Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

So many bastards, so little time.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Wait, what?

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

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

No Strikes and You’re Out

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Radley Balko has a piece in the WaPo about the insanity of approach to underage drinking laws, and how MADD is encouraging underhanded and offensive police behavior.

And, if you don’t understand what kind of ‘liberties’ the police are taking to fight underage drinking, read this piece. (via Radley Balko):

Saginaw Valley State University honors student Katie Platte was 19 last year when Thomas Township Police in Saginaw County asked her and some friends to take the test, which gives an indication of a person’s blood-alcohol level. She faced a $100 fine if she refused.

“I don’t think it’s fair for young people to have to choose between a $100 fine and an invasion of privacy,” said Platte, who wasn’t drinking. “With this, you’re guilty until proven innocent.”

Another plaintiff in the suit, Ashley Berden, was forced to take a Breathalyzer when Thomas Township Police showed up at her family’s home at 4 a.m. because she had left her purse at a high school graduation party that was later busted by police, the ACLU said. The test showed the 18-year-old hadn’t been drinking.

The ACLU says Michigan is the only state in the country where pedestrians under age 21 can’t refuse an alcohol test if police don’t have a search warrant.

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And Then You Have This

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My favorite group of anti-heroes are up to their usual hijinks:

Is My Child Becoming Homosexual?

Before puberty, children aren’t normally heterosexual or homosexual. They’re definitely gender conscious. But young children are not sexual beings yet — unless something sexual in nature has interrupted their developmental phases.

Still, it’s not uncommon for children to experience gender confusion during the elementary school years. Dr. Joseph Nicolosi reports, “In one study of 60 effeminate boys ages 4 to 11, 98 percent of them engaged in cross-dressing, and 83 percent said they wished they had been born a girl.”

Evidences of gender confusion or doubt in boys ages 5 to 11 may include:

1. A strong feeling that they are “different” from other boys.

2. A tendency to cry easily, be less athletic, and dislike the roughhousing that other boys enjoy.

3. A persistent preference to play female roles in make-believe play.

This is my personal favorite:

5. A susceptibility to be bullied by other boys, who may tease them unmercifully and call them “queer,” “fag” and “gay.”

Your son might be gay if other little boys tease him. The guide also has some warning signs for later on in adolescense:

Evidence of gender confusion in boys age 12-20 may include:

1.) A preference for show tunes, foot rubs, and slow nights watching Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

2.) Ownership of quiche cookbooks.

3.) An appreciation of art.

4.) Good table and phone manners.

5.) Ownership of a ‘gay’ automobile.

Ok. I may have made those up. At any rate, Sadly, No! has the details, and notes that you better pay attention to these signs and act quick “before he buys his first Cher album.”

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How Osama Got Away

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Rather than offer you an outright condemnation of Bush based on a blurb from a book that has not yet been released, I would direct you to this excellent summary of the War in Afghanistan in the CS Monitor:

It was a war like no other. In an evolutionary leap powered by Information Age technology, US ground soldiers were mainly employed as observers, liaisons, and spotters for air power – not as direct combatants sent to occupy a foreign land. The success of the US was dazzling, save for the fight for Tora Bora, which may have been this unconventional war’s most crucial battle. For the US, Tora Bora wasn’t about capturing caverns or destroying fortifications – it was about taking the world’s most wanted terrorist “dead or alive.”

In retrospect, it becomes clear that the battle’s underlying story is of how scant intelligence, poorly chosen allies, and dubious military tactics fumbled a golden opportunity to capture bin Laden as well as many senior Al Qaeda commanders.

Moreover, as the US military conducts new strikes with its Afghan allies in nearby Paktia Province, sends special forces into Southeast and Central Asia – and prepares for a possible military plunge into Iraq – planners will need to learn the lessons of Tora Bora: Know which local leaders to trust. Know when to work with allied forces on the ground. And know when to go it alone. “Maybe the only lesson that is applicable is: whenever you use local forces, they have local agendas,” says one senior Western diplomat, now looking at options for invading Iraq. “You had better know what those are so that if it is not a reasonable match – at least it is not a contradiction.”

While Bush is President and ultimately responsible for the escape of Bin Laden, statements that this is “Bush’s fault” are facile, stupid, and should be ignored. I am aware that the distinction between being responsible for something and being to blame for something is as hopelessly blurred in politics as the difference between being wrong and lying about something, so I doubt there will be honest efforts in the blogosphere to really examine this issue. At any rate, I would recommend this article as a starting point for an examination of the war in Afghanistan and bin Laden’s escape.

The fascinating report concludes with this bit:

“There appears to be a real disconnect between what the US military was engaged in trying to do during the battle for Tora Bora – which was to destroy Al Qaeda and the Taliban – and the earlier rhetoric of President Bush, which had focused on getting bin Laden,” says Charles Heyman, editor of Jane’s World Armies. “There are citizens all over the Middle East now saying that the US military couldn’t do it – couldn’t catch Osama – while ignoring the fact that the US military campaign, apart from not capturing Mr. bin Laden was, up the that point, staggeringly effective.”

Via the comments, this map of the area in question. The closer together the ‘brown lines’ (contour intervals), the steeper the incline. I can’t find the legend, so I don’t know what the intervals are, but suffice it to say that is STEEP in a lot of the region. Here is a little primer on land nav and map-reading, which was one of my absolute favorite things to do in the military.

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The Kids Are Alright

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The test scores are all wrong. The kids aren’t stupid- they are just smart enough to know when something doesn’t matter:

The fact that 8-year-olds and 17-year-olds have different attitudes toward low-pressure exams isn’t going to come as a surprise to anyone who has raised a teenager—or has been one. The NAEP is used to judge school systems and overall student performance, but the test doesn’t matter at all to individual kids. In 2002 nearly half of the 17-year-olds tapped to take the national NAEP exam didn’t bother to show up. Students who did show up left more essay questions than multiple-choice questions blank, an indication that they weren’t going to be bothered to venture an answer if it required effort.

The “who cares?” phenomenon probably plagues older students’ performance on international exams, too. Granted, kids in Japan and the United Kingdom don’t pay a personal price for how they do on global tests, either. But cultural pressures can be very different in other countries. Korean schools have staged rallies to rev their children up before they take international assessments. And Germany created a national “PISA Day” to mark the date when 15-year-olds take the exam that will rank them against students in other countries. The U.S. Department of Education, meanwhile, has a hard time convincing principals to administer voluntary international tests at all.

The dubiousness of these test results becomes clear when you compare them to the results of tests that actually do matter for teenagers: high-school exit exams and college boards. Nineteen states now require their students to pass assessments before they can don a cap and gown; seven others are testing students but not yet withholding diplomas. When states begin imposing penalties for failure, it makes a difference—sometimes a big one. Look at Texas: In 2004, results counted toward graduation for the first time, and pass rates on both the math and English portions of the test leapt almost 20 points. According to Julie Jary, who oversees student assessment for the state, no substantive alterations were made to the test. What changed was students’ motivation: When their diplomas were hanging in the balance, they managed to give more correct answers.

And yet another aspect of educational testing I had never thought about.

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Don’t Let The Door…

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Score one for having the courage of your convictions:

A controversial Islamic cleric has left the UK for the Middle East, his spokesman has said, amid speculation he would be investigated for treason.

Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed – former head of radical group Al Muhajiroun – left on Saturday for Lebanon, his colleague Anjem Choudary told the BBC.

Tony Blair had warned Mr Mohammed’s organisation faced a potential ban under new anti-terrorism measures.

Mr Choudary said the cleric believed “Britain had declared war on Muslims”.

The news came as it was revealed police and lawyers were to consider whether some outspoken Islamist radicals could face treason charges.

This is a rather odious chap, and I hope they have a way to keep an eye on him. At the very least, they will be monitoring this:

The cleric had said his followers would soon be able to “access him” with a planned new presence on the internet and that the British people would hear from him soon.

Asked if Bakri Mohammed had gone because he feared being either deported or prosecuted for his militant views, Mr Choudary said: “He was not afraid to stay behind [in the UK] for any reason at all. It’s a case of him being able to practice his religion.

“But he has always said that if the British people did not want him to stay, then he would go.”

When your ‘religion’ is encouraging people to attack and murder innocent citizens, it isn’t too shocking that your host country may not be very tolerant.

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Dumbest Persyn On the InterTrons

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Amanda Marcotte.

Read my original post. Read the moronic response. And I mean moronic in the most gender neutral manner possible.

That, folks, is what it looks like when you take the short yellow bus to your Womyn’s Studies classes.

A.) I never advocated the study was accurate. Lindsay Beyerstein claims it is.
B.) I did state that it was anti-intellectual to jump the gun and call a study sexist before having read it.
C.) I think the re-writes of the study that appeared in the Scotsman and elsewhere are crap.
D.) Calling a study ‘cute,’ ‘self-serving,’ and ‘sexist,’ before even reading it is anti-intellectualism.
F.) Only in the weird world of Amanda Marcotte is having one author of a website ‘suggesting’ something to the other author an attempt to ‘control the womenfolk.’

The Scotsman article was stupid and a load of bullshit. So was Amanda’s response, to simply dismiss the study because of the article, without having read the actual study. And her utter inability to recognize that, and to simply launch into another one of her public displays of victimhood is precisely what I meant when I described her as a ‘feminist caricature.’

At least Amanda and I agree on one thing- there are many ‘layers of stupid’ here. I doubt we agree where those layers start and end.

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