Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let me file that under fuck it.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

The world has changed, and neither one recognizes it.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

The willow is too close to the house.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

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Tudor Cat

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I look at this:

Tudor Cat

And this:

Tudor Cat 1

And ask myself…

Where is Holbein’s portrait of this extraordinary figure?

Tudor Cat 2

I mean…he’s even got a proper ruff!

I was going to write something about the latest in right wing ideology-laundering scam, the Bari Weiss-touted, usual-suspects-promoted University (sic) of Austin. But I’ve tweeted out plenty of snark on that one already, and I can’t bear dwelling on that craptastic paean to an academy safe for straight white men any more.

(I will note that the defenders of the idea seem to me to resemble Aaron Rodgers, not to his undoubted accomplishments on the field, but in his reflex to proclaim his independence by blaming mythical and anonymous lefty hordes for his fuck ups and ethical lapses.)

Better cats than time wasted on such folly.

Here’s a bonus feline moment:

Tudor Cat 3

 

This thread could not be more open.

Reader Interactions

79Comments

  4. 4.

    Tom Levenson

    @sab: She is indeed shameless. Wanton? Post-op, not really.

    She is she-who-must-be-obeyed.

    But you knew that.

  6. 6.

    Omnes Omnibus

    So I have decided that I do not plan to take part in any of the fights over what’s in BBB and whether or not it will pass for the next couple of weeks. We actually know fuck all and will just be projecting our hopes and fears. In other words, it will be useless, frustrating wankery.

  7. 7.

    geg6

    These people realize that they have to be accredited, right? You can’t just say, hey! I’m going to start a university and then you can wallow in all that sweet, sweet Title IV and/or VA funding. And they do get that any degree they confer has to have value and it has none unless they accredited, don’t they. They get all this, right?

  9. 9.

    Salty Sam

    I just heard about “The University of Austin” today.  As I’m living back in Austin now, I think I’ll go check out the campus, maybe pledge to a frat- I’ll bet the keggers  will be epic!

  10. 10.

    Suzanne

    I want a KIDS GOT THE SHOT thread — just got back from getting Spawn her shot! — and I want a Tikka sticker. He’s lovely.

  12. 12.

    germy

    I am proud to announce that I, along with Bari Weiss, Conceptual James, and Bret Weinstein am joining the board of a new school: Thiel University. It's on a floating city in international waters, far from the watchful eye of woke American law enforcement.

    — New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) November 8, 2021

  14. 14.

    gvg

    I tried googling renaissance paintings of cats and got sidetracked by this non ren painting My Wife’s Lovers by Carl Kahler. 42 cats owned by a rich woman in the 1800. Her husband is said to have named the painting.

    The first hit was 2 cats hiding under the table at the last supper by Alessandro Allori.

    Apparently abstract artists did some cats. Not to my taste hobestly.

  20. 20.

    dmsilev

    @geg6: 

    These people realize that they have to be accredited, right?

    They, or at least some of them, know that, but are relying on the fact that their marks don’t. See: University, Trump.

  21. 21.

    Scout211

    I read about that new  “university.”  A for-profit university that has no degrees is really what we all need right now.  ?

  23. 23.

    dmsilev

    @Burnspbesq: The number of red flags in that story, it’s like a Moscow May Day parade:

    The University of Austin, a private liberal arts school, is planning to open soon in the state’s capital in response to what some perceive as a culture of censorship on college campuses. But it still needs accreditation, a physical location and an undergraduate program.

    The University of Austin, also known by its abbreviation UATX, is not offering degrees and does not plan to offer an undergraduate degree program until at least 2024. The school is still in the process of securing land in the Austin area for a physical campus, and it is seeking millions in donations for scholarships and to help establish its programs.

    The institution has received the funds to launch the university, but officials are looking to secure about $250 million more, according to the website. It said the school will be creating a funding model that “reverses higher ed’s lopsided priorities of building up a bureaucracy,” including streamlining or outsourcing student affairs, athletics and other “extraneous services.”

  24. 24.

    debbie

    Betty C’s post about red states’ COVID-19 death rates being three times higher than blue states would make even Thomas Cromwell crack a smile.

  26. 26.

    Scout211

    @Suzanne:

    But I am specifically requesting that someone makes a sticker of THAT Tikka photo. He reminds me of my dearly departed Scout.

    Isn’t Maze Dancer the maker of the stickers? Maybe email WaterGirl for the request?

    Our dearly departed Scout was a sweet, sweet black lab. My nym is for her.

  29. 29.

    eclare

    @Omnes Omnibus:  Same here.  I am also avoiding shows like Morning Joe, which I sometimes watch depending on the guests.

    As I said before, I trust that Nancy, Chuck, and Joe will do their best.  Not much more I can do, my rep will vote for whatever Nancy proposes, and no amount of calls will move my two senators.

  32. 32.

    Sister Golden Bear

    GQP going full-on Radio Ruwanda now.

    Paul Gosar Tweets Anime Video Of Himself Killing AOC

    and

    NC Lt Gov: Conservatives Must Get “Warlike” Because Your Enemies Are Ready To “Cut Your Throats”

    Folks, these people are the enemies of freedom. They’re the enemy. They’re your enemies. And all those politicians out there that may be listening to me—especially on the state and federal level—stop trying to get along with people who hate you.

    The only thing they want from you is for you to disappear. They don’t want to work with you. They want to work with you long enough for you to turn your back so they can cut your throats.

    More projection than a multiplex IMAX theater.

  34. 34.

    Burnspbesq

    @dmsilev:

    This is Texas; you can’t treat athletics as “extraneous.” At a minimum, UA will have to have a bad Division 3 football team that will be trampled by the likes of Mary Hardin Baylor and Sul Ross State.

  39. 39.

    eclare

    @Salty Sam:  You can stand around the keg, discuss Ayn Rand, and wistfully dream of destroying Medicare/Medicaid.  Just like Paul Ryan did in college.

    Like normal college guys do.

  40. 40.

    Almost Retired

    On the other hand, many of those whose portraits were painted by Holbein were ultimately beheaded.  I think the cats would have sensed that, and refused to pose.

    ETA:  Seeing the Holbein exhibit at the Getty this weekend.

  41. 41.

    Gravenstone

    @tom: I’m always reminded that my last HS English teacher was a newly minted Hillsdale College grad when she started at our school. I don’t think they had gone fully wingnut 40 years ago.

  42. 42.

    Joe Falco

    So I follow a YouTube series, Tasting History by Max Miller. I watched his most recent video on making parkin from a 1915 recipe. Parkin is an English gingerbread treat traditionally made for Bonfire Night (Nov 5),  but I made mine today because I could not find the necessary ingredients in time (I found a store in Norcross, GA that sells imported British items). Parkin is supposed to sit for a few days to achieve the stickiness it’s meant to be. We will see how it turns out then!

    Link to video: youtu.be/oQVCBWZSdnY

  43. 43.

    Baud

    @dmsilev:

    in response to what some perceive as a culture of censorship on college campuses.

     
    If history is any guide, many students will be kicked out for having views that are heretical to conservatives.

  45. 45.

    West of the Rockies

    Yes, indeed, Paul Gosar Tweeted an anime clip of him killing AOC.

    I’d love to see the news story that begins, “Sad news out of Arizona where Covid 19 has contracted Paul Gosar…”

  51. 51.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Their arrogance about public schools is offensive. It’s hard to run a solid public school. There’s a lot of competing interests and a LOT that is out of the control of the school. It’s fun for substack essayists to cherrypick things that make all the people who do that work look stupid, like they’re idiots, but it’s mean spirited and unfair. The worst part about the internet is how everyone believes they can not only easily do someone else’s job, but do it better.

    Bari Weiss can go try to run a high poverty public school district. Try it during two years of an unprecedented worldwide pandemic where you’re responsible for not only students, but whether your decisions infect their entire family, and get back to me.

    They don’t respect the work that other people do. That’s what “experience” is- it’s the work people did. She doesn’t have any.

  55. 55.

    TxTiger

    In summer 2022, the institution plans to offer a summer college program called Forbidden Courses, in which students will discuss “provocative questions that often lead to censorship or self-censorship.”

    I wonder if they will teach critical race theory in that case? It’s forbidden here in Texas.

  61. 61.

    persistentillusion

    @tom: One of my best friends growing up audited a class at Hillsdale for yuks and succeeded in scandalizing real students by wearing a Mr Pib watch.

    Tiny-brained little fundies all, she reported.

  63. 63.

    Montanareddog

    @Cameron:

    Beware, all ye who wank, for ye shall have wanked in vain

    Speaking of which, I saw tonight that Jeffrey Toobin has returned as on-air “talent” on CNN. We watched carefully and, fortunately, he kept both hands in shot during his segment.

  64. 64.

    trollhattan

    @Sister Golden Bear: ​
     Wait, what?
    A seated congressman published a simulation of himself killing another seated congressman? Are there no rules about this sort of thing? N.B. I am not asking if he’s ashamed of himself. We all know the answer.

  65. 65.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Kay: None of the professors with tenure at accredited universities  involved with this scam have resigned their positions at those accredited universities. That tells you everything you need to know.

  70. 70.

    Dan B

    @trollhattan: And the video ends with his flying at Biden while flashing two swords.  Dude needs a Secret Service visit.  And a trip with them in a vehicle with bars.

  71. 71.

    Tom Levenson

    @NotMax: Deep Springs is an amazing place. I’ve got a couple of friends who went there.

    My son laughed at me when I suggested he look into it.

    But yeah: intensive great-books-and-experiental learning is not a new idea.

    The U of Austin folks are asshole bozos. Or bozo assholes.

  72. 72.

    Kay

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Gordon Gee, longtime college prez and adviser to the University of Austin, distances himself from the organization’s key claims: “I do not agree other universities are no longer seeking the truth nor do I feel that higher education is irreparably broken.”

    He does not agree with their big grandiose statement and reason for existing.

    What AMAZING arrogance. A blanket statement that tens of thousands of people are “no longer seeking the truth”

    Who raises these fucking people, to be like this?

  73. 73.

    tom

    @Kay:  Ah, yes, Gordon “Golly” Gee, former president of THE Ohio State University, who said after yet another football scandal, “I’m just hoping the coach [Jim Tressel] doesn’t dismiss me”.

  74. 74.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Kay: I’m pretty sure they’re grown in labs and decanted.

    Bari Weiss is a severely narcissistic sociopath. The others are all as bad as their reputations indicate.

    I walked away from academia for a number of reasons. I felt like I could never do enough for the students that really need my help and I could never make more time because of the students that didn’t, but were coasting. I also refused to go along with my over controlling department chair’s pay for play masters degree scheme and his orders to fix students’ grades, including student athletes. His racism, anti-Semitism despite being Jewish, Islamophobia, and xenophobia were also contributing factors. But the reality is that universities aren’t indoctrination centers and the only faculty I knew who were intolerant of either students’ views, their colleagues, or both were either politically, socially, and/or religiously conservatives.

    The real problem in student-faculty interaction when it happens, which is often the same real problem in faculty interaction with people that aren’t faculty members themselves, is that the faculty spend all their time with students. Students who aren’t fully formed adults, who aren’t fully formed researchers or scholars, or fully formed anything else. And when you do that, at the end of each day, it is easy to come away with delusions of intellectual superiority. The best faculty don’t succumb to this. The worst always do. You’ll notice that Bari Weiss, Niall Ferguson, and the others involved with Weiss’s new scam all have demonstrated this problem repeatedly.

  77. 77.

    Ol'Froth

    I graduated from the same high school Bari Weiss did.  I wish they’d rescind her diploma.

  78. 78.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @Roger Moore: They are both by Hans Holbein, which I think Tom referred to (as Holbien lacking a painting of a cat).  The first one is Thomas Cromwell, the second is Thomas More.

  79. 79.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @Almost Retired:Oooh, I hadn’t heard about that.  We’re going down to LA for Thanksgiving with family.  Maybe I can sneak out and see it!

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