2/3 of Colleges Require DEI Courses?

link

Frank Miele: Before We Forget: What Trump Did Right

Agreed.

Fixed the border, addressed waste/fraud/abuse in government programs, TrumpRx, at least tried to address Venezuela, Iran and Cuba, no tax on tips and reduced taxes on Social Security...

I'd add:

Stopped the Biden administration's attacks on free speech

Struck major blows agianst DEI

Struck major blows against transgender pseudoscience and its abuse of children

Reduced government regulation

Struck major blows against global warming hysteria and radically improved U.S. energy policy

Job creation: good

Stock market: good

SCOTUS: perhaps his greatest achievement.

His DoJ addressing state-level violations of the Second Amendment

...

and that's just for starters.

The guy drives me crazy, and I abhor his frequently-divisive demeanor. I don't think someone with his, er, uneven temperament should be President. I'm not sure what to think about the tariffs. I'm extremely opposed to his infringements of free speech--especially the flag-burning nonsense. I fear that Trump fatigue will give us a Democrat House--and perhaps President in '28.. And then the whole disaster of the Biden years may well be repeated.

   But, just looking at the good side of the ledger, I'd say: the best President of the 21st Century, by far.

   Well, I left out his post-election freakout and his role in the Capitol riot and fostering electoral skepticism on the right. That's a complicated subject...and I actually think he was at least right about the general point: the election of 2020 was sketchy, and the Democrats are undermining the security of our elections. I wish he'd just say that instead of insisting that his 2020 "landslide" was stolen...

Elliot Abrams: The Iranian People are Forgotten in the Iran Deal

Kinda seems that way.

Jonathan Alpert: Therapy is Looking More Like Re-Education. (Or: Everything Woke Turns to Shit...)

Well, it's an irrationalist, totalitarian ideology that spreads itself by taking over social institutions and brainwashing people into accepting it as unquestionable orthodoxy. It's taken over all of our major institutions, including medicals schools and the AMA...and it's particularly bad in social sciences and/like psychology... So this comes as no surprise.

Transanity at Oxford: Transes do the Heckler's Veto Thing

Note that this bullshit was sanctioned by the university.

When this happens, members of the audience should get up and stand in front of the hecklers and talk over them. Fight fire with fire.

But the real outrage is that the university ok'd such madness.

If 15 years ago, we were told that men in dresses pretending to be women would be routinely attacking and threatening people and preventing people from speaking...and that not only a majority of the left, but a majority of the West's most prestigious institutions would be supporting them...no one would have believed it.

White Jurors Tend Toward Colorblindness; Black Jurors Do Not

If this were the other way around, the MSM would remind us of it at every opportunity...:

In a study on race and juror decision-making, participants evaluated an identical defendant whose name was either Bradley Schwartz or Jamal Gaines.

Black respondents were significantly more likely to convict and more harshly sentence the white-named defendant, while white… https://t.co/Nifej2uHeb pic.twitter.com/d7G9zJrK1y

— Dimitri (@thedimitri) June 12, 2026

NY Dems Want to Eliminate 'Mother' and 'Father' in Family Law in Favor of 'Gestating Parent' and 'Non-Gestating Parent'

Sheer bigotry!

How dare they assume that gestation is necessary for parenthood!

And that adults in a nuclear family with children are parents!

And that it's the older people who are the adults!

To be politically correct, we should speak only of Familial Component Persons...

MMA at the White House

facepalm

That is all.

Switzerland's Brexit Moment; or: Import the Third World, Become the Third World

Looks like Europe is finding it more and more difficult to deny the obvious facts American conservatives have been haranguing them about for at least a decade.

Especially: import the Third World, become the Third World.

Jürg Müller, director of Swiss think-tank Avenir Suisse, told CNN that the country was feeling the strain of recent population growth driven in part by its economic successes. “You see the tensions on housing markets, infrastructure… access to lakes… it feels for many people too crowded.” The SVP “have taken this feeling and transformed it into this initiative,” he said.
...
Müller contends that support for the referendum is motivated less by xenophobia than people’s concern that the population is growing at an uncontrolled rate.
However, the website of the pro-cap campaign appears to draw on anti-Muslim rhetoric to make its case.
“Problems with asylum seekers from Muslim countries. Studies show that certain migrant groups are many times more criminal than the rest of the population,” one section of the website reads.
Elsewhere on the website, a photo of a woman with her head covered holding up a Swiss passport appears under the subheading “Loss of culture and identity.” The same page describes “creeping Islamization” and concerns over harassment of women at a Swiss swimming pool carried out, it claims, by French nationals of North African origin.
The SVP declined to speak with CNN for this story.
“It is utterly xenophobic. Ultimately, it makes scapegoats out of foreigners, as if they’re the answer to all of society’s ills. It is dangerous because it is deceitful,” Delphine Klopfenstein, a Green member of parliament, told Reuters.

I don't know much at all about what's going on in Switzerland. But the Greens are reliably wrong--about everything. Let's take a look at Klepfenstein's claims:

[1] "It is utterly xenophobic"

[2] "Ultimately it makes scapegoats out of foreigners..."

[3] [It pretends] "...as if [foreigners are] the answer to all of society's ills"

[4] "It is dangerous..."

[5] ..."It is deceitful."

Typical leftist bullshit.

   Consider [1]: To cut to the chase, Klopfenstein is actually saying that any such policies are inherently "xenophobic." Which is obviously false. Such policies can be advanced purely on the basis of objective facts. Probably she's also trying to suggest that advocates of the measure are motivated by xenophobia. Which could be true--but if their claims are true, then there is no reason to think they are so motivated. This is, again, typical leftist bullshit. If Smith commits a crime, and so you want Smith in jail, and Smith is black, then you are a racist, racist. This is some idiotic mixture of the view that any, say, black person, say, going to jail for any reason is inherently racist...and the view that all whites are always motivated by racism. It's as confused as any such thing can possibly be.

   Now, klopfenstein's claim could be true...I don't know anything about Mr. Mueller and his group. But we know enough about the Greens to know that she's probably just full of shit. Mueller gives sound reasons in support of his view. When someone gives sound reasons in support of their view, then, barring some knowledge of hidden motives, we have no grounds on which to attribute such motives to them.

   General and important: the left is built largely on "the hermeneutics of suspicion"--as a result of being built so much on the foundation of Marx and Freud. Hence their propensity to poison the well and spew red herrings and ad hominems. They always go immediately for character assassination, because a deep and important part of their worldview tells them that people--but especially their enemies--are always lying, always motivated by the lust for power and domination. This is some of the pseudoscience at the heart of their worldview...

Anyway:

Mueller is right about both these things:

[a] "Certain migrant groups are many times more criminal than the rest of the population"

[b] Mass migration from alien and incompatible cultures threatens the home culture. Islam is notably incompatible with European liberalism and Western culture. And (though this really belongs in [a]), contributes to a massive increase in harassment of women. As does, especially, migration by North Africans.

Since Mueller's claims are all true, Klopfenstein's attribution of hidden motives to him and his group is gratuitous, ergo indefensible.

   What we have here should be familiar to Americans: conservatives stating unpleasant facts, and leftists responding with bullshit accusations of prejudice. The hard facts are incompatible with leftist ideology...so they must be false! Er...as if the left really believed in truth and falsehood... Well...they must be bad, anyway...

   Consider [2]: Again: could be true, but we're given no reason to think it is. And it probably isn't. We'd have to see the specifics of the campaign and the relevant measures, I suppose...but, again, given [a] and [b], this isn't scapegoating--it's stating facts.

   As for [3]: Obvious straw man. We don't even have to know the particulars. There is no way they're trying to make foreigners responsible for tooth decay and increased gas prices. I'm certain that no one is saying that excessive immigration from the Third World is causing all Switzerland's problems...in fact, Mueller et al. are making it pretty clear which problems they're causing...

   [4]/[5]: I separated the claims--which illicitly helps the Greens here. Yes, deceit is typically dangerous...but this isn't deceitful. Again, it's true. The deceivers are the Greens...and not only is their deceit dangerous, but their preferred policies are dangerous, too. Bringing in mass numbers of foreigners from incompatible cultures is dangerous. Leftists refuse to acknowledge this. They have a vision of the world according to which everyone is equal because everyone is a blank slate. Bring such foreigners in, and they will become Swiss. Poof! Magic... The left denies facts so commonly because its principles and beliefs are so obviously false and stupid.

   Look. Almost no one is against bringing good people into their country from anywhere on Earth. The point is, really: people from some countries and groups have to be vetted more carefully than those of others. If you pick a random Somali to bring into your country, you're probably bringing in trouble. You might not be. But you probably are. There's a much smaller chance of this if you bring in a random German or Estonian. These are just facts. Conservatives tend to face these facts. Leftists tend to deny them. That's what it really comes down to.

Hasta la Vista, Nino

Good.

"RPM"--the "Rapid Prompting Method" for Allegedly Communicating with the Autistic--is Basically Just "Facilitated Communication"

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

And easy-to-test bullshit at that.

But, of course, its advocates don't want to test it...

This GOP Congress Has Been a Disappointment

link

Of course, if the Dems win in November, we'll miss 'em.

The Congressional Pubs are merely feckless.

The Dems will be destructive.

The War is Over Again

No, wait

Stage 4 Retardation After the Karmelo Anthony Trial

Plane on a Conveyor Belt: My Guess

I didn't know about this controversy until a day or so ago.

I had a friend who used to like to get groups of people who didn't know much about the actual physics to try to figure out this kind of physics problem.

I'm with the faction who says that the Mythbusters screwed up.

In brief:

Seems to me that the question is equivalent to: Can an aircraft that is stationary relative to the ground take off? (And: not with a very substantial headwind.)

The Mythbusters think their experiment showed that it can.

But that plane wasn't stationary relative to the ground--as you can see in the video if you look at the cones.

So, as others have said: they probably weren't pulling the canvas (on which the plane was resting) fast enough to keep the plane stationary relative to the ground.

Anyway.

Can a plane that's stationary relative to the ground (and, again, without a significant headwind) take off?

My guess:

Maybe, but probably not given the kinds of planes they're actually interested in.

Many planes can take off like that, of course.

E.g. VSTOL aircraft like the AV-8B Harrier, the F-35B...and helicopters. These are tacitly ruled out. The Harrier and Fat Amy-B reorient their nozzles to direct thrust downward. So that's out of the spirit of the thing. As are helicopters.

More relevantly: Some bush-hoppers used e.g. in Alaska can take off and land almost vertically given a stiff headwind...and with very small runways otherwise. See e.g.:

Anyway, I say: the right kind of plane--e.g. with phenomenal power--could take off while stationary relative to the ground.

But there's no general answer to the problem.

If you want to know whether a plane can take off from a conveyor belt that's keeping it stationary relative to the ground, just have it try to take off with the brakes locked--or the wheels chocked. Most won't be able to. But some might. If you offered a billion dollar prize for making such a bird, I can semi-guarantee that you'd get one.

But the kinds of planes normally said to be at issue--747s, Piper Cubs--no.

CAP/NTP: Did Skid Row Help Skew the Election for LA Mayor?

link:

A Post investigation found nearly 1,200 people registered to vote at a homeless shelter with 132 beds, and another 185 at a drop-in center with zero beds.

I'm against low-commitment/low-information voters voting anyway. So I'm against GOTV campaigns of basically all kinds. If you don't know enough / care enough to vote, don't vote. (For years I was out there with the Dems doing GOTV. I regret that now for more than one reason.)

   Many people think that all voting is good and more voters is better.

   I understand, but disagree.

   I'm currently inclined to think that democracy is a necessary...well...not evil...but a necessary not-so-great. In addition to being a democracy, we're a liberal, constitutional republic...and I currently think all three of those components are more important than democracy. No, I don't think you can preserve the other things without the consent of the governed--and democracy is probably the best way to secure that. So this view doesn't amount to much, really.

Homeless on Skid Row Claim They Were Paid to Vote for Karen Bass / Nithya Raman

We already know CA Dems are paying homeless to vote. So no surprise:

Karmelo Anthony Verdict: Guilty

link

No surprise here.

There's been a lot of stuff on black social media lying about the crime and arguing that it was obviously self-defense...

...which is completely false.

That coverage was just full of completely made-up shit.

It was basically always obvious that he was guilty.

Noah Rothman: Trump's Revealing On-Air Meltdown

Agreed.

He shouldn't be President. He doesn't have the demeanor nor the temperament required by the office.

And his role with respect to the Capitol riot is just inexcusable (even though the left radically exaggerates the degree to which he provoked it).

I continue to wish that he'd have some moderate health crisis that would force him to resign and be replaced by Vance.

We're very lucky that the other guys lost...and Trump has done some really excellent things this time around...but damn...despite his strengths...he just does not have what it takes to be President of the United States.

So Much for Peak Woke: Woketarian Madness Keeps Winning in Blue Cities

The thing is — it keeps winning power in major American cities. It keeps cannibalizing the Democratic Party. It may not be popular in opinion polls, but it is unstoppable in intramural contests within institutions. https://t.co/iYlTEP7ALp

— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) June 9, 2026

AJW: Mail-In Ballots Flip CA Election--But Reports of 25k Ballots With No Pratt Ballots Are False

Good. Because, as I said in an earlier post, that would be pretty clear evidence of shenanigans. Given that many ballots, even if there were zero Pratt supporters represented, you'd expect some Pratt votes merely as a result of errors. And remember: most of the people who return ballots don't really know anything about the race...

   Though, as Sean notes: CA election protocols are a complete freakin' joke. They're basically engineered to produce shit results shutting the Pubs even farther out of contention. And, of course, everybody who knows anything about elections knows that mail-in ballots are more susceptible to shenanigans. Basically the CA rules guarantee that the elections is dirty. And, of course: we've now actually caught Dems paying "Our Neighbors Temporarily Experiencing Houselessness" for their votes...

"Iran's Attack on Israel Reveals New and Aggressive Regional Ambitions"

Uh...not convincing.

Could absolutely be true...but, well, here's a comment I've tried to post four times under the story, and it's been rejected each time:

A more objective story might at least have mentioned the possibility that Iran's actions are a result of greater desperation.

That's it. At least once word-for-word. Given reason for rejection:  "Does not align with our community guidelines." I've posted many more critical and controversial comments at WSJ. It's an obvious point. There's nothing in it that could plausibly be construed as outside the bounds of reasonable debate. And, after I posted it, I found one other commenter making basically the same point.

   Yeah, I know it's just AI that's rejecting it. Still, somewhat irritating.

   Look, I'd rather the war be going better. I have little confidence in Trump on this score. And I'm willing to believe that the attack has made things worse. I just don't buy that claim at this point. And I really am just pointing out that a likely explanation--in fact, probably the more likely explanation--goes unmentioned.

   In fact, two different versions of a reply to the other commentor making the same argument have now been rejected...

   Funny.