In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

I've noted here that a feature of Trump's strategy is to take away multiple legs of any stool on which a problem sits. The Harvard problem -- which is shorthand for the uber-endowed prestigious university problem in general -- sits on multiple stools, each with multiple legs. The international student problem is one of those stools, and Trump is busily taking away several legs of that stool. One leg of this stool is the cash cow that international students represent to US universities. According to Karin Fischer, who covers international education for the Chronicle of Higher Education , Typically, international students and out-of-state students pay more than students who go to college in their own home states, sometimes two or three times as much. International students may also pay special fees for things like visa processing and English language exams. . . . about 80% of international students pay their own way, whether from their own families or by borrowing mo...

Over the past several weeks, there's been growing tension between Harvard and the Trump administration, culminating as of yesterday in an additional discontinuance of $2.7 million in federal grants beyond an already frozen $2.2 billion. The Trump administration itemized its complaints last Friday in a letter to President Garber and the board chair , according to the Harvard Crimson : [T]he Trump administration delivered a longer and more focused set of demands than the ones they had shared two weeks earlier, asking Harvard to derecognize pro-Palestine student groups, audit its academic programs for viewpoint diversity, and expel students involved in an altercation at a 2023 pro-Palestine protest on the Harvard Business School campus. It also asked Harvard to reform its admissions process for international students to screen for students “supportive of terrorism and anti-Semitism” — and immediately report international students to federal authorities if they break Univ...

What's pestered me about this whole Blue Origin all-women space flight is that the crew is obviously a DEI administrator's dream: one Asian, one Hispanic, two blacks, and two whites. Leave aside the Hispanic is Jeff Bezos's girlfriend, or two blacks is 33% of the "crew", when blacks are 14% of tbhe population, we get an appreciation of Bezos's current mindset: no matter he's purged most of the liberals from the Washington Post editorial board, he's still stuck someplace in 2022. So why wasn't there a trans guy among the women? In fact, if Bezos's aim was to pick women who were prominent in media, why not go with Dylan Mulvaney? After all, according to People , all the ladies saw this as an opportunity to act like drag queens themselves: "Who would not get glam before the flight?!" said Sánchez, whose fiancé Jeff Bezos, founded the spaceflight company in 2000. "We’re going to have lash extensions flying in the capsule...

DOJ publishes drivers license photo of Jamison Wagner, the suspect in firebombing of GOP office in New Mexico and Tesla dealership, in which he's wearing blue lipstick. He's also a member of "500 Queer Scientists" https://t.co/3el4iQjJkk https://t.co/X4LzUpkXX4 https://t.co/EpUtEiOc4G pic.twitter.com/c6t3Co3UFM — Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) April 14, 2025 Last month I posted on the odd circumstance that four perps recently arrested for vandalizing Tesla dealerships were trans-identifying males. Just yesterday, it turned out that the guy arrested for firebombiong both a Republican office and a Tesla dealership in Albuquerque, NM wasan't trans, but he did identify as queer, and his drivers license photo shows him wearing blue lipstick. So trans- and queer-identifying males atill seem to make up a key demographic of the anti-Tesla agitators. Another demographic appears to be affluent whites who claim more conventional socioeconomic privilege, which puts me in ...

Just recently, I discovered that as of this past January 25, Spirit Airlines had updated its dress cod e. Somehow I don't think it's a coincidence that this came within days of Trump's inauguration. According to ABC News, Spirit Airlines has revised its "contract of carriage" to include updated guidelines for passenger conduct and attire, including a detailed dress code prohibiting provocative or inappropriate clothing. . . . Outlined in Section 4.3 of the contract, the airline’s policy now explicitly states that passengers must not wear "see-through clothing; not adequately covered; exposed breasts, buttocks, or other private parts." . . . The new dress code is part of broader rules governing passenger behavior under the "Conduct/Condition" section. These new rules include, in part, Disorderly, abusive, or violent behavior that creates an unreasonable risk of offense or annoyance to others. Intoxication or drug use. Off...

When I first posted about this on Thursday, I looked at the available links, did what I could to read between the lines, and surmised, I think correctly, that women’s fencer Stephanie Turner had already gamed out her potential encounter with the trans male, to the extent of having a friend on hand to videotape it. But I still had the feeling I was missing something. In my post, I cited a link that quoted Ms Turner saying she'd already protested men posing as women fencers on other occasions. But what about USA Fencing? What did they have planned in advance of the event? In my post, I had another link quoting Ms Turner saying, "I was not aware Mr. Sullivan was registered until the night before the tournament." I begsn to wonder if the whole encounter was in fact set up by USA Fencing, and Ms Turner was simply planning a response to a scenario that had already been planned -- to wit, she would encounter Mr Sullivan and either compete or be forced to concede -- and eve...

I first started seriously looking into dire wolves sometime last year, when the researchers on the Secret of Skinwalker Ranch show claimed to have found the skull of a recently deceased dire wolf in a creek on the ranch, and a guy in a park ranger-style outfit from a local museum sorta-kinda claimed it was authentic. Now, I view Skinwalker Ranch as pure entertainment, but out of curiosity, I looked up dire wolves to see how likely this would be. My main question was why only a single skull was ever found, when, according to Wikipedia , It can be assumed that dire wolves lived in packs of relatives that were led by an alpha pair. So if there are living dire wolves roaming the Utah mountains, they would be found in packs, their remains would be more common, and the packs woould be both visible and audible. So I dismissed the idea of a live dire wolf as having the same credibility as the rest of Skinwalker Ranch; it's fun entertainment. But before I dropped my research, I ...