IS HIGHER ED EVEN INTERESTED IN REFORM: A new featured article by the AAUP calls viewpoint diversity anathema to academic freedom. Where to even begin?
Archive for 2025
October 10, 2025
DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: California Ignores Detainer and Releases Serial Criminal Illegal Alien; He Kills 6.
THE ABOLITION OF BRITAIN: Graffiti art in Canterbury Cathedral ‘belongs in a car park.’
Canterbury Cathedral has been criticised for hosting a display of graffiti-style art described as “belonging in a car park”.
Religious leaders and activists claimed the installation was symbolic of “decay” and said Canterbury Cathedral no longer had “a sense of the sacred”.The brightly coloured words, which appear as though they are spray painted, are part of Hear Us, a new art exhibition that displays questions that people have posed to God, including “Why all the suffering?” and “How?”
The Rev Marcus Walker, the rector of St Bartholomew the Great in the City of London and chairman of the Save the Parish campaign group, told The Telegraph he would like to set Canterbury Cathedral a challenge to “not embarrass the rest of the Church of England for one clear calendar year”.
Who in the Church of England thought this was a good idea?
Anthony Burgess and Stanley Kubrick didn’t intend for A Clockwork Orange to be a how-to guide for 21st century British aesthetics:
UPDATE:
Because the ruling class actually hates the British people. https://t.co/mtC5OjXpgy
— Rod Dreher (@roddreher) October 10, 2025
READER FAVORITE: Kitchen Mama Auto Electric Can Opener. #CommissionEarned
HE ISN’T WRONG: Dershowitz says he will campaign for GOP in 2026 midterms: ‘Totally frightened’ if Dems gain control. “It’s because I’m totally frightened if the Democrats were to gain control of either House. Who they would appoint as chair people? Who they would put in the position of inquisitors, and how they would deny rights to people, and how they would introduce a kind of McCarthyism that we haven’t seen since I was a college student in the 1950s?”
IT’S (D)IFFERENT NOW BECAUSE REASONS: Washington Post Suddenly Decides Prosecuting Political Enemies is a Bad Idea. “After eight years of cheering on Trump lawfare as the saving of the republic, the Washington Post has suddenly decided that prosecuting your political opponents is a bad idea. Much like the sudden calls for unity after Butler and Charlie Kirk’s assassination, there’s every reason to be skeptical of these rapid and rapidly passing revelations. But it does show what it takes to even begin to break through the fanatical mindset that led to the Mueller and Jack Smith vendettas.”
Related: “James charged Trump with nonsense; Trump charged James with a verifiable crime.”
UPDATE:
Obviously the infrequency of prosecutions does not create an immunity from prosecution. But the relevant standard is whether Democrats would prosecute a Republican who they found had committed this type of fraud. And the answer to this is also obvious. https://t.co/S0Bk1LJPcF
— Randy Barnett (@RandyEBarnett) October 10, 2025
And from the replies: “The current admin has already found enough alleged infractions among its top political opponents that one suspects the base rate is pretty high and nobody’s looked.”
Yep.
ONE NIGHT IN TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE: Ferguson Plays Chess with a Houseplant.
While President Donald Trump is negotiating Peace in The Middle East, and corrupt Democrats are getting indicted and arraigned, Bob Ferguson, Democrat Governor of Wacky Washington is playing chess…
…with GUESS WHO?
There’s plenty of symbolism in this photo. Why does Biden look like a Force ghost from the Star Wars movies? Why do the chess pieces resemble the pill bottles and ice cream cones that littered Biden’s single term in office? And as the Victory Girls ask, “Is this AI?” “Who moved Biden’s pieces? The autopen?”
(Classical allusion in headline.)
HE WAS CONCERNED WITH RESULTS; THEY WERE CONCERNED WITH PROCESS.
They all made fun of Jared Kushner, but he has now secured two major Middle East peace deals where all his predecessors failed.
What does that say about those predecessors and their supposed “expertise,” along with a press who gargles credentials while ignoring results? pic.twitter.com/u37SEdBCbg
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) October 10, 2025
Related:
You can just do things. https://t.co/3hPi7iiEjy
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) October 8, 2025
HEAD OF NOBEL PEACE PRIZE TRIES TO JUSTIFY NOT HONORING TRUMP WITH AWARD:
Not Nobel enough?
The head of the Nobel Peace Prize tried to justify not giving the award to President Trump early Friday — subtly suggesting the commander-in-chief was not worthy of the illustrious award despite his historic breakthroughs seeking the end of the Israel-Hamas war.
Nobel Committee chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes was asked about the clamor to give the prize to Trump, who had said it would be an insult to the US not to award it to him.
However, the deadline for nominations was Jan. 31 — just days into Trump’s second term in office — meaning all nominations Trump has earned this year for settling conflicts across the world are for the 2026 prize.
Still, instead of pointing out the timing, Frydnes suggested that a last-minute switch wasn’t made because the US leader doesn’t live up to it.
Instead, “The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Venezuela opposition leader María Corina Machado,” who graciously dedicated the award to Trump:
Honestly this is almost better than Trump getting it.
Her dedicating it to Trump and by doing so, giving a gigantic middle finger to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee…
…yeah, that's even better than Trump getting it
Hats off to Maria.
— Matt Van Swol (@matt_vanswol) October 10, 2025
WORST. HITLER. EVER. Israeli Town to Name New Soccer Stadium After Trump. “Eli Dukorski, the mayor of Kiryat Bialik, near Haifa, announces plans to name the city’s new soccer field after US President Donald Trump, in recognition of his ‘significant contribution to the release of our hostages.'”
HMM: Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software under investigation after railroad incidents.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Thursday that it would investigate how Tesla’s semi-autonomous driving software handles railroad crossings as part of a wide-ranging investigation of incidents where the agency said Tesla vehicles have violated traffic safety laws.
NHTSA said it was launching the investigation of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software after receiving complaints from drivers, including reports of vehicles driving through red lights or on the wrong side of the road. The agency said the investigation relates to all Tesla vehicles equipped with FSD, or 2.9 million vehicles.
The agency said its investigation would look at the software’s performance at railroad crossings, which was the subject of an NBC News investigation published in September.
Tesla’s FSD supposedly has a better safety record now than human drivers, but just like humans, it isn’t without its little quirks.
GANGSTERS PREPARE THEIR DEFENSE: Yale AAUP leads panel to prepare for a Trump admin-led Title VI investigation.
DEVASTATING:
I don’t know how you could watch this video and not conclude that Abigail Spanberger is a sociopath pic.twitter.com/TXMU8Mh5Mv
— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) October 10, 2025
There’s so much to like about Winsome-Sears, but this is maybe the best I’ve seen her.
As for Spanberger… I’m not sure what to say — aside from “sociopath” — about someone able to so studiously ignore what Winsome-Sears was saying.
SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE IS ENJOYING A FULL SHIATSU MASSAGE: It Turns Out Gun Control Groups Only Oppose Some ‘Gun Violence’…Depending Who’s Being Targeted.
NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU DESPISE THE MEDIA…
They buried this at the very bottom… https://t.co/RksG2zODbN pic.twitter.com/1VqgDDLfpA
— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) October 9, 2025
…it isn’t enough.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Give Peace a Chance. “There has been an abundance of bad news in the last month. Even though this good news was necessary because of horrible tragedy, it’s worth reveling in for a while.”
HMM: Former GOP election official buys Dominion Voting Systems, promises ‘paper-based transparency.’
Dominion Voting Systems has reportedly been sold to a company run by a former Republican election official. Dominion, one of the largest election equipment providers, came into the spotlight during the 2020 election when questions were raised about the company’s machines. The company has won several settlements with figures and media outlets over claims that Dominion’s machines were to blame for Trump’s loss.
A person familiar with the purchase told Axios that Liberty Vote, a Missouri-based company owned by Scott Leiendecker, had bought Dominion for an undisclosed sum. Leiendecker created a software program in 2011 that focuses on enabling election workers to check in voters at polling locations and verify voters. The company, KNOWiNK, is described as the “nation’s leading provider of electronic poll books” and is said to be used by more than a third of US states.
In the wake of the 2000 election, then-Missouri secretary of state Matt Blunt, a Republican, appointed Leiendecker to a role investigating St Louis’ elections administration. Blunt later appointed Leiendecker to be St Louis’ Republican election director when Blunt served as governor.
Liberty Vote officials gave Axios a statement from Nevada’s Democratic secretary of state, Cisco Aguilar, who described Leiendecker as “open, honest and transparent.”
Leiendecker told the outlet that his company is “committed to delivering election technology that prioritizes paper-based transparency, security and simplicity so that voters can be assured that every ballot is filled-in accurately and fairly counted.”
Paper ballots already do all that.
SEND THE MARINES: The Virginia Gubernatorial Debate Was a Disaster for Spanberger.
ICYMI, IT’S MY THURSDAY ESSAY FOR VIP SUBSCRIBERS: Superman Must Be Destroyed. “That’s the message I took away from the first half of James Gunn’s Superman reboot, which is dollar-for-dollar possibly the worst movie of 2025.”