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So PBS ran this show last night called Operation Homecoming, a documentary featuring first-hand accounts of American troops who have fought in Southwest Asia.

Here's a print ad for the show, sponsored by a (cough) nameless American company:

What's wrong with this picture?

[H/T DefenseTech, where they give you the answer]

Chicks Is Different From Dudes

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Lawrence Summers says it and loses his job. I'm guessing the same fate won't befall California neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine:

Now her first book, "The Female Brain," which she describes as a kind of owner's manual for women, is due in bookstores next month. Brizendine realizes she's going to take some heat. "I know it's not politically correct to say this," she says, "and I've been torn for years between my politics and what science is telling us. But I believe that women actually perceive the world differently than men. If women attend to those differences, they can make better decisions about how to manage their lives."
Wow. A scientist who can actually separate her politics from her science. Not many of those making the news nowadays - she's a keeper, regardless of what her politics are!

Although the professionally outraged are, well, outraged:

Examining the biological underpinnings of gender difference is bunk, these critics say, because there aren't many. Last year prominent psychologist Janet Hyde examined decades of studies that compared the emotional and behavioral lives of men and women and concluded that most differences between the genders were statistically "close to zero." "There is no gender-difference phenomena to explain," she says.

. . .

Hyde, a psychology and women's studies professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who conducted the meta-analysis of men and women last year, says she's disgusted by scientists, writers and publishers who exploit trivial differences between the genders. Books like this "are bad for my blood pressure," she says. Dr. Nancy C. Andreasen, a psychiatrist and neuroimaging expert at the University of Iowa's medical school, says nurture plays such a huge role in human behavior that focusing on biology is next to meaningless. "Whatever measurable differences exist in the brain," says Andreasen, "are used to oppress and suppress women." [emphasis added]

Nancy, baby, go protest against Newsweek for misspelling 'womyn.'

Update: It would have been a better comparison if I'd originally spelled Summers' name correctly.

[H/T INDCJournal, not like Bill needs it or anything]

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A Firm Grip On The Blatantly Obvious

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But what else do you expect from an Ohio state university?

Divorce hurts bottom line, study says

If you want to build wealth, get married and stay married, according to a study by an [aOsu] researcher.

. . .

. . . study [by an Ohio state university] suggests that, while marriage boosts wealth, divorce can devastate it.

The study, which appears in the current issue of the Journal of Sociology, shows that, on average, married people nearly double their comparative wealth, while divorced people suffer a 77 percent drop in net worth.

Next week, the Astronomy department at aOsu is expected to announce that the earth orbits the sun.

Ladies And Gentlemen, Your New Arbiter Of Speech

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It would appear that Ward "I never met a PC scam I couldn't run" Churchill's rights are better than mine. Via Belmont Club, I bring you this whack-job screed from the alternative-to-reality web hallucination infoslop.org:

Question #4: I'm glad I came here tonight; I've heard a lot more than I heard on the average sound bytes we've been hearing on the radio. I agree with some points, there are other points that I disagree with, but I do believe you have a constitutional right to say what you have to say. On the other hand, do you agree that the First Amendment rights for the people marching in the Columbus Day parade should be taken away, because that is their freedom of expression as well, and I'm one of those people.

Ward Churchill: Let me answer the man. No, I don't believe you have a First Amendment right because that bounces off against my Ninth Amendment right [emphasis added]. You know what my Ninth Amendment rights are? Do you know what the Ninth Amendment says?

Question #4: No, sir.

Ward Churchill: Yeah. Do we have a law professor in here? I think this is a lesson for law school, because I addressed another university auditorium with about this many people in it last week, and I posed the same question to the whole group. Professors, students, townspeople and all, not a soul, including law professors, could tell me what the damn Ninth Amendment said. [laughter] S'pose there might be a reason for that?

Question #4: Sir, sir, sirdoes that negate the First Amendment?

Ward Churchill: No, no, wait a minute; let's get an answer to it.

Audience Member: Basically it says that whatever rights were not given to federal government are given to the states.

Ward Churchill: Actually, wrong, beep. [laughter] What it says, in very close paraphrase, is that all rights not otherwise enumerated herein that are inherent in people are retained by them, OK? You can have a real entertaining time looking at the nature of those rights as articulated, and it can be rather nebulous and it can be debatable, but I'll tell you one place you can look where it's not debatable at all and that's in black letter legal articulation. That goes to human rights, particularly the articulation of international human rights that take the form of ratified treaties. Under Article Six of the Constitution of the United States, those are the supreme law of the land, and among them, are fundamental human dignity, OK? And celebration of the conditions that I was describing as pertaining to native people as an outcome of the process initiated by Christopher Columbus, celebrating that guy in any respect at all is a celebration of those conditions. That's a denial of fundamental human dignity, that's a denial of my Ninth Amendment rights and you don't have a right to do that, and you know exactly what you're doing. [applause]

So his right not to be offended trumps your right to free speech. If you're planning on saying anything publicly, and there's a chance Ward Churchill might be within listening distance, you'd better clear what you want to say with him first.

He's not done, though:

Question #7: I was just wondering, where do you get the gall to call the people who died in 9/11 technocrats, when you sit around and get a $90,000 paycheck from the government you purport to hate?

Ward Churchill: To answer the question, to answer the question ­ yo, he's posed a question, I'll answer the question. And it really goes to the question of "hey, sucker, you consider yourself innocent?" No. You show me where I ever said. What I said was I tend to fly more on these gigs than the average American, making myself more susceptible to being strapped in a passenger seat on a 300,000 pound cruise missile. I've been ­every moment of my adult existence ­ in flat-out opposition, in every way I knew, to the status quo of this country, but I have not changed it. And to that extent, I have not measured up to the responsibility, I am not innocent, and I'm subject to the same penalty, and that's the answer to your question, and you don't get a second. [applause]

Question #7: You do admit your hypocrisy?

Ward Churchill: Sit down. You barely don't understand the language, to understand, that was the opposite of hypocrisy. Over here, sir.
First off, he didn't like the question, so he changed it into one he did like. Secondly, he didn't even answer that question. Thirdly, of course he wasn't going to allow a hostile followup question, and of course that was hypocritcal BS since he'd allowed followups to verbal blowjobs he'd gotten elsewhere in the Q&A (specifically, #6 and #9).

I just wish someone had asked him whether any of his artwork was original.

And Gaia Said, "A Dodo Bird Shall Lead Them..."

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Quick shot today (all my spare time today will go towards finishing my take-home midterm, and the weekend was split between the midterm and a loooooong-overdue repaint of the trim on my house): I've often said that I think vegetarianism is a religion based on guilt, and it's the closest thing to animal worship you'll see in the First World.

Well, I think I've just found their first parochial school. [Hat tip: Porphyrogenitus]

Idiotarian Of The Day

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(via Drudge) I saw this article about a bake sale intended to protest affirmative action:

"Southern Methodist University shut down a bake sale Wednesday in which cookies were offered for sale at different prices, depending on the buyer's race or gender.

The sale was organized by the Young Conservatives of Texas, who said it was intended as a protest of affirmative action.

A sign said white males had to pay $1 for a cookie. The price was 75 cents for white women, 50 cents for Hispanics and 25 cents for blacks.

Members of the conservative group said they meant no offense and were only trying to protest the use of race or gender as a factor in college admissions."

Wow. The idea was ballsy, harsh, and (IMO) just a little bit beyond the bounds of decorum, but they got their point across.

Or maybe not. Congratulations to Matt Houston, 19, a sophomore at SMU, who wins Idiotarian Of The Day for his response:

"They were arguing that affirmative action was solely based on race. It's not based on race. It's based on bringing a diverse community to a certain organization."

So tell me again exactly how that's done?

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