SECOND-WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY ASKS THE WORST PRESIDENT TO DELIVER HIS EULOGY.

HMM. GPS IS A HIGH RISK POINT OF FAILURE FOR ALMOST EVERY ASPECT OF OUR MILITARY. Space Force pauses GPS satellite orders due to excess inventory. I worry that, as with ammunition, what looks like excess inventory in peacetime won’t be enough in wartime.

UPDATE: A question in the comments reminds me that you can do geolocation with Starlink signals at GPS levels of accuracy. “Researchers triangulated the signals from six Starlink satellites to fix upon a location on Earth with less than 27 feet (eight meters) of accuracy, the team reported in a statement (opens in new tab). That’s pretty comparable to the typical GPS capabilities of a smartphone, which typically pinpoints your spot on Earth to within 16 feet (4.9 m), depending on the conditions. . . . The researchers developed their navigation system with no help from SpaceX, nor any access to data being shared over the broadband connection. Rather, they used the signals from several satellites and developed an algorithm to locate a position on Earth.” I’m guessing, though, that current GPS receivers would need at least a software update, and very possibly more major alterations, to make use of Starlink signals. Still this possibility may have Space Force thinking that it’s better to quietly make dual-capable receivers than to launch more GPS satellites. There’s nothing about that in the article, though, so that’s entirely my speculation.

GOODER AND HARDER CALIFORNIA: L.A. riders bail on Metro trains amid ‘horror’ of deadly drug overdoses, crime.

Drug use is rampant in the Metro system. Since January, 22 people have died on Metro buses and trains, mostly from suspected overdoses — more people than all of 2022. Serious crimes — such as robbery, rape and aggravated assault — soared 24% last year compared with the previous.

“Horror.” That’s how one train operator recently described the scenes he sees daily. He declined to use his name because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Earlier that day, as he drove the Red Line subway, he saw a man masturbating in his seat and several people whom he refers to as “sleepers,” people who get high and nod off on the train.

“We don’t even see any businesspeople anymore. We don’t see anybody going to Universal. It’s just people who have no other choice [than] to ride the system, homeless people and drug users.”

Commuters have abandoned large swaths of the Metro train system. Even before the pandemic, ridership in the region was never as high as other big-city rail systems. For January, ridership on the Gold Line was 30% of the pre-pandemic levels, and the Red Line was 56% of them. The new $2.1-billion Crenshaw Line that officials tout as a bright spot with little crime had fewer than 2,100 average weekday boardings that month.

Meanwhile in the Bay Area: The end of BART? California’s bullet train isn’t the only rail system in deep trouble. “BART ridership was in decline even before the pandemic but since then it has truly dropped off a cliff. Here’s a chart showing pre-and post-pandemic ‘exits’ at downtown stations. These are people who used to ride the trains to work.”

NEW ON MY SUBSTACK: Losing My Religion? Reflections on falling away from unbridled tech-optimism.

UPDATE: Jeffrey Carter has thoughts in response. “When Glenn writes about the 1990s, we assumed that most people in government were competent. We have seen a lot of upheaval and change since then. By the 2020s, we know those same people aren’t competent and have an agenda that is unconstitutional. They are the people Nietzche writes about.”

And as always, if you like my Substack essay, please subscribe. I really appreciate it.

JON GABRIEL: DC Freaks Out Over DeSantis’s Ukraine Comments; Voters Shrug.

Rah-rah, Slava Ukraini, and all that, but there’s a limit to American largesse. And people get miffed when Biden jets to Kyiv with a suitcase full of money but avoids East Palestine, Ohio.

Politicians in both parties must understand that their first responsibility is to their own nation; allies come second. Forget this, and the people will toss them on their tin ears. DeSantis makes his priority clear: the United States of America.

Reagan-era Secretary of State George Shultz asked every new US ambassador a simple question. “I’m going to spin the globe and I want you to put your hand on your country.”

When they pointed to the nation assigned to them, Shultz corrected them. “Your country is the United States.”

DeSantis has passed this test. Biden has not.

Assuming Brandon makes it to the finish line, the debate between him and DeSantis would be staggering to watch.

OLD AND BUSTED: Robocop.

The New Hotness? Robolawyer! ChatGPT-4 just passed the bar exam, scoring in the 90th percentile. It crushed a bunch of other advanced tests too. Check out these numbers.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): The Coming Symbolic-Analyst Meltdown.

AH, FOR THE SIMPLER TIME WHEN PEOPLE JUST IDENTIFIED AS NAPOLEON: People Among Us Identify as Aliens: Inside The ‘Starseed’ Phenomenon.

THIS IS A PARODY ACCOUNT, BUT IT COULD HAVE BEEN THE BBC:

CHARACTERIZED BY MISTAKES, OVERREACH, AND BAD SCIENCE: US marks three years of pandemic living.

IF IT SEEMS LIKE THEY JUST WANT TO MAKE YOUR LIFE WORSE, IT’S BECAUSE THEY JUST WANT TO MAKE YOUR LIFE WORSE: Manufacturers, Customers Lash Out at Biden’s ‘Climate Friendly’ Washing Machine Regulations: “When you’re squeezing all you can out of the efficiency in terms of electricity use and water … you by definition either make the appliance worse or slower.”

Making ordinary people’s lives worse isn’t an unfortunate side effect of achieving a goal, it is the goal.

I QUESTION WHETHER THERE REALLY IS SUCH A THING: Survey shows share of people in US with ‘metabolically healthy obesity’ has risen.

BREAKING: Russia Goes Kinetic With U.S. in Skies Over the Black Sea, and the USAF Response Is Unbelievable.

TAL BACHMAN: “Maybe it’s age, but I’m starting to warm up to the God of the Old Testament big-time.”

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Do pistols need a break-in period? My Ruger LCP certainly benefited from one.

WAITING FOR THE SUPREME COURT’S DECISION IN HARVARD/UNC:  This is an older article, but if you haven’t had a chance to read about mismatch yet, it has the virtue of being short:  “Want to be a Doctor?  A Scientist?  An Engineer?  An Affirmative Action Leg Up May Hurt Your Chances.”  (Longer discussion of mismatch here.)

The Supreme Court’s decision will come out sometime between now and the end of June.  June is a better bet than March, April or May.

TED BALAKER: Dissidents Need Not Apply: Is Campus Groupthink Coming to Hollywood? An interview with heterodox academic Daniel B. Klein.

READER FAVORITE: GTHUNDER Digital Night Vision Goggles Binoculars. #CommissionEarned

HE FIGHTS: Florida to revoke Hyatt Regency Miami license after ‘sexually explicit’ show with children.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: ‘Rapid Deterioration’: Major Rating Service Downgrades U.S. Banking System. “Following the biggest bank failure since the financial crisis of 2008, Moody’s Investor Service has downgraded its rating of the U.S. banking system in the latest sign that President Biden’s Monday morning attempt to assuage concerns went over like a lead balloon.”

It’s worse when you consider that the rating services are usually late in their assessments.

THOUGHTS FROM THE IVY EXILE, on the decline of Public Health as a discipline.

A BUG’S LIFE: Bees Learn to Dance and Solve Puzzles From Their Peers.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. The brownshirts are running the show at Stanford.

SAY ANYTHING: Biden Claims He Had an ‘Epiphany’ on Same-Sex Marriage as a Teen, but We Have the Receipts.

NO TOLERANCE HERE: A new survey for the Alliance Defending Freedom’s (ADF) Viewpoint Diversity Score Index finds three of every five Americans keep their religious and political views to themselves for fear of suffering negative consequences in the workplace.

“Many employees, the survey indicates, worry about workplace repercussions for expressing deeply held views both at work and even while off the clock. For example, 3 out of 5 respondents say that respectfully expressing religious or political viewpoints would ‘likely or somewhat likely’ carry negative consequences at work, while 1 in 4 say they know someone who has experienced negative consequences for respectfully expressing their religious and political viewpoints,” ADF said.

Remember when Americans used to say “Hey, it’s a free country”?

BRINGING DOWN the International Space Station.