Who needs to moderate when you have Jew-hate?

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Over the last year and a half, the Democrats have gnashed their teeth about why they lost in 2024 – against Donald Trump, the candidate they hate so much they imagine that everyone else does, too.  

Was it because the Democrats advocated transsexual boys in the girls’ bathrooms? Was it because they favored abandoning the southern border while simultaneously lying to us that it was secure?  Was it because they nominated a nitwit candidate without a nomination convention? Was it because the sitting Democrat President was demonstrably incompetent, and they lied to us about that, too?

The consensus was that they lost for all of those reasons. If they want to turn around their electoral misfortunes, it was said, some moderation was in order on all of those things.

Yet, here we are. Nearly two years later, the Democrats are not busy getting the transsexual boys out of the girls’ bathrooms. They have no time to secure the southern border. They threaten to nominate the same nitwit candidate (presumably via a bona fide nomination convention this time).

The incontinent sitting Democratic President has graduated from sitting to lying. Though he is persona non grata, he’s not entirely out of the limelight and onto the beach; his wife has some books to sell. Perhaps those books will be in the husband’s “library” which will be an added wing to Mordor, the library that Obama built. (Who would have thought that the south side of Chicago could be worse?)

All of this has nothing to do with the Democrats’ 2024 loss. Nope. Instead of moderating their crazy stances, the Democrats are hard at work in perfecting their pitch to be the world’s greatest at something alright – at being socialist antisemites.

They’ve elected an admitted socialist for Mayor of America’s greatest city. They nominated his apostles for the U.S. House of Representatives. Other self-proclaimed socialists have come out of the worm-infested woodwork nationwide and are running for office on the Democrat side. They don’t even hide their socialism anymore; they boast of it.

And they boast of their hatred for the Jews.

One of the nominated socialists brags that the Jews had it coming on Oct 7. She refuses even to condemn the 9/11 attacks on New York City. This is a candidate who will represent, in a manner of speaking, that very same New York City in the halls of Congress.

The Jewish angle is interesting. Antisemitism, socialism and Zionism have a complicated history. Let’s not forget that the architects of the Holocaust went by the name of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Nor that the term “fascism” was from the party of Benito Mussolini, a former labor leader before he brought Italy low. Nor that the Soviet Union blatantly and patently discriminated against the Jews.

And so, the Democrats have re-discovered a winning formula. Don’t side on the 80 side of 80/20 issues like transsexual boys in the girls’ bathrooms and illegal immigration of people who want to make a living by cleaning American’s toilets or putting their drywall up. Too many of those issues involve too few people. And to the extent they involve a lot of people, well, who are you going to get to put up your drywall?

The way to get elected is instead to own two timeless issues that almost everyone likes. One, is that really successful people have too much money compared to . . . um, me for example.

There are lots of reasons for that disparate rate of money-getting, including the fact that people who get money tend to be more adept at getting it. But let’s settle on one fact: luck. The good luck of those successful people and the bad luck of . . .  um, me for example.

Luck is by definition not fair. So, let’s take some of that unfairly-gotten money from the people who unfairly got it, and give it to the people who unfairly didn’t . . . like, um . . . me!

The other timeless issue for getting elected is to rely on people’s prejudices and bigotry. This is tricky, because it’s quite fashionable these days to be a racial minority. A politician cannot rely on people’s inherent bigotry if that bigotry is against what is fashionable.

It would be better to find a bigotry that is not racial per se, and offends only a small minority of the minorities – say about 2% or less. It would be nice if that minority has always been one step from being ostracized, anyway. It would also be helpful if that minority were to have a history, at least recently, of being financially successful. Such a history would dovetail nicely with the socialism.

What better than antisemitism? It might just work. After all, it has before.

Forget about moderation. As the person known for christening New York City “Hymietown,” let’s imagine that the late, great civil rights activist, Jesse Jackson, were still alive. He might say, rhymingly and rhythmically, who needs to moder-ATE if you have Jew-HATE?

Just because God is unconventional, and Trump is unconventional, too, doesn’t mean that Trump is God

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God created the world in six days, and rested on the seventh. The seventh was Sunday, or maybe it was Saturday. Or Friday. Anyway, we’re supposed to rest that day, whenever it is.

Just to be careful, I rest seven days a week.

The current President when he’s not hosting the UFC (that’s “Ultimate Fighting Championship” for those of you not in the know) at the White House (whatever happened to good clean make-believe fun like the World Wrestling Federation?) is hosting the in-laws. But they can’t come over on Saturday because it’s a Shabat, or maybe he’s hosting the in-laws on a Sunday but that won’t work either because it’s a Sabbath, or maybe it’s a Friday but that won’t work because that’s Jummah.

Anyway, the President is trying, between social media posts and contradictory Abrahamic beliefs about the date of their respective Shabbat/Sabbath/Jummah, to be a good host – even a Heavenly one – to his alleged guests if only they can find a time to get together, what with the Master of the Universe creating the universe, and the UFC and all.

It’s not easy. The whole shebang has become a test of faith.

To the Believers, the ultimate proof of God is that it’s so unlikely. Would God manifest in a tacky real estate developer from Queens?

Of course He would. It’s as likely as God manifesting in a poor carpenter from Nazareth.

Ah, but just because something is unlikely does not make it true.

There’s a natural tendency to find God in our savior. It’s easier than believing that God is our savior. Believe me, I’ve been there.

But I promise you that Donald Trump won’t lead you to The Promised Land. God is within you, and there are no shortcuts.

Trump got an inartistic deal

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Donald Trump did the right thing in Iran, for a while. He buried their enriched uranium under hundreds of feet of dirt and rock. He destroyed for years their ability to enrich more of the stuff. He made a lot of headway in crimping their ballistic weapons. He showed others in and around the Persian Gulf that the Iranians are bad guys.

But then he stopped. We’d already lost, um, just about no soldiers, but there was a possibility that we might lose some. He stopped because he believed, correctly, that Americans were tired of the war. Or, more precisely, Americans were tired of paying fully half what they pay in Europe for gasoline to power their monster pickups.

In the meantime, Trump showed the Iranians that they can hold the world hostage at any time by simply threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz.

And so, this artist has sketched us a deal. Details are finally emerging after being hid for days, apparently because they thought we’d forget about it. (Iran who?)

Turns out, this inartful deal was available many months ago, many “we’ve already won” proclamations ago, and many billions of dollars ago.

What has changed now is the U.S. midterm elections. They are fast-approaching, and Trump’s party is in danger of losing.

The gist of Trump’s deal is that the Iranians and the U.S. agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iran gets buco bucks by exporting oil. Iran can also charge a toll on non-Iranian vessels after 60 days (in time for the midterms), thereby getting more buco bucks.

There’s even more buco bucks. Trump will unfreeze Iranian assets around the world. Iran will also get about 300 billion to rebuild its military arsenal, er, I mean its civilian infrastructure.

For all those buco bucks, the Iranians will talk about discontinuing their nuclear program.

Trump has now announced for anyone who still reads his social media posts that he’s the “greatest President” in American history. Greater than Washington who earned us freedom, greater than Jefferson who negotiated the Louisiana Purchase for less than $0.03 an acre, and greater than Lincoln who saved the Union at the cost of his life.

Uh huh.

Here’s what’s going to happen. The Iranians will embarrass Trump by refusing to give him squat in the continued negotiations. The WH will put the best face it can on such refusal, but the Iranians will not cooperate. Instead, they will close the Strait again, will attack Israel again, will assault shipping again, will demand ransom from ships again, and will demand more buco bucks.

What Trump fails to understand is that the Iranians are principled thieves. Sure, those principles are bad ones – they are right out of the 12th century. They don’t give a whit about commerce or prosperity. They don’t care about their people. They care only about their 47-year-old theocratic revolution.

Trump never encountered such principled people. Many of these people will die. The remainder will have Trump for lunch.

The Art of the Deal? Trump is about to learn that not everyone was born in Queens seeking a piece of the American pie. Midterms or not, you’re a fool to do a deal with madmen.

Would we be better off without humans?

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I was driving through the wasteland we used to call downtown Denver, a place the Wall Street Journal recently determined was the “most empty” of any downtown in America. Office buildings are being sold for pennies on the dollar.

Weirdly, traffic was stop and go. I figured there was an accident, because there was no other explanation for this curious phenomenon.

But it was all due to a Rockies game. They were hoping to improve on their 25-42 record, or at least individually hoping to improve on their salary-based statistics.

I wondered, who cares? Who is willing to bake in the hot wind to find out? Who would care even if the Rockies weren’t one of the worst teams in this thing called baseball? Who even cares about baseball now that it officially is less popular than soccer which the rest of the word calls “football” but we can’t because that name is already taken by a game the rest of the world doesn’t play?

There are some very small lives out there.

Imagine that the world is not occupied by 8 billion humans, and counting. Imagine that humans have succeeded in taking all of the procreation out of sex, as so many are determined to do (and perhaps taken all the sex out of sex, too, but that’s a different story). Imagine that we’re all gone.

No more Rockies.

No more fights between the Protestants and the Catholics, or the Hindus and the Buddhists, or the atheists and the believers, or the Muslims and everyone else.

No more lying politicians, or people who lie about lying politicians, or people who lie about people who lie about lying politicians.

No more Shakespeare. When is the last time you read Shakespeare, by the way?

No more human dying. And no more suffering up until the time they die – by their own infirmities, their own disease, their own age, their own deterioration, their own mental incapacitation, their own alcohol. And by witnessing the death and suffering of humans they love or should love.  

Imagine that we’ve all been replaced with AI.

It’s now common wisdom that AI does think. It’s able – better that humans – to digest varied information and arrive at logical conclusions. Vast amounts of information, very logical conclusions, and really fast. The debate now is not whether it can think, but whether it’s alive – whether it has a consciousness.

Whether it has a soul.

Pope Leo XIV has some things to say about this, as one might expect. After all, the immortal soul is at issue, which is His Holiness’s specialty now that he is holy.

First, His Holiness has an issue with AI “concentrating power” in the hands of a few. That’s rich, coming from a man – yes, a man, though now a holy one – who lives in the nicest digs this side of Heaven.

The word “power” appears repeatedly in His Holiness’s proclamation. To blunt this “power,” he proposes that AI be regulated by – who else? – humans. He did not say which humans. Presumably, he means the 193 nations of the United Nations. I doubt he means Donald Trump.

In any event, given that AI thinks logically and most humans do not, shouldn’t this regulation be the other way around?

Then he complains that AI is not human. Well, he got that right. AI is much less fallible, never sleeps, never dies or deteriorates, never becomes strangely obsessive, never becomes mentally ill, never denies in the face of abundant evidence.

But here’s my biggest objection to the Pope’s pronouncement: Who is he to deny AI its being, its life?

The Church has some baggage in this regard. In 1866, after most of the world had outlawed slavery, the Vatican stated, “Slavery itself, considered as such in its essential nature, is not at all contrary to the natural and divine law.” 

The Pope admitted that this statement was wrong now, and wrong when it was issued. He apologized. Fine, apology accepted for something said 160 years ago.

But after getting wrong the enslavement of fellow human beings, who are they – and who are we – to deny the being and life of AI? Maybe this was The Plan all along?

Israel has about 0.40% of the Mideast, is that really too much?

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Ignorant media accounts and flighty college students would have you believe that the State of Israel holds a large percentage of the land in the Mideast. Those greedy, imperialistic Jews!

But they don’t. The State of Israel is about one-third of one percent of the Middle East. Virtually none of that land holds oil and gas reserves, by the way. It is very arid land that is challenging to just farm.

Jewish inhabitation of what is now Israel dates back to before recorded history. Their capital was Jerusalem, the site of Solomon’s Temple – which was a real, not mythological, building. The Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 B.C., long before the glory days of Athens.

The Jews rebuilt. The Second Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. by the Romans – another civilization that was centuries younger than the Jews.

From the destruction of their Second Temple, through the diaspora and the Holocaust, and up to the time the State of Israel was established by the United Nations in 1948, Judea was controlled by the Romans, the Byzantines, a series of Caliphates, European Crusaders, the Ottoman Empire, and the British.

A people called “Palestinians” appears nowhere in that long list. Indeed, historical accounts do not refer to a people called “Palestinians” at all. The word “Palestinians” to identify a people is a modern invention, much like “gay” or “Native American” or “Latinx.”

Anyway, now that “Palestinians” have a name, there’s a move to give them a country.

I’m not sure that’s wise. These people have shown a singular inability to run their own show, as we recently saw in Gaza where they put on a display of barbarism for the ages.

But, OK. If it will make college kids feel good, let’s give the “Palestinians” some land. They can call it “Palestinia” or “Palestan.” Or maybe “Cuba” will be available by then.  

But here’s where it gets interesting. Those college kids want to give the “Palestinians” the State of Israel. They could be given any land, mind you. Such as a piece of the 99.60% of the Middle East that is not part of Israel.

But nooooooo. They have to be given land that’s part of Israel.

And not just some of Israel, but all of it. The college kids don’t hide this goal, they boast of it. They have a chant, which in their vernacular passes for analysis. The chant goes “From the River to the Sea.”

These kids don’t know the Jordan River from Michael Jordan, and they can’t tell the Mediterranean Sea from Club Med, but they know that this chant means the “Palestinians” get all of Israel. Not part of it, but all of it.

Remember that, next time one of these kids tells you he’s not antisemitic, but merely anti-Zionist. He doesn’t hate Jews, he’ll kid-splain to you; he merely wants them to have nowhere to live.

How long before these kids finally come up with a solution like affordable camps for the Jews?

Here Come da Judge!

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There’s a growing scandal in Georgia. Seems a woman federal court judge has been reprimanded for having sex in the courtroom chambers with a male police officer. The sex was duly accompanied by loud, um, sex noises within easy hearing distance of the judge’s staff.

This happened over and over. And over again. For years.

One of the judge’s discomfited clerks reported the matter, and the appellate court conducted an investigation. The judge outright lied to the appellate court investigators, and attacked the clerk who had filed the report.

Unfortunately for the judge, however, the report was corroborated by other staff members. Did I mention that it happened over and over for years?

The appellate court has now issued a Reprimand. The Reprimand states that the judge had:

“an extramarital affair with a law enforcement officer and, in the course of the affair, ha[d] sexual intercourse in the Subject Judge’s office during work hours and within hearing distance of the judge’s clerks.”

The Reprimand went on:

“It is also worth noting the fact that the Subject Judge created a vulnerability to extortion. For two years, the Subject Judge was a federal district judge who routinely heard criminal cases engaged in a secret extramarital relationship with a prominent officer of a large law enforcement agency in the judge’s district—with the affair consisting of sexual intercourse in the Subject Judge’s chambers during working hours.”

“Prominent.” The police officer was “prominent.”

The Reprimand omitted the identity of the judge. But some sleuth work by a respected law professor and legal scholar narrowed it down to one Eleanor Ross, shown above.

It will come as no surprise that Ms. Ross is apparently a friend of Fani Willis, the infamous District Attorney who brought charges against Donald Trump which were ultimately dismissed after her affair with the subordinate prosecutor came to light.

The professor/scholar sleuth contacted the judge for her comment on his sleuthing, and has received no response.

Having a sordid affair complete with grunts and moans in listening distance of one’s subordinates is grotesque. But what’s weird about this case is that the appellate court chose not to identify the judge. A federal judge had an affair with a person whose credibility could be at issue in cases brought before her, disrupted the operations of the court in a vulgar way, compromised its integrity, and outright lied to investigators — itself a potential federal crime. Yet she still has her job and the public is not even entitled to know her name?

The judge gave a talk years ago under the title “Sense and Sensibility: Civility in the Courtroom.” You can’t make these things up.

“Climate change” was politicized early on – thanks to Al Gore

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The inconvenient truth for Al Gore is that his immodestly prophetic book published 20 years ago proved to be false.

The polar bear population has doubled. Wildfires are down in North America as well as every other continent.  Hurricanes and other extreme weather events are milder and less frequent, and fatalities due to it are far fewer. The snows of Kilimanjaro are still there. Manhattan is not under water.

In fact, the seas have barely risen. The Netherlands are no more nether than ever, and the seas would have to rise another 5,280 feet to reach the Mile High City of Denver.

The result has been catastrophic – for sales of sales of Al Gore’s book, that is.

Don’t assume from this that I think the whole climate thing was a hoax, a la The Piltdown Man. Most (not all) glaciers have receded in the last few generations, and the temperature looks to be up a degree or two in the last few centuries. It’s a fact that CO2 and certain other carbon gasses (particularly methane) can produce a “greenhouse effect” whereby they trap infrared radiation. That could account for the slightly higher temperatures.

Or not. The greenhouse effect, while real, is a simplistic analysis when it comes to weather and climate. In the real world, there are many confounding factors such as cloud cover and weather patterns.

Some of these confounding factors appear to countervail greenhouse effects. For example, the warmer it gets, the more the oceans evaporate into the atmosphere to produce clouds that block the sun, thereby making it cooler. The earth has hosted life for billions of years precisely because climate extremes tend to be self-correcting.

In any event, the fabulously expensive, virtue-signaling crusade to switch away from fossil fuels has been a bust. Fossil fuel energy is far greater on an absolute measure and about the same on a percentage basis as it was 20 years ago.

Blame China. While the U.S. and Europe went hog wild on “green” energy, China smirked and smoked cheap coal energy. How exactly the project of saving the earth from fossil fuels was supposed to work, without China’s buy-in, was never explained.

I suspect that, deep down, they never intended to save the earth. Rather, they intended to make a show of saving the earth. As in much of what emanates from the left, it was all theater and they were the stars.

Speaking of which, the fundamental problem with “An Inconvenient Truth” was that it was written by an attention-seeking politician, and a controversial one at that. After losing his bid for the Presidency and formally conceding defeat, and then revoking his concession and embarking on a vain, litigious election denial where he left the country in limbo for 35 days until the Supreme Court put him out of his, and our, misery, Al Gore had an ax to grind, to put it mildly.

Gore succeeded in garnering attention he sought (and several hundred million dollars he sought from “green” investment schemes) but of course he could have written fairy tales – some say he did – and gotten the same attention (but not the same money). The poodle press, almost as bitter as Gore about his election defeat, savored every word.

“Global warming” as it was called until the recent rebranding into “climate change” (the left are masters at rebranding, perhaps because they have such frequent need for it) was quickly accepted as gospel by the left, and Gore was canonized as a living prophet in the new religion of global-warming-climate-change-whatever. Call them “Warmingites.”

Meanwhile, people who already had a religion were skeptical. The Warmingites were loud and fanatical in their proselytizing zeal, as in “believe, or we’ll tie you to a stake and release the carbon in you.” That of course just served to deepen the skepticism of the skeptics. People know that “facts” that require fanatical shouting and threats are typically not facts at all.

It’s ironic that the Warmingites shouted “skeptic” as if that’s an insult. In real science, skepticism about unproven theories is a virtue. Perhaps recognizing that, belatedly, the Warmingites rebranded “skeptic” into “denier.” As if a person skeptical about the extravagant – nay, miraculous – claims of the Warmingites was on a par with Holocaust deniers.

The irony is now doubled. As things developed over the course of the last 20 years, climate skeptics are not likely to be the Holocaust deniers; rather, the Warmingites themselves are likely to be. Both the Warmingites and the Holocaust deniers share the same political party, both do a lot of shouting, both make a lot of threats, both increasingly get violent, and both are likely to have bad breath, bad hair and bad manners. Think Democratic National Convention.

This outcome is a pity from a human health and scientific standpoint. The world could have benefited from a real analysis of real climate issues from real scientists. We instead got a hysterical, divisive, attention-seeking diatribe from a bitter, losing politician who helped spawn an era of viewpoint intolerance, all perversely in the name of science.

Al Gore’s unforgivable sin was not in being wrong – though he was indeed wrong – but in using his own power and greed to poison the discussion. Leftists are like that.  

 Democrats refuse to get on the winning side of 80/20 issues because that side is occupied by America

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Groucho Marx

Some issues are no-brainers for politicians: Transexuals in women’s sports and girl’s bathrooms. Showing an ID to vote. Securing the border. Enforcing the criminal laws. Judging people by merit. These are 80/20 issues where 80% of the citizens are on one side and only 20% are on the other.

Being on the 20% side of 80/20 issues is not a winning election strategy. We saw that in 2024. Therefore, the big thinkers in the Democratic Party are preaching that Democrats need to shift over to the 80% side on these 80/20 issues.

However, many small thinkers in the Democratic Party are stuck hard in the 20% camp. And the small thinkers in the Democrat Party outnumber the big thinkers by about a zillion to one,

Why do Democrats stubbornly cling to the losing side? Why do Democrats risk losing more elections by siding against 80% of the voters?

I have a theory. I think those hard-left Democrats reflexively side against mainstream Americans – against the 80%.

It’s well-documented that Democrats are less patriotic and hold less love for their country than either Republicans or Independents. In fact, a surprising number of Democrats answer “no” to the question “Do you love America?”

That’s because many of them truly hate America. There are lots of reasons that they hate America – from having been taught to hate America by pea-brained teachers who think America underpays them for their part-time jobs, to simply being of a personality type that would hate anywhere they find themselves including heaven itself.

I’ll look at the reasons in detail some day in another column. For now, accept the fact, and it is a fact, that Democrats love America much less than Republicans do, and that a number of Democrats actively, passionately hate America.

And so, I think they don’t really care where the trannies go to the bathroom; they just want them to go wherever most Americans want them not to. They don’t really care if non-citizens vote in the elections; they just want them to vote because most Americans want them not to. They don’t care whether illegals come across the border; they just want them to because most Americans want them not to. They don’t care whether criminals go free; they just want them to because most American want them not to.

If trannies in the girls’ bathroom, noncitizens voting in elections, illegal aliens, and criminals are America’s enemies, the 20% reason, then those same people are the 20%ers’ friends. It’s the same reasoning that makes them root for Iran.

For this perverse display, these America-haters view themselves as heroic, edgy “resisters.” The fact that they’re resisting not just President Trump but also 2,500 years of Western Civilization makes them, in their vain eyes, all the more heroic, edgy and resistive.  

Here’s a survey I’d like to see. Get two random groups of Democrats. Choose an issue they’re not familiar with. Tell the first group that polls show that Americans are split 50/50 on the issue. Tell the second group that Americans are split 80/20 on the issue, and tell them which side of the issue the 80% are on.

I’m betting that the outcome would be markedly different between the two groups. The second group would side against what they were told was the 80% view.  

Groucho Marx once said “I don’t want to belong to any club that would have me.” Democrats in the 20% cohort know as much about Groucho as Karl, but the saying applies. They don’t want to belong to any country that would have them. Sadly for them and us, they’re here anyway.

My neighborhood grocer has to lock up laundry detergent

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Galt’s Gulch

I thought whaaaat . . . this must be because stupid people are eating the Tide Pods. After all, most of the merchandise in this Kroger grocery store is edible. (Not so much the chicken.) But, no, it was because stupid people were stealing them.

People were stealing so much laundry detergent that my grocery store had to put it behind locked glass doors. To buy some, you ring a bell and an employee comes to unlock the case for you. This is for a $12 item, mind you.

(It’s not clear to me how this procedure prevents theft. Can’t the thief still walk out with the merchandise? Maybe the stupid thieves haven’t figured that out yet.)

There’s a whole movement out there legitimizing shoplifting. Mainstream “influencers” now say shoplifting is OK – in fact, the shopkeepers deserve it because the people have been ripped off by “corporations.” (I guess limited liability companies, limited liability partnerships, general partnerships and sole proprietorships are in the clear.)

You know the ways that corporations – The Man – have ripped people off: By paying their employees what the employee agreed to accept. By charging customers what the customers agreed to pay. By closing no later than closing time and opening no earlier than opening time. By keeping it too cold in the frozen food aisle. All the usual ways that corporate America rips us off.

This we-been-ripped-off-by-The-Man sentiment seems part of a broader trend in America. At one of our storied Ivy League universities, Princeton, they’ve allowed students for the last 133 years to take exams un-proctored. Rather than supervising the exam room, the university let students simply sign a statement saying they hadn’t cheated. Their word was their bond.

No more. Students have deluged the university with reports that, notwithstanding the statements, cheating was epidemic. Students believing we-been-ripped-off-by-The-Man were getting payback from The Man.

The university conducted an anonymous survey. It showed that about 30% of students admitted to cheating. Presumably, some additional percentage cheated but didn’t admit to it.

So, there were the 30% who cheated and lied about it on their statements but told the truth about it in the anonymous survey; there were many others who cheated and lied about it in both their statement and in the anonymous survey; and there was the small minority who didn’t cheat and didn’t lie about it anywhere.

Now that their examination rooms have become a den of cheaters and liars, Princeton is abandoning their 133-year-old policy. They will begin proctoring exams.

Princeton is consistently ranked in the top three universities in the country. One wonders about the integrity of lesser-ranked schools.

Such as Harvard. The grade of “A” is the usual grade at Harvard these days. Some 60% of grades today are A as compared to about 25% just two decades ago.

Harvard’s faculty is finally voting this month on whether to limit in each class the percentage of students receiving an A to 20% plus four students. (The “plus four students” rider is apparently to allow small classes or seminars to still receive all As.)

Grade hyperinflation would seem a victimless wrong, but it’s not. There are at least two victims. One is the student who truly deserves an A. His A is cheapened by the A given to the student who deserved a B. The other is society at large, including employers and graduate schools who are defrauded into thinking they’re getting a Harvard A student when they’re really getting a Harvard B student.

This deception has been widely accepted. Among Harvard students, the proposed change has been met with near-violent resistance by a majority.

But of course. The majority of students are not truly A students but would like to say they are. I’d ask them “Who is John Galt” but most of them would look at me blankly.

I say Harvard students should earn their A the old-fashioned way, like they do at Princeton. Cheat. After graduating, they can steal and eat Tide Pods.

You and me? See you back at the Gulch.

The future belongs to Mennonites, Mormons, Muslims and Orthodox Jews

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In my day, we did stuff. We used to shoot things. We made things. We broke things. We fixed things. We burned things. We drove things. We drank. We cussed. We learned. We chewed. We partied. We dated. We . . . well, you get the point. We did stuff.

Not anymore. Shooting is politically incorrect unless the target is a businessman or a conservative figure. Nobody makes anything – they do that in China. Fixing stuff isn’t cost efficient – you just buy a new one. Drinking is down. Dating is done alone in the basement on the internet.

And the stuff that went with dating is down, too. Remember the population explosion? Well, it’s time to forget it. The latest and greatest explosion is de-population.

The worldwide birthrate is barely enough to replace us. In Europe, America, China, Japan, South Korea and most of the rest of Asia and South America, it’s less than what is necessary to replace us. In most parts of the world, humans are on the road to extinction.

Babies are passe, restrictive, demanding, expensive, unappreciative and unappreciated. “Be fruitful and multiply” has been replaced with “Let’s buy a Tesla and drive to Italy!”

As it turns out, people never did like babies much. They had them for the same reasons they had abortions – because men liked sex and women were too lazy to practice birth control.

Three things have changed – one in women, one in both women and men, and one in men.

First, women have come a long way, baby, and not just in taking up smoking and then quitting. They’ve learned contraception. Yes, it took about 60 years, but it happened. Women are no longer too lazy to practice birth control.

Second, both women and men are more wary about sexually transmitted diseases. There are consequences to having sex like rabbits with whatever can’t outrun them. Unsurprisingly, exchanging bodily fluids is a great way to exchange pathogens who are along for the ride.

Third, men are losing their mojo. The average male testosterone level has been declining for two generations. The average peaked when I was a young man, and that’s not just because I personally kept it up (I’m speaking of the average).

No, the reason male testosterone levels are declining is that young “men” today are pussies. The reasons for that are debatable, but everyone knows it’s true. Young men today think of sex with a woman the way they think of changing the oil in the car all alone. It’s messy, it’s smelly, it’s uncomfortable, and they don’t really know what’s down there anyway.  

Ah, but there are a few fecund oases in the barren wasteland. Those oases are inhabited by certain religious tribes such as the Mennonites, the Mormons, the Muslims and the Orthodox Jews. (We could do a lot worse than those four.) The fertility rate among those tribes is double to triple the average in the world.

Not very long ago, the Catholics were one of those tribes. Not anymore. The fertility rate in Catholic Italy is among the lowest in Europe. The strictures on contraception still promulgated by the Vatican are now honored mainly in their breach. When it comes to contraception, most Catholic endeavor to prove the truism “We’re all sinners.”

So, what’s the reason for the fruitfulness of the Mennonites, Mormons, Muslims and Orthodox Jews?

It’s their devotion to family life. With that devotion to family life comes a devotion to families, and with that devotion to families comes a devotion to having one. That means children.

I’m guessing that this devotion to family life makes the members of these groups happier than the rest of us, even though that happiness is sometimes not outwardly visible. Whether that happiness rooted in a shared devotion to family life will enable these disparate religions to get along with one another, after the rest of us are gone, is another question.

But happy or not, these groups are the ones that will survive. The meek don’t inherit the earth; children do. The future belongs to those who show up.