August 23, 2026

HOW IT STARTED: New England Journal of Medicine Opinion Editor Takes Credit for Ruining Its Reputation.

The New England Journal of Medicine still publishes objective scientific articles. But in the last decade-plus, it is just as notable for its hard left political opinion pieces about issues ranging from climate change, to race relations, to promoting “equity” (as distinguished from equality), to gun control, to supporting transitioning gender-dysphoric minors, and more.

Debra Malina, Ph.D., the first and so far, only “Perspectives” editor — an opinion section where most of the woke political screeds published by the NEJM are placed — is retiring. She has written a swan song piece taking credit for bringing blatant politics to the pages of the NEJM.

* * * * * * * *

With Malina heading into retirement, the editors of the NEJM can restore the publication’s reputation as a sober and focused source of important medical information rather than one with “soul.” First, the next Perspectives editor should not be an English major or a progressive ideologue. More to the point, I would hope the editors of the NEJM will keep it completely out of politics, or at least public policy controversies that do not have a clear medical or public health nexus. That may not be as much fun as attacking Trump policies, but it is certainly more in keeping with the important public role of a respected medical journal.

Let’s just say that NEJM isn’t rushing to change the current tone of the publication:

 

Tweet concludes:

If this is the standard that academia employs, no one should ever trust academia again on any matter of importance.

And thus, it’s time: Nuke Academia From Orbit. It Is the Only Way to Be Sure.

Posted at 4:44 pm by Ed Driscoll

MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING DURING THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE:

Posted at 4:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

EMBRACE THE HEALING QUALITY OF “AND ALL OF THE ABOVE:”

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

WHEN REALITY BITES SEN. CHRIS MURPHY: The Connecticut Democrat tweets that 52 immigrants have died in ICE detention facilities and …. you can probably fill out the rest of his demagoguery. Why do I say demagoguery? Check it out here.

Posted at 3:23 pm by Mark Tapscott

COMPARISON:

Posted at 3:14 pm by Glenn Reynolds

LONGEVITY UPDATE: Common nasal spray ingredient emerges in Massachusetts lab work on aging pathways. “A common nasal spray ingredient has turned up in an unexpected corner of aging research. Early lab work suggests oxymetazoline — best known as the active ingredient in Afrin — may influence one biological process associated with aging. . . . One of the compounds that drew attention was oxymetazoline, which appeared to influence intercellular communication — the signaling system cells use to send and receive messages throughout the body. Aging can disrupt those signals, contributing to issues such as weaker immune responses and muscle and bone loss. Oxymetazoline is also found in some Sinex nasal sprays, as well as certain eye drops and creams used for redness, the outlet reported. Still, a promising lab result is a long way from a real anti-aging treatment.”

Posted at 2:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:

Posted at 1:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

BECKET ADAMS: Hollywood: Where Creativity Went to Die.

With the contraction of the theatrical model has come the death of entire genres, most notably the mid-budget romantic comedy. Sure, you can still find a new rom-com, but you will have to settle for streaming quality, where monotonous, blunt, and intentionally repetitive “second-screen-friendly” scripts that indulge multitasking home viewers are becoming the norm. “Now everyone has a phone in hand while watching,” says Rubinstien. “And because of the absolute deluge of content, a small, subtle, smart independent movie or season of television can be dumped on a streamer and washed away with the tide.”

This brings us to one of the larger problems of streaming entertainment, and of online journalism as well: quantity, not quality, is king. The streaming production model naturally incentivizes rushed output because a streaming platform is only as good as its latest offering. But quality and speed cannot coexist. The lightning-fast streaming production model doesn’t just allow for sloppy writing; it practically encourages it.

Examples abound. Take Amazon Prime’s 2021 Lucille Ball biopic, Being the Ricardos, in which Nicole Kidman, playing Lucy in 1952, uses the expression “circle back.” Or FX’s Feud, in which Jessica Lange, playing Joan Crawford in 1962, refers to herself as a “brand ambassador.” Or Paramount’s Starfleet Academy, set in the 3190s, in which a character says, “Visit the mess hall because sometimes hanger is the greatest enemy of all.” (That’s “hanger” as in the noun form of “hangry.”) And if that doesn’t do it for you, another character on the same show says of herself, “I give unpaid dating coach energy.” It’s unclear how online Gen-Z-speak survives into the 32nd century, but there it is.

Perhaps with a little more time, and a culture that values doing it well over doing it first, these scripts could have been sharper. Perhaps with a deeper bench of seasoned writers, slipshod and lazy wouldn’t be the norm.

It could be worse though. Far worse: Star Trek’s puppet episode recreates Wrath of Khan scene on Strange New Worlds.

Posted at 12:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

HOW IT STARTED:

In January 2014, desktop internet use was overtaken by mobile internet use in America. This means screens got smaller, layouts moved primarily from horizontal to vertical, and physical keyboards were largely unavailable.

This means writing a longer post was more difficult. Formatting it to appear nicely with photos in line with the text became more difficult. Reading a post that was text-heavy became more onerous. As people drifted away from their desktop computers, they began to drift away from forums.

Social media sure is easy

With most popular forms of social media, you’re being served interesting things all the time with cross-pollination all in a one-stop dopamine hit. Do you love golf, Audi cars, retro-cafe motorcycles, and sushi? Social media can easily serve that up to you in a seemingly constant stream. With forums, however, you’d probably have to log in and catch up on four or five different places. Granted, that conversation may be deeper and more helpful for technical topics, but most folks aren’t trying to read about the best way to do a valve check on a Suzuki GS450 every day when they have a few minutes to burn.

You may be saying, “Hey, it’s easier to consume, but it’s a pain to create content on Insta or Facebook.” I’d agree with you. I’d also argue it’s going to be much harder to find great content in the future (if it even exists) because traditional social platforms like Twitter and Facebook are designed to deliver the latest content, not the deepest.

— “Why are online motorcycle forums drying up and dying?” RevZilla, June 20th, 2022. (As is obvious with the headline, this is a motorcycle forum-themed article. However, anybody who has seen their favorite hobbyist Websites transform from having huge active memberships producing loads of updated content, and then shrivel down to just a few remaining diehards by the end of the previous decade, will relate to everything being described at the above link.)

How it’s going: The Great Inversion: AI Is Quietly Draining the Public Internet of Thought. “The Internet is no longer primarily a place where thinking is externalized and shared. It is becoming a place where thinking is extracted and contained:”

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

THE KARMELO ANTHONY SAGA: Sometimes, the System Actually Works.

From Fox News this morning:

A Texas judge denied Karmelo Anthony a new trial Saturday, after his attorneys argued that courtroom restrictions, hearings held without Anthony present and the handling of an unwritten agreement between his former lawyers and prosecutors violated his rights.

Retired District Judge Michael Chitty denied Anthony’s request after reviewing the motion, court record, evidence and arguments, briefs and relevant case law, according to his order. The order did not detail his reasoning for the decision.

The decision leaves Anthony’s murder conviction and 35-year prison sentence in place. His challenge will continue on direct appeal.

Well, look at that. Sometimes the system actually works. The guilty get held accountable, the legal process runs its course, and the sky somehow remains above our heads.

I’ve watched this case unfold from the beginning, and longtime readers already know my usual approach: let the story actually play out before rendering my own verdict in these pages. Don’t convict somebody because Twitter demands it. Don’t exonerate somebody because activists demand it. And, above all, don’t decide the answer first and then go rummaging through the facts looking for something you can staple onto it.

At RedState, Kyle Becker adds, “Anthony’s legal battle isn’t necessarily over. His attorneys can now take their challenge to the Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas, where his direct appeal of the murder conviction is already headed. The defense can raise some of the same issues there, and potentially advance additional claims involving the conduct of the trial. That process could take a while. Dallas appellate attorney Brett Ordiway, who isn’t involved in Anthony’s case, previously told The Dallas Morning News that the appellate court may not even have the complete record and briefing necessary to seriously consider the case until early 2027. ‘That’ll be a long road ahead there,’ Ordiway said. For now, though, the most immediate attempt to undo Anthony’s conviction has failed.”

Posted at 12:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: A dream of Cambridge. The university’s place in the public imagination is as illusory as Jason Arday’s academic credentials.

Arday’s case is egregious on many levels. Perhaps the worst of it is the university’s original response to allegations of plagiarism, which it immediately denounced as a witch hunt. It is one thing to fail to spot evidence of academic misconduct, but it is something else entirely to fail to acknowledge it when it is pointed out to you. Still, though, this sorry tale is symptomatic of a wider university culture in which so many people fear for their futures and are uncertain of what their purpose is.

Anyone who thinks Cambridge should be immune from this by dint of its prestige and privilege is missing the point. So much of the prestige and privilege of Cambridge is now bound up in leveraging the university’s – and the town’s – advantages in tech and scientific research. Social science and humanities academics can argue as much as they like about how important their subjects are for critical thinking and human flourishing – but as the new technology marches on, it gets harder and harder to feel confident that these arguments will win out.

AI is helping scientists capture Nobel prizes and helping mathematicians solve puzzles that seemed beyond human reach. What is it doing for people who read and write books for a living except to make them worry whether they can trust anything that matters again, including the essays being written by their students? Grandstanding can sometimes feel like it’s all that’s left. The joke used to be that academic politics are so poisonous because the stakes are so low. Now, it’s more like the politics are so performative because the real stakes are being played out somewhere else entirely.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

GET RID OF PESTS: Zevo Flying Insect Trap for Fruit Flies & Gnats. #CommissionEarned We got some of these traps a while back and they seemed to catch a lot of flies and gnats but it takes a while to start working (a few days).

Posted at 11:02 am by Helen Smith

CHANGE:

Hanson’s tweet concludes:

“It does not take its own editorial positions.” i.e. just the news not the liberal viewpoint. You lot failed those miserably and were properly let go when you refused to change your ways. You will not be missed.

Was it a good decision by Hegseth? If George Conway isn’t happy, then it probably was:

Flashback to the start of the year: Pentagon to ‘refocus’ military newspaper Stars and Stripes away from ‘woke distractions.’

Posted at 10:15 am by Ed Driscoll

JAMIE RASKIN HATES TRUMP MORE THAN HE HATES ANTISEMITISM. “Can anyone take this joker seriously? . . . Raskin and his whistleblowers have a logical problem. They want to acknowledge the sudden rise in antisemitism—not to do so would lose them public support—but they can’t bear to acknowledge that Donald Trump was doing something about it. So they tie themselves into knots, claiming that the administration went after Columbia, Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and other institutions not because of the flagrant (‘systemic’?) antisemitism but because Trump doesn’t like free speech/education/the ivy league/whatever.”

Posted at 9:49 am by Glenn Reynolds