I DUNNO, IT’S HARD TO TRUST ANYTHING THAT COMES OUT OF CHINA: China Is Starting to Pull Ahead of US in AI Race.

HMM: Does Closing Your Eyes Help You Hear? A Surprising Study Has The Answer..

MY GRANDMOTHER USED TO TIE A THREAD AROUND THEM: Why You Should Never Try to Remove a Skin Tag at Home.

FROM JONATHAN LEAF, a review of Roger Simon’s excellent new Middle East novel, EMET. I read the book and blurbed it; you can see my blurb at the link.

AN IDEA SO CRAZY IT JUST MIGHT WORK:

Or we could just…not run away with our tail between our legs?

We're not taking any casualties. Our capabilities are overwhelming, Iran's are degraded. We are a net oil exporter and can live with a closed Strait; Iran cannot.

So we could just…not quit? pic.twitter.com/JI0C5apZtn

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) April 29, 2026

“TRUST THE EXPERTS,” THEY SAID:

Philip Tetlock's results in the early 2000s were the most important in the history of political science: on average, subject-matter experts didn't beat random guessing—and did worse than simple heuristics.
If this isn't part of your worldview, you're ngmi pic.twitter.com/KGCA7PVriO

— Werner Zagrebbi🇦🇿 (@zagrebbi) April 16, 2026

JAMES LILEKS: Your TV is watching you watch TV.

CDR SALAMANDER: It Looks Like Commerce Raiding Is Back on the Menu!

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE:

Teachers post lower SAT/IQ scores than any other white collar profession except social workers. https://t.co/VTP56aWnhu

— Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) April 19, 2026

FREEDOM: Kansas Legislature overrides governor’s veto of campus free speech bill honoring Charlie Kirk.

DON SURBER: Even Electricity is Leaving Blue States.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE:

The smallest number of humanities degrees awarded since 1991 https://t.co/gw3EZN7SRI

— Marc Porter Magee 🎓 (@marcportermagee) April 18, 2026

College students are now “speed-running” through higher ed:

“It takes most college students at least four years to earn a bachelor’s degree. Christie Williams finished in three months.” pic.twitter.com/snKYzr0b3s

— Marc Porter Magee 🎓 (@marcportermagee) April 19, 2026

THE RISE OF THE “FIFTH BRANCH:” “a self-perpetuating elite network of bureaucracy, permanent political class, academia, and cultural institutions that operates with increasing independence from the citizenry it was meant to serve.”

#JOURNALISM: What does an arch mean? If Trump, fascism. If Mamdani, warmth and friendliness.

They love the commies. Love love love.

COLD CIVIL WAR:

This is insane. One can make a very reasonable argument that some prominent people hoped for a justice to be assassinated in order to change the Dobbs ruling. That’s the dark truth. https://t.co/fTDu4UHRbu

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) April 19, 2026

MY FORTHCOMING NEW YORK POST COLUMN IS ON THIS TOPIC: Your Local College Is Running Out of Cash.

Though fortunately the University of Tennessee is flush with cash. That’s in no small part because enrollment is booming, with students coming here from all over to experience a normal, non-PC college life.

IS THERE A LEFTIST MOVEMENT THAT ISN’T FULL OF SEXUAL ABUSE? Lefty love boat: Greta Thunberg’s freedom flotilla rocked by sexual misconduct allegations.

ICYMI: JOHN LUCAS ON VIRGINIA’S SPECIAL ELECTION: Scrapping the Work of the Founding Fathers: Crafting a revolution with an end-run around the Constitution.

It’s tomorrow, so if you’re in Virginia do be sure to vote.

ICYMI: SALENA ZITO: Dr. Helen Smith’s newest book His Side is a fresh look at male alienation. “Noted forensic psychologist Dr. Helen Smith’s newest book, His Side: Men Speak Out on Dating, Marriage and Life in America, is a provocative look at the male experience. Smith uses interviews to examine how straight men are forced to navigate shattered norms in a turbulent society. Smith, who has long studied the human experience, takes the conversation outside of clinical data and brings the reader into the living rooms, workplaces, and communities of everyday men. There she uncovers the cultural fraying of the male experience in this country, one that has often been narrowed, stereotyped, and viewed with hostility. She uncovers a deep-seated ‘connective tissue’ that has been unraveled by a culture that often views the male experience through a narrow, and sometimes hostile, lens. . . . Smith’s book is a central guide for both men and women who are eager to understand navigating our modern world. The book offers great insights into men’s needs and a perspective that is clear-eyed and useful for both genders.”

You can read the book here.

ACTUAL SMART DIPLOMACY:

We have achieved a new balance in the Middle East in which Israel, Saudi, and the Gulf states work together under an American umbrella, with Iran isolated and China locked out. It’s an incredible accomplishment 50 years in the waiting. https://t.co/lKG3G4H9aq

— David Marcus (@BlueBoxDave) April 19, 2026

THE NONPROFIT SECTOR IS SHADIER THAN THE FOR-PROFIT SECTOR: Investigation: UPMC jet frequent flier to Florida city where CEO owns condos.

And much less regulated and scrutinized.

ROGER KIMBALL: The Geopolitics of Epic Fury.

I don’t mean to single out the paper that President Trump accurately, if impolitely, calls “the failing New York Times.” About all things Trump, The Wall Street Journal is just as bad. Between February 28, when Operation Epic Fury began, and last week, when President Trump allowed Iran to lift its head out of the water briefly in order to surrender, the WSJ has run countless stories explaining how, despite appearances, Iran was actually winning the conflict. On Saturday, the Journal greeted Iran’s braggadocio about the Strait of Hormuz just as enthusiastically as did the Times. If your version of those papers came with a magic subtext mood reader, you would have been able to hear the excited Molly Bloom-like cries wafting off the page: “Yes! Yes! Yes! Please let it be so! Please let something bad happen to US forces so we can wipe that grin off Trump’s face! Please!”

It’s so obvious.

YEP:

"Feminization equals wokeness."

That single sentence from Helen Andrews at NatCon 5 stopped me cold.

She argues that everything we call wokeness — empathy over rationality, safety over risk, cohesion over competition and hierarchy — is simply the downstream result of… pic.twitter.com/DGWtbm5Xt4

— Camus (@newstart_2024) April 19, 2026

Related:

The voting gap is driven primarily by single women who see their interests as inherently at odds with families and single men. That’s what the data tell us. pic.twitter.com/j7eJ8tKtlM

— Inez Stepman ⚪️🔴⚪️ (@InezFeltscher) April 19, 2026

JOSH BLACKMAN REPEATS HIS CALL: John Roberts is no leader and should resign as Chief Justice. “Why would I tell Roberts–someone I agreed with about 90% of the time–to step down? The answer was a failure of leadership that was visible through publicly available information.”

A SWEET STORY: Elon Musk fulfills teen’s last wish in touching X post after she was too weak to take his call.