# It's time to officially Pit Joe Paterno and the Penn State football program. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 7, 2011, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167 "2011-11-07T14:23:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 218
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/4343 "2012-09-25T14:01:55Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > I might have said, “Keep playing keep-away-with-the-soap with that chicken”, but whatever. > > “Dipstick”? “Dillweed”? It’s like he stopped watching TV around the time _Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In_ went off the air. Well, I started to say “asshole,” but I felt it would conflict with the smilie. 🙂 And now I really do intend to let go of this thread for a while, at least until it’s needed to address something that hasn’t already been done to death. So… Duh, duh, dut, dut, duh…well, you know the routine. Chow! **Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it’s “ciao”!** ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/4344 "2012-09-25T14:09:02Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > And now I really do intend to let go of this thread for a while, at least until it’s needed to address something that hasn’t already been done to death. So… We are men of action; lies do not become us. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/4345 "2012-09-25T14:21:15Z")
Well, now that you mention it… I keed, I keed. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/4346 "2012-09-25T14:26:27Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Does this include the bit where I debunked it from, you know, my own experience? Ahem…before you go…mind answering my question? ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/4347 "2012-09-25T14:42:02Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Ahem…before you go…mind answering my question? Whoa, hey, look at the time, folks! Really gotta run! Ta ta and all that! ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/4348 "2012-09-25T15:17:22Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Ahem…before you go…mind answering my question? Yes, I do. As I said at the time you brought it up originally, I suspect there are significant material differences between what happened to you and the people and scene in the shower room that night. I suspect ages, heights and positions were different, and that your childhood perceptions of some of these might be skewed due to your size and the fact you were a child at the time. A guy broke into my house once and snuck into my bedroom while I was in bed. It was dark and I saw him only in silhouette and told the police he was about 6’1 and 195 lbs. From his fingerprints he was found and he turned out to be 5’8" and 140 lbs. So it’s clear that differences in head height and body orientation can have a significant impact on a person’s perceptions. Distortions of spatial dimensions between reality and childhood memories are something just about everyone experiences whenever revisiting rooms or fondly remembered locations from childhood are common too. Now, having said that, I am not about to engage in a t cross-examination of you to try to drill down and try to get to all the hoary little details. These people can’t handle paper towel tubes, and even I have no appetite for discussing what happened to you as a real, living person who’s suffered through what you have, as opposed to doing what I’ve been doing which is engaging in an academic discussion on the importance of due process and the need for rules of evidence as opposed to reflexively and outragedly jumping to worst case consclusions and assuming people guilty thereby. You can keep asking but the answer will remain the same. I’m not going to do it. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Man\_In\_Black](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@The\_Man\_In\_Black](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Man_In_Black)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/4349 "2012-09-25T15:36:56Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Ahem…before you go…mind answering my question? Do you actually expect him to reply to evidence against his point? And if he does, it will simply to say that it does not matter. ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/4350 "2012-09-25T15:48:00Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Yes, I do. > > As I said at the time you brought it up originally, I suspect there are significant material differences between what happened to you. Take comfort then, MrDibble. Getting raped as a child wasn’t nearly as traumatic as you were previously led to believe. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/4351 "2012-09-25T15:56:13Z")
> [@The Man In Black](#): > > Do you actually expect him to reply to evidence against his point? And if he does, it will simply to say that it does not matter. Okay, here’s some evidence against his point: as **MrDibble** previously described his attacks, he was subjected to considerable pain as a result of the attack, and terror as a result of a knife being used to force him to comply. In the shower room incident, McQueary’s otherwise detailed description of what he saw, the positions of the two people, what they did, what he did, etc. gives not a hint that the boy was in any sort of distress at all, let alone pain or even physical discomfort. This is yet another one of the many aspects of this situation that led me to conclude that anal rape isn’t what was going on that night, and when you combine that with the fact that from his previous descriptions **MrDibble’s** attacker was not 6’4" and 60-something years old, I believe that without going into it further there is more than sufficient reason to think that his experience was different enough from what was happening in the shower room as to have no probative value in determining whether Sandusky could have been anally raping the boy that night in the position McQueary described. > [@Enderw24](#): > > Take comfort then, MrDibble. Getting raped as a child wasn’t nearly as traumatic as you were previously led to believe. Quite the contrary, mon dipshit! As I just said, his experience was extremely painful, terrifying and traumatic. Nothing about the shower room incident appears to have been…and therein lies the rub. I swear, I oughta be charging you people for this stuff! What _are_ the going rates for remedial reading courses these days, anyway? ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/4352 "2012-09-25T15:57:31Z")
> [@Enderw24](#): > > Take comfort then, MrDibble. Getting raped as a child wasn’t nearly as traumatic as you were previously led to believe. He should really take solace in the fact that it physically is impossible that it ever happened. You see, Billy, humans do not have knees or hips. They are incapable of modulating the height of their waist. If you need proof, here’s a simple experiment you can try… By the way, do you like gladiator movies, Billy? ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/4353 "2012-09-25T16:00:32Z")
Hey, **Hector** , you still finding salacious titillation in the idea of lining up boys to ask them questions? Haven’t heard you comment on that since I set you straight. You just gonna let it lie and pretend the perv was never on you? ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/4354 "2012-09-25T16:01:31Z")
> [@Enderw24](#): > > Take comfort then, MrDibble. Getting raped as a child wasn’t nearly as traumatic as you were previously led to believe. This is perhaps worth highlighting as an example of the dynamics of this thread. This characterization of SA’s words has no connection to anything he actually said, and in fact seems to contradict his actual opinion (as expressed in the second paragraph). But when it comes to attacking SA, anything goes. SA himself has said many things in this thread that don’t stand up to logic or the facts (including this latest claim that the Sandusky jury vindicated his claim about the “physics”). But everything SA says which can possibly be challenged is ridiculued, while blatant distortions like this one by Enderw24 are routinely served up, simply because he’s on the right side of the argument. If others in this thread would be held to the same standards as SA, they would look a lot like SA too. IMO 90% of the apparent silliness of his position is due to being one against a pile-on, and only about 10% due to the quality of his reasoning. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/4355 "2012-09-25T16:09:56Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Hey, **Hector** , you still finding salacious titillation in the idea of lining up boys to ask them questions? > > Haven’t heard you comment on that since I set you straight. You just gonna let it lie and pretend the perv was never on you? You’re not suggesting that it was me who proposed lining up 100 boys and asking them about anal sex, are you? That was all you, **Starving for Adolescents**. Billy, have you ever seen a grown man naked? ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/4356 "2012-09-25T16:12:24Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > SA himself has said many things in this thread that don’t stand up to logic or the facts (including this latest claim that the Sandusky jury vindicated his claim about the “physics”). Ahem, actually my claim is that the jury vindicated me in concluding that McQueary’s testimony did not support a conviction on the charge of rape. Having said that, we’re all entitled to our opinion and even though you disagree with me on certain points, your contributions to this thread are generally spot on and have been a welcome breath of fresh air. I note with amusement and disdain that you’ve come in for your share of pedophilia accusations and other forms of abuse yourself as a result. Must be something in the water. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/4357 "2012-09-25T16:12:52Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > If others in this thread would be held to the same standards as SA, they would look a lot like SA too. IMO 90% of the apparent silliness of his position is due to being one against a pile-on, and only about 10% due to the quality of his reasoning. I would agree with this wholeheartedly! Assuming we also agree that the problem with your assessment is your inability to properly estimate percentages. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/4358 "2012-09-25T16:21:47Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > You’re not suggesting that it was me who proposed lining up 100 boys and asking them about anal sex, are you? No, rather in response to some dipshit like you who was trying to assert that hugging a kid in the shower was every bit as bad as hugging them, I was suggesting that we line up a 100 kids and ask them one by one whether they’d rather get hugged by a coach in the shower or get reamed up the butt by him, with money to change hands between me the dipshit based upon each kid’s answer, with the predicted result being that I ended up with all the money. It was _you_, who, out of that entire ludicrous scenario, chose to land upon “lining up 100 boys” as the focus of the debate for its alleged sallacious meaning, a meaning that would never have occured unprompted to my mind in a thousand years. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/4359 "2012-09-25T16:23:26Z")
And now I’m off for a bike ride around the lake and other worthwhile occupations. I’m afraid you’ll have to call yourselves idiots for the rest of the day. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/4360 "2012-09-25T16:25:43Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Ahem, actually my claim is that the jury vindicated me in concluding that McQueary’s testimony did not support a conviction on the charge of rape. Yeah but there’s no evidence that the jury’s decision had anything to do with your specific argument, and you’ve also obfuscated on the difference between “X is probably false” and “we don’t have adequate proof that X is true”. But I’m not going to argue these points, which others have already pointed out. > [@](#): > > I note with amusement and disdain that you’ve come in for your share of pedophilia accusations and other forms of abuse yourself as a result. Combination of frustration and righteous indignation. Par for the course, and IMHO it’s a mistake to protest this type of thing, as it only gives it potency. If you’re going to take a minority position on a hot button issue like this, you need to accept you’re going to get some amount of abuse from outraged nitwits. If that gets under your skin, you’re better advised to avoid this situation. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/4361 "2012-09-25T16:42:35Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Yeah but there’s no evidence that the jury’s decision had anything to do with your specific argument… Well, not to get into a fresh argument with you, but to the best of my recollection I never said it did. I said their verdict vindicated the conclusion I arrived at, and I conincidentally asserted the elements that caused me to arrive at that conclusion. I have no recollection of having said that the jury engaged in any specific thought experiment which agreed with mine. Frankly you are beginning to show some of the same flaws in reading comprehension as some of the other posters, though not in as far out a way. But some of the things you’re saying I’ve said do not mesh with what I’ve actually said, and that is troubling to me. I’m beginning to wonder if it’s possible to be properly understood here at all. > [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Combination of frustration and righteous indignation. Par for the course, and IMHO it’s a mistake to protest this type of thing, as it only gives it potency. On the other hand to let it lie unchallenged can seem to lend it an air of acknowledged credibility. > [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > If you’re going to take a minority position on a hot button issue like this, you need to accept you’re going to get some amount of abuse from outraged nitwits. If that gets under your skin, you’re better advised to avoid this situation. Well, clearly it doesn’t get under my skin all that much as I’m still very much around. It’s mentioned mostly in order to point out the obvious, which is that anyone who disagrees with these people regarding Paterno and/or the rape scenario gets pasted with accusations of being child rapers themselves. It’s a ludicrous and laughable reaction and it deserves to be revealed for what it is, especially when it winds up getting cast at such relatively innocuous posters such as yourself. And now I’m out, the bike is faunching at its bit and rearing to go. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/4362 "2012-09-25T16:43:27Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Yes, I do. Fair enough. Holding out the bitter end, I see. Good luck with that. I think your name will be pretty Muddy from here on in - just when you seemed to kind of be getting past it for most posters, too. Aah, well, couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167.md?page=217) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167.md?page=219)