MICROBIOME NEWS: Microbes May Be The Secret Behind Keto Diet’s Protection Against Epileptic Seizures.

IF YOU CAN’T FIRE A BLACK WOMAN FOR PLAGIARISM AND INCOMPETENCE WITHOUT IT BEING BLAMED ON RACISM, YOU SHOULDN’T HIRE A BLACK WOMAN: Claudine Gay Resigns As Harvard President, Claims ‘Racial Animus’ Fueled Criticism.

LOL:

Tragic: Hamas Loses Two Leaders In One Day https://t.co/mmjR2RTo5x pic.twitter.com/jvyNRkPxVk

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 2, 2024

IT’S NOT CLEAR THAT THE NEW MODELS PRODUCE BETTER LAWYERS THAN THE OLD ONE. Hard questions about experiential learning and legal education.

And the move to experiential learning drives up costs and tuition and student loans. Say what you will about Professor Kingsfield, but one professor’s salary for 200 students is a lot more efficient than one for eight.

I HAVE A BROWNING 12 GA. OVER-UNDER: Of note, if you don’t think terrorists will use this capability here soon, you’re not thinking.

Pull!

MICROBIOME NEWS: Experimental drug that alters gut microbiome shows promise for long COVID relief.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Why aren’t more people buying over-the-counter hearing aids?

WHATEVER HAPPENS, WE HAVE GOT THE MAXIM GUN, AND THEY HAVE NOT: Memes about animal resistance are everywhere — here’s why you shouldn’t laugh off rebellious orcas and sea otters too quickly.

IMMIGRATION: Are Hispanics Following the Path of the Irish?

HMM: Tesla Multiple 4680 Production Lines Ramp in 2024.

WELL, BYE: HARVARD PRESIDENT CLAUDINE GAY RESIGNS, SHORTEST TENURE IN UNIVERSITY HISTORY.

University spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain declined to comment on Gay’s decision to step down.

Gay’s resignation — just six months and two days into the presidency — comes amid growing allegations of plagiarism and lasting doubts over her ability to respond to antisemitism on campus after her disastrous congressional testimony Dec. 5.

Gay weathered scandal after scandal over her brief tenure, facing national backlash for her administration’s response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and allegations of plagiarism in her scholarly work.

So that’s Penn and Harvard. MIT’s President Sally Kornbluth must be worried.

IT’S A GYP: Why fitness trackers may not give you all the ‘credit’ you hoped for.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: US Congress recommends placing assets at Lagrange points to counter China: “We’re in another space race back to the Moon, and this time it’s with China.”

Way back in the first edition of Outer Space: Problems of Law & Policy, Rob Merges and I noted that the peaceful O’Neill-colony plans for the Lagrange points were at odds with their military usefulness, which stems from the fundamental orbital dynamics of the Earth-Moon system. In essence the Lagrange points are the highest of orbital high ground.

TRUE: Virginia Should Refuse to Subsidize the Construction of a New Stadium for the Capitals and Wizards. “The proposed deal could be the largest-ever government subsidy for a sports stadium. Studies consistently show such handouts don’t benefit communities.”

MARTIN GURRI: To My Friends Across the Political Divide: A New Year’s plea to those who support the old regime.

ASYLUM: New College of Florida offers ‘haven for Harvard refugees.’

IT’S THAT WAY WITH EVERYTHING: Don Surber: It’s what they don’t say that matters: Media reports on Supreme Court have the same eerie omissions.

So what are these ethics lapses, as USA Today called them?

All the stories mentioned accusations against Clarence Thomas, NYT via a link to a previous NYT story on the toothlessness of the new ethics code. A few mentioned questions about the sales of Sonia Sotomayor’s books.

But none of the stories mentioned Ketanji Brown Jackson’s failure to disclose her husband’s income from advising clients on medical malpractice litigation. The Center for Renewing America filed a complaint about that and also about her failure to disclose who donated to the party she threw to celebrate her becoming a justice.

It may be thin soup but the attacks on Thomas and Sotomayor are even thinner. Funny Faces had more substance.

What we really need is for Phineas J. Whoopee to pull down his three-dimensional blackboard and explain to the Chumlees of the Fourth Estate what actual ethics lapses are.

AP, NYT, USA Today and the Jeff Bezos Post failed to mention a president who has pocketed millions from foreign governments and companies via his brother and his son.

AP, NYT, USA Today and the Jeff Bezos Post failed to mention a Secret Service that has did not recommend the prosecution of Hunter Biden for bringing his cocaine to the White House.

AP, NYT, USA Today and the Jeff Bezos Post failed to mention a Congress whose members rake in millions each year from insider trading of stocks based on information only congressmen and senators have access to.

This weekend, Democrat Congressman Jamie Raskin went on TV and banged his gums about Clarence Thomas. Raskin DEMANDED the justice recuse himself from any Trump cases the court may hear.

Raskin said, “He absolutely should recuse himself. The question is, what do we do if he doesn’t recuse himself?”

News reports on what Raskin said on CNN failed to include this tidbit.

In 2022, Business Insider reported, “Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland violated a federal conflict-of-interest law by failing to properly disclose stock shares his wife received for advising a Colorado-based financial technology trust company.

“The congressman likewise disclosed information about the sale of Reserve Trust stock eight months after Sarah Bloom Raskin dumped the stock in late 2020 for $1.5 million, an Insider analysis of federal records indicates.”

Why doesn’t HE resign?

Why, indeed?

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: WATCH: 5 craziest campus videos of 2023.

MICHAEL WALSH: Enough!

SHOW TRIALS ABOUND: Jimmy Lai trial resumes, Chairman of CFHK Foundation, James Cunningham named as co-conspirator along with several foreign citizens.

Our own ruling class sees the CCP as a role model more than an adversary.

CDR SALAMANDER: DDG to FFG to OPV: Small Ships, Big Sticks, & Scaled Escalation. “This whole problem is, once again, with our acquisition process that is mostly concerned with their internal … whatever they do … as opposed to producing the best warship to meet a need.”

This is basically a description of our entire society at present.

Also: China Now Has More Warships Than the U.S.

Flashback: Big fleet, small ships, or small fleet, big ships?

JUSTICE: Where Is Biden’s ‘Gender-Fluid’ Thieving Ex-Nuclear Waste Chief Today? “In Old Joe Biden’s America, there’s justice if you’re a patriot, which could mean spending years in prison for strolling through the Capitol and taking selfies after the cops opened the doors on Jan. 6, 2021, and there’s justice if you’re a member of the leftist elite, which means that you can essentially do anything you want, and little or nothing will happen to you. Sam Brinton, the gender-fluid, in-your-face, cross-dressing, puppy-playing former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy in the Department of Energy, is a member of that elite group, and so despite facing numerous luggage theft charges, he ended 2023 as a free man.”

REMINDER: 2023 ends with gas prices still much higher than when Trump was president.

THE SALENA ZITO INTERVIEW: John Fetterman Plays Against Type.

RULE OF LAW: SBF Charges Dropped Proves System Is Rigged. “The charges that are dropped relate to bribery of politicians and illegal campaign contributions. Quelle surprise. . . . Dropping the charges is about protecting the Establishment, not SBF. SBF is a minor beneficiary of the scheme to protect the people in power. This is how the system works these days.”