“EXPERTS.” Elon Musk and other DEI critics are latching on to ‘MEI,’ a new hiring catchphrase that experts say misses the point.

Meet “MEI,” short for “merit, excellence, and intelligence,” and coined by Alexandr Wang, cofounder and CEO of Scale AI, a startup valued at $4 billion that provides companies with labeled data used to train artificial intelligence models. “MEI,” according to a blog post authored by Wang, represents a “hiring principle” that ensures one “[hires] only the best person for the job.”

You can see why “experts” would be uncomfortable with that.

AN ATTACK ON OUR INSTITUTIONS AND “OUR DEMOCRACY.” Inside the million-dollar campaign to smear the Supreme Court ahead of 2024 election.

WE USED TO HAVE THAT SPIRIT HERE: Kenya Explodes in Violence as Protesters Breach the Parliament Building to Protest Planned Tax Increases.

Even in Tennessee, not that long ago.

RSS UPDATE: Old Feedburner feed no longer available. New RSS feed — also at the link at the top — is https://instapundit.com/feed/.

READER BOOK PLUG: From my former student turned Naval Intelligence officer and naval historian, Nathan Canestaro, The Mighty Moo: The USS Cowpens and Her Epic World War II Journey from Jinx Ship to the Navy’s First Carrier into Tokyo Bay.

OPEN THREAD: Tuesday’s groovy.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: China returns samples from the moon’s far side in historic 1st (video).

EAT MORE ITALIAN: Garlic Could Be a Secret Weapon to Keep Down Your Glucose And Cholesterol.

STILL A FEW BUGS IN THE SYSTEM: Critical Leak: How a Spacesuit Malfunction Compromised Spacewalk 90. This flight seems plagued with bugs.

HMM: Having kidney transplant while awake a “pretty cool experience.”

MICROBIOME NEWS: If You Get a Lot of UTIs, Improving Your Gut Health Could Help.

WELL, GOOD: Defensive Shooting Leads to Murder Charges, But Not for the Shooter.

REAL PROGRESS TOWARD SAVING THE PLANET: Congress passes bill to jumpstart new nuclear power tech.

They really need to give nuke plants the kind of regulatory holiday they’ve given to geothermal.

HMM: New research shows why you don’t need to be perfect to get the job done. “When neuroscientists think about the strategy an animal might use to carry out a task—like finding food, hunting prey, or navigating a maze—they often propose a single model that lays out the best way for the animal to accomplish the job. But in the real world, animals—and humans—may not use the optimal way, which can be resource-intensive. Instead, they use a strategy that’s good enough to do the job but takes a lot less brain power.”

Congratulations, guys, you’ve just rediscovered Satisficing.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: NASA calls off spacewalk for second time this month.

PROGRESSIVE POLICIES ALWAYS MAKE THINGS WORSE: Distress, depression rates double among transgender Americans in 10 years.

Related: Neurosis and the Curley Effect. “Reading all of these pieces I’m seeing a story that goes something like this: Depressed, neurotic people (especially single women) are more likely to support Democrats. Democrats support policies and messaging that produce more depressed, neurotic people, especially single women. Now maybe this is an accident, but maybe it isn’t.”

THOUGHTS ON FELONIES: 21st Century Criminal Justice: Show Me The Man and I’ll Show You The Crime.

READER BOOK PLUG: From Randy Barnett A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: 99 SpaceX Raptor Engines Before New Mass Production of Thousands. “Elon Musk showed Everyday Astronaut the SpaceX Starbase and rocket factories. SpaceX has a new Raptor engine that will be a couple hundred pounds lighter without a heat shield. It will have built in cooling channels. This is the version of the Raptor engine which wil be produced by the thousands. The Texas Starbase will eventually be able to produce one hundred Starships and Boosters per year.”

THIS IS TRUE OF THE VAST MAJORITY OF WRITERS THESE DAYS: Tech Reviewers Write Reviews for Each Other, Not for the Public.

FIGHT THE POWER: Conservative students allege tyranny, intimidation by Tarleton State. “A Tarleton State University professor was allegedly forbidden from advising a Turning Point USA (TPUSA) chapter because of its political bias, even though another professor is actively advising the Tarleton Progressives. The professor also reportedly told one of the would-be club’s leaders that ‘the higher-ups’ wanted her to know that she was on their ‘radar.'”

MONEY-LOSING EDUCATION: 33% of federal financial aid goes to negative ROI degrees.

CNN IS GARBAGE: Liberal Media Scream: CNN proves anti-Trump bias days before debate.

JOEL KOTKIN: The Space Race Gets Serious. “We are shifting from the early era of space exploration to a more serious phase extending ever further from Earth’s orbit, focused on key opportunities such as mining and manufacturing as well as military purposes. This newly expanded playing field will determine not only who rules in space, but who ends up dominating Earth. . . . The new post-terrestrial boom is just taking off — space industry global revenues are up tenfold since the early 2000s. The World Economic Forum projects that “by 2035, the space economy is set to reach $1.8 trillion, up from $630 billion in 2023 and averaging a growth rate of 9 percent per annum — a figure significantly above the growth rate of global GDP.” These new opportunities are supercharging a vast entrepreneurial surge that includes more than fifty players creating everything from launch facilities and launch service providers to reusable rockets, landers and vehicles. Space Foundation reports a workforce growth of nearly 5 percent in 2023; Moon landings are reaching their highest frequency since the early 1970s. The likely big play will occur once rockets, robots and humans begin developing industrial capacity in space — some estimates suggest this will reach a value of $10 billion by 2030.”

All is proceeding as I have foreseen.

BUT ONCE YOU DO KNOW, IT SEEMS KIND OF INEVITABLE, DOESN’T IT? I didn’t know that fat acceptance was part of what Pride month is about or that New York had something it wanted to call its “activism space.”