August 12, 2026

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Cambridge vice-chancellor insists Arday case is an ‘aberration.’

Cambridge’s vice-chancellor has described the Jason Arday fiasco as an aberration.

In her first comments on the scandal that has engulfed the university in recent weeks, Prof Deborah Prentice acknowledged the “anger and anxiety around this damaging and difficult case”.

She said the university’s investigation into the appointment and tenure of Mr Arday would be “thorough and transparent” and would “begin as soon as possible”.

She insisted that the importance of the university’s “staff of colour” was not in question, saying “this particular case is an aberration and should not be used to cast aspersions on their work or the legitimacy of their roles at Cambridge”.

Prof Prentice, the first American to hold the post of vice-chancellor, also appeared to shift the blame for Mr Arday’s appointment to the Faculty of Education, highlighting that “appointments to senior academic roles … are currently led at department level”.

“The Letter on Jason Arday From Cambridge Vice Chancellor Is Objectively Funny,” David Strom writes:

IT’S NOT MY FAULT! It’s those damn Education Department folks who did it! Not to mention other institutions who should have investigated Arday (they did, and pretended nothing was wrong). Did you know that the Education Department made this decision? They did! Not me!

And don’t look askance at other DEI hires. This was an “aberration.” There is zero reason to believe that our standards are anything but unbiased.

Uh, yeah, right. And Anthony Fauci was an honest and perfect scientist and public servant. How dare you insinuate otherwise? Now go get your booster, and don’t worry about those changes to your menstrual cycle, risk of myocarditis, and increased risk to your fetus. It’s fake.

Trust us.

Dumping the responsibility on everybody but the administration is ludicrous. No BBC film crew mobilizes just because some Education professor asks them to. That comes straight from the top. No sane person can look at the full court press from every single cultural and academic elite institution to canonize Jason Arday without concluding that they were desperate beyond measure to emphasize how wonderful black academics are.

Prentice can bury her head in the sand, but hopefully others in England won’t. “Expect a parliamentary discussion about the issue, especially since the police tried to intimidate people into staying quiet. What a mess, and it is all their fault.”

UPDATE:

Posted at 6:47 pm by Ed Driscoll

OUR 1984 WAS MUCH DIFFERENT FROM WHAT ORWELL PREDICTED:

Posted at 6:23 pm by Ed Driscoll

ABE GREENWALD: Welcome to Woke 2.

It’s now clear that the fiercest elements have indeed come out on top. The revolution is no longer dominated by the ideas of featherweight academics such as Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo. All that redemptive white fragility and anti-racism and intersectionality was sundered in a flash after October 7, 2023. A few bestselling authors didn’t stand a chance against the Marxist-jihadist alliance that swooped in with its genocidal chants and terrorist regalia. Woke 2, if we’re going to call it that, is in the hands of Communists and Islamists.

The word “crazy” is inadequate to the moment—when New York City’s mayor doxes thousands of innocent people; when someone who worked in a former al-Qaeda front group is a Democratic congressional nominee in New Jersey; when leading candidates around the country belong to a political party that wants to abolish national borders, the Senate, the presidency, and Israel; when CEOs are gunned down on the streets, and when elected Democrats stage run-ins with Jews in the West Bank.

Yes, that’s the other part of my warning that has also come to pass. The non-revolutionary Democratic establishment has thrown in with the leaders of Woke 2. They’ll flock to the revolution’s winners, whoever they may be. Having distanced themselves from defunding the police, pronoun enforcement, and “gender-affirming care,” they now rail against Jewish money, Jewish influence, and the Jewish state.

AOC is denouncing Woke 1 because crazy really is a political loser. But evil? Evil’s got legs.

Sadly, I think we may be forced to see them: Alert: The Brocialists Are Dandymaxxing.

 

Posted at 5:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Google cofounder Sergey Brin has now spent $100 million to fight California’s proposed billionaire tax—he could owe $13 billion if he loses.

According to a filing from Friday, Brin donated an additional $20 million to Building a Better California, a PAC and political advocacy organization opposing the state’s billionaire tax and supporting other pro-business policies and housing and infrastructure affordability. He has now given a total of $102 million to the group.

Proposition 40, which will be on the ballot in November, would impose a one-time, 5% tax on California’s 200 billionaires, with 90% of the revenue from the proposed measure going toward the state’s health care program and 10% going toward education, food assistance, and administration. Brin, with a net worth of nearly $270 billion, could owe more than $13 billion as a result of the tax.

Previously: Gavin Newsom urges a national ‘billionaires’ tax’ while fighting one in California.

Democrats want a national billionaire tax (that will mysteriously end up applying to far lesser beings) on the national level in the hopes that there will be nowhere to hide from it.

Posted at 3:50 pm by Stephen Green

GO AWAY: New surveillance tech links your phone to your license plate.

Imagine that you share a ride to work with the same colleague most mornings. As it passes by a license plate reader, the camera records the car, which can be linked through vehicle records to its registered owner. Beside it, another sensor detects signals broadcast by devices traveling nearby, such as your phone and your colleague’s smartwatch.

After enough trips, software may treat some of those devices as a recurring electronic signature associated with the vehicle. Weeks later, one of the same device signals appears alongside a different car connected to an investigation. The signal itself may not contain its owner’s name, but its previous association with a known vehicle gives investigators another clue they can use to work out who was carrying the device.

SignalTrace, a system marketed by the security company Leonardo, is designed to work alongside automatic license plate readers. The company says it can recognize groups of consumer devices that regularly move together, then associate them with license plate records and time-stamped locations. The pattern can then be searched even when a police investigator does not know the plate number.

Wanted: A car-sized Faraday cage.

Posted at 2:48 pm by Stephen Green

WOKE 2.0 HAS SUCCESSFULLY DEFUNDED THE FASHION POLICE: Alert: The Brocialists Are Dandymaxxing.

 

 

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Tax refunds gone for ‘foreseeable future’ under Prop NN.

A measure referred to Colorado’s November ballot by the legislature would allow the state to keep and spend over $850 million in just the first two budget cycles after passage, revenue that otherwise would be refunded back to taxpayers.

Majority Democrats passed Senate Bill 26-135 during the last legislative session, which placed Proposition NN on the ballot. The measure would allow the state to retain excess tax dollars collected over the current Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) revenue cap to spend on public education and cover homestead property tax exemption reimbursements.

According to a new report by the Common Sense Institute, Prop NN would increase state spending by $329.9 million in fiscal year (FY) 2027 and $521 million in FY 2028, totaling $850.9 million over the two years.

Those are funds that would otherwise be sent back to taxpayers under TABOR, the constitutional amendment that limits growth of a portion of the state budget to a formula of population growth plus inflation. TABOR also requires voter approval for tax increases, among other things.

If NN passes, Dems will pass along our tax refunds to their cronies in public education.

It’s For the Children™, of course, but as always, little or none of the additional monies will reach any classrooms.

Posted at 1:46 pm by Stephen Green

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Jason Arday is far from an aberration in higher learning:

 

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll