Wotta shocker! A high Lebanese official accused of corruption!

No way.

Multitasking, American-Style

Boy, 8, Dies after Shooting Himself with Gun

Left in Mum’s Car while she Shopped

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

And even better!

The state of Utah, where the shooting took place, does not have any laws to prosecute those failing to secure an unattended firearm... The state also has no laws requiring unattended firearms to be stored in certain ways.‘ I mean, you know, just go to it!

‘Over the weekend, Donald Trump did a long, bizarre Fox News interview, flatly declaring he had a “right” to interfere in the last presidential election. He also mused that “God” may have chosen Trump to fix our “sick” country,” and seethed about an “enemy within” that’s out to get him.’

Folie à moitié du pays.

So tons of people took this seriously, and they’ve been bombarding the local government with enraged letters.

Unlike the proposed congestion fee in Manhattan that did not go into effect, the fee here is not one-size-fits-all. Here in the Hamptons, the fees charged will vary with the value of the automobile. Cars with low value, such as old Toyota Corollas, will be charged $5 per entry. Cars of midsize value, up to $60,000, will be charged $50 per entry. Cars valued up to $100,000 will be charged $200 per entry, and cars valued over that will be charged $999 per entry. The idea is to go easy on the locals, but hit the wealthy with a fee they wouldn’t mind but would seem appropriate. By the way, for cars valued over $250,000, the fee is zero. We are happy to have the ultra-, ultra, ultra-rich here. And though they will pay no fee, voluntary contributions will be appreciated, either by check, cash, stocks, bitcoin or money order. All will be tax deductible.

Abortionist Contortionist

Trump Contorts Himself on Abortion in Search of Political Gain

The Return of the Repressed

If health authorities look away while subcultures largely refuse to vaccinate their children, eventually sick and dying children will not be confined to those subcultures.

Covid, measles — these have run rampant in vaccine-resistant ultraorthodox communities. In New York, one young ultraorthodox man recently contracted polio.

In Israel the attitude seems to be it is not worth it to rouse the wrath of the violence-prone ultraorthodox by insisting… Here in the States, we haven’t done much better.

Now look what we’ve got.

Gaza’s Polio Outbreak Won’t Spare Israelis

The country’s unvaccinated ultra-Orthodox population is at risk of contracting the disease

We should be terrified by the polio outbreak in Gaza, another mark of the unspeakable suffering and degradation of the innocents in that conflict.

And because Israel has allowed its primitives to reject modern science, all of its efforts to defend its population against enemies may come tumbling down via warfare directed against a group so absolutely lost that it doesn’t even believe in the germ theory of disease.

Some people follow The Grateful Dead. UD follows…

… Harvard’s own Rector of the Upcoming Cathophate, Adrian Vermeule. Here’s his latest press appearance:

[JD Vance] spoke in 2022 at a New Right academic conference alongside Harvard professor Adrian Vermeule, who believes conservatives should legislate morality by allowing judges to rule against marriage equality and abortion laws for the “Common Good.”

Watch for Vermeule’s stock to rise as his brother in theocracy strides like a colossus across the length and breadth of this our land.

On the Frequency of Hatcheting in Downtown Minneapolis.

“There’s like a whole section of downtown Minneapolis that they call Little Mogadishu … People are frequently hatcheted to death in the street.” J.D. Vance

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

The frequency of hatcheting in downtown Minneapolis

Baffles sociologists and other urban analysts

The normative behavior is mass murder with a gun

What motivates these deviants who don’t know how it’s done?

‘So what happens when not one but a dozen [police] officers are all banging away at the [gun] range? I’m a die-hard gun guy, but after two tours in Afghanistan I can tell you that sudden bursts of gunfire throughout the day gets obnoxious fast. Then it gets unsettling. An outdoor range in the midst of a neighborhood will expose children and adults alike to emotional and psychological harm of the worst kind.’

Talk about a candidate for re-education camp. Go here, lad:


‘[T]he occasional crackle of the firing range is almost soothing.’

“When you go to the restroom, you have to go through a certain procedure to be able to do that when you have all your equipment on. And at times, you know, you’re human — you have something on your mind…. But being arrested for being human is not ideal.”

An elderly constable in a commode

Unholstered his big loaded Glock

That was the only way that he knowed

To free up his piss-swollen cock

But – you know – he’s human

Had something on his mind

Tried to recall lines from Schumann…

And then he was needing to dry his behind

Cuz he had to do

Numbers One and Two

“Ah! That’s better! And now lemme

Forget for the rest of the day that I left my semi

Out here for all the little tykes

Who come to court on school field trips

And find a toy to let them strike

Classmates who give them lip.”

UD has a soft spot for vile cynical crooks who hide behind religious piety.

Whether Yeshiva University favorite Bernie Madoff, super-pious Philip Esformes, or any number of other super-Christian or orthodox Jewish shits, these people — every bit as overdrive-devout as Malaysia’s recent PM (see post below) — are convinced that crosses and prayer shawls will make Letitia James and her ilk take their eye off the ball. LOL.

The antidote.

As a coupla fucks finally go to jail…

UD reposts this commentary on the biggest corruption case of our time.

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

‘… Malaysia’s then-Prime Minister Najib Razak … channeled over RM 2.67 billion (approximately US$700 million) into his personal bank accounts from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a government-run strategic development company.’

The hyper-pious ex-PM (‘Najib recently said Islam’s holy book, the Koran, would be the guide for all government policies and actions.’) allows modesty edicts to repress Malaysian women, while he himself pleases Allah by stealing seven hundred million dollars directly from the Malaysian people.

Theologically, it is a conundrum; Allah smiles equally upon downtrodden black-cloaked women AND the world’s largest kleptocracy case. He smiles at sick Malaysian children dying from lack of treatment because, of the six billion in the fund meant to help them and their country, four billion was stolen.

Everything would have been peachy; America’s sweetheart, Goldman Sachs, would have pocketed its suspiciously massive fees from 1MDB, all the other crooks who stole hundreds of millions for themselves would have been fine…

But people began to notice the absence of four plus billion dollars from the world. Things began to sour, see, onaccounta

‘Because the money was stolen, it wasn’t invested; without investment returns, the fund couldn’t pay back the bonds.’

Shades of pious Bernie Madoff (in his case his piety was orthodox Judaism — he acted as the treasurer – not making this up – of Yeshiva University)! Pious Najib and his legion of co-conspirators overlooked the fact that if anything goes wrong with schemes like this, you’re up shit’s creek cuz the money’s already up the nose of your cocaine-snorting, super-yacht-private-jet-super-thin-nyc-penthouse-owning Islamically pious investment group.

Najib now enjoys twelve years of uninterrupted prayer in a Malaysian prison.

Watch this video, titled Behind Goldman Sachs’ Alleged Involvement in the 1MBD Scandal. It explains the gist of the thing. I know you’re distracted by The Trump 300 (700?), but trust me 1MDB is more important; America will survive a once-in-a-lifetime madman having attained the presidency; the sad sick world cannot be defended from lethal international criminals (including, again, our own adorable Goldman Sachs) unless we all make an effort to understand how they are killing us.

$34 million in debt and no will.

Silly boy.

Details.

Scathing Online Schoolmarm, as you know, likes to single out instances of very good writing. Take a look at this.

The writer has managed to discipline his rage, to fight it down until it calms into precise and powerful prose.

That is, the rage still storms, but the writer has been able to channel effusion into eloquence. Like most people who write about Trump, he is at pains to find strong enough adjectives to express his disgust (insulting, repulsive, crass, vulgar, defiling, horrific, reckless), but, more importantly, in invoking the specific sacred nature of this section of Arlington Cemetery (the writer is a veteran of the wars in which these men died), he establishes a compelling opposition (sacred/profane; sacrificing/selfish) that he sustains throughout the piece.

The Trump Team: Yesterday, a Military Cemetery…

… today, an ice skating rink.

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Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times

George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil

It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo

There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub

You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann

Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog

University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog

[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal

Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education

[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University

Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University

The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog

Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages

Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway

From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law

University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association

The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
Medical Humanities Blog

I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
Ducks and Drakes

As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
The Bitch Girls

Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
Tenured Radical

University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
Mary Beard, A Don's Life

[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter.
More magazine, Canada

If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte