Pun Salad

Jacob Sullum is not one of those cheering: By Settling Trump's Laughable Lawsuit Against CBS, Paramount Strikes a Blow at Freedom of the Press

That should worry anyone who values liberty, of course. David R. Henderson notes that old Buffalo Springfield lyric applies too well.

And Kruiser is, unfortunately, not a lone voice.

Look: there's no question in my mind that CBS fiddled with its interview to try to make Kamala appear less of a word-salad nitwit than she was. That's reprehensible, but it shouldn't be illegal.

But it doesn't seem that long ago that it was the lefties griping about "misinformation" and "disinformation", threatening government action against perpetrators and facilitators.

Gee, come to think of it, we haven't heard much from Nina Jankowicz lately. The last update from her "American Sunlight Project" is three months old. Did the "disinformation" problem go away?

Also of note:

• Another LTE zinger in the WSJ. It's from Cliff Asness and Michael Mendelson, reacting to the Zohran's recent eliminationist rhetoric: "I don't think we should have billionaires."

  First, we aren’t too comfortable with anyone saying that “we shouldn’t have” a class of people. The young assemblyman merely wants to tax these scoundrels into oblivion, not something worse, though it’s easy to be confused about the intentions of the guy who seems OK with globalizing the intifada.

  We have substantial inequality in this country. But it’s also true that on many broad-based economic indicators, the U.S. is doing wonderfully, regardless of what populists on either end of the horseshoe say. Unless you can claim that “billionaires” have made their money in underhanded ways—or ignore that they already pay a large tax burden, on which the city relies—where does he get off saying this? We could list the incredible innovations brought to you by companies founded by billionaires—who didn’t start out that way—but you’re likely familiar with the litany.

  Instead of slogans that attack a class he finds it politically expedient to savage, perhaps Mr. Mamdani should focus on his own policies. Doubling down on rent control that economists, near ubiquitously and across political divides, say has destroyed every city it has touched. Coming for low-margin bodegas with city-run grocery stores. Wanting to seize “the means of production,” because, you know, real communism has never been tried. Such disastrous policies always hurt the poor, who mainly didn’t vote for him, more than the rich, who did.

  We are tempted to end by saying, with considerably more evidence than Mr. Mamdani, that “we shouldn’t have socialists.” The country would be better off without such noxious and destructive ideas. But unlike him, we know we don’t get to decide who exists and who doesn’t.

  I wonder who will get the guillotine franchise in NYC when the Zohran assumes power?

• Another Zohran-related article. Well, incidentally. Jonathan Turley is (I think) amused: New York Times Struggles to Explain Why It Reported News to Traumatized Readers.

  This week, the New York Times experienced an uprising in its ranks and among its readers. The paper was denounced by its own staff and liberal pundits called for the entire editorial staff to be canned. Why? Because The New York Times actually reported news that was deemed harmful to the Democrats, specifically Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani. The newspaper took the additional step of publishing a cringing explanation of why it reported the news that Mamdani lied on his Columbia application in claiming to be black.For liberals, it was an utter nightmare. For a party still defined by identity politics, Mamdani’s false claim over his race left many uncertain about how to react.The left has always maintained a high degree of tolerance for false claims by its own leaders, from Sen. Elizabeth Warren claiming to be a native American to Sen. Richard Blumenthal claiming to have served in the Vietnam War.

  The problem is when a news eco-chamber for many readers is shattered by an errant outbreak of journalism. Many Times readers live within a hermetically sealed news silo, relying on MSNBC for cable, The New York Times for print, and BlueSky for social media. You can literally go all day without being exposed to an opposing view or fact. Then suddenly this happens.

  The result is often anger. It is the same response many in higher education have to “triggering” views being expressed on campus by conservative or libertarian speakers.

  It's really a thing. I'm reminded of this incident from a few months back, where a Peterborough (NH) citizen named "Elizabeth" excoriated her Democrat state rep, Jonah Wheeler, for voting Incorrectly on a transgender issue:

  “I think you know your constituents,” she said. “I believe that you do. Why did you vote in a manner that would upset us?”

  And, gee, why am I getting a Glenn-Close-in-Fatal-Attraction vibe here?

• On the Chanda watch. Since she departed Twitter for Blue Sky, I seldom encounter the thoughts of Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, physics prof at the University Near Here. But sometimes she draws the attention of the Collge Fix, like today: ‘Queer agender’ physicist: Non-binary folks grasp part of quantum mechanics better.

  The “queer agender” University of New Hampshire physicist who argued “white empiricism” creates “barriers” for black women entering STEM fields recently claimed that non-binary folks grasp an aspect of quantum mechanics better than others.

  At the July 4 Socialism 2025 Conference session titled “Reclaiming the Future: Outer Space as a Site of Organizing and Imagination,” Chanda Prescod-Weinstein said “There are good arguments for why, for example, non-binary people find wave-particle duality very straightforward.”

  Uh huh. Wave-particle duality is just one aspect of quantum weirdness, and I will resurrect this old Feynman quote from one of his lectures aimed at civilians:

  What I am going to tell you about is what we teach our physics students in the third or fourth year of graduate school—and you think I'm going to explain it to you so you can understand it? No, you're not going to be able to understand it. Why, then, and I going to bother you with all this? Why are you going to sit here all this time, when you won't be able to understand what I'm going to say? It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don't understand it. You see, my physics students don't understand it either. That is because I don't understand it. Nobody does.

  I don't know if Feynman was hobbled in his quantum understanding by his binary sexuality. I'd like to see the evidence.

• Crossing this off my "wanna see" list. Philip Greenspun escaped the Idaho heat in a movie theater, and provides an Elio Movie Review.

  All of the good humans in the movie are Latinx and/or Black. The senior military officers are Latinx and female. The military base is Latinx (“Montez Air Force Base” in a city called “Montez”). The big bad bully kid is… white male.

  Well, shoot. I guess I'll wait for live-action Up. Where is it, Disney?