Vox Popoli

When you can always troll the schools forboys and teenage girls:

Adrianne Hockett: Accused of having sex with a 16-year-old special-needs student in a Houston apartment she rented for the get-togethers. The boy has testified the pair would “have sex, drink beer and smoke weed.”

Amber Jennings, 31: Initially charged with having sex with a 16-year-old, the counts against the Sturbridge, Mass., woman were reduced to a single charge of disseminating harmful materials to a minor. She reportedly admitted e-mailing naked photos of herself to a former student.

Amber Marshall, 23: Northwest Indiana woman allegedly had sexual contact, including intercourse, with several students, and turned herself into authorities, telling police she knew what she did was illegal.

Amira Sa’Si, 30: Clayton County, Ga., woman remarked she didn’t think her relationship was inappropriate based on her Internet research, learning the Peach State’s age of consent is 16.

Amy Gail Lilley, 36: Inverness, Fla., woman charged with an alleged relationship with a 15-year-old girl.

Angela Comer, 26: Middle-school teacher from Tompkinsville, Ky., fled with her alleged lover, her 14-year-old male student, before being tracked down in Mexico where she planned to marry the boy. She was indicted for illegal sex acts with a minor and returned to Kentucky.

Angela Stellwag, 24: Delran, N.J., woman accused of having sex in her apartment with a 14-year-old boy she met in school.

And that’s just the As. Nothing like a little hands-on sex education in the public schools. Because it seems to run contrary to the way that normal women prefer slightly older men, I wonder there is something of a captured market situation here that allows the women to feel that they are more attractive than the open adult market would value them.

Or perhaps they are just strong independent women keen to exercise their sexual dominance over the only “men” who will accept it. I’m not even sure that this is anything particularly new, as it could merely be something that the Internet is allowing people to perceive.

It’s true, I am a sad and lonely man. I miss my dear, darling Treo. My closest companion is in for repairs, having inexplicably lost her ability to talk to me when not on speakerphone. Now I am forced to make do with a wretched Samsung, which is a tiny feat of telephonic ingenuity, but doesn’t have a Palm OS! The horror!

It’s not that I am bookless or anything, as I moved my 1GB library over to my Dana Wireless for the nonce, but it just isn’t the same. The Dana is a wonderful writing tool, but it doesn’t fit in my pocket like my Treo, which has completely changed my outlook on having to wait for people. So, I’m having to make do with a physical book on Scipio Africanus in the meantime.

On the upside, however, I am getting in form again with the arrival of my old exercise bike. It’s the only one I will use, and in combination with a PS/2, Madden 2006 and a Mitsubishi projector, it makes for the ultimate workout experience. I measured the lightscreen the other night and it’s a solid 7 feet by 5 feet, 5 inches.

Forget plasma. That’s so 20th century.

Eight more days until I get my Treo back… but who’s counting.

Nienna is considering the matter:

Seriously though, I’m beginning to think that you believe the vast majority of women are blithering idiots.

But seriously, has it occured to you to look at other cultures say…Hispanic culture/African culture etc? I don’t think it’s women who are making life difficult. There it’s men ruining things mostly through their drinking and violence.

My father told me that Mexico would be a grand place if men weren’t drinking their lives a way and beating their wives. Most of the churches are filled with women, nary a male in sight. They’re out with their mistresses. I guess it proves your point though: lack of good male leadership aids in destroying a society (or in their case, keeping it down).

Still, it’s the women there who try and the men who drink their lives away. Don’t you respect that in the slightest?

I certainly respect a man’s decision to drink his life away. There’s a long and poetic tradition of great men who have done so and better that than going postal…. Anyhow, I don’t believe that most women are blithering idiots, I believe that most people are blithering idiots. There’s certainly no shortage of evidence to demonstrate this, beginning with the move into ARMs when interest rates are at all-time lows.

But Nienna has laid her finger on the crux of the matter. One can certainly respect them for trying, and yet there’s little preventing those Hispanic or African women from improving their civilization, except for the small fact that they can’t. With the obvious exception of feminists, women do not destroy, but neither do they build. This is not to say that they have no effect, in that they can choose to inspire or hinder the builders, but a society that depends upon its women for advancement in any direction except the “progress” of bigger government is one that will soon regress to barbarism.

Ironically, the only thing that is absolutely and vitally necessary to civilization is looked down upon by many American women. They denigrate mothers as “baby factories” and men who understand demographic realities as “Neanderthals”, (particularly ironic considering that the Neanderthals died out) despite the fact that making babies and raising them is the only thing that society actually needs women to do.

And any woman who can’t understand that is a blithering idiot.

It seems Sally rather likes it:

Good morning, I thought I would log in and write a little more this morning before I started the chores around the house. I don’t have enough time in one sitting. So here is where I left off with you finishing one of your statements:

And how, I ask you, have women’s rights improved things for women? Consider some of the foremost aims of the early feminists: Divorce condemns most women to poverty because so many are incapable of providing for themselves without being handed a make-work job in government, abortion allows a woman to murder her children and slaughters a disproportionate number of girls, one of women’s first political priorities was to ban alcohol and they have used their access to education to destroy the value of a college degree. The worst thing men could do to women is to leave them to fend for themselves; even giving them influence in government is turning out to be disastrous.

Women’s rights made a much needed improvement by: Women are safer from violence and abuse from men. We have the ability to our own achievements,(1) pursue our dreams, own property, marry a man that we actually love and adore or not,(2) acquire our own wealth,(3) and basically be as independent as we choose to be. To be in control of our own life and liberty, isn’t that what everyone wants is liberty?(4) I know that if something happened to my husband I can stand on my own two feet and provide for my family.(5) My kids will be taken care of even if there is no one left to care for them but me. It is not easy to raise children by your self, but can be done. It is easier with two or more people. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a husband who helps you either. It could be your mother or father, grandmother or grandfather, aunt or uncle, sister or brother, as long as everyone agrees what is appropriate in raising a child and of course love them with all our heart. Divorce does not condemn women to poverty and with that statement I have to ask, who is the naïve one?(6) I have worked in construction and it is not hard. I use the same tools that my father uses when something is too heavy, or if I can’t force the nail out I use lever and pulleys. I think you are tripping on your own personal power. I also have had the job offer of an accounting position. In the past was traditionally a man’s position, but in the past every job with income was traditionally held by a man. That is not the case anymore. Now financial positions are held by huge numbers of women.(7) There are more women then men who are graduating from college in my area. So what are you guys doing wrong?(8) Maybe what you are doing wrong is being dumb and controlling. It shows in history with more education people have better reasoning skills. So how have women destroyed the value of an education?(9) I think you mean men have more competition in the work place, and it is too hard.  I don’t think women should become dumb just so there will be a lack in people available to work. That’s really dumb. Well, I have to get out of your time warp and get some things done around the house. I hope you continue this conversation with me I really enjoy it and find it amusing. Your openness and willing to speak your mind I find refreshing. I was beginning to think I was the only one not afraid of what others thought. I know what bothers you(10) and there is a middle ground that everyone can be happy with. You just haven’t found it and many others like you. You kind of sound like you are scared of women.(11) I am not finished with this statement either. So stop beating on your chest ape man!(12)

(1) What achievements? There’s a few good women novelists, and that’s about it.
(2) And yet fewer women marry than ever before.
(3) Thus reducing the wage rate and forcing married women who don’t want to work into the labor force.
(4) Then why do women work so hard to eliminate it for everyone? They’re already trying to ban drinking again!
(5) Yes, because widowhood meant immediate death prior to 1973, right?
(6) You are. Read the statistics.
(7) So they are counting the money made by the companies that men started. How very impressive.
(8) Not going into debt and getting a jump on the job market, it seems. Even without those college degrees, men still earn more, remember? And if you’re just going to go work at Barnes and Noble or Starbucks anyhow, what’s the point of getting an English degree first.
(9) Apparently she’s not a Women’s Studies major after all.
(10) It’s like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
(11) Just the strong, independent ones… or so I’m told.
(12) It’s not my chest I’m beating on here.

Notice how she just blithely ignores the fact that I previously responded to all of her points. There’s a single counterpoint, if one can call it that, randomly vomited forth in a stream of what for lack of a better word I shall call consciousness, with no attempt to support any of the assertions contained therein.

Now, I’m sure Sally is a very charming lady, but she might well serve as the poster woman for why I am opposed to women’s suffrage. I daresay she’s converted a few observers too.

Wherein we learn that there is nothing more self-righteous than a man defending his errant NFL picks:

CAROLINA OVER CHICAGO

I got this one right. It’s funny though. I use pretty much the same analysis to pick all these games. How can my pick of Carolina be right and good yet my pick of Indy, Washington, and New England be bad?

Well, my first guess is because the one worked and the other three didn’t…. A 75 percent failure rate does tend to point towards a certain flaw in the analytical process.

Now I have to get on Vox a little bit here. If he or JB had actually read my article I wrote that I thought Carolina and Indy were locks but thought I was picking both Washington and New England, I wouldn’t have been surprised if both Seattle and Denver came out the winners.

Actually, the only pick that I thought was a bad one was Washington. I don’t see how anyone could have picked them after that offensive debacle in Tampa. I don’t make playoff picks because I prefer to sit back and simply take in the spectacle, but I expected New England, Indianapolis, Seattle and Carolina to win this last weekend. Now, I expect a Carolina vs Pittsburgh Super Bowl, but both championship games should be pretty good.

Anyhow, the Savant can’t seriously expect to go 1 for 8 in two years and not get ragged. That’s why they call him the BASEBALL Savant. But he can take solace in the reminder that the Sports Guy has gone 0 for Carolina’s last 11 games… let’s just say that if Simmons picks Seattle there will be celebrating in sexually ambiguous cheerleaderville.

Sally writes back:

Mr. Vox Day: I was surprised by your response and found it even amusing. I appreciate that you responded to most of what I had to say. I am not contending the great things that men have done in the past, even though most was by accident, trial and error, and always with bloodshed. But lead you to understanding that Mae, Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot are men. I think I prove my point with just that statement alone.

I always had my suspicions about Mae West. I am surprised, however, that Sally appears to believe Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot did great things. She may think that she proved her point by that statement alone, but she is nevertheless still wrong as her original point was that significant human events happened by accident and there is no question that these evil men knew precisely what they were doing in overseeing the murder of millions of individuals.

With technology increasing period is what lead to men and women living longer. Do you believe that women should be denied health care? Women are not less of a human because you might be stronger physically. If this is so then a man who is stronger over another man can enslave the weaker man and treat him less then what the stronger man is. Do you agree with this? You would have to if you really are consistent with your our beliefs. Evolution has helped us get pass the ignorance of the ancient times so I don’t know what time warp you are from.

I realize that the typical female innocence with regards to technology leads many women to believe that it simply grows on trees. It does not. As I wrote previously, men and women are living longer due to advances in technology created solely by men. If technological advancement depended on women, we would still be living in caves, albeit clean caves with fresh wildflowers decorating the interior. Anyone who can pay for health care should receive it; I will do her the kindness of passing over her inability to grasp the delta between the amount of time required for evolution to make an appreciable difference and the 6,000 years of recorded human history.

I think you are just an angry, lonely, misplaced, distorted individual. I actually feel sorry for you then disliking you. If you are in tuned with the world around you, then you will see that the gap in size between women and men is slowly starting to close. That is because women are educated and are more concerned with their health then with fulfilling men’s fantasies of a submissive woman (which is unhealthy and stunts growth). Men have not wanted women to be educated because we will find out that we can do everything that men can do. The way men have forced this in the past is through violence, threats and abusive behavior and it is just not a nature to behave in a violent behavior. Although, it has been reported that women are starting to have higher levels of testosterone and men having higher levels of estrogen (overall). Probably why we have the gay community visible, I don’t claim to know it all but continue my education to the best of my abilities for my family and children.

Like every woman on the receiving end of an intellectual beat-down, Sally quickly resorts to the usual passive-aggressive defense and attempts to claim a position of emotional superiority. Again, what she thinks has absolutely nothing to do with reality or the matter at hand. The evidence quite strongly suggests that she is wrong, as American women have used their educations – which they now have collectively more of than men – to demonstrate an embarrassing level of intellectual vacuity while seriously degrading the value of a college degree. An obvious example of that is Sally’s interesting theories with regards to women’s health. As for the decreasing gap in size, I don’t see the many supersized female porkers one sees lumbering about posing much of a threat to male physical dominance.

Education is not a destination but a continual road. If women hadn’t been suppressed for the entire length of evolution by men then I am sure today there would hardly be any evidence of greater physical strength. As far as intelligence there is no difference. Every individual has their strong points and weak points, even you. And if you want a bit of extremity then I would say men are really set up to serve women with their physical strength ability (laborers/warriors). I would also say women with their superior communication, reasoning, compassion, and interpersonal skills are more equipped to deal well in a position of power and authority. Women are hardly helpless to stop the wars that men create. Women are not fools at the same time. When we see a man who has lost his way we simply step back and let him destroy himself. It seems like men are on self-destruct a lot of the time. Women are not going to come up and shove a dagger in your chest to overcome the abuse of men because we know that is not the solution. The solution is a gradual change so that the shock will not cause needless deaths. Women are not for war. Those men and women out there are our babies, brothers, loved ones or someone else’s.

If education is a road, then Sally clearly took a wrong turn somewhere. There are numerous well-proven differences between the sexes with regards to intelligence, involving brain size, modes of thought and measured IQ. The great irony of women and war is that while women have been the mouthpiece of the anti-war movement since Euripedes, they also tend to be the staunchest supporters of the tyrants who require war to keep the populace quiescent.

I would love to continue this conversation but I am going to mark my place because I have dinner to prepare and the children to tend to and my husband will be home in a bit. You see I am in the position right now (at home mom) that a lot of men would like but only because I knew that when this desire I have to bear a family is done then I can pursue my own interests, desires, exercise my talents and abilities without suppression. And if I will counter some kind of suppression I have the right to fight it and make the world a better place for everyone. Try living in today’s world and stop trying to bring us back to a place of the past filled with despair.

All of this notwithstanding, I credit Sally for putting her family first, although this may be one of the few examples where homeschooling would actually be worse for a child’s mind than the public schools. As for a place filled with despair for women, the evidence suggests that lies in the future, not the recent past. The last eighty years in the West have been a brief and happy interlude in the normal flow of human history; a woman without a male protector is a woman who will soon find herself in chains or a burqah.

So you see, men just need to find the women who share the same interest and goals in mind instead of forcing women (overall) to do whatever you want them to do. You should seek people you believe as you do and you won’t have any problems. To force your views on someone else is wrong. If you have trouble seeking a woman with your views then maybe you need to revise them to a more intellectual standard. I look forward to commenting on the rest later if you feel like you can handle it sweet heart.

Unlike the fascist feminist movement, I force my views on no one. Only an ideology that is logically and intellectually bankrupt needs to call for the forcible re-education of its critics.

The Sports Guy on the Great Steve Smith:

The Bad Idea Jeans Award for Worst Move Before a Playoff Game
To the Bears D-backs who trash-talked Steve Smith in the pregame warmups before the Carolina game. Why wasn’t this in the scouting report? If you were Lovie Smith, wouldn’t this have been your only ironclad instructions all week? Don’t talk to him, don’t look at him, don’t even make eye contact with him. If he approaches you in the warm ups, act the same way you would if you were hiking in the wilderness and a grizzly bear approached you — don’t move, don’t react, don’t do anything until it walks away.

I’ll admit it, I harbor a deep and abiding affection for Steve Smith. He not only led my fantasy team to a second-place regular season finish but was the key figure in my two Super Bowl wins, and although the Vikings managed to make it back to the Super Bowl in 2012 after his retirement, they just couldn’t get it done and lost to the Dolphins on a last-minute touchdown plunge by Clinton Portis last night.

Sure, he’s a little bit psycho – this is the guy who once beat the tar out of his own teammate for no particular reason – but that’s why you A) don’t ever trash talk him, and, B) keep two men on him at all times. I will never, ever understand why NFL defensive coordinators insist on sticking to their “schemes” even when it means leaving a third-string CB on Smith, or, (like I once saw Green Bay do), leaving a linebacker to cover Randy Moss one-on-one in the slot.

And speaking of travesties, how did Steve Smith not get a single MVP vote? Brady, I would have been okay with, or Manning since the vote is about the regular season, but Sean Alexander? Fantasy MVP, definitely. The real NFL? No way.

From NRO’s Corner:

My private opinion, Jonah, is that the “many worlds interpretations” (MWIs) of quantum physics–there are at least three–are total crocks.

Martin Gardner is of the same mind. He skewered the MWIs in an essay in Skeptical Inquirer magazine four or five years ago. The article (and a response to critics of it) is printed in Martin’s 2003 book Are Universes Thicker than Blackberries? (NB: The book title refers to the fruit, not the gadget.) Martin’s conclusion:
The stark truth is that there is not the slightest shred of reliable evidence that there is any universe other than the one we are in. No multiverse theory has so far provided a prediction that can be tested. … Surely the conjecture that there is just one universe and its Creator is infinitely simpler and easier to believe than that there are countless billions upon billions of worlds, constantly increasing in number and created by nobody. I can only marvel at the low state to which today’s philosophy of science has fallen.

I find it tremendously amusing that some of the fervent evolutionists who are aghast at the notion of intelligent design fall for the many universes concept. This sort is particularly common in the science fiction community, which typically disdains traditional religion while embracing pagan spirituality, the more bizarre the better.

All of the criticisms directed at intelligent design – many of which are quite valid – apply in spades to the universes next door.

KR has a query:

As a Christian and a Libertarian I am constantly confronted with these two passages by my Christian peers. What is your perspective on the content of these passages as they relate to the command of God?

Whose name is on your dollar? Do you see the Internal Revenue Service on there? The proper Biblical conclusion is to pay your tax in Federal Reserve Notes to the Federal Reserve if it asks for it. Jesus Christ said to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, not to give him what is not his.

As for Romans 13, simply ask the questioner if they would favor regime change in the case of Hussein or even Hitler. If they do, then tell them that they would do well to deal with the log in their own eye before attempting to bring in the Bible to refute your political positions.

“What the great Bill Russell said meant a lot,” said O’Neal…. “He said he never had any rivals. He said he talked to Mr. Chamberlain at least once a week before he passed away, and I actually thought they hated each other, but he told me that wasn’t the case at all. It was something I had to hear from a guy like that. My mother and father also called me and told me to shake Kobe’s hand and that we were making a big deal about nothing. And even though I do act crazy sometimes, I do listen.”

I’ve always liked the Big Aristotle as a person, though not as a basketball player. (The non-calls on his multitude of offensive fouls are as bad as those on MJ’s travelling.) And insasmuch as NBA stars are role models for many boys, seeing a man who was so badly and publicly disrespected put that behind him with a handshake and a smile is probably more meaningful than it would be in a more rational world.

Kobe Bryant may be a great basketball player and a smart guy, but he’s a terrible teammate and a shady individual. Here’s hoping he can learn something about character from his ex-teammate. Shaq is a physical giant who has his money and his rings, but he’s never been bigger than he was on the pre-game court that day.