WHAT’S FUNNY IS, YALE’S BIG SELLING POINT IS . . . EXCLUSIVITY AND PRIVILEGE: Yale Bans Secret Society From Meeting Space Over ‘Exclusivity’ and ‘Privilege.’

But let’s run with this. I think we need legislation requiring the Ivy League to admit students by lottery, in the name of abolishing exclusivity and privilege. Or maybe we should just abolish the Ivy League. Because inequality!

FLY THE OVERLY FRIENDLY SKIES: Pilot Removed From United Airlines Flight, Had Boarded The Plane Out Of Uniform.

The Associated Press reports that the female pilot, who was not named, was not in uniform when boarding the plane recently, according to a spokesman for the airline. The spokesman said that another pilot was brought in to complete the flight, which was delayed for almost two hours.

The spokesman confirmed that the pilot was shown in videos posted to several social media sites talking to passengers over the aircraft intercom. Persons identifying themselves as passengers on the flight said that the woman appeared to be unstable, and was talking about the election, divorce and other matters.

Clearly not the right time for her to be piloting an airplane, or much of anything else.

BELIEVE IT WHEN YOU SEE IT: Russia’s Rostec to co-develop 5th-gen fighter with UAE.

Russia defense heavyweight Rostec will partner with the UAE Ministry of Defence to co-develop a fifth-generation light combat fighter, company CEO Sergey Chemezov said at IDEX in Abu Dhabi Monday.

Development, which is based upon its MiG-29 twin-engine fighter aircraft, will kick off in 2018, and will take an estimated seven to eight years, Chemezov said during a media briefing with journalists. He elaborated in an exclusive one-on-one interview with Defense News.

“That’s not fast, because it takes quite a long period of time to develop,” he said speaking through a translator. “We anticipate local production here in the Arab Emirates, for the needs of Emirates. And of course [we expect development to support the needs of] the neighboring countries.”

The prospect of building a fully modern, fifth-generation jet on top of a fourth-generation platform which first flew in 1977 seems dubious at best. Russia’s current effort at building a stealth fighter, Sukhoi’s PAK-FA, has proven so troublesome that Russia’s partners in India nearly dropped out of the program, and Russia herself now plans to field only a few of the jets.

I NEEDED A STUDY TO TELL ME THAT? Personality can change dramatically: You’re a completely different person at 14 and 77, according to the longest-ever study into human character.

(Classical reference in headline.)

DUDE, WHERE’S MY TWEET? Twitter Is Now ‘Ghost’ Deleting Offensive Tweets.

Last week we discovered Twitter was punishing accounts for using “offensive” language by removing account features for 12 hours. Now it appears they are “ghost” deleting Tweets they deem offensive.

When a Tweet is ghost deleted, the person who wrote the Tweet still sees it and does not know it is technically deleted. But everyone else trying to find the Tweet cannot see it, and even if you manually enter the Tweet’s URL, it will bring you to a page that says it was deleted.

This was first discovered by John Sweeney at SuperNerdLand whose offensive tweet was ghost deleted by Twitter.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey owes it to his shareholders to explain how ghost-deleting is going to bring back user growth.

CLOSE YOUR EYES: ‘Not My President’ Protesters Pepper-Sprayed, Arrested in Portland.

Just yesterday I was wondering how long the anti-Trump “resistance” could keep it cranked up to 11, and even the Portland part of yesterday’s nationwide demonstration was pretty small.

SNOWFALLS ARE NOW JUST A THING OF THE PAST:

Shot: California Braces for Unending Drought.

—The New York Times, May 10, 2016.

Chaser: S.F. rainfall has now exceeded normal for a full season: Here are the numbers.

—The San Francisco Chronicle, today.

As the Wattsupwiththat.com eco-blog noted last week:

Remember all those predictions of a “permanent drought” in California? Those were examples of why three decades of climate alarmism has not convinced the American people to take severe measures to fight anthropogenic climate change: alarmists exaggerate the science, and are proven wrong — repeatedly. When will the Left learn that doomster lies do not work?

We’re only a month into her administration, but I’m sure President Hillary will help her fellow leftists dial the doomsday talk back a bit.

(Classical reference in headline.)

D.C. MCALLISTER: Obama’s Incompetence And Chaos Far Eclipsed What’s Coming From Team Trump.

Even the Washington Post had to admit all was not well in Obama world when they reported that the White House wasn’t ready for conflicts over policy: “President Obama’s advisers acknowledged Tuesday that they were unprepared for the intraparty rift that occurred over the fate of a proposed public health insurance program, a firestorm that has left the White House searching for a way to reclaim the initiative on the president’s top legislative priority.”

Jay Cost of RealClearPolitics was “stunned” that Obama “would be caught off guard by this,” adding that his “lack of foresight” was “absolutely inexcusable.” “How could they not have anticipated this?” Cost asked. “How could they possibly have been surprised that the left and right flanks of the party would not see eye to eye?”

Seems like things haven’t changed that much, at least rhetorically. “But Trump is worse!” many might claim. Yet that isn’t true at all. What’s worse is the way it’s being reported and repeated. The claims of incompetence are rushing like a torrent from every direction and with such hysteria that you’d think the chaos of Armageddon was upon us.

Read the whole thing, which goes a long way towards proving that institutional memory doesn’t exist where it isn’t wanted.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. The Real Division in American Life Isn’t About Trump.

The basic division in American politics today is not over the merits of President Trump. Many of those who voted for him believed that he lacked the moral grounding and gravitas that great Presidents must ultimately draw on. The division is between those who think that before Trump, things were going just fine and the American elite was doing an excellent job, and those who blame the rise of Trump on the failures and blindness of the so-called “meritocratic elite” who, they would argue, have been running the country into the ground.

In foreign policy, the United States has had two failed presidencies in a row. Our grand strategy of domesticating China into the world order by offering it an unprecedented opportunity to grow rich through low-wage manufacturing exports has hurt American workers without democratizing or reconciling China. Presidents Bush and Obama thought that the democratization of the Middle East would and could solve the terrorism problem—and so did their degreed and esteemed advisers and the commentariat.

Domestically, our leadership elite has watched passively as infrastructure decays, state and local pension systems accumulate unsustainable debt loads, the national debt inexorably climbs, and the social capital of the nation erodes.

There was no sign from the Clinton campaign that anybody understood that the nation’s path was unsustainable. The Clinton campaign was about “more of the same.”

The jury’s out on Trump’s solutions but at least he recognized that there was a problem.

YOU CAN BE SURE THE INVESTIGATION WILL PROCEED FAST & FURIOUSLY: Facing sexism charges, Uber says Eric Holder will investigate.

Full background here.

INDEPENDENT CINEMAS IN THE US TO SHOW 1984 AS TRUMP PROTEST:

“Orwell’s novel begins with the sentence, ‘It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen,'” reads a statment on the project’s website. “Less than one month into the new presidential administration, theater owners collectively believe the clock is already striking thirteen. Orwell’s portrait of a government that manufactures their own facts, demands total obedience, and demonizes foreign enemies, has never been timelier.”

“The endeavor encourages theaters to take a stand for our most basic values: freedom of speech, respect for our fellow human beings, and the simple truth that there are no such things as ‘alternative facts’.

Well, other than the fact that Orwell was predicting how Communism and its degradation of language would eventually engulf the UK (and just offscreen, America). Speaking of which, ctrl-f on the above article for “Ingsoc” brings up zero results. Oh, and by the way, haven’t we bern here before? I think we’ve been here before.

THE SOCIALIST STATE DEFEATS DECADENT WESTERN OBESITY! Venezuelans lost 19 lbs. on average over past year due to lack of food.

WHY ARE DEMOCRAT-DOMINATED COMPANIES SUCH CESSPITS OF MISOGYNY? Uber Described as ‘Sexist,”Chaotic’ Hell Hole By Former Employee.

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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Trump And The Crisis Of The Meritocracy.

A lot of Americans resent the meritocrats’ insulation from what’s happening elsewhere, especially as America’s unfortunate record over the past couple of decades, whether in economics, in politics, or in foreign policy, doesn’t suggest that the “meritocracy” is overflowing with, you know, actual merit.

In the United States, the result has been Trump. In Britain, the result was Brexit. In both cases, the allegedly elite — who are supposed to be cool, considered, and above the vulgar passions of the masses — went more or less crazy. From conspiracy theories (it was the Russians!) to bizarre escape fantasies (A Brexit vote redo! A military coup to oust Trump!) the cognitive elite suddenly didn’t seem especially elite, or for that matter particularly cognitive.

In fact, while America was losing wars abroad and jobs at home, elites seemed focused on things that were, well, faintly ridiculous. As Richard Fernandez tweeted: “The elites lost their mojo by becoming absurd. It happened on the road between cultural appropriation and transgender bathrooms.” It was fatal: “People believe from instinct. The Roman gods became ridiculous when the Roman emperors did. PC is the equivalent of Caligula’s horse.”

Well, one end of the horse, anyway.

FLASHBACK: America’s New Mandarins: The paths to power and success are narrowing. So is the worldview of the powerful.

The Chinese imperial bureaucracy was immensely powerful. Entrance was theoretically open to anyone, from any walk of society—as long as they could pass a very tough examination. The number of passes was tightly restricted to keep the bureaucracy at optimal size.

Passing the tests and becoming a “scholar official” was a ticket to a very good, very secure life. And there is something to like about a system like this … especially if you happen to be good at exams. Of course, once you gave the imperial bureaucracy a lot of power, and made entrance into said bureaucracy conditional on passing a tough exam, what you have is … a country run by people who think that being good at exams is the most important thing on earth. Sound familiar?

The people who pass these sorts of admissions tests are very clever. But they’re also, as time goes on, increasingly narrow. The way to pass a series of highly competitive exams is to focus every fiber of your being on learning what the authorities want, and giving it to them. . . .

That system produced many benefits, but some of those benefits were also costs. A single elite taking a single exam means a single way of thinking:

The examination system also served to maintain cultural unity and consensus on basic values. The uniformity of the content of the examinations meant that the local elite and ambitious would-be elite all across China were being indoctrinated with the same values.

All elites are good at rationalizing their eliteness, whether it’s meritocracy or “the divine right of kings.” The problem is the mandarin elite has some good arguments. They really are very bright and hardworking. It’s just that they’re also prone to be conformist, risk averse, obedient, and good at echoing the opinions of authority, because that is what this sort of examination system selects for.

The even greater danger is that they become more and more removed from the people they are supposed to serve. Since I moved to Washington, I have had series of extraordinary conversations with Washington journalists and policy analysts, in which I remark upon some perfectly ordinary facet of working-class, or even business-class life, only to have this revelation met with amazement.

Yep. Plus: “In fact, I think that to some extent, the current political wars are a culture war not between social liberals and social conservatives, but between the values of the mandarin system and the values of those who compete in the very different culture of ordinary businesses–ones outside glamour industries like tech or design.”

And:

Almost none of the kids I meet in Washington these days even had boring menial high-school jobs working in a drugstore or waiting tables; they were doing “enriching” internships or academic programs. And thus the separation of the mandarin class grows ever more complete.

I’m hinting at the final problem, which is that this ostensibly meritocratic system increasingly selects from those with enough wealth and connections to first, understand the system, and second, prepare the right credentials to enter it—as I believe it also did in Imperial China.

And like all elites, they believe that they not only rule because they can, but because they should. Even many quite left-wing folks do not fundamentally question the idea that the world should be run by highly verbal people who test well and turn their work in on time.

Those are virtues, but they are not the only virtues. And one problem with the Mandarin system is the culture of entitlement, and contempt for the “back row kids,” that it fosters.

HEADLINES FROM 2005: Venezuela Is a Ticking Time Bomb.

Mismanagement of the economy has created a humanitarian disaster beyond comprehension. The capital city of Caracas is now the most dangerous non-war zone in the world, with 120 murders for every 100,000 residents. Venezuelans live in fear knowing they are more likely to be kidnapped in their own country than are the citizens of Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria.

To combat the epidemic of food scarcity, the government put the military in charge of the country’s food management and distribution systems. Yet that only seems to make matters worse. The AP recently reported that the military is taking advantage of the country’s food shortages by profiting from food trafficking.

The deteriorating conditions in health care show just how serious the crisis is. Chronic shortages of medicine have rendered hospitals essentially useless. The World Health Organization estimates that there are shortages for 75 percent of necessary medications and medical supplies such as antibiotics, vaccines, and scalpels.

Blackouts resulting from a crumbling energy infrastructure are a daily occurrence. The death of newborns has become a common phenomenon, with one doctor saying “the death of a baby is our daily bread.” Infectious diseases once kept under control have surged. Cases of diphtheria and malaria are re-emerging, and the number of Zika infections is estimated to be “nearly 700,000,” according to a Venezuelan health organization.

For a country as ruthlessly collectivized as Venezuela, the question of collapse is a matter of when, not if.

STARTING WITH MADONNA: Ann Althouse: Milo needs to solve his own problems, but to be fair, let’s look at all the pedophilia talk that public figures have survived.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Trump Just Hired the Army’s Smartest Officer.

Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster’s Dereliction of Duty is one of the two best histories of Vietnam I’ve read, and his performance as a Captain at the 1991 Battle of 73 Easting in Iraq is the stuff of legend.

LEGACY: Graph” How Much Debt Did Each President Leave The Country? Well, in this sense, Newsweek’s comparison of Barack Obama and FDR works.

CHARLIE MARTIN: ‘Trump Trance’? Media Sure It ‘Heard’ Sweden Comment Trump Never Said.

NO: You can now transfer money internationally through Facebook.

The money transfer startup TransferWise has launched a new chatbot that enables Facebook (FB, Tech30) users to move funds abroad using the social platform’s Messenger service.

The bot can be used to move money between the U.S., Canada, Australia and the European Union. It will also notify users via an alert when their regularly used currencies hit favorable rates.

Facebook users were previously able to transfer money within the U.S., but not between accounts in foreign countries.

Messenger is the creepy front-end of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s creepy vision of the future.

REPORT: Trump’s revised travel ban will target same seven countries. “President Trump’s revised immigration order will reportedly include the same countries targeted in the president’s initial order, which barred refugees and people from seven predominately Muslim countries from entering the U.S., the Associated Press reported. The president’s new order though will not include people who already have a visa to travel to the U.S. It will exempt people who hold green cards and who are dual citizens of the U.S. and one of the targeted countries. The new order will also no longer tell authorities to specifically single out and reject Syrian refugees.”

NOW WHAT? In Syria, Turkey Finds Itself Boxed In.

After months of halting and costly progress, the Turkish military and allied Syrian rebels are in a good position to take the Syrian city of al-Bab from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). With the capture of al-Bab, Turkey will have accomplished the clearly defined goals of its “Operation Euphrates Shield” intervention in northern Aleppo governorate: driving ISIL from the Turkish border and blocking hostile Kurdish forces from linking their territory to Turkey’s south.

But after al-Bab, Euphrates Shield has nowhere to go, and, if Turkey’s gains are to be sustainable, its forces may be unable to leave. With Euphrates Shield, Turkey may have thrown itself into a Syrian quagmire. It has no clear exit strategy and only a poor set of options for escalation. Turkey seems committed to an indefinite but precarious occupation of a piece of northern Aleppo governorate that, perversely, may further weaken Syria’s political and territorial integrity and strengthen Turkey’s adversaries.

Getting in is the easy part.