Pun Salad

■ Proverbs continues its anti-fool tirade with (I'm pretty sure) a famous simile in 26:11:

As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly.

The number of images that Getty returns when you search for "dog vomit" might surprise you.

■ Speaking of a fool repeating his folly: by my count, this is Pun Salad post number 4158.

■ My Google LFOD alert was triggered by a story at casino.org: New Hampshire Rejects Casino Bill, “Live Free or Die” State Not Living Up to Motto.

New Hampshire residents shouldn’t expect to be gambling in their home state anytime soon after the House of Representatives there voted against a casino bill that the Senate had approved.

Of course, a real Live Free or Die state would just legalize gambling, period. NH State Senator Lou D’Allesandro's "casino bill" was just another tax on stupidity, making sure the casinos sent a hefty cut of their profits to… wait a minute, let the casino.org reporter tell us.

It was D’Allesandro’s 19th effort to end casino prohibition in the “Live Free or Die State.” He projected that gaming could generate hundreds of millions of dollars in new tax revenue for Hartford, but it once again wasn’t to be.

Well, no wonder the bill failed. Sending all that money to Hartford? [I've left a comment at casino.org; it might be fixed.]

■ At Reason, Nick Gillespie tries to talk sanely about the Colbert imbroglio: The FCC Isn't Singling Out Stephen Colbert for his "Cock Holster" Crack at Trump.... For those claiming that the FCC's "investigation" is the harbinger of the upcoming American Fascist Nightmare: they are just doing their legislatively-mandated job. For those complainers about Colbert's "homophobia": please stop telling us you think this a real issue.

So we arrive at a place where right-wingers are concern-trolling a liberal comedian as homophobic and where progressives are trolling a government bureaucracy for doing its job (double-plus-good irony: The FCC is the very agency which left-leaners believe should have the right to control all ISPs and thus the Internet via expansive Net Neutrality rules).

Nick's suggestion? Well, it's one we've made ourselves. Hint: the first word is "Abolish".

■ Entire websites are built around revealing the intolerant illiberalism of American Higher Education. I don't even try to keep up here. But Rod Dreher covers a particularly egregious case for The American Conservative: Duke Divinity Crisis: The Documents Are Out.

RTWT, but it starts with a "Dear Faculty Colleagues" missive sent out by Anathea Portier-Young:

On behalf of the Faculty Diversity and Inclusion Standing Committee, I strongly urge you to participate in the Racial Equity Institute Phase I Training planned for March 4 and 5. […]

… followed by some boilerplate invective about the "fierce, ever-present, challenging force" of racism, "one which has structured the thinking, behavior, and actions of individuals and institutions since the beginning of U.S. history."

Yes, behavior and actions. The rule for such things: don't use fewer words when you can think of more.

Which drew a "Dear Faculty Colleagues" response from facule Paul Griffiths:

I exhort you not to attend this training. Don’t lay waste your time by doing so. It’ll be, I predict with confidence, intellectually flaccid: there’ll be bromides, clichés, and amen-corner rah-rahs in plenty. When (if) it gets beyond that, its illiberal roots and totalitarian tendencies will show. Events of this sort are definitively anti-intellectual. (Re)trainings of intellectuals by bureaucrats and apparatchiks have a long and ignoble history; I hope you’ll keep that history in mind as you think about this instance.

Which (executive summary) caused the shit to hit the fan. For example, an entertaining letter from the Dean of DDS advised Griffiths: "Beginning immediately, you will not be permitted to attend or participate in faculty meetings or committee meetings…"

Yes, attend or participate in. Did I mention: don't use fewer words when you can think of more.

Bottom line: Griffiths has resigned, effective at the end of the 2017-18 academic year.

■ You might want to check out The Bill To Permanently Fix Health Care For All. It's long, somewhat cranky, but thoughtful.