Is there bias in the Harvard admissions process? Now that it is hurting the Jews, the facts come out. An interesting finding is that heretofore a well-qualified Jew has had a 1000% better chance of admission than a similarly qualified Gentile. Ron Unz's article traces the history of discrimination, describing the period. 100 years ago when there was in fact discrimination against Jews. However, since the Jews took over academia, it appears to have gone strongly the other way. Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was no discrimination at all?
Here is a quote and a graphic from the article.
Based on these figures, Jewish students were roughly 1,000% more likely to be enrolled at Harvard and the rest of the Ivy League than white Gentiles of similar ability. This was an absolutely astonishing result given that under-representation in the range of 20% or 30% is often treated by courts as powerful prima facie evidence of racial discrimination.
Unz is of course Jewish, as is another of the most acerbic commentators on the whole scene – a guy who is right so often that nobody likes him – Dave Cole. The theme of his recent article is that since Elon Musk has opened up on the egregious excesses of the ADL (the name Anti-Defamation League is a bit of a misnomer, it's more like the defame-everybody-else, especially white conservatives league), the fear of criticizing the Jews has diminished to the point that people are actually doing it. As Cole points out, now that the Jews might actually deserve a bit of sympathy vis-à-vis Hamas, they are not getting much. That's the theme of a couple of aphorisms I coined a decade ago.
Cole's point is that the Jews' financial clout remains undiminished. The smartest thing for Republicans to do is not to attack them but to simply ask for fairness. But, as with college admissions above, the pendulum always swings too far. I add wryly that the joke may be on the Jews in another way. After they a fortune to get that Ivy League degree, it is being widely revealed that the diversity scam has made that expensive piece of paper kind of a joke. Harvard and MIT diplomas are well represented among the former acquaintances who detest what I say but never venture to write arguments as to why I'm wrong. As will no doubt be the case with this piece. I laugh.
Tucker Carlson and other conservatives are making a big deal of the fact that Gonzalo Lira has gone to meet his maker. A less worthy hero I cannot imagine. Lira cultivated a slovenly appearance, a cigarette dangling from his sneering lips. He could say nothing good about Ukraine and nothing bad about Russia. He made prediction after prediction of imminent Russian victory that turned out to be totally wrong. A small fraction of his stuff is still up on YouTube. The most recent posts are sympathetic. Those a year or two old show the man I saw.
He wasn't outright killed. He died of an untreated medical condition. Easy to believe just looking at the man that he suffered from a few afflictions. Prison is not a good place to get sick, and it is not a good place to make yourself unpopular, as I am sure he did. At any rate this worthless piece of crap has died a martyr's death. Better than he deserved.
Some prognosticators are looking over the horizon to what happens once the impending collapse is over. Collapse of what you ask? Just about everything – the economy, our money, faith in government, the schools, the DEI and ESG agendas, the WEF. (My word processor often thinks it knows more than I do. It just substituted WTF there. Psychic). Writing on Taki Magazine, Bunky Mortimer proposes that it may end with a whimper rather than a bang. A whimper is not great clickbait, but I wouldn't discount this alternative.
A couple of days ago Putin came right out and said that he wasn't going to give back any of the land that Russia had conquered. It was clear from the outset that conquest was his goal, but he had heretofore said that the mission was to demilitarize Ukraine, get rid of the Nazis or some such nonsense. No, conquest was what he had in mind all along. He said so. Pet philosopher Alexander Dugin said so. How could my Republican friends have been so duped?
The Soviet Union fell apart when they could no longer control the Eastern European satellites or restive parts of the Soviet Union itself such as Ukraine. I have written for quite some time about the discontent among the subjugated peoples. Denys Davidov reports today about an uprising of the Bashkirs. About 10,000 people showed up to demonstrate in a town of 17,000. The issue in question does not seem that weighty. The Russians want to drill in a mountain that the Bashkirs consider sacred. There is more to it than that. The Bashkirs are also tired of being dragged off the streets and sent to die here in Ukraine.
Tying back to a previous article, I note that a major bridge on the trans-Siberian railroad is located in the the Bashkir capital of Ufa. There are also major oil pipelines running through the region. Restless natives could be a significant problem for Putin. They could disrupt his logistics chain to North Korea and China. If Bunky Mortimer above is right, Russia could dissolve into a number of entities small enough not to pose much threat to world peace.
The girls and I again walked over the frozen lake on her way home from school yesterday. Though it is covered with snow for about 3 inches, there are patches that have been sufficiently cleared that you can look down through the ice. The old Farmer's almanac says three or four inches is safe to walk on. There are several layers of bubbles, the bottom of which I estimate to be about 8 inches down. While I expect that refraction on the surface of the ice means that my estimate is off by a bit, if it is like water I would underestimate the thickness, and 8 inches gives me a pretty good margin of error.
Those are the reflections – or refractions – from Lake WeBeGone, where Thursday is excursion day for Zoriana. We couldn't take a bus because there was another air raid warning, so mom drove us into town. By the time we got there it was over. As I write there is another one going on, but it is two hours before I have to pick her up. Life in a war zone.
Lira got caught spotting Ukrainian military positions for the Russians - photo plus GPS coordinates. I'm surprised he wasn't shot on the spot as a spy - but I'll bet his media connection saved him. The guy was a traitor to his adopted country, his actions resulted in the deaths of many. The people who treat him as a martyr tell us volumes about themselves in so doing. Just as Horst Wessel was a martyr to the Nazis, Gustavo Lira may become one to his fellow travellers - maybe he'll get a song, too.
As for US Republicans, at least the ones I know, I wonder how duped they are - or if they're maliciously ignorant. Trying to get ones I know personally to read this -https://tec.fsi.stanford.edu/docs/aleksandr-dugins-foundations-geopolitics - has been an uphill battle, even if I literally stick it in their face - and their response is just mute silence, no engagement, no "oops, got this wrong" - nothing. It differs from the Party Line and so it doesn't exist. I think they know deep down that they're badly wrong, but they'd be the last to own up to it, it would crush their fragile egos or something, and better to have an intact ego rather than to realize you made a mistake - like when I found this article above in April 2022. It took me about ten days to get "kicked out of bed", the massacre at Bucha sealed the deal.
I admire a great deal about the achievements of Jews and I actually have sympathy for Israel. But I would have a lot more sympathy, if ever Jews showed any sympathy for others. They do tend to be terribly self absorbed. It's a shame, because it's self defeating, they have a tendency to push away people who would be their natural friends. It's a great weakness they have.