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Italy’s Supreme Court reverses a sentence to a pedophile who raped an 11-year-old child on the basis that true love on both sides motivated the rape. Seriously. The link is in Spanish.

First, we heard that the Democrats couldn’t achieve anything because they are in a minority. Now they tells us they can’t get anything done because of being in a majority. I’m getting a feeling that even if the Dems get 100% of seats in both senate and Congress, they will get even less done.

The weirdest kind of journalism I have seen in my life: a journalist combines an interview with a famous philosopher with a restaurant review. The article is seriously bizarre, people.

The sickest Christmas gift this year was the one touted by the Governor of South Carolina.

A very good article that explains why unknown little colleges pretend to charge enormous tuitions. Maybe this is old news to everybody else but I was shocked at the pretentiousness and sheer stupidity of people who swallow this kind of sad little class-bait.

“An Australian priest who supports the ordination of women has been excommunicated by Pope Francis.” Of course, this will not be noticed by anybody who feels a passionate need to believe that this Pope is somehow different from the previous one.

“I have never quite managed to understand this weird DC notion that the goal of politics is to settle all questions once and for all and create a country that’s united on every issue. That we can somehow end debate once and for all, and exist in a tipnronnie world where it’s always 5 o’clock. People disagree about stuff. They always will. It doesn’t bother me.” Exactly.

Even the people who have invented ADHD are horrified with how pharmaceutical companies use this silly label to poison people and make money.

In car-crazy LA, there is a veritable war on pedestrians going on. Shame on  you, LA!

A really great rebuttal of the insidious meme that “breasts have nothing to do with sex, they’re just “sacks of fat”. . . whose only purpose is to nourish babies.”

An absolutely classic example of projection performed by David Brooks. Do read the linked post to the very last line, it’s priceless. If you have no time, just read the first and last lines.

And here is another exercise in projection from Feministe. It’s really bizarre how people invest pictures with meaning and then battle that meaning which they invented completely on their own. 

It’s not my fault that people don;t seem able to string two words together without projecting their beliefs onto the universe. See this: “The world was shell-shocked when the Beytomic bomb exploded on the musical landscape.” Yeah, because “the world” begins and ends with you and your buddies.

“When it comes to the boycott of Israel, who has the real double standard?”

“Great — the only time in decades that hating government was not a majority opinion in America was when we wanted government to hunt down and exterminate a significant portion of the globe’s practitioners of one particular religion.”

“The most damaging and widespread fiction in the US that both the Left, Right and Middle believes and implicitly subscribe to is that the government’s fiscal affairs in any way resemble that of a household or have any relation at all to bank accounts, loans or saving as experienced by the average person.” So true. Whenever somebody says, during a discussion of economy, “well, it’s like balancing your check-book”, I shut down the discussion and leave in order to help my interlocutor avoid embarrassing him or herself even further.

A funny headline about a Missouri professor.

And the post of the week: The top ten news photos of 2013. A really great post, check it out.

The way you know that you have reached adulthood is when you say for the first time: “I messed up. I am very sorry. I am ready to accept the consequences and I will do what I need to do to make things better.”

A student came up to me last week and said, “I can’t hand in the composition because I haven’t written it. If you will be willing to accept it after the spring break, I will really appreciate that, but if not, I completely understand.”

Then, another student approached me and said, “I didn’t write the composition because you refused to help me.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I wrote you an email asking for help, and you never responded.”

For me, it is a point of honor to respond to students’ emails the moment I receive them. I go out of my way to make myself available to students who ask for help. Which is why the suggestion that I dismissed this person’s email made me hot behind the ears.

“You had a month to write this composition,” I told the student. “You see me in class twice a week. You and I have spoken outside of class on two occasions. Only this morning, we exchanged several messages. Yet, you never mentioned any email or the problems you were having with this assignment.”

“Well, I don’t know,” the student said, as the words “I’m such a lousy liar” pulsated on her forehead in huge neon letters. “I asked you for help, and you refused.”

An adult realizes that antagonizing the person you are interacting with by inventing a veritable calumny (because that is how I see a suggestion that I refused to help a student) is a very stupid way to proceed. By placing the blame onto the other individual by accusing them of your own screw-up brings the momentary relief of not needing to admit your mistake. However, you always end up paying a high price for this meaningless avoidance of discomfort. People lose all respect for you and nobody takes you seriously any longer.

It is sad to see people who are well into their twenties but who still employ the kindergarten strategies of saying, “I didn’t do this bad thing, and even if I did, it’s all your fault because you made me do it. And if you didn’t make me do it, then somebody else did because it cannot possibly be my fault.”