A BAD IDEA FROM THE SUMMER OF 2020: “California, Never a Slave State, Considers Reparations.”

SOUNDS LIKE THEY DESERVE IT:  The Air Force Academy is being sued for failure to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request that asked for its Critical Race Theory/Anti-White Supremacy training materials.  (Can we get an army of FOIA-wielding Davids going?  There are a lot of public entities that should receive one.)

WILLIE SUTTON WOULD HAVE UNDERSTOOD:  Why do colleges and universities march in lockstep when it comes to race-preferential admissions?  Because that’s where the money is.

DEFUND THE LEFT:  “Texas Lawmaker Proposes Ban on DEI Programs at Public Universities.”

I haven’t had time to look at this bill.  But state legislatures need to take a look at how taxpayer money is being used in higher education.  We’re way past the point where state legislatures should be “hands off” public universities.

YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP:   A self-proclaimed psychic on Tik-Tok claims to have learned from her tarot cards that a certain University of Idaho history professor is behind the recent murders of four students there.  Her Tik-Tok videos on the subject have reportedly racked up millions of views.  As far as I can tell, the police are not exactly jumping on this daffy unusual new lead.  Instead, the history professor (who appears to be the world’s leading academic expert on gay rodeo) is now suing for defamation.

ACTUALLY ALL STATES SHOULD:  “Red States Should Embrace the Science of Reading.”

BEST CAT WOMAN SINCE EARTHA KITT:  Cat Woman is out there to protect truth.  Purr.

IT’S RELENTLESS:  “DEI in Scientific Publications Up 4200 Percent Between 2010 and 2021.”

PODCAST:  Here’s the podcast I did on my “Agenda for Congress.”

WHAT’S HAPPENING OUTSIDE THE BELTWAY:  “Brevard County School Discipline Reportedly Out of Control.”  Yup.  This is what happens when we allow the federal bureaucrats to control school discipline policy.

“ANTHROPOLOGY IN RUINS”:  If you had wanted to ruin a perfectly good November weekend, it looks to me like attending the 2022 annual meeting of the American Anthropology Association would have been just the ticket.  Elizabeth Weiss attended for us and sends us this report.

GIVE THE GIFT OF ANTI-COMMUNISM:  I was thinking about my 7^th teacher today.  God bless Mrs. Naoma O’Neill.  One day out of the blue she insisted that I read Animal Farm.  I thought it sounded like a children’s book, so I was a bit skeptical.  But she was adamant that this was the right book for me.  If there is a 7^th grader in your life, maybe it’s time for Animal Farm.  And following up with The Black Book of Communism wouldn’t be a bad idea.  I have a feeling there aren’t many Mrs. O’Neills teaching in the public schools anymore.  You might need to fill in for them.

GOBBLEDYGOOK:  “Washington State Education Board Wants a ‘Cultural Shift’ to ‘Indigenous Pedagogy.'”

DAVID RANDALL:  “The Sign in Lee Jussim’s Window.”

IS JUDGE JUDY A CIVIL RIGHTS SCOFFLAW?:  I’m shocked.

THE REAL WAR ON WOMEN: Cambridge Dictionary changes its definition of “woman” to  … well … you know.

IT’S ABOUT ALL ABOUT REQUIRING EQUAL OUTCOMES, NOT EQUAL OPPORTUNITY:  On this day in 1970, Griggs v. Duke Power Co. was argued before the Supreme Court.  To understand just how awful this opinion was, read “Title VII Disparate Impact Liability Makes Almost Everything Presumptively Illegal.”  I suppose in theory it’s possible for the Supreme Court to write a worse decision, but I’m not sure I’ve ever actually seen one.

AARON SIBARIUM:  “Universal Basic Income Hits the Bay Area–If You’re Black.”  (Sigh. Why do we have to litigate this kind of idiocy?)

WELL … UH … MAYBE:  “Artificially Selecting for Intelligence in Dogs to Produce Human Level IQ Within 100 Generations.”  I think I like dogs just the way they are.

THIS IS WHY I DON’T PUT MUCH STOCK IN COMPARISONS OF “OFFICIAL” DEATH TOLLS:  Florida’s official death toll for Hurricane Ian is now 144.  By contrast, Puerto Rico officially claims a whopping 2975 deaths for Hurricane Maria in 2017.  That’s a big difference.  But as you might guess, the methodologies used to arrive at those figures were wildly different.  If you want to compare apples to apples, you’re better off comparing Ian’s 144 out of Florida’s population of 21.5 million to Hurricane Maria’s original count of 64 direct deaths out of Puerto Rico’s population of about 3.5 million.

In its recent report evaluating the Trump Administration’s response to Hurricane Maria, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights tried to compare the 2975 to much smaller numbers for Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Hurricane Irma in Florida (both of which used the methodology used for Ian).   My Commissioner Statement in the report explains why this was error.

To be fair, the 2975 methodology isn’t crazy.  But it is a bit counter-intuitive. It looks to see how many “excess deaths” occurred during the six-month period following a natural disaster and assumes all of them are somehow disaster related, even if the connection is very, very loose.  That may well be an incorrect assumption, but in the absence of an alternative explanation for why deaths would be elevated during that period, it may be an assumption worth making for comparison’s sake.  The problem was that nobody has attempted to generate comparable figures for the other hurricanes.

HANS BADER:  “Crime Plunges in El Salvador as Criminals Are Sent to Prison.”  Salvadoran president vowed to cut crime by sending criminals to prison.  And it worked.  What a concept ….

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:  Here’s the Federalist Society panel I did on the Supreme Court’s Harvard/UNC case in November with Mike Carvin and Eric Segall.  (I’m mostly talking about this article.)

AARON SIBARIUM IS ON THE “WOKE” BEAT AT THE WASHINGTON FREE BEACON:  “The Hijacking of Pediatric Medicine.”

FROM THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCHOLARS:  New Study Tracks Rise of DEI in STEM Departments, Associations, Grants, and Literature.  (One of the authors has chosen to remain pseudonymous.  I guess an academic can’t be too careful these days.  It’s way too late for me.)

Link that bypasses the press release and cuts straight to the report here.

HANS BADER:  California’s proposal to give all descendants of slaves $223,200 each in reparations for housing discrimination is unconstitutional.