I wish we weren’t.
This state has been moderately robust in its response to COVID-19 — not great, but at least we’re mostly not in denial — but I blame our high ranking on the fact that we’re surrounded by dumbass states, like Wisconsin and both Dakotas, that don’t even do that much. We ought to just close our borders, shut down the schools and churches, and get this damn thing under control.
Our story chain marches forward, with part 2 on Death to Squirrels!
It’s a common trope — the anti-gay fanatic defending Christian values who is caught snorting coke off the backside of a gay hooker (I shouldn’t have to say this, but it’s not the last part that’s objectionable, it’s the hypocrisy in the name of hatred). Now we’ve got the crème de la crème of these kinds of incidents, at least until someone tops it, which they will.
A member of the European Parliament representing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party has resigned from his position in Brussels after he was caught leaving what reports described as a 25-man orgy on Friday.
Jozsef Szajer resigned on Sunday after he admitted to breaching Belgium’s strict lockdown rules to attend a sex party, Politico reported on Tuesday. The police found 25 naked men at the gathering, including Szajer and some diplomats, the Belgian newspaper La Dernière Heure reported. The newspaper quoted a local police source as saying, “We interrupted a gang bang.”
One last pitch-perfect note:
Szajer, a right-wing politician and ally of Orban, climbed out a first-floor window and was spotted “fleeing along the gutter,” the public prosecutor’s office said.
If that’s your thing, and everyone is consenting, go ahead and leap naked into a 25-man gay orgy. It just sounds exhausting to me, but hey, seize the day. However, you’re going to get called out for this:
Orban’s Hungarian government has curtailed LGBTQ rights since he was elected prime minister in 2010. Szajer, who fronted Fidesz in the European Parliament, helped rewrite Hungary’s constitution to “protect the institution of marriage as the union of a man and a woman,” The Times of London reported.
At least he didn’t marry the other 24 men. That would be bad.
Don’t worry, Jozsef Szajer has apologized.
“I deeply regret violating the Covid restrictions, it was irresponsible on my part. I am ready to stand for the fine that occurs.”
That’s a good point. With all the mucus and fluids flying around, that was probably a super-spreader event.
As we’ve mentioned a few times, we’re having another casual fundraiser this month, and as part of that, we’re doing another fictional story chain. Last time, I got stuck with the chore of providing the concluding chapter of A Dark Web, which involved wrapping up a complicated storyline with gory violent murder and hybrid human-spiders. This time around, I get revenge by starting the thread with a complicated science fiction story about transhumans living on a partially terraformed Mars, and now I get to watch everyone else try to steer the story in unexpected directions (next up: Iris, followed by Abe) and William Brinkman gets to bat clean-up. We’ll have to try a different order in future story threads.
Jump below the fold and get started! Don’t worry, there are far fewer spiders in this one, so far.
None of this makes any sense. Our university administration keeps flapping their lips about caution and respect for faculty, staff, and students, while enforcing rules about social distancing and masking in the classroom, and then…oh, we have to keep the football games going! So now disease is sweeping through the football program.
The Minnesota football Gophers have canceled a second consecutive game due to an ongoing COVID-19 outbreak in the program.
U of M Director of Athletics Mark Coyle, University President Joan Gabel and Gophers Medical Director Dr. Brad Nelson made the decision to scrap the Dec. 5 game with Northwestern after consulting with the Big Ten Conference.
The game will not be rescheduled, and is considered a “no contest” as per Big Ten policy.
Since Nov. 19, the football program has experienced 47 positive cases of coronavirus in players and staffers [!!!], the most recent group of 15 diagnosed just Saturday.
Remarkable. We are an educational institution, we’ve compromised on everything to keep the academic mission limping along, and yet we’re risking it all by giving the goddamned athletics department free rein, on top of paying the coaches and AD staff far more money than they do the instructors. We should have just put the whole athletics program on hiatus at the start of the year, and saved money by putting the coaches on half pay for the year (they’d still make more money than I do.)
“The health and safety of our student-athletes, coaches and staff continues to be our main priority,” said Coyle.
Oh, BULLSHIT.
I was just wandering around, noticing that the world has a limited color palette right now.
Have media always been fascinated with cats? Here’s evidence from a 1906 film (colorized and enhanced) that features a cat that would be at least 115 years old today.
The cat is probably dead now. Sorry to bring you down.
The NY Times published a dangerously goofy piece by Manjoo that went through the scientific advice that said you should stay home to avoid spreading the pandemic, and then concluded with a mind-boggling declaration that he was going to ignore the evidence and go visit his elderly parents anyway. It’s a bizarre article that starts off informative and smart, and then falls off a cliff into wishful self-delusion. I thought about writing a bit about it, since it’s an incredibly vivid example of smart-stupid.
I’m saved some effort, though, because Rebecca Watson has already dealt with it.
I do hope his family is OK, but I also hope he is now locked down in quarantine before he goes casually gallivanting off to spread his viruses blithely with anyone because he wants to.
Freethoughtblogs is doing it again — we’re have another fundraiser, scheduled for 5 December, with various events with the wealth of talent here on our blog network scheduled. Take a look! We’ll be filling in that page with links and YouTube videos as we assemble the various pieces of our day.
One of the events scheduled is an anniversary celebration: it will have been a year since that ridiculous SLAPP suit by Richard Carrier against Amy Frank-Skiba, Stephanie Zvan, me, Freethoughtblogs, and the Orbit collapsed in a cloud of petty stinking pity from that defeated troll, and also a nasty burden of legal debt for us. That’s why we have these fundraisers, so that maybe can all get out from under that, eventually.
Donations are greatly appreciated! You can make PayPal donations to our Freethoughtblogs account or to my personal account — they all go straight to paying off our debt. You can also join my Patreon, and chip in as little as a dollar a month; that’s also being applied entirely to our legal fund.
I hope you’re all celebrating by staying in place and not seeing friends and family, and may your holiday be quiet and boring and just like every other day in this endless dreary pandemic. Get used to it. You can use today to practice for the upcoming Dreary Christmas holiday.
My plan is to stay home, plod through a lot of grading, and then this evening fix a nice dinner for my wife and me. That’s kind of it. Black Friday: more grading, although I will be going into the lab to feed the spiders. This weekend: grading. Next week: I’ve opened myself up to my class for Zoom Q&As about their grades while I’m waiting for the final exams to come pouring in next Friday, when the torture grading will resume.
After that, I’ll party! At home, alone.
