I was just talking to a friend who said he booked a trip to Ireland on Aer Lingus. This made me wonder what would happen if that airline merged with, oh, let’s say Continental Airlines. This new company, potentially named Conaerlingus, would get people’s attention. But would you be concerned about your flight going down?

For some reason this reminds me of one of the great mysteries of life: Why do attractive women pay for massages? For most of us, there’s a good reason we pay another human to rub us for an hour. If we didn’t offer money, or reciprocate with some rubbing of our own, no one would take the job. But if you are a hot woman, lots of people would volunteer to spend an hour rubbing your nearly naked body for free. So in a sense, an attractive woman isn’t paying for the same thing everyone else is. For her, the massage is always free, and she’s paying someone to pretend it isn’t.

Moving along, I have long maintained, and have been mercilessly mocked for, my opinion that voting is irrational for an individual. While I support the system as a whole, wherein potential revolutionaries are transformed into docile citizens via the illusion of having some influence on election outcomes, it is irrational to vote as long as many others do. Here’s a better take on this idea from some people who have something I don’t, i.e. credibility:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/magazine/06freak.html?_r=1&n=Top%2fFeatures%2fMagazine%2fColumns%2fFreakonomics&oref=slogin

What did my three topics today have in common? (There is a real answer.)

[Answer: All three topics are things that happen before you get screwed.]