Author Archive: Glenn Reynolds

HMM: FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado: Indiana University quietly removes profile of tenured professor and refuses to say why. “A prominent computer scientist who has spent 20 years publishing academic papers on cryptography, privacy, and cybersecurity has gone incommunicado, had his professor profile, email account, and phone number removed by his employer Indiana University, and had his homes raided by the FBI. No one knows why. Xiaofeng Wang has a long list of prestigious titles.”

THOUGHT: If you’re an actual Nazi, you can now drive around with swastikas on your Tesla and people will just assume it got vandalized.

LONGEVITY UPDATE: Multivitamins Slow Biological Aging in Large Trial.

The COSMOS trial included men and women who were older adults (≥ 60 years of age). In this study, the average age was 70.2 years. I’d like to acknowledge that I’m a co-investigator on this study. Approximately 950 participants who had blood tests at baseline and at 1-year and 2-year follow-ups were randomly selected. Biological aging was assessed using five different epigenetic clocks, two of which were first-generation, two were second-generation, and one was DunedinPACE.

In all five epigenetic clocks, there was a signal for slower aging in the multivitamin compared with the placebo arm. For the two second-generation clocks (PCGrimAge and PCPhenoAge), there was significant slowing of biological aging in the multivitamin arm compared with the placebo arm, with an average of about 10%-20% slower aging with daily multivitamin use over the 2 years of the intervention. This equated to about 4 months of aging that seemed to be averted or prevented. Among participants who had accelerated aging at baseline, the reported benefits were even greater.

Vitamins are cheap.

THEY’VE BEEN LOOTING AMERICA FOR DECADES:

INTERESTING POINT:

HMM: 2025 Multistate Bar Exam Scores Fall To All-Time Low. Bar exam scores usually correlate pretty closely with LSAT scores; I wonder if this means that the people being admitted in 2021 had lower LSAT scores? Weren’t a lot of schools admitting people without test scores back then?

IMPRISONING POLITICAL OPPONENTS IS ALL THE RAGE IN EUROPE. THIS WON’T STOP WITHOUT SOME POLITICIANS HANGING FROM LAMPPOSTS. Marine Le Pen Barred From Public Office in France. “The prosecutor called for a €300,000 fine and prison term, as well as ineligibility for running for public office for five years. This would impact Le Pen’s ability to seek the French presidency in 2027. The court ruled that Le Pen will be barred from running for public office with immediate effect for five years.”

UPDATE:

HARVARD LAW FACULTY SAYS TRUMP IS A THREAT TO THE RULE OF LAW; Harvard Law Professor Adrian Vermeule takes them to the woodshed.

Where were the letter’s signatories when federal prosecutors took the unprecedented step of bringing dozens of criminal charges against a former president, who also happened to be the leading electoral opponent of the then-incumbent president? Where were the signatories when Jeff Clark, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, and other lawyers were disbarred or threatened with disbarment, and indeed prosecuted, for their representation of President Trump? Was this not a threat to the rule of law? Where were the signatories when radical activists menaced Supreme Court Justices in their homes, or when a mob hammered on the doors of the Supreme Court itself? Where were the signatories when the Senate Minority Leader shouted to an angry crowd outside the Court that “I want to tell you Gorsuch, I want to tell you Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions”? Were these not also literal threats to the rule of law?

Plus: “As I recall, Professor Tribe, one of the signatories, urged President Biden to renew the eviction moratorium even after the Supreme Court clearly stated it was unlawful. Was this a breach of the rule of law?”

Related:

WHILE DEMS GO ALL IN FOR GANGSTERS IN GITMO:

OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.