Pot shots

My alma mater has decided that now is good time to start up a Jewish Studies program and so undergrads can now get  a Jewish Studies a minor with their bachelor's degree. Two issues: Why, with money being so tight, is the university even doing this? There are many better ways those funds could be used other than to study Jewishness. Second, this opens the door still yet further for every ethnic group, religion, race, or sexual preference and etcetera to demand their own "studies" program too.

A tech columnist at C/Net decries some guy shooting himself in his ample gut to test the effectiveness of his body armor (AKA  a "bullet-proof vest") and posting it on YouTube. I guess the thought that this moron is getting the attention that he seems to crave from people like the columnist and that it might encourage him or others like him to do it again or with bigger, better weapons didn't occur to Mr. High Tech Columnist.

If you put your Doomsday Survival Library on a tablet, laptop, or cellphone you don't have lug all those books around with you while trying to survive the apocalypse. But ah, electronics are also prone to failure, breakage, and need to be recharged at frequent intervals, so there's that. A conundrum to be sure.

Digital age pioneer Scott McNealy's admonition notwithstanding, I think it's a good idea to clear your Google web history ASAP because (as Google has duly warned us) "all your information and data is belong to us"(Google = "us") to do with what they will once their new [sic] "privacy policy" comes into effect this March. Time to just embrace the suck and opt out. Some privacy is better than none.

A fair warning: Two lines from a country music song by Josh Thompson:

"Our houses are protected by the good Lord and a gun/
You might meet 'em both if you show up here not welcome, son."

I'm thinking of having that stanza printed on a floor mat for my front porch. A gentlemen is supposed give fair warning and all.

Word of warning to the stoners at EMU; Pot is still illegal

Kind of amazing that this even needs to be said. The campus cops will arrest you for having and smoking that stuff.

EMU to produce Eastman's "Go, Dog. Go!" as play

My kids loved P.D. Eastman's book Go-Dog-Go. And now it is being produced as a stage performance. Seeing as how the book only takes about two minutes to read straight through aloud I wonder what the play will consist of?

This mofo is the best guest speaker you guys could come up with?

The Kwamester

Ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is scheduled to take his lame ass book-tour to my alma mater in a few days. Probably trying to raise a few more thou to pay for the legal team he is no doubt assembling for his upcoming federal corruption trials.

Stating the obvious: EMU students don't go to football games

So observes the Eastern Echo. Even with a comparatively stellar season so far at 5-4 the Eagles have only averaged 4,354 in per game attendance this season through five home games. The MAC conference was considering whether or not to boot Eastern from the league for not making the required standard average attendance back in the 80's when I went there as an undergrad. Football has always been a particular struggle for Eastern over the years too. How much of struggle become apparent when you read this blurb from Wikipedia's entry on EMU football.

"[EMU's football program]... has had eight win-less seasons, in 1891, 1910, 1941, 1949, 1960, 1961, 1981 and 2009. The team has never ended a season ranked in any major poll, and is among the worst Division I FBS schools both in all-time win percentage (45.4%, for 107 out of 120) and in all-time scoring margin (-1898, for 108 out of 120)." 

Some record, eh folks?


Honestly EMU should consider just dumping NCAA Division I football.  Big Ten founding member school the University of Chicago dropped its sports programs in 1946 in order to focus on becoming the academic giant it aspired to be and has never looked back. I doubt if doing so would hurt EMU very much either other than the alumni's pride perhaps. EMU is a "commuter school" now and has been for years. The students going there want a degree that will help them in the job market and seemingly could not care less about the whole "Boola-boola" college football experience from the old days.

That's how I see it.

Sports builds character

Except when it doesn't. These two a-holes likely never had much character to begin with. EMU is better off without 'em.

EMU football struggles with poor attendence

EMU football is only averaging 3,000 or so in attendance per home game. The MAC average is supposed to be around 15K. Wow. I know that they have to compete against UM football three out of six home games this season but jeez. That's low. And which is amazing too considering the huge numbers of alumni Eastern has around here.

EMU has a "LGBT Resource Center"? Who knew?

This tidbit from the Eastern Echo caught my eye.

"Eastern Michigan University students, LGBT and otherwise, flocked to Big Bob’s Lakehouse Tuesday afternoon for the LGBT Resource Center’s fourth-annual welcome back BBQueer." 

Who knew EMU even had a LGBT Resource Center?  I wonder how much money they burn through on their picnics, outings, and what-all? Presumably taxpayer funded too.

If you missed the BBQueer event just wait for other LGBT events scheduled for this OUTober!

EMU campus getting WTC relic for Pease Park

I'm not really sure why this item from the WTC wreckage has been presented to EMU for their park. If the jingoistic neo-conservatives and other war lovers hadn't made the WTC/911 attacks the center-piece of their permanent war strategy people around here probably would feel less jaundiced and cynical about the whole thing.

All it will likely mean to most Eastern Michigan University students and Ypsilantians is that there is now another thing for vandals, creeps, and taggers to spray paint over and for pigeons to roost on.

$9,000 a semester to go to Eastern Michigan University? Yikes!

At least that's what one student in this article in the Eastern Echo claimed to be borrowing in student loans per semester. Yikes! That's just over $70,000 for a four-year degree. I hope whatever he's majoring in renumerates enough to repay all that in a timely fashion or he/she will be drowning in debt forever. Even with a bachelor's degree in engineering, nursing, business administration or some other field where the grads get hired quick and that tend to pay well servicing that much debt is gonna be a tough row to hoe.

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The redistribution state can't endure (Victor Davis Hanson, NRO)
Hanson's grumpy old guy grousing act is getting kinda predictable but he still has a point. Eventually all these social justice activists in and out of government run out of other people's money to "redistribute". And that's when the trouble starts.

EMU now looking  to establish entire campus as a no-smoking zone (Julianna Keeping, annarbor.com/)
From the comments @ Ann Arbor.com website: "They should have designated spots for tobacco addicts to fix. Otherwise the EMU police will have to play cat & mouse games of trying to bust them smoking. And, as always, there are the associated problems of suppressing unpopular behavior. Litter, fire hazards, smoking in rest rooms,vandalism, and all the rest. A clear case of the majority acting in an oppressive., heavy handed, ill-liberal manner."

The North Koreans are starving to death (ABC News)
To paraphrase the bumper sticker "you can't fill a grocery bag with nuclear arms". Sad but predictable.

The story of America's founding lumpen (John Payne, American Conservative)
A book review of Thaddeus Russell's A Renegade History of the United States. 
"The cities of colonial and early republican America teemed with whores, homosexual pirates, and illegitimate children; slaves frequently labored less and enjoyed leisure more than free whites in the antebellum era; and the mob is responsible for far more of the freedoms that modern Americans enjoy than are the prudish leaders of the civil rights movement. All that is according to the provocative and revelatory Renegade History of the United States, which Thaddeus Russell describes in the preface as 'history from the gutter up.' ”

Same sex marriages now legal in Bloomberg-istan (Huffington Post)
So now in Manhattan you can marry a person of the same sex, but you can't sprinkle salt on your fries or light up a smoke in the park. The nannies in government have a very skewed idea of what liberty means, eh?

Immigration/Invasion/Demographic News Funnier If You Get The Joke—Which Is ALWAYS On America (Steve Sailor, iSteve blog)
He who laughs last laughs best eh? Hope not.

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Ex-Detroit City Council President Monica Conyers on prison life: The food is bad and you can't get seconds
Monica should be grateful she went to the federal joint. Michigan prisons are quite a bit worse they tell me.
"...I think Jim Tressel is nothing but a slick, little con man."
Perhaps he is but is the NCAA and the Big Ten Conference willing to take him and the OSU machine on?
Detroit School Board chief not living in the city?
You can never tell about claims and statements leaked during divorce proceedings though.
Eastern Michigan University student interns apparently sold personal info on students and alumi 
But not to worry says administration. Yeah, sure. It wasn't your info mofo.
Safari web browser an easier hack than IE
Oh oh.
Copyright troll complains of defendant's legal fees
That's because they know they'll being paying them. Heh.
"Gastric Pacemaker" Fakes Fullness as You Eat
"An implant intended as a less drastic alternative to stomach stapling or stomach bypass surgery for the morbidly obese is now being sold in Europe. The device senses when a person is eating and generates a premature sensation of fullness by stimulating nerves that curl around the stomach."

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Eastern Michigan coach Ron English sells single moms short- Detroit Free Press

Alternative headline: Simple-minded sports columnist doesn't get nuance, or is simply looking to start a mud fight to boost readership.

Sign of the Times..

The Michigan state senate has rejected both of Governor Granholm's appointments to the board of trustees of Eastern Michigan University, as well as a few other spots. Wow. The Republican led senate has again done the right thing but for the wrong (shallow and partisan) reasons and which should by now be no surprise. If a Republican wins the election for governor this November look for him or her to replace these rejected appointments of lame Democratic political hacks with Republicans appointees of greater or equal lameness.