It’s simple improvement: every vice president should have an octopus on their head. And I don’t just mean in the paintings, I mean at every public appearance.
We should also judge their fitness for office by how healthy they keep their head octopus.
There ought to be a pasturage somewhere for out-of-touch old white men. His latest nonsense, in which he tells women to shut up about rape, will raise a few eyebrows.
They are learning that when they say campus victimizations are ubiquitous ("micro-aggressions," often not discernible to the untutored eye, are everywhere), and that when they make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate.
What exactly are these privileges one obtains when one is a victim of sexual assault? Name one. Show me one woman who covets being raped.
Will isn’t even aware of his inconsistency. He tries to do simple math and fails to recognize his failure.
The administration’s crucial and contradictory statistics are validated the usual way, by official repetition; Joe Biden has been heard from. The statistics are: One in five women is sexually assaulted while in college, and only 12% of assaults are reported. Simple arithmetic demonstrates that if the 12% reporting rate is correct, the 20% assault rate is preposterous.
Or that the 12% reporting rate is incorrect. The 20% number has been confirmed by the CDC, including both assault and attempted assault (an attempt can be traumatic, so there are no good grounds to exclude that), so it is likely very sound; the 12% reporting rate is an inferred estimate, because there is no directly measured number of unreported assaults — if there were, they’d be reported. So what should be understood from the “simple arithmetic” is that the frequency of reports is far lower than 12%.
But think about what Will is saying: being assaulted is supposed to be a “coveted status” that “confers privileges” on college campuses, but somehow, even with his inflated number, the vast majority of incidents are being kept secret by the victims. Why? Don’t they want their prize from the box of Cracker Jacks?
I’ll also note that Will complains that sexual assault includes nonconsensual touching as well as forcible penetration. I don’t get this attitude. Why does he want to narrow the definition of assault so much? Does he think it would be bad if someone walked up to him and shoved a dildo up his ass, but it’s OK if they instead slide their hand down his pants and gently cup his balls? There are a heck of a lot of things one could do to George Will short of literally raping him, and I think he’d agree (as would I) that a great many of them would represent criminal violations.
Perhaps he simply thinks all women ought to be accessible to a little involuntary fondling.
Today is the day that Operation American Spring, Restoring the Constitution of The United States of America commences. This is a proposal by teabaggin’ wingnuts to march on Washington DC, depose Obama, all the Democrats, and those establishment Republicans who don’t follow Tea Party extremism with adequate zeal, and also repeal all taxes and declare America a Christian nation.
They are utterly bonkers.
They aren’t managing expectations very well, either. Here’s their proposal:
Phase 1 – Field millions, as many as ten million, patriots who will assemble in a peaceful, non-violent, physically unarmed (Spiritually/Constitutionally armed), display of unswerving loyalty to the US Constitution and against the incumbent government leadership in Washington D.C., with the mission to replace with law abiding leadership. Go full-bore, no looking back, steadfast in the mission.
Phase 2 – One million or more of the assembled 10 million must be prepared to stay in D.C. as long as it takes to see Obama, Biden, Reid, McConnell, Boehner, Pelosi, and Attorney General Holder removed from office.
Consistent with the US Constitution, as required, the U.S. Congress will take appropriate action, execute appropriate legislation, deal with vacancies, or U.S. States will appoint replacements for positions vacated consistent with established constitutional requirements.
Phase 3 – Those with the principles of a West, Cruz, Dr. Ben Carson, Lee, DeMint, Paul, Gov Walker, Sessions, Gowdy, Jordan, should comprise a tribunal and assume positions of authority to convene investigations, recommend appropriate charges against politicians and government employees to the new U.S. Attorney General appointed by the new President.
So, supposedly, ten million “patriots” are supposed to arrive in DC today. One million are expected to camp in the Capitol for an indefinite period of time. The Moonie Times is expecting more.
The group expects between 10 million and 30 million similarly thinking Americans to meet them in the capital on Friday for a rally that’s being billed as a sort of “Arab Spring” for Americans.
The logic behind these huge numbers is a little weird. They don’t actually have verified numbers, instead, it goes like this. Only 3% of the American population participated in the Revolutionary War. They were True Patriots™. We are True Patriots™ too, so 3% of the American population will actively join in our cause. 3% of 310 million is about 10 million, more or less, so we should expect about 10 million people to join us in our assault on the Washington establishment.
I don’t know where the 30 million comes from. Unbridled optimism, perhaps, or maybe just poor math skills.
I may have to turn on the television news today, to catch sight of the tens of millions of lunatics swarming the Mall. I wonder whether, if the numbers don’t come anywhere near their expectations, we’ll see the same kinds of rationalizations made that end-of-the-world cults make when their doomsday dates pass without a cataclysm?
I don’t think the kooks are helping.
Have you been following Doonesbury for the past few weeks? It’s been all about the progressive destruction of the American university, as the old model is replaced by the for-profit university, a hideous scheme in which state and federal support for higher education gets siphoned off to support lousy schools that grind through massive numbers of students, offering low tuition, flexible hours, and a fast-track to a degree…and with abysmal retention rates, low success, marginally qualified ‘faculty’, and an education that is worth less than you paid for it. These are the colleges you see advertised on cheesy commercials on television, in which some guy proudly testifies about getting his fancy diploma working only a few hours a week at night over two years, and never having to step away from his computer to do it.
The assault is occurring at multiple levels, not just with dumbass MBAs and lawyers in congress shunting off cash towards their Libertarian ideal of a university. Anyone involved in academia has been watching the slow erosion over the last few decades…a period during which university faculty have been blamed and cheapened and discarded, replacing institutions of learning with factories churning out quotas of tuition-paying customers. You want to know How The American University was Killed, in Five Easy Steps? Here’s one of them.
V.P. Joe Biden, a few months back, said that the reason tuitions are out of control is because of the high price of college faculty. He has NO IDEA what he is talking about. At latest count, we have 1.5 million university professors in this country, 1 million of whom are adjuncts. One million professors in America are hired on short-term contracts, most often for one semester at a time, with no job security whatsoever – which means that they have no idea how much work they will have in any given semester, and that they are often completely unemployed over summer months when work is nearly impossible to find (and many of the unemployed adjuncts do not qualify for unemployment payments). So, one million American university professors are earning, on average, $20K a year gross, with no benefits or healthcare, no unemployment insurance when they are out of work. Keep in mind, too, that many of the more recent Ph.Ds have entered this field often with the burden of six figure student loan debt on their backs.
…
I’d like to mention here, too, that universities often defend their use of adjuncts – which are now 75% of all professors in the country — claiming that they have no choice but to hire adjuncts, as a “cost saving measure” in an increasingly defunded university. What they don’t say, and without demand of transparency will NEVER say, is that they have not saved money by hiring adjuncts — they have reduced faculty salaries, security and power. The money wasn’t saved, because it was simply re-allocated to administrative salaries, coach salaries and outrageous university president salaries. There has been a redistribution of funds away from those who actually teach, the scholars – and therefore away from the students’ education itself — and into these administrative and executive salaries, sports costs — and the expanded use of “consultants”, PR and marketing firms, law firms. We have to add here, too, that president salaries went from being, in the 1970s, around $25K to 30K, to being in the hundreds of thousands to MILLIONS of dollars – salary, delayed compensation, discretionary funds, free homes, or generous housing allowances, cars and drivers, memberships to expensive country clubs.
Yeah, that’s the reward for earning a Ph.D. Most of you won’t get employed in academia, and most of you who do will get the terrifyingly fragile job of adjunct. And if you do manage to get a real tenure-track position, after 4-6 years of graduate school and a post-doc or two, you’ll get paid $40-50K/year, and be damned grateful for it.
I don’t know whether to be pleased or dismayed at this story of an obsessed Minnesotan who turned to crime for petty revenge. Barry Ardolf got mad at his neighbors, the Kostolniks, because they reported him to the police for kissing their 4-year-old child on the mouth, which is already a bit creepy, and then he got really creepy.
The man, a Medtronic computer technician, downloaded a Wi-Fi hacking program to tear into his neighbors WEP encryption. Ardolf created a fake Myspace page as well as several fake emails for Matt Kostolnik. The hacker then posted child porn on the Myspace page and emailed the same child porn to co-workers at Kostolnik’s law office.
To top it all off, the Blaine hacker sent death threats to Vice President Joe Biden and other politicians from Kostolnik’s Yahoo account. This granted Kostolnik a visit from the secret service who had traced the emails back to his IP address. One of the emails told Biden, “I swear to God I’m going to kill you!”
The good news: Ardolf was caught, tried, and convicted. That’s one lunatic punished and off the streets.
The worrisome news: he got sentenced to 18 years in prison with a further 20 years of supervision and restriction from computer access. That seems excessive for a non-violent crime, and for an individual who seems to need psychological help. But then, read this story of another grudge-bearing, angry, vindictive man…do we wait until the guy crosses the line into physical violence?
(Hi, Dennis Markuze! For some reason, these stories made me think of you.)
Once again, politicians are going on little, petty crusades to help the government economize, and as usual, they go for cheap shots that do nothing, other than to reveal their screwed up priorities. Here’s Joe Biden, letting us know where the real problems lie.
Did you know that the government spends millions to maintain buildings that have sat vacant for years? Or that your tax dollars pay to needlessly ship copies of the Federal Register to thousands of government offices across the country even though the same information is available online?
And I bet you didn’t know that your tax dollars pay for a website dedicated to the Desert Tortoise. I’m sure it’s a wonderful species, but we can’t afford to have a standalone site devoted to every member of the animal kingdom. It’s just one of hundreds of government websites that should be consolidated or eliminated.
Hey, Joe! Did you know that the cost of maintaining that website dedicated to an entire species is about $125/year?
And the cost of the war in Afghanistan is currently at $423+ billion?
I would like our representatives to take a rational, cost/benefit analysis of major government programs and actually make changes that make a difference, instead of this penny-ante grandstanding.
The Democrats should know that if there is any liberal, ecologically minded candidate running in the primaries for the presidency, I’ll vote for them without a qualm. I’m probably going to be stuck voting for Obama/Biden again in the national election, but I’ll be holding my nose and only pushing that lever under protest, because the Republican candidates will be even worse.
Ah, screw it, I’m not even going to try to unravel this one.
Chose you from many Atheists on the marching band War…
Speaking with many about this act, “its” strange that these atheists would do this, when they spend months organizing their gays parades and atheists events no christians show up with a marching band playing drop your pants and bend over, they were offensive in this act while acting meekly obident to law and Christians as some of said their presents there was offensive knowing they believe not in the Lord, but believe in touching each others rear end while pretending to be of reason! {{If christians interrupted a gay parade like this they would have rioted, christians are amazing}} You being a Good man of Gods science “i” learn now that death/satan has been found the 8 unclean spirits of satan that our Lord forewarned us of long ago which cause all unnatural acts of Mankind from homosexuality to Yes Atheist literally the infection of Life on earth that causes the symptom called doubt/unbelief! Go to the about page and proof in the news and science page of the site below many truths/proofs He comes…
For proof of the Lords now finished mystery Rev:10:7, and much on the Children of Adam and Eve unmarred who are being called by their God for This days Epic gathering go google Adam and Eve seed gathering medical ministry and on the home page as the about page and services page are many proofs, literal images of the 8 unclean spirits of satan/death now found by Science, which has finished Gods mystery making the way straight for the Now Epic return of God Rev:10:7…IT HAS BEGUN…{{Also on the site mentioned above http://www.adamandeveseedgatheringminist… are many christian paintings and even leafs from Ancient Bibles {{On the Christmas and Holy Word page}} that can all be zoomed and copied for this His special season, also much Word on the about page of Gods Love For His Mighty Daughters of Destiny, and His Mighty Sons Who protect them….MERRY CHRISTMAS..contact page is for questions/gathering..}}
He’s written to me again.
My friend “i” am hearing from many of your gay friends this morning, thank you very much it is they whom “i” try to reach more often than not! {{Now that Gods code/keys has given us the cause of homosexuality as exposed on the about page of His gathering website}} YET, Those who are of science are more under attack than just your average Joe, so “i” contact their organizations around earth pointing out that they the science community has now proven Gods laws and Mystery as He prophesy He would do long ago this Day, and generation! Rev:10:7, “i” tomarrow am sending out my waking sounding letter to science whom “i” speak with around earth, as many politicians and elect of earth! So as stated thank you {{the cussings and porn filth “i” have received due to your site is not truly Good, but “i” have had several that are not so bad}} so Enjoy this day GOD has given you. And expect the letter with many proofs which are sent out around earth tomarrow…much Respect to a man of Gods Word creation called science…r.p.berry/Elijah paul Moses
Joe Biden recently made some remarks in the Wall Street Journal in which he discussed some of Russia’s concerns, and he made this casual remark.
“I can see Putin sitting in Moscow saying, ‘Jesus Christ, Iran gets the nuclear weapon, who goes first?’ Moscow, not Washington.”
It’s not such an earthshaking idea; I’m sure a European nation has more cause to be concerned about fundamentalist Islam on their doorstep than we do way over here on the other side of the world.
Oh, wait.
What’s that? He said what?
He took the Lord’s name in vain?
Pffft. So what? People say things like that (and worse!) all the time. But then, you must read Mark Tapscott’s prolonged hissy-fit over that comment. Fifteen paragraphs and 700 words, all about the evil of saying “Jesus Christ” in a non-reverential manner.
It’s hate speech. It’s offensive. He’d never abuse Mohammed’s name in such a way. “Biden’s uncorrected cursing is indicative of the slow strangling by the unrelenting forces of political correctness of the religious tolerance that is Christianity’s greatest gift to America.”
Apparently, Christianity’s version of religious tolerance involves pitching a fit over public figures saying a few words with insufficient respect for their dogma.
Jesus Christ. Give me a break, you nutjob.
There are days when you just want to slap a few journalists. The latest absurdity comes from the LA Times, in which an ignorant reporter waxes snarky over the fact that the vice president’s wife is addressed as “Dr. Biden”, since she has a doctorate in education, and snootily claims that:
Newspapers, including The Times, generally do not use the honorific “Dr.” unless the person in question has a medical degree.
And then she trots out Bill Walsh of the Post and the vapid little god-bunny, Amy Sullivan, to agree that you only call medical doctors “Dr.”
Yeah, right. How many appendectomies have Dr Kissinger, Dr Condoleezza Rice, and Dr Martin Luther King done, huh?
They claim that this is the convention. Step onto any college campus. Look at the directories and ask around. You’ll find that the formal title for faculty and staff with doctoral degrees is “Dr.” (although you’ll also find that many of us prefer not to be addressed quite so formally). All I can assume is that these lazy journalists are completely unfamiliar with higher education…and I am not surprised.
You can find more reactions from Mike Dunsford and Wesley Elsberry. I anticipate more — this is a fine example of media contempt for intellectuals.
We didn’t have to wait long for right wing brains to explode into loopy, tangled strands of conspiracy theory nonsense. Creationist brains, already in a state of disarray, are already predisposed to this kind of inanity, so don’t be too shocked at what Cynthia Dunbar, creationist, Christian, and member of the Texas State Board of Education has to say:
So we can imagine the blatant disregard for our Constitution, but what other threats does an Obama administration pose? We have been clearly warned by his running mate, Joe Biden, that America will suffer some form of attack within the first 6 months of Obama’s administration. However, unlike Joe, I do not believe this “attack” will be a test of Obama’s mettle. Rather, I perceive it will be a planned effort by those with whom Obama truly sympathizes to take down the America that is threat to tyranny.
Apparently, Obama is going to have the terrorists he loves so much carry out some awful action, which will excuse the use of martial law and the subsequent abridgment of our constitutional rights. Talk about projection — has she looked at the Bush record since 2001?
