April 16, 2026

YES:

And here’s some additional perspective:

Posted at 1:31 pm by Stephen Green

THEODORE DALRYMPLE: We Shall Not Fight on the Beaches.

In 1973, Jean Raspail, who died aged 94 in 2020, published his dystopian novel The Camp of the Saints, for which he is now mostly remembered (certainly outside of France, though he was the author of many other well-considered novels and travelogues, and narrowly missed election to the Académie française). The Camp of the Saints is a book that refuses to lie down, so to speak, despite attempts to render it invisible or make it go away.

* * * * * * * *

Immigrants are not just immigrants. What they bring with them is as important as what they are offered by the host country. If what they bring with them is an evangelizing religion that claims, however fatuously, to be the answer to all of mankind’s little problems, a religion moreover that has a very strong hold over them and that is maintained by an effective system of social ostracism in the event of dissent, they will obviously have more difficulty integrating than if they have no such religion.

Raspail’s flawed novel is an illustration of an elementary political principle. For a liberal democracy to work, there must be a demos; for there to be a demos, there must be something more in common among them than living geographically cheek-by-jowl (without at the same time demanding an absolute uniformity). To import huge numbers of people who do not share, and indeed are resistant to sharing, the minimum that holds a demos together is inimical to liberal democracy.

In this most important sense Jean Raspail was visionary, even if he did not correctly identify the source of the greatest threat. Perhaps the most revealing thing in the book is his account, in the essay that precedes the novel, of how prominent political figures either ignored or repudiated The Camp of the Saints in public, but agreed with it in private. It proved to be a disastrous disjunction.

It’s the good Dr. Dalrymple, so read the whole thing.

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

YEP:

Posted at 12:59 pm by Stephen Green

REMINDER THAT EVEN LARRY TRIBE THOUGHT SHE WAS TOO DUMB TO BE ON THE COURT:

Flashback: Letter to Obama: Sotomayor not that smart. “One of the nation’s most respected Supreme Court scholars, Laurence Tribe of Harvard, suggested last year that President Obama not appoint Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court because she’s not smart enough. . . . Tribe wrote, ‘her reputation for being something of a bully could well make her liberal impulses backfire and simply add to the fire power of the Roberts/Alito/Scalia/Thomas wing of the court.'”

Posted at 12:43 pm by Glenn Reynolds

QUESTIONING THE TIMING:

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

GET WOKE, GO BROKE APPLIES TO CHURCHES, TOO:

Posted at 12:04 pm by Glenn Reynolds

WOW:

Posted at 11:58 am by Stephen Green

REALLY, ALL I NEED IS A CUP OF DECENT COFFEE WITH MAYBE A LITTLE CREAM: Starbucks’ ChatGPT experiment could quietly reshape how people order coffee.

Starting April 15, users will be able to turn to ChatGPT for help deciding on their next Starbucks order through a new integration with the coffee chain. To activate the feature, users simply tag @starbucks within a chat with the AI agent to trigger the new in-platform beta Starbucks app.

Users will be able to prompt ChatGPT to offer drink order advice based on mood, cravings, or even an image. For instance, a user might prompt ChatGPT with “@starbucks I’m looking for an iced pick me up,” with the LLM then suggesting an Iced Dragon Energy Drink alongside 5 additional options.

“Over the past year, one thing has become clear: customers aren’t always starting with a menu. They’re starting with a feeling,” Paul Riedel, senior vice president, digital & loyalty at Starbucks wrote in a blog post announcement.

A real boon for people who need help with this sort of thing, I suppose.

Posted at 11:43 am by Stephen Green

REMINDER: THE POINT OF OUR CURRENT ELECTION LAW ISN’T NECESSARILY TO STEAL EVERY ELECTION, BUT TO DISCREDIT THE SYSTEM:

Posted at 10:56 am by Stephen Green

DEVELOPING: Former Virginia Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax Fatally Shoots Wife and Himself in Murder-Suicide. “Fairfax served as the lieutenant governor under former Democratic Governor Ralph Northam from 2018 to 2022. While in office, the lieutenant governor was accused of sexually assaulting two women years earlier. He maintained the sexual encounters, one of which took place in 2000 and another in 2004, were consensual. He then launched an unsuccessful bid for Virginia governor in 2021, coming in fourth in the Democratic primary. Prior to his tenure as lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax served as a federal prosecutor. On top of the sexual assault allegations against Fairfax, the Northam administration was also rocked by the emergence of a yearbook photo from 1984 depicting two men, one in black face and the other in a Ku Klux Klan costume. Northam initially said he was one of the two men but did not specify which. In the days following the scandal, however, Northam said he was not actually in the photo, but did admit to wearing black face for a Michael Jackson dance competition. Northam, however, never resigned.”

UPDATE:

 

Posted at 10:55 am by Ed Driscoll

BIDEN FORGOT THEM WHILE THEY WERE STILL GOING ON:

Posted at 10:25 am by Stephen Green

THE ENEMY WITHIN:

Posted at 9:54 am by Stephen Green

FOR DEMS, A WELL-PROSECUTED CAMPAIGN AGAINST A LONG-STANDING ENEMY IS A CRIME: Dems file 6 impeachment articles against Hegseth. “House Democrats will introduce six articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday accusing him of abuse of power, war crimes and other serious wrongdoing.”

Have no doubt: With a few (very few) notable exceptions like Sen. John Fetterman, Dems chose a side — and it isn’t America.

Posted at 9:39 am by Stephen Green