WHEN YOU’RE A MORE SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN THAN SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN. But they just endorsed Harris, so that makes them more sciency than you or I.

WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO BE A COLLEGE PRESIDENT? It’s a toxic job, but someone with principle can pull it off. (Virtually none of those people will be considered for the job.) Plus, there is an automatic win condition: the first Ivy that hires a principled, conservative president will be building its next campus on Mars with all the money it rakes in from donors.

ULA VULCAN ROCKET’S SECOND LAUNCH KIND OF SUCCESSFUL. The rocket made it to orbit with its mass simulator, but one of the solid rocket boosters may have blown its nozzle clean off (video here, and here, yikes). This flight was supposed to certify the Vulcan for national security missions. Might be hard given the SRB problem. On the other hand, if it can blow a nozzle off and still work, maybe that’s a positive?

NO, JUST DO IT FOR REAL. NEXT QUESTION. A new book asks, “Do we need to abolish grading?“

VANCE/WALZ DEBATE. Are these questions for real? The “moderators” just made a declarative statement about climate change to end their question, because they did not like that Vance had a good answer.

We had a deal. I pretend to believe the ruling class is legitimate, and they give provide me with a credible enough show that I can pretend their version of “democracy” isn’t a sham. Stop breaking the deal, aristos.

UPDATE: It’s only getting worse; even Vance told them to quit it.

APPRENTICESHIPS MAKING A COMEBACK, AT LEAST IN NC. We’re gonna need these skills to rebuild western North Carolina. (And, given world events, possibly Western civilization…)

COLLEGE BOARD NOW RECALIBRATING AP TEST SCORES. Upwards, of course. What does it say about our education system that every time this happens, the tests get easier? I think you know.

PLOT TWIST: OLIVIA NUZZI WAS SENDING UNWANTED SULTRY PHOTOS TO RFK JR? “For most of the next 8 months, Kennedy kept her blocked, except for a few occasions when Nuzzi contacted him from different emails and phone numbers, insisting he unblock her for urgent discussions about an imminent hit piece. Once unblocked, she bombarded him with increasingly pornographic photos and videos that he found difficult to resist. After brief exchanges, he would block her again.”

Seems too crazy to be true, but RFK Jr. is reportedly considering a lawsuit against Nuzzi over this.

UPDATE: Changed headline to reflect that it’s not clear if the “increasingly pornographic” photos were nude or just scantily clad, like the one in this NY Post article.

“IT’S TIME FOR A LIBERTY-LOVING SOCIOLOGY.” I’d settle for a sociology that was interested in researching what’s true rather than pushing an agenda.

COULD THE AI EVANGELISTS BE RIGHT ABOUT AI BEING GOOD FOR EDUCATION? Maybe, but first let’s see if we can get it to be able to correctly count the “r”s in “strawberry.”

SPACEX’S FULL STATEMENT ON FAA/ENVIRONMENTAL DELAYS. “Unfortunately, we continue to be stuck in a reality where it takes longer to do the government paperwork to license a rocket launch than it does to design and build the actual hardware.”

What is the point of our giant military-industrial-intelligence complex (which relies on SpaceX) if they can’t even tell the Fisheries Service to buzz off?

BIDEN-HARRIS ADMINISTRATION: FUTURE CANCELED BECAUSE ELON MUSK SUPPORTS OUR OPPONENT A ROCKET MIGHT FALL ON A FISH. Tar. Feathers.

We will never get humanity to Mars if this continues https://t.co/iwTSbjRygE

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 10, 2024

*Note: He meant 60 days, not months.

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA ADOPTS INSTITUTIONAL NEUTRALITY IN WAKE OF ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR.

Good for Penn. But it’s mostly a reminder that virtue signaling sure is hard when it’s not cheap!

UNC SYSTEM BANS DEI OFFICES. DID SCHOOLS ACTUALLY CHANGE? “Across the system, there have been numerous office renamings and title shifts. Seemingly nothing in the way of expense-reduction or firings has been done—though, hopefully, the forthcoming reports will provide more clarity here.”

TELEGRAM FAQ SILENTLY ELIMINATES PRIVACY ASSURANCES. With founder Pavel Durov in French prison, Western governments are now openly using the “$5 wrench” method of circumventing encryption.

OUT TODAY: FIRE’s 2025 COLLEGE FREE SPEECH RANKINGS. Where does your alma mater rank? (Mine, Duke, is #27. My wife’s Harvard? Take a wild guess…)

OH GOOD! THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE IS HERE TO PROTECT US FROM ‘FOREIGN INFLUENCE’ IN ELECTIONS AGAIN! For crying out loud, just put up a website saying “The fix is in. Suck on it, plebs.” Cheaper and less insulting.

ACT TEST MAKES SCIENCE SECTION OPTIONAL. What’s going on? I thought we were obliged to Trust the Science!

VPNS TO HELP BRAZIL ACCESS TWITTER/X. Thanks to the commenters who submitted ideas. The most common ones seemed to be to use either Proton VPN, which can be had for free for one device, or the Brave browser’s built-in VPN–and then to use the X website, not app. Brave can also use the Tor network, for the even more paranoid (and tolerant of slow speeds). I was hoping for a free, open-source, distributed solution (other than Tor), but I don’t think that’s out there right now. As a note, you should generally avoid free commercial VPNs, which are reputed to often be spyware, but Proton is the well-known company behind ProtonMail, so it’s probably fine.

NO TO RUSHED RENAMINGS. I’ll go further – no to renamings, period. This is a well with no bottom that will drown us all.

BLEG: CAN WE HELP THE BRAZILIANS WITH VPNS? The New York Times may be weirdly relaxed about Brazil blocking X, many of us are not. We’re talking Brazil, not North Korea or Cuba – 200 million people in our own hemisphere. While Brazil’s cartoonishly villainous “Justice” Moraes has said that even using VPNs to post your cat photos will get you a fine 5 times larger than the average monthly salary of a Brazilian, I suspect Brazilians will give that ruling the respect it deserves.

My question to the Instapundit audience is this: are there any open-source VPN projects someone in the US can join to provide some free VPN bandwidth to beleaguered Brazilians? I have gigabit internet and would be more than happy to throw some bandwidth that way. If you want to make some suggestions in the comments, I will look at them and do a follow-up post with any suggestions that look promising.

‘MIGRANTS’ TRY TO BOARD SCHOOL BUSES FULL OF CHILDREN. 2 DAYS IN A ROW. “The alarming incidents occurred in the Jamul-Dulzura Union School District close to the Mexico border — where school bus drivers are now being ordered to skip stops where migrants might be waiting.” Yeah, suck it up and drive ’em yourself, taxpayers!

How amped up about “our democracy” are we supposed to get when the policy of “making it as easy as possible for random people from any country to just walk across the border” is the ironclad position of both major political party establishments despite having the same number of actual supporters as there are Kamala Harris primary voters?

THIS IS WHY YOU’RE ALREADY ON YOUR FIFTH REPUBLIC. “Political chaos in France after Macron refuses to name PM from leftwing coalition.” Man, imagine if voting for someone made no difference here! Heh heh heh… (tugs collar)

(H/T Ace of Spades.)

THE DEBT-FREE FOUR-YEAR DEGREE: IS IT POSSIBLE? Yes, with lots of work. But with the Democrats on a suicide mission to forgive college debt, it probably makes no sense to save or pay upfront for college when you could always just help your kid pay back the loans and still have a chance of getting some of that sweet, sweet free money. Perverse incentives much?

WILL COLLEGES HANDLE THE ISRAEL-HAMAS PROTESTS BETTER THIS YEAR? Define “better,” I guess. The obvious solution would be to have sensible rules and enforce them evenhandedly. Does anyone think that’s likely to happen?