Sep 172020
 

This is spectacular. Princeton University, of Ivy League Fame, has a President who decided that a struggle session was in order, and wrote an open letter  where he said:

Racism and the damage it does to people of color nevertheless persist at Princeton as in our society, sometimes by conscious intention but more often through unexamined assumptions and stereotypes, ignorance or insensitivity, and the systemic legacy of past decisions and policies. Race-based inequities in America’s health care, policing, education, and employment systems affect profoundly the lives of our staff, students, and faculty of color.

Racist assumptions from the past also remain embedded in structures of the University itself. For example, Princeton inherits from earlier generations at least nine departments and programs organized around European languages and culture, but only a single, relatively small program in African studies.

From this bit, it seems President Eisgruber’s biggest claim that his university is racist is that it has “nine departments and programs organized around European languages and culture,” which as anyone who isn’t a self-hating nincompoop will realize isn’t racism so much as recognition of reality, what with our nation, civilization, culture, etc. all being derived from European cultures. “English,” after all, isn’t a language that originated in Uganda, but in *England.* But the university President thought it was a neato-keen idea to be seen grovelling before the Outraged Idiotarian Mob, and decided that talking smack about his own university was a good idea.

Ooops.

Education Department opens investigation into Princeton University after president deems racism ’embedded’ in the school

According to a letter the Department of Education sent to Princeton that was obtained by the Washington Examiner, such an admission from Eisgruber raises concerns that Princeton has been receiving tens of millions of dollars of federal funds in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which declares that “no person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

Ruh-roh.

Seems to me that Eisgruber has two options:

  1. Stick with the “We’re racist” line and risk having the FedGuv drop *massive* fines upon them. If he does this and the board back him up, I hope that they get hit so hard that Princeton goes *down.* Nearly sixty years worth of fraudulently received federal aid had got to amount to a *lot.*
  2. “Ha Ha, now, wait, I was just kidding.” if this dolt thinks that abasement and struggle sessions are such a good idea, let him do so in a way that tries to minimize the damage his prior idiocy has done.
 Posted by at 8:20 pm
Sep 172020
 

This time it’s not just random schmoes who, in some sudden moment, blurted out Wrongthink. No, this time it’s people who plotted and planned to commit acts of violence and criminality, complaining that, lo and behold, there are consequences.

I fully expect that corporate HR departments keep or perhaps trade back and forth databases of people who get themselves into the news, their mugshots splashed on the pages of local or even national news. I certainly hope that *somebody* is keeping a record of all the commie scumbags who have been arrested – and generally promptly released by commie scumbag DAs/prosecutors. Most of them may well not face the legal system for their crimes. But it would be advisable for companies to know that so-and-so was arrested for setting a Starbucks on fire or for  trying to blind cops or for being an extremist whackaloon trying to tear down civilization. Not only are such people bad employees – you never know when they’ll decide to set the break room on fire – they are also a PR nightmare.

Portland Protesters Say Their Lives Were Upended by the Posting of Their Mug Shots on a Conservative Twitter Account

 

 Posted by at 3:49 pm
Sep 172020
 

A lot of people wanted to defund the police. In cities where the police have been defunded, held back, stood down or demoralized, they’ve gotten exactly what you’d expect:

Homicide Stats Show ‘Minneapolis Effect’

Short form: less police, less policing, more crime. This is hardly surprising. This is undoubtedly what a great many of the “defund the police” crowd *wanted,* a get-out-of-jail card so that they could live out their criminal fantasies without risk of legal consequence. The statistics indicate that nationwide 710 additional murders have so far been committed, each and every one of which can be laid at the feet of the anti-police protestors and their facilitators, supporters and enablers in the media and politics.

But there are other areas of life where government spending really does need to be slashed. Behold:

D.C. Public Schools Spend $30K Per Student; Only 23% of 8th Graders Proficient in Reading

The article describes a number of states that are doing a terrible job educating their students. Such as:

The public schools in Oklahoma spent $8,935 per pupil in 2016-2017. But only 26% of eighth graders in Oklahoma public schools were proficient or better in reading, and only 26% were proficient or better in math.

Yes, Oklahoma is doing a *terrible* job. But they’re doing it at one third the cost.

In contrast, Utah is spending $8,794 per pupil and is at 38%. That still seems terrible to me, but the best of the bunch is Massachussetts, which spends $18,490 per pupil to score 45%.  What this shows is that outcome seems to be virtually wholly unconnected to spending. As such… slash the spending. Use that money for some other purpose… free one-way flights to foreign lands for those who hate the US, for instance.

 

 Posted by at 8:16 am
Sep 162020
 

Attorney General William Barr suggests charging violent protesters with sedition

Good. We are *looooong* past the time when people rioting in the streets could legitimately claim that they were protesting some injustice. After the most recent incident of a knife-wielding lunatic getting *justly* shot by a cop in Lancaster, PA, whackaloons took to the street in “protest.” You have to be a grade-A doubpleplusungood moron to not recognize that this is a good shoot of a truly dangerous person:

And that’s jut one. The majority of the cases that people claim to be protesting about, from Michael Brown on up to Jacob Blake, have turned out to be unfortunate but justifiable, even praiseworthy, incidents of police shooting someone posing an immediate threat. We’ve skated well past the time when it’s reasonable to assume that the protestors are on the up-and-up; it’s time to recognize the violent ones for what they are: enemies of the state, the people, the culture who want to just tear everything down and dance on the ashes. Best to stomp them down *now* before they plunge the US into a full-on civil war which will kill millions and will likely lead to the end of western civilization as a going concern.

 Posted by at 5:35 pm
Sep 162020
 

Huh.

A giant planet candidate transiting a white dwarf

In short: 80 light years away in the constellation Draco a Jupiter-sized (up to about 14 times as massive, thought) planet orbits a 6-billion year old white dwarf star a mere 11,000 miles in diameter, once every 1.4 days. The orbit is apparently stable.

There is virtually not a chance in hell that the gas giant evolved in that orbit around the original star. When the original star died and became the white dwarf, it likely would have shed a *lot* of mass; in which case any planets orbiting it would have moved outwards or been lost entirely. However, had there been other massive planets, other small stars, or perhaps wandering rogue stars, gravitational interactions could have knocked the planet into a highly elliptical orbit with e very close periastron. Over time the elliptical orbit could have circularized that close in.

What I’ve found hasn’t given data for the semi-major axis of the planetary orbit… but it’s got to be pretty close. Should be interesting to see what sort of system this is and how warm the planet is. Being 14 times more massive than Jupiter means that it could *easily* have multiple moons Earth-sized or even bigger, depending of course on tidal disruption from the star. It would be an interesting place if the planet is close to the white dwarfs habitable zone.

 

 Posted by at 12:37 pm
Sep 142020
 

First U.S. Small Nuclear Reactor Design Is Approved

That sounds like good news. One issue, however:

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has approved the design of a new kind of reactor, known as a small modular reactor (SMR). The design, from the Portland, Ore.–based company NuScale Power, is intended to speed construction, lower cost and improve safety over traditional nuclear reactors…

Portland? OREGON?!?!

Anyway, it’s a 50 megawatt design, able to be built in clusters to gin up to 600 megawatts. A company exec is quoted as saying they think they can sell up to 1,682 of the reactors by 2042… which sounds like a lot, but it would still only produce around 82% as much energy as the current set of larger reactors. Of course if hundreds of small reactors start coming online producing cheap, safe, reliable and carbon-free electricity, one imagines that larger reactors will also start coming along. Ideally, thorium and breeder reactors will also *finally* enter production. Additionally, a very large number of reactors should require a large number of a new generation of nuclear scientists, engineers and technicians… *exactly* the people you need to develope even more advanced nuclear power systems, including fusion systems. You certainly won’t advance the cause of civilized humanity by hiring THESE idjits.

Looks like the first unit will be sold to power Utah, but will be located in Idaho. I still think that the Great Salt Lake would be a fantastic place for a few hundred of these things.

 Posted by at 8:46 pm