I DON’T FIND THE PLANETOLOGY OF ARRAKIS PERSUASIVE: Dune: What the climate of Arrakis can tell us about the hunt for habitable exoplanets. I always doubted the energy budget for the sandworms.

FIENDISHLY CLEVER: ASCII art elicits harmful responses from 5 major AI chatbots: LLMs are trained to block harmful responses. Old-school images can override those rules.

IF YOU’RE IN COMBAT AND YOU LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO GET ALZHEIMER’S, YOU’VE DONE OKAY: Military training, combat suspected as Alzheimer’s trigger.

HE’S RIGHT, YOU KNOW:

Btw, I rip on CNN all the time because, well, they're awful. But at least they were far more accurate than many of their colleagues in reporting Trump's comment. pic.twitter.com/44bEpVZmEe

— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) March 17, 2024

VIDEO: The Communist Origins of Anti-Zionist Antisemitism. “Today the left is equating Zionism with racism, apartheid, and fascism…. All of it is already present in Soviet literature in the 1960s, 50 or 60 years ago…. You know, it’s funny to me how some people today talk about it as something new.”

Also: “Chuck Schumer is fighting to prevent Hamas from being destroyed. It’s disgraceful. He will never live this down.” An awful lot of the foreign policy and intelligence community seems anxious to keep Hamas alive.

BODY-SHAMING IS NOT COOL: A mum with size P boobs says she’s sick of getting ‘disapproving’ looks from other mums on the school run, and claims she’s even had a teacher tell her she dresses ‘inappropriately.’

ICYMI: MY LATEST SUBSTACK ESSAY: Sorting for Stupidity? Thoughts on the state of the federal government.

If you like these essays, please take out a paid subscription.

WHY IS HARVARD SUCH A CESSPIT OF ANTI-SEMITISM? Anti-Israel Harvard Medical School students, faculty protest AMA president.

SOUNDS EMINENTLY SANE: West Virginia’s ‘Restoring Sanity Act’ would redirect money from DEI brainwashing to ‘merit scholarships.’

FOURTH CIRCUIT: Employers May Not “Take Adverse Employment Actions … Based on [Employees’] Race or Gender to Implement” “Diversity and Inclusion” Programs.

I should hope not.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Illegal Alien from Lebanon Caught at Border Admits He is Hezbollah, Hoped to Make a Bomb.

HMM: ABA Finds George Mason Law School Back In Compliance With Financial Resources Accreditation Standard.

A friend comments: “An odd coincidence that the ABA took action against George Mason in December 2023, seven months after the New York Times hit job on the school: “How Scalia Law School Became a Key Friend of the Court.” As Ray Donovan asked, ‘Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?'”

I’m beginning to think the ABA may have become politicized.

HE MAKES A GOOD POINT: Trump calls Facebook ‘worse’ than TikTok as Senate weighs bill that could ban app.

Related:

They’re gonna get you super hyped up by banning something you hate (TikTok) and then use the legislation to ban the things you like (Rumble, X, etc.)

You can see it a mile away. This is about controlling the narrative…not protecting you from China and kids dancing.

— Tom MacDonald (@IAMTOMMACDONALD) March 16, 2024

Also:

🚨VIVEK: The TikTok bill could become a modern-day Patriot Act. 👀

His proposal?

“FIRST principles… We’d be stopping forced data transfers to the Chinese,

We’d be protecting [under 16] from addiction on social media,

And anytime a content platform’s working with ANY State… pic.twitter.com/reENyh362M

— News Nomad 🗞 (@The_Nomad_News) March 15, 2024

IT’S BEING ARGUED TODAY: Phil Hamburger: FAQs re Murthy v. Missouri.

More on Murthy here, from the NCLA.

DON SURBER: Education polarization: Those without a sheepskin refuse to bow to the credentialed class. “The sense of entitlement seems to permeate the academic world which then produces people who believe their college degrees entitle them as well. But increasingly the people without letters after their names are seeing colleges for what they have become: indoctrination centers. Gone are the days when colleges require students to study Latin. The replacements at my alma mater include, ‘One course must be African-American. One course must be U.S. diversity course.'”

OUR RULING CLASS’S FANTASY IDEOLOGY:

As a practical, empirical matter, nobody else seems to buy into World Citizenship. For Joe it might be Duty, Honor, Nothing. But for everyone else it is still Duty, Honor, Country — with Country cast as a variable. Sorry DEI: it's not working.

— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) March 18, 2024

JOSH BLACKMAN: A Numbers Game: Who Would The Judicial Conference’s New Policy Help And Who Would It Hurt? “It will be harder for conservative litigants in blue states and liberal litigants in red states to obtain statewide relief. It will be harder for conservative litigants in red states to obtain nationwide relief. Liberal litigants will have virtually unchanged odds to obtain nationwide relief.”

My biggest issue isn’t the results, it is that there’s a statute addressing this, and the Judicial Conference should just be following the statute.

BOB GRABOYES: Hamas and the Shill Game: Israel is guilty until proven innocent — and guilty after being proven innocent.

ROGER KIMBALL: The rule of law is inoperative in the United States. With every passing day, it becomes more obvious that we live under a two-tier justice system. It is not justice, but a form of injustice.

MATT TAIBBI: On Today’s Absurd New York Times Hit Piece: Correcting the record after a desperate slam job on the Twitter Files, published just before oral arguments in a historic First Amendment case in the Supreme Court.

JOEL KOTKIN: 2024 will be the Latino election: America’s largest racial minority could swing the vote for Trump. “Latinos’ political trajectory is complex and increasingly uncertain. In the past, Democrats imagined that Latinos, being ‘people of colour’, would follow the African-American pattern of near-automatic allegiance to their party. Progressives in publications like Salon scoffed at the notion that Latinos would ever head to the right. But Latinos leaving the Democrats is exactly what has been happening.”

SAME: “I have to admit that I underestimated the mendacity of these people.”

THAT’S WHY THEY’RE KEEPING THEM SECRET: Poll: Strong Majority Opposes Biden’s Secret Migrant Flights.

OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Peregrine payloads returned useful data despite no lunar landing.