Last Call

No sympathy for wingnut welfare recipient Dinesh D'Souza, now former head of NYC's evangelical King's College.

Conservative filmmaker and author Dinesh D’Souza, facing scrutiny over his troubled marriage and dating life, is stepping down from his post as president of King’s College in New York, according to a statement Thursday from the school.

“After careful consultation with the board and with Dinesh, we have accepted his resignation to allow him to attend to his personal and family needs,” said Andy Mills, chairman of the board, in a statement. “We thank him for his service and significant contribution to the College over the last two years.”

D’Souza directed the documentary “2016: Obama’s America,” the second-highest-grossing political documentary in American history, and he has authored books including “Obama’s America” and “The Roots of Obama’s Rage.”

The school’s decision came several days after World magazine ran a story saying that D’Souza, who is married, introduced another woman as his fiancée to several people at a conference late last month, and shared a hotel room with her that night. The evangelical Christian publication also reported that, according to court records, D’Souza didn’t file for divorce until Oct. 4 — the day the World reporter called him.

Oops.  But don't feel sorry for the one of the biggest purveyors of Obama Derangement Syndrome on the map, folks.  I'm sure he's got a nice cushy wingnut welfare job lined up at FOX, National Review, the Wall Street Journal or hell, MSNBC.  (Phil Griffin is considering it.  Trust me.)

Guys like D'Souza can never really be shamed out of the media and stripped of their credibility.  They just fail upwards to a better place.

Meeting Of The Mindless

Rep. Todd Akin getting help from Sen. Rand Paul?  Oh somebody upstairs likes me.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R) jumps in to the Missouri Senate race Wednesday with a statewide television ad critical of Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill for her votes on foreign aid to countries that have seen violent demonstrations critical of the United States.

Paul is the latest Republican to defy party leaders and help the beleaguered Senate candidacy of Todd Akin, abandoned by the national GOP in August after telling a television interviewer that woman generally do not get pregnant in cases of “legitimate rape.”  Top Republicans, including presidential nominee Mitt Romney and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ken.), asked Akin to drop out and cut national party support for his campaign.

Akin apologized but sank in the polls, surviving with a small cadre of defiant supporters, mostly Christian conservatives. McCaskill leads in most polls, but Akin’s numbers have recovered from the 20-point gap that emerged after his rape comment.

And McCaskill is still leading by most poll aggregates.  Rand Paul trying to be a national GOP hero?  Good luck with that.  That may play here in Kentucky, but you're going to find that what works here in ultra-conservative Kentucky is going to be a real problem for Todd Akin.

We'll see.

Tagg, You're It

And speaking of weird-ass kids, Mitt Romney's son Tagg had some interesting words for President Obama after Tuesday's debate, apparently.

Mitt Romney’s son Tagg said Wednesday that he wanted to punch President Barack Obama during the second presidential debate.

“I’m going to ask something I think a lot of people want to know, or at least I do. What is it like for you to hear the President of the United States call your dad a liar. How do you react to that?” Tagg was asked by radio host Bill Lumaye.

“Well — jump out of your seat and you want to rush down to the debate stage and take a swing at him,” he replied. “But you know you can’t do that because, well, first there is a lot of Secret Service between you and him but also because this is the nature of the process, they’re going to do everything they can do to make my dad into someone he is not.”

Two things, Tagg.  One, forget the Secret Service, Michelle Obama would flatten you like a pancake.  Two, your dad is very much a liar, Tagg.  He told 31 whoppers by one count on Tuesday night.

Maybe you should ask your dad what his economic plan is there, Taggster.  Nobody else in America seems to be privy to it.

Including Mitt Romney himself.

Cardboard Bicycles Coming Soon

(Reuters) - A bicycle made almost entirely of cardboard has the potential to change transportation habits from the world's most congested cities to the poorest reaches of Africa, its Israeli inventor says.

Izhar Gafni, 50, is an expert in designing automated mass-production lines. He is an amateur cycling enthusiast who for years toyed with an idea of making a bicycle from cardboard.

He told Reuters during a recent demonstration that after much trial and error, his latest prototype has now proven itself and mass production will begin in a few months.

"I was always fascinated by applying unconventional technologies to materials and I did this on several occasions. But this was the culmination of a few things that came together. I worked for four years to cancel out the corrugated cardboard's weak structural points," Gafni said.

"Making a cardboard box is easy and it can be very strong and durable, but to make a bicycle was extremely difficult and I had to find the right way to fold the cardboard in several different directions. It took a year and a half, with lots of testing and failure until I got it right," he said.

Weighing approximately fifteen pounds (compared to twenty for normal bikes) and given tires that will never puncture and are also recycled, this could be a world-changing event.  Gafni says he plans to use a business model that will allow him to pay employees and still make the bikes for free or near that.  He hopes retailers will keep the price at around $20 to encourage use and get the technology out there.  Poor countries and big cities can both benefit from this, and for those who hate to pedal the unit can be customized to work with a rechargeable motor.

How awesome is that?

HPV Vaccine Causes Little To No Change In Sexual Habits

So if girls have access to protection from death by sex, they don't go out and bump uglies with every available man.  I'll pretend to be shocked.

HPV is the leading cause of cervical cancer and also has been linked with anal and oral cancers in women and men.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend HPV shots for girls and boys at age 11 or 12, before they have ever had sex. Three doses are generally recommended over six months.

Some parents have raised concerns that the shots "are a license to have sex," but the study bolsters evidence against that concern, said Dr. Elizabeth Alderman, an adolescent medicine specialist at The Children's Hospital at Montefiore in New York City. She was not involved in the study.

First, license to have sex?  Regardless of whether they never had sex or humped every leg within miles, do they  not deserve the ability to save lives, including their own?

Science.  It works, bitches.

Mitt, Like A Boss

Mitt's latest gaffe from the past is from June, from a conference call with members of the National Federation of Independent Business, where Mr. Romney apparently suggested that America's bosses should make it clear that they would have to fire employees if President Obama was re-elected:

I hope you make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the upcoming elections. And whether you agree with me or you agree with President Obama, or whatever your political view, I hope, I hope you pass those along to your employees. 

Considering the number of awful bosses who are doing just that, Mitt suddenly has himself a big, big problem.

The call raises the question of whether the Romney campaign is complicit in the corporate attempts to influence employees' votes that have been recently making headlines. On Sunday, In These Times broke the news that Koch Industries mailed at least 45,000 employees a voter information packet that included a flyer endorsing Romney and a letter warning, “Many of our more than 50,000 U.S. employees and contractors may suffer the consequences [of a bad election result], including higher gasoline prices, runaway inflation, and other ills.” Last week, Gawker obtained an email in which the CEO of Westgate Resorts, Florida billionaire David Siegel, informed his 7,000 employees that an Obama victory would likely lead to layoffs at his company. This week, MSNBC’s Up with Chris Hayes unveiled an email by ASG Software Solutions CEO Arthur Allen in which he, too, warned employees that an Obama second term would spell layoffs.

And now to hear that Romney is not only in support of these efforts, but actively telling business owners to do this, makes it pretty clear which candidate is on the side of the middle-class American worker.

It sure as hell isn't Mitt.  Spread the word.

Josh Romney Is Coming For Your Soul

Josh Romney is the most frightening man on Earth.  He's sitting next to his mother, Ann.

He is coming for your soul.

Your soul.  You, America.  YOU.

AND NOW IT'S TOO LATE HE HAS YOUR SOUL.

StupidiNews!

• FBI officials have arrested a 21 year old Bangladeshi man in connection with a plot to try to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank in New York City.
• Israeli jets have attacked the northern Gaza Strip in retaliation for Palestinian rockets hitting southern Israel.
• The Catholic Chuch is preparing for the recognition this weekend in Rome of the first Native American saint in church history.
• The world's largest re-insurance company says the disaster risk in North America has increased fivefold over the last three decades.
• Scientists say there's more than one way the moon could have broken off from the Earth after a massive collision millions of years ago.