Tuesday, April 15, 2025

Our private research universities are not actually purely private...,

 X  |  Our private research universities are not actually purely private. They are designed to be both a cryptic soft extension of the state (e.g. national security, priming the prosperity pipeline with blue sky research, truth adjudication, etc.), which is also oppositely intended as an independent check on the state and state power in times of abuse as well. This tacit and quiet knowledge, which used to be held at the AAU and the relevant professors, has been mostly lost. So 'overhead' or 'indirect costs' is not actually overhead at all. It is supposed to be cryptic state support based on research merit to avoid political pressure to fund 3rd tier universities at the same level as Princeton. 

So the whole system was designed back in the Vannevar Bush era but without leaving the esoteric knowledge with modern academicians. It's a disaster. It was a quiet game which worked brilliantly to serve the nation and its population until lunatics started to get a foothold in the research universities. This is why when you audit this stuff, you see waste. It wasn't ever intended to be what it appears to be: this was the USG paying to have a totally ELITE and EXCLUSIVE quasi-private, quasi-public resource. Think Manhattan project. Think The Jasons. Think winning. 

And, despite my deep dislike of how @realchrisrufo has acted towards me, his point is spot on. If the elite U.S. universities are so confused as to think that they are truly 100% private and that they should be allowed to destroy their role of ELITE service to the nation which built them up with federal dollars, that is a moment to remind them of the "Endless Frontier" agreement. First the USG welched on the agreement with the Mansfield Ammendment and Dole Bayh and then IMMACT90. Then the universities welched with DEI. BOTH parties need to get back to the quiet agreement, or the whole thing will just fall apart. And the US research achipeligo is a *MAJOR* part of american greatness which we seem to be about to destroy because we can't figure out how to do this. 

[And for those of you who seem to believe that quiet and tacit agreements are always bad, so that the Manhattan Project should have been academic and totally open because 'Sunlight is always the best disinfectant!!', I highly encourage you to use the comment section to complain again about elitism, gatekeeping, Fauci, experts, science, government and credentials. I get it. You can't stop to listen...or think. I totally get you. Looking forward to your vitriol. Just make sure to remind me repeatedly that markets are always right, all tax is theft, DEI is poison, and that Trump and Elon know exactly what they are doing at all times.]


Tuesday, April 01, 2025

The Hidden Holocausts At Hanslope Park

radiolab |  This is the story of a few documents that tumbled out of the secret archives of the biggest empire the world has ever known, offering a glimpse of histories waiting to be rewritten.

Just down the road from a pub in rural Hanslope Park, England is a massive building — the secret archives of the biggest empire the world has ever known. This is the story of a few documents that tumbled out and offered a glimpse of histories waiting to be rewritten. 

When professor Caroline Elkins came across a stray document left by the British colonial government in Nairobi, Kenya, she opened the door to a new reckoning with the history of one of Britain's colonial crown jewels, and the fearsome group of rebels known as the Mau Mau. We talk to historians, archivists, journalists and send our producer Jamie York to visit the Mau Mau. As the new history of Kenya is concealed and revealed, document by document, we wonder what else lies in wait among the miles of records hidden away in Hanslope Park.

Wednesday, March 26, 2025

So Sick Of Democrat Pum Pum's And Their Endless Whiny Slug Trails....,

CNN  |  After the White House argued, repeatedly, that there was no classified information in the now-infamous group chat of national security officials, The Atlantic published it.

CNN reporters annotated the entire chat, which included Hegseth’s description of F-18s and drones preparing to strike targets, which anybody listening in would have known were to occur in Yemen since the name of the chat included the word “Houthi.”

The White House and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth continued to argue, even after release of the chat, that the information wasn’t classified, but only sensitive.

Multiple experts advised on CNN Wednesday that people should not get sidetracked by whether or not the information was classified.

What’s below are the assessments of:

  • Retired Brigadier Gen. Mark Kimmitt, who during his military career worked as deputy director for strategy and plans for US Central Command, and then worked in the State Department as assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs during the George W. Bush administration
  • and Beth Sanner, a CNN National Security analyst who was deputy director of national intelligence for mission integration during portions of both the first Trump and Joe Biden administrations.

Kimmitt and Sanner both appeared on CNN Wednesday, and I subsequently followed up with Sanner on the phone.

Was classified information shared?

CNN has reported that sources within the Pentagon believe that the information shared by Hegseth, which detailed when, to the minute, US fighters and drones would strike Houthi targets, was clearly classified.

Whether it was technically classified is beside the point, according to Kimmitt.

“I think everybody’s missing the relevant issue,” he said, noting that Hegseth has the authority to declassify Pentagon information.

“If he says it’s not classified, it’s not classified,” Kimmit said. But “the fundamental question that we should be asking is, ‘Should it have been classified?’ And the answer, of course, is yes.”

What should be classified?

“I think we’re watching a lot of bob and weave, instead of just making this simple,” said Sanner, who added that the rule of thumb is that anything that shouldn’t be put into an unclassified email should be treated as classified material.

“Another really easy way to look at this is, ‘If I’m sitting in Moscow or Beijing, would I be happy to get this information and think that I’ve gotten something really interesting?’” she said. Obviously yes.

What’s interesting to adversaries?

First, the military portions of what was shared clearly should not have been shared.

“If there are planes, trains automobiles, whatever, heading toward an attack, it is classified,” Sanner said.

And if Hegseth wants to declassify something, there is a process of documentation that should be followed, she said.

Tuesday, March 18, 2025

Ratchett Crockett Must Decide Which Of Her False Personalities Is In Charge....,

@jasmineforus

MAGA can’t find any dirt so they have resorted to being outraged that I attended private school 🤯. I am me, unapologetically! GET A LIFE & start caring about how people are losing their jobs and our economy is tanking!

♬ original sound - Jasmine Crockett

Our private research universities are not actually purely private...,

 X  |   Our private research universities are not actually purely private. They are designed to be both a cryptic soft extension of the sta...