Of all the random Jeff's in the world... they got the Editor in Chief of the Atlantic Jeff.

Talk about bad luck.

Came here to post that I never get invited to the cool group chats. Good for Jeffrey.

Thanks, hadn't seen that.

So the French Scientist was randomly selected for screening and the TSA (mis-)characterized them as "hate and conspiracy messages" that the FBI investigated and dropped?

Seems like shockingly bad luck and sub-optimal, yes. I'm at least a little curious whether they were orangeman bad memes or kinda unhinged hate speech that would get you arrested in the UK -per links above - by way of comparison.

The other example from Newsweek was:

"Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a physician at Brown Medicine in Rhode Island, held a "valid" H-1B visa when she was detained at Boston's Logan International Airport last week. She was returning to the U.S. following a trip to Lebanon to visit family. U.S. officials said she had photos of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, whose funeral she attended."

Seems potentially optimal... she wasn't randomly searched, but rather either the DHS knew she attended the funeral and barred her entry or she voluntarily said she attended the funeral (reporting isn't certain on either of these points) and her case was referred to DHS.

I will, however, adjust my priors one-tick to the left that 'maybe' this is something keeping an eye on to see if it's a real pattern emerges.

My baseline assumption is that it's related to Mahmoud Khalil... which strikes me as a bad comp for tourists; are there other instances I should be looking at?

Strikes me as odd because *in England* you can be arrested for what is posted on Facebook; but while visiting America there is no real or imagined risk of being 'deported' while on vacation for something you might have posted on Facebook that wouldn't get you arrested in England in the first place.

Specifically:
Communications Act (2003)
Online Safety Act (2023)

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/127

The night before was 'The Incredibles' and was packed when we drove by (in our golf cart... which is something people do now -- in my day you took open sided Trams and liked it).

'Ways to be Wicked' is the opening to the Descendants 2 movie that cleared the room. Long Live Evil is more of a slogan, I guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX6g_cm2rM4

This is a good way to put it; the Disney creative types kinda hate the Disney vibe.

Its funny, we were visiting my folks in FL and took an impromptu trip to Disney. We've been going to Fort Wilderness since 1973, and the new 'Cabins' are really nice for families. Anyhow, we went to the nightly Campfire where you roast marshmallows, sing songs, do the hokey pokey, and then watch a Disney movie. Pretty much the same thing since 1973.

The 'singer' is really a sort of stand-up act with corny G-rated jokes plus a few insiders for the Moms/Dads... actual Chip and Dale in costumes come up as props (my kids have no idea who Chip and Dale are). And everyone sings Country Roads and a bunch of other Americana. My 10yo boy laughed at the jokes, groaned at the puns, sang the songs and then did the big group hokey pokey (with Chip and Dale).

As I say, completely on-brand Disney lightly humorous Americana.

Then the Disney Movie started: Long Live Evil music video

Sure, the movie (Descendants 2) is a dreadful 'Saved by the Bell' quality tween drama, but dreadful cringe it is. Desperate to be cool and failing at every step. We left after act 1 (as did everyone else), but the drop off from 200 people dancing the hokey pokey with a 50yo guitar playing comedian? Couldn't be more clear when witnessed in person.

Anyhow, my 17yo daughter went to see Snow White last night with her friend because they like princesses and are a little ironic tuned; her friend is 'really' conservative (which, given us is, well, remarkable) so I'll get the 17yo conservative girl princess take when she gets back from work.

Worst CGI evah pic.twitter.com/X64KImLc9p

— Marchmaine (@Marchmaine) March 12, 2025

This is Ravenna and Belasarius erasure!

My personal pet peeve was 'Early Modern' starting in 1500 and going to 1800. Felt like it was leading the witness.

410 to 793 is about as long as I'd go for an 'era' ... 793 to 1071 is the Varangian era ... Vikings/Byzantium/Carolingians

At any rate, Empires coming and going have nothing to do with 'Darkness' and there's little to be 'learned' about Rome's fall in 476 - especially since it survived and thrived until 1453. In the 'Dark Ages', the dominant powers were Rome and Persia (and China)... and those darned Steppe Peoples. And...

In my forties: Expensive restaurants are playing my Jams!

YOU DON'T NEED A SIGNATURE TO RELEASE THE FILES

Ted Cruz furiously [CTRL-F / Replace] through the remaining documents...

Trump's final humiliation / gift.

No Jack Ruby, no conspiracy theories.

Dang it... here's the msn.com one that isn't paywalled.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/elections/this-is-why-kamala-harris-really-lost/ar-AA1B9iF3

Are we ready to relitigate why Harris lost the election?

David Shor and Vox are... Why Kamala Harris Really Lost

Here are two takeaways to give the Dems some hope (the others? not so much):
• Democrats’ most effective message in 2024 was an economically populist one.
• Donald Trump is leaning into the most unpopular parts of his agenda.

p.s. not sure if the link will work... google took me to msn.com but vox had it locked.

Hope and Change we can all rally around...

I'm not sure I follow. Are we now talking about the financial impact on all of education from Student Loans? I agree that the program has had unintended consequences on the entire Higher Education cost structure, but the relationship to Private/Public institutions is not linear. That is, student loans have increased the cost of all education. We could (and should) try to 'un-distort' the funding for Higher Ed. But, that way leads to unpacking assumptions about how the fundings is being used. Are we funding the Student to access all education opportunities, or are we funding institutions, or are we going to create two tiers of Education: one Publicly Funded and the one where the Good Jobs (tm) come from.

Sure, what's the official record that Biden pardoned those people?

It's the eSignature, no?

What's the process to verify that Biden executed the eSignature and not a staffer?

As I said above, I'd be fine if Biden publicly read from a list all the people he's pardoning... no signature required.

You guys are getting hung up on 'THE SIGNATURE' not what's the process to validate that the President 'granted' these pardons?

Otherwise, what's the ex-post facto defense in court that Trump privately pardoned me over the phone... as long as Trump - after he's president - says he pardoned me privately over the phone.

It's a lot like Trump claiming he declassified the documents in his heart as he was leaving the oval office.

That's a good point too. I don't think Carter signed a pardon for every draft dodger.

But, he did sign a document that pardoned a class of people. So he did sign/issue a pardon.

https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/proclamations/04483.html

But I'm not sure you'll get very far with the constitutional argument... the argument isn't for a signature, its for proof that the President issued the Pardon and not a staffer.

I could theoretically back this concept if the President were to orally pardon someone by invoking a clear statement of intent publicly witnessed and validated.

Did that happen?

To pick at your pick...

"That doesn’t mean the government can just come in and shut things down for no reason other than speech it doesn’t like"

There's a very, very thin line between it working like that and it not... and that line is independent accrediting agencies. Right now there are multiple (mostly regional) accrediting agencies that give schools enough room to work with this agency rather than that agency which keeps the process somewhat solvent.

There are a handful of schools that take 0% funding from Govt for just that reason... ironically if we wanted to use the heavy hand of Govt funding to coerce the Private Schools into one direction or another, then the Ivies would drop Govt funding, but many (but not all) smaller mission driven schools would fold.

It would look a lot like suppression of speech, and probably would be...

Not surprisingly, I think the funding is to the Student and not to the Schools... and, as long as the schools meet a minimum agreed upon standard, then that funding is the Student's to dispense. Which, via accreditation, is pretty much what we have now.

Heh, only accidentally; it's definitely not the core mission.

Mostly because that's a Motte/Bailey argument... for every past societal wrong that we all agree is a societal wrong and is being addressed through ordinary culture, there's 1000 imagined societal wrongs where the imaginers are wrong and are forcing wrongness via institutional capture -- that's a form of liberal totalitarianism.

This is probably one of those things that doesn't constitute fraud prima facie as Trump seems to imply; *but* is probably one of those things that we either need to put very strict controls around verifying that the eSignature is executed directly by the Executive via a secondary validation - like video.

So, eSignatures could be a legitimate 'tool' for signing things, but the tool can't be automated to the extent that we're not sure that each and every signature was reviewed by the executive at the moment of signature.

To be clear, the signature can't be 'delegated' to a batch of things... each thing has to be signed, the button has to be pressed each time by the person authorized to push the button.

Anything else is something we should put explicit checks around (if we haven't already). So, I'll wait for statements as to how the process is actually managed before passing judgement.

::Elrond I was there.gif::

I was at the opposite end of Berkley: Notre Dame.

Here's the weird counter-intuitive Marchmaine take: I'm ok with *Private* universities/colleges having, say, a DEI litmus test... if that's the driving principle of your Academy, then you should screen for it as to how the faculty you hire will contribute to that understanding.

As I've written before, the issue with the Ivies is that they were a proxy for *Public* meritocracy... they aren't any more, and that's ok. If the Ivies want to reclaim a sort of public position of eminence, they will need to rebuild it according to whatever lights they want to follow. But as Private Universities, they are entitled to drive their projects off any cliff they want.

State funded universities/colleges (and k-12), however, need to be neutral institutions... 'Mere' Education if you will. We could call them an Enlightenment Project if helpful. In some ways, this is the real 'fight'... as the Ivies have gone, so has much of Academia. And it's easy to understand, Academia is firstly a giant crab-bucket of status, and gathering status is a complex networking game; understand that, and you've understood the fundamental alignment of incentives that drive hiring decisions and grant funding.

Back to Notre Dame and the post-modern (et al.) University... when I was there in the 80s & 90s, there was a recognition that a lot of the old 'assumptions' about how things worked and would continue to work were being actively undermined; deconstructed, if you will. Now, I've always been a reform/rebuild/renew sort of 'conservative' but deconstruction isn't that. A number of reasonable folks suggested a 'dialogue' about -- and I'm not making this up -- The Catholic Character of Notre Dame. The goal was extremely mild: The University has a Catholic charter, and anyone looking to join the faculty (and staff) should be aware of that Charter, and should be able to state how they would 'participate or contribute' to that charter. There was no litmus test for Catholics. In fact, one of the actual issues was that too many faculty would 'check the catholic box' and avoid the issue; while many non-Catholics appreciated the Charter and had significant contributions to make (including prominent Non-Catholics such as Alvin Plantiga, George Marsden, and David Solomon just to name a few). The split wasn't over Catholic vs. Non-Catholic, it was over Relevance vs. Irrelevance ... and Relevance won, and won hard. But what was Relevance? Was is a better Truth? A better mission? No, it was chasing clout; academic clout being determined by the post-modern deconstructionists and the critical theory proponents. The STEM folks thought they were exempt from that debate, until they weren't. But Liberal Arts? They gave up the ghost willingly.

Long story short? The academic game required hiring the sort of people that were vetted by the Tier 1s so that their work might be elevated via the networks. As the Tier 1s went, so went anyone with any sort of ambition... personal, scholastic, or institutional. And while that's not 100% of academics, it's close to 100% of the Academics and Staff who 'matter' in setting the direction of the Departments, the Colleges, and the University itself.

Well sure... but the starting point is that someone who has at least interrogated themselves as to whether they believe in the Real Presence at all...

As for the 39 Articles, I'm certain they are 'taught' in the same way that Americans know we have 'A Constitution'.

But mostly it should be clear that there's absolutely no liturgical gate to receiving communion other than the honor system.

Nope; well, not licitly anyway...

Every once in a while we ask random communion seekers how they interpret Articles 25 & 28 of the 39 promulgated under Elizabeth I. And, as soon as they start to make their case for the real presence, we escort them out. To the coffee/donut space in the basement. For penance.