ROBERT SHIBLEY HAS ALREADY POSTED ON THE SUPREME COURT’S AFFIRMATIVE ACTION DECISION. I’ll have more to say later, but I’ll just note that there are sex implications here too. Universities have been (mostly sub rosa) discriminating in favor of males, mostly in non-tech fields, because they have a hard time staying below the 60-65% female threshold, which creates perceptions of a “girls’ school.”
Archive for 2023
June 29, 2023
ROCHELLE WALENSKY: AMERICA NEEDS MORE DESPAIR.
Public health work will continue to be critically important and the challenges just as complex. Yet I fear the despair from the pandemic is fading too quickly from our memories, perhaps because it is too painful to recall a ravaged nation brought to its knees.
I don’t think we actually need more of it — despair is actually quite common an emotion among Americans during the Biden era.
BLUE CITY BLUES: Portland Is Losing Its Residents.
Portland is losing residents for the first time in years. Long known for being clean, safe and hip, Oregon’s most populous city is now struggling with serious crime and homelessness issues. Meanwhile, despite the lifestyle problems, housing continues to cost more in Portland than in many other parts of the country.
Portland lost nearly 3% of its population between 2020 and 2022, according to the U.S. Census. The drop of about 17,400 to 635,000 was the sixth largest decline among the 50 largest cities.
Local officials who grappled with a 23% population surge between 2000 and 2020 now find themselves trying to keep residents from leaving. Mayor Ted Wheeler, a Democrat, has come under increasing pressure to address rising violent crime and sprawling homeless encampments.
“Mayor Wheeler absolutely wants to retain and support Portlanders here in the city,” a spokesman for the mayor said. “Mayor Wheeler’s top priorities remain addressing the homeless crisis, reducing gun violence, improving livability, and strengthening our economy.”
Wheeler has been in office for six years so it ought to be clear by now what his top priorities are.
ESTONIA RESPONDS WITH GUNS AND MONEY: Estonia Prepares for the War After Ukraine
Estonia is getting serious. Money buying guns.
Estonia plans to spend $14.5 billion over the next ten years. This will increase annual defense spending to three percent of GDP. Current spending is 2.85 percent of GDP. The recommended NATO goal is two percent. This is all about learning the lessons of the Ukraine war. That means spending over a billion dollars to increase ammunition supplies. Large quantities of Israeli Harpy loitering munitions and Spike ATGMs (Anti-Tank Guided Missiles) are on order. Blue Spear land-based anti-ship missiles are also on order and will arrive in 2024. These have a range of 290 kilometers and Estonia is launching them from trucks.
More perspective:
Estonia is a small country with a population of 1.3 million and a GDP of $41 billion. That means per-capita GDP is $31,000. Poland and the Baltic States made an extraordinary, in terms of financial cost, effort to assist Ukraine during the first six weeks of the war. For example, tiny Estonia spent about 0.8 percent of its annual GDP to support Ukraine during those six weeks. Most of the aid went to processing and hosting Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian attacks on their homes. By late 2022 Ukrainians and their NATO supporters were planning for what comes after the war. The Russian troops were on the run and Russia has few options left. Estonia is convinced that Russia will try again and the next time Estonia might be the target.
Sorry Warren Zevon, no mention of lawyers, just guns and money. This is a detailed StrategyPage “Forces” update, in Jim Dunnigan’s How To Make War section.
PUTIN AND PRIGOZHIN’S BROW-WRINKLING ARRANGEMENT: The Wagner Revolt Leaves Losers Worldwide
…here’s Putin’s short-term payoff: The brow wrinkling arrangement has the appearance of strength and stability.
The arrangement enables these Putin-desired events. The Russian Army absorbs the Wagner mercenary corps. The glorious war to absorb Ukraine in Putin’s reviving Russian Empire continues.
But it ain’t all over. The Wagner Revolt fizzled, but it left a lot of dead and wounded soldiers and several political losers.
MORE:
…I distrust mercenary organizations. In August 2000 I recorded an NPR Morning Edition commentary expressing skepticism about the UN’s proposal to hire mercenary peacekeepers. In the 14th century, Italian Condottieri (contractors) mercenary companies often disregarded the contracts with city-states and took power to themselves. Wagner has done that in the Central African Republic. Fair bet Prigozhin’s Wagner trainers — while working for Russia — have made some money from filched CAR natural resources.
Mercenary organizations are another loser. With Wagner kaput the Kremlin has lost its “plausibly deniable” military and economic actor in Africa.
Check it out.
READER FAVORITE: Mountain Voyage Minimalist Wallet for Men – Slim RFID Wallet. #CommissionEarned
THE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION OPINION IS OUT. From the summary:
Because Harvard’s and UNC’s admissions programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points, those admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause. At the same time, nothing prohibits universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected the applicant’s life, so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university. Many universities have for too long wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin. This Nation’s constitutional history does not tolerate that choice. Pp. 39–40.
UPDATE – also from the opinion:
Most troubling of all is what the dissent must make these omissions to defend: a judiciary that picks winners and losers based on the color of their skin. While the dissent would certainly not permit university programs that discriminated against black and Latino applicants, it is perfectly willing to let the programs here continue. In its view, this Court is supposed to tell state actors when they have picked the right races to benefit. Separate but equal is “inherently unequal,” said Brown. 347 U. S., at 495 (emphasis added). It depends, says the dissent.
Ouch. Also: “But, despite the dissent’s assertion to the contrary, universities may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today. (A dissenting opinion is generally not the best source of legal advice on how to comply with the majority opinion.)”
“ETHICS:” Harvard ethics professor allegedly fabricated multiple behavioral science studies. “Notably, a famous article discussing dishonesty was found to contain fabrications.”
Plus: We’re told to ‘follow the science’ — yet some of it is just plain wrong.
Related: Team Biden’s plan to ‘ensure scientific integrity’ should start with itself.
A HUNDRED BILLION HERE AND A HUNDRED BILLION THERE…: More Than $200 Billion in COVID Aid Fraud — and That’s Just From Two Programs.
ASU IS SUPPOSED TO BE A UNIVERSITY: Ousted ASU official slams school for caving to ‘faculty’s illiberal tantrum.’
AWAITS? IT’S ALREADY HAPPENING. Inevitable Suppression Awaits the RFK Jr. Movement.
BOB GRABOYES ON NPR: When Saving a Child’s Life for Free is Bad News.
WITH AN EYE TOWARDS CHINA: Japan, Australia Drill Together in South China Sea for Trident Exercise.
JMSDF helicopter destroyer JS Izumo (DDH-183) and destroyer JS Samidare (DD-106), which form the main body of the first surface unit of IPD23, carried out the exercise with Royal Australian Navy frigate HMAS Anzac (FFH150) and a Royal Australian Air Force P-8A Poseidon Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA) in the South China Sea, according to a Tuesday JMSDF release. The exercise focused on tactical operations, including anti-surface and anti-air warfare.
Both Australia and Japan are considered “Special Strategic Partners” in the Indo-Pacific region, Rear Adm. Takahiro Nishiyama, commander of the first surface unit for IPD23, said in the JMSDF release.
“The relationship between the JMSDF and the Royal Australian Forces has never been stronger and more important, and the JMSDF will promote further improvement of interoperability and mutual understanding with the Royal Australian Navy in order to improve the security environment in the Indo-Pacific region,” he said.
JS Izumo is a light aircraft carrier in all but name that operates F-35 stealth fighters, and is the namesake of an Imperial Japanese cruiser that fought against both Russia and China in the first half of the 20th Century.
Plus this: “The exercise followed a port visit in Vietnam.”
LIGHTNING DEAL: REOKA Cervical Pillow for Neck Pain Relief. #CommissionEarned
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: How Many Impaired Democrats Does It Take to Destroy a Republic? “Joe Biden, the confused face of the cabal that’s acting as President of the United States of America, is markedly worse with each public appearance. His last few on-camera struggles with mental functionality and the English language should be enough to put DOCTOR Cruella de Biden behind bars for elder abuse.”
FOLLOWING THE SCIENCE: Sweden Green Lights Nuclear Power, Moving Away from “Green Energy” Reliance.
A PILE OF MANURE BY ANY OTHER NAME…: Biden puts all his chips on the table with a push on ‘Bidenomics.’
President Joe Biden is tying his political fate to the U.S. economy — recessionary risks be damned.
The White House this week is going all in on a campaign to claim credit for the nation’s post-pandemic resurgence, touting an economic vision that aides see as so central to Biden’s presidential legacy they’ve gone as far as giving it a name: “Bidenomics.”
…
“The strategy certainly makes sense,” Michael Strain, the director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, said of Biden lashing himself to an economy defined so far by rising wages and near record-low unemployment.
About those wages: Real Average Weekly Earnings Drop for 26th Straight Month.
DISPATCHES FROM THE DOOM LOOP: Former SF County Supervisor Issues Warning about San Francisco Becoming Detroit (Video).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCfHCoBIsew
THE ESTABLISHMENT TAKES CARE OF ITS OWN: Here Are The COVID Authoritarians Who Will Soon Walk The Halls Of America’s Elite Universities.
HOW IT STARTED: City of Berkeley Approves Police Defunding Plan.
—NBC Bay Area, July 15th, 2020.
How it’s going: Berkeley man, 69, lit on fire by stranger, in critical condition. Police say the assailant poured gasoline on the man and lit him on fire. Then he fled the scene.
—The Berkeley Scanner, yesterday.
Related: 4 out of 10 Californians say they are ‘seriously considering’ leaving state, poll shows.
—Los Angeles’ KTLA 5, last Friday.
“PROBABLY” IS PROBABLY A SAFE GUESS: Would Biden Defy a Supreme Court Decision to End Student Loan Forgiveness?
CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Deep State of Denial: Ex-Spies and Biden Aides Silent on Hunter Biden Laptop Revelations.