A DIPLOMA IN DUPLICITY: Despite pledge, Washington & Lee has not reinstalled plaques honoring Robert E. Lee — and his horse.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Texas pushes three-year bachelor’s degrees to cut college costs.

THE NARRATIVE MUST BE SERVED: Politicians need to stop holding press conferences every time someone dies of measles. (But they probably won’t.)

GOOD: Josh Blackman: The End Is Near for the American Bar Association.

COLOR ME UNSURPRISED:

1/ OUR NEW REPORT: EQUITY REDUCES EXCELLENCE. Jason Arday was not an aberration. He was a feature, not a bug, of a system that replaced merit with identity. Our new study of nearly 2,000 prestigious Canada Research Chairs provides the hard numbers. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/5h6ifelwmu

— Eric Kaufmann (@epkaufm) September 1, 2026

HIGHER EDUCATION’S FUNDING IS DELIBERATELY OBSCURE. END THAT.

Who controls the funding influences the education of our next generation. There is no good argument against transparency in the funding of higher education. https://t.co/yEpiyqAN8N

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) September 2, 2026

TO A LEFTIST, THESE THINGS ARE CONNECTED BECAUSE THEY DISLIKE BOTH OF THEM:

On CNN NewsNight, The Atlantic’s Jemele Hill argues that capitalism is oppressive and bound up in white supremacy.

Kmele Foster: “It's one thing to not think capitalism isn't working ideally. It's another thing entirely to insist that it is oppressive, that it is bound up with… pic.twitter.com/PLWRCuxt7v

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) September 2, 2026

CLOWN SHOW: Ohio Democratic Congressional Candidate Arrested For Attempting to Swallow Crack Cocaine, Slapping Stranger at Baseball Game.

MAKE THEM PAY: Legal Fight Escalates Over Leftist Billionaire’s Funding of E. Jean Carroll’s Lawsuit Against Trump.

TRUE: Leftists Will Never Self-Reflect, And They Will Never Apologize For The Horrors They Inflict.

OF COURSE HE DOES: Joel Kotkin: Carney aligns with the anti-free speech China and EU. Horrible leaders who are screwing over their people usually don’t want their people talking about it.

RULE OF LAW:

Remember for reasons that have never quite been explained Donald Trump can win an election, but doesn’t have a right to do the things the president does, again because reasons. https://t.co/SCcCQRNIvM

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) September 1, 2026

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE:

There's a lot of truth in here, as you'd expect from @asymmetricinfo, but there is one more layer: for 30 years, we have allowed only ONE real lender for college tuition, with zero under-writing & ample political pressure to waive even principal payments. Monopoly lending helped… https://t.co/pyS6UyfeUq

— Brad Todd (@BradOnMessage) September 1, 2026

ONCE MORE UNTO THE MEME, DEAR FRIENDS:

Turns out all we need to do to win the Canada war is memeTF out of them.

(It’s like drones. A total battlespace gamechanger. Only even cheaper.) https://t.co/6r1leTa2kk

— Northern Barbarian (@xnoesbueno) September 2, 2026

UPDATE:

https://t.co/dRuKmlHKfx pic.twitter.com/3xcCEA7ion

— John Ringo SF Author (@Jringo1508) September 2, 2026

ANOTHER UPDATE: And Eric S. Raymond is doing just that:

ROFL.

Accurate translation of Carney: "WAAH! They hurt my tender widdle feewings!"

This is pussification and ineptitude almost beyond comprehension. https://t.co/wcCExSIOlj

— Eric S. Raymond (@esrtweet) September 2, 2026

OPEN THREAD: Tuesday’s groovy.

HMM: Scientists discover massive ‘thermal anomaly’ beneath the surface of Mars.

MARTINIS AND CULTURE WAR:

In a 1978 address to the National Restaurant Association, Gerald Ford summarized: “The three-martini lunch is the epitome of American efficiency—where else can you get an earful, a bellyful, and a snootful at the same time?” Businessmen claimed that their creativity increased post-three-martini lunch. At white tablecloth steakhouses, olives were served as martini accoutrements: as an imported European delicacy, the olive added to the martini’s high-class reputation. The early martinis were smaller at around two and a half ounces, only a third as intoxicating as contemporary versions. The three‑martini lunch emerged from this environment: a perfect accompaniment to a long midday meeting where deals were made and class distinctions affirmed. One can imagine going back into the office after a 1950s three-martini lunch (now equivalent to one martini in 2025) only slightly tipsy and ready to keep working.

But as the three-martini lunch became a symbol of pinstripe-suited corporate America, a target was placed on the martini’s back (and the back of the well-heeled executives who liked to charge their long lunches to the corporate account). In the 1970s, the three‑martini lunch also became a political symbol of runaway capitalism. When stagflation plagued the American economy, President Jimmy Carter denounced business meal deductions as an abuse of the upper class, saying that the “working class was subsidizing the $50 martini lunch.” Conservative writer William F. Buckley Jr. responded that the martini had become “a code word” used not to protect tax revenue, but to attack a pro-capitalist lifestyle that personally offended Carter, an especially prescient attack during the Cold War where being branded ‘anti-capitalist’ was a political liability. . . .

But the business lunch never left, it just changed clothes. Yes, Sweetgreen is less glamorous than the white-tablecloth settings of three-martini lunches. But, the kale salad is just the martini inverted: instead of demonstrating your immunity to toxins, you demonstrate your immunity to pleasure.

How far we have fallen.

UPDATE (From Ed): In his 1980 non-fiction anthology In Our Time, Tom Wolfe wrote:

In the fifties there was the martini. In the sixties there was vodka on ice. In the early seventies there was the glass of white wine. In the late seventies there was the bottle of Perrier, a French soda water. The fashionable American expense-account lunch drink became lighter and lighter, but not cheaper and cheaper. The soda water sold for $2.50 a glass in Manhattan restaurants.

Even someone as brilliant at spotting societal tends and obsessions as Wolfe had no idea of the insane heights where this fad would end up in the 21^st century: Would you pay $95 for a bottle of water?

WELL, KILL IT: This Metallic Green Beetle Is Quietly Killing Ash Trees Across Texas.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: GLP-1 pills are finally here. Here’s the tradeoff nobody’s advertising.

HMM: The Defender Dakar Concept Previews a Production-Ready, Street-Legal Rally Racer.

CHANGE: Surveillance: Responding to Their Customers, Gun Stores Take Down Their Flock Cameras.

Related: Gov. DeSantis bans Flock cameras from state highways.

METFORMIN UPDATE: ‘Wonder Drug’: Common Diabetes Pill Could Transform How We Age, Scientists Say.

ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS: Australia’s replaced aging solar panels could hit 99,000 tons a year, prompting calls for bottle-like $10 upfront recycling fee.

CAN YOU TAKE IT UNTIL YOU NEED GLASSES? A Popular ED Medication Was Just Linked to a Greater Risk of Blindness in Men Over 40.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How Exercise Can Biologically Reprogram Aging Skin.