ADJUST NEWSPEAK DICTIONARIES ACCORDINGLY, COMRADE: European Parliament Issues Pamphlet Encouraging Members to Replace Words Such As ‘Mankind’ and ‘Manpower’ With ‘Humanity’ and ‘Staff.’

I wonder how the parliament’s secretariat would recommend we change the term “man-caused disasters,” coined by former Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano to replace the term “terrorist attacks.” Napolitano says we can’t use the word “terrorist” and now the EP tells us we can no longer say “man.” “Person” is out because “the tendency has been to use it only when referring to women.” Shall we call them “artificial disasters” or “synthetic disasters?” Or should we just be politically incorrect and stick with “terrorist attacks?”

Presumably, terrorist attacks are a thing of the past in Europe, since the EU has now pivoted over to fight the far more important pronoun wars.

LOUIS CK’S POLITICALLY INCORRECT COMEDY DIDN’T CHANGE. YOU DID:

You might not think this kind of humor is funny, and that’s fine. Moreover, you might think Louis C.K., who initiated sexual situations with unwilling women, is a creepy person who has lost the right to joke about uncomfortable subjects. That’s also fine. But it would be silly to pretend that Louis C.K. has undergone some sort of change or deliberate pivot. He’s just doing his same old shtick.

But many in the media have seized upon the idea that Louis C.K. has suddenly became a right-winger—that his new material is some dramatic departure from his pre-scandal days as a woke comedy icon. “Audio of a New Louis C.K. Set Has Leaked, and It’s Sickening,” warns Slate, striking the tone of a nun listening to Eminem for the first time. The Daily Beast accuses Louis C.K. of “pandering to the alt-right,” which is quite the broad categorization; the tons of people—New Yorkers, presumably—who can be heard laughing in the background of the leaked footage would probably be surprised to learn that they take their cues from Richard Spencer.

I can’t recall very many people on the left complaining that Louis C.K. was pandering to pedophiles when he joked about normalizing child rape so that rapists would be more likely to let their child victims live. On the contrary, GQ placed that joke on its list of the 10 best Louis C.K. skits, hailing him as the most transgressive and celebrated comedian “of his generation.”

Those who suddenly find themselves balking at Louis C.K.’s edgy material should admit that the comedian didn’t really change. They did.

As Richard Fernandez has said, the torpedoes the left fired into the water to get Trump keep circling back on them. To the point where the left have become the far right Moral Majority of the late 1970s. Or as Michael Brendan Dougherty wrote in a piece titled “Hugh Hefner, Gangsta Rap & The Emerging Moral Majority,” after Hef entered his “After Dark” mode permanently in September of 2017, on the eve of Harvey Weinstein and Louis C.K.’s fall from grace, and the concurrent dawn of the #MeToo era, “Moral concerns pop up one decade in right-wing clothes, and, in the next, change into another outfit.”

JOHN HAWKINS: The 25 Best Quotes of 2018.

58 GREAT NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS, NOT ONE OF WHICH INCLUDES THE WORD ‘DIET:’ You can thank Margot Cleveland of The Federalist for this gem of a New Year’s Day post.

My favorite is #40 — “Help an elderly neighbor. Bring back his trash cans, offer to mow her lawn, invite him on a walk to chat.” I know from experience how meaningful this can be for an elderly shut-in.

ANNALS OF ANTI-SEMITISM: Medical resident fired from Cleveland Clinic for saying she’d give Jews the wrong medicine. “Dr. Lara Kollab worked at the Clinic from July 2018 – September 2018.”

WELL, I KNOW WHAT IT WOULD LOOK LIKE:

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: In wake of transcript fraud scandal, universities silent on admissions processes.

A private school has been accused of numerous unethical practices to help its minority students gain acceptance to prestigious universities including Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, and Yale, and these universities are refusing to clarify how they were fooled by the fraudulent records or how they plan to improve their admissions process to prevent it in the future.

T.M. Landry College Prep, a school in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, has in recent years drawn the attention of several major programs including the “Today” show, “Ellen,” and “CBS This Morning” due to many of its students’ having been accepted at many of America’s most prestigious universities. Numerous students were presented as having surmounted difficulties at home to achieve outstanding grades in challenging courses and earn impressive honors in extracurricular activities.

A recent bombshell report in The New York Times revealed that much of these accomplishments were false. “In reality, the school falsified transcripts, made up student accomplishments and mined the worst stereotypes of black America to manufacture up-from-hardship tales that it sold to Ivy League schools hungry for diversity,” the paper reported.

Those schools, however, are refusing to comment on their application processes, declining to say if and how they will improve their administrative procedures in order to safeguard against future fraud.

I don’t think they really mind the fraud, as long as they have an excuse to keep their numbers up.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL WORKING-THE-NUMBERS EDITION: ABA 509 Report Data: Non-LSAT (GRE) Applicants Up 20%. Law schools are admitting people with GRE scores so that they can soak up warm, tuition-paying bodies without taking a hit for low LSAT scores on the US News rankings.

CHIUNE SUGIHARA SAVED THOUSANDS OF LIVES: Today is the 119^th anniversary of his birth.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: OWU offers ‘social justice’ major with mandatory ‘activism’ work.

DON SURBER: Trump’s offer Mexico could not refuse.

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2018 IN REVIEW: The StrategyTalk 12/31/2018 podcast on StrategyPage. On YouTube or download the MP3 on this webpage.

A BRADLEY IN THE DEFENSE: A 1st Cavalry Division M3 Bradley Fighting Vehicle awaits an attack by “opposing forces” during an exercise at Hohenfels Training Area, Germany.

THE BIG STORY OF 2018: The Trump Administration’s Korean Diplomatic Initiative.

RELATED: Chapter 2, Cocktails from Hell.

ADMIT IT, YOU KNEW THIS WAS COMING, DIDN’T YOU?

I JUST WANT TO SAY GOOD LUCK, WE’RE ALL COUNTING ON YOU: In a Pittsburgh Elks Lodge, American civic life tries to make a comeback. “The beer is cheap and cold. The food is cheap and tasty. Soon the entire building is packed to the rafters, with people lining the walls in the hall and the bar. It’s as if a Frank Capra made a movie in this century.”

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Gun Owners Are Being Othered, And We’re Letting It Happen.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! What do you want to happen in 2019?

OF COURSE:  Google pulls a fast one for political correctness in sponsored New York Times post.

GOOD LORD. REALLY?  The Beatification of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

HOPING THE GREASY — AND GRUBBY — EMINENCES STAY IN CHECK IN 2019:  The Long Slow Wake-up Call of the Soul.