I’m going to do for you what no one ever did for George Sondini, not the women who said he was “nice, but….” and not the PUA that he went to to find out how to pick up young women. I’m going to tell it straight up and hopefully you’ll get a clue. If you pay attention, you’ll be happier, and maybe one less misogynistic asswipe will think it’s his duty to kill bitches and hoes.

1) When we say “you’re such a nice guy” we are trying to let you down easy. Sometimes it’s because we actually care, but usually it’s because we think you might be a bit of a sociopathic nutbag and we don’t want to push you over the edge.

2) Stop thinking that “nice guy” equals nice. It doesn’t. It means we can sense the desperation coupled with woman-hate coming off you. You reek of it, like a sick animal. Try being a good guy instead. Good guys are polite, sweet, thoughtful, well groomed, etc, AND don’t think they deserve to get laid simply because they don’t beat women. Good guys are the kind of guys you can trust never to turn into stalkers or date rapists. They can handle rejection. They don’t hate all women just because a cheerleader in high school never gave them the time of day.

3) Because it’s sooooo important- lemme reiterate: Good guys can handle rejection. They don’t spend weeks mooning over some woman who they are too scared to actually ask out. They don’t build women up in their minds as the end all be all of their existence because they lack the courage to ask a simple question “do you wanna go out sometime?”. They can take a “no”, or a “I’ve got a boyfriend”, or a “I’m not really dating right now” and roll with it. Rejection hurts and at some point everyone gets rejected, but they move on and find someone who does want to go out with them. If you don’t have the mental stability to handle a “no” or twelve, then you have no business dating anyone. Get to a shrink’s couch before you hurt someone.

4) No one deserves sex. You won’t die without it. But if think you deserve sex, if you treat sex as an entitlement rather than as a way for 2 people to make themselves and each other feel good, then you are way less likely to ever have sex. Sex is not a hard won prize found at the bottom of a cereal box. You don’t get sex just because you wore the right shoes or went to the gym or didn’t force yourself on someone or said the magic words that secretly unlock a girl’s panties. There are no secret words like that.

5)Pick up artists are a sham. Save your money. Their tricks are tired, cliched, and any woman who isn’t pass-out-drunk sees through their crap. You wanna try handing out a “neg”, then you better be prepared for a woman to roll her eyes at you and then gossip with her friends about the “douchebag who thinks Mystery is the shit”. There is really only one recipe for sex- take 2 people, who are both attracted to each other AND want to have sex with each other, add condoms and privacy. That’s it. It’s pretty simple.

6) There isn’t someone for everyone, but there are more people out there that have potential than you think. Are you a middle aged man? Are you trying to date 20 somethings? Are you either George Clooney or Bill Gates? No. Then those 20 somethings are going to steer clear of you. Take a good, objective look at yourself. Are you short? Fat? Skinny? Bald? Poor? Old? These are not insurmountable problems. But just like you want the hotties to give you a chance despite your imperfections, you maybe wanna give more women a chance than just the cheerleader types who ignored you in high school. Besides, men who find a broader spectrum of women attractive have more sex, not less. And don’t you want to have more sex?

7) Just because one (or 12 or 20) women treated you badly does not mean all women are money grubbing whores. Remember how I said we can smell the woman-hate coming off you. That’s where it comes from. Look, I’ve had some dudes do some criminally horrible shit to me, like life threateningly awful. But I don’t hate all men. I give each dude the chance to show me who he is, and I’ve never made the same mistake twice when it comes to dating. You need to do the same with women. If you find that the same thing keeps happening to you with different women, then the problem is you and not all women. You are attracted to the kind of women who will treat you badly, and you need to figure out why.

8) No one is attracted to a door mat, but this doesn’t mean that you should be an asshole instead. If you like a woman, ask her out. Send an email or call her. ONCE. Not 17 times just to make sure she got your other messages. If she’s into you, she’ll reply. If she’s not, she’ll give you some kind of “thanks but no thanks” or she won’t reply at all. If she was on the fence and you just showed some crazy stalking behavior with the 17 messages, you’ve just blown it. Confidence means being able to take the risk that you’ll be rejected, and being able to be rejected with grace. Assholes are just the flip side of the nice guy- they are what happens when nice guys get rejected. And they don’t get laid either.

9)Stop complaining that “women only like assholes”. Perhaps all the women you like only date assholes (which says something about who you are attracted too) or perhaps your definition of asshole is wrong. Those guys you think are assholes are probably confident, non-stalkers with some charm and a decided lack of woman-hate.

10) Be interesting just because interesting is fun. Men who turn themselves inside out trying to make themselves attractive to women are boring and creepy, just like women who are completely focused on finding a husband are boring and creepy. Read a book, travel, find music you love or play in nature if that’s your thing. Do things that you find enjoyable. Be passionate about something other than getting laid and learn to talk about it. Talking is wayyyyyyyyyy more important than what kind of car you drive or how big your paycheck is or whether or not you have a full head of hair.

And if you are not sure if you are a nice guy, I’d suggest checking this out.

There is a Fraggle Rock movie in the works and I am so happy about it I just might pee myself from joy.

So to get my mind off douchebags who think rape is genetic- I’m gonna have to sing along to this happy little video

is that women will laugh at them.

Women’s worst fear is that men will kill them.

Think about that while the stories about murderous douchebag George Sodini (Sorry OD- links to Jezebel) come out. Three women are dead because he couldn’t get laid. And the MRA wankers want to though him a fucking parade. (Not a link to Jezebel).

Let’s get one thing straight- no one deserves sex. No one. Not even George Clooney deserves to get laid. Sex is not a shiny prize you win at the end of a battle. It’s not a reward for good behavior. It’s not something women owe to men who have enough human decency not to rape them or beat them.

But if there is one thing that Sodini did, it’s that he proved that Nice Guys(TM) really aren’t nice. Women stay away from them because they can sense the asshole hiding right under the surface. And every single women I know has had a problem with a guy like Sodini at some point. It’s one of the things that the internet has made both better and worse. Now at least we can deal with the asswipes from a distance, long before they get our phone numbers or addresses. But we still end up with an inbox full of downward spiraling crazy rants.

Sodini is just the end product of rape culture. He was a man who thought that sex was owed to him, but wasn’t willing to cross the line to actual rapist to get it. Instead he choose murder. In a post feminist society, Sodini might have been able to recognize that his desperate need and douchebaggery were the reasons he wasn’t getting laid, as quite a few former Nice Guys have. But instead he blamed the problem on us bitches.

And that got women killed. That is why our worst fear is that you’ll kill us. That’s why catcalls are frightening and not flattering. That is why it’s hard to give a guy we don’t know well a flat out “no”. We never know when our saying no will get us hurt.

Puts that whole fear of rejection/ being laughed at thing in perspective, doesn’t it.

Scott Roeder, terrorist, murderer, and forced-pregnancy proponent says:

“I haven’t been convicted of anything, and I am being treated as a criminal”

Congratulations Mr. Roeder, you’ve just joined the ranks of douchebags like Hans Fritzl who cannot understand why they are being punished for committing a crime.

So there is this student, very young, very sweet, kinda typical 19 year old every dude. He has a wee bit of a crush on me (he’s too young, they have to be old enough to buy vodka) but he’s not obnoxious about his little crush. He’s just mostly sweet and dumb in the way that 19 year olds are.

So yesterday he was in my lab and just had to show me this fabulous comic he just saw. It was of an older woman in a bikini who had been catching some rays and because her gross droopy old boobies were sagging she had a stupid tan line. Yeah, I can hear you all laughing at that one. Hahahahahaha. Old women should know that if they aren’t hot sex bots they should cover up and stay home. Sooooooooooo funny and completely original. Nobody ever makes fun of women for not being super fuckable all the time.

I didn’t laugh. I didn’t do that thing we do when we’re stuck in uncomfortable situations with douchebags where we fake laugh kinda just to get out of the situation. I just said “that’s incredibly sexist” and went back to work. I could see that what was about to come out of his mouth was “come on, it’s just a joke” but I think he stopped himself at “co”.

So thanks patriarchy, you just took a perfectly sweet dude and turned him into a douchebag.

(Not exactly off topic- but has anyone seen the video for Eminem’s We Made You? I know it’s like shooting fish in a barrel to point out his rampant woman hate- but EVERY SINGLE PERSON he picks on in that video is a woman except for Brett Michaels. For a dude so full of anxious masculinity, I find it totally cowardly and unoriginal that he doesn’t go after fellow rappers or anyone who could actually kick his ass, but he goes after the already brutalized. Wow tough guy, way to prove your street cred)

I told you peeps that “libertarian is shorthand for douchebag” or maybe asshat, I can’t remember now.

Two stories of Libertarian asshatery today, both involving Facebook scumbag Peter Thiel. First, Libertarians want their own private island kingdoms (close enough to home so that they don’t have to deal with expensive things like military protection but still able to get out of paying taxes). I say good riddance, but will happily become a pirate queen and rob all you non-taxpayers blind. You think the Coast Guard is going to come to your rescue when you’ve committed treason? Hardly.

Next, Thiel thinks girls are the downfall of society.

Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.

Ah yes, women who vote and participate in society bring it down. Funny how science proves him wrong. countries that have more freedom and equality for women actually have stronger economies and higher standards of living. But Libertarian asshats rarely let the facts get in their way of plotting world domination.

(I am now fully convinced that Facebook is the root of all evil- especially since it has become a tool for ex-boyfriends, including Kid’s stalker daddy, to track me down and pester me long after I sent them packing)

(Also- does Thiel seem like the absolute archetype for the evil “genius” in kid’s cartoons. I can totally see him rubbing his hands together and trying to invent a magic laser that disappears all the females in the world cause “girls have cooties”)

Kid and I were taking our usual bus ride home tonight. This particular route is known for it’s perpetual lateness, being one of the longest routes in the city. Our bus wasn’t any later than usual, but it was being driven by a trainee with a trainer sitting close by to give tips, etc.

So Kid and I grab an open seat at the back of the bus and the dude behind me starts screaming about how slow the bus is moving (no slower than normal, mind you).

Screaming dude: Fucking move it! Push it! Push it! Fucking girl talk is for breaks, shut up and drive! Move. Rock it! Push it! This is no time for chit chat!

This tirade goes on for about a mile. I’m tired, grouchy, I already had a headache before I got on the bus. Dude is not just screaming in my ear, but he’s being a great big misogynist douchebag while he’s at it (can you guess what gender the trainee and trainer are by the “girl talk” comments?)

So me being me, I turned around and asked the douchebag if he could “Just knock off the misogyny?”

So his little tirade turned to me instead “fucking bitch better shut your mouth I wasn’t talking to you bitch just be glad I’m getting off this bus or my evil twin would show you what’s up”

He gets off the the bus, and I turn to the Kid.

Me: How much you wanna bet me that if the driver were a dude that asshole would have shut up.

Kid: Nothing, I’d lose the bet.

Girl talk. I fucking hate that phrase. It implies that any discussion done between two women (or girls) is frivolous and should be ignored. In the case of the misogynybag, it was meant to convey the idea that his time was wayyyyyyyyy more important than anything these two women could possibly be talking about, even if what they were talking about was their work and how to do it better. If they didn’t shut up and pay attention to his needs, then they weren’t doing anything worth while.

And people wonder why I hate movies and tv that doesn’t pass the Bechtel test. Until we see women talking to other women as being just as important as anything a man might talk to another man about, everything out of our mouths will just be considered “girl talk”.

I’ve been having the same kind of fights with people for the last few months. It’s almost always over politics or economics, and it’s always with people who are very uneducated on either topic. I can always see them coming from a mile away. They are the kind of people who spout talking points like they are fact but have no idea of the history or theory used to create those talking points. They are the libertarians who have never read Adam Smith (or put him in historical context) but just like to repeat the “Taxes bad!” theme. They are the kind of people who believe their opinion is important simply because they have one, not because they are right. It usually ends with me screaming “For god’s sake read a fucking book you moron!”.

Political theory does not begin with the Daily Show and end with Colbert and just because you’ve ever held a dollar in your hand does not make you an expert on the financial crisis.

So I’m reading Jezebel this morning and I come across this cute little quote:

The banking crisis was touched off by the mortgage crisis and both contributed to the financial crisis that most economists had been predicting because of everyone’s willingness to spend money they didn’t actually have.

Oh for fucks sake, this crisis was not caused because people spend $3 at Starbucks everyday or own more pairs of shoes than they can wear and put it all on their credit cards. We spend less of a percentage of our incomes on food, clothing and electronics than we did 50 years ago. Consumer goods are cheaper than they used to be. We may have more of them, but we spend less money on them than our parents did. That’s why poor people can afford to spend $200 every 5 years or so on a new TV but can’t afford $1000 a month for health insurance.

We don’t have savings now because we don’t have the incomes to support them. Wages have been stagnant for damn near 30 years while inflation keeps going up. And inflation is greatest in housing, education and healthcare. So if wages are stagnant, people find ways to make up for the lack of income. They invest in something that is useful to them both now and in the future, like their homes. Homeownership and equity have been the only things making people able to live a middle class life since their wages aren’t keeping up.

(As a kind of aside- isn’t it funny that two of the major areas of inflation, health care and education, are things that the government could provide easily to everyone if we weren’t afraid of the big bad socialist label. Universal health care and universal education from preschool to grad school would have gone a fuck of a long way towards mitigating the need pay for those things through housing equity).

But that’s all local. People’s desperate need to fill in the gaps between wages and cost of living did create the housing bubble. If you buy a house and want to keep the resale value up, you spend $40k on a new kitchen or replace all the floors with hardwood. Eventually it gets to the point where you have to keep improving your house because all your neighbors have and your home value will go down if you don’t keep up with the Jones. Ergo- housing bubble.

But the housing bubble alone is not what caused the banking collapse. The banking collapse was caused by a combo of deregulation, Alan Greenspan’s douchebaggery, and opaque bundling practices that left investors in the dark. None of those things are the fault of the individual home buyers who just wanted a piece of the American dream.

Anyways- now that I have ranted and raved for a bit, let me point you to 2 people who do know what they are talking about economically.

First- Niall Ferguson (who is responsible for the title of this post)

“There will be blood, in the sense that a crisis of this magnitude is bound to increase political as well as economic [conflict]. It is bound to destabilize some countries. It will cause civil wars to break out, that have been dormant. It will topple governments that were moderate and bring in governments that are extreme. These things are pretty predictable. The question is whether the general destabilization, the return of, if you like, political risk, ultimately leads to something really big in the realm of geopolitics.

And then Joseph Stiglitz on Democracy Now talking about how Obama has missed the mark on the stimulus and isn’t actually fixing any of the problems that caused the depression.

Go forth and learn my little chickadees. And then feel free to punch any Republican or libertarian in the eye until they spend at least 5 minutes reading something factual.