ICYMI: My latest Substack essay: The Insurrection Act: A short guide to President Trump’s options.

HAPPY COLUMBUS DAY: Many in the West will demonstrate their fierce originality and intellectual independence today by condemning Christopher Columbus using the same shopworn cliches they used last year. For those of a different bent, I recommend Samuel Eliot Morison’s Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus which takes a somewhat different position. Here’s an excerpt:

At the end of 1492 most men in Western Europe felt exceedingly gloomy about the future. Christian civilization appeared to be shrinking in area and dividing into hostile units as its sphere contracted. For over a century there had been no important advance in natural science and registration in the universities dwindled as the instruction they offered became increasingly jejune and lifeless. Institutions were decaying, well-meaning people were growing cynical or desperate, and many intelligent men, for want of something better to do, were endeavoring to escape the present through studying the pagan past. . . .

Yet, even as the chroniclers of Nuremberg were correcting their proofs from Koberger’s press, a Spanish caravel named Nina scudded before a winter gale into Lisbon with news of a discovery that was to give old Europe another chance. In a few years we find the mental picture completely changed. Strong monarchs are stamping out privy conspiracy and rebellion; the Church, purged and chastened by the Protestant Reformation, puts her house in order; new ideas flare up throughout Italy, France, Germany and the northern nations; faith in God revives and the human spirit is renewed. The change is complete and startling: “A new envisagement of the world has begun, and men are no longer sighing after the imaginary golden age that lay in the distant past, but speculating as to the golden age that might possibly lie in the oncoming future.”

Christopher Columbus belonged to an age that was past, yet he became the sign and symbol of this new age of hope, glory and accomplishment. His medieval faith impelled him to a modern solution: Expansion.

Morison’s book is superb, and I recommend it highly as an antidote to the simplistic anti-occidental prejudice of today — which, as Jim Bennett has noted, has roots that might surprise its proponents:

This is primarily an effect of the Calvinist Puritan roots of American progressivism. Just as Calvinists believed in the centrality of the depravity of man, with the exception of a minuscule contingent of the Elect of God, their secularized descendants believe in the depravity and cursedness of Western civilization, with their own enlightened selves in the role of the Elect.

Indeed. Nonetheless, Bennett thinks that a different Italian deserves the real credit. (Reposted from 2005, but it still fits.) [Doesn’t this leave you vulnerable to charges of recycling too? –ed. I prefer to think of it as “They came at us in the same old way, and, you know, we beat them in the same old way.”]

I post this every year, as it’s evergreen. The original link to Bennett’s column seems to have succumbed to link-rot, but I believe this is it.

Meanwhile, SpaceX and the other new space companies are doing their best to step into the role of Columbus in regenerating our culture. I hope it works. We need it.

Related:

Columbus did not interrupt a prelapsarian paradise.

AS WITH COVID, PAIN IS NOT SPREAD EVENLY:

Oh, so while our troops are lining up at food banks, Democrats are lining up for wine tastings in Napa. 🍷 Nothing says “public service” like a $1,100-a-night shutdown soiree. https://t.co/Dan7de2pZI

— Lisa McClain (@LisaForCongress) October 12, 2025

KURT SCHLICHTER: The Well-Deserved, Utter Humiliation of Palestinian Terrorists and Their Friends.

Related:

Hamas did not "bravely endure genocide" OR "escape with victory."

They started a stupid war, and lost badly. Bunch of deaths on both sides. They are now going around killing their country-men. Just nothing to admire here, at all.

— Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) October 12, 2025

DON SURBER: This is the best Democrats can do? “Looking to replace Newsom next year, Democrats have rallied behind Katie Porter who is leading in the polls in California. She is raking in millions from donors. She already has union endorsements. She is a horrible person.”

MARK JUDGE: The Bari Weiss Kavanaugh Flip-Flop: The new CBS leader has a weak moral center.

ALAN HENDERSON ON the Columbus Quincentennial that never was. “To those leftists who regard the West as history’s worst aggressor, Indigenous People’s Day Columbus Day informally starts a sort of reverse Lenten season, a time of extra weeping and gnashing of teeth concluding with the sorrow of Conquest Day Thanksgiving. Those sorts refuse to view history as a mixed bag, that events that don’t go their way might have some upsides. In 1992 their one consolation was to see a Commie Guatemalan Mayan awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I doubt the timing was an accident.”

WHEN THE TRUTH DOESN’T FIT THE NARRATIVE: Liberal Media, Activists Silent as Bari Weiss Makes LGBT History at CBS News: Groups who claim to promote diversity and inclusion refuse to acknowledge lesbian trailblazer.

JEFFREY CARTER: They Want And Need Anarchy: Especially in Chicago.

Trump has sent ICE to Chicago to get rid of illegal aliens. It makes sense because Chicago is a center for drug trafficking in the US. The local machine politicians have made nice with the gangs and let them run wild as long as they get the vote out for them. 6200 murders and over 40k people wounded in Chicago over the last ten years. The violence is spreading to nicer neighborhoods in the city. You can go on social media and see beautiful photos of the river going into the lake, but those same people never set foot in Austin or Englewood. If they are a politician, they might for a photo op, but they will have an extensive security detail. The mayor has 150 cops on his detail.

My old liberal acquaintances are very upset with Trump. They are posting all over LinkedIn about the “rule of law”. Pretty clear they have no understanding of the law. They wonder why ICE agents are wearing masks. Maybe it’s a fear of Covid, but I’m joking. Masks never worked for Covid. They are wearing masks because terrorist organizations like ANTIFA are threatening them and their families with violence.

It’s pretty clear the Democrats have chosen violence as the next level of escalation. Charlie Kirk was murdered in cold blood. A Virginia Attorney General candidate threatens to put bullets in the heads of the Virginia Speaker of the House and his children. There are no calls from any Virginia Democrat for him to step down, let alone any Democrat.

Nope.

KIND OF GIVING THE GAME WAY: Hahaha: Outrage Cacophony as Trump Supporter Buys Dominion Voting Machine Co. “Just like that … Democrats don’t like Electronic Voting and BEG for paper Ballots.”

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU SQUANDER PUBLIC TRUST:

Last pandemic the CDC wanted me locked inside for years and forced to take experimental shots that didn’t stop the virus so I’m good with them not being around next pandemic https://t.co/GDSejq1DgH

— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) October 12, 2025

HOW IT’S SUPPOSED TO WORK: Florida Woman Disarms Hostage-Holding Suspect Thanks to Gun of Her Own.

IF SOME STRANGER STUCK ME WITH A SYRINGE, I’D BREAK HIS JAW IF NOT HIS NECK: Social Media ‘Influencer’ Heads to Jail Over ‘Pranks’ Where He Stuck Random Strangers with Real Syringes.

REPORT FROM THE BLUE ZONES: NYC Columbus Day Parade canceled due to NY’s state of emergency.

OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.

PROFESSOR CARRINGTON, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Colossal ‘hole’ in the sun could spark impressive auroras this weekend.

ANALYSIS: TRUE.

Nowhere has the death of the "expert" class been more evident than in foreign policy.

Everything they told you for decades was wrong, specifically regarding the Middle East.

All of it, every bit of it, was dead wrong. And they still pretend they have credibility. https://t.co/lqjPCrf2w1

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) October 11, 2025

ROBIN HANSON: Power Corrupts Prestige. “Humans have long shared norms that say to resist power, but admire prestige. So people with power have long sought to launder their power into prestige; they’d rather be seen as prestigious, instead of a bigshot.”

WELL, GOOD: Engineered stem cells yield millions of tumor-fighting natural killer cells at reduced cost.

FIGHT THE (ELECTRIC) POWER: Ferrari Refuses to Go Fully Electric—V6, V8, and V12 Will Keep Roaring.

HMM: EDC Tip: No Reloads for Self-Defense. “If you have no other brand loyalty, just purchase the same thing that local law enforcement uses. If you’re ever questioned, your attorney can say that if it’s good enough for local cops to carry, it’s certainly good enough for an armed citizen. Again, no hostile attorney is going to try and convince a jury that the Sheriff’s Department is wrong and their ammo is evil.”

THE LONELY LIVES OF SCIENTISTS: Scientists need your toenails.

SPACE: Rocket Report: Bezos’ firm will package satellites for launch; Starship on deck.

CLONING SEEMED FRIGHTENING THEN, NOW IT SEEMS . . . QUAINT. RIP: John Gurdon, Nobel laureate and ‘godfather of cloning,’ dies at 92.

TIME FOR ONSHORING: Senators: Dependence on foreign drug supplies threatens security, health.