FFFFFFFFFFRIDAY NIGHT

Ordinarily I'd be out and about at this time failing with women but the deadliest of man's enemies has reared its ugly head where I live:
there is a thin sheen of ice on the street.
Usually North Carolina drivers are whiny and anemic when it comes to the weather and driving but for once I feel their fear is rightly placed.
So here I sit and so shall I review another blog: ONTD_P, my old friend.
Where white women go to whine and feel self righteous on the internet.

"Larry Seabrook diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars from the public till into the pockets of his favored cronies. Today, he is a convicted felon, stripped of his City Council position, who must serve prison time. His sentence punctuates a powerful message that abusing government power to steal has serious consequences.."

Less powerful than the message I would have sent.
Ever heard of damnatio memoriae, Larry?

Check it out on Wikipedia and be thankful I'm not in charge.

U.S. Military Lauded For Creating Gender-Neutral Killing Field

My weapons in vidya gayms only seldom discriminate based on gender.

Yeah some weapons in Skyrim are more effective against the opposite sex if you have certain perks or whatever.

No I don't understand it either.

I think the Fallout series has similar perks in place, hmmm.

I remember particularly in New Vegas being a girl character could potentially behoove you since most of the enemies in the game were men and that 10% extra damage was often nice.

“The U.S. Armed Forces have been gender-neutral in their victims for years, and now they’re finally leveling the killing field for female combatants as well,” said Nadine Hynes, a retired Marine Corps Lance Corporal who was unable to add to the carnage of Iraq’s blood-soaked, limb-strewn slaughterscapes due to the Pentagon’s 1994 rule barring women from infantry and artillery roles.

This article seems like it might be a bit biased.

Props for the term "slaughterscapes" though.
I genuinely do like that coinage. 

You'd think they'd be thrilled. Finally men and women in an equal opportunity situation.

But nope, white women whinging yet again.

They want everything and nothing.

“Now, women will have the same opportunity to accidentally gun down innocent civilians or be ripped apart by insurgent rocket fire as men.”

I think they already had a chance of getting ripped apart by an RPG. 

... Weapons, especially projectiles and explosions, tend not to discriminate.

Also women are often employed by the army to drive trucks.

So they run people over regularly.

A Wisconsin high school is under fire after parents discovered that the 'American Diversity' class taught students that minorities had historically been oppressed by white people.

Don't major in education if that offends you, then.

Because all your education classes will be thus.

Here let me save everyone a ton of time wondering what an education education (har) is like:

DID YOU KNOW THERE ARE BLACK PEOPLE?
YOU'RE RACIST.

There we go.

Oh forgot one:

IF YOU'RE A MAN YOU'RE ALSO SEXIST AND POSSIBLY A RAPIST.

"They were told to go and count the number of dolls that were representative of blacks as opposed to whites," the parent said. "It’s meant to divide and victimize non-whites and condition whites to feel guilty and to be more passive."

Fun way to throw a spanner in the works:

"you know there are more than two races. Isn't reducing race to a binary inherently racist as well? What about Asians or Hispanics? Why are we reducing all white and all black people to two groups? Surely ethnic Africans face different challenges than African Americans or Aborigines. Surely there are different African cultures. Why are we calling Finnish people racist when most Finns haven't seen a black person before? What about all the other, similar European (white) cultures with a 100% homogeneous population?"

Usually they'll just stammer and skip over your questions but occasionally they'll level the ol' "well they're not multicultural so therefore they're racist." to which you can quickly respond with "and neither are countries like Korea or Japan or most of Africa, for that matter, and yet I don't hear similar sweeping claims about their culture's character."

The simple fact is you want to be in places like Europe or America (well maybe not Europe so much anymore and probably not America in 5-10 years) so everyone is mad fucking jelly.

Comments are, as expected, great:

fucking... white people LOL


also they don't get options being raised by their dumbass parents... so way to be dicks

mad because they giving kids REAL TALK

Fucking... Black people LOL.

The fact that this kind of class exists is a really good thing, I think. These are subjects that need to be discussed. Oppression of all types NEEDS to be acknowledged and discussed so it's not repeated.

Ironically the avatar this person has is a character from Shin Megami Tensei.

The series of video games that basically teaches oppression is inescapable and part of the natural order of the universe.

And if anyone reading this disagrees with that assessment of the series fuck you you're thrown into a world of gods and demigods as a mortal and force to pick one of three arbitrarily alignments and work for complete assholes towards goals you don't fully understand and probably wouldn't choose if you had free agency in your decision making in the first place.

Even the decidedly more humanist Persona series teaches you that whatever is going to happen to you will happen regardless of your decisions and the only thing you can do is control how you think about it.

Although Persona 3 does raise interesting (in my opinion) questions on the nature of fate and exactly how much agency an individual has in struggling against it.

But that was a common theme in Greek mythology anyway which was basically the entire underpinning to Persona 3.

Persona 4 picked Japanese mythology and consequently wasn't as good.

Something about a culture having to analyze its own values I suspect.

That or there is something very alien about Japanese mythology that even the Japanese acknowledge and seem to take some kind of pride in.

I personally like it for those characteristics but an interesting study in character it does not make.

Sorry I started talking about something almost totally unrelated.

This is really boring.

Arkansas schools could soon have an easier way to teach a Bible course as part of its public curriculum.

Republican state Rep. Denny Altes has proposed a bill that would allow the state's public school districts to adopt an elective curriculum for academic study of the Bible. The course would "consist of a nonsectarian, nonreligious academic study of the Bible and its influence on literature, art, music, culture and politics" and would "be taught in an objective and non devotional manner with no attempt made to indoctrinate students as to either the truth or falsity of the biblical materials or texts from other religions or cultural traditions."

And yet every public school

secular or deeply Christian

teaches the one true religion.

Waiter who refused service to customer becomes Web hero

Usually, when a waiter refuses to serve someone at a restaurant, customers complain. In this case, customers cheered.

The waiter in question, Michael Garcia, has been receiving goodwill and friend requests on the restaurant’s Facebook page since word spread that he stood up for a child with special needs.

Garcia, who works at the Houston restaurant Laurenzo's, was waiting on a family, regulars with a 5-year-old child, Milo, who has Down syndrome. The server said that another family at the restaurant commented on Milo’s behavior, which Garcia described as “talking and making little noises." Garcia moved the complaining family to another table, but they were still unhappy. "Special needs children need to be special somewhere else," the father reportedly said.

The waiter then took a stand. He told FoxNews.com that such talk is ignorant and is due to  people's fear of the unknown. "My personal feelings took over," he said, leading him to tell the father, "Sir, I won't be able to serve you.” The family left the restaurant.

So that's it, huh.

That's what it takes to be a hero nowadays.

You have to not do something.

...

Hercules strangled an invincible lion with his bear hands.

Perseus killed Medusa.

Theseus slayed the Minotaur.

Michael Garcia didn't do his job because someone was being an asshole.

Back in the day you had to have been part deity or done something actually impressive to warrant the title of hero.

Now you just have to have some class.

One bioethicist's modest proposal to combat obesity through socially motivated self-hatred

People don't hate being fat enough, basically, according to Hastings Center bioethicist Daniel Callahan. In an editorial published in the Hastings Center Report, he argues that nothing -- not diets, drugs, sugeries, nor appeals to our health -- is working, and goes on to make the case for fat-shaming people until they start eating more salad. 

When I become caesar and assume my dark throne I will make you minister of propaganda. 

Oh wow.

I don't know what this article is yet but the person posting it has as their avatar Adam Jensen from Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

...

Hope you guys realize what's next.

Why might a woman swallow lye? Gunpowder? Why would a woman hit herself about the abdomen with a meat pulverizer? A brickbat? Throw herself down the stairs?

BLAH BLAH BLAH THIS GOES ON FOR FIVE PARAGRAPHS.

MORE SHOCKING IF YOU USE THREE THEN GET TO YOUR POINT.

Because she wanted to end a pregnancy. Historically, women have chosen all those methods to induce abortion. The first known descriptions appeared around 1500 B.C. in the Ebers Papyrus, an ancient Egyptian medical text that mentioned an abortion engineered by a plant-fiber tampon coated with honey and crushed dates.

She never asked for this.

What is most striking about this history of probes and poisons is that throughout all recorded time, there have been women so desperate to end a pregnancy that they were willing to endure excruciating pain and considerable risk, including infection, sterility, permanent injury, puncture and hemorrhage, to say nothing of shame and ostracism. Where abortion was illegal, they risked prosecution and imprisonment. And death, of course.

Her neck was snapped and her body was burned beyond recognition by a high tech compound.

Many of the cures for these “ailments” were nothing but sugar and dust. But some of them were nonetheless quite effective. Those were the dangerous ones, containing as they commonly did, turpentine, opium, pennyroyal, aloes, snakeroot, myrrh or oil of rue. One of the most common ingredients was ergot, or claviceps purpurea, a fungus found on the stalks of grain. Women as early as the 16th century had observed that cows that consumed ergot miscarried their calves. The fungus, however, had disastrous side effects, called ergotism, also known as St. Anthony’s fire. Symptoms included a burning sensation in the limbs because of blood constriction, which led to gangrene. The poison could also cause seizures, itching, psychosis, vomiting, contractions, diarrhea and death.

Yeah, RIP. 

If the Supreme Court were ever to overturn Roe v. Wade, or if anti-abortion forces continue to successfully chisel away at a woman’s access to safe abortion, many women will still choose abortion — by their own hands. Leeches, lye and Spanish fly are still among the many tools available to the self-abortionist. So are knitting needles, with predictable, disastrous consequences. There is no law that will end the practice of abortion, only laws that can protect a woman’s right to choose it, or not, and to keep it the safe and private procedure still available to us in 2013, 40 years after the Supreme Court made it legal.

...

Both treat torture at secret CIA prisons as if it were a thing of the past, masking the reality of an enduring practice.

The controversy surrounding Zero Dark Thirty has been as misguided as the film itself, which opened nationwide on Friday. Much of the debate has centred on whether Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow's latest opus leaves viewers with the false impression that torture led to the killing of Osama bin Laden.

All I know is that movie was fucking sweet.

Except when that one guy said bro way too much.

I wouldn't tell that jack off anything either.

The first third of Zero Dark Thirty is unadulterated torture porn, a display of medieval cruelty at various CIA and affiliated prisons. Strappado, drowning, sexual abuse, beatings, stress positions, loud music, stuffing people into boxes, sleep deprivation, but also

>medieval

>loud music

I was advocating taking a ball-peen hammer to his fingers in the theater myself.

I think people really over think torture.

Holy shit can you imagine how these snowflakes would react to my administration?
Jesus Christ.

Look I'm not saying the CIA was right.

I'm also not saying they're wrong.

I'm just saying if you want results a ball-peen hammer is often an effective information extractor. 

How do I know this?
Stands to reason.

and this is not acknowledged enough as torture - threats to send prisoners to countries where they would face further abuse (in the film, Israel).

Always an effective strategy. Threaten a kid with sending them to the classroom next door and they fold like playing cards.

It doesn't glorify anything, though. There's not an ounce of FUCK YEAH in it.

First sensible comment on ONTD_P I think.

It doesn't glorify anything.

It's a spy movie. It's pretty grounded.

I feel the same way. The movie made me super uncomfortable by the sound of it (I'd never watch any film depicting torture, especially torture that, you know, actually happened and is happening) and reading this strengthened my distaste.

>I haven't seen it but it's still awful

MAYBE

YOU'D FUCKING LOVE IT.

Oh my God what's happened?
ONTD_P is being reasonable about this.

No I don't understand.

Anyway I kind of lost my focus on this for an hour and now I've lost my mojo.

Goodbye I guess.

FEMINISM.

AHOY!

My brilliant colleague, Adrianne Wadewitz, was featured on Wikipedia last month. In this two-minute video, she talks about how she’s incorporated writing for Wikipedia into her classes and why it’s such a powerful teaching tool.

Wow no wonder Wikipedia is shit.
 Peer reviewed literature by professionals?
NAH BUNCH OF ASSHOLE KIDS TAKING SOC 101.

This article in The New York Times, by Choe Sang-Hun, fascinates me:

    [Jasmine] Lee, 35, who was born Jasmine Bacurnay in the Philippines, made history in April when she became the first naturalized citizen — and the first nonethnic Korean — to win a seat in South Korea’s National Assembly. Her election reflected one of the most significant demographic shifts in the country’s modern history, a change Ms. Lee says “Koreans understand with their brain, but have yet to embrace with their heart.”

    Only a decade ago, school textbooks still urged South Koreans to take pride in being of “one blood” and ethnically homogeneous. Now, the country is facing the prospect of becoming a multiethnic society. While the foreign-born population is still small compared with that of countries with a tradition of immigration, it is enough to challenge how South Koreans see themselves.

Welp.
Guess Korea is going to go to shit now.
Once you bow to the hydra that is pussy sensitivity and multiculturalism you're doomed.
Not that foreigners shouldn't be welcome but you know.
If you're in Korea you should learn Korean and do things the Korean way.
I don't see anything inherently wrong with that.
People say multiculturalism and I say a lack of respect for your host country.

In 1988-89, when I was teaching English in Seoul to the very privileged men and women who came to study at the hagwon where I worked, my students often used the phrase “one blood” when explaining to me why it was so important for Koreans to marry other Koreans–traditionally, as someone quoted in Choe’s article puts it, “someone born to Korean parents in Korea, who speaks Korean and has Korean looks and nationality. Their reasoning, I remember thinking at the time, i.e., that ethnic and cultural unity was the only way successfully to maintain Korean cultural identity and pass their traditions on from one generation to the next, sounded an awful lot like the arguments against interfaith dating and intermarriage that were part of my Jewish education in the United States. 

That's why I never fully understood the Nazi concept of the Jews being impure.
If there are a more puritanical people on earth than the Jewish people I'd like to see them.
It's a guy writing this entry.
Holy shit bro come on.
You'd think the story of a wise man would be interesting but it really isn't.
Come on man step it up.
I never thought I'd see a story of a wise man this lacking in glory.
And posted on a feminist blog.
Guess it just goes to show that you can still travel all the way to Korea, fuck a Korean chick and still not be a wise man.
There's some other inherent quality.
Incidentally this is one of those blogs where multiple people post and as far as I can see it's the last we see from this bro.
I think his main problem was he went for a married chick.
M8.
M8.
Check yourself.
He's a wise man. It doesn't mean he's very smart.

It seems to me that the purpose of the psychological concept of "the feminine" (--I am always wondering what that is--) is to create a definite gestalt (foreground-background outline) for feminine figures. 

Oh yeah that shit takes me back to pussy sensitivity.
This motherfuck is going to need a soundtrack.

The conceptual characteristics of "the feminine" are initially sought for, in the preliminary wandering of the eye over the field. Finally, once they are alighted upon, the outline of a "feminine" character comes into view. This is reassuring, since one has found what one was looking for.

If I'm playing Skyrim I don't care if it's feminine or masculine.
I don't want to see it in my field of vision or I might hit it with a crossbow bolt.

Supposing, however, one sets out in anticipation of discovering a feminine object. One perceives, in the field of vision, certain characteristics that roughly align with denotations of "the feminine". 

If it's a red dot on my compass I'm taking it down.

Yet, ultimately, the outline is not firm, the characteristics keep wavering, the object of vision seems to continue to shift. Would not the failure of the potential "feminine object" to stay within the lines of conceptual demarcation of femininity produce the sense of a "part object" rather than a whole object?

Then it's time to loot the bodies.
3 lockpicks and 5 gold THANKS A LOT BANDIT SCUM.

Is it possible that the inherent structural failure of the concept of "femininity" to return to the perceiver a pure enough feminine object, leading in turn to perscutory anxiety as one is left with only a "part object" (the parts of the object that remain feminine), is the cause of misogyny? The failure of the object to appear consistently with the characteristics expected of it produces a shattering of perception, which is threatening to the would-be perceiver of the complete feminine object. This is starting to sound a lot like castration anxiety, but I believe it is only partly related to that -- since here the mechanism of "castration" is in the faulty conceptualisation of "the feminine" as well as in the faulty anticipation of it.

Anyway, my experiences tell me that I'm onto something here. 

My experience tells me you're a twat that has no clue what the fuck you're even talking about.
Get fucked.

People have an insatiable appetite for violence. They will sit through films that depict murder, rape and torture with vile accuracy. In fact, the percentage of the film going public viewing and gorging on this shit is increasing which means that human beings are dangerously close to losing their sense of the gravity of cruelty as it is dished out to innocent people. How like human beings to sit through  gore and suffering on film, then discuss it for days via social networking sites: “Oh, did you see the new Tarantino movie? It was awesome!” 

Holy shit yeah it was.
Anyway, whining--

To put it simply, dating while feminist, black, queer, polyamorous, broke, and loud means not dating, kind of. I find that people who compliment any one of those traits too well completely fail in regards to the others. Thinking about feminism specifically, I’ve found that it’s cute and sexy to my partners when I’m abstractly theorizing about gender inequities.

Sorry, what?

Alex Williams at the Times is concerned. Very. Concerned. Alex is concerned that courtship may be over — young ladies don’t get asked on dates any more, they just receive 5am texts from nightclub bouncers saying, “sup.” 

Whatashame.

Unsurprisingly, the announcement of the relaunched title has already drawn protest from the sorts of people who think “fake geek girls” are destroying nerdom.

Well they are.
Being a huge faggot nerd is now reduced to watching  Big Bang Theory and having played a video game one time maybe but you were kinda drunk so you don't remember it too well.
Imagine if I wandered into your feminist whining session and said
I LISTENED TO A WOMAN WHINE ONCE I'M A FEMINIST LET ME SIT WITH YOU.
What would you say?
You'd say I wasn't a feminist.
There you go.
Same logic.
It's okay. You don't have to be a nerd.
Nerds don't have a monopoly on intelligence. You can be a non-nerd and still be smart.
You don't have to self identify as being a nerd to seem smart.
In fact anymore you'd probably look smarter if you didn't.

The first day of class in my literature course didn’t go well, and that’s putting it mildly. Students looked uncomfortable and terrified, refused to answer even the simplest questions, offered no reaction to my jokes, and stayed on the edge of their seats prepared to take off at any moment.

Really?
My first day went phenomenally.
Charmed the little bastards then one started giving me shit so I just looked him square in the eye and I said "you will learn by example or I will make you an example."
End of problems the rest of the day.
I find  "I'm going to throw the rules at you" works far better when framed as a threat.

We, the professors, are to blame for this sorry state of affairs. We are so scared of our own area of expertise, so embarrassed by it, so apologetic about having chosen it, that this attitude always contaminates our own students. We are on our way to becoming a glorified language school and all we do brings this prospect closer to us. Like a person who believes s/he is ugly or stupid and communicates this belief to others, we transmit our doubts over whether learning literature is a worthy pursuit to our students.

Not me. If you have a problem with stories the ancients thought were important enough to invent writing to tell your stupid ass then you can kindly remove yourself from my fucking class.
They didn't have computers to type this shit, either. Some guy had to chop a tree down and grind it into paper then squeeze ink out of an oyster or something and then he had to kill a bird to turn its feathers into a pen so he could tell you this.
It probably took half his life to assemble this shit.
Oh, the language is too confusing for you to figure it out?
Tough shit. The same guy that wrote this shit down considers a rock the latest invention of his day. There's no way he's more sophisticated than you are.
You're just fucking lazy.

I am done with this, people. I spent my childhood being embarrassed about loving books and hating athletics. I did not get 5 degrees in literary studies and publish 11 scholarly articles in respected, peer-reviewed literary journals only to find myself feeling embarrassed about loving to read once again. I am now declaring a battle against the belief that literature has no place at a university. I was part of the problem and now I will be part of the solution. If nobody wants to join me, I will be the solution.

I think your problem is you have five degrees.
Seriously what the fuck?
Do you need that much education to read a book?
You know I've had a lot of success with explaining to people that books are really just a stand in for the spoken word.
Which is what they are.

And don’t think I’m just saying this. I have a top-secret plan that I have already started to put into effect whose goal is simply to teach literature and vindicate this pursuit. The plan is top secret because I don’t have the energy for yet another round of discussions (in person, by email, on Skype, on the phone) about how the students are not prepared and they will hate literature anyway so why undermine my career and spoil my life trying. My career is fine, my life is fine. Stop being so worried about the imaginary horrors that await me if I actually practice my profession.

I can't tell you how often this conversation has occurred in my life:
"this is boring?"
"how can you say it's boring? It has a guy putting a cyclopes' eye out with a fiery poker."
"I don't get it."
"DID YOU TRY FUCKING READING IT?"
"Well no I gave up."
"WELL I CAN'T HELP YOU IF YOU JUST QUIT AFTER TWO SECONDS LEARN SOME FUCKING PATIENCE."
I can't tell you how powerful a tool "you're being lazy and learn some patience" is.
Kids can handle not knowing something.
They'll be fine never learning anything again.
For some reason a lot can't seem to abide the notion that they're lazy.

To my colleagues everywhere I want to say this: stop feeling apologetic for what you do. Do whatever you need to convince yourself that you are not selfishly practicing a self-indulgent hobby but are doing something important. Do it now before you have apologized us all out of a field of learning and a career. You don’t need to prettify the teaching of literature or convince anybody it is useful. Just convince yourself already.

Next time I apologize for teaching these ungrateful bastards something will be a first.

A beautiful defense of idealism: “Idealism is the only mindset which produces change. Without the determination to achieve a higher goal, and the courage to affirm that goal in the face of what exists, no one has ever achieved anything of value. The wet noodle mindset of “good enough” has never produced any value for anyone except exploiters and rulers. The willful acceptance and tolerance of evil generates more evil, and has never generated anything but more evil.” People keep accusing me of being an idealist as if it were something bad. This is a great response to them.

Fucking stupid idea filled with non sequiturs.
Implying what, change is inherently good?
That the concept of "good enough" is what allows the ruling class to rule?
Having courage or goals isn't inherent to being an idealist, either.
I'm possibly the most cynical person alive and I still have both things.

As my imaginary boyfriend Neil Degrasse Tyson said, “Boy, I wonder what profession all of these senators and congressmen have? Law, law, law, law, businessman, law, law. And I said, you know, where are the scientists? Where are the engineers? Where’s the rest of life represented here?”

Neil Degrasse Tyson is pretty much one of the best Americans alive now.

Thank goddess it’s Friday. 

God of time is Chronos.
He's not a woman.
Prepare to be purged, heretic.
Anyway time for SOMETHING ELSE.
FUCK BLOGS.

Oh shit I'm sorry

Forgot to update Monday.
No real reason.
Just forgot.
My excuse is I taught orchestra class Monday.
No one was more surprised about this than me.
I knew half the kids so there was this weird pause when they saw me and there was a lot of "wait what are you doing here?" to which I could honestly say "I DON'T KNOW PLEASE HELP ME" anyway we learned Bach.
I conducted.
That's a thing I do now.
I didn't know I spoke French or could conduct an orchestra until recently.

A lot of dudes really flip out in response to the term “creep.” It’s so UNFAIR to call them creeps!

A low of women flip out in response to the term "cunt".

The word “creep” is ableist because there are dudes on the autism spectrum who have difficulty socializing and reading social cues and they can’t help being creepy! 

Ff you call someone creepy just because they have autism and they're making the effort to socialize you are being a cunt.
He has a reason for why he's acting like he's acting.
You, however, don't.

The take-away seems to be that women just need to tolerate creepy dudes because feeling like your personal safety is being consistently threatened (and running the risk of being told “Well why didn’t you DO something about that creep sooner?” if your personal safety is actually violated) is a small price to pay in the service of not making one dude feel kinda sad. 

I use similar thinking when dealing with cunts.
And somehow I'm an asshole.
I sense women want it both ways.
As is usually the case.

Which is why I really appreciate when dudes who maybe do have problems reading social cues are told they’re being creepy and instead of getting mad at the person telling them that fact, they take steps to change their behavior. 

Then again I've never had the problem of being creepy.
I dunno.

As someone who was raped after a party, I often find myself falling for rape-apologist language.  

One problem I'm running into with this blog already is how short her entries are (not the problem) and how much of her already short entry is taken up by a link.
Imagine if half this entry were a link to the blog.

The guy that raped me would be most likely be horrified if I had accused him of rape. The guy that raped me is a good person. In fact, the guy that raped me was someone I found sexually attractive and had been flirting with for several weeks. I remember accepting his invitation for a ride home from a party. I don’t know what I was thinking. I do know that as a chronic drinker it is nearly impossible for others to tell when I’ve had too much. So, doesn’t my drinking to excess, and accepting a ride home from this guy make me at least a little culpable?

...
Yes.
You are culpable.
Being drunk doesn't excuse your bad judgment.
If you'd killed someone in a car accident while drunk your intoxication wouldn't be a shield from your actions.
If you told him no (even while drunk) and he still fucked you then it's rape.
Otherwise you're just a bitch who had one too many.

If I’d driven home in that state and killed someone in a car accident I couldn’t use the excuse that I was too drunk to make the right decision about getting behind the wheel to not be charged with vehicular manslaughter. I’d have made the decision to drink and drive. Period. Impaired judgment would never enter the conversation.
It’s taken me a long, long time to realize that the drinking-and-driving scenario is not analogous to drinking-and-getting raped. To this day I have a hard time not accepting responsibility for my actions that night. 

Regretting it in the morning doesn't make it rape.

But I am not responsible. I did not make the decision to go out and get raped.
I am sure the guy that raped me didn’t make the decision to go out and rape either, and that’s when I get sucked right back into the apologists rhetoric.

I'm not apologizing for anyone.
Jesus Christ all mighty how is the car analogy not analogous?
You are responsible for you.
I'm sorry white women only want responsibility when shit is working out for them but when they make a boo-boo suddenly everything is everyone's fault but theirs but welcome to equal rights.

Because alcohol (or any other drug) does make consent difficult. And it is putting a lot of responsibility on one party to make them decide whether or not their sexual partner is capable of consent. Especially when that party may be impaired themselves.

So you entered a situation in which you knew someone might want to fuck you and you decided (while fully sober and therefore culpable) to get drunk and now he's raped you because you had sex while drunk because "consent is too difficult while drunk."
What say right now I go to the hood with 20 dollars hanging out of my pants.
Is it my fault I get mugged?
Not technically but one might wonder what the fuck I was doing down that way flashing money.
I wish it weren't that way for women because they do have to be overly cautious. They have to think about shit a man would never have to think about.
But ultimately that's exactly why they should be more cautious than this.
I wish it were another way but it isn't.

I didn’t listen to my father, I didn’t listen to most of what I learned in sex ed. But, I try not to walk alone at night. I moderate my drinking when I go out to unfamiliar places. I use the buddy system at parties. I make friends with my bartenders and bouncers. I never leave my drink unattended. I never let someone buy me (or bring me) a drink. I have listened to the lessons of rape culture.
And I am sick of it. I am sick of being the one responsible for not getting raped. I am sick of “responsible” and “rape” being used in the same sentence.

Just like every single day it's my responsibility to not get shot in a hood school.
You take responsibility for your actions. That's what it means to be an adult.
 If women still had diminished rights you could claim some sort of need for a man to uphold your honor but women gave that up collectively in the West so welcome to the real world.
I just did a quick check of the statistics.
A woman has around a .3% chance of being raped in the US.
I'm going to grant rape often goes unreported.
I'm going to inflate the number.
I'm going to say 50% of rapes
that's 1 in 2
goes entirely unspoken.
You have less than one percent chance of getting raped.
Compare that to, say, Liberia, where your odds are 80% and "I have to take responsibility for myself" is easily starting to rank up there with "a guy was kinda creepy today ;_;" in terms of rich white women whining.
This isn't a woman thing, either. Frankly I hear a lot of people whining and no one is really giving me a good reason to care about your problems.
I have problems that rank up there with this bullshit but do you hear me bitching about them?

The NRA held a press conference today detailing their plans to prevent more mass shootings in the United States. Mass shootings now happen with some regularity, and your standard run-of-the-mill shootings where only one or two or three people are hit happen daily. As of posting this, 97 people have been killed since the Newtown killings (I’m sure that stat will be out of date in minutes, so check out this live tally). The NRA’s response? Put armed security guards in schools, and create a national database of mentally ill people (what this database will be used for is unclear). A few thoughts:

Super soldier program.
The only way forward.

There actually were armed security guards at Columbine high school when that mass shooting went down. Two of them. As it turns out, two dudes with handguns are no match for a dude who is wearing bulletproof clothing and wielding multiple weapons that spray a rapid fire of bullets. 

10% shots.

Schools are not the only problem. Mass shootings occur in movie theaters, shopping malls, and basically everywhere large groups of people congregate. Are we just going to arm everyone everywhere? (NRA: “Yes.”).

I'd be okay with that solution.
I'm a fan of extreme solutions.

The NRA is unclear if they want armed guards or armed police officers in schools, but if we’re talking cops, then we’re also talking several billion dollars in taxpayer money to cover this plan. 

Oh, well.
Don't want to spend money to ensure the safety of the next generation.
So what I'm getting from you so far is you're okay if a girl gets killed in school but not okay if she gets raped.
Personally I don't want either.

Police officers are in many schools in the country, and not with good results. The psychological impact of turning a learning environment into a place where police roam the halls is pronounced; it doesn’t make students feel safer, it makes them scared. And it means that students are regularly arrested. In New York, the NYPD are in many schools, and they arrest an average of 11 students every day. A full 95 percent of the arrested students are black and Latino, and their arrests take them out of school and put them in the juvenile “justice” system. Kids are hurt, not helped, by increasing policing in schools. 

If you're arrested and put in jail I assume (perhaps erroneously) that you did something to land you there.
Maybe criminals shouldn't be mixing with students.

Y’all know that cops kill people pretty regularly, right? 

...
Not putting cops in schools wouldn't prevent cops from being murdered.
Unless this is some sort of bizarre I, Robot argument where not hiring cops prevents cops from getting shot because there are less cops to get killed.

The NRA plan puts loaded weapons in schools. What could go wrong with hundreds of curious kids (and many rebellious and anti-authoritarian adolescents) in an enclosed space with a few loaded weapons nearby?

The average kid I run into on a daily basis at a school is basically more a threat to himself than anyone else.
Maybe arming them would make them not so fucking awkward.
Also most kids aren't that anti-authoritarian.
They're mostly anti-people up in their tits and in that regard we're the same.

Other people have suggested that we arm teachers. A week ago, the right was painting teachers as union thugs; now we want to give them guns on the taxpayer dime. I happen to like teachers quite a bit, but teachers are human beings and frankly some of them are violent and shitty or simply irresponsible, and I don’t particularly want all of them walking around school grounds with a gun on their hip.  

But you want them around your children for 8 hours a day teaching them things.
Makes sense to me~

What are the chances that no teacher ever leaves their gun unattended, or that no student manages to steal the gun, or that the gun never goes off by accident, or that no teacher mistakenly perceives a threat that isn’t there? 

Guns don't go off by accident.
That is such a statistical outlier that I can say it doesn't happen.
Most teachers are deeply paranoid about their personal effects.
I know personally I don't leave my lunch unattended.
My lunch.
I worry about my lunch getting stolen.
I'm 25.
If I had something capable of killing someone you can bet it would be on my person at all times.
Also when I hand someone a paper there's like a 50% chance they'll miss the paper entirely.
We're talking about people under 22. They barely count as humans.
They don't have motor skills yet. The next kid that can disarm if I have a gun on him will be the first.
And a teacher perceive a threat that isn't there?
You're talking about people who regularly talk down kids who are twice their size and have no impulse control.
I think if you want a group of armed people you could do a hell of a lot worse.
Also a fair number of teachers are ex-military.
I mean Jesus Christ I can't emphasize this enough: you trust these people with your children for 8 hours a day.

Ban video games, too. Not that it affects women seeing as, you know, we apparently don’t play games.

That was a comment.
I can't decide if she's serious about banning video games or not.
I think it was just her excuse to be a bitch about women's rights.
I said it before but way to take 29 first graders getting axed and making it about you, you self-absorbed twat.
This is why I have 0 sympathy for women like this. They talk about women's rights like it's some grave injustice but how many of those first graders were girls?
They don't give a shit about them. They just care about themselves.
Which is fine but be honest about it. Jesus Christ.

Yesterday, I did a HuffPost Live segment on paying and dating — specifically, if you’re on a mixed-gender date, who should pick up the check? Back in the day paying was a dude’s responsibility, but now it’s less clear. 

It isn't.
You go Dutch.
Welcome to personal responsibility.

Fiona Apple has postponed her South America tour to be with her ailing pitbull Janet. She writes a heart-wrenching, wonderful letter which will feel familiar to anyone who has ever loved and lost a pet or even a person. If you feel like reading something sad and beautiful, is here.

Can't say I care about Fiona Apple.
I feel bad for the dog.
Mostly because Fiona Apple owns it.
Every Sunday you can self-promote.
Wonder if I should.
Oh shit I clicked on a link and it won't let me go back now.
I could go back to where I was but no I'm good.
BYE THEN.

IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT?

MERRY CHRISTMAS YOU FUCKERS

There’s a new petition making the rounds; one I signed quickly, although it left me profoundly discouraged. The editorial board of New Moon Girls , a magazine for young girls, is asking Target to stop color coding its toy aisles.  

NO.
FUCK YOU.

But what struck me as much as the grouping by color was the extremely rigid way the toy manufacturers had color coded the toys and their packages.  I hunted with very little success for red trucks, for dolls dressed in yellow or green outfits, for little cooking sets with bright colors rather than pastel pots and pans. Even in the one row near the store entrance that had several boxes of dolls on the same shelf with boxes of various toy machines–snow mobiles, rocket ships and airplanes—the stereotypical two colors proclaimed:  “GIRL!”  “BOY!”

My new 3DS is blue because I'm a fucking man
fuck you.
I only play MANLY fucking games, too.
Like gay Final Fantasy rhythm games.
FUCK YOU MANLY.

Interestingly, the aisles with books and games were far less color coded, at least at the Target store I visited. Book covers and game boxes did not, with the glaring exception of some very pink games, display the same degree of color coding found in the toy aisles. It appears more acceptable for girls and boys to, at least some of the time, read the same books or participate in the same games, than it is to play with any but the most gender stereotypical toys.
Yes, Target should try harder to mix up its toy aisles.

Oh yes please.
Make it impossible to find anything in the name of gender equality.
Oh, want some Hot Wheels?
Did you check next to the aspirin?
Barbie?
Think I saw them next to the batteries, I dunno.
You got me, man. I only work here. I'm not the person who invents where this bullshit goes.
Incidentally Pokemon cards are next to the Lays.

We should all sign the petition.  But  we also need to pressure toy manufacturers.  First order of business, more colors for everyone. A rigid two color code for toys, pink for girls, dark and black for boys undoubtedly simplifies manufacturing and store inventories.  It’s good for business.  It is not good for children.

I dunno. Let's ask the kids if they'd like some variety.
 What about more brightly colored cars and airplanes, or boy dolls as well as girl dolls? 

>Boy dolls
GI Joe.
Next issue, retard.

What about addressing the lack of girls playing with cars on the front of those packages or the absence of boys on the cooking sets?  What about more diversity in terms of racial background? Almost of the faces on the boxes I saw were white.  We all want affordable toys for our children, but surely there are ways to provide a wider range of choices for parents and children than those available in the toy aisles at Target.

God you're a twat.
Way to ruin a fucking holiday.
Hope you're happy, Whore of Babylon.
Christmas is cancelled because this twat isn't happy with the packaging.
The least important thing about the toy you're buying.
Sorry kids, Christmas is cancelled.
In fact, fuck your toys and fun, too. Someone might be offended.
Here's a nice gender neutral rock you can play with.

If any of us thought the battle for less gender stereotyped toys had been won, we were wrong. We’re a long way from fulfilling the 40 year old promise of the Marlo Thomas song, Free to be You and Me.  Our work must include renewed attention to the gendered messages that greet children and their parents every time they wander through a toy store.

I think I've been playing my 3DS too much. All this text looks vaguely 3D for a second then goes away.
Am I going insane?

It’s been almost two weeks since the elections. I am sleeping normally for the first time in months.  The money pouring into the campaigns of the some of the most extreme anti-woman, out of touch candidates astounded and scared me.  Could it make a difference?

THANK MOTHERFUCK YOU CAN SLEEP NORMAL.
Man I sure lost a lot of sleep over that election, too.
What if Obama doesn't win again?
OH NO!
Me on election day consisted of getting up late, getting a text from a bro asking if I wanted to vote, me responding I had nothing else going on so I might as well and HOLY SHIT WAS IT INTENSE.

On Sunday, I was enjoying a nice dinner with my family at a new local restaurant that actually features produce from local farmers’ markets.  All was good, until my 8-year-old daughter decided to ask our waitress, “Who are you going to vote for to be President of the United States?”  Too young to know that it’s not ‘polite’ to ask strangers about politics, she was surprised to hear the waitress reply, “I’m not going to vote.  I’m 28 years old, and I’ve never voted because I don’t know enough about the issues to vote.” 

Please don't give this woman a raft of shit. She's working a shitty service job.
Let her go in peace.

That answer stunned my daughter into confused silence because she’d watched the debates and had her own clear ideas about at least a few of the issues.  In the awkward silence, my 70 year-old dad (a pro-choice feminist) gently suggested to our waitress, “Well, you don’t have to know a lot about every issue to know who to vote for — even if you just know about where the candidates stand on one issue….”  At that point, I knew he was hinting strongly at Obama’s and Romney’s clear differences on the topic of women’s reproductive rights, and I did not want to go there — not with our waitress, in the middle of a family-friendly restaurant.

I hope everyone jizzed in your drink.
I had people like this when I worked at my shitty grocery store.
Please, lady, I don't give a shit about your crusade. I gotta stack these round apples into a perfect pyramid in 30 seconds or I get yelled at. Please stand aside and let the continuous abortion that is my job proceed as planned.
I have to sit here and listen patiently while you tell me about something I don't give a crap about just because I incidentally put your apples out?
Why?

In high school my father, an electrical engineer, tried hard to persuade me to think about studying engineering. It was the late 1950’s and his argument went something like this: “You do well in your science classes; you like them; there are very few women in engineering and the country needs more. It will be a profession where you can stand out. ‘Standing out’ in a field because I was different and doing something women didn’t do, was not especially appealing to my teenage self.

Ever consider being a housewife?
Because whatever building you build will fall one day but the douchebaggery you inject into future generations will proceed until the apocalypse. 
I mean you can be an engineer and do that but think about it for a second.

Classroom experiences reinforced my hesitations. Teachers said things like, ‘Well, how did this happen? Susan and Mary received the highest marks on the  physic’s  quiz. You guys better get focused, girls aren’t supposed to outrank you.” Or, “Good work, girls, sure you didn’t have the math book under your desks? Ha, ha, just joking…”  The message was clear; boys do well in science and math; girls don’t.

I hate giving tests.
I'm a substitute for Christ's sake. Now I'm giving this test and I don't even know what the fuck the subject is.
"DID I DO OKAY?"
Gee kid I dunno I don't actually speak French.
Looks good to me I guess.
Also if any of you cheat make sure you're halfway clever about it. If I see an open book under your desk I'll call you a moron.
If I see you checking the label on your Coke a little too intensely I'll let that one slide.
Maybe.

These discrepancies are often attributed to individual choice.  The list of ‘personal choice’ explanations is long—and loaded with stereotypical assumptions about women: Women don’t want to spend long hours in the lab; women prefer dealing with people not test tubes; science doesn’t fit with family responsibilities.

It doesn't.
Remember what I said before.
The disease you invent whatever vaccine for will one day evolve to be immune to the vaccine--
but the douchebaggery you inject into future generations endures.

Today, August 26th, is Women’s Equality Day.  For many not actively engaged in women’s issues, it’s merely another in a long list of little known ‘days’.

Hey man I don't have that day off (summer vacation wooo) so fuck it.

The authors were curious about why people in the US work more than those in Europe. They start with this: on average, people in the US work more than people in Europe—one study shows the difference is 30 percent more; other studies show how little vacation time, paid sick leave, or family leave that the US has relative to European countries—although the current recession may end up reducing these differences.

HURRAY!
OBAMA PLANNED ALL THIS IN ADVANCE!
WE ALL GET VACATIONS NOW!
I bet that's how she spins this.
Watch.
No
just bullshit about men and women--
who gives a fuck, goddamn?
Holy Christ.

Please go visit a tumblr that two of my students created.  It’s fantastic.  They’ve been a bit astonished at how much attention it’s gotten in the 30 hours its been online, but when you go over, you’ll see why:  it’s interesting, the photography is stunning, and the explanations of feminism are smart and clever.

Hooooly Christ.
Well looks like they gave up about 11 months ago with like 20 submissions. Guess they couldn't even find pussy sensitivity people lacking in shame enough to make one of these signs.

“Mom, I think I’d like to be a photographer,” my 10-year-old daughter, Maya, said recently.
“That would be very cool.”  Inside, I found myself thinking: I hope you can earn a living doing that.

I'm sure this is some sort of -ism.
Fucking
FUCKING LIBERAL ARTS HATER.
PLZ DIE CIS SCUM
Also who gives a shit what a 10 year old wants to be when they grow up?
I mean I know you're obligated to care but you don't have to make a thing over this.
When I was 10 I still wanted to be a robot.
Give her another few years for life to crush her sense of childlike wonder and she'll be on the same path to being a  miserable twat you are.
Don't worry.

Sometimes, I think it would do academic feminists good to read a little more about sex.

Big Big Love, Revised: A Sex and Relationships Guide for People of Size (and Those Who Love Them) by Hanne Blank (Celestial Arts 2011), recently released in its second edition, is written and marketed as a sex manual for fat people and their partners. 

Ohhh goodness.
Incidentally I got a lot (three entire people!) of positive reviews of that entry where I linked songs from Youtube in an attempt to make a soundtrack for the entry.
I know it's a little late to start doing that for this entry but I think this song is appropriate right now.

And as a sex manual, it’s quite good.  But the reason why I’m reviewing a sex manual on an academic feminist blog is that the book offers a perspective on fat sexuality that you’re unlikely to find in any academic text, and it’s a perspective worth reading.

I try never to think about fat sex, honestly.

The existence of a nuclear family is to a large extent dictated by nature. According to Aristotle (Politics, Book1 part 2) “there must be a union of those who cannot exist without each other; namely, of male and female, that the race may continue (and this is a union which is formed, not of deliberate purpose, but because, in common with other animals and with plants, mankind have a natural desire to leave behind them an image of themselves)”. 

If you think you're smarter than Aristotle I'm here to tell you you're mistaken.
Oh.
She didn't even reference Aristotle after this.
WELL THANKS FOR GETTING ME EXCITED.
This blog is a continuous disappointment.
How can a group of people ignore Zeus' mandate that we should try to be as awesome as we can be this hard?

Ask me five years ago and I’d have told you I’d be first in line to challenge gender stereotypes if ever I had kids myself.  I minored in feminist cultural studies! 

>minoring in feminist cultural studies
Wow it's like you don't want a job or something.

SCIENCE GRRL: Why I’m not worried about China

Uh---
Well, you must either be privy to information no one else is or you are deluuuuuuuusional.

Arne Duncan and I have often held differing opinions when it comes to our children’s education. Considering that he use to run the school system where my seven-year-old attends school, I have years of experience of yelling back at my radio hoping that Duncan hears my cries. In December the results from another international test to gauge where the world’s children rank were released. The USA did not get an A+. Duncan bemoaned our results in math, science and language and pointed towards China as a threat to our intellectual dominance.

But I’m really not that worried about China.

America didn't get an A+ but we do feel best about ourselves so therefore we're still #1.
USA! USA! USA!

No, I’m not happy that our kids had an average score. I’m not happy that we’re losing ground to other countries. What I really am worried about is that this news will fuel a new fervor to copy China’s method of educating our kids. And that’s the real bottom line isn’t it? How do we want to educate our children? What kind of children do we want to raise?

“Successful ones!” I hear you. But how do you define successful?

She's a Chinese spy. That's all there is to it.

The reality is that while China and other countries may be beating us out on standardized tests, the USA is still winning the overall education game. The number of Chinese students coming to the USA for graduate education continues to climb. They come here for the superior educational experience in all fields, including education theory. The USA is winning in terms of innovation and ideas. We may not be making a lot of widgets in this country, but we are overflowing with ideas on what to make, design and invent. I am though in favor of extending the school day, but not to cram in more studying at the expense of their imagination and well-being.

>Extending the school day.
No. It stays the length that it is and additionally I'd make Friday a half day.
I'd encourage more independent learning and actually bring back study skills and teaching them the lost art of patience.
The reality that China beats the US on international testing-- which is a measurement of knowledge before anything else--
is a fact. The belief that China will never beat the US in education is not important. What is important is the fact that China is positioning itself to overwhelm the US on most fronts that matter.
Kicking back and saying "yeah but we're the idea men so it's okay" is akin to handing the title of superpower to the Chinese.
We may be the idea men today but what about tomorrow or the next day or the day after that?
The US is too blinded by this instant gratification nonsense the TV is funneling down your throat and without fail the US population buys into it.
China might be a third world cesspit now but they have a booming population, a growing economy and an increasingly wealthy and educated middle class.
Don't be afraid of them today.
Be afraid of them tomorrow.
Or just keep eating McDonald's and watching TV. Whichever feels good now~
Man fuck this blog.

ᶘᵒᴥᵒᶅ

ᶘᵒᴥᵒᶅ
I'm lazy.

The first sexual and reproductive health centre to offer abortion services on the island of Ireland will open in Belfast next Thursday.

Wow.
The level of fuck I don't give is incredible.

 Kirk Cameron told Liberty University students last week to be brave and speak up when asked about their views on homosexuality and other topics, Right Wing Watch reports.

BIBLE GLASSES.
WHEN YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH A SCIENTIFIC IDEA JUST BREAK OUT YOUR BIBLE GLASSES TO INTERPRET IT.
Brilliant.

A couple in Hong Kong is suing a Boston-area education consultant for the $2 million they say they paid him to get their two sons into top prep schools and, ultimately, an Ivy League university. The suit is seen by some as an example of an "arms race" in education.

This is actually the story I wanted to comment on.
I frankly, like everything I've quoted so far, don't care but the comments are gold:

2. Fuck the whole system (in US and in China and everywhere else in the world) that pressures parents to try to buy their children spots at the top schools. I won't judge these people for doing everything they can to get their boys into the best school possible, but I judge the Hell out of the system that created the impulse.

Well we've eliminated the concept of achievement in the US so we have to separate the wheat from the chaff somehow.
I can't believe the number of classes I've encountered where the concept of failure was so foreign to them they didn't fear not doing the assignment at all.

I know so many people who spent their entire educational careers in private school and who could afford to take the ACT/SAT five times if they needed to and have all of these expensive ECAs and whose well-educated parents helped with their homework who insist that the only reason they are successful is because they worked harder than everyone else and that a "meritocracy" would be totally fair.

A meritocracy by definition isn't fair but it's objectively the best form of government there is.

I don't know who in their right mind would argue a meritocracy is fair since a meritocracy can be summarized by the quote "so according to his ability, so according to his needs" but whatever.

The only people who defend a meritocracy tend to be the best/smartest/whatever anyway so I don't even know why we're discussing this.

The funny thing about a meritocracy is that even if you want one, you can't have one without socialism.

That's fucking stupid and you know it.

People who defend the notion of a meritocracy tend to side with consequentialism anyway so I doubt they'd care how someone got to be the best only that they are the best.

I know personally that's how I view things.

OMG my ex was like that.

"I EARNED ALL OF THIS ON MY OWN!!!!" Nevermind that his parents paid for his car (oh I'm sorry that was his sister's old car so it doesn't count),

Or maybe they do.

If they're stupid.

I know I didn't earn all of my knowledge on my own and I'm grateful to my parents for what they did for me but that doesn't make me not the best at what I do.

God, I hate when people use the argument "I deserve to be rich and give nothing back because I work hard for my money". The woman who cleans your toilet for minimum wage works just as hard as you do, only she gets less for it.

But anyone can clean a toilet.

I'm not saying what she does isn't important or she isn't worth respecting for doing it (Christ, I could barely cut cleaning vegetables) but there is a reason why nurses make more.

It's because you wouldn't want anyone giving you injections.

I'm wondering how the parents got that much money with so little common sense. Simple mathematics should tell them what they were promised was impossible. Harvard has a fknite number of openings. Not everyone who applies is going to get in no matter what. I'm not even buying the "they're foreigners" argument because Hong Kong isn't exactly some back water village. They wanted status more than they wanted the best education, and someone took advantage of their greed.

Yeah why are you people defending Hong Kong in this?

You want to talk about ultra-capitalism, Machiavellian politics and a harsh meritocracy with class struggles stretched back further than the entirety of recorded US history look no further than Hong Kong.

I mean fuck, we're talking about a country where piracy is a major source of income.

Why?

Because it makes money.

Is it morally wrong?

They admit it is but it's what makes cash so whatever.

Am I the only one whose first reaction was, "Wow, what a couple of excessively rich, entitled douche bags" (the parents, not the kids)?

It does sound like they were scammed, and the guy who did it should pay for that. But at the same time, the idea of someone trying to buy their way into Harvard and then being offended because their kids had to go to some other *GASP* *clutches pearls in horror* Ivy League schools instead totally blows my fucking mind.

But by the earlier logic they should have been accepted because they had the most money.

Maybe the wheels of this unfair meritocracy don't grind quite like you think?

Imagine the pressure First and Second Son have been living with their whole lives. I'm guessing there were no As for effort in that home.

I mean should there be?

I'm not going to beat my kid for failing but I'm definitely not pretending like it's the effort that mattered.

Olive Garden, Red Lobster Scale Back Employee Work Hours to Avoid Paying for Health Insurance.

OBAMA CARE.

Though details were scant, the company did say there were no immediate plans to expand the "test," which is aimed at "help[ing] us address the cost implications health care reform will have on our business."

Sliding minimum wage.
I've been saying it for months.

Starting January 2014, when most major provisions of the Affordable Care Act go into effect, companies with over 50 employees will be required to provide health insurance to employees working over 30 hours a week. Companies that flout the law will be fined $3,000 per uncovered employee.

Let me employ my formula to see how much minimum wage should be at one of these fine eating establishments--

He raked in 4.29 million last year.

I'm not going to factor in options and kick backs and all that crap because I do have to go to bed soon--

$18.34 an hour is what I've calculated.

Darden, which, ironically, bills itself as "the world's largest full-service restaurant company," made headlines last year when it started a "tip sharing" program requiring the waitstaff to share its tips with all other employees. According to the Associated Press, "That allows Darden to pay more workers a far lower 'tip credit wage' of $2.13, rather than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour."

And under my administration paying less than 50% of the stated minimum wage equates to slave labor.

Slavery in my country is a capital offense.
Let us hope the next CEO of Darden Restaurants exercises more caution in his economic strategies.

I don't get why companes are so fucking cheap that they will do something like this and screw their own employees.

Oh wait, it's because they're fucking cheap.

You seriously don't get it?
How fucking deluded and sheltered are you?
They do it because they fucking can.

People need actual protection. That's the point of the law. To protect the weak from the strong.

And because they can. :(

People need jobs so badly that they have no choice other than to put up with this kind of crap. Ugh.

And under my system there'd be no need for unions because they're protected by the state.

No union dues, no abuse from the unions--

there'd be no real need to force your employer to pay for healthcare because additional reforms to the healthcare industry itself (actual reforms, not nonsense Obama is deluding people into thinking is a good idea) would ensure any citizen could pay for his or her own healthcare easily--

Places like Red Lobster would only want to hire the best waitstaff and such, ensuring a top quality product from them--

every single person wins under my system.

Elect me emperor now.

It's the trickle down theory.

The only difference is either money or blood trickles down.

TAKE YOUR PICK, FOOLS.

My sister worked at Sonic Drive-In when she was in HS and they did the same thing. Sounds like it's been pretty common for a while.

Sonic minimum wage--

A paltry $7.74. High school work.

Ever since public employers like school districts and colleges were allowed to shift their workforce to unbenefitted hourlies and adjuncts back in the late 80s, there has been a steady erosion of fully-benefitted full time employment. Government practices tend to lead the way. We need a labor movement for the permanent part time/temporarily full time workforce that more and more of us are forced to be a part of.

Don't worry, plebeians: I have already solved all your problems.

If you think my wage solution was radical and brilliant wait until you see how I'm balancing the budget.

Or my science program.

Or my space program.

Anyway time to go now.

FAREWELL, SUBJECTS