Class warfare, American-style

Mass transport for ordinary folks is being shut down, in the great state of New York, for the sake of greedy plutocrats, and The People are fighting back.

The days of cheap thirty-minute Manhattan-to-East-Hampton helicopter flights will soon be over, giving travelers who can only afford the $700 – $800 fare no option but to battle surface traffic to get to the Hamptons, while private helicopter owners ($4,000 and more per flight) are free to keep landing their enormous earth-shattering Sikorskys.

“The tycoons who own helicopters and ferry their guests back and forth to the city are the worst [noise] offenders,” said one local.

“And they tend to use the high-status, louder, Sikorsky choppers — the civilian model of the Black Hawk — rather than the smaller, quieter models used by [mass transporter] Blade.”

(The Sikorsky pilots are equipped with body armor, M-16s, Hellfire Missiles, and cyanide tablets in case a reporter disguised as a summer renter pulls out a gun and demands details on the owner’s Paradise Papers companies.)

America’s owners of massive loud military helicopters have generated opposition on both sides [Manhattan/East Hampton] of this itinerary, as “sensitive local serfs” protest ceaseless earsplitting noise immediately above their hovels.

The plutocrats have thus managed to shut down market competition and enrage two local populations.

*****************

Once Vinod Khosla takes the beach away from Californians, this class war will be pretty much over.

*****************

Superior snark here.

Tea and Cuttings

UD did some gardening work for
a neighbor this afternoon, and went
home with these cuttings.

Australia’s Long-Suffering Legal System; and a Muslim Martyress

They’ve already convicted her husband of terrorism.

She has

sued the police for damages over the raid [on their house], alleging violence and assault in the course of the search.

The family lost, and were ordered to pay $250,000 in court costs to the Australian Federal Police and the New South Wales Police.

Her thing is that she refused to give crucial exonerating evidence because the court – after the judge tried a variety of accommodations which she rejected – wouldn’t let her testify in her burqa and damned if she was going to let some man see her face – or her hands — or anything — even for a few moments.

Now she’s racking up more legal and other expenses by appealing that decision…

And I gotta tell you. That appeal will not end well for her. So that’s more money she’s going to have to find…

But it’s all good, ain’t it?

1. As long as she makes legal noise, she keeps her attractive way of life in full view of all Australians via news coverage. Good advertising.

2. She is a martyr for her faith, something fanatics tend to want.

3. She is shaming many other countries – like France, Canada (just the province of Quebec so far, actually), Belgium, and Germany (where currently you can’t drive while in a burqa, but it looks as though more severe measures are coming) – who fail to see the gothic beauty of actual living women inside of coffins.

Post-Non-Game Analysis, Ankara

[A] violent hooligan culture [is] prevalent in Turkish football.

… Since we glorify … violent, macho and toxic hooligan culture, it will be prevalent in Turkish football and lead to many more matches like this.

Yale, Boston College, Northwestern…

… these are the holdouts, the strenuously, stubbornly, principled schools that will NOT revoke Bill Cosby’s honorary degree. There may be other schools as well, but UD is only aware of these three.

Even Temple University, which has been Cosby’s whore for decades, just revoked his degree.

And you know what else? The United States of America will not revoke his degree. Or, uh, medal. President Obama long ago said no can do. And why?

There’s no “precedent.” We have no “mechanism.” In this oure antient lande, one may not change that which hath already beene done.

***********

Awright awready! We’re looking into it! Sheesh!

***********

That ol’ can-do, American, spirit.

You know you’ve tanked as an institution when your students need to lecture you on basic morality.

The UNC Chapel Hill student newspaper’s editor says farewell.

Ever since the response UNC gave to the NCAA regarding our academic scandal, I feel like I attend a school trying to seem rather than to be.

I’ve read the documents pertaining to the case. I understand why UNC did what it did to protect the institution, but I can’t help feeling empty inside because of it.

Our moves make us seem like we did nothing wrong, when in reality we robbed hundreds of the education they were promised. There is no way you will spin it to change my mind. It was a bureaucratic technicality made to preserve the “Southern Part of Heaven” aesthetic of Chapel Hill, not a moral defense that righted the wrong done to the students in the fraudulent classes.

“[H]e asked the court to reinstate him to school, which the suit said would enable him to regain his student visa. He would transfer to another school, the suit said.”

Virginia Tech’s loss may be your school’s gain! The Hokies’ chance for another massacre of students and faculty just ticked down significantly with Yunsong Zhao’s decision not to return there once the court (he hopes) reinstates his visa; but that leaves hundreds of other schools to compete for this assault rifle-wielding, massively ammo-ed up little fella.

The nineteen year old squirt has adorably lawyered up as well, and sued everyone in sight to protect his right to blast your campus to bits.

Sorry, kiddies. Paying off that sweetie, Tommy Tuberville, is extremely expensive.

We’re going to let you pay him off.

Several [University of Cinncinnati] students were surprised to learn UC officials have been quietly forcing them to pay thousands of dollars each to subsidize the athletic department…

David Ridpath, associate professor of sports administration at Ohio University, said students at most schools are unaware that their pockets are being emptied by the athletic department.

… UC’s athletic department spent $2.1 million in severance payments in 2017. Approximately 90 percent of payments went toward one person — former UC head football coach Tommy Tuberville.

In October 2016, Tuberville signed a two-year contract extension with a $2.4 million buyout — more than double the buyout under his original contract, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. Less than two months later, Tuberville and UC parted ways.

In the end, the university paid Tuberville $1.9 million — over $900,000 more than payments owed in his original contract.

“It’s ridiculous,” fourth-year construction management student Ryan Burch said. “After the position Tuberville left the program in, he shouldn’t have gotten much of a buyout at all.”

Cincinnati finished 4-8 in Tuberville’s final season as head coach.

UD wrote these words about Florida A&M in 2014.

FAMU is a really interesting case right now. Like a lot of universities, it has for decades acted on the belief that a big noisy sports program is the front porch of the university. What do you do when the sports program at your school turns out to be the university’s front funeral parlor?

There’s no question that a program that beats people to death puts a damper on things. Fewer students apply. Very few students go to games. You’re losing so much sports revenue that you increase tuition big time, which turns off yet more applicants.

You remember. Its marching band beat a band member to death in a hazing ritual.

In 2015, there was no postseason play, because both football and basketball were under academic sanction.

Also at that time:

There have been four athletic directors and three head football coaches in the past 12 months.

For an approximately two-week overlapping period, the university had two entire football coaching staffs; this resulted in an additional $55,000.

*******************

How are things now?

*******************

Well, the marching band hasn’t killed anyone else. That’s the good news.

Otherwise, personnel turnover remains amazing, with a brand new prez and brand new athletic director and TONS of other departures.

And of course the perennial tendency of this jockshop as well as many other jockshops to use the athletic budget for … whatever… remains firmly in place. Let’s see…

[T]he university’s athletics department is facing $1 million in “unbudgeted expenses” for this fiscal year …

[These include:]

FAMU paying out $400,000 in annual leave money due to [its former AD], fired Head Football coach Alex Wood, eight assistant coaches, the budget coordinator/facility manager, compliance coordinator and others who left last year in athletics.

$300,000 in unexpected expenses incurred during last September’s FAMU Tampa Classic against Tennessee State.

$300,000 in added “miscellaneous” expenses.

… The department has de-activated purchasing cards, but it is not clear if that is effective across the board.

Read the whole article. You kinda have to piece things together, don’t you?

Bottom line: FAMU, a scandalously bad university, hands out purchasing cards to any random person they’ve just hired for an athletics department that’s tanking the school’s budget, and ignores whatever “miscellaneous” things they buy with it.

Quote of the Day

“The NFL has murderers that play for them. Men who beat their wives. Drug addicts. But a man who knelt in protest…”

D.L. Hughley, on NFL owners and Colin Kaepernick.

“Don’t worry about me. Nobody is more blessed than Jim Ramsey of Fern Creek, Ky.”

Little Jimbo! His is the story of a local boy who rose all the way to university president, whereupon he took as much money from its foundation as he thought he could get away with. And he did! He got away with it!

I mean, maybe he did. The University of Louisville announced today that they’re gonna sue him… Gonna see if they can’t get back a little of their pilfered loot… Gonna see if they can’t make the pride of Fern Creek give up one or even two of his McMansions in Florida…

At least they can’t spell.

Five Theta Tau brothers have anonymously filed a lawsuit against Syracuse University after offensive videos surfaced of a fraternity event.

The men accuse SU of “branding them as racist, anti-sematic [sic], sexist and hostile to people with disabilities”…

*************

UD thinks they must have meant aposematic.

Sematic: Chiefly Zoology. Serving as a signal, especially a warning. Compare “aposematic”. Now rare.

Stealing Beauty…

… and stealing your degree.

A fake Master’s, plus shoplifted anti-aging cream, does in a high-ranking Spanish politician.

Background here.

“The night football died.”

But it didn’t. It doesn’t. All over the world, the highest-level soccer matches – remarkable numbers of them – are big blood baths.

Isn’t it strange? Don’t you find it strange? I mean, that the whole affair – overseen by one of the world’s most corrupt governing bodies – just grinds on? How much slaughter will international football tolerate before it decides the body count’s too high?

Here’s what old UD thinks.

Murder and mayhem pay. Extremely well. Many fans attend games in order to enjoy these things. War by other means; and I reckon Hobbes is right.

Since everyone knows how significant numbers of international soccer gatherings are likely to turn out, audiences for them are increasingly composed of people already inclined toward mass violence. But given the sport’s popularity, and the money it generates, the situation will be allowed to deteriorate infinitely.

One of Texas Tech’s …

heroes, now a professional football player, dealt with a recent defeat of his team by taking out his gun and shooting it in the vicinity of players on the winning team.

Leon Mackey’s explanation – “It was an accident.” – is a real poser. UD looks forward to his attorney making the case that taking your gun out and shooting it in the direction of people with whom you’re fighting is an accident.

Or does he mean it’s an accident that he didn’t kill anybody?

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