STUMP » Articles » Down with the Struggle: Survey of Current Dumbassery » 6 June 2015, 06:23

I’m still de-numberifying (sure it’s a word), so let me hit up a variety of dumbass stories making the rounds.

RUBIO’S TRAFFIC TICKETS

This is probably not the lamest of opposition research, but it is up there. Woowee, Marco Rubio and his wife have racked up some tickets in twenty years. Rubio came in for four himself.

But the hilarious part of this whole thing is that the NYTimes didn’t realize that other people could check who was pulling the info.

Either the Free Beacon is wrong, or the New York Times is flat-out lying in order to hide the fact that American Bridge — David Brock’s Hillary PAC — is behind their smear against Hillary’s likeliest opponent’s wife.

Now, if the New York Times used a “document retrieval service,” surely it can cough up records of this electronic exchange.

Dylan Byers at politico says he will offer more information about this “document retrieval service” when the New York Times provides it to him.

So far— nothing.

Yeah. (Later, they claimed that some doc service not listed in the records pulled the info. I’m sure we’ll find out how they managed to do that.)

Now, I could get into some of my own stories where I caught who was looking at what files/webpages, and here’s a nice story about people snooping on your web-browsing re:health, but my fave examples come from being someone who has dealt with kids for years (even before I had my own.)

Kids do not realize how adults know what they’ve done sometimes. I’m not talking about two-year-olds who may be unclear on the concept that when mama is looking right at you, she can see your hand in the cookie jar, even if they shut their own eyes. The Bugblatter Beast of Traal does not actually exist.

Just that I’ve dealt with teenagers who do not realize that yes, adults were once that age and remember the tricks, and more importantly, know how to detect many of the tricks.

It’s pretty clear the NYT guys took a copy of the info from David Brock’s guys and thought they could just pass it off as original research. Given Brock’s guys weren’t going to go public with the fact they were feeding oppo research to media, who would know?

Oh right, if you access public records, there’s a record of that.

Oooopsie.

Anyway, the reactions I’ve seen around the blogosphere:

• Rubio’s wife is hot
• That doesn’t sound like a lot of tickets in 20 years
• #WaronWomen! How dare they point out how craptastic Mrs. Rubio is at driving!
• When was the last time Hillary drove? 1996? Wait… all these tickets are after Hillary stopped driving
• This is all they could find?
• So wrongdoing by spouses is fair game, right?

And here is a coming NYT feature story on Rubio.

Once, nytimes</a>, Marco Rubio, at the age of six, picked a booger and ate it, and was sent to the office by his teacher. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RubioCrimeSpree?src=hash">#RubioCrimeSpree</a></p>&mdash; Yes, Nick Searcy! (yesnicksearcy) June 5, 2015

They’re going to get desperate and just start making shit up. This is pathetic.

Other thoughts I had:

• When was the last time any of the NYT people who worked on the story drove?
• I bet if someone looked up my record, and they were from anywhere but the Northeast, they would be confused as to why I got a ticket for driving a panel van from Hertz Business rental on a parkway.
• I am resisting looking up stats on traffic tickets….
  …..must….not……google…..

PROFS AFRAID OF STUDENTS

I hate linking to Vox, but here we go: The problem isn’t the purges of badthink, but that adjuncts don’t have tenure.

Or something.

I’m too lazy to quote.

As many conservatives, I don’t have much sympathy for “progressives” who pushed for Stalinist purges for anybody right of Harry Reid, and are aghast to see their monsters coming for them. As Robespierre learned, once you unleash these forces, they can come back to chop off your head.

I also don’t have much sympathy for adjuncts. I am an adjunct, but as a hobby job. You can GET OUT NOW. Really, do something else. Go corporate, start a business, work at McDs … any of these options would give you more dignity than your bowing-and-scraping to try to keep your fingernails on the ledge of academia.

As much as we STEM types like to make fun of the poor humanities academics, even the sociology PhDs can find jobs in marketing and the like. Most of them can actually learn to write clear English.

But first, they have to get over themselves.

And yes, if you leave academia, you can still do research, you can still teach, and you can adjunct as a hobby once you have a day job that doesn’t have you looking over your shoulder.

Also, you will likely work with real adults, which is always refreshing.

NOTE: I do not provide trigger warnings in my classes. If you can’t handle mortality tables, you probably shouldn’t be an actuary. Even the property & casualty lines deal with death, as with liability coverage.

deaaaaaaaaaaaath

PUBLISHING ONLY WOMEN

Brilliant idea.

Kamila Shamsie: let’s have a year of publishing only women – a provocation
It is clear that there is a gender bias in publishing houses and the world of books. Well, enough. Why not try something radical? Make 2018 the Year of Publishing Women, in which no new titles should be by men

Now, both Instapundit and Ace made a comment on how this lady looks, but I think she looks fine, being a plain, middle-aged woman myself. Looks don’t make a big difference with books. I mean, look at Stephen King.

Why 2018, though? Can’t they start sooner?

Why not have a Year of Publishing Women: 2018, the centenary of women over the age of 30 getting the vote in the UK, seems appropriate.

Okay, whatever. Women were published well before they could vote.

Here, have some Jane Austen. You may have heard of her. People still read her. She couldn’t vote. Neither could most British men at the time.

Fine, here’s a newer book by Michelle Malkin: Who Built That: Awe-Inspiring Stories of American Tinkerpreneurs

I bought that, and Don Surber’s book Exceptional Americans: 50 People You Need To Know. to provide some nice histories/biographies for my kids to read. I loved reading books like that as a kid.

(Yes, I know, Surber isn’t a woman. Currently.)

Plenty of women are published, and get huge numbers for their books. I bet people actually read them, too.

I decided to look at current Amazon Best-Sellers and do a quick count on the first page. Of the 20 listed right now, at least 10 are by women (I think Thug Kitchen is a man, but it could be more than one person.)

Oh, she didn’t mean stuff people actually buy? Literary fiction, that barely anybody reads in the first place?

Okay, Amazon has a list of Literary Fiction Best Sellers, too. I count 14 of the 20 listed by women (yes, many are repeats because the audiobook and written book are listed separately).

And I was wrong about literary fiction being poorly read, because many of the books top-rated in the literary fiction list are in the regular top 20. The regular top 20 includes books like “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”, a Dr. Seuss book that has become a hackneyed gift to give new grads.

My original retort about her dumbass idea was to say that you could restrict publishing to only women, but you couldn’t make people read the books. But then I decided to see if there was really a problem with women not getting published or read. There’s no problem. JEEZ.

I have been going through, semi-randomly, the best seller lists to see if there’s a topic that lists no or very few female authors. Even the Science/Math list (which has some weird entries on there) has 8 female authors out of the 20 books listed. Okay, the history list has only 4 women. Oooh, this lady’s books look interesting. Noted for later.

In any case, maybe if the women would write stuff that people are really interested in, they would get more people reading their books. Also, you need to promote your book, aggressively. Don’t expect others to do it for you.

Quit writing about babies and fashion, join me and write about numbers! Pensions! Municipal bonds! And here’s another woman who writes about munis.

Okay, this complaint was even dumber than I first thought. Quit bitching that some of the books you like didn’t make some frou-frou prize list and look at what really matters: who sold.

Women sell just fine.

RANDOM DUMBASSERY

You know, I bet some taglines are offensive if you scramble the letters, too. Go after them!

Who are those guys? Maybe I should try looking them up before spouting my ignorance online? Maybe I should check meep’s rule on not looking like a dumbass online?

You want to boycott Israel? Go ahead. I will enjoy not reading your online rants, because you won’t have any tech to post by. Reminds me of when I gave lists of non-food uses of animals to vegans I know. While it’s a lie that Native Americans used every part of the buffalo, modern animal processing generally does use every part of the animal they’re allowed to.

Mmmmm, some pig.