A colleague who was my strongest supporter before she retired emailed me this morning to say, “Six hours and 40 minutes left. Congratulations on the freedom.”

I do have a bit of a countdown going in my head until this last day of my term as department chair runs down. Of course, even though I stop being chair, I continue being me, so I already scheduled two meetings for tomorrow. One is to get to know our new Ukrainian Fulbrighter, and another is to advance the hiring process I’ve led until now.

For the first time in six years, I will no longer have to file absence permission slips. It feels really weird. All the freedom! So I don’t mind the two meetings I opted into tomorrow because they all happened out of freedom.

The social media are smoldering with the disappointment of the right-wing commentariat. I understand the feeling. I’m also not happy about the decision, although it was a foregone conclusion that SCOTUS would win against the administration’s request.

However, there have been some really great, helpful decisions recently. Overall, Trump’s second administration is at a whole other level compared with the first. We are very fortunate. Things are imperfect, and it will take a long time to unravel the decades of leftist lunacy in every area of life. But today we’re experiencing positive momentum in a good direction. When were things ever more hopeful at any time this century? When did we get as much good news and as many important wins as we are getting now?

As we are preparing to celebrate the 250th birthday of our country, let’s ponder these many blessings and not concentrate too much on the real, yet not decisive, setbacks.

Chinese and Americans reacted to lower birth rates in opposite ways. In Chinese people, this provoked a collective desire to wring every ounce of utility from the few children they do have, turning them into little productivity machines since daycare. Americans went in the opposite direction of over-coddling each child and raising precious little princesses of both sexes who often believe that editing down their endless whims is a terrible imposition

The contrast is clear in Lenora Chu’s book Little Soldiers. Both systems are ugly because they go to extremes. A child edited down by parents and teachers to the point where he is a cog with barely any individuality is as ugly as a child who never had to self-edit at all.

One of the most striking chapters in the book is the one where Chu describes a math lesson in a Chinese school and at a school in Massachusetts. In the former, the teacher behaves like a prison guard, while in the latter, she literally crawls on the ground like a worm in subservience to her students. It’s interesting that both these school systems are a reaction to the same phenomenon of dropping birth rates. And they both stink.

Somebody should make this prick switch homes every 3 to 4 days for a couple of years.

If anything, the children should stay in the same house, and the parents should switch in and out with all their stuff, etc., to prevent disruption for the children.

Obviously, I don’t support either strategy. A 50/50 custody is a dumb idea.

There is no likelihood the Supreme Court will end the utterly unconstitutional “birthright citizenship.” I don’t even think it will be taken away from tourists, let alone illegal migrants.

Yes, it would be great, but I’m not seeing it. It’s okay though. SCOTUS brought some excellent decisions for us in the past week. We’re not getting everything, but we’re getting a lot.

People keep asking, so I want to say that no, this is not true. I have no idea why they’re publishing this garbage.

The actual median life expectancy is around three weeks. I know that from people who actually know what they are talking about.

Since we are on the subject, there is now a very big and very public mutiny of Russian soldiers against their command over the rape, torture, and extortion schemes visited upon them by their own command. The violence visited on these recruits by their own side is beyond horrific. I’ve seen terrible videos that I don’t want to post because they are too gruesome. If anybody in the Ukrainian army attempted even 0.0001% of something like that against enemy combatants, let alone against his own side, he would be strung up on the nearest tree within minutes.

The NY Post is turning the whole issue into a joke for reasons that only they know.

Lenora Chu, the author of Little Soldiers, is a typical liberal in that for her the only good Chinese person is the one who wants to emigrate to the US. The Chinese people who want to continue being Chinese in China are deeply annoying and barely human to Chu.

I’m glad N made me read this book because I feel a lot friendlier towards the Chinese as a result. Chu rubbishes them in such an unfair manner that I’ve started feeling defensive on their behalf.

The parents of Klara’s best friend gave the kid an iPad for her 10th birthday. I thought they were good people, and here they go and do this to me.

I should have suspected that something was wrong when I found out that this little girl had already informed all her friends that she never wanted to get married or have any children. At this age, this translates as “my mom bitches constantly about her life.” I should have known that a device was the logical next step, but it was easier to live in denial.

In Texas, three very young girls, Kitty Mia Diaz (21), Amaya “Cookie” Diaz (19), and Kyandra Renee Faz (21), were arrested today for hacking to death in broad daylight another woman who is a mother of five. They were giggling and goofing off as the police were putting them under arrest. Here are the dippy, happy murderers:

The police say that the motive is unknown at the moment.

Consider the implications:

The video is at the link.

Our army is impotent even at the outdated form of warfare, as evidenced by every conflict we entered this century, most recently in Iran. The new forms of warfare are completely out of reach. Is anybody trying to catch up?