PERSONALLY, I CAN THINK OF OTHERS WHO NEED FLAGELLATION A LOT MORE: A mission of guilt: On the West’s latest self-flagellation. “The great factory for the production of such poisonous ideas, and the emotions upon which they feed, is the modern university, which seems never to have discovered an anti-Western idea it could not endorse.”
But the “guilt” is all bullshit. The people pushing it don’t feel guilty, they’re just using it as a manipulative tool.
WAR AND RUMORS OF WAR: Is Civil War Coming to Europe? Ordinary Europeans are starting to admit what their leaders won’t: civil unrest may be closer than anyone dares to say.
Nearly every educated English person I know under the age of forty is seeking to emigrate, having lost hope that their country has the wherewithal to pull out of its cultural and economic crisis. In Oxford recently, an American student told me, “If the ruling class here openly hated the British people, it’s hard to know what they would be doing differently.”
Spending a week in France last month, I recalled the scandalous open letter that 20 retired French generals and 1,000 active duty service members released in 2021, warning that their country was headed to civil war unless the government acted firmly against Islamic radicals in the suburbs, and turned away from divisive policies driven by so-called “anti-racism.”
In a number of private conversations with ordinary French people—this was before the Le Pen verdict—I brought up the Betz interview (none had heard about it), and asked them if they foresaw civil war coming to France. Nearly all of them said yes. They said so with an unnerving sense of calm, as if they accepted it as a matter of course. When I complimented one couple on their country, and told them that one day I would like to live in France, they responded in unison, “No!” Stay in Hungary, they said; you’ll be safe there.
You would never know from the mainstream media that this sort of sentiment is bubbling among the population of Europe and the UK.
It’s the media’s job to cover it up.
CHANGE:
Post-Watergate Jimmy Carter was the best thing that happened for the Republican party for a generation. A version of that may be repeating with Biden playing the Carter role.
— The Translator (@October_Blue_2) April 16, 2025
OPEN THREAD: Hump Day.
MAYBE GET TANKS THAT WORK FIRST? Germany’s military wants its own Starlink-like satellite constellation.
THE ONES TO REALLY WORRY ABOUT ARE THE ONES THAT DELIBERATELY FAIL: A Chatbot Has Passed a Critical Test For Human-Like Intelligence. Now What?
SCIENCE, UNSETTLED: Thought To Be Impossible: Scientists Break Century-Old Physics Barrier.
WHEN I THINK OF JUDGE BOASBERG, I THINK OF CONTEMPT: Jeb Boasberg’s “Criminal Contempt” Finding Makes Mockery of Separation of Powers: After setting the contempt trap, Judge James Boasberg today snapped the trap shut with a wild 46-page opinion accusing Trump officials of “willful disregard” for his now vacated court orders.
Somebody sure wants to create a constitutional crisis. https://t.co/P7uZNtaBSb
— Randy Barnett (@RandyEBarnett) April 16, 2025
IN A NATION OF 300 MILLION PEOPLE THAT DOESN’T SEEM LIKE MANY AT ALL, ACTUALLY: Emergency rooms treat a gunshot wound every half-hour. I’d guess they remove foreign objects from people’s anuses about that often.
A CRAZY IDEA: Mazda’s Rotary-Engined Sports Car Is Almost Ready.
THE DEMAND FOR RIGHT-WING VIOLENCE IN AMERICA VASTLY EXCEEDS THE SUPPLY: “The man accused of setting fire to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s residence Sunday indicated he was motivated by his views on the Israel-Gaza war and believed Shapiro needed to stop the killing of Palestinians a newly unveiled search warrant says.”
STANDING UP FOR AMERICAN COMPANIES: FCC head Brendan Carr tells Europe to get on board with Starlink.
THE PEOPLE WHO AFFECT TO BE UPSET ABOUT THIS DON’T SUPPORT JAILING OR DEPORTING THE SHOOTERS, THOUGH: Emergency rooms treat a gunshot wound every half-hour.
THE U.S. ACCOUNTS FOR .1% OF GLOBAL SHIPBUILDING: So, Does China’s Shipbuilding Capacity Concern You?
WHY WOULD MEN AVOID TODAY’S COLLEGES? More than 20 colleges join initiative to address male enrollment decline.
TWO PROBLEMS: 1. PEOPLE HATE CELEBRITIES NOW. 2. SPACEX TOTALLY OVERSHADOWS BLUE ORIGIN. Mainstream Media Attempts to Generate Excitement Over Blue Origin’s Bevy of “Glamornauts:” Meanwhile, alternative media was a little more skeptical of mission’s contribution to female power or a serious space program.
I mean, this would have been a big deal in 2010.
DISGRACEFUL. Fired Insubordinate Officers Reveal Massive U.S. Military Resentment Against Elected Civilian Command. They’re the tip of the iceberg, I fear.
DON SURBER: Harvard University, Welfare Queen. “I cannot see how a demand that Harvard end its racial discrimination violates the college’s First Amendment rights, so let’s try to figure this out.”
GOVERNMENT WASTE IS WILDLY EXAGG–
Twice as many credit cards are issued and active than the total number of government employees! Crazy. https://t.co/6Zfr3fyHM8
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 16, 2025
EVERY RECORD HAS BEEN ALTERED: At Harvard-Hosted ‘Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon,’ Law Students Target the Pages of Firms That Criticized School’s Response to Anti-Semitism.
Anti-Israel Harvard Law School students organized a workshop on the Ivy League campus earlier this month to edit the Wikipedia pages of more than a dozen prominent law firms, singling out some that threatened to stop recruiting at the school over its failure to rein in anti-Semitic activity.
Harvard’s National Lawyers Guild chapter, a left-wing legal advocacy group, hosted the “Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon” on April 2 at Harvard Law’s WCC student center, according to an announcement on Harvard Law’s website.
Third-year Harvard Law student Corinne Shanahan, an organizer with Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine, organized the clinic for students to “gather data to edit the Wikipedia pages of Big Law firms to reflect cases they have recently argued.”
Two days later, Harvard Law student Aashna Avachat edited the Wikipedia pages of 14 law firms, mostly to add details of their representation of clients that the activist students deemed to be unsavory, according to a Washington Free Beacon review of Wikipedia edit logs.
Avachat edited the pages for the firms Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett to soften the language about anti-Semitic activity on college campuses. Amid a wave of anti-Semitic protests following the Hamas attack on Israel, the two firms warned Harvard Law and others that they would cut back on recruiting on their campuses for failing to rein in anti-Semitic incidents.
The edit logs show Avachat changed the term “antisemitic incidents” to “pro-Palestine protests,” and reworded references to “incidents targeting Jewish students” to incidents that the law firms “described … as antisemitic.” Avachat herself was involved in one incident at Harvard in which her law school classmate, Ibrahim Bharmal, accosted and shoved a Jewish student during an anti-Israel “die-in.” Avachat said she witnessed the incident and claimed Bharmal was protecting “peaceful protesters” against an “aggressive” Jewish student. Both Bharmal and another student activist, Elom Tettey-Tamaklo, were charged in connection with the “die-in,” a case that Harvard delayed by refusing to cooperate with local prosecutors.
Jeff Neal, a spokesman for Harvard Law School, said the Wikipedia workshop “was organized by a student-run organization and does not represent the views of Harvard Law School.”
I wonder if there might be liability attached.
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