Do morning people rule the world?

This research says they do:

New research by Christoph Randler, a biology professor at the University of Education at Heidelberg, however, concludes that morning people are more likely to succeed in their careers because they are more proactive than evening people.

He surveyed 367 university students, asking them when they were most energetic and willing to change a situation. It was the morning people who were more likely to agree with statements such as “I feel in charge of making things happen” and “I spend time identifying long-range goals for myself.”

Discussing his research in the Harvard Business Review, Randler says: “When it comes to business success, morning people hold the important cards. My earlier research showed that they tend to get better grades in school, which gets them into better colleges, which then leads to better job opportunities. Morning people also anticipate problems and try to minimise them. They're proactive.”

I'm a morning person and I would like to say that morning people get ahead, but I've seen too many computer and tech types who work well into the night who are successful to believe this is true. I think being able to take advantage of the times you do feel the best to do what you need to get done seems to work for most people.

Are you a morning or evening person? Which do you think "get ahead?"

Is free will becoming extinct?

Have you noticed an uptick in studies that seem to say you have no or little free will? It seems that as more and more liberals desire to regulate behavior, the academic world is focusing more intently on studies that show free will to be an illusion. For example, in Time, there is a recent article entitled "Think You're Operating on Free Will? Think Again" (via Instapundit):

There may be few things more fundamental to human identity than the belief that people are rational individuals whose behavior is determined by conscious choices. But recently psychologists have compiled an impressive body of research that shows how deeply our decisions and behavior are influenced by unconscious thought, and how greatly those thoughts are swayed by stimuli beyond our immediate comprehension.

Glenn and I interviewed Cass Sunstein, the author of Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness two years ago. Sunstein is now Obama administration's regulatory czar. I remember as I listened to him talk about "libertarian paternalism" (isn't that an oxymoron?) that I felt sick to my stomach. In Sunstein's opinion, it seems that justifying the notion that people do not have free will gives license to bureaucrats and politicians to "nudge" people in the direction that they desire them to go. A nudge is often not noticed until it becomes a shove and by then, it is often too late.

Beware of studies that show free will to be more and more of an illusion, for as Glenn says, "This kind of thing is often pitched as a reason for regulation, since your free will is portrayed as illusory."

Perhaps the free will of academics who do so many of these studies is really the illusion. Maybe it is they who unconsciously want to give more ammunition to the current administration to proceed with policies that usurp free will and take more and more of our freedoms away. Free will and personal responsibility are the epitome of freedom. Let us not allow them to become extinct.

Roger Simon's wish for today's Fourth of July celebration: "One thing we might end for the Fourth of July is identity politics. I’ll send up a Roman candle for that."

So will I....Happy 4th!

"Feminists need to demonize these attractive Republican women because they pose an existential threat to feminism."

Stuart Schneiderman: The Hotness Gap:

If a man had to choose between a fantasy date with Nikki Haley or one with Elena Kagan, which would he choose? If he had to choose between being married to Sarah Palin or being married to Hillary Clinton, who would he prefer?

There is worse yet. As I believe, feminism is a cult. It is directly in the business of recruiting new adherents. From the perspective of feminist recruitment efforts, ask yourself this: if a girl is going to choose an adult female role model, who is she more likely to choose, Sonia Sotomayor or Michelle Bachmann?

Feminists need to demonize these attractive Republican women because they pose an existential threat to feminism.

WND has an interview with Vox Day up on his book, The Return of the Great Depression.

Dr. Wes: The Pool's Open!:

It's summertime and the government's high risk insurance pool (made available by the recent passage of the health care reform bill ironically called the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act") opens today. Uninsurable people should jump on in if they can "afford" the hefty $400-$900 cost per month. Be sure to bring the whole family so they can help pay the bill, too!