My Nigerian GA is applying for a PhD program in the US. He’s been with us for a year, and he seemed very smart but now I’m discovering that he’s learned nothing. His name is Adebowale but he’s putting “Gabriel” on his applications instead. If you’ve studied in the US for a year and you still haven’t figured out that Adebowale beats Gabriel on a college application, I’m starting to wonder about your powers of observation.

In September 2022, three researchers published the provocatively titled article, ‘Do Introductory Courses Disproportionately Drive Minoritized Students Out of STEM Pathways?’ That article got loads of social media publicity for its conclusion that unequal withdrawal rates from STEM degree tracks are due to systemic racism.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-left-relies-on-statistical-illiteracy-and-what-we-should-do-about-it/

This article is bunk. It’s been eviscerated immediately because of the faulty research and reasoning it’s based on. But it doesn’t matter. This article is being used to punish and destroy STEM programs at many universities, including mine. Professors of mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology are being publicly humiliated and insulted as racists. The goal is to eliminate these programs, reduce the funding for higher education, and funnel the money into the pockets of some mega-rich but morally superior victim.

Why are the rich so left-wing?

Leftism allows them to see themselves as morally superior to the people they oppress. It’s very convenient to be able to wipe out whole communities with fentanyl if you have convinced yourself that they are racistsexistsomethingphobes and you are doing the world a favor by getting rid of them.

People say leftism is similar to religion but there are important differences.

In the leftist system of beliefs, there is no conversion and no expiation of sins. What’s worse, there’s no immanent core to it. Everything is completely fluid, and the commandments change in the blink of an eye, often to their exact opposite. There is no sacred text. Instead, an imaginary group of victims (“an indigenous person of color who self-identifies as a homeless, formerly incarcerated, part-time sex-working man of trans experience”) is invested with sacral importance. This group is as fluid and impossible to pin down as anything else in this ideology.

There’s no moral code. The most egregious offenses will be justified and the most innocuous actions condemned based on a constantly shifting system of beliefs nobody fully understands. Great wealth is the only thing that can insulate one from being fed to the wolves for something that was retroactively declared a crime. And herein lies the secret of leftism’s attraction for the rich. They can reap its benefits without having to suffer its ills. For those who have to work, this ideology is a source of terror. For those who don’t, it’s a source of pleasure.

I don’t know about Singapore, but in the rest of the countries in the top 8 those “immigrants” are slave labor with zero rights and no hope of citizenship ever.

Why is it so hard to make whatever point this individual is trying to make without fudging the numbers and emptying words of all meaning?

Canada no longer requires the infamous app to enter the country. It feels so strange to be able to enter just with your passport. One feels almost like an actual citizen. It’s very refreshing.

Tonight, I’m grateful for Canadian truckers who made this possible. And I’m even more grateful for Americans being Americans and never letting things get to that point in the US.

It’s impossible to find a turkey in Canada, so we had beef. It was really great beef, though.

I hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving! Or a great Thursday, if you are overseas.

On a funny note, Klara asked me who married into the family, me or her Dad. Since N hasn’t been able to demonstrate any family, the answer is obvious.

Poor guy, he’d be completely alone in the world, and it’s not like he did anything to make it this way.

Usually, at the World Cup I root for any or all Latin American teams. But now I’m rooting against them. They aren’t supportive of Ukraine and are acting all pouty and unnecessary.

We are seeing the answer to the question of “why West rules” right before our eyes. Nobody else takes the initiative. Nobody else is proactive. China, India, Latin America, the Middle East – they have no ideas, they don’t attempt to take the leadership role. Then they’ll moan about colonialism but it’s obvious to everybody that their subjected status is of their own choosing.

Another lovely thing in Julian Barnes’ novel Elizabeth Finch is the constant repetition of how bad men are. There’s no explanation of what’s so bad about them. They are just bad, stupid, unevolved, inferior.

The author of the book is a pale male, and he clearly thinks he needs to excuse his existence in major ways.

Back home, it’s 62°F.

+17°C.

I’m so glad I left, even if for a little while. It’s impossible to live in such a stupid climate. It’s an eternal summer, such rot!

Put me right off wanting to go back home. It’s just a bit above freezing here, which is about 20 degrees over my optimal temperature but at least there’s a bit of snow.

On social media, regular Russians celebrate the news of the two-day-old Ukrainian infant who died in yesterday’s air strike with such unmarred joy, you’d think they just won the World Cup.

There’s nothing that could ever possess me to celebrate the death of a newborn, and I can’t figure out how they got themselves to be like this. This isn’t one or two creeps. It’s a massive, public outpouring of joy.