We Have To Have Some Standards...

I had considered spending a few hours tearing this McArdle post apart for a bit of fun, but - fittingly enough - I find I'm too busy being an academic to smack it down in full.  So let's have the short version instead.  Anyone with any claim whatsoever to experience of the American political climate who argues that conservatives are under-represented in US academic institutions because not many academics vote Republican needs to fuck off.  Not just shut up.  Fuck off.  Fuck off from the blogohedron, and from public life entirely.

Seriously. Off you go.  Bye now.  Come back when you realise that if there is any place in the States where being a conservative and choosing to vote Republican are different, it's the places where people have trained themselves to actually understand what the fuck is going on. There are significant numbers of conservative Democrats, and far more conservative Independents.  Mixing the terms up when it suits you is pathetically sloppy.

Also on the subject of understanding what is going on, McArdle might want to consider her own grasp of, y'know, anything:

41% of the troops identify as Republicans (down from 62% just seven years ago), while 32% identify as independent, and presumably, 27% identify as Democrats.

To reiterate: fuck off.  You're supposed to be an economics expert but you've never heard of a "Don't Know" or "No Response" column?  I suppose we should give McArdle some kudos for at least being able to sum to one hundred, at least.

I don't want to imply that this apparent  political disparity isn't an interesting topic to consider.  Nor am I suggesting that there cannot be any kind of bias  occurring somewhere.  I'd like to see some genuine research on this. This isn;t it.  Indeed, were there people who believed that conservatives were unsuited for academic work, this kind of lazy bullshit would certainly lend credence to their position.

Which, of course, is the problem: McArdle is trying to argue that liberal academics look down on the skills of conservatives whilst demonstrating with great clarity just how poor her own skills are.  Her intellectual laziness, sloppy inferences, and track record with refusing to admit mistakes or reconsider errors are exactly the flaws a good academic must avoid at all costs.

Which kind of brings us to the $64 000 question: does Ms McArdle consider herself of academic fibre?  Because if she does - and her "U cant scare me cos all my fameelz academics FUR REELZ"-style of non-argument/defense mechanism implies that she does (and moreover that she considers academic skill to be hereditary) - then her entire position is based on a total failure to understand how academia works, and what makes someone suited or otherwise to pursue it. 

On the other hand, if she is willing to admit she couldn't hack it in any situation where her editors would actually have to pay attention to the quality of her arguments, then whilst that would be nice (and a rare flash of self-awareness), it would immediately raise the question as to what in God's name she's doing as the Atlantic's business and economics editor?.

Unless she can answer that, dear readers, then I think we all know what it is she can do.

(She can fuck off).

Quz 10 Redux

Answers are up now.  It's a shame there weren't more entries; I figured this one would be a perfect opportunity for my adoring fans to show their superiority to the decrepit bunch that show up in the pub once a month.  Hopefully we can get a goodly number of contributions last month, for my last... quiz... EVER! [1]

[1] Until I get bored, or someone hires me to do one in Warwick.

Once More Human

Yes, she's unlikely to show up this season.  Shut up.

I am ashamed to confess that I had no idea Being Human had even returned to our screens until I happened to hear it mentioned on TV on Sunday night.  Since I am dedicated to my job of writing bollocks about anything even tangentially connected with horror/geekery, however, I immediately fired up my trusty iPlayer and got to work.

Long-term readers will remember that I had a number of issues regarding the show's second season, though ultimately swung in its favour (with various significant caveats).  So how are things going this time around?  Find out below the jump, but beware: spoilers abound!

I Guess It Pissed Me Off At A Slower Rate This Time

Issue #10 of Panel Talk has been set loose upon an unsuspecting internet.  This time round we discuss Infinite Crisis (see more here), which leaves DC 0 for 2 in their attempt to not make me think they suck.

Coming Soon...

Quz 10

Heya, peeps!  It's time for another round of red-hot quz action!  Since I'll be moving to Warwick in eight weeks or so, this is liable to be the penultimate quz for a while.  I still plan to write the occasional round to send back home, but as far as complete articles go, it might be a while.

Still, let's not dwell on such matters!  There's still two quzzes to come; and here is one of them. The top three scores this week were 34, 31, and 28, but I'm sure you can beat that.  I've also once again included the bonus round; only a perfect score will win you the (entirely abstract) beer tokens this time.

Round 1: Words

(Each word is an anagram of the previous word, with one letter added; the first word is four letters long).

1. To pass, flow or ooze gradually through a porous substance. Seep

2. A period, spell or bout of indulgence of ones whims or cravings. Spree

3. To persistently bother or trouble another with minor annoyances. Pester

4. An interval of relief. Respite

5. A class of cold-blooded animals which lay their eggs on land. Reptiles


Round 2: Blue

1. Which song is cited as the biggest selling 12” of all time, but was not eligible for gold disc status as its label was not a member of the BPI organisation? "Blue Monday"

2. What kind of animal is a Russian blue? A cat

3. The 1980 film Blues Brothers held for eighteen years the world record for having destroyed the greatest number of what object in one film? Carsa

4. Who defined “C” as a “Big blue wobbly thing that mermaids live in” during an attempt to rewrite the first English dictionary overnight? Baldrick

5. In 1997 the chess-playing computer Deep Blue won a six game match by two wins to one with three draws against which holder of the title “classical world chess champion“? Garry Kasparov


Round 3: Ants

1. Who was born Stuart Leslie Goddard in 1954? Adam Ant

2. Which kind of ants include living larders in their colonies in the form of fellow ants with enormously swollen abdomens, which can form part of the diet of various Australian Aboriginal peoples? The honey(pot) ant

3. Who provided the voice for Z in the 1998 animated film Antz? Woody Allen

4. Who wrote The Electric Ant, written in 1969, in which a man discovers his entire reality is being created by punch cards being fed into his chest? Phillip K. Dick

5. What kind of creature was constantly trying to eat Charlie Ant in a run of United Artist cartoons, in which both characters were played by John Bryner using impersonations of Jackie Mason and Dean Martin? A blue aardvark


Round 4: Occupants of Interplanetary Craft

1. What was the name of Klatu’s robot companion in the film The Day the Earth Stood Still? Gort

2. Who replaced Blake as captain of the Liberator at the start of Blake's 7’s third season? Avon

3. Who had the role of Command Module Pilot during the Apollo 11 mission? Michael Collins

4. Which former sports commentator is now best known for insisting that intelligent reptiles from the constellation of Draco travelled to Earth hundreds of millennia ago to steal our monatomic gold? David Icke

5. In which Arthur C Clarke book does a fifty-kilometre long spaceship enter the solar system, resulting in the solar survey vessel Endeavour being dispatched to investigate? Rendezvous With Rama


Round 5: Bananas

1. In March 2006 Cyclone Larry hit which country, destroying over 80% of the national banana crop, losses which could not quickly be replaced due to stringent import laws preventing bananas being brought in from elsewhere? Australia

2. An isotope of which element occurs naturally in bananas, making them more radioactive than the average fruit? Potassium

3. The Banana Splits, an early attempt to mix live action and animation, were created in the 1960s by Hanna Barbera, and consisted of Fleegle the dog, Bingo the gorilla, Snorky the elephant, and a lion that went by what name? Drooper

4. The most common exported banana is the Cavendish Banana, which was cultivated to replace which other form of banana that was almost wiped out by Panama Disease in the early and middle 20th Century? Gros Michel

5. What was the name of the schoolboy underwent an amazing transformation whenever he ate a banana, becoming Bananaman; ever alert for the call to action? Eric Wimp


Round 6: York

1. At the confluence of which two rivers is York situated? The Ouse and the Foss

2. What name did the Romans give to the city when they founded it in 71 AD? Eboracum

3. A popular tourist destination in York, the teashop "Bettys" is part of a company with the full name of "Bettys and Taylors of…" where? Harrogate

4. The capital of York County in Virginia, Yorktown saw the last major land battle in the American Revolutionary War, which ended in British defeat and the surrender of which leading general? General Lord Charles Cornwallis

5. The word “Yorker” part of the standard terminology of which sport? Cricket

General Knowledge

1. (Watership Down) What is a lendri? A badger

2. A first folio of which writer’s work was stolen from Bishop Cosin’s Library on Palace Green in 1998, and returned last year? Shakespeare

3. Which chemical element has the abbreviation Cs? Caesium

4. According to Rudyard Kipling, where was the sailor of infinite-resource-and-sagacity whilst he was dancing hornpipes where he shouldn’t? Inside a whale

5. On Saturday the 15th of January I turned 31. On what day in 1980 was I born? Tuesday

6. Which two colours can be found on the Cornish flag? Black and white

7. With what weapon was the Jabberwock dispatched? Vorpal Sword

8. What is the English name for the Indian snack known variously as chiwda, chevdo, or chevda? Bombay mix

9. The British sailor James Weddell gave his name to a sea to the north west of which continent? Antarctica

10. What fictional monster is made from clay and animated by carving the word "Truth" into their "flesh"? A golem



Bonus Round
 
(Below are the names of five bands. All I want from you is their studio album which appears first alphabetically, not counting the words “A” or “The”.)

1. The Beatles - "Abbey Road"

2. The Rolling Stones - "Aftermath"

3. Simon and Garfunkel - "Bookends"

4. The Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Blood Sugar Sex Magik"

5. Radiohead - "Amnesiac"

"What's To Stop Us Other Than Massive And Widespread Objection?"

Important Update: South Dakota Republicans remind us all that it can be difficult in these trying times to understand the difference between unconstitutional and straight up fucking stupid.

h/t to John Cole.