Merry Christmas!

Posted on December 25, 2023 by Lawrence Person

As is the now annual tradition, enjoy Stellarscope’s version of “Silent Night”:

Merry Christmas!

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Library Additions: Seven Non-Fiction Books

Posted on December 24, 2023 by Lawrence Person

I usually note library additions in the other blog, but all of these but two are political or military books. Two are also signed copies replacing or supplementing unsigned copies.

  • Bush, Barbara. A Memoir. Scribner’s, 1994. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine- dust jacket with slight bumping at heel and trace of wear at points, inscribed by Bush: “To Chris Hyatt/With best wishes/Barbara Bush/December 1998.” Autobiography by First Lady Barbara Bush, wife of 41 and mother of 43, who died in 2018. Not my usual thing, but I stumbled across it checking for signatures in books by 41 and 43. Bought for $14.48 at Half Price Books.

  • Hemple, Stuart. Dread & Superficiality: Woody Allen as Comic Strip. Abrams Comic Arts, 2009. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Near Fine dust jacket with slight waviness, slight grubbiness to uncoated stock, and a thin scratch across bottom of spine. Received as a Christmas gift only because, many moons ago, I noted to Dwight my incredulity that this comic strip ever existed at all. Yes, Woody Allen’s neurotic nebbish character was so well known in the 1970s that a comic strip based on it (but written and drawn by someone else) appeared in numerous newspapers from 1976-1964. I am equally incredulous that someone found the strip worth of a prestige retrospective collection. Supplements my copy of Non-Being and Somethingness, which contains selections from the strip.

  • Hill, Doug and Jeff Weingrad. Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live. Beech Tree Books, 1986. First edition hardback, a Fine- copy with bumping at head and heel in a Near Fine dust jacket with with one 1/16″ chip at heel, crease to bottom of front flap, slight bumping at head and heel and a bit of pull to top jacket edge. History of Saturday Night Live. Part of a very small collection of books on early SNL. Most people today don’t realize how amazingly funny, daring and groundbreaking the original cast SNL was. Bought for $4.99.

  • King, Florence. Reflections in a Jaundiced Eye. St. Martin’s Press, 1989. First edition hardback, a Near Fine copy with slight bumping at head and heel and thrift store stamp to insider rear cover, in a Fine- dust jacket with slight bumping at head, in a Mylar dust jacket protector. Collection of essays. Replaces an Ex-Library copy. Bought for $7.99.

  • McBride, H. W. A Rifleman Went to War. Small-Arms Tactical Publishing Company, 1935. First edition, second printing (according to Dwight’s bibliography of this press), a Near Fine copy with a slight bit of spine wear and previous owner’s bookplate, in a Very Good- dust jacket with 1 1/2″ wide x 1/2″ deep chip at head, small chip at heel, creasing along front flap fold, and general wear, but no loss of lettering anywhere, in a Mylar dust jacket protector. Memoirs of the experiences of an American rifleman who joined the Canadian expeditionary forces during World War I (my second favorite World War). A Christmas gift from Dwight, who collects this press.

  • Murray, Charles. Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980. Basic Books, 1984. Third printing, a Fine- copy in a Fine- dust jacket, with slighting bumping at head and heel, a trace of wear at points, and a touch of surface wear, inscribed by Murray: “To Dr. Harry Schmitt,/with best wishes/Charles Murray/18 July 1986.” (I wonder if this was inscribed to former astronaut and Republican senator Harrison Schmitt.) This is probably the most important book ever written about the American welfare state, in which Murray showed in meticulously researched detail why the welfare state expansions instituted by Lyndon Baines Johnson’s Great Society inflicted lasting economic and social harm to black families in America. Without Losing Ground, the welfare reform act of 1996 never would have happened. It came out back when some Democrats will still willing to look at research and data rather that automatically calling critics of the welfare state racist. Highly recommended. Supplements an unsigned first printing. (I had a second printing inscribed to me that I foolish lent out and never had returned.) Bought for $5.99.

  • Thorburn, Wayne. Red State: An Insiders Story of How the GOP Came to Dominate Texas Politics. University of Texas Press, 2014. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine-dust jacket with just a touch of wear, signed by Thorburn. This is an interesting book that describes (among other things) how leftists deliberately drove conservatives and moderates out of their own party so they could control the Democratic Party. Of course, they expected voters would simply keep voting for Democrats, but that didn’t happen. Recommended. Bought for $7. Replaces an unsigned copy.

    • Posted in Media Watch, Military, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

    Hamas: We Make Our Own Sniper Rifles! Ian McCollum: Busted!

    Posted on December 23, 2023 by Lawrence Person

    While Israel pounds the snot out of it, Hamas continues its long-running video deception operations. “Pallywood” usually uses its video editing to gin up more Palestinian civilian casualties from Israeli, but this time they’re trying to convince the world they make their own “al-Ghoul” sniper rifles. Ian McCollum looks at the resulting video, and concludes that, once again, they’re full of it.

    Pretty much nothing they’re doing in the video involves actual manufacturing of sniper rifles.

  • “Yesterday Hamas posted a video on Twitter/X that is purporting to show them manufacturing what they call the al-Ghoul sniper rifles in some secret bunker, presumably in Gaza. This is nonsense. I thought we should take a minute and let’s go through this video and see what’s actually being shown in it.”
  • “Because I’ve manufactured rifles, I’ve been in a lot of rifle factories, I’ve done hand loading, I’ve seen a lot of hand loading, I’ve seen ammunition factories, and this video includes none of that.”
  • “They’ve got the two guys working on lathes. And they clearly want you to think that these are barrels on the lathes. However, what they are doing here is turning the outside profile of the barrel. The difficult element in manufacturing a barrel, if you want to convince me that you are actually manufacturing barrels, what I want to see is the rifling process, because otherwise you got nothing.”
  • “If you are making a barrel, the first thing you’re going to do is center bore it (what they actually call ‘gun drill’ it), then you are going to ream it, then you are going to rifle it and then lastly you are going to turn the outside diameter.”
  • “Immediately on the next shot we see them turning the outside profile of this piece of steel and there is smoke coming off of it. You don’t want smoke coming off. They are not running lubricant on this. That’s a problem, that’s not how you manufacture precision anything, much less precision sniper rifles.”
  • “What they are doing looks like machining, but it’s wrong in all sorts of ways.” I’m going to omit some of the technical details, but What He Said.
  • “The al-Ghoul is not a domestic Gazan or Palestinian designed firearm, the al-Ghoul is actually an Iranian AM-50, which is like the Steyr HS .50 that we have at home. Iran purchased like 800 HS .50s a bunch of years ago. They then reverse engineered it and made a really crude copy of it that they call the AM-50, that they have provided to all sorts of basically terror and terror-associated groups.”
  • “What we’re looking at here is an Iranian manufactured AM-50.”
  • “I think they are making dummy parts for the sake of video here.”
  • He thinks they may actually be manufacturing the optics mount.
  • “He guy’s pulled one [part] off of the mill and he’s measuring it, like let’s measure a random part to look good on camera.”
  • He said it looks a whole lot like how reality TV depicts gun manufacturing.
  • “There is absolutely nothing in that shot that couldn’t be take a complete Iranian rifle, detail strip it, take all the pieces apart, and then turn on the camera and put the pieces back together.”
  • “One of the most interesting shots in the video, which is the marking on the side of this gun. Because this says something like Al Qassam Brigade Sniper Rifle, 12.7x99mm. 12.7×99 by the way is .50 Browning.” AKA .50 BMG.
  • “The guy pulls out a round of 12.7 ammo and now they want to show you their manufacturing process of precision ammo. And there’s some stuff in here that is definitely wrong.” Like the steel case, which may be fine for Soviet designed crap, but isn’t right for .50 BMG, and is much harder to reload properly than brass.
  • There are a lot more details why the ammo loading process is wrong. I’m just going to note that Hamas has a lower-rate, cruder ammo-reloading setup than random Texas gun owners I’ve known. You can get a fully progressive reloading press for under a grand these days, none of this hand-loading assembly line crap that takes Hamas members away from their main job of killing Israeli women and children.
  • “I don’t think we saw any actual loading of ammunition here.”
  • “I’m pretty sure that the al-Ghoul is, in fact, essentially is a re-badged Steyr AM-50.”
  • “The AM-50 is not a particularly great rifle.”
  • “The only thing we can see 100% in this video is that they have complete AM-50s that they have disassembled and put back together. And they want you to think that they are manufacturing stuff.”

    • Par for the Pallywood course…

    Posted in Guns, Jihad, Military, video | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

    LinkSwarm For December 22, 2023

    Posted on December 22, 2023 by Lawrence Person

    The Colorado Supreme Court goes full TDS, IDF blows more Hamas tunnels, more unconstitutional gun laws are struck down, and news about two different Francises. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • The big news this week is that the Colorado Supreme Court got way, way, way out over their skis by kicking Donald Trump off the 2024 ballot despite him not being convicted of any crimes.

    The Colorado supreme court on Tuesday ruled that former president Donald Trump is ineligible to appear on the state’s ballot in the 2024 presidential election.

    In a 4–3 ruling, the court held that Trump’s presence on the ballot “would be a wrongful act under the Election Code,” arguing that the former president is disqualified from holding the presidency under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

  • Even the Washington Post said the decision was wrong. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • “The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) destroyed a vast network on underground tunnels inside Gaza City this week that belonged to top Hamas terrorist officials. Yahalom Unit Combat Engineering Forces discovered Hamas’ “Elite Quarter” on Wednesday, including “a large network of strategic underground tunnels which connect hideouts, and bureaus belonging to Hamas’ senior military and political leadership,” the IDF said in a statement.”

    It blew up real good:

  • “Oklahoma bans DEI requirements at public colleges and universities, requires cuts to ‘non-critical personnel.’ Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt announced the mandate Wednesday, citing a need to spend more money on preparing young Oklahomans for the workforce, and less on ‘six-figure salaries to DEI staff.'” Faster, please. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • “Federal judge blocks California gun control law against firearms in public places.”

    On Wednesday, a federal judge blocked a California law that would have banned the carrying of firearms in many public places, calling the legislation “sweeping, repugnant to the Second Amendment, and openly defiant of the Supreme Court.”

    According to Fox News, US District Judge Cormac Carney granted a preliminary injunction blocking the law, adding that it removes people’s ability to defend themselves and their families.

    The law was signed into law in September by Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom and was scheduled to go into effect on Jan. 1. The legislation banned people from carrying concealed firearms in places such as public parks, playgrounds, and religious institutions, regardless if they have a concealed weapon carry permit or not.

    Chuck Michel, president of the California Rifle and Pistol Association, which sued to block the law, said in a statement, “California progressive politicians refuse to accept the Supreme Court’s mandate from the Bruen case and are trying every creative ploy they can imagine to get around it. The Court saw through the State’s gambit.”

    He added that if that law had gone into effect, permit holders “wouldn’t be able to drive across town without passing through a prohibited area and breaking the law.”

  • Speaking of lawsuits: “Virginia Supreme Court Backs Teacher Fired For Not Using Student’s Preferred Pronouns.” Let the lawsuits fly. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • “Dem Staffer Busted for Having Gay Sex in Senate Hearing Room.” There’s more of that decorum and restoration of norms we keep hearing about… (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
  • Harvard President Claudine Gay’s plagiarism scandal is even worse than previously thought.

    Gay has been credibly accused of more than 40 acts of plagiarism during her tenure at Harvard – which the university secretly investigated, threatened journalists over, and ultimately concluded was no big deal – clearing her of breaching Harvard’s “standards for research misconduct.”

    The Times, looking at just five examples of Gay’s plagiarism, wrote: “her papers sometimes lift passages verbatim from other scholars and at other times make minor adjustments, like changing the word “adage” to “popular saying” or “Black male children” to “young black athletes.””

    One rule for the elite, another for you…

  • “Investigators Beginning To Suspect Claudine Gay’s Novel ‘Larry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Rock’ May Have Been Plagiarized.”
  • Fat Leonard is back in custody.

    Returning convicted defense contractor Leonard “Fat Leonard” Francis to U.S. custody as part of the Venezuelan prisoner swap on Wednesday is the latest twist in a decade-long salacious saga and bribery scheme that swept up dozens of American Navy officers.

    One of the biggest bribery investigations in U.S. military history led to the conviction and sentencing of nearly two dozen Navy officials, defense contractors and others on various fraud and corruption charges. And it was punctuated by Francis’ daring escape last year, when he fled from house arrest at his San Diego home to South America.

    An enigmatic figure who was 6-foot-3 and weighed 350 pounds at one time, Francis owned and operated his family’s ship servicing business, Singapore-based Glenn Defense Marine Asia Ltd. or GDMA, which supplied food, water and fuel to vessels. The Malaysian defense contractor was a key contact for U.S. Navy ships at ports across Asia for more than two decades. During that time he wooed naval officers with Kobe beef, expensive cigars, concert tickets and wild sex parties at luxury hotels from Thailand to the Philippines.

    In exchange, the officers, including the first active-duty admiral to be convicted of a federal crime, concealed the scheme in which Francis would overcharge for supplying ships or charge for fake services at ports he controlled in Southeast Asia. The officers passed him classified information and even went so far as redirecting military vessels to ports that were lucrative for his Singapore-based ship servicing company.

    In a federal sting, Francis was lured to San Diego on false pretenses and arrested at a hotel in September 2013. He pleaded guilty in 2015, admitting that he had offered more than $500,000 in cash bribes to Navy officials, defense contractors and others. Prosecutors say he bilked the Navy out of at least $35 million. As part of his plea deal, he cooperated with the investigation leading to the Navy convictions. He faced up to 25 years in prison.

    While awaiting sentencing, Francis was hospitalized and treated for renal cancer and other medical issues. After leaving the hospital, he was allowed to stay out of jail at a rental home, on house arrest with a GPS ankle monitor and security guards.

  • Far left Austin Democrat (and now U.S. Representative) Greg Casar
    is now singing a different tune on police patrols.

    An Austin, Texas Democrat politician is demanding police step up their patrols in his neighborhood despite previously voting to defund them.

    Yes, in the latest example of ‘Do as I say not as I do,’ Representative Greg Casar now says that he wants more police for at least the next week. It’s unclear why the Congressman wanted the extra police.

    The Austin Police Retired Officers Association however did not hold back and called out the Congressman’s sudden change of tone.

    “We want everyone in Austin to feel safe, but this seems to us as the height of hypocrisy from the congressman. Maybe he should hire private security like his fellow squad members do. Sure seems like he wants the police in his neighborhood just not yours,” the ROA tweeted out.

    Snip. “In 2020, Casar couldn’t hold back how happy he was when he helped the Austin City Council reduce the Austin Police Department’s budget by over $100 million.” (Previously.)

  • “Delta, American Airlines fly illegal immigrants from Biden’s Arizona processing centers into domestic US on late night flights.”
  • Elizabeth Warren wants to enact an unconstitutional wealth tax.
  • “Taco stand owner spends $4k per WEEK in private security to protect his business (it’s more than his rent).” This is in D.C. And the cost for that gets passed on to everyone buying a taco…
  • Good: A fat Christmas duck roasting in your oven. Bad: A fat duck roasting in your engine right after takeoff. “Do you need an emergency vehicle?” “We need everything you have.” This was two days ago.
  • Military history YouTuber Mark Felton goes to visit Vatican City, and accidentally ends up getting an audience with the Pope.
  • Toshiba was delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange after 74 years and is being taken private.
  • Been a little lite on dog content for the last few LinkSwarms. so he’s a Ryan George skit about dogs and Christmas:

    • Hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Military, Obama Scandals, ObamaCare, Regulation, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, video | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

    Biden’s Illegal Alien Flood Results in 7 Year Court Date Wait

    Posted on December 21, 2023 by Lawrence Person

    The Biden Administration’s attempt to flood the country with illegal aliens continues apace. The situation has gotten so bad that aliens seeking asylum are now receiving court dates in 2031.

    U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have set a court date for an illegal alien seeking asylum on January 23, 2031, more than seven years away.

    Fox News Correspondent Bill Melugin reports that the Colombian woman seeking asylum crossed illegally into El Paso, and her immigration attorney, Matthew Kolken, is shocked by the six-year wait time to process her claim.

    “Kolken tells me his client is a legitimate asylum seeker with what he feels is an air tight case, but because the system is so backlogged with illegitimate asylum claims, he’s not sure they’ll ever get a chance to argue it in court with her next check in 8 years into the future,” posted Melugin on X.

    “It made me realize the Biden administration is basically providing backdoor amnesty for anyone who wants to show up at the border,” Kolken told Melugin.

    Citizens responded with outrage in the comments.

    “Will be voting in 2 national election cycles before her court date,” posted Dr. Joe Borelli.

    Indeed, even if a Republican—presumably Trump based on polling—retakes the White House in 2024, he would be out of office by 2029, two years before the woman’s court date.

    According to Transactional Record Access Clearinghouse immigration data, the court backlog has reached a record 3 million pending cases.

    Meanwhile, illegal border crossers are released into the U.S. and flown to cities across the country.

    Democrats, of course, want as many illegal aliens as possible as new welfare state clientele and Democratic Party voters, either to vote illegally or to legalize via amnesty. And they seem intent on keeping high levels of illegals coming across the border no matter how much their existing welfare state clientele in blue cities complain about it.

    In other border control news, a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals judge “gutted a lower court’s decision that allowed the Biden administration to continue destroying concertina wire and other border barriers set by the State of Texas.”

    Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in October alleging that border guards were destroying the state’s barriers.

    The 5th Circuit decided that an earlier decision by a district judge in Del Rio denying a preliminary injunction is faulty. The decision only provides an exception for medical emergencies.

    “Concluding that the district court legally erred with respect to sovereign immunity and that Texas has otherwise satisfied the factors under Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 434 (2009), we GRANT Texas’s request for an injunction pending appeal,” the judges wrote.

    “Accordingly, Defendants are ENJOINED during the pendency of this appeal from damaging, destroying, or otherwise interfering with Texas’s c-wire fence in the vicinity of Eagle Pass, Texas, as indicated in Texas’s complaint. As the parties have agreed, Defendants are permitted to cut or move the c-wire if necessary to address any medical emergency as specified in the TRO.”

    For all that the MSM constantly told us that Trump’s border wall is ineffective, they sure seem to spend a lot of effort trying to take it down…

    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Texas | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

    Biggest Losers From Houthi Attacks? Not Israel And America

    Posted on December 20, 2023 by Lawrence Person

    It’s hard to report on Houthi rebels telling U.S. armed forces to “bring it on” and keep a straight face. It’s like Steve Urkel declaring he’s going to kick Mike Tyson’s ass, or Bambi vs. Godzilla.

    I mean, their video features a Northrup F-5, a plane introduced to service in 1964 and last manufactured in 1987. It would be very, very unlikely to defeat an F-15, much less an F-35, which would probably splash it from 50 miles away with an AIM-120 and be back in time for breakfast.

    I’m a bottomless well of Skiffy pop culture references.

    And the rest of their air force (or what little of it survives after Saudi air strikes) is old (and probably ill-maintained) Soviet crap of the type that got smoked by F-15s during Desert Storm more than 30 years ago.

    Beyond that, the Houthis probably only have the shitty drones Iran sells to Russia, and the even shittier rockets they give to Hamas, and neither of those will get the job done, either.

    So: Yeah.

    So instead of the laughable idea of direct Houthi-U.S. military confrontation, let’s turn to Peter Zeihan (yeah, him again) to talk about who the biggest losers are in the Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping. (Hint: It’s not the U.S., or Israel.)

  • “Militants in Yemen are launching a combination of low-grade ballistic missiles and drones at commercial shipping in the Red Sea. And that’s led the 10 major shipping companies of the world to basically suspend operations in that area, and either tell their ships to wait [until] the threat passes, or simply sail around the Red Sea completely, which means going all the way around Africa for the Asia-Europe run.”
  • “Here we have basically a bunch of drug-adled militants, some of the world’s least competent ones, operating from some of the world’s least valuable land in Yemen, probably at the instigation of the Iranians who are their primary supporter, because this is a little conflict that is a needle in the side of Saudi Arabia cost them very little.”
  • “This is is not a formal shutting down of trade, this is more of a heavy annoyance.”
  • It’s not the danger of being sunk deterring traffic, it’s the dangerous of losing insurance for going into a zone of conflict.
  • Who’s hurt worst by all this? First, China. “Roughly 30% of all global containerized traffic [goes through Suez], and the biggest single chunk of that is Chinese exports to the European Union…it increases the sailing distance by 1/3rd to 2/3rds, and that means you need 1/3rd to 2/3rd more container ships to maintain the same flows. So we’re going to see a lot of pinches in the supply chains for finished goods.”
  • “In an environment where consumption is basically seized up in China and all they have left are exports, it’s also going to make it a little bit easier for the Europeans to put trade sanctions on the Chinese for product dumping.”
  • The Saudis might find it a bit more difficult to ship crude to Europe, but there are some ways around that.
  • Then there’s Russia: “Because of a lack of infrastructure, Russian crude had to be exported through the same port points on the Black and Baltic Sea, but it had to be then shipped through the Mediterranean through Suez through the Red Sea across the Arabian Sea to India, southeast Asia and China.”
  • “Well, that is barely an economically viable route now, which is one of the reasons why the Russians are typically selling their crude at a $20 to a $30 a barrel discount. But if Suez is closed, then they can no longer send these small tankers through it, and these small tankers don’t have the reach to go all the way around Africa.” I find the last assertion dubious, as they are surely ports in Africa they can resupply and refuel at, especially since I don’t think any countries in Africa have signed up for sanctions against Russia.
  • “So you’re looking at something like 1.5 to 2 million barrels a day of Russian crude that might finally actually be stranded if this isn’t solved pretty quickly now.”
  • Russian insurance update: “You have some Russian players, some Indian players, and some Chinese players who have started started to offer indemnification insurance. So we might get this really colorful situation where the real shipping companies stop using Suez and the Red Sea, but these shadow companies that have never had to pay out start using it and then we get to find out what happens if an Iranian-backed militant Force hits a Chinese Indian or Russian ship.” Good times, good time…

    • I also have to wonder if there are mercenaries Ukraine could hire to carry out letters of marquis and reprisal on Russian ships…

    Posted in Jihad, Military, video | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

    Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw Files Bill To Ban DEI Statements At Universities

    Posted on December 19, 2023 by Lawrence Person

    Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw sometimes strikes me as a bit squishy, but his bill to ban requiring DEI statements at American universities is a step in the right direction.

    A Texas congressman has introduced legislation to quell diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) statements at American universities by prohibiting “ideological oaths and similar statements” on college campuses.

    The bill from Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX-2) would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 by adding that a university cannot require an employee to “endorse an ideology that promotes the differential treatment of an individual or group of individuals based on race, color, or ethnicity[.]”

    The legislation would also prohibit universities from compelling employees to provide DEI statements.

    Crenshaw told National Review that “we can see the utter moral bankruptcy in higher education with the spread of antisemitism on college campuses.”

    “Make no mistake: The DEI bureaucracy is directly responsible for a toxic campus culture that separates everyone into oppressor versus oppressed.”

    “That’s why I am dropping legislation to protect free thought and prevent federal funding for universities that force students to write diversity, equity, and inclusion statements.”

    During its 88th regular session, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill (SB) 17 banning DEI offices at public institutions of higher education. Included in SB 17 are limitations placed on admissions, scholarships, and grants programs.

    This June, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down race-based affirmative action admission policies, an opinion based on the legal challenges raised against admission policies at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina that were accused of disadvantaging Asian applicants.

    Although legal challenges to such ideas appear to be winning, the radicalization of students and young people remains an issue to be confronted.

    This is a start, but falls far short of the sort of hard reboot our social justice-infected universities really need. And it’s deeply unlikely to pass the Democrat-controlled senate…

    Posted in Supreme Court | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

    China, The Philippines, Marcos, And Blind Spots

    Posted on December 18, 2023 by Lawrence Person

    This post was going to be on how China is still screwing around in the South China Sea (and we’ll get to that), but I want to talk about the difficulty of keeping up with current events, especially of events in foreign nations, especially those nations that don’t usually receive too many headlines. It’s easy to develop blind spots and areas of ignorance.

    All of that is prelude to saying that until today, I had no idea that Ferdinand Marcos was President of the The Philippines.

    The Marcos in question is not dictator kleptocrat Ferdinand Marcos Sr., who died in 1989, but his son, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Romualdez Marcos Jr.. (Note how obvious it is that his Wikipedia entry was written by his political enemies.) He was elected in May 2022 and assumed office June 20, 2022. How did I miss that?

    In fact, I’ve actually heard more about the failed David Byrne/Fatboy Slim disco musical about his mother Imelda Marcos than I did about Bongbong.

    One reason is that I don’t subscribe to a newspaper, because I don’t want a dime going to the Democrat Media Complex. (“If you don’t read a newspaper, you’re ill informed. If you do read a newspaper, you’re misinformed.” – Probably Not Mark Twain) Ditto watching any network newscasts, and I don’t have cable.

    I checked my email, and evidently not one of the zillions of newsletters I get ever mentioned the Philippines election while they were going on. Which is odd, since it had a pretty compelling storyline: Marcos’ Vice Presidential running mate was Sara Duterte, the daughter of then President Rodrigo Duterte, in a sort of national unity ticket.

    Maybe I’m just out of touch and everyone else already knew about Ferdinand II: The Marcosing, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

    Anyway: China is screwing around with The Philippines again.

    On Dec. 9, China Coast Guard vessels fired water cannons at Philippine supply ships in the Scarborough Shoal, where the Philippine ships had arrived to resupply fishermen. That’s just the latest skirmish in the disputed atoll, which is located near the Philippines but was seized by China in 2012. In fact, in recent months, China has markedly increased its maritime bullying in the waters off the Philippines. That trend is already beginning to spread nervousness among Western businesses interested in friendshoring some of their operations to the Philippines—which may be precisely what China is after.

    The water-cannon attack on the Philippine supply ships, which resulted in one of the vessels suffering engine damage and having to be towed back to port, came only a few weeks after two other heavy-handed actions by Chinese vessels near the Philippine coast.

    In late October, a Philippine supply vessel and a vessel from the Philippine Coast Guard were bumped, respectively, by a China Coast Guard vessel and a vessel belonging to China’s maritime militia. The incidents took place near the Second Thomas Shoal, in waters that both the Philippines and China consider their own. In 2016, the tribunal in charge of enforcing the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) sided with Manila over the Second Thomas Shoal, but that hasn’t stopped Beijing from claiming it is the rightful owner and underlining this point through various maritime provocations.

    Indeed, for the past decade, there have been regular encounters between China and the Philippines in the desolate waters.

    In recent months, China has been particularly keen to demonstrate its presence around the Scarborough and Second Thomas shoals. It has rammed Philippine Coast Guard vessels and boats resupplying fishermen. It has used water cannons against Philippine vessels and tried to chase them away. On just one day in November, 38 Chinese vessels were circling the Second Thomas Shoal’s waters, according to The Associated Press.

    Snip.

    [Ray Powell, the director of Stanford University’s SeaLight group,said Beijing’s objective] is to discourage any attempts by nearby countries to follow the Philippines’ example in asserting their rights to waters that China has unilaterally declared to belong to Beijing. “China wants to communicate that it has jurisdiction in the South China Sea and gets to decide over activities there,” he explained.

    The aggression may be of the gray-zone kind—that is, not involving military violence—but it’s decidedly harmful, and not just to the Philippine and other vessels being targeted. “China’s harassment of civilian Philippine vessels carrying out humanitarian missions has a negative impact on shipping in the surrounding waters,” Amparo Pamela Fabe, a professor at the Philippines’ National Police College and a fellow of the U.S. Marine Corps’ Brute Krulak Center, told me. “It also heightens the geopolitical tensions in the South China Sea.”

    Indeed, the harassment has so alarmed the U.S. Defense Department that the U.S. military is now making a point of showing its presence off the Philippine coast, including by sending aircraft to circle above altercations between Chinese and Philippine vessels. But in reality, there isn’t much the Pentagon can do to deter the vessels from the China Coast Guard or the maritime militia off the coast of the Philippines: The United States wouldn’t risk an armed conflict with China over the harassment of Philippine vessels.

    I’m pretty sure that China wouldn’t be nearly so confident of that if Donald Trump were still President…

    Posted in Foreign Policy | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

    Italy’s Meloni Cuts The Baloney

    Posted on December 17, 2023 by Lawrence Person

    When Giorgia Meloni of the conservative Brothers of Italy was elected head of Italy’s coalition government, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the usual Eurolefty sorts and their media cheering corner about how radical, populist, etc. etc. she was. Plus the usual accusations of fascism, due Brothers of Italy having a bit of that DNA from one of the party’s it joined with being the successor party to the successor party of Il Duce. (It’s Italy. You can’t really tell all the twists and turns of party lineage without a dense color-coded flow chart.)

    Wait, you can’t tell it with one, either.

    But Meloni has generally governed as a fairly stand-issue slightly rightist leader by European standards. But recently she’s been saying and doing things that show she has a bit more starch than the usual Euroweenie leader.

    First up: She announced that Italy’s pulling out of China’s debt-trap Belt-And-Road circus.

    Italy will pull out of China’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the government has confirmed.

    Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s administration notified Beijing that it would cease participating in the BRI ahead of a deadline at the year’s end.

    Italy was the only major Western nation to sign up to the BRI, one of China’s most ambitious trade and infrastructure projects, in 2019.

    The move was heavily criticised by the US and others at the time.

    Launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, the BRI aims to invest an estimated $1tn (£794bn; €925bn) across Asia and Europe. Projects including new and upgraded railways and ports aim to connect China with Europe and other parts of Asia.

    Snip.

    Only a fraction of the up to €20bn worth of investment in Italy promised by Mr Xi in 2019 has materialised.

    Italian exports to China were worth €16.4bn last year, compared to €13bn in 2019.

    By contrast, Chinese exports to Italy rose to €57.5bn from €31.7bn over the same period.

    The bill benefited China a lot more than Italy. Indeed, Chinese investment in Italy actually dropped after signing the Belt and Road agreement, from $650 million in 2019 to just $33 million in 2021. (I suspect Flu Manchu had a lot to do with that, but, well, that was China’s fault too.)

    Now Meloni has come out and stated that Islam is incompatible with Italy’s values.

    Giorgia Meloni said, “In Europe there is a very Islamization process distant from the values ​​of our civilization!”

    Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni scoffed at Islamic culture and said that there is no place for it in Europe. “I believe that there is a problem of compatibility between Islamic culture and the values ​​and rights of our civilization,” she said.

    The premier added, “The Islamic cultural centers in Italy are financed by Saudi Arabia where Sharia is in force. In Europe there is a very Islamization process distant from the values ​​of our civilization!

    The comments come after the Italian prime minister hosted a political festival organised by her far-right party- the Brothers of Italy- in Rome which was attended by British prime minister Rishi Sunak. In his speech, Rishi Sunak said that he would push for global reforms to the asylum system while warning that the threat of growing number of refugees could “overwhelm” parts of Europe.

    A whole lot of people in Europe are thinking the same thing, but few have stated it as bluntly as Meloni, and virtually none among EU country Prime Ministers. (Though Hungary’s Viktor Orban has come closest.)

    Despite the Russo-Ukrainian War and the growing recession, unlimited Islamic immigration into traditionally Christian European countries is the hot-button topic European elites have been desperate to avoid talking about, and the one in which governing elite groupthink seems farthest away from the actual will of the people.

    Expect it to continue to be a hot topic as long as European leaders continue to ignore the consensus among citizens of EU nations that they don’t want Muslim illegal aliens coming to their country.

    Posted in Crime, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

    Russia Now Getting U.S. Forces Directly On Its Border

    Posted on December 16, 2023 by Lawrence Person

    Imagine a timeline in which Russia became a normal country.

    Imagine, instead of Putin and a corrupt oligarchy, that Russia had a functioning democracy and a viable economy. It wouldn’t need to be perfect, just something as functional as that seen in, say, Poland or Hungary. There would still be controversies and scandals, but Russia wouldn’t be an international pariah, and would still be fully plugged into the global trade system.

    And a normal country wouldn’t have launched an illegal war of territorial aggression against Ukraine.

    In such a timeline, old Russian foes Finland and Sweden would never see the need to join NATO. And Russia wouldn’t be getting U.S. bases right on its border.

    The US will gain access to 15 military bases along the border with Russia under a defence deal to be signed with Finland next week.

    Russia would regard the presence of Nato infrastructure near its borders as a threat, said Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman.

    “This will certainly lead to tension. We can only regret this,” Mr Peskov said.

    The treaty must be approved by Finland’s parliament.

    Elina Valtonen, the country’s foreign minister, will be present in Washington during the signing to meet Antony Blinken, the United States secretary of state.

    Washington signed a similar pact with Sweden on Dec 6 that gives the US access to 17 military bases.

    Concerns raised by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 led both Finland and Sweden to abandon their military non-alignment and apply for membership in the Nato.

    Finland joined in April, while Sweden is still waiting for its bid to be ratified by Nato members Hungary and Turkey.

    To be sure, the U.S. already has some access to the military bases of NATO members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. But Finland is much larger than all three combined, and has a vast border with Russia. And the Finns, as I’ve noted before, are no pushovers, having fought the Soviet Union to stalemate during The Winter War.

    And now you add American force projection to Finland, and there chances of Russia securing its vast northern flank in any potential war against NATO is essentially nil. Plus it puts St. Petersburg at risk of being captured in a swift pincer movement.

    And with real U.S. Air Force support, Russia will be completely incapable of establishing or maintaining air superiority. Ukraine has already made it prohibitively dangerous for Russian aircraft to overfly their territory. How well do you think Ivan will fare when he has to go up against F-22s and F-35s? (And yes, there are already F-22s in Estonia. And Finland and Poland already have F-35s on order.)

    Of course, Russia could have avoided all this by not launching an illegal war of territorial aggression in Ukraine. But that would require it being a normal country, which is evidently too much to ask…

    (Hat tip: Prairie Pundit.)

    Posted in Foreign Policy, Military | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments