Oooh, girls don't like geeks...

Or so moans Jeanna Bryner in a sob-story on the dropping numbers of women in computer science written for MSNB's Live Science portal. Writes Bryner,

The stereotype of computer scientists as geeks who memorize Star Trek lines and never leave the lab may be driving women away from the field, a new study suggests.

And women can be turned off by just the physical environment, say, of a computer-science classroom or office that's strewn with objects considered "masculine geeky," such as video games and science-fiction stuff.

Oh, the poor dears and their tender little sensibilities. Over a hundred years ago, English novelist Jane Austen wrote a novel entitled Sense and Sensibility that clearly showed the superiority of sense over sensibility. At the end of the novel, the character whose sensibilities had previously dominated her decisions realized that common sense was superior to being driven by her emotions (sensibilities). Women have been telling the world that they are equal (and for some feminists, more than equal) for many years. Thus, they have abrogated their privilege to being allowed to claim some 'sensibility' problem, in my view.

Let's turn the argument on its head. Most women-dominated professions decorate their offices with fluffy, girly things and engage in water-cooler discussions that mot men would find utterly inane. Men do not feel comfortable in such surroundings, but it is a rare man who speaks up to complain about this overly feminine, masculine-unfriendly atmosphere. Men prefer a different sort of atmosphere and women should accept it. If a profession is male-dominated as computer science is, then women need to realize that most of the atmosphere will be more masculine than they might prefer, just as men who enter occupations that are female-majority, like teaching or nursing, need to understand that football posters and discussions of the latest tech gadgets are unlikely to occur with any frequency. Both need to adjust.

This is not to say that women should be deliberately made to feel uncomfortable, any more than men should be made to feel uncomfortable. but both sexes have top understand that the majority is probably not thinking about that - they are creating an atmosphere that is best sited to themselves. men have long since accepted that idea. It is time and past time for women to do the same. And sob-stories like Bryner's do not help that progress.

Rules are for the Little People, Part...

I've lost count. How many members of the Obama Administration is this now who apparently believe that rules are only for their subjects constituents?

Meet Cindy Padilla who, according to Dan Riehl, got a lengthy vacation - very likely paid for by taxpayers - while she dealt with the results of a DWI conviction. Can you imagine any normal person getting that kind of treatment? No, neither can I. Just one more example of how the Washington crowd in general, and Democrats and Obama staffers in particular, seem to believe that rules are for the little people.

And as a bonus, the Associated Press, which originally reported this story, didn't feel the need to include her political party affiliation. Need we guess? Of course she is a Democrat.

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.

Another One Bit The Dust...

According to CBS News (yes, the 'fake-but-accurate' people, so take this with a LARGE grain of salt), an unmanned drone attack in Pakistan killed Al-Quaeda's number three commander, one Abu Yahya al-Libi. The United States has yet to confirm the reports.

Good job, U.S. Armed Forces! Note to President Obama - kill these cowardly murderers faster, please.

Congressional Power Grab - Athletics Edition

The United States Constitution clearly spells out the areas in which the U.S Congress is entitled to exercise authority. I don't recall college athletics as being mentioned anywhere in the actual text of the Constitution. However, this has not stopped some of the Constitutionally illiterate members of Congress from attempting to impose their authority on yet another area where they ought to leave well enough alone. According to an Associated Press report posted on FoxSports.com today, U.S. Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican who really should know better, sponsored a law to force the NCAA to have a playoff. The AP reported,

A House subcommittee approved legislation Wednesday aimed at forcing college football to switch to a playoff system to determine a national champion, over the objections of some lawmakers who said Congress had more pressing matters on its plate.

The only Representative to vote No was Democrat John Barrow of Georgia.

"With all due respect, I really think we have more important things to spend our time on," Barrow said before the vote, although he stressed he didn't like the current Bowl Championship Series, either.

Barrow is right that this should have been hastily voted down, but he has his rationnale a little mixed up in my opinion. The United States Constitution's clear text on Congressional powers is pretty simple. As follows:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

I don't see anything in that text that allows Congress to regulate whether or not college football's Division One schools have a playoff system or not. It is obvious that the current system is a pathetic disgrace, the more so since every other division in college football has a playoff system. However, until the schools themselves decide to change things, Congress should focus their attention on things that are within their province. The utterly unconstitutional power grab by the EPA with their recent decision to class carbon dioxide as a pollutant - never mind that CO2 is a substance that is vital to human life on Earth - as a pollutant would be a good place to start.

It would be nice if our Congresspeople were actually cognizant that Congress - like the President and the court system - are not granted the power to do whatever they wish. There are limits on government power in the Constitution. If only our government would actually respect them!

Boxer: Leaked emails are 'crime'

So, California junior senator Barbara Boxer has decided that it is a crime to blow the whistle on a massive fraud. According to The Hill, Boxer is planning to hold criminal investigations into the hacked emails depicting the cover-up, lies and manipulated data produced by the University of East Anglia's global warming factory.

According to TheHill.com, Boxer is quoted as saying,

"You call it 'Climategate'; I call it 'E-mail-theft-gate,'" she said during a committee meeting. "Whatever it is, the main issue is, Are we facing global warming or are we not? I'm looking at these e-mails, that, even though they were stolen, are now out in the public."

So Boxer is unhappy with leaked data? Where was all this outrage when the New York Times was breaking laws left and right to blab national security secrets all over its front pages? Front pages that are currently bereft of any mention of the fraud being perpetrated by the global warming - oops, sorry - Global Climate Change proponents. Where was her outrage when the CIA was leaking left and right to try to undermine a sitting President?

It seems to me that the Left only cares about leakers who leak when a Republican Administration is in power. Funny how Obama, even though he is continuing virtually every single one of the previous Administration's policies, doesn't seem to have that problem. This tells me that the bureaucracy in Washington is so highly partisan and so hostile to Republican office-holders that they will commit treason - which is then facilitated by their allies in the media like Eric Lichtblau and James Risen - if they think it will hurt a Republican. Never mind what the results may be for the United States - these partisan hacks care only about putting their preferred political allies into power.

I think that it is time to flush out the entrenched bureaucracies in Washington. Dissolve the CIA. Get rid of all the various bureaus and let's start over. And this time, let's see if we can find patriots, not political partisans. Every member of the bureaucracy, just like every elected official, takes an oath to uphold the laws of the United States. Isn't it time that we demanded that they actually adhere to the oaths they willingly take, instead of preferring to cherry-pick the ones they wish to follow? It's time that they were called to account. And it is time that the government either enforced the laws - including forcing journalists who help lawbreakers to name their sources - or cease pretending that these laws even matter. You can't have it both ways.

Gay Lobby Loses....Again

You mean not only so-called 'red' states are ignorant and tyrannical? New York's state Senate kills gay marriage in New York.

This seems like a tempest in a teacup in many ways, but the underlying issue is one that we would do well to remember. The Left (and yes, this includes the militant gay lobby) has always been about the tyranny of the minority. And as I have written before, despite the gay lobby's in-your-face tactics and attempts to paint the issue as one of civil rights, most people simply do not agree that marriage is a right. And no minority has a right to dictate to a majority what that majority's idea of social normality should be. Absent some violation of civil rights (race-based discrimination, for example), the majority has the right to set their own standards. And homosexual behavior is simply not a normal social standard of behavior. This does not change my stance that government ought to get out of the entire debate and let the churches determine what marriage is or is not. But when a standard is as long-established as marriage, there is little reason to change it (again absent some violation of civil rights).

Ultimately, the people have the right to set their own standards and despite their enablers in the media and the support of large swaths of government, the gay lobby has failed to make a convincing argument. Instead, they have engaged in hateful, violent rhetoric against anyone who stands against them.

The worst part for the gay lobby is that in ultra-Left/liberal New York, a good percentage of the senate Democrats voted against it. Wonder how long it will take the gay lobby to call them insulting names and hurl hateful rhetoric in their direction?