WELL, GOOD: Tokyo and Europe Take a Stand Against Protectionism.

With the Japan-EU free trade agreement, Japan is signaling to the world that it is serious about doing business, and that it can tackle serious liberalization. This is one of the so-called mega free trade agreements – one of the first that is really coming online. However, we must remember that this is just a broad political agreement, it’s an important milestone but we do not yet have a finalized Japan-EU free trade agreement.

There are other things that Japan is trying to achieve in these negotiations, and there is also an element of Japan trying to catch up. When you think about what motivated Japan in the beginning to be very active in insisting on negotiating a trade agreement with the Europeans, they were actually looking at what South Korea had accomplished. South Korea had already negotiated an agreement with the European Union, and this put pressure on Japanese industries, especially the automobile sector. For Japan, this was also about leveling the playing field to make sure that its auto companies have the same level of access that their rivals from South Korea already enjoy.

I would also say there is a newer element, which is that Japan is increasingly concerned that there is a new populist trend of economic nationalism rising that will give way to full-on protectionism.

Neither Smoot nor Hawley could be reached for comment.

STEPHEN KRUISER: Social Justice Site Ponders Whether White Men ‘Deserve’ to Vote.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Following 20% Decline In UNLV Bar Pass Rate (To 63%), Nevada Lowers Cut Score By 2 Points (To 138).

SOME PEOPLE THOUGHT STEM COURSES WOULD BE IMMUNE TO CAMPUS CRAZINESS: Engineering Education: Social Engineering Rather than Actual Engineering.

Alas, the world we engineers envisioned as young students is not quite as simple and straightforward as we had wished because a phalanx of social justice warriors, ideologues, egalitarians, and opportunistic careerists has ensconced itself in America’s college and universities. The destruction they have caused in the humanities and social sciences has now reached to engineering.

One of the features of their growing power is the phenomenon of “engineering education” programs and schools. They have sought out the soft underbelly of engineering, where phrases such as “diversity” and “different perspectives” and “racial gaps” and “unfairness” and “unequal outcomes” make up the daily vocabulary. Instead of calculating engine horsepower or microchip power/size ratios or aerodynamic lift and drag, the engineering educationists focus on group representation, hurt feelings, and “microaggressions” in the profession.

An excellent example is the establishment at Purdue University (once informally called the “MIT of the Midwest”) of a whole School of Engineering Education. What is this school’s purpose? Its website tells us that it “envisions a more socially connected and scholarly engineering education. This implies that we radically rethink the boundaries of engineering and the purpose of engineering education.”

I have always thought my own education in engineering was as scholarly as possible. Once I became a professor, I never worried about how “socially connected” the education we provided at Michigan State for engineering students was. With trepidation, I read on to see if I was missing something important. I learned to my dismay that Purdue’s engineering education school rests on three bizarre pillars: “reimagining engineering and engineering education, creating field-shaping knowledge, and empowering agents of change.” . . .

The recently appointed dean of Purdue’s school, Dr. Donna Riley, has an ambitious agenda.

In her words (italics mine): “I seek to revise engineering curricula to be relevant to a fuller range of student experiences and career destinations, integrating concerns related to public policy, professional ethics, and social responsibility; de-centering Western civilization; and uncovering contributions of women and other underrepresented groups…. We examine how technology influences and is influenced by globalization, capitalism, and colonialism…. Gender is a key…[theme]…[throughout] the course…. We…[examine]… racist and colonialist projects in science….”

This is a bad thing.

BUT I PREFER MINE MARINATED IN MARXIST TEARS: Now tech moguls are dining on gold-crusted steaks.

FOR THE TIMES THEY ARE ACHANGING: Governments are not in Control.

YOUR DUTIES ARE NOT WHAT THEY TELL YOU: What You Owe.

HAVE I MENTIONED MY SHOCKED FACE: Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has been caught red handed erasing record-breaking cold temperatures from its data records.

WELL, BE FAIR, THEY HAVE NO OTHER MARKETABLE SKILLS: College Protesters Demand Peers Pay Them for ‘Emotional Labor’.

I… THE… WHAT? Amazon Seeks to Combat ‘Confederate’ with Reparations-Themed Alt-History Show.

OH, YEAH, AND THIS IS MY SHOCKED FACE: Sources: Samantha Power, A Woman With No Intelligence Function, Filed “Hundreds” of Unmasking Requests In Relation to Trump and His Transition Team.

OR DOES IT SIMPLY MAKE IT SEEM LONGER? Can oatmeal twice a day really help you live longer?

THE BLACK KNIGHT JUST CALLED AND SAID, “DUUUDE.” CNN’s Jim Acosta Claims Victory In Briefing Beef With Stephen Miller: ‘He Couldn’t Take That Kind Of Heat.’

Exclusive – MUST CREDIT INSTAPUNDIT! — video of Acosta’s victory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhRUe-gz690

Or to put it another way:

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HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, GOLDEN PARACHUTE EDITION: UC Davis’ Katehi will teach one course per quarter, conduct research in $318,000 position.

Former UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi will teach one engineering course per quarter over the next nine months in her new $318,000 faculty position, school officials said Monday.

Her first course this fall is a one-unit graduate seminar scheduled to meet 50 minutes each Friday, according to a listing on the Office of the University Registrar website. . . .

Katehi, 63, resigned as chancellor last August after months of controversy, culminating with a $1 million, four-month investigation launched by University of California President Janet Napolitano. She was granted a year of paid leave and is scheduled to return as a professor in September.

Besides her salary, she will get research funding of $150,000 that does not serve as personal compensation, according to a July 6 letter signed by Interim Chancellor Ralph Hexter. That comes from a total of $400,000 allocated for her research through June 2021.

Katehi is supposed to use the $150,000 on a student to help her with scientific proposals, a student assistant to help her put content online, research-related travel and an open source website.

Resigning in disgrace can be a good move.

HAVEN’T HEARD MUCH FROM DEBBIE LATELY: Congressional Investigation Into Wasserman Schultz IT Scandal Moves Forward: Congress demands briefing from Capitol Police, moves to investigate.

VIDEO: The White House Press Briefing Just Went Completely Off the Rails.

THE 21ST CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT AS I’D HOPED: Bogus butt doctor in woman’s implant death used Dunkin’ Donuts as waiting room.

HEH: CNN’s Jim Acosta Read The Statue Of Liberty Poem, Had A Meltdown When Someone Suggested Immigrants Be Able To Read It, Too.

CLOSE THE WAGE GAP!! Government Employees Earn Almost Double The Average American.

THE 21st CENTURY ISN’T WORKING OUT THE WAY I HAD HOPED: Transgendered Briefs for ‘Men Who Have Periods’ Hit Shelves.

PAIN IN ANY LANGUAGE: “Over the previous decade I had become adept at hiding the unexplained pain that racked my back and joints. To all appearances, I was a fit 6-foot-3 man with an easy gait.”

JOURNALISM: Justice Department Gets Attacked For Trying To Protect Asians From Discrimination.

The Justice Department was attacked as racist due to a false New York Times story claiming the DOJ was working to protect white students from discrimination.

The Times story inferred that an internal personnel posting seeking volunteers to investigate “possible litigation related to intentional race-based discrimination in college and university admissions” was meant to look at policies discriminating “against white applicants.”

The Daily Caller first reported that a DOJ source said this Times article “appears to assume it deals with white students without evidence.” DOJ spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores later put out a statement confirming this.

“Press reports regarding the personnel posting in the Civil Rights Division have been inaccurate. The posting sought volunteers to investigate one administrative complaint filed by a coalition of 64 Asian-American associations in May 2015 that the prior Administration left unresolved,” Flores wrote. “The complaint alleges racial discrimination against Asian Americans in a university’s admissions policy and practices.”

It’s all about the Narrative.

USA TODAY EDITORIALIZES: Democratic ‘Better Deal’ robs from the future. Well, that’s a specialty.