This poster ought to be grounds for impeachment

Here’s the state of the American government:

Louie Gohmert displayed that on the floor of congress — an uninterpretable tangle of lines and random words and odd logos, all with the intent of somehow indicting Hillary Clinton in a non-scandal. This is where we’re at. Louie Gohmert, in the running for the dumbest person in congress. A bullshit chart. A ridiculous conspiracy theory. And we’re helpless — we have no mechanism for prying the reins of power out of the hands of dangerous idiots.

Post-modern neo-Marxist cultural Marxists are coming to get you!

Jordan Peterson is a colossal ass — an ignoramus who has become a professor of psychology and uses his tiny sliver of specific knowledge to grant him the authority to pontificate on every other field, about which he knows nothing. He’s putting together a website that will tell you how wrong, as determined by him, your college classes are.


They can use the website to distinguish between people who are credible and people who aren’t and maybe we can drop the damn enrollment in those horrible courses by 75% over the next three years … it’s in their best interest both, I would say, spiritually and economically to avoid those courses and those disciplines like the plague and then maybe we can get the disciplines that have become entirely corrupt and the ones that started that way to put themselves back together before they run themselves out of existence completely, and I might as well name a few of the disciplines that i think are particularly reprehensible to begin with … So, as I said already, women’s studies, and all the ethnic studies and racial studies, studies groups, man, those things have to go and the faster they go the better. It would have been better if they had never been part of the university to begin with as far as I can tell. Sociology, that’s corrupt. Anthropology, that’s corrupt. English literature, that’s corrupt. Maybe the worse offenders are the faculties of education.

I’ve got some rather awkward news for him: there are biologists (I’m not one of them) who think psychology is worthless and corrupt. There are physicists who think biology is trivial and useless — “stamp collecting”, I think they called it. A good scholar recognizes that there are domains of knowledge in which we lack expertise, and that our ignorance is not an indictment of the field.

And look at what he wants to get rid of! Women’s, ethnic, and racial studies — does he think that those groups don’t have unique problems and perspectives? Does he believe that White Man is the standard by which all should be measured?

Sociology, anthropology, and English literature have to go? Is he insane? These are rigorous disciplines in important subjects. That they are too difficult for Jordan Peterson to understand does not mean they are invalid.

And my god, he despises education faculty? He’s got a job at the University of Toronto. He is supposed to be an educator. Part of his responsibility is teaching, and teaching well, or he’s got no right to be a member of a distinguished university. His only pedagogical technique seems to involve standing up and stammering out bigotry at an audience — an audience of like-minded assholes who applaud in contempt of genuine academic disciplines, by the way.

I’m just trying to imagine an institution of higher learning where he got his way. At my university, we expect students to acquire some breadth of knowledge. We require students to take courses in literature, history, sociology, the arts, even — I know, it’s hard to believe — psychology, a discipline that must be corrupt if it tolerates this jerkwad. If we demolished all those other disciplines that are so essential to developing our students as well-rounded, comprehensive citizens of the world, they’d be reduced to inane Jordan Peterson clones and the kind of people who write for the Morris North Star (I notice they don’t care much for sociology, either).

Let’s call Peterson what he is: an anti-intellectual. He’s stupid and proud of it, and he’d like everyone else to be as stupid as he is, which is why he wants to destroy so many worthy and important academic disciplines. He’s a neurasthenic Rush Limbaugh, and about as well informed. I wouldn’t even trust him in his own field of psychology.

But he’s part of a rising wave of anti-intellectual barbarism, and he’s profiting well from it. He’s making half a million dollars a year from his gullible alt-right fans!

This is an effective strategy, though: create a boogeyman populated with shadowy figures out of your audience’s paranoid imaginations, and convince them to throw money at you for batting them away. We saw the same thing with the bullshit specter of “cultural Marxism”, a non-existent movement that was conjured from whole cloth by right-wing know-nothings.

Oh god, the Morris North Star

They’ve come out with another issue of their dreadful alternative campus newspaper. Although I fear that disclosing these facts may harm the reputation of our students, I must, in the interest of openness and transparency, reveal that some of our students seem to lack basic skills in logic, reason, grammar, and spelling, as well as being politically regressive and lacking in empathy for others.

I blame the high schools. Or possibly the home schools. I have this dream that a four year education in a public liberal arts college might fix some of these problems.

However, in response to an accusation that their previous issue exhibited a poor understanding of biology and sociology, they offer this embarrassing defense.

I can assure you that with many biology majors contributing to the paper, we are more than well equipped in the biology department and they ask you to remember that personal thoughts and opinions don’t contribute to scientific evidence. As for sociology, we dont have anyone currently on staff with a background in brainwashed jargon.

So I guess UMM biologists are partly to blame. We’ll try to do better in the future.

If you want to see the depth of the ignorance we’re working against, here’s one example: an article that attempts to vindicate Christopher Columbus and salvage his reputation. I won’t include the whole thing because I’ve already dealt myself a savage dent in my forehead with just these short excerpts.

Here’s one argument that Columbus wasn’t really so bad — he didn’t actually murder any Americans, you know, indigenous people who lived within the modern boundaries of the United States of America, which is the only True America, and the only America that counts.

First, contrary to popular belief, Christopher Columbus didn’t discover America and never harmed a single Native American. Columbus actually spent most of his time sailing around islands that make up the modern day South America like modern day Haiti and Dominican Republic. While it is true that Columbus and his crew slaughtered the island’s native people, his captain’s log and maps documenting his travels prove he never entered the modern day United States and therefore never harmed a Native American.

I just want to point out that America includes North, Central, and South America. Even Canada is part of the North American continent, and that “Native Americans” refers to people who live all over the Western Hemisphere.

Do only people who live in one specific region of one specific continent count as “people”? That admission that Columbus and his crew slaughtered the island’s native people, while excusing it because they didn’t live within our current borders, sounds so…Republican.

The tribes were also far behind the entire world in terms of technology, shockingly enough the wheal was still not used until England colonized it.

Yes. He misspelled “wheel”.

America was not built on genocide like some people would like you to believe. The tribes were hostile towards them because of their pale skin and attacked them. Eventually tribes warmed up to the pale faces and started trading with them, one of the most popular trade items were guns. The tribes that had guns would then kill rival tribes that only had stone tomahawks and take their land. Most native americans didn’t even die of war but from diseases.

Truly, a remarkable bit of projection. Indians were the bigoted ones who attacked blameless Europeans for the color of their skins. Then white people generously traded with the natives, who chose to get guns and kill each other. Disease wiped out the rest. Europeans didn’t kill Indians, it was all a result of Indian on Indian crime!

You’re going to have to trust me on this. Most of our students aren’t this terrible.

Maybe this is what’ll kill the alt right

It seems that appealing to a sense of morality doesn’t work, but maybe capitalism will stop the Nazis. Richard Spencer and his National Policy Institute rented a venue at the University of Florida for their rally.

The check bounced.

When you’re selling to Nazis, you definitely need to get the cash up front. Also, I’d recommend a great big security deposit.

Open Thread on yesterday’s election

It just goes to show what you can do with a motivated electorate. There was a high voter turnout, but Democrats turned out in greater numbers than Republicans to repudiate the Trump agenda. That’s promising for the future, but we have to remember that we can’t always vote against a bad thing, we have to be just as motivated to go to the polls for a good thing, and that’s where Democrats tend to fail.

So what local things feel like a personal triumph for you? The city of Morris passed a school bond issue to get our high school repaired and maintained, something that has been neglected for too long. I think responsible maintenance of our infrastructure is a great positive thing Democrats can stand for.

I’d also like to call for better, more equal representation in local and state government. Republicans have gerrymandered and suppressed voters to set up a system where their party is stacked with white men, and our leadership does not look like our communities. Let’s change that!

He lost me at “electoral appeal”. I just don’t get it.

Boris Johnson gets disemboweled on the pages of the New Statesman.

Boris Johnson is a singular and unorthodox politician whose electoral appeal transcends traditional party lines. He is charismatic and funny, cultured and erudite, yet blessed with the common touch. He is a wonderful wordsmith, even if he often uses words to deceive and dissemble.

Those talents served him admirably in his role as merrymaker-in-chief while he was mayor of London, but they do not remotely qualify him to govern the UK during a gathering national crisis that he did so much to engender. Nor do I accept the contention that “Boris is Boris” and should therefore be exempted from all the customary rules of personal and political conduct.

Strip away the bluster and bonhomie, and you are left with a chaotic, mendacious, philandering, egotistical, disloyal and thoroughly untrustworthy charlatan driven by ambition and self-interest. Or, as the BBC broadcaster Eddie Mair once put it, “a nasty piece of work”.

You could say the same thing about the American president, except that you don’t even have to strip away any “charismatic and funny, cultured and erudite” aspects of his character, since they aren’t there. But now I have to wonder…how do buffoons like this get elected to high office?

There’s going to be an international incident, isn’t there?

Our Prezdent is off on a grand tour of Asia, scoping out golf courses and meeting with his boss, Putin. We can get a taste of his diplomacy from comments he made last year after North Korea launched a few missiles.

Trump questioned Japan’s decision not to shoot down the missiles when he met or spoke by phone with leaders from Southeast Asian countries over recent months to discuss how to respond to the threats from North Korea, the sources said.

The U.S. president said he could not understand why a country of samurai warriors did not shoot down the missiles, the sources said.

He’s probably wondering right now why he wasn’t greeted by geisha girls and kabuki performers in Tokyo.

We’re all going to die, aren’t we?

So…oblivious and hypocritical Canadians exist?

It’s too bad. The majority of the citizens of the nation to my north seem so nice, and they managed to avoid our kind of political embarrassment, so it’s jarring to see some individuals who are total jerks.

Like Andrew Scheer.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer is criticizing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for praising Gov. Gen. Julie Payette in the wake of Payette’s suggestion that “divine intervention” did not play a role in the creation of life on Earth.

It is extremely disappointing that the prime minister will not support Indigenous peoples, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Christians and other faith groups who believe there is truth in their religion, Scheer said in a statement posted to Facebook.

Respect for diversity includes respect for the diversity of religious beliefs, and Justin Trudeau has offended millions of Canadians with his comments‎.

Hang on there, Andy. You’ve just mentioned a bunch of groups, Indigenous peoples, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Christians and other faith groups who hold mutually incompatible beliefs about the nature of the universe, and who openly express their beliefs in the public square. Do you think Christians ought to shut up about Jehovah and Jesus because it might offend those who believe in Wakan Tanka? Or is the only group you’d like to silence the atheists? Or how about those millions of Canadian atheists? Should they be offended when you pray to your nonexistent deity as part of official business?

Speaking as an atheist myself, I can disagree and find some beliefs stupid and silly without being offended, and without demanding that people’s beliefs be suppressed.

Also, here’s another Bad Canadian, Jordan Peterson. He’s personally dragging down the reputation of Canada single-handedly. His latest? He is doxxing students who organize rallies to protest his speeches, and siccing his mob of happy fascists on them.

The event, “The Stifling of Free Speech on University Campuses,” would have featured prominent conservative speakers. The planned protest rally posed a potential threat if the two groups were to clash, and Ryerson University felt that it did not have proper security for the event. In one of his tweets, Peterson called the protest’s student organizers “communists (really).”

One of the students’ profiles is no longer publicly available on Facebook. The other student, Christeen Elizabeth, has chosen to keep hers available. She feels Peterson’s action should not be taken as a threat, but rather as validation. “When he doxxed me, he validated me,” she said. “He validated everything that I was saying.”

Elizabeth has received extensive hate mail and harassment via Facebook, some of which have bordered on death threats. “These are his fans,” said Elizabeth. “These are the people he’s pandering to. This is why I take issue.”

Oh. Those two students have managed to rescue the reputation of Canadians everywhere. Good on you, Christeen Elizabeth! Hang in there, silenced student!

11 minute hero

I guess Donald Trump’s twitter account was suspended for a brief 11 minutes yesterday evening — a departing employee took a moment to give us a fleeting respite from the flatulence erupting from the White House. But of course, Twitter was quick to declare this a mistake and to switch the ass-trumpet back on, because they love their popular fascists.

Twitter took responsibility for the outage. In a tweeted statement, the company said Trump’s account was “inadvertently deactivated due to human error” by one of its employees. The account was unreachable for 11 minutes.

Twitter later said the deactivation “was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee’s last day.”

That ex-employee deserves praise for doing what the Twitter management is incapable of doing.

Isn’t it about time we left Twitter en masse for a more responsible service?

The politics of resentment

Do you want to know how a corrupt, incompetent, sleazy plutocrat and reality TV show host became president of the United States? It’s not because he’s doing good things for some underclass, or because he’s representing the under-represented, or even because the Russians told people to vote for him. It’s actually because a lot of resentful white people felt like waving a middle finger at everyone. Here’s a beautiful example of that phenomenon, the ‘hobby’ of “rolling coal”, that is, tricking out your truck so you can make it spew dirty black clouds of smoke at people.

Entire dissertations could be written about rolling coal. Even more than Trump’s ascension, it seems to perfectly capture a moment in time, an inarticulate yawp of protest from angry white men. They feel disdained and overlooked and they will blow thick black smoke in your face until you pay attention.

There’s no faux nostalgia involved. Unlike with, say, hunting, there’s no tale of rugged rural self-sufficiency to draw on. This is not some sturdy heartland tradition with which meddlesome elites want to interfere.

Rolling coal is new; it just caught on a few years ago. It does not improve the performance of a truck. It has no practical application or pragmatic purpose of any kind. It is purely aggressive, a raw expression of defiance: I can pollute your air, for no reason, and no one can stop me.

It makes sense. Donald Trump is the political equivalent of just vomiting disgusting sludge on people.

This is not rational. They’re spending thousands of dollars to modify their trucks to be less efficient, just to spite people.

But to diesel owners like Corey Blue of Roanoke, Ill., the very efforts to ban coal rolling represent the worst of government overreach and environmental activism. Your bill will not stop us! Mr. Blue wrote to Will Guzzardi, a state representative who has proposed a $5,000 fine on anyone who removes or alters emissions equipment.

Why don’t you go live in Sweden and get the heck out of our country, Mr. Blue wrote. I will continue to roll coal anytime I feel like and fog your stupid eco-cars.

Remember this when they start babbling about freedom. It’s only freedom for them, and they’re not going to tolerate the freedom of others to drive a more efficient and ecologically sound vehicle, like a Prius…and some like to fog bicyclists as well.