THE NEW SPACE RACE: China Working on Giant Rail Gun to Shoot Astronauts Into Space. “Chinese scientists are working on a giant electromagnetic launch track to launch a massive 50-ton spaceplane — longer than a Boeing 737 — into orbit.”
Archive for 2024
March 18, 2024
ASHLEY MCCULLY: Will Millennials Abolish the Death Penalty?
NO REAL SURPRISES HERE: The 16 worst-paying college majors, five years after graduation. “For context, that’s slightly less than the U.S. personal income median of $40,480 as of 2022, per the latest data available from the U.S. Census.”
WHY IS HARVARD SUCH A CESSPIT OF ANTI-SEMITISM? Anti-Israel Harvard Medical School students, faculty protest AMA president.
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: It’s Official: Don Lemon Is the Most Ridiculous Person in (or Out of?) News.
HMM: Why auto insurance costs are rising at the fastest rate in 47 years.
New data out this week showed auto insurance costs rose 20.6% from the prior year in February, matching January’s increase as the most since December 1976, when costs rose 22.4% over the prior year.
On an annual basis, motor vehicle insurance costs rose 17.4% in 2023, the most since a 28.7% increase in 1976, according to data from the BLS.
The sticker shock hitting many American drivers is being driven by a rise in accidents, the severity of accidents, and geographical factors combining to create a perfect storm and push costs higher.
The most alarming factor driving insurance costs higher is more severe claims.
“In general, the numbers of crashes, injuries, and fatalities are up, and inflation has made the cost of repairs more expensive,” AAA spokesperson Robert Sinclair told Yahoo Finance.
According to this report from last year, “Average Age of Light Vehicles in the US Hits Record High 12.5 years.” Older cars are more likely to require new brakes, new tires, etc. I wonder if that’s behind the increase in accidents.
AT AMAZON, Shop Today’s Top Deals. #CommissionEarned
FOURTH CIRCUIT: Employers May Not “Take Adverse Employment Actions … Based on [Employees’] Race or Gender to Implement” “Diversity and Inclusion” Programs.
I should hope not.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Biden and His MSM Lapdogs Hit New Lows With Trump’s Bloodless Bloodbath. “Trump’s shoot-from-the-lip extemporaneous speaking style provides the MSM types with a lot of fodder for spinning fantastical narratives. I happen to think that’s a feature, not a bug. Let them keep heading off to the Land of Make Believe for the next eight months. Preaching to the commie choir isn’t going to get them anywhere.”
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Illegal Alien from Lebanon Caught at Border Admits He is Hezbollah, Hoped to Make a Bomb.
A friend comments: “An odd coincidence that the ABA took action against George Mason in December 2023, seven months after the New York Times hit job on the school: “How Scalia Law School Became a Key Friend of the Court.” As Ray Donovan asked, ‘Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?'”
I’m beginning to think the ABA may have become politicized.
BIDENOMICS: U.S. economy faces 1970s-style stagflation as inflation sticks around.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): 2022 Flashback: Stagflation is staring Biden in the face — but he refuses to change course.
Plus: Why Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class.
HE MAKES A GOOD POINT: Trump calls Facebook ‘worse’ than TikTok as Senate weighs bill that could ban app.
Related:
They’re gonna get you super hyped up by banning something you hate (TikTok) and then use the legislation to ban the things you like (Rumble, X, etc.)
You can see it a mile away. This is about controlling the narrative…not protecting you from China and kids dancing.
— Tom MacDonald (@IAMTOMMACDONALD) March 16, 2024
Also:
🚨VIVEK: The TikTok bill could become a modern-day Patriot Act. 👀
His proposal?
“FIRST principles… We’d be stopping forced data transfers to the Chinese,
We’d be protecting [under 16] from addiction on social media,
And anytime a content platform’s working with ANY State… pic.twitter.com/reENyh362M
— News Nomad 🗞 (@The_Nomad_News) March 15, 2024
IT’S BEING ARGUED TODAY: Phil Hamburger: FAQs re Murthy v. Missouri.
More on Murthy here, from the NCLA.
DON SURBER: Education polarization: Those without a sheepskin refuse to bow to the credentialed class. “The sense of entitlement seems to permeate the academic world which then produces people who believe their college degrees entitle them as well. But increasingly the people without letters after their names are seeing colleges for what they have become: indoctrination centers. Gone are the days when colleges require students to study Latin. The replacements at my alma mater include, ‘One course must be African-American. One course must be U.S. diversity course.'”
THE UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO NEEDS A LAWYER: My university wants to discriminate on the basis of race, sex, and ethnicity. There’s nothing unusual about that. Many universities want to do that. But most of them know enough not to say so explicitly. That’s what sets USD apart.
When Christopher Brunet of Karlstack sent an email inquiring about the discriminatory advertisement, he received as response from the professor who posted the job: “I am retracting the advertisement. I received funding from Prebys to supplement salary for postdoc with the requirement that they be a woman. But my position is open to everyone. My apologies for the lack of clarification.”
So it’s “retracted.” Sort of. In other words, USD will accept resumes from everyone. But what do you want to bet that the position goes to a woman, whether she’s the most qualified candidate or not?
If you are qualified for this position, but suffer from being male and are not selected, please contact me.
By the way, this is not the first time USD has crossed the line on Title VII.
KEEP DIGGING: Even More Dirt on the Bidens Dredged Up.
OUR RULING CLASS’S FANTASY IDEOLOGY:
As a practical, empirical matter, nobody else seems to buy into World Citizenship. For Joe it might be Duty, Honor, Nothing. But for everyone else it is still Duty, Honor, Country — with Country cast as a variable. Sorry DEI: it's not working.
— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) March 18, 2024
JOSH BLACKMAN: A Numbers Game: Who Would The Judicial Conference’s New Policy Help And Who Would It Hurt? “It will be harder for conservative litigants in blue states and liberal litigants in red states to obtain statewide relief. It will be harder for conservative litigants in red states to obtain nationwide relief. Liberal litigants will have virtually unchanged odds to obtain nationwide relief.”
My biggest issue isn’t the results, it is that there’s a statute addressing this, and the Judicial Conference should just be following the statute.
RESTORING RESPECT FOR AMERICA ON THE WORLD STAGE:
The Biden admin sent a delegation to Niger to have "frank discussions" about how the Nigeriens were not living up to the Biden admin's values.
Guess what happened next! https://t.co/CU06mwLfJS
— Omri Ceren (@omriceren) March 17, 2024
Previously:
Somebody from a developing country said to me, ‘what we
get from China is an airport. What we get from the United States
is a lecture.' https://t.co/dT674x0Qc0— Lawrence H. Summers (@LHSummers) April 14, 2023
Meanwhile: China Taking Over Africa: ‘China’s Second Continent.’
JOEL KOTKIN: 2024 will be the Latino election: America’s largest racial minority could swing the vote for Trump. “Latinos’ political trajectory is complex and increasingly uncertain. In the past, Democrats imagined that Latinos, being ‘people of colour’, would follow the African-American pattern of near-automatic allegiance to their party. Progressives in publications like Salon scoffed at the notion that Latinos would ever head to the right. But Latinos leaving the Democrats is exactly what has been happening.”