March 16, 2026

GAMING THE SYSTEM ON SYLLABUS TRANSPARENCY? There are reasonable arguments both for and against requiring public university syllabi to be open to public view. There’s no argument for pretending they are open while they’re not really, unless you want to make state legislators morally certain you’re hiding something awful.

Posted at 1:54 pm by Robert Shibley

WELL, YES: US could take Iran’s main oil export hub ‘at a time of our choosing,’ Jack Keane says.“We can take Kharg Island at a time of our choosing, and we choose not to take that now,” Keane told “Sunday Morning Futures.”

“Would we take it in the future? Those options are there for the president, likely towards the end of this? Because, if we take Kharg Island, either we occupy it or blockade it, there’s a number of things that we can do.”

Keane said such a move would effectively put the Iranian regime in “checkmate,” given how heavily its economy depends on the island.

“Now we [would] own all of their major assets. It’s 50% of their budget, 60% of the revenue, 80, 90% of the distribution points for their oil,” he said.

The real question is how long we’d stay there, with American fingers around the neck of a sizable fraction of China’s oil supplies.

Related: It’s all about China: Trump’s seemingly chaotic global policy all makes sense.

Marines are reportedly on the way.

Posted at 1:44 pm by Stephen Green

HE WAS WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING, STILL TOASTED BY LEFTIES:

Posted at 1:28 pm by Stephen Green

HOW IT STARTED: Oscars 2026 First Look: This Year, the Stage Is a “Sanctuary of Celebration.”

The Academy Awards is Hollywood’s biggest night on its biggest stage—and this year, that stage is an especially zen space.

Each year, production designers Misty Buckley and Alana Billingsley reimagine the stage at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre. Some years it’s grandiose and bold; other years it harkens back to the golden era of Hollywood. But it’s never been as green as it is this year.

This year’s design—debuting exclusively with Vanity Fair—is especially unique. The theater has been designed to represent a calming garden courtyard, with greenery woven throughout it. It’s an ode to this year’s pointedly handmade theme—“A Human Touch”—as well as an attempt to create what feels like a relaxing space in a chaotic world.

“There is an unsettled nature around the climate right now, and there’s just something very calming about being surrounded by architecture, but having this space for trees to grow,” Billingsley tells Vanity Fair. “We are exploring the contrast between the organic and the rigidly architectural, and that creates the feeling that life can exist anywhere.”

How it’s going:

Yet another to ignore Tinseltown’s environmentalist fervor: “This trashed mausoleum is the only honest Oscar they earned last night…the trophy of their own degeneracy, captured in high definition for anyone with eyes and a spine to see. The immigrants they exploit will clean it. The rest of us will remember it. And the Hollywood trash will pretend, once again, that none of it ever happened.”

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

LOL:

Rest in wrongness, Paul.

Posted at 12:57 pm by Glenn Reynolds

THIS IS NO TIME TO GO WOBBLY:

Posted at 12:50 pm by Stephen Green

IN HOLLYWOOD, HATING COMMUNISTS IS A MORTAL SIN; CHILD RAPE IS A PECCADILLO AT WORST.

Posted at 12:45 pm by Glenn Reynolds

LEFTIES PLAY THE LONG GAME: The Gun Control Push in Virginia is About More Than Just Banning ARs and 30-Round Magazines.

The response from gun owners was predictable: “LOL, Dems are so dumb! Don’t they know their bans just cause panic buying? Millions more guns and mags are sold than would have been without the ban!”

Here’s a hard truth, though: The gun-banners know all of that…and they don’t care.

This isn’t just about banning scary guns and magazines, it’s about destroying the gun culture in the long term. You will still have your guns and your mags, but those who aren’t yet into shooting (or who are too young right now) will be denied them.

And politics is downstream of the culture, as the wise man once said.

Posted at 12:42 pm by Stephen Green

I HAD BEEN ASSURED BY ALL THE VERY BEST PEOPLE THAT EPIC FURY WOULD SHATTER OUR ALLIANCES:

Of course, some allies are more useful than others:

Posted at 12:26 pm by Stephen Green

MAYBE WE NEED A “MADMAN” THEORY OF HISTORY:

The truth is that nobody expected the world’s only superpower ever to act like one again, defending its interests with appropriate force and enthusiasm.

Posted at 11:55 am by Stephen Green

ANOTHER REMINDER THAT THIRD-WAVE FEMINISM IS ABOUT THE REVOLUTION AND NOTHING ELSE:

Posted at 11:24 am by Stephen Green

HOMELESS, INC.:

If Gavin Newsom ever solved the homeless problem like he keeps saying he will, his cronies would never forgive him.

Posted at 10:53 am by Stephen Green

HOMELESS, INC.: DiNapoli Report Analyzes Increases in NYC’s Unsheltered Population and Spending.

But even as the city provided shelter for more people, street homelessness continued to rise from 3,588 in FY 2019 to 4,504 in FY 2025.

The city’s Department of Homeless Services (DHS) Street Homeless Solutions (SHS) division is tasked with overseeing outreach and related services to counter street homelessness. Spending on these efforts has more than tripled from $102 million in FY 2019 to $368 million in FY 2025, and is expected to reach $456 million in FY 2026, with planned spending declining to $442 million by FY 2029.

I wonder what the ratio is of administrators to actual homeless.

Posted at 10:38 am by Stephen Green

MEMORY-HOLED:

Posted at 10:22 am by Stephen Green