Bureaucrats in Montreal are trying to shut down a pre-school for autistic children:

A private preschool in Montreal West for children with autism is facing possible closure, because the Quebec government says it doesn’t have the proper permit to operate.

The Little Red Playhouse caters to children with an autism spectrum disorder, giving them the special attention they need, so they can eventually transition more easily into the public school system.

Parents call the school a godsend.

There is absolutely no reason for the closure except that the bureaucrats can’t find a category for this school in their paperwork. Whatever that means.

Let’s sign this petition to tell the government of Quebec that closing the school is simply wrong.

It’s been said many times that if the GOP doesn’t dump the religious freaks immediately, it will go out of existence in the matter of just a couple of decades. This is self-evident to everybody, except for the most extreme of the Republicans. And, I mean, good for us because this self-immolation is funny to observe.

Here are some excerpts from a really good article explaining how massively the Millennials are detesting the GOP. It isn’t like this needs any proof because anybody who has met a young person realizes that the anti-abortion, anti-birth control, anti-gay, anti-pot, anti-government, anti-immigrant agenda does not even remotely resonate with the younger generation of iPads, YouTube, Tumblr, and texting. Still, it’s always fun to kick somebody when they are down.

Republicans were already destined for piecemeal decimation due to the declining numbers of their core constituency. But they don’t just have a demographic problem anymore; they have stylistic one. The conservative strategy of outrage upon outrage upon outrage bumps up against the policy preferences and the attitudes of millennials in perfect discord.

The point about the stylistic problem of the Republicans is well-taken. The ugly, vociferating older people who roll their eyes and stick their tongues out, promising fire and brimstone visited on anybody who wants to have a good time are just not cool.

The GOP has long staked a claim on The Disappearing Angry White Man, but they have apparently ever-narrowing odds of getting a bite at millennials, who appear to be more like The Somewhat Concerned Multicultural Moderate.

“The Somewhat Concerned Multicultural Moderate” is probably the best description I’ve ever seen of the Millennials, and this is a very good way to be.

The Rupe-Reason poll teases out some of the thinking behind the surge of young people abandoning the GOP, and finds a generation that is less apt to take to the streets, Occupy-style, than to throw a great block party: lots of drugs, poker and gays! Millennials don’t want to change things, apparently – they want everyone to get along.

This is also spot-on. Even at the Occupy protests, younger people sat there with beatific smiles and posters asking for “compassion.” Which, again, is a very valid life choice that is enormously better than the apocalyptic worldview of the Gen Xers (my generation.) I’d take an “everything is fine, let’s just all get along” youngster over “the world is about to end, oh the endless drama of my blighted existence” of my peer any day of the week.

There is a single problem I’ve seen in the article that I need to point out. Observe the contradiction inherent in the following statements:

74% of millennials, according to Reason, want the government to guarantee food and housing to all Americans. . . this next generation is not just inclusive, but conflict-adverse.

Conflict-adverse people will not be able to make any money, so who will provide guaranteed food and housing for everybody? I don’t know if the article’s author is unaware of this glaring contradiction in her own piece or if she left the issue hanging on purpose. However, the issue remains.

The backlash that the Millennials are offering to the apocalyptically-minded previous generations who sought reasons to be miserable is a refusal to tolerate any unpleasantness whatsoever. If Boomers and Gen Xers avidly searched for misery, the younger generation wants absolutely no misery at all. I understand them because my own tragedy-courting generation is getting on my nerves, as well. But I hope that the Millennials have enough fight in them to kick the GOP out of the political arena to let somebody less dinosauric come in.

A new scholarly volume titled The Woman in Latin American and Spanish Literature has come out. The first part of the book is titled, “Women and Nature.”

Headdesk times ten.

What I don’t understand is why sexual assault victims keep reporting the crime to the colleges and not to the police. Colleges suck at investigating these crimes. They take forever and never do anything.

I also don’t understand why victims are prohibited from naming the criminals to anybody during the investigation. This puts the potential victims in danger. Why is somebody’s “good name” more important than my safety?

This is a very serious problem. I hate seeing yet another victim not get any justice.

My aunt came over from Donetsk a couple of days ago. She says that one of the scariest moments was walking down the street with her baby grandson and seeing a convoy of armored vehicles pass her by. The heavily armed “Ukrainian separatists” walking behind the vehicles were mostly Chechen.

These “separatists” are getting impatient with Putin for not sending them more troops. They have now started shooting an odd shot or two back across the border with the goal of reminding Russians of the good old times during the two Chechen wars and getting Putin to act on his promises.

Contractor: I need to figure out what to do with that safe of mine. I have this safe – it’s a big enormous thing – where I keep all of my guns. And somebody is opening it when I’m not there, so I need to figure out what to do.

Me: Is it possible your son has access?

Contractor: Yeah, I mean he’s just 10 but he’s smart. Maybe he saw me entering the code. So I guess I should just figure out what to do about it before the kid shoots up his school or something. Ha ha.

Me: If you need to leave right now to secure the safe, that’s fine with me.

Contractor: Nah. I guess it can wait until I get around to it.

The contractor started ranting about “’em folks who work for McDonald’s and live on food stamps that we have to pay for with our taxes” again.

“So our taxes have to support these workers because McDonald’s needs to make an even greater profit,” I said. “It’s good to know that our hard-earned money is supporting such a rich corporation.”

“Hmm. . .” the contractor said. “I haven’t thought about it this way. But I guess you’re right. This is so unfair!”

For some reason, I only collected really hilarious stories this week. Check them out if you need some laughs to start the week:

Here is a post where adult people seriously discuss whether men need sex more than women. The funniest part is that the post is  written by a sex educator.

And if you haven’t had enough of ridiculous sexist stereotypes, read more “sex ed tips” from the same author.

“Just about anyone who’s gotten a Ph.D. has to have been strongly internally motivated; you don’t spend five to ten years writing a dissertation and foregoing other opportunities if you don’t care intensely about your work.” It is beautiful to see such naive and innocent people.

“This article reexamines the living arrangements of children following their parents’ divorce, using Wisconsin Court Records, updating an analysis that showed relatively small but significant increases in shared custody in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These changes have accelerated markedly in the intervening years: between 1988 and 2008, the proportion of mothers granted sole physical custody fell substantially, the proportion of parents sharing custody increased dramatically, and father–sole custody remained relatively stable.” Isn’t it funny how the brainless MRAs keep chirping about parental rights without even paying attention to what is going on in the world?

A funny bumper-sticker.

“Italian intellectuals up in arms over hotel named after Antonio Gramsci.”

A hilarious story of a “Liberal” discovering how hard it is to put his money where his mouth is.

“Justifying the takeover of broadcast rights, Kirchner stood beside soccer legend Diego Maradona in 2009 and accused the private sector of “kidnapping goals” from viewers the way the 1976-1983 military dictatorship kidnapped and tortured thousands of Argentines. “I don’t want a society of kidnappings anymore,” Kirchner said.”

A really stupid article by the perennially brain-dean Maureen Dowd. Now she is in the business of counting other people’s money and seething with resentment.

This has got to be the worst post I have ever read on higher ed. I mean, they all suck but this one is just something special. Talk about forced metaphors. The post is signed by a provost, which in itself tells us everything we need to know about the arrant idiocy of the author.

Zoo animals haven’t had every ounce of added value squeezed out of them. Until now.

This is a post that uses an expression “an effective thin ally to fat people.” You can gauge its entertainment potential just from that.

“The Dalai Lama says that western women will save the world. That is a lot to ask of us, especially since we have a barrage of criticism being leveled at us all the time. We’re too rich or too poor, barren or breeders, pushy or lazy, prudish or promiscuous. Does the world deserve our help?” No, absolutely not. I say, we should all emigrate to a different galaxy where nobody will dare criticize us in our perfection.

“Apple’s clear discomfort with women’s bodies seems to be bordering on intentional. I mean, I can hardly believe such a blatant double standard got through in the engraving case–you’re creating a list of words that get flagged as inappropriate, how do you not notice that vagina is on there and penis is not?” If the author of the article actually met some programmers, she’d know why they are unaware of the existence of vaginas.

“Leena Mccall’s painting, Portrait of Ms Ruby May, was removed by the Mall Galleries in London from its Society of Women Artists’s annual exhibition. The gallery did not consult the Society, which selected the works to display. The gallery reportedly says that the move “protected” “children and vulnerable adults.” I stared at the painting for 10 minutes, trying to imagine those “unprotected children and vulnerable adults.” I highly recommend this pastime; it’s fun.

I have no idea what this endless freakout is about but it sounds funny as hell.

And the winner of the “Most Hilariously Idiotic Post Ever” contest is the following: “When confronted with criticism from immigrants, white Americans will often nonsensically retort, “If you hate America so much, go back to where you came from!” with the intention of forcing an admission that the place in question is worse. But what they neglect, as expected, is to apply that segregative logic evenly: I might not have minded returning to where I came from, if you hadn’t destroyed it. why, after all, is it worse?” Yes, indeed, why can life anywhere possibly suck? It just has to be the fault of the Americans. The post reminded me of this true and hilarious story.

About 40 million people in Russia will soon lose their access to free healthcare.

Who wants to bet that these very people will support Putin more passionately than ever?

Today, Russia’s main TV channel showed an interview with a woman who claimed to be from the recently liberated Ukrainian city of Slovyansk (the woman later turned out to be severely mentally ill) and who shared a blood-curdling story of Ukrainian soldiers crucifying a small boy in the main square of the city in front of a huge crowd. No explanation as to why Ukrainian soldiers would engage in such an activity was offered. Journalists from Ukraine and Russia have been interviewing every inhabitant of Slovyansk they could encounter since the story aired but haven’t found anybody who saw anything of the kind.

The story is very useful, though. Who will worry about something as trivial as healthcare benefits when kindly Uncle Putin is protecting little kids from being eaten by mean Ukrainian soldiers?

Argentina’s Cristina Fernandez signed a treaty with Putin and expressed a “strong desire” for a deeper relationship with Russia.

I now feel great these losers lost the World Cup.