The Huckster had a ploy to steal attention from the Democratic debate: he tweeted a racist joke during the event.
Thank you so much, Mr Huckabee, for so ably highlighting the difference between the two parties.
I watched the Democratic debate tonight, sort of. I wasn’t paying close attention, but here are my impressions, anyway, ranked in my order of preference.
5. Chaffee: why is this guy even here? Muddled and goofy.
4. Webb: Beetle-browed bellicose buffoon.
3. O’Malley: Meh. Not awful, not very interesting.
2. Clinton: The confident moderate. Will probably win. Don’t expect much change.
1. Sanders: The revolutionary. Would shake things up, if he had a cooperative congress…otherwise, nothin’.
Just send 5, 4, and 3 home — I can’t imagine them making a decent showing in a debate with the blustering clowns in the Republican party.
You probably have a different impression.
Maki Naro has done something very clever: he has created a generic comic that we can use over and over again every time a Famous Scientist does something bad.
Read the whole thing. Every panel encapsulates perfectly the standard reaction we always get.
In other, related news, UC Berkeley announces that they did too do enough.
The university has imposed real consequences on Professor Geoff Marcy by establishing a zero-tolerance policy regarding future behavior and by stripping him of the procedural protections that all other faculty members enjoy before he can be subject to discipline up to and including termination,the university said in a statement Monday.
Right. Over a decade of bad behavior that affected multiple women and generated multiple complaints, and now their response is to say One more time, and you’re really gonna get it!
.
I am also unhappy that their solution is to strip him of “procedural protections that all other faculty members enjoy”. That’s not right. He should have a reasonable defense against future accusations; I also don’t believe the university, because from their current procedures, their default is always to doubt the accuser’s claim. They aren’t suddenly going to change their mode to disciplining a professor if a student says anything.
Besides, he was already wrung through their “procedures”, and found to be in the wrong. He ought to be disciplined for what he has done, and what has been determined by their process.
If you noticed some really annoying slowdowns here on FtB over the last few days, we were being effectively ddos’ed by China. Not because we were a threat, but apparently because a Chinese search engine was being a bit overzealous and repetitive in slurping up links.
This situation has been corrected thanks to the efforts of our clever technical person, Alex. All hail Alex!
In South Carolina, a two-year-old found a gun in his car and shot his grandmother.
Bollinger noted that investigators had already determined that the child was not in a car seat at the time of the shooting, enabling him to reach the .357 that was hanging in a pouch on the back of the passenger seat.
“We’re still trying to figure out how the child pulled the trigger,” he said. “We’re encouraging folks as always, keep your weapons secured, especially around small children.”
I have to ask…why did this person need or want a deadly weapon hanging off of their car seat while they were running routine errands? Did it make them feel more safe than putting their child in a car seat, because that also seems irresponsible and dangerous?
We shouldn’t need to ‘pledge’ to do this, but it seems decency is not all that common.
If you know someone in academics who hurts other people because they think (or more likely, know) they can get away with it, I’ll use whatever voice I have to call them out. I will believe you. I will support you. I’m not afraid of what these guys will do to me — I’m afraid of what they’re doing to all the women and underrepresented minorities and members of LGBTQ communities who deserve to belong and are made to feel less than human by people who are protected by those more concerned with status and grants than decency. I have no idea who will listen to me, but I will not be quiet.
(via Nicole)
I have to add a comment, though. This looks easy, but it’s not. Here’s what will happen to you if you follow through on that commitment:
Wait, though…what do we have to be happy about it? It’s hard to celebrate over 500 years of genocide.
You think Columbus couldn’t possibly be such a bad guy? He was the freakin’ worst.
It’s nice to be able to sit back and let Mano take on Sam Harris. He’s laid out all the flaws in the standard Harris formula.
Invent incredibly contrived scenario in which all that you love and hold dear is imperiled.
Make the villain Muslim, especially a “Muslim jihadi”, who are especially dangerous because they look like all other Muslims, except that they are amoral fanatics who will die to kill you.
Resolve the scenario with an otherwise morally reprehensible solution that we would not accept in any real-world situation.
Sit back, preen a bit about how he is the only person brave enough to contemplate the unthinkable so coolly and objectively.
When people point out the absurdity of his excuses and his perniciously vile efforts to justify amoral acts, fall back on accusations that his critics didn’t actually understand what he wrote. He didn’t mean “Muslims”, he really meant “People other than Jerry Seinfeld,” for instance.
PROFIT.
He isn’t using reason at all. He’s making appeals to strong emotion (They’re going to murder your daughter!) and bigotry (They’re Muslims, so deranged by their evil religion that they will die for their wicked cause!). His fans accept those premises, and then fall all over themselves to condemn anyone who disagrees with the Harris Formula of wanting to help Muslims kill little girls.
Hey, gang, I’ve been offline for a while — it’s a week for getting caught up with my grading (I’m still behind. I’m always behind). So I’ve been letting the commenters do the talking for a few days, and there are some good words in the thread about Geoff Marcy.
Here’s one.
I work in UC Berkeley’s astronomy department. On Friday, during my lab’s lunch, the professor I work for announced this to us. I was not at all surprised by Geoff being the one found guilty. What’s even worse is that the Title IX office concluded their investigation three months ago and just sat on it without telling anyone. I wasn’t aware of the full extent of Geoff’s behavior (I knew of women that were creeped out by him), and lots of people are furious about how both the university and the astronomy department handled this. The whole situation is just fucked, and it’s really shameful that no substantial punishment is being handed out for this.
Geoff’s wife said some awful things:
“The punishment Geoff is receiving here in the court of hysterical public opinion is far out of proportion to what he did and has taken responsibility for in his apology,” Dr. Kegley wrote.
There’s been no regard for the victims from the department or the university. The way this has been handled is a total shitshow.
