I wonder if the next logical step in his admiration for Athenian educational ideas, promoting teenage boys learning by taking an older man as a lover, will go over well.

She scoffs now, but wait until climate change creates an ISISnado.

Hey, at least he's working hard, unlike all the faculty in Wisconsin universities!

"whose penchant for delving into the psyches of her subjects"

I think they meant "whose penchant for making bizarre, arbitrary observations filtered through her own cocktail of hangups and obsessions."

Obama should just build on the Crusades theme and have a rider to a bill or whatever that Republican lawmakers have to march into the deserts of Syria in historically authentic 100-pound metal armor

Yeah, letting parents veto scientific reality has worked out great in, say, Orange County, California.

So they're just going to steal the talking points of their ideological rivals wholesale and...that's it. No actual change in policy or even an explanation as to why they better represent their opponents' views than their opponents themselves. Who do they think would fall for that?

...oh, the American public would fall for that. Dammit.

I feel hypocritical about it because I have no intention of ever having kids, even as gay men today seem to be suffering an unprecedented outbreak of baby-rabies, but I really do hate that the idea that parents have some kind of ownership over their kids seems so fixed in the American mindset. I see it even among some left-leaning people (i.e. the catastrophically fucking stupid "unschooling" movement). Hell, I'm not even comfortable with letting parents name their kids whatever the hell they want. What about the kids' freedom not to have to get beaten up and singled out for their entire childhood and have to go through the bureaucratic process of changing their name to something sane so that their chances of getting a good job aren't negatively affected by their asshole parents' deranged whims from decades ago?

Anyway, I thought the worst it could get was getting to veto your kids learning about sex and evolution and I don't know the fact that Muslims exist. And even though I really strongly disagreed I could at least see a valid position in claiming your right to raise your kids in your belief system trumps their right to a modern, comprehensive education (of course, I think it's fucking awful and dumb, but hey, I can at least concede that it's a clash between two reasonable definitions of freedom). This, though? IF YOU THINK YOUR DEFINITION OF FREEDOM CAN ENCOMPASS MAKING YOUR KIDS INTO TYPHOID MARYS, YOU ARE NOT JUST STUPID, BUT YOU ARE SO EVIL AND SELFISH PATRICK BATEMAN WOULD BE TAKEN ABACK.

I for one welcome Latin migrants. The custom of eating while lying down sounds awesome, and gladitorial combat has to be way more fun than sportsball.

Gosh, people like him make me feel real good about being a gay intellectual in this country!