The Last Ephor

Our esteemed institutions of higher learning re-education Arizona State University placed a resident assistant on probation four days after he objected to a diversity training exercise that he said reinforced negative stereotypes and portrayed Christians as hateful and narrow-minded. His reward for either skipping further sessions (their version) or talking to the newspaper about it (his version) is unclear. My alma mater didn't have anything like this when I go had goed* there. I'd be amazed if they don't have one today. However, I have friends who had these sort of things and simply walked out on them. No repercussions mind you, just annoyed bleating from "facilitators". Speech codes, manditory re-educational sessions, "V-Day". It's wonder they have time for things like you know, classes. *Updated horrendous grammar with even more horrendous grammar

Top 5 weather conditions that sound like rapper's names: 1. Slick Conditions 2. Icy Mix 3. Cold Front 4. Hurricane Force (winds) 5. Heavy Fog

One thing that struck me in when I first traveled to Europe was how open people were about their dislike and disdain for Jews. I would stare slackjawed as people would throw out lines like "money grubbing Jews" and "filthy Jew" and the like. It was like a characature of 1950's WASPy country clubishness. Anyone who said something like that in the company of anyone I knew (or they knew) would quickly find themselves with few returned phone calls or social invitations. It was very strange. I haven't thought about it much and figured that it probably would have dissapated since I was there years ago. Apparently not. The findings prompted the report's authors to warn of a "wave of hatred" against Jews. The number of incidents increased to 594 last year, up by 31 per cent on the previous year. What type of incidents are we talking about? "Today's anti-Semitism is a wave of hatred, intimidation and abuse against British Jews, who are st...

"Two decades later, it seems clear that Biden is better off using someone else's words, rather than his own."

eBay has some weird stuff for sale. The FBI continues to lag behind the times. How bad? They're hiring crooks and even letting some go so they can watch and learn instead. Mac Vs. PC. The last word: Here's a list of the world's riches fake people Duke Women's Lacrosse has more balls than the President and faculty . Red on Red continues apace in the DE blogosphere. "If they're going to support us, support us all the way." Muslim on Muslim violence in Iraq. The Anti- America War crowd thinks the bad guys there are patriots fighting for their country. Um, no. Davos Is for Wimps, Ninnies, Pointless Skeptics : Key graf: So why do these people waste so much of their breath and, presumably, thought, with their elaborate expressions of concern? Even if these global financial elites knew something useful that you and I don't -- that, say, 50 hedge funds were about to go under and drag with them half the world's biggest banks along with a third of...

Drunker Than Me Well, lately I been noticin' a gradual escalation, In your inability to handle your libation. Go zero to sixty, When you get on the whiskey. Well, used to be a glass of wine an' you'd be fine all evenin'. Now I'm the one who says: "We're done," an' tells us when we're leavin'. Well, I miss the way that it was, Can't even catch the good bars. 'Cause I keep worryin' about who's drivin' home, Who's got the keys, who's got the 'phone. Who'll pay the bill, call a cab. I don't mean to make you mad, But I don't want that responsibility, An' I can't be with a woman, baby, who gets drunker than me. Well, I never thought it'd come to this when I said: "Have another." 'Cause, baby, you turned into me, an' I became my mother. Well, here's what I'm thinkin': You're interferin' with my drinkin'. I think I have an answer to our present situati...

Evangelicals are horrible evil people. They judge people and hate gays. They want to round up liberals and intern them in camps. They're bigoted, small minded, ignorant rubes. Think so? Read this.

but I have to defend Hillary Clinton. She's taking flak for her unintentional rendition of the national anthem. Video here. Give me a break. I can't sing that song and neither can you. She's not a singer, doesn't purport to be one and isn't running for American Idol. Singing the anthem badly is something we all do or at least ought to do. I'm just glad to see she sings the damn thing. Look, she's perilous to our liberty, she's conniving, she's the last person in America I want as the President but please, no more stupid comments about her singing. There are real reasons to oppose this woman and that isn't one of them.

Whenever I need a good starting point for fishbarreling some lefty position or another I can always count on Donviti. Once again, he delivers like Karl Malone in the paint with this post . It's a link to this article . One of the many fatuous comments include: We used to take pride in civilian leadership of the military under the Constitution, a principle that George Washington embraced when he avoided military symbols at Mount Vernon. We are not led — or were not in the past — by caudillos. The good professors embarassing lack of historical knowledge makes me wonder what has become of Northwestern. I can only hope the man is not a professor of American history. Little old me, without advanced (or even undergraduate) degrees in history knows that during the Continental Congress Washington wore his uniform to the debates every day for 66 straight days despite the fact that he was not under arms and we were not at war. Nor was he in attendance in his capacity as a general. Furth...

I've been tagged : I cannot fold fitted sheets. If you put a gun to my head, I'd still screw it up. I brew my own beer. Not as much as I used to but I've gone so far as to buy my own kegging equipment I was in commercials when I was a kid. It was very boring and mostly consisted of lots and lots of waiting. When I was a 'ute, I was a "computer enthusiast". I quit when people I knew started getting in trouble with three letter agencies. I'll tag DonViti , Will and motnewbie

"Too Many Jews" To comment any further on this quote would require me to violate Godwin's law. California Latinos fearful after immigration raids . Well, yes. That's we've been on about since, oh, 1986 or so. Headline could easily be retitled: "Criminals fearful after police crackdown". Is this new? I really hope not. We should have been killing them from the beginning. It's all well and good that we're rebuilding things over there but we really ought to be killing many more terrorists than are. Some poignant political cartoons about our march towards totalitarianism Does Anyone Else Detect a Trend? asks BlackFive. I'm not sure what to make of it either but there has been a noticeable bump in positive reports out of Iraq. I'm reticent to draw any conclusions. "The more we play God or try to improve on Mother Nature, the more damage we are doing with all kinds of experiments that... turn into nightmares." Another ...

What's my political orientation? You are a Social Liberal (60% permissive) and an... Economic Conservative (80% permissive) You are best described as a: Capitalist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test h/t: The House of Eratosthenes

First up, Senator MarryMoney. What else can I say but WAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! E. Howard Hunt makes Dick Cheney look like Lady Astor. In fact, anyone who receives high marks from G. Gordon Liddy for cunning and ruthlessness is not someone to be taken lightly. (The only guy I can think of that might be even scarier is Tony Poe ) Hunt was one of the Watergate burglars. He died yesterday and in his last interview is here: The one passage that is going to fuel the conspiracy theorists forever more. Slate: I know there is a conspiracy theory saying that David Atlee Phillips—the Miami CIA station chief—was involved with the assassination of JFK. Hunt: [Visibly uncomfortable] I have no comment. Slate: I know you hired him early on, to work with you in Mexico, to help with Guatemala propaganda. Hunt: He was one of the best briefers I ever saw. Slate: And there were even conspiracy theories about you being in Dallas the day JFK was killed. Hunt: No comment. Laura Hunt: Howard says he ...

In old war movies they often used a klaxon to sound an alarm. It's that long "OOOOoooooooooOOOOOGAAAAH!" sound you hear on submarines and such. I literally just heard that sound while reading that Alberto Gonzales says that I do not have the right to habaeus corpus or at least that such a right exists and cannot be suspended but that somehow means that it may not apply to everyone. I'm at a bit of a loss how a right exists for some citizens and not others. Seriously. I don't believe that people captured on a foreign battlefield have the right to trial in an American court with all the rules and protections that entails. To do so would require us to prosecute lawyers with brigade sized JAG units deployed hither and yon. Shoot the enemy and make them dead. Those that surrender will be held until after the conflict. Irregular forces and non-state actors are not covered by Geneva. They can be summarily executed and most of them should be. Any trials during...

Happy Birthday, Roe v. Wade There's something unseemly about wish "happy birthday" to a decision that has prevented millions from ever celebrating them.

The Autism Numbers: Why there's no epidemic. This one hits close to home and is a debate we've been having in the DE Autism community forever (or at least since I've been around). Sadly, I have to concur with a large part of the author's hypothesis. Most of the reason there is an explosion in the apparent growth of people with autism is awareness and education. I'm not as cynical to say that this is largely predicated on people trying to garner more funding for research or whatever. Rather, there are more and more parents who see their kids slipping away from them and are desperate to get them back (count me among them). Personally, I think autism is a confluence of several things happening at once more like a syndrome than a disease . Some researchers have shown strong links between mercury and autism. One study showed that mercury has a deleterious effect on motor neurons but that effect becomes absolutely devastating when testosterone is added to the mix. ...

Charles Murray is a genius. (Genius here is defined as "he agrees with me so he must be really smart.") This is part II of III. Murray is the author of "The Bell Curve" which was roundly criticized as being racist when it came out. His work was subsequently confirmed by peer research. Murray notes that he hoped to spark a re-evaluation of intelligence and education and how the two are related. We've seen the progression of a procrustean system for students of all abilities. I doubt anyone thinks this is a good idea but nobody is willing to take the slings and arrows that accompany discriminating between student abilities. Imagine the uproar that would ensue if the principal told 20% of the students at A.I. DuPont that they would be directed to vocational education classes. He'd be out of a job faster than Christine O'Donnell at NARAL. I can't speak for Delaware schools (or even public schools in the last 15 years) but when I was in HS they we...

Free Beer!… And other perks CEOs get when they lose their jobs. I used to work in Corporate Compensation and even administered the executive comp system for a Fortune 100 bank. That was in 1999 when thing really started to get crazy. The analysts then knew that things were really going off the rails. Some of the banks in the league tables tried to constrain the explosion but were wildly unsuccessful. A big part of this is fueled by performance based pay. It used to be that CEO's drew large salaries and had lots of perks and some stock. Corporations found that they could defer the those salaries in favor of stock options and grants. That would then put the CEO's focus on stakeholder value which is his fiduciary duty anyway. The idea being, that if he's a large shareholder he will act to increase share value to benefit himself and subsequently, the other holders as well. Further, they found they could defer those stock awards and bonuses to the end of the CEO's te...

That Simpson ever suggested this project—the idea, was Simpson's, Fenjves says, not Regan's—makes me conclude that a killer is coming apart at the seams. Before he got involved, Fenjves told me, there "was talk he was going to do this as a straight confession." A working title for the book at one point was not If I Did It, but I Did It. The title was suggested not by Regan, but by Simpson. What do you have to do in this country to get yourself thrown in jail? I think OJ is going to go completely around the bend eventually and either just proclaim his guilt or flip out and kill someone else. That he is mentally unstable from this episode tells me he has more of a conscious than I thought he did.