Bottom 10 Arseholes

The astute reader should bear in mind the standard disclaimers here: I do not here (or anywhere else on my site) speak on behalf of my department, my university, my country, or my generation. Those in the aforementioned groupings that have any sense probably agree with me wholeheartedly, but I speak not ex cathedra, and will not be held responsible for holding them responsible for anything published here.

That having been said...

Amanda Vanstone
Minister 'for' Higher Education and Employment, Australia

Amanda Vanstone was entrusted with the task of single-handedly destroying Australian Universities, in the name of economic rationalism. Although ideologically a wet, and placed in an unenviable position from the vengeful dries now running Australian finances, she has been carrying out this task with gusto. An article from the Weekend Australian starts to detail the arrogance and heavy-handedness that has made Vanstone Public Enemy No. 1 around campuses Australia-wide. (Things got worse, not better, since; her flabbergasting argument that we should be grateful at $5,000 a year for what used to be free tertiary education, comparing it to purchasing a Merc for the price of a Mistubishi, means she should be run over by both a Merc and a Mitsubishi...) Vanstone has long since been bumped off to the Justice Ministry, but the ill effects of her demolition job on Australian Tertiary education will be felt for decades.

Peter Costello
Federal Treasurer and Minister for Axe-Wielding and Obnoxious Grins, Australia

Many a citizen of Australia wonders how Peter's brother Tim can be such an all-round pink-lefty socially-aware pastorally-responsible nice guy, and this guy can have the smirk of Beelzebub and the heart of a preying (sic) mantis...

Bob Fences
Extremely Rich Monopolist Geek, Northwestern USA

What can be said about this individual that is not already said daily in computer helpdesks the world over...

Jeffrey Kennett
State Premier and Discreditor of Pompadours, Victoria

A man of unsurpassed arrogance, contempt for democratic institutions, and dedicated to turning a state into a business. Jeffrey Kennett and Peter Costello are widely reported as hating each others' guts. I hate both their guts.

James Exon
Censorious Vote-Grabbing Git, US Congress

Not on my Internet you won't!

Noam Chomsky
Manufacturer of Consent in North American Linguistics, Boston

People from the States, in particular, often ask me why I do not like the kind of linguistics Chomsky peddles, or the way he has been peddling it. I have drawn up a list of objections which at least makes a start as answering why many linguists have misgivings about this individual.

Bryan Adams
Bombastic Balladeer, As-Far-From-My-Radio-Dial-As-Humanly-Possible

Summer of '69 is almost acceptable, but is far from equal to task of atoning for the barrage of bland which has since emanated from this disgrace to Canada, the Americas, and the world.

Whoever thought up eight-digit phone numbers
Criminal Against Short-Term Memory, Magic Numbers, and Humanity, AusTel

Eight-digit phone numbers. Just say no.

Glen Proechel
Pseudo-Klingonist and Hamlet-pseudepigrapher, Siberia

A man who has been passing out edicts about how Klingon should be from time immemorial (and how Klingon should be according to him is a carbon copy of English); a man who, when I blew up at him with righteous rage for translating "adultery" as "having sex with a strange man" (loD Huj ngagh, where Huj = strange, wierd), splashed his split from the Klingon Language Institute all over the Wall Street Journal; a man who, when I, Andrew Strader and Mark Shoulson had been working on the translation of Hamlet into Klingon for two years, proceeded to produce his own cheap imitation; a man widely believed amongst the members of the Klingon Language Institute to be into Klingon only for the money --- Siberia is both where he is (bringing Christianity to the Orthodox), and where I'd like him to be...

Francesco Morosini
Venetian General and Nuker of Parthenons, Eternal-Infamy

In 1687 a Venetian army under Francesco Morosini laid siege to the Athenian Acropolis and its Turkish garrison. The Turks had a great stock of gunpowder on the citadel and decided to store it in the Parthenon. The temple was still greatly admired by western Europeans, and the Turks assumed that Morosini would not aim his bombardment directly at it. Unfortunately, it seems a deserter from the defending force gave away the Turkish secret to the Venetians and around 6.30 p.m. on 26 September a bomb ignited the gunpowder. The inevitable explosion reduced the Parthenon to a smoke-blackened carcass. (Ian Jenkins. 1994. The Parthenon Frieze. London: British Museum Press. p. 16.)