As IF Times

link Saudis fear there will be ¿no more virgins¿ and people will turn gay if female drive ban is lifted | Mail Online.

Let’s just say the evidence is inconclusive.  It’s not as if these are the opinions of random wackos, since as we’ve discussed numerous times, every idiot is entitled to their opinion.  No, this point of view comes from  learned scholars,  professors no less, at the prestigious King Fahd university, or King FU as it’s known to grads.   Presumably therefore, their opinions carry some weight among their peers and certainly to the unenlightened masses.  As evidence, one of the scholars, Kamal Subhi a former professor at the university, cites the numerous instances of women unabashedly leering at him while he sat innocently at cafes.

Being made to feel cheap and as an objectified subject of desire caused him great distress and since he is a learned man, the only rational conclusion he could draw was that this was the result of women being allowed to drive.  He concluded that the natural consequence of this would be the complete disappearance of virgins.  Apparently at the King Fahd university, the greater one’s ability to leap great chasms of logic, the more celebrated are their opinions.  Some of the less widely publicized scholarly papers from the university are:

–Facial hair and the correlation to rectal itching

–Excessive laughing and their effects on literacy

–Penguin ownership and the decline of math skills

–Eyeglasses as a subversive western influence

Having a pedigree from a University of course confers some validity to the studies, at least in some quarters.  After all, most societies respect diligent scholarly works.  While there may be some that scoff at some of these ‘studies’ and their conclusions, consider some of the widely accepted postulates that we all accept (mostly) as truths in this part of the world:

–The Big Bang Theory: not the TV show, but rather the brilliant notion that at some point in history, for lack of a better explanation, the universe just showed up, the equivalent of an I Dream Of Jeannie blink.

–The planet Earth, after countless millions of years of existence (if you believe the guesses) is in its death throes because of man’s existence.  Only taxation will fix this.

–The government has your best interests at heart.

In this part of the world, there are truckloads of people with ‘academic’ qualifications offering similarly questionable opinions masquerading as scholarly thought just like our pal Kamal Subhi in Saudi Arabia.  By now, we all know of Bill Ayers, founder of the ‘Weather Underground’ who openly advocates for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government.   This is a guy who still retains academic credibility at the University of Chicago even though he was convicted of setting off bombs at federal buildings during his more active youth.

The media also loves to display the racist rants of Dr. Cornell West as if they were any more lucid than Kamal Subhi’s opinions on women and driving.  The opinions are really quite amusing if they weren’t so dangerous.  The danger is that their academic pedigrees allows them to indoctrinate scores of nubile minds that pass through their academic clutches.  This results in proteges and acolytes who then spread what they have been told once they’re out in the real world.  The consequence is today’s paradox wherein the U.S. produces the largest college graduating classes in history, but also as many who are as ignorant as ever about their own circumstances and especially of how we got to where we are today.

When you combine this with that other source of deep intellectual thought, Hollywood, it can become very difficult to discern fantasy from provable reality if you don’t do your own research.  The strategy for validating science seems to have evolved away from facts supporting theory towards repeating a theory often enough that it becomes fact.  Bleating about man’s influence on global climate changes while dismissing the single most important influence of all on earth’s ecosystems, the Sun, is equally crazy to the correlation between women driving cars and dwindling virginity.  Actually the latter may be easier to prove.

Having a university confer an advanced degree upon you is not a guarantee against idiocy, it only exposes your ideas to the light of day.  And apparently it’s not a guarantee against women leering lustily at you either.  Them’s the breaks I guess.

link 2nd UPDATE: UK Hit By Nationwide Public Sector Strike – WSJ.com.

As sure as the shrimp is the first to disappear at a buffet table, public sector unions in western nations are up in arms over the changes being imposed on their entitlements by governments pressed to address horrendous budget shortfalls.  Of course, that’s only unions in western countries since it is only in western countries that there is the notion of entitlement.

The roots of the labour movement arguably began in Europe during the Industrial Revolution as economies moved from being historically agrarian to adjust to the new era of machines and systematized processes.  Labor became more of a commodity and the early industrialists were as likely as not to exploit the new labor dynamic.  Abuses of workers were likely common and eventually, trade unions were established to protect workers from abusive policies.  A more detailed discussion can be had at,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_movement

With the passage of time however, the labour movement evolved into a distinct component of most western governments but has morphed to become more of a home for leftists than they are defenders of the individual.  It’s no coincidence that labour parties have always been closely aligned with socialist/marxist and communist movements since these philosophies all pushed the notion of the oppressed, non ruling masses.  Whether or not one agrees with the philosophy or aims of the labour movement, one common flaw is glaringly common to all iterations of leftist political thinking.

They have no grasp of math.

Every little kid in every Asian country, from a very early age is competent in basic arithmetic.  The concept of the equals sign, “=” elegantly represented by two parallel lines of exactly equal length means that the values assigned on either side of the sign are the same in value.  Logically, this means that any change to one side requires a change on the other side otherwise the equation is no longer valid.  Somehow, this very fundamental and logical concept is lost on most leftist ideologues and union reps when it comes to socialized payout benefits.  To them, balancing input and outgo is an abstract exercise similar to calculating the value of pi.   This gap in reasoning must be attributable to a deficient education.

It makes sense then, that in order to restore reasonableness to much of society’s woes, that an emphasis should be placed on math from the very early ages.  In fact, when anyone runs for or is appointed to any position of political influence, they should first be required to take a math proficiency exam to ensure that there is a grasp of the concept of the equals sign.  We’re not talking differential calculus math, we’re talking, if Suzy had 3 apples and gave Johnny 1 apple math.  Not only would this eliminate math illiterates from attaining office, it will eliminate them being able to con the large segment of the population who are also math challenged, those that would believe blantantly false utterances and promises.

Only very coddled children, very naive individuals or simply wilfully ignorant demagogues can believe that an infinite amount of anything is available from a very limited pot.  Public service unions can march all they want, but the simple math says that for them to receive an ever escalating stream of entitlements erroneously pledged  by disingenuous leaders means that someone has to pay for them, especially if they themselves don’t.  It just doesn’t add up.  At some point, they really do run out of shrimp at the buffet table.