Tuesday Links - 13 May

Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony is first with a bit on Bill Gates. Daily News Stuff 9 May 2025: Botch Epoch Edition

Bill Gates is mad that CIA cut-out USAID got shut down. (The Verge)

Okay.

The Other McCain - The Greatest Legal Mind of Our Era

The occasion of my son Jefferson obtaining a law degree was something I wasn’t going to let be spoiled by politics, no matter how hard the faculty tried.

Clifton Duncan Interpreting Thomas Sowell.

As surely you’re aware, Thomas Sowell is not a fictional character. He not only is not a fictional character, his body of work spans more than six decades, including dozens of books, hundreds of video clips, and thousands of columns. One can take certain liberties with a fictional character; how does one “interpret” a real person? And one that's so well-known? Where does one begin?

Blog O'Stuff - Black Powder .32 S&W Loads (Click thru for photos!)

The gun is 147 years old but was properly cared for and works just as well as it did when it left Smith & Wesson's factory.

Wombat-socho - FMJRA 2.0: A Week of Wins!

Top linkers for the week ending May 9:

1.  EBL (10)
2.  A View From The Beach (9)
3.  357 Magnum (8)

SiGraybeard - A Rare Meme Dump

Since the live action Snow White bombed so badly, the idea of recasting it with the biggest-name black movie star is being floated. Let's just say Ms. Zegler is not pleased. There are YouTube videos featuring (I assume) AI generated Samuel L Jackson figures that seem to only be there to hear him say the MF word while celebrating success as Snow White.

Again from Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony - Daily News Stuff 11 May 2025: Wagon Age Edition

Google will pay Texas a $1.4 billion settlement over collecting Texans' data without permission. (AP News)

And they promise not to do it again, pinky swear.

Again from Wombat-socho - Rule 5 Sunday: San Romero Knights

This young lady is cosplaying Juliet Starling from the video game Lollipop Chainsaw, in which Ms. Starling is a cheerleader/zombie hunter dealing with a zombie outbreak at her high school on her birthday. Evidently a pretty good game if you like chopping up zombies with chainsaws.

Clayton Cramer - Not Hyperbole After All

I have seen "You will live in a pod, own nothing, and eat bugs" so much that I assumed that these were out of context quotes, or at least delusional future hopes of the environmentalists. But apparently not.

Don't Open the Door

This sounds like self-defense to me, but there is an old truism; you can't lose a fight you don't have. Man dead, police investigating self-defense claim after shooting in South Nashville, TN

According to authorities, an investigation found that the 48-year-old man victim arrived at an apartment and repeatedly knocked on the door asking to speak with a woman he knew.

A 60-year-old man who reportedly lives at the apartment with his girlfriend answered the door and asked the victim to leave.

He didn't leave. He kept knocking and eventually there was a "fight" between the 48-year-old and the woman.

According to police, the woman’s boyfriend said he saw the other man reach for an item in his waistband, at which point the 60-year-old shot the victim once.

It turned out to be a BB gun, but even so this will probably be determined to be self-defense, or that is my guess anyway. The police are certainly treating it like self-defense.

But why open the door?

Hat tip to Miguel Gonzalez: Never Break Perimeter.

Keep the door closed. If the person does not leave, don’t open, don’t engage him, call the cops and wait for them to remove the offender. In less self-defense civilized parts of the country, you could get yourself in trouble if the local prosecutor wants to make a stink by saying you instigated the outcome by interacting and opening the door.

Dad Yells at Car Burglars, Daughter Gets Shot

Is your car, or anything in it, worth you life, or the safety of your family? Man shoots at home after attempted car theft, Texas cops say | Rock Hill Herald

I'm guessing that this isn't how he saw things working out.

A dad noticed two men near his vehicle through his home surveillance cameras on April 22, the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office said in a May 8 post. He yelled at the two men and they then ran off.

One of the men returned in a vehicle and fired gunshots at the home, deputies said. The bullets struck the front door, window and the homeowner’s daughter, according to deputies.

He had to apply a tourniquet to his daughter's injury.

Bexar County, Texas is home to San Antonio.

Deputies did manage to track the guy down, via security camera video, and charge him with assault with a deadly weapon, thanks to fingerprints on the car. And they recovered two stolen cars.

If you are that worried about your car, or its contents, you might consider parking in a more secure place. And are you really sure that you understand all of the follow-on effects you might be unleashing by confronting bad guys, just so you can speak harshly to them?

Can You Charge an EV in 5 Minutes?

If you are only charging 1 EV in a laboratory, probably. But if you want to charge 1000s of vehicles in 5 minutes across a city, you need a significant upgrade to the way we generate and deliver electricity.

And if there may be some hurdles that we don't know how to clear.

When politicians and journalists, who haven't taken a science class since high school, and thought that it was stupid back then, start talking to you, or passing laws, about topics that touch on engineering, just remember to take what they say with a very large grain of salt.

This is the MGUY Australia video Pure HYPE: Not enough ELECTRICITY for 5 minute EV charging. The Chinese company BYD has announced a battery that can be charged in 5 minutes. Can it?

BYD's 5-minute-charge claim is based on supplying over a megawatt of power to the car. Now most journalists and EV activists don't have a clue what a megawatt is, or a joule or, any kind of engineering or electrical understanding, so they don't really understand what a megawatt is. It's essentially 500 [electric] kettles all boiling at once and the kettle is probably the most power- hungry device in your entire house and it takes 500 of those all going at once to represent 1 megawatt of power.

In the US not many of us electric kettles, but you're probably familiar. Instead, lets think about generating that power with solar panels. Depending on location, you would need 5 to 10 acres of solar panels to generate 1 Megawatt. So what are we using to charge these cars?

The video is just over 5 minutes.

You're a Lie

I'm not sure why I tripped over this song from 13 years ago. I can only guess that because Myles Kennedy is singing, that one of my music streaming services served it up as being related to one of the songs I was listening to. I do like Miles Kennedy, and he is in several bands I like.

This is "You're a Lie" by Slash featuring vocals by Myles Kennedy with other support from The Conspirators. It is from the 2012 album Apocalyptic Love.

FBI Warning On Swatting

One victim called it a "cheap form of terrorism." FBI Warns of Swatting Amid a Wave of Politically Motivated Attacks

You would think that the cops would have heard of this by now, but apparently they haven't.

I recently reached out to the local sheriff's office and did something I hadn't previously expected would ever be on my radar: I asked that, if they ever receive a call regarding my residence that requires an emergency response, they keep in mind the high likelihood that it's a hoax. I was assured that the word would be passed to the local commander and deputies. There was no surprise on their part at what would have been a weird request just a few years ago, for good reason. The director of the FBI and other government officials have been sounding the alarm about an uptick in swatting attacks, many of them targeted at people whose political opinions rub somebody the wrong way.

Here is the truth that the "tolerant Left" doesn't want spoken.

On March 20, CNN's Hadas Gold reported that "at least a dozen influencers" had been swatted in the previous two weeks. "Almost all the influencers who have publicized their recent swattings are conservative supporters of President Donald Trump." In the article, one victim referred to swatting as a "cheap form of terrorism."

Go read the whole thing.

Hat tip to Tom Knighton at Bearing Arms: FBI Issues Warning On Swatting.

He had this to say about reaching out to the cops...

Honestly, I have mixed feelings about putting myself on any kind of voluntary registry. It's not that I don't trust the government, mind you, it's that I don't trust the government.

That said, if people think they might become targets of swatting, it might be worth it.

If you trust the government, you know next to nothing about history.

EV Fires Becoming a Much Bigger Problem

This warning comes from 24M Technologies, a company started with research from MIT. Battery experts warn electric car fires will increase unless decades-old technology is improved

According to the International Energy Agency, there are 40 million EVs on the world's roads today. However, this is forecast to reach 250 million by 2030.

'Even at a conservative rate of one fire per 10,000 EVs, thermal incidents could reach 25,000 per year worldwide by the end of the decade,' experts at 24M Technologies said on Thursday.

This is the MGUY Australia video ⚡️ EV catches fire and 🔥 BURNS DOWN 🔥 a family home

I've said this before, but what we're doing here is transferring the vehicle fueling process from the safe, controlled, and highly regulated environment of the petrol station to the uncontrolled, dangerous and completely random environment of the family home. It's quite frankly insane.

Safety is, frankly, just an irritation and annoyance in the mad, net-zero world where electrification at all costs trumps everything else, including safety and common sense it seems.

Fake Left-Wing Hysteria and Actual Left-Wing Antisemitism

Some sanity from media? Well it is from the Tennessee Star, not what I would call the national media. (Maybe it should be.) Commentary: From One Fake Left-Wing Hysteria to the Next

First the anti-Trump talking points: The Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. Lawfare is not Lawfare, but only the legal process. "The walls are closing in." (and the more recent...) The stock market is crashing. 

Then the pro-Biden, pro-Democrat talking points: Biden is sharp as a tack. Biden's administration did not see a recession. COVID wasn't from a lab. The US didn't fund gain-of-function. There was no censorship. etc.

And more. All enhanced by the national media bias in favor of Democrats, and the Biden administration, and against Republicans, Trump in particular.

But then Victor Davis Hanson, at the Tennessee Star, turns his sights on academia, and Harvard in particular.

First, academia in general.

Private, multibillion-dollar endowed elite campuses took billions of dollars in easy federal money—despite endemic anti-Semitism, flagrant flaunting of U.S. civil rights laws and court decisions by continuing to use racial and gender biases, lucrative but unsavory financial partnerships with illiberal regimes of the Middle East and communist China, spiraling annual tuition costs exceeding the annual rate of inflation, 40-60 percent surcharges and overhead gouging of federal grants, and nonexistence of First Amendment protections for visiting speakers and lecturers, and on and on.

But Harvard earns special attention.

Why did it only now and so suddenly rush to end its sister-campus relationship with the terrorist-supporting Birzeit University on the West Bank, or why now replace directors of its radical Center for Middle Eastern Studies program—in a fashion it never had previously dared even after the massacres of October 7?

Then, news of a joint China-Harvard program abroad suddenly surfaced. Allegedly, Harvard had aided members of what some have called a Chinese “paramilitary organization,” despite that group previously being sanctioned for its role in the Chinese state violence conducted against the Uyghurs—a fact that apparently did not surface publicly or perhaps even particularly bother any of the usually hypersensitive and quick-to-demonstrate Harvard students and faculty.

Shortly thereafter, a comprehensive Harvard in-house anti-Semitism report surfaced, documenting in detail the routine harassment of and threats to Harvard Jewish students. In truth, even if it wished to, Harvard now could not control its out-of-control and institutionalized anti-Semitism.

There is more, how they gave $65,000 to law student who attacked, physically, a Jewish student during one of the recent "protests" and was actually arrested for it.

Click thru for the entire take. It is worth your time. (Hat tip to Knuckledraggin My Life Away)

A Miguel Gonzalez Musical Interlude

Miguel Gonzalez brings us Sunday Repose

A song I had not heard in a very long time, from a band that I don't listen to very often.

Click thru for "Palladium" from Weather Report from their 1977 album Heavy Weather.

As I mentioned in the comments, the playing of Jaco Pastorius is unmistakable to people who know jazz of that era. He died way too soon.

The Girl-Boss Powered Fantastic Four Movie Will Not Save the MCU

It shouldn't be hard to make a Fantastic Four movie. The comics have been around for many decades. But Disney decided that they needed to use one of the "modern" editions, with a female Silver Surfer. Yes, she was in the comics, for an eyeblink. That series lived for about 4 or so editions, before being canceled. Weeks, versus decades.

I'm begining to believe that Disney just hates money. Fantastic Four: First Steps Undergoing Reshoots Nearly 2 Months Before Release — Alarming Sign of Trouble for Film That Was Supposed to Save the MCU

Marvel’s Fantastic Four: First Steps is entering dangerous territory with late stage reshoots just months before it hits the big screen. With two and a half months until its scheduled July 25, 2025 release date, the highly publicized Marvel reboot is currently undergoing filming once again in Los Angeles—and for many, this echos a familiar disaster for Marvel studios and Disney.

That "familiar disaster" is Captain America: Brave New World, which was released in February. Even Disney Marvel admitted will not break even. And their break-even point, is based on a shooting budget that no one believes, but that is another story. That movie will lose a ton of money.

If you are reshooting things at this point, literally weeks before the scheduled release, it is NOT because you missed some bit of coverage. It is because there is something really wrong with the film, and you are trying to fix it. You should have fixed any problems when the script was being written. You do that by a process that is called PreVis. It is how most effects-heavy movies were made before Marvel decided they could do no wrong. (Pride goes before a fall.)

Now Fantastic Four is showing the same symptoms through these late stage reshoots. While we can’t be sure how extensive these reshoots are, it’s still troubling that this late in the game the studio is still filming.

This is an issue, but honesty forces me to say that I have no interest in this movie. I used to love Marvel movies, in the days before Disney took it over. I would see the movies in the theater, usually at a matinee to save some cash, but then I would rent the video from Hollywood Video or Blockbuster later to watch all of the behind-the-scenes snippets. But I dropped out of that a long way back. Marvel stopped being about characters, and stories, and heroes, and it has become all about virtue signaling, and special effects. Special effects are good, when done well, but they cannot carry a movie.

I will probably see the movie at some point. They usually show up on DVD at my library eventually, or a friend wants to stream it from Amazon/Netflix/Wherever, though I don't think anyone has Disney+, unless someone has a free sub via their cellphone plan.

Also the cast of Fantastic Four, in various interviews, have told us that the movie will explore "gender politics," which everyone takes to mean that Sue Storm is the star of the movie, and the actor playing Johnny Storm has said that his hot-headed, womanizing, brash ways are not in the movie. He obviously doesn't understand the character of Johnny Storm.

Anyway, there is more at That Park Place. If you're interested in movies, or at least have nostalgia for the age when movies were good, read the article linked above.

If you doubt that the old Marvel movies were about character, Watch Sam Raimi's first two Spider-Man films from 2002, and 2004. Spider-Man 2 includes a love story, a classic revenge arc, the hero doubting himself, and more. In the original Iron Man movie staring Robert Downey Jr., we go from disliking Tony Stark to rooting for him, even if there are more than a few cliches about Businessmen are Bad.

Not all of them were good, of course. 2003's Hulk, directed by Ang Lee is incoherent to the point it is not watchable. And most of them could be 20 minutes shorter than they are. But the more Disney got involved, the more everything turned to shit.

Canada's War on the Disabled

Another instance of the Canadian "publicly funded" health care system leaving someone in such bad shape, that in the end he chose death over suffering. Medical Assistance in Dying isn't always compassion. It is too often a way to deal with inconvenient and/or expensive patients.

This is the state of Socialized Medicine, north of the border, that is constantly held up as an "example" by the Left. They just don't want you to look to closely at that example. MAiD in Canada: When government failure ends in a body bag

There's a name you need to know: Normand Meunier.

He was 66 years old. A quadriplegic. And he didn't die from his disability or a terminal illness — he died because the Canadian health care system abandoned him.

Literally abandoned him, to lay on a gurney in an ER room for 4 days, where he developed horrendous bed sores. In the end, because they weren't helping him recover from that, he selected to end his life via Medical Aid in Dying. In Canada that is not-so-slowly turning into the way the bureaucrats get rid of expensive patients.

This is the Rebel News video MAiD in Canada: When government failure ends in a body bag

I can't wait until we have health care like that.

How Are Things in the World of Artificial Intelligence?

About like you'd expect. Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony has a couple of Artificial Intelligence stories from the tech news for us. Daily News Stuff 9 May 2025: Botch Epoch Edition

We will start with the 2nd story, because it is actually more interesting. Well it is to me, anyway. Why? Because a Fool and His Money are soon parted, and people will believe anything about AI today.

Meanwhile Alibaba has release[d] new AI code that allows AI to act as a search engine without needing a search engine. (VentureBeat)

Called ZeroSearch, a 7-billion parameter version outperformed Google Search in undefined and indefensibly stupid scenarios. It's the equivalent of claiming that you managed to condense the Encyclopaedia Britannica down to a bowl of alphabet soup. I don't know what you actually did, but I know you're not worth talking to until you grow up.

Don't be foolish; don't be parted from your money.

The first story Pixy Misa covers is about Google, or Alphabet, which is facing a bunch of legal problems, including possible antitrust breakup. They want you to know how hard they are having it with the advent of AI. Don't believe a word of it, or at least take the tears with a huge grain of salt.

Who is winning the war between search engines and AI chat bots? Search engines, and it's not even close. (WCCFTech)

In fact, if you add up all the search engines and all the AI services, 90% of the activity is Google search and everything else is just noise.

The thing hurting Google, is that their search has gone from being great to sucking like Hoover. Have you tried to look up anything on the internet lately?

People are trying to sell you something, and you don't even know it. How do you feel about Google vs. AI? Is your mutual fund or IRA purchasing AI company stock?

Vote Fraud in Texas

That thing that the media and the Left keep telling me never happens. Texas attorney general announces vote fraud charges against 6 people

A county judge, a former elections administrator and three other elected officials are among a half-dozen people indicted in an alleged “vote harvesting” scheme in a small south Texas county, state Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Wednesday.

“Elected officials who think they can cheat to stay in power will be held accountable. No one is above the law,” Paxton said in a statement.

So if this is happening in small-town Texas, what is happening in Austin, or in Chicago?

Frio County has a population of about 18,000 residents and is about 65 miles southwest of San Antonio.

If you can only win by cheating, then you don't believe in democracy, and you should just admit you are an authoritarian who values power above all else. Above Liberty. Above Truth.

Saturday Roundup of Link Roundups - 10 May

Wombat-socho is up first with In The Mailbox: 05.07.25 (Unspeakably Early Morning Edition)

Tom Kratman: Dear Millennials
Bacon Time: The Crops Are Coming In

Animal Magnetism - Animal’s Hump Day News

Cleaning up the Pentagon.
And it’s pretty damn creepy.
And therefore what?

The Right Way - Top of the News

Victor Davis Hanson: The Trump-Iran Deal, Explained - Theo Spark
MAGAtraz - Evi. L Bloggerlady

EBL - Kashmir (also with a Led Zeppelin musical interlude)

Kashmir
Breitbart: India and Pakistan exchange fire

Wombat-socho again - In The Mailbox: 05.07.25 (Evening Edition)

Stoic Observations: I’ve Seen The Future
Jim McCoy: Cartwright’s Cavaliers

Small Dead Animals - Wednesday On Turtle Island

Woke America: A shocking new audio. Will Democrats demand his release? The enemy we face.
Carnival Carney’s Canada: Smith tells Ford to butt out. Press freedom?

The Glibertarians - Let’s Not Make This A Habit – Morning Links

Good lord, this is the kind of inside-baseball shit you’d expect from real ethnic cities, not Houston. My old stompin’ grounds is all growed up!
Alright, alright, alright! It’s just about go time for hurricane season!

Again from Wombat-socho - In The Mailbox: 05.08.25 (Morning Edition)

CDR Salamander: We Must Not Let The F/A-18 Line Go Cold
Dana Loesch: House Republicans Move To Codify Spending & Tax Cuts,

Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony - Daily News Stuff 7 May 2025: Fear Fire Foes Edition

Skype is dead. Here's five alternatives. (Hot Hardware)
I wish it were dead. I've received eight messages on it from work today. The first of those at four minutes past midnight.

A View from the Beach - Flotsam and Jetsam - The Pope is Still Dead

Da Fetched a new Clinton-Appointed Judge Blocks Trump from Deporting Gang Members Using ‘Alien Enemies Act’. WokeSpy reports America First Legal Sues Chief Justice Roberts Over Lawfare- “You Can’t Have Your Cake And Eat It Too”

Gates of Vienna - News Feed 5/7/2025

Proof of Citizenship for Voter Registration, Voter ID Fails in Michigan
Michigan House Democrats killed a chance for voters to decide on a constitutional amendment that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and an ID at the polls.

Wombat-socho - In The Mailbox: 05.08.25 (Evening Edition)

Transterrestrial Musings: Getting History Right, AI, The Climate Apocalypse, and An Amusing Scam
Victory Girls: Pete Hegseth – “Less Generals, More GIs Policy”

Vlad Tepes - Lies my gov’t told me, Second commie pope, Bernie does his tight 5: Links 1 for May 9, 2025

3. Gotta love Bernie sanders. Nothing he says is really a surprise. But it does make his followers look like total morons.
Bernie makes millions on his book attacking capitalism.

Small Dead Animals - Friday On Turtle Island

Carnival Carney’s Canada: Death cult builds a school in Edmonton. Justice in Canada. Land acknowledgement for missing kids. Fake Indians.
Woke America: VDH – The inexplicable. Tampon Tim. Money for Yemen.

Once again from Wombat-socho - In The Mailbox: 05.09.25

Chicago Boyz: How Did This Building Figure in a Supreme Court Case? also, Thinking, Memorizing, and AI
Da Tech Guy: Pro Tip on the Catholic Faith

J.J. Sefton at Ace of Spades HQ - The Morning Report — 5/ 7 /25

And the tantrum-throwing is epic.
DOGE Is Doing the Clean-Up Leftists Can’t Stand

Doug Ross - Larwyn’s Linx: Tillis Could Inflict Fatal Blow to Martin Confirmation

• Things Get Sporty In South Asia - Are We On The Brink Of War? - And Magazine
• Triggered by the WaPo - Robert W Malone
• Victory Day and the American Will: 80 Years After Hitler Fell - @amuse

Anonymous Conservative - News Briefs – 05/08/2025

The best theory they have come up with for why Brian Kohberger killed the Idaho college girls is he wanted to impress a former forensic psychology professor with all he learned. Nothing impresses a professor like doing a solid quadruple murder.

I leave you with Wednesday's gifs from Wirecutter, Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #2568 from 90 Mile from Tyranny, and Wednesday Memes … from MaddMedic.

First He Got Shot, Then He Was Arrested

I'm guessing that things didn't work out according to his plan. Police say man shot by homeowner suspected of more vehicle burglaries, theft

Shreveport police are investigating a case that involves attempted car thefts and a shooting in early April.

The 911 call stated that people were breaking into cars, and actually stealing one of them. The would-be bad guys noticed the 911 caller and approached him.

The homeowner fired two shots at the suspects, striking 18-year-old Jamelvion Lewis in the upper body.

While responding officers rendered aid to Lewis, they found a firearm, which was seized and later confirmed to have been reportedly stolen out of Bossier City after a check with the National Crime Information Center (NCIC).

The 2nd guy ran like a rabbit and has not been arrested.

The guy who got shot was in hospital for a while, but has since been transferred to the local lockup.

Detectives now believe that this guy, Lewis, plus one other person are behind at least five vehicle burglaries, one firearm theft, and one or more motor vehicle thefts, and a handful of burglaries. Does this count as a crime spree stopped by a legal gun owner?

The person who shot Lewis has not been charged, because Louisiana has not morphed into Massachusetts. Self-defense is a human right.

The Usual Suspects Are Upset at ICE

This time in Nashville. They are so full of it... - by Miguel Gonzalez

In the post, if you click thru, and you should, ICE is Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and THP is Tennessee Highway Patrol.

We are still hearing from the “immigrant advocates” about the operatives done over the weekend in the Antioch area of Nashville.

The claims? That it is just racial profiling. The area was targeted, not because of high levels of crime, but just because it "happens to be populated by Brown people."

The reality is a bit different.

Then this morning, I get to read a piece of unrelated news that truthfully they should have kept hidden because it kind make a bigger fools out of the idiots.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — For years, much of South Nashville has been left to deal with rising safety concerns and long response times, but help is on the way.

Back in 2021, city leaders approved a new precinct for southeast Nashville.

Crime in the area has risen to such levels that they are actually building a frigging precinct to deal with it, but if action is taken by other agencies, then it is racism.

So an area, so riddled with crime, that in an age of Defund the Police, Nashville politicians were convinced to invest in policing an area plagued by gang crime. Just don't let ICE into that area plagued by gang crime, without calling them racists.

When are folks on the Left, and in the media (but I repeat myself) going to realize that this is why no one takes them seriously? Probably never.

Late In The Evening

Another song courtesy of WXRT's Saturday Morning Flashback. In the middle of April they were Flashing Back to 1980. The year we got both Caddy Shack and Blues Brothers.

I don't always like songs from Paul Simon, but they are usually well written and produced, as is the case here. And I do like this song, but I think that is because of the salsa tone of the whole thing.

This is "Late In The Evening" by Paul Simon from his 1980 album One-Trick Pony. It was the first song relased as a single from that album.

Leftist Insanity at UW-Madison

Are we shocked, that a university is virtue-signalling against Trump? Not really. From The Other McCain: God and Man at UW-Madison

A McCain offspring is graduating from UW-Madison's law school. Congrats. There are perks to that.

But this is mostly about the insanity that is a university campus in a Midwestern State.

The Mediterranean Cafe is nice, and I recommend the Roti Chicken. What I do not recommend, however, is university faculty surrendering to Trump Derangement Syndrome, as is the case in Wisconsin.

The faculty and staff are bent out of shape because the Trump administration is threatening to enforce laws, and court cases, outlawing discrimination, even if Wisconsin is not discriminating in that way.

Talk about “climbing up on the cross”! So eager are these academics to be seen as martyrs of “government overreach and political interference” that they’ve joined a “Mutual Defense Compact” to defend against a threat that would seem to be entirely hypothetical, if not indeed imaginary. Has the Trump administration so far taken even a nickel of federal funding away from UW-Madison? And if UW-Madison is not tolerating “antisemitic harassment and discrimination,” what have they got to worry about? It’s just a symbolic “resistance” gesture.

Read the whole thing.

Friday Links - 9 May

Professor Yamane at Light Over Heat - National Rifle Association's 154th Annual Meeting & Exhibits

Here are some brief initial thoughts on what I saw. You will note how thoroughly the NRA’s recent troubles with legal issues and financial misconduct has affected the organization.

Aristo! Aristo! A la lanterne! - Yes SIR! Now, get out and go away.

The new Sec of Def has mandated a 20% cut of senior generals and admirals. The combined compensation for these 37 people costs us $10,000,000 a year.

Clayton Cramer - Animal Testing

I am not doctrinaire about this. There are places where animals should be used. For cosmetics? No. You do not need eyeliner, eye shadow or most of the other stuff peddled to women to make them feel inadequate. Few women of healthy weight are unattractive, no matter how much Vogue wants you to think.

Mad Jack's Shack - Not My Circus

The workers who got fired resent this. I'm certain that a few of them think that they, individually, need that money more than the Met does, and they're probably right. But! - and this is important - but the hundred unemployed aren't their problem. They don't own the circus, it isn't their monkey, and it isn't their problem. So what, you say? Well said, say I.

Tom Knighton at Townhall - Buffalo School System Attorney Attacks Whistleblower SVU Cop, Botches It Spectacularly

The Buffalo Public Schools would be the gift that keeps on giving were it not for the fact that children are being hurt, and the schools clearly don't seem to care a bit about it.

Miguel Gonzalez - She is everything Kamala is not.

I believe the Republicans missed a great chance not nominating Condoleezza Rice for president. Maybe we don’t fuck it up this time?

Again from Miguel Gonzalez - Those Damned Racist White Jurors!

Never pass the opportunity to wave the Race Card even if it does not make sense.

The Other McCain - A Happy Week for the Family

On Sunday, our youngest daughter Reagan graduated cum laude from Andrews University, with a double major in history and Spanish. Her senior honors thesis was, “The Significance of the Malvinas Issue in the Politics of President Javier Milei.”

Pirate's Cove Trump Probably Just Put The Death Nail In California’s Train To Nowhere

No tracks have been laid. None. The comrades in the People’s Republik Of California voted on this all the way back in 2008. It’s about $100 billion over budget. No tracks. No trains. It was supposed to be from LA to San Francisco by 2020, now they’re talking about Bakersfield to Merced by 2030.