May 6, 2026

THE POWER OF SOCIAL CONDITIONING:

UPDATE (From Ed):

More (From Ed):

Posted at 10:55 am by Glenn Reynolds

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Will A.I. Make College Obsolete?
Americans already distrust institutions, including academia. More and more people may decide that its stamp of approval isn’t worth the cost. When the New Yorker of all establishment organs says this, it’s a sign: “If we agree that college primarily serves a credentialling process that stamps select young people as worthy of work, and, if we agree that A.I. helps to expose it as such, might we not conclude that, at some point, people will collectively stop paying into the system, or will start seeking out other, less expensive credentials?”

Emphasis added by me, but basically there in the original.

Posted at 10:42 am by Glenn Reynolds

K12 IMPLOSION UPDATE:

Too sensible to take hold.

Posted at 10:00 am by Glenn Reynolds

BEEGE: Keir Starmer Should Have Looked in the Harbor Before Signing Those Ukraine Loan Papers.

X has been full of reports of the Russian shadow fleet running fearlessly close to UK shores, basically with impunity.

Then off went the Prime Minister to Armenia this past weekend, to hobnob with his globalist European Union masters and see what he could do to bend the knee to earn further favor. It turns out that it only takes money.

The Bond villainess running the show wants £1B-a-year dues to join the EU club, and Starmer agreed to sign the UK up for the debt pool to finance the Ukrainian war and defense effort.

That little collective note will be setting its borrowers back by some £78B.

‘Where, oh, where,’ some observers of this off-site profligacy wondered, ‘will we ever find the money for OUR OWN DEFENSE if we’re paying for theirs?’

Suspicions were already high that the defense of the British Isles was not high on Starmer’s to-do list, and that came shockingly into public confirmation yesterday.

Much more at the link.

Posted at 9:38 am by Stephen Green

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Let’s Hope Georgia Voters Realize 2021 Was One Big, Stupid Mistake. “Chris’s post has a laundry list of reminders about all that has hit the fan regarding the Southern Poverty Law Center recently. It’s no surprise that Ossoff has been remarkably mum about it all thus far. That won’t be easy to do once it’s general election time. Again, that all depends on whether the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the likely nominee Rep. Mike Collins play their cards right. That’s never a given with Republicans, but at least we know that Collins knows how to win an election.”

Posted at 9:07 am by Stephen Green

“GOOD FAITH” AMONG THE CRITICS IS RARE.

Posted at 8:49 am by Glenn Reynolds

YEP. IT’S NOT ABOUT WHAT THEY’RE DOING, IT’S ABOUT NOT LETTING THEM GET AWAY WITH IT.

Posted at 8:43 am by Glenn Reynolds

HARSH BUT UTTERLY FAIR:

Posted at 8:42 am by Glenn Reynolds

REDISTRICTING: Gov. Hochul eyes redistricting after NY loses residents, House seats.

Gov. Kathy Hochul said New York has been losing residents to other states because of a failure to build enough housing. She said that loss also cuts into the state’s representation in Congress.

“We’ve been losing too many New Yorkers, as I said, to other states because of our failure to build housing,” Hochul said.

Hochul said fewer residents make New York “more vulnerable” when Republicans in other states redraw districts to keep control of the House.

She said she planned to meet with Congressman Joe Morelle to discuss redistricting in New York and how that process could move forward after what she described as changes in the legal landscape following a Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act.

Hochul said any change in New York would not be done only by lawmakers and would instead have to go before voters.

“And I want to make sure that New Yorkers have a chance to vote on this — this will not just be done by the Legislature,” Hochul said.

There’s so much more than housing behind New York losing residents, but “affordable housing” is a lot like homelessness — it’s a longterm opportunity for graft, not a problem to be solved.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN):

Posted at 8:36 am by Stephen Green

HOW IT STARTED:

Fast-forward to the 1970s. Kenner’s a division of General Mills. It makes Easy Bake Ovens, and tops wish lists with its Six Million Dollar Man merchandise based on the day’s hit cyborg-action series. (Television shows, not movies, was where it was at for the toy industry.) Then one day a filmmaker shows up with an oddball proposal. Corky Steiner paints the scene: “A number of toy companies passed on [this] unusual presentation with funny names… These names are ridiculous. [People thought,] ‘This guy must be nuts.’”

“No, he’s not nuts,” Kenner’s research-and-development team says of Lucas and the pitch for his unseen film, Star Wars, per Steiner. “Everything we think we see in this script is a toy. This is a bonanza.”

—“The First, Worst Star Wars Christmas: A Look Back at the ‘Brilliant,’ Toy-less 1977 Holiday Season,” Yahoo, December 14th, 2015.

How It’s Going:

Tweet continues, “So they bought it for billions and the creative dept feminized it defeating the entire purpose of buying it to begin with.”

As John Nolte wrote in 2023, “Disney went woke and killed what even the stillborn Lucas prequels couldn’t kill: the magic of Star Wars.”

Posted at 8:35 am by Ed Driscoll

TRAPPING PEOPLE IN THEIR CAR IS VIOLENCE: Dear Cornell kids: Blocking a person’s retreat is threatening his life.

A student group at Cornell University claims university president Michael Kotlikoff “hit us with his car” after a debate over Israel. Students for a Democratic Cornell call the incident a “violent response to student inquiry.”

It’s quite the story: The University refuses to allow open debate about Israel, and resorts to violence to silence dissent!

But video released by Cornell shows a different story: Students tried to stop Kotlikoff from leaving, and he tried, as slowly as possible, to exit.

Because he was in a car, that slow retreat was inherently dangerous to those trying to detain him, but Kotlikoff was still totally in the right.

There’s a legal principle in self-defense called the “duty to retreat.” If someone is 100 feet away from me and shouts, “I’m going to stab you,” I still probably shouldn’t shoot him. I should try to get away instead. In New York State, where Cornell is, that duty to retreat is actually written into law.

Notably, Kotlikoff was literally trying to retreat. The anti-Israel activists were following him, and he was trying to go home. They attempted to stop his departure by blocking his car. First, they stood behind his car as he was trying to reverse. (There was a brick wall in front of him.) Then one student jumped in front of the car when Kotlikoff was trying to pull forward.

Never did Kotlikoff drive fast. At all times, he drove excruciatingly slow. Did he bump one of the activists or run over a foot? Maybe. That’s a risk that comes with operating an automobile. It’s a risk that is justified in this case.

People engaging in these kinds of tactics deserve to get hurt. They should also all be summarily expelled.

Posted at 8:30 am by Glenn Reynolds

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE:

Posted at 8:22 am by Ed Driscoll

BETRAYAL ISN’T A CHRISTIAN VALUE EITHER, YOU JUDAS:

UPDATE: This.

Plus:

Posted at 8:19 am by Glenn Reynolds