URLs du Jour

2021-12-01

  • I'm a RINO. Literally. So I got no problem with sharing the latest from Mr. Ramirez:

    [I am with stupid]

    But if you prefer text about the GOP's latest, here's Politico, only too glad to pass the popcorn: Mace and Greene keep feuding, despite McCarthy’s effort to intervene. Referring to Representatives Nancy Mace (R-SC) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), see pic above. Skipping to the good part:

    After speaking with the GOP leader, Greene said she told McCarthy that she would quit attacking Mace. But as she was leaving the meeting, Greene suggested to CNN that she was interested in seeing Mace get a Republican primary challenger, something former President Donald Trump has called for.

    Mace, after meeting with McCarthy, also didn’t back down after being asked about Greene’s primary challenger comments.

    “All I can say about Marjorie Taylor Greene is bless her fucking heart,” Mace told reporters.

    You can mouse-highlight the text between the 'f' and 'g' up there if you're a curious adult. I didn't think Southern Republican women talked like that, but I'm behind the times, I guess.


  • Inspired by the Beatles song? Tevi Troy maps The Long and Winding Road to Campus Illiberalism.

    Free speech is so devalued on campuses today that there is little cost to those seeking to squelch unfashionable views. When MIT recently canceled a speech by University of Chicago geophysicist Dorian Abbot because he had questioned non-merit-based hiring, the left saw nothing wrong with MIT’s illiberal action. In a widely noted comment in an article about the incident, The New York Times quoted Williams College geoscience professor Phoebe Cohen as saying, “This idea of intellectual debate and rigor as the pinnacle of intellectualism comes from a world in which white men dominated.”

    To dismiss the tradition of intellectual debate as some kind of vestige of a white male era seemed to many a nail in the coffin of the very concept of free speech and open inquiry. Unfortunately, this recent episode is only the latest of many similar incidents.

    Troy continues with a number of egregious recent examples. See if you missed any; collect the whole set!


  • Including the University Near Here, I'm pretty sure. James D. Paul and Robert Maranto author an AEI report on another example of campus illiberalism: requiring faculty job applicants to include "diversity statements" in their submitted materials. Resulting in faculty hiring on grounds other than merit. Their "Key Points":

    • Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) statement requirements for job applicants seeking university faculty posts seem increasingly common.
    • Proponents claim these requirements create a more inclusive academy. Critics claim they amount to political correctness loyalty oaths. Yet, until now, no one has conducted an empirical investigation of their prevalence or how these requirements vary across academic disciplines, geographic regions, type of faculty position, and university prestige.
    • Prestigious universities are significantly more likely to have DEI requirements than nonprestigious universities. Perhaps surprisingly, these statements are as prevalent in STEM fields as in the humanities and social sciences, once controls are accounted for.
    • Regular faculty posts are more likely to require DEI statements than adjunct and postdoc positions. Relative to other regions, jobs in the West are most likely to require DEI statements.

    Note that a "diversity statement" isn't necessarily the same as a "diversity pledge". So this College Fix headline, "Nearly 20 percent of faculty jobs require diversity pledge: report" isn't as precise as it could be.

    But as for the University Near Here, you can check for yourself how many faculty positions require them.


  • Yippee Ki-Yay… At least that's the phrase I imagine Kevin D. Williamson toyed with writing, in his "The Tuesday" column: Left Learns Dangers of Ideological Conformity. But guess what he does write:

    Welcome to the party, pal!

    Cancel culture, soft censorship, the stampeding herd of independent thinkers demanding absolute conformism in the name of tolerance and absolute obedience in the name of diversity — none of these is ever a problem until it happens to a progressive.

    Today’s example is Andrew Solomon, who tells his tale in the New York Times under the headline: “My book was censored in China. Now it’s blacklisted — in Texas.”

    Solomon’s book is not — you won’t be surprised to learn — blacklisted in Texas. All that has happened is that a state representative, Matt Krause, has asked Texas school districts about a list of books — 850 of them — wanting to know if they have them, how many copies, where they are, what they paid for them, etc. “Most of the books on the list deal with race, sexual orientation, abortion or gender identity,” Solomon writes. “Krause is one of several candidates hoping to unseat the incumbent Republican attorney general” — he isn’t, but he was — “and this bit of extremist theater is a maneuver to raise his profile among the ardent Trumpists and social conservatives likely to be G.O.P. primary voters.”

    KDW goes on to note:

    Matt Krause is a nobody. Jeff Bezos has real power. When Amazon bans a book, that doesn’t just take it off Amazon — it sends a message to publishers around the world that failing to toe the party line means that their financial futures will be put in jeopardy by one of the world’s most powerful businesses. But when Amazon yanks a book by Ryan Anderson, nice liberals such as Andrew Solomon generally don’t have a goddamned word to say about it — and if they do say something, more often than not it is to encourage the suppression of books they dislike and the marginalization of nonconformist authors.

    You tell him, Kevin.


  • Good gracious, I just might become a Boston Celtics fan. The Federalist reports on their center: Enes Kanter Becomes U.S. Citizen, Changes Last Name To 'Freedom'

    NBA star Enes Kanter is now an American citizen and has legally changed his name to Enes Kanter Freedom.

    The Boston Celtics center, who frequently speaks out against oppressive governments such as China and Turkey, passed his citizenship test and was sworn in as an official citizen of the United States on Nov. 29.

    And, yes: "His new last name will appear on the back of his jersey beginning this week."


  • Two words that often go together: "FDA" and "Screw-up" . Ron Bailey says it's business as usual, even though hundreds of Americans are dying daily: FDA's At-Home Testing Screw-Up Is Undermining Promising New COVID Treatments.

    Let's skip down to the local LFOD reference:

    A quick internet check finds that most COVID-19 self-tests are still not widely available and those that are available cost more than $20. Of course, speedier FDA approval of COVID-19 self-tests would have spurred competition between brands that would have made them more widely available and lowered their prices to consumers.

    Interestingly, New Hampshire public health officials began offering to send free (tax-paid) at-home COVID-19 tests to any of the state's residents on Monday. In less than 24-hours, 100,000 households had requested them, exhausting the "Live Free or Die" state government's supplies. (I brought home 28 COVID-19 self-tests that were being given away by public health functionaries on the streets of Glasgow, Scotland, while I was there covering the U.N. climate change conference.)

    I got in under the wire. If you need a test, let me know.


Last Modified 2024-01-31 5:56 AM EDT