Nature Retracts Study Predicting Global Economic Collapse from Climate Change

Unfortunately, the consensus among the professional hysteriacs is: global economic devastation...but not, y'know, collapse...and the authors apparently plan to resubmit a version more in line with that consensus.

   I don't believe such stuff anymore, of course.

   But my understanding of this issue is very tenuous, to say the lest.

   Mostly I'm just guessing on the basis of (a) the resemblance of this nonsense to other nonsense that I do understand and (b) the testimony of people like Judith Curry, Roger Pielke jr., and Bjorn Lomborg--who I trust.

   So don't listen to me on this, obvs.

The Truth About the Second Strike on the Drug Boat Begins to Emerge

Well, one thing we do know: you pretty much can't believe anything negative the Washington Post says about the Trump administration.

   Nevertheless, it does seem like a second drone strike was conducted, and it sounds like the intent was to kill the two survivors of the first strike. And they were out of the fight, clinging to wreckage.

   But it now sounds as if Hegseth did not specifically order that strike, and not for the reason in question.

   It still sounds like a war crime to me...or would...if this were a war...which...well...it doesn't sound like it is...

   I guess I'm going to have to--finally, reluctantly--start taking this stuff seriously.

   Let me go back to one of my very old gripes: 

   [1] Congress needs to start declaring wars again

   [2] We need to terminate the AUMF of 2001.

   Trump could still have ordered the initial strikes. But he couldn't just keep doing it without Congressional approval.

Google 'Chicxulub Crater'

 And you'll get a wee surprise.

Thunderbird F-16 Crashes Near China Lake, Pilot Ejected Safely

link

Minnesota's Massive, Mostly-Somali, Welfare Fraud Scandal

Agreed.

   But it's not about people from "incompatible" cultures. It's about people from inferior, failed cultures and political systems who come here with defective beliefs, habits, sentiments and characters...and who often setting in enclaves where those things are less likely to be corrected via assimilation and more likely to generate inferior, criminal subcultures.

War Department: National Guardsmen in D.C. Now Armed

As they should have been from the beginning.

How the Formerly-Great American Political Science Review was Reduced to a Party Organ of Woketarian Feminism

This is what the left does: it takes over institutions and turns them into propaganda outlets and activist catspaws.

How many times are people going to see this happen before they all recognize that the PC left is the enemy of reason, of science, of liberalism...and, basically, of humanity.

Americans are Waking Up--Much of Higher Ed is Now a Scam

Absolutely agreed.

   The infusion of DEI into curricula is just one aspect of the problem. The bigger problem is the rampant spread of the worst parts of recent Continental philosophy through the curriculum--Foucault, Derrida, Critical Theory and all its sub-versions: critical race theory, science studies--in fact, x-studies for any value of 'x.' Radical feminism. Gender pseudoscience. "De-colonialism." And at the core of most of it: Marx and Freud. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Whatever there might be that's good in recent Continental philosophy, it's the intellectually shoddy and highly politicized stuff that spreads. Because it requires no actual thought and it's consistent with the irrationalist and leftist (but I repeat myself) sympathies of the faculty. It's the easiest thing in the world to make up a story about how something is secretly racist. It takes no actual knowledge and no actual thought. It's as easy as making up a story about your personal enemy's bad motives. Humans are very good at such bullshit. And that's basically what the infected areas of academia have been reduced to: sophomoric bullshit.

McCarthy: Hegseth Now Says He Didn't Order Drug Smugglers Who Survived Drone Strike Executed; It's A War Crime If He Did

This is something the righties don't want to talk about.

   Personally, I'm ok with striking the drug boats...but it sounds like "law" says it's "bad"...so I guess we're not "supposed" to "do it"...

   Seriously, of course: it its illegal, we shouldn't be doing it.

   Now, executing survivors who are hors de combat...that's some Nazi/Commie/Japanese-Empire shit right there. Hegseth strikes me has being in no way fit for the job anyway. If the accusation that he sent in the Seals to kill the survivors is true, he's toast. Or he should be. Though Trump would probably pardon him. 

   However: it's pretty damn unlikely that anyone ordered such a strike--and that no one in the chain of command objected to the clearly illegal order.

Geraghty: Trump's Hernandez Pardon is "Crazy"

To me, this pardon sounds absolutely batshit crazy.

The Administration has Now Canceled or Delayed Three Major Economic Reports

The jobs report, the BLS report on inflation, and now a GDP estimate.

Is there any possible justification for this?

Because, prima facie, this seems outrageous.

Carolina 19 - State 42 / 5 In A Row

The Belichick era at Carolina can't end fast enough if you ask me.

Brandon Johnson is an Idiot; Incarceration Works

This is just another patently absurd dogma you have to believe to be a progressive in good standing: taking criminals off the street and putting them in jail does not reduce crime. (Reduce crime outside of prisons, that is. I'm sure it does increase crime inside prisons.)

   Until the left starts taking facts seriously, there's just no hope of them coming to their senses. I mean...coming to your senses basically is taking facts seriously...

   I'm starting to think that the left and right aren't really two symmetrical factions. Rather, we have the reality/normal faction and the utopian/loony faction. One group generally takes reality as it is, and adopts principles and formulates policies in response to reality. The other faction is in the grip of loony theories, utopian pipe dreams, and normative preferences that are more-or-less adopted and formulated independently of reality. Consequently, of course, these principles and policies are often utterly idiotic and catastrophically dangerous. And, of course, to maintain commitment to these nutty principles, the adherents must commonly deny that reality is as it is.

   So, e.g., in the case of incarceration, most lefties aren't willing to say "Yeah, I just think that incarceration is wrong. I think we should let murderers roam free. It's better to have more innocent people murdered than to imprison the criminals." That's a hard core position held by some on the extreme left...but less-radical lefties find it easier to just delude themselves about the facts: "Incarceration is bad...and it doesn't work anyway..." And, given leftist control of media, universities, and the bureaucracy, it's easy to keep that idea circulating in the propagandosphere.

   Anyway, AJW is on the case:

Rampant Fraud and Other Criminality in MN, Especially Among Somalis--Thanks to Tim Walz, Keith Ellison, and the Rest of the DFL

Some good news: it's finally escaped containment, making headlines outside the conservative news ghetto.

Imaginary Trump Voters Who Didn't Vote for Trump's Long-Held Policy Positions

And I've got a bunch of Democrat friends--who I can't name--who are all like "I'm really starting to like this Trump guy...he's awesome!"

My favorite genre of liberal punditry is “Every one of my friends is an unnamed Trump voter and boy are they mad!” https://t.co/mEofBM5vR4

— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) November 29, 2025

The Dems are relying largely on short, misleadingly-edited video clips of people screaming and resisting arrest by ICE.

That is, roughly:

 

Via Ed Driscoll at Insty's digs.

And, he adds: Who knew Trump had such a hardline ca. 2000 Democrat view on immigration?

Turns out that the new Democrat position is apparently: if you cry and shriek and resist arrest, this makes the law in question null and void...

Trump to Remove Protected Status for MN Somalis and Send Them Back to Somalia

Maybe better than the alternative, but I might prefer expedited hearings for anyone with such status, and immediate deportation of anyone found guilty. Plus: three strikes and you're automatically out.

   Undoubtedly some of these Somalis will make good Americans. But, also obviously, many are bad apples.

   What the left doesn't seem to understand is that many people from foreign and incompatible cultures are, well, foreign and incompatible. With America, that is. There is no good reason to allow such people into the country in the first place--but certainly no good reason to allow them to stay after they have demonstrated that they are, in fact, bad apples.

   But, as it stands, a Democrat judge--appointed by the previous DFL Governor--won't even let convictions for mass Medicare fraud stand. Imagine the Democrat opposition if we tried to deport the perpetrators...

   It takes a certain amount of hard-heartedness to survive in a violent and competitive environment. Most of us, in the USA, have it so easy that we don't understand that. Their soft hearts have turned also into soft heads. I'm all for being sympathetic to the plight of non-Americans. But only within certain parameters and limits required for the survival and flourishing of the country.

Brit Arrested for Touching a Firearm While in the U.S., and Posting About it on Facebook

The Airstrip-One-ification of the UK proceeds apace.

Stephen Miller: Immigration Imports Societies, Not Individuals

This is one of the things I'm afraid of.

   Not that I'm the biggest fan of either Stephen Miller or Breitbart.

   Mass immigration that produces ethnic and cultural enclaves of foreigners is a bad idea.

   Yes, this is, to some extent, how immigration to the U.S. has operated historically. And yes, it worked out fine.

   But the developments of vast Hispanic enclaves in e.g. Los Angeles, and crime-riddled Somali enclaves in e.g. Minneapolis are serious cause for concern. I'd halt any immigration that contributes to the growth of such enclaves.

   And this isn't even to mention what's happening in Europe--not just enclaves, but no-go zones for non-Muslims...and even police.

   Progressives are committed to importing large numbers of foreigners--the more foreign the better. Sometimes they will even admit that this is a largely aesthetic choice--they simply like the idea of living in a radically multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-lingual society. You can practically hear then squealing with delight at the idea of their local Farmer's Market slowly transforming into some kind of polyglot bazaar.

   Me, I don't let such aesthetic preferences influence my policy positions. I just want to know what will contribute to the survival and flourishing of the nation, and of our liberal Constitutional republic. And, of course, what will detract from that. There's no good reason to allow immigration that fosters the growth of sub-cultures that could detract from our flourishing. Foreigners have no right to move to the United States. so if we have any concerns about them coming here, that's a no.

   I'm more than happy for people to come here if they want to come and they will make good Americans. National origin, religion, etc. don't matter much to me--except mainly as indicators of whether individuals will make good Americans. But e.g. national origin and religion are sometimes just about the only indicators we have. The left's view is basically: let everybody in and hope for the best. But that is a stupid view. One reason they accept it seems to be that they think that the radical transformation--or destruction--of the U.S. wouldn't be such a bad thing. Especially since any such radical transformation will probably be in a leftist direction.

   My view has become: the U.S. in a perilous state. We're teetering on the verge of a collapse into totalitarian leftism and/or Europe-esque ethnic and religious fragmentation. We need to stabilize. And that means, inter alia, slowing immigration rates.

   Deporting all illegal aliens is obviously a good idea in itself--but it's also a way to slap down the insane left. That left is so used to running the country and deciding its direction that it is driven to hysteria at the thought that we might actually enforce laws of which it doesn't approve. Relentlessly enforcing them in the face of the hysterical, whistle-blowing leftist mobs is a way to break their spirit--a way to show them that they can't get their way simply by insisting on it.

   And, of course, as usual, I could be wrong about this. Perhaps mass, more-or-less indiscriminate immugration will work out fine in the end. I'm just not willing to bet on it. Because, unlike the left, I think that the destruction of the USA would be a catastrophe.

Ammon Blair: Trump's Third-World Immigration Pause is Common Sense

I don't know that it's common sense, but I'm inclined to think it's a good idea.

link

Trump to Pardon Drug-Trafficking Honduran Ex-President

What the hell is going on?

This administration is starting to seem like pure chaos.

Trump Closes (?) Venezuelan Airspace...Via Tweet

This just seems bizarre.

Must-Read: McCarthy: Military Lawfare is a Red Line

I agree with absolutely everything in this. Even the legal points I wasn't previously aware of comport with my half-assed understanding of the law in question.

   I'm quoting virtually nothing from it because I ended up quoting the whole thing. Instead, I'll quote just this minor, but extremely accurate, bit:

True to his nature, when Democrats light a fire Trump raises it to a conflagration.

   Again and again and again. Most notably, Dems have raised lawfare to a loathsome art...Trump grabs their easel and bashes them them over the head with it...

   Expanding this madness into military lawfare is beyond the pale.

   And, as McCarthy almost says: his erratic governance has likely already lost him the House. In which case he'll almost certainly be impeached for whatever reason the Dems can cook up--not that they'll be lacking predicates. He may even lose the Senate--in which case he could even be convicted. And if you think the rabid red MAGA crowd is loony now, just wait til that goes down...

   Me, I prefer to get rid of Trump and replace him with Vance...though I'm mostly for whatever will minimize Democrat power for another substantial chunk of time. (Still hoping they'll return to their senses.) Trump remaining in power with a Dem house would seem like a good option--the Pub House certainly isn't doing much. And it isn't doing anything to control Trump.

   One thing I do disagree with McCarthy about: he guesses that, to the extent that the "Seditious Six" had anything at all specific in mind so far as "illegal orders" went, it was blowing up drug boats. I guess they meant to allude to National Guardsmen in DC and other cities. But who knows? They were mostly just whining Orange Man bad...same as normal.

   And one addition: I think there's a better than even chance that the real point of the video was to elicit a Trumpian overreaction. McCarthy's right that this is the normal pattern of Trump's Presidency: Dems do something shitty, Trump does something shittier--or at least more overtly shitty. The Dems know they can get Trump to self-destruct by pulling stunts like this. And they're willing to accept the resultant harm to the country as basically a cost of doing business.

   Well, I knew who I was voting for. And this is him. The good and the bad.

Trump to Crack Down on / Eliminate Immigration from Third World Countries?

Hoo boy.

So very Trumpian.

That's to say:

It's nutty, precipitous, and, for all I know illegal.

But:

   It's immeasurably better than the Dems' recent approach to immigration, especially as exemplified by the most recent Democrat administration...which is to say: de facto open borders.

   I'd prefer a saner, more sober set of reforms that throttled back on Third World immigration, carefully vetting individuals and admitting only those who share our values and will be assets to the nation. Give priority to people from nations that tend to share our ideals--the UK and other Anglophone countries, Europe, Japan, South Korea, etc.  And: no public assistance for immigrants except in very special cases. And: immediate deportation for immigrants that commit violent and other serious crimes.

   Trump's semi-literate tweet is nauseating in the extreme, and this new policy can't be well-thought-out. Nevertheless, it manages to approximate something reasonable more closely than anything the Democrats can be expected to do any time in the near future.

   So here we are again, in the same situation we've been in over and over for most of the last decade: Trump wants to do something nutty...but less nutty than what the Dems are likely to do.