So, while Badtux is watching the local gang of police officers beating up students at the University of California Berkeley, in Pennsylvania the police are watching students riot because a football coach was fired.

When you knock down light poles, flip and then bash a media van, throw rocks and bottles at the police, it is a riot. The police say they will look at the videos and identify the criminals for later arrest.

Protesting the destruction of the economy without violence is grounds for getting beaten with nightsticks, but wholesale destruction is to be expected when sports are involved.

I wonder how those students are going to feel about the coach when the ‘Paterno tax’ is added to their bills. That’s the extra money that Pennsylvania State University is going to need to pay the lawsuits of every child victimized after the University was made aware of the problem and did nothing about it.

Here’s some advice for college administrators – If you want to protect the institution, report crime. Not reporting crime makes you an accessory after the fact and opens the institution up to very expensive settlements.

The BBC reports that Lucas Papademos named as new Greek prime minister. He was the guy who guided Greece through the conversion from the dracma to the euro, and is a former vice president of the European Central Bank. What he isn’t is a member of parliament. I don’t know how that works without being fully aware of the Greek constitution, which I’m not. It is not exactly usual for the leader of democracy to be someone no one has voted for.

It looks like Italy is covering that problem by having the Italian president appoint the apparent choice, Mario Monti, a ‘senator for life’. Monti is an economist and former minister in the European Union.

It looks like all of the politicians are hiding from the responsibility of what they know is going to happen.

I would hope that the people decide it is time to dump all of the incumbents, and go for something new after what the politicians have done to them.