… I am totally shocked by my decade of theft of your dues … I am at a loss for words…. But the important thing is I’m an old lady now and you wouldn’t send an old lady to jail, would you?

You take your eye off of it for awhile and think Hm maybe all the prison and lawsuits and bad publicity shamed it into better behavior…

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But nah.

[Save Our States] accuses the health system of prioritizing luxury spending and executive compensation while patient safety problems persist…. [T]he health system paid its CEO and a department chair over $4 million each in annual compensation.

Wants to let the butcher’s bill rise a bit, so she can cover several deaths at a time.

It’s always the same. Nothing ever changes, and nothing will, since fraternities are the life blood (death blood) of so many of this country’s awful universities. Unless you can promise parents their sons stand some chance of being bullied into drinking themselves to death, they apparently won’t even look at your school.

The state of Arizona is a perennially popular academic abattoir, with (most recently) both Northern Arizona and Arizona State slaughtering eager young newbies desperate for acceptance. Ho hum.

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Oh wait. ASU didn’t manage to kill this batch. It merely tortured them to within an inch of their lives.

Not that ASU hasn’t had its share of kills!

Predatory journals take your two thousand bucks and publish anything you send. We all know this.

But Pascual Diago, a math professor solicited by a predatory ob/gyn rag, decided to go there. His abstract:

In an unprecedented quantum leap in interdisciplinary research, we introduce the concept of ‘Gyneco-Obstetric Algebraic Didactics’ (GOAD). This paper explores the impact of teaching mathematical models using obstetric metaphors on the cognitive flexibility of third-trimester patients and first-year mathematics students alike. Through the introduction of the Ovary-Function Theorem (OFT) and the application of the Cervix-Dilation Equation (D = √πr²), the study reveals that explaining non-Euclidean spaces through pelvic retroversion significantly improves calculus test scores and reduces birth anxiety by 13.7%. A case study with pregnant mathematicians and aspiring gynecologists demonstrates that integrating the Fibonacci sequence into labor progression charts induces spontaneous appreciation for abstract algebra and mild cravings for prime numbers. These findings challenge the traditional boundaries between prenatal care and set theory, suggesting that mathematical didactics and obstetric gynecology, when merged, can birth new paradigms in both fields. Further research is encouraged, especially in the context of cesarean matrices and post-partum group theory.

Of course they published it.

LOLOLOL

… we Americans have followed the modern history of the British monarchy with confusion (why does it still exist?) and amazement (did King George really let the Romanovs be shot to bits?).

While we’re vaguely aware that the current Norwegian royal family is just as stuffed with morons and degenerates as the British, we’re less interested because, I mean, history… But the fact is, we remain baffled by the behavior and also the continued existence of The Crown.

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The Guardian has a nice insider’s take on it all, from which maybe we can learn. Let’s see…

The royal family’s defenders claim that they were once the country’s moral anchor. That was rarely, if ever, true. But the Epstein files reveal where entitlement without restraint, and privilege without responsibility, can lead.

Yeah but if it was never true… And if – call it regal evolution – descends ultimately to Andrew (and hey it can always descend lower!), then why…

Public anger is brewing against the monarchy – a keystone of a political order in urgent need of radical reconstruction, along with the electoral system and the upper house. It would seem absurd for the prime minister to ask Mr Mountbatten-Windsor to give evidence to US lawmakers, but not to MPs. The monarchy is not accountable to parliament. Commons rules bar “reflections” on the royals, rendering meaningful debate taboo. In 2011 David Cameron relinquished MPs’ oldest check on royal power: control of the purse. His government replaced annual scrutiny of palace finances with an automatic transfer of crown estate revenues.

Um. Seems to be going in the wrong direction, what?

See? What’s your problem? They deleted it.

Wow. That’s a hot one.

This is one of the more amusing (and informative) takes on the Mandelson/Starmer fiasco. Indeed every elite from every elite walk of life seems to have been hot and heavy w/ J. Epstein…

The remark in my title reminds me of David Bowie’s parting sentiment:

“On the whole, this whole world is run by brutes for the common and the stupid.”

My only link with Epstein (I swear!) is that my friend Lisa Beth (cousin of my ‘thesdan playmate) went to elementary and junior high school in Brooklyn with him (“a mathematical genius, and an overweight nerd”).

… fraud.

The head of the National Council of Canadian Muslims recognizes the absurdity of governments paying for religious schools, many of which inculcate values destructive to the functioning of a modern democratic state (head/body veiling for girls and women, withdrawal from the civic realm, derogation of women); and though he ain’t happy about Bill 9’s extension of secular laws in Quebec, he’s able to understand that there’s Provincial consensus on higher levels of secularization.

… but Lori Zeno stole most of its city, state, and federal money so she could rent a penthouse, tool around in a Mercedes, and take luxury trips to Bali.

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You MUST know, after reading this blog for awhile, that this sort of behavior is absolutely standard.

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The only question UD keeps having in such cases is about discovery. Clearly people around her must have known for some time (she led the outfit for years) that she was dirty. Zeno herself explained to the court that she should be handled very gently by them because she’s been way off her rocker for years. Did anyone notice that?

Or is the real problem the very banality of stealing everything? Like, what’s the big deal. Everyone does it.

Well, we’ll see if UD’s own Maryland can pull itself together to pass this. It would be a beautiful thing.

The Economist notes that such legislation is the wave of the future.

Or uh make that Thirty Under Thirty, its exclusive compilation of the most amazing young entrepreneurs.

Already four of the thirty have gone to jail or are on their way. Stay tuned for more!

Time was that last nugget (this is from a 2024 article) would have knocked us all over: Gee! Tea in BP with the Prince!

Now it sends out alarms – whoop!whoop!whoop! – just as piercing as the alarms set off by the news yesterday that Ariely, Duke U’s highest-profile professor, is mentioned I dunno a billion times in the just-released Jeffrey Epstein stuff. Dey was REAL tight goodfellas.

Ariely was also real close – a research collaborator – with F. Giro, the chick dismissed from Harvard for you-could-die levels of research fraud, and whose life now revolves around an eternal and insanely expensive lawsuit against (and also one from), that institution. Plus you can read with ease many discussions of Ariely’s own uh questionable results.

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Sing it.

Research fraud. Ok.

He brings in the bucks

Let him stay

But what if we’re fucked

By the Epstein stuff?

When’s enough enough?