I can look at a photo and say not just "that's been fiddled with" but "why is her jaw so blurry?" and "gee, that shape is tellingly regular" and my personal favorite, "Oh look! The lace bra that makes you not have nipples."

The argument here is that you can only point to the bad retouching. Every other photo is retouched as well, but you don't notice all of it.

This is why I am saying, Please get the newer version of Photoshop. Retouching is like underwear: one only notices it when it is not doing its job.

At this point, I really want to read some good books on economics, as I don't fully understand all this stuff....

In all honesty I do not believe that professional economists fully understand the economy.

Probably the single most important thing to understand about economics is that it's all semi-imaginary. That is, economies only exist because we all agree to let them exsist, but economies all have very real consequences and effects. That's why even professional economists don't fully understand the economy. It should be completely under our control, and it is, except for the part where it's not.

and it is, except for the part where it's not.

Because as Nutty notes, we're filled with irrational exuberence.

If you can usually point to where a photo's been retouched, it means that you're not being fooled often ("usually"), and are pointing to most photos (Hec and my thesis that it's pervasive). I think that's where the disconnect in communication was happening.

I don't think it matters what version of Photoshop this guy uses--I cannot imagine the eye and the patience to work in detail that he must have to pull off what he does and demand the prices he does. I mean, I look at a photo and know what needs to be done to fix a spot here or there, and I know my version of Paintshop Pro has everything I'd need if I were actually halfway good, but yikes.

That's why I like the Worth 1000 competitions. Gives me an idea of what the amateur is doing. Still way mo' better than I ever would.

I really really want to get up and run errands but my brain is molten and I just want to lie down with some tea and whimper. I wonder if my family would accept that in lieu of cotton underwear.

Weetabix flakes & fibre:

the single most important thing to understand about economics is that it's all semi-imaginary. That is, economies only exist because we all agree to let them exsist

I know zip about economics any more, and am just wondering about semantics. I'm assuming that semi-imaginary and existing because we agree are being connected here--causally? Or identically?

Is there any other semi-imaginary agreement out there that's bigger than money? I mean, if we stop believing in currency ("generally accepted form of money, including coins and paper notes, which is issued by a government and circulated within an economy. Used as a medium of exchange for goods and services, currency is the basis for trade") in large enough numbers, it loses its power, right?

Mass hallucination? Placebo? I mean, when we do it about money, it's a good thing. When we do it about homeopathy we're gullible, and when we do it about voodoo we're savages.

the single most important thing to understand about economics is that it's all semi-imaginary. That is, economies only exist because we all agree to let them exsist

FTR, I'm not sure how this follows. Government exists because we agree to being governed. I exist because probably no one has agreed to kill me. Contracts exist, etc., etc. I mean, there is an imaginable universe where nothing has value, but that doesn't make this one any less real.

that doesn't make this one any less real.

Firstly, I'm agreeing to kill the person doing all the banging that's disturbing me right now.

But it's the semantics I'm wondering about. Every inhabitant of the planet can simultaneously stop believing in gravity, and it won't affect the pull between masses. But if we stop believing in money in significant proportions, stuff happens. If many of us lose faith, a stock market can crash. Government's a little harder--it'll take more nonbelievers (which is why I credit money as more delicate).

I don't know if imaginary is the word, but there is one, isn't there? At the very least implying the "since we agree" nature of the whole thing?

Oh, please let this be true

Britain's Daily Star newspaper reports that the wife of football star David Beckham has apparently been lined up to play the alien bride in The Thetan - based on the religion, which believes in alien life forms.

The 32-year-old - who made her first attempt at acting in the 1997 Spice Girls movie Spice World - will play the bride of an alien leader called a thetan, which Scientologists claim is an immortal spiritual being, present in all humans.

Cruise - who is bankrolling the project himself after it was rejected by all the major film studios - is said to have picked Victoria for the role after being impressed by her "comic genius".

I was going to say. Money's a biggie, and one that directly affects us all pretty much every day, but law is a biggie too. Lotta imaginary things going around that help keep our ordinary lives running by general agreement.

Anything oriented toward "the public good" relies on three generally-agreed abstractions: that there is such a thing; that it matters and should be striven for, and what it actually is.