EUROPEANS HATE IT WHEN YOU TELL THEM THIS:
Your weekly reminder that the poorest State in our Union–and my ancestral homeland–still has a greater per-capita GDP than the United Kingdom.
Oh, and they're knocking it out of the park in returning to proper teaching. https://t.co/gUnoFSCotq
— cdrsalamander (@cdrsalamander) May 28, 2025
TREAT THE NEO-COMMIE DSA LIKE NEO-NAZIS:
A reminder that most of “the squad” came out of the DSA. https://t.co/nB0IxlLKbU
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) May 28, 2025
THIS:
It’s not about Harvard per se. It’s not about anti-Semitism. Rather, it’s class warfare: people of lower status making privileged elites pay a price for decades of rising condescension. The people dismissed as a “basket of deplorables” would rather see world-class universities… https://t.co/dA0c9tf8WH
— Timur Kuran (@timurkuran) May 28, 2025
HAHA, SO LONG AS THEY JUMP OVERBOARD:
So the rats have time to get off the sinking ship. https://t.co/RLUFK3A52Y
— Tim Burchett (@timburchett) May 28, 2025
OPEN THREAD: Hump Day.
MY LATEST SUBSTACK COLUMN: Scary AI and Scarier Not-Scary AI.
As always, if you like these essays, please take out a (preferably paid) subscription. I will thank you, and my family will thank you.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Apex announces Comet satellite bus for constellations.
JEFFREY CARTER: Down to the Banana Republics. “A judge just ruled that Trump’s tariffs are not kosher with him. . . . This same court, and these same businesses and states, were okay with Biden/Obama and anyone else charging tariffs. Hence, it’s political.”
Maybe there’s a legal principle that can explain this. But there have been so many examples like this that people have stopped assuming propriety on the part of the judiciary. That’s unfortunate, but it was inevitable once a significant number of federal judges started positioning themselves as part of the “resistance,” and once the Supreme Court — and in particular, Chief Justice Roberts — decided not to put an end to this right away.
FASTER PLEASE: Anti-Aging Cocktail Extends Mouse Lifespan by About 30 Percent.
All of this stuff is going to come around just too late to do me any good, isn’t it?
GOOD, SCARE THEM MORE:
Former Israeli hostage says the terrorists were “very scared” of Trump.
“More food, treated me better, stopped cursing me, stopped spitting on me.” pic.twitter.com/tgGk9Wqm5E
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) May 28, 2025
SO MAKE SURE THEY CAN’T: Erasing All Doubt Dems Fully Intend to Restrict You to Their Plantation the Second They Can. “I believe they are going to try to ride Trump out.”
I THINK HE’S MOSTLY RIGHT. I’M ALWAYS SURPRISED HOW IMPRESSED SOME PEOPLE ARE WHEN I CAN PERFORM ORDINARY PHYSICAL TASKS AS AN ACADEMIC.
I don’t think academics realize how useless most people think they are.
They don’t genuinely hate them, and often have a gentle respect for most. However, they think they’re not equipped to deal with the world, and certainly not tell them how to live their lives.
They only…
— Chris Arnade 🐢🐱🚌 (@Chris_arnade) May 28, 2025
Related:
This is a real failure to model the minds of working class people. They don’t feel inferior to academics. Rightly or wrongly, they really do have the impression that academics are studying increasingly stupid things. They have a sense that academics may be smart in some narrow… https://t.co/uMdXZwkZK7
— wanye (@wanyeburkett) May 26, 2025
CHANGE: Young men are binge drinking less than young women for the 1st time. What’s going on?
Why young men are drinking less is still up for debate, notes study author and University of Pittsburgh internist Dr. Bryant Shuey. Though he sees the declining rates of binge drinking among young men as a “public health success,” Shuey wonders if it’s more complicated than a pure win. “Are young people happy, socially connected and drinking less, or is it that middle-aged and young men are more lonely, less social and less willing to call up a friend for drinks,” he says. “There’s potential that there is a tradeoff here: Less alcohol and more loneliness, and we need to think about addressing both.”
Or maybe they’re just broke.
THE ARC OF HISTORY IS BENDING TOWARD FREEDOM: Poland Sets Gun Ownership Record, Argentina Drops Minimum Age: Another reminder that the right to keep and bear arms is a universal right. “While we disarm narco-terrorist gangs and organized crime, we celebrate the fact that good citizens can access weapons as legitimate users. Empty speeches are a thing of the past. In this government, we are making the right of Argentines to protect themselves and live in freedom a reality.”
SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: New study: Teen drivers safer with more practice.
YES, MICKEY IS RIGHT:
If you think of immigration as basically a social good–elite CW that many judges, even on SCOTUS, buy into–then sure, the only irreparable harm possible is to the individual immigrant. TRO granted! But if you think excessive immigration is bad–lowers wages, raises rents,… https://t.co/1IWfwgzhwI
— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) May 28, 2025
As he often is.
AS OTHER COUNTRIES HAVE DEMOCRATED, IT QUICKLY TURNS FROM A RIGHT TO DIE TO A DUTY TO BE KILLED: French National Assembly okays ‘right to die’ law.
HE’S RIGHT, YOU KNOW:
Harvard surprised/outraged it’s being attacked by Trump is laughable. I don’t care if 98% of he faculty and research is non-political, you let the other 2% of crazies define who you are because you’re either your too lazy to care, quietly agree with them, or are lost in your…
— Chris Arnade 🐢🐱🚌 (@Chris_arnade) May 28, 2025
NON-DRINKERS AS FREE-RIDERS:
First, teetotallers are free-riders. For generations alcohol consumption has sustained all manner of social and economic structures. The abstemious benefit from them but do not contribute. For instance, non-drinkers who go to social events are free-riding on the joviality of hard-working drinkers. What would happen to the social fabric if everyone stopped imbibing? Perhaps Joe Strummer of the Clash, an English rock band, was on to something when he apocryphally said that “non-smokers should be banned from buying any product a smoker created”.
Or consider the economics of the restaurant industry. Alcohol offers higher profit margins than food as it requires less labour to prepare. Indeed, using official American data, your columnist estimates that booze accounts for all the profits of the restaurant industry. Drinkers subsidise non-drinkers. Those who order sparkling water can feel sanctimonious in the short run. But if no one orders a bottle of Bordeaux, many restaurants will go under. In San Francisco, Sobriety Central, they are closing by the dozen.
Second, abstinence makes people lonelier. For centuries alcohol has served a social function. It helps people relax. Taking a drink also signals to others that you are happy to be slower and more vulnerable—that you have left your weapon at the door—which puts them at ease. A study from 2012 in Psychological Science found that alcohol increases social bonding. Robin Dunbar of Oxford University and colleagues find that frequenting a pub improves how engaged people feel with their community, in turn raising life satisfaction. It is not a stretch to say that alcohol has played a big evolutionary role in fostering human connection. . . .
The third factor in favour of booze relates to innovation. Today the world sees fewer breakthroughs. Hollywood sustains itself on remakes or sequels, not originals. A recent blog by Peter Ruppert, a consultant, finds the same trend for music: “the pace of genuine sonic innovation has slowed dramatically”. A paper published in 2020 by Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University and colleagues concludes that new ideas are “harder to find”. Productivity growth across the world is weak. Something has gone terribly wrong in the way that Western societies generate new ideas. . . . In the 1960s, when productivity was soaring, everyone was drunk all the time.
This is Edward Slingerland’s argument in Drunk: How we sipped, danced, and stumbled our way to civilization. Here’s my review of Slingerland’s excellent book.
INDEED: The notion that our top institutions should have to follow the law is inconceivable.
I agree it shouldn't have come to this, but why is the onus all on Trump when universities could make this go away by simply stopping their egregiously discriminatory practices? https://t.co/D9nV9Bo2W7
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) May 28, 2025
MARK JUDGE: Jake Tapper and the media’s crisis of competence.
Yes, it’s not just that they’re sellout partisan hacks. They’re not even good at it.
InstaPundit is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.