Stephen West

the only serious competition for my affections is the big girl in front, but she is also a giant slobber monster

<looks at overflowing email inbox> Yes, yes I can.

Only the goofball craning his neck in the back is mine

Photograph of a back porch and backyard. In the foreground are three dogs looking in the sliding glass door

can you come out and play?

Federal judge rules Trump's D.C. troop invasion is likely illegal, must end by Dec. 11 National Guard troops have been in D.C. since August. A federal judge ruled Thursday that both deployments — D.C. National Guard and out-of-state troops — likely violate the law.

A judge ruled against Trump’s DC troop invasion on Thursday.

What happened, why, and what now?

I have you covered at Law Dork:

surely Ken Burns is already planning the documentary - 13 hours, 1 for each of the original states!

clipping from the Columbia Spectator. Entitled "Futter: minority recruitment a priority," it was written by Jonathan Earle

the story immediately below that photo - cc: @jonearle.bsky.social

A photograph from the Sept 18, 1987 Columbia Spectator. It shows NYC Mayor Ed Koch standing on a set of steps, with 13 college students arrayed around him. The caption reads: THE FAMOUS MR. ED: Thirteen Columbia College students—representing the original 13 states—joined Mayor EdKoch yesterday at the Hamilton Grange in Hanem, former home of Constitution signer and Columbia alumnus Alexander Hamilton.

I'm lecturing next week on public commemorations of the US Constitution's bicentennial, and just remembered that I participated - in a very small way

archive-publications.library.columbia.edu?a=d&d=cs1987...

Thinking a lot lately about the simple fact that college allows people to spend about 15 weeks immersed in a disciplinary conversation with an expert in that field. And what a special thing that is.

It’s widely known (and, I think, pretty uncontroversial) that learning requires effort — specifically, if you don’t have to work at getting the knowledge, it won’t stick.

Even if an LLM could be trusted to give you correct information 100% of the time, it would be an inferior method of learning it.

We don't really know how bicycles work.

Even people who say they support JD Vance don't actually like JD Vance.

Even people who say they support JD Vance don't actually like JD Vance.

"Certain historical displays or artwork where the Confederate flag is a minor element are still permissible, according to the policy."

"potentially divisive"

The Political, the Personal and the Polemical: Eric Foner on Freedom A student of historiography and the study of history, as well as history itself, Eric Foner would like yet another American Revolution, one which would fulfill the promise of Reconstruction when Black...

The Political, the Personal and the Polemical: Eric Foner on Freedom

oh no have women ruined all the workplaces

Somebody hasn't read HR 51 - or the Constitution

Wall Street Journal headline “Trump’s DEI Slayer is just getting started.”

Good example of how an acronym can dehumanize consequences and mask what’s going on. Syntactically, “Diversity slayer,” “equity slayer,” or “inclusion slayer” sounds weird. They aren’t “slaying” these things; they’re promoting and supporting their opposites: segregation, unfairness, and exclusion.

Somebody hasn't read HR 51 - or the Constitution

Top military lawyer raised legal concerns about boat strikes The lawyer at U.S. Southern Command, which oversees the operations against alleged drug-smuggling boats near Venezuela, disagreed that the strikes are legal and was overruled, according to six sources...

There it is.

And as expected, overruled by OLC’s “Murder Memo.”

www.nbcnews.com/politics/nat...

I think the kids call this "must see tv"

You Hon. Gentlemen: May I impress you with the fact, that if Mr. Truman's "Civil Rights" become law, then the liberty and civil rights of the white Ango-Saxons, who had to flee from such "Civil Rights" as Mr. Truman is endeavoring to set up must again be enslaved with the same Roman enslavement and persecution. Mr. Truman is endeavoring to enact a foreign Red-Romanized policy which is a destruction of the constitutional form of government. The white race would be forced to associate in every walk of life with the Yellow, Black and Mulatto races. They would be forced to eat with them, go to school with them, associate with them in all forms of recreation, and amusement, which would eventually mean sleeping with them, and in the end produce a hybrid race, a mongrel, the same as southern Europe, Southern and East Russia, South America, and the Near East.

"Harry Truman is forcing me to sleep with Asians as part of a commie-catholic plot. Please don't put in the newspaper that this is my fetish."

Sorry, did I say "trifecta"? I meant "virtuous cycle"

too "everywhere, everything, all at once" to fail

This is the same agency that signed Brie Larson.

Her first film will be g rated

Print of Abraham Lincoln speaking at Gettysburg. He stands on a platform and has his arms thrust out to the sides, in a pose that apparently reminds one poster of Kate Winslet in Titanic. https://www.loc.gov/item/2003674448/

#otd in 1863, at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Abraham Lincoln struck a Titantic pose.

And said some words.

revealing nonetheless of how his pollsters spend their time

duh - they'd be barred by the 22nd Amendment