Another reason to have voted for Kamala

Just ask Doug Wilson.

“If Kamala [Harris] had won the presidency, there would have been basically zero evangelicals in the White House administration,” Wilson said. “And although Donald Trump is not an evangelical by any stretch … his administration is full of them.”

Doug has something in common with Richard Dawkins.

“So probably the best illustration of this would be church bells? Yes. Minarets? No,” he said.

Why?

“Because, the public space would belong to Christ,” he added.

He also doesn’t want women to vote, let alone run for high office.

Wilson also wants to repeal women’s right to vote. When asked why, he was quick to respond.

“Because it’s a good idea,” he said, adding that he wants it replaced with household voting, with women only voting if they are the head of their household.

I voted for Kamala Harris. It’s nice that a pig like Doug Wilson is reassuring me that my vote was righteous.

Jeanson sinking deeper into the swamp

Portrait of a pseudoscientist

Nathaniel Jeanson, that incompetent “geneticist” who was employed by Answers in Genesis, has a new gig: he has been hired by Columbia International University as a visiting research professor. This is not a step up in prominence. It’s actually kind of a step backwards, but the creationists will crow about the words without recognizing the meaning.

A “visiting research professor” is often a prestigious appointment, but it’s not an effective research position — it’s more of an attempt to bring a big name into connection with a university, and possibly forge new partnerships (Note: Jeanson is not a big name, except to the intellectually impoverished creationist community.) I’d be interested to know what the quid pro quo here might be, because he’s not going to improve the reputation of CIU.

Curiously, if you read that announcement from CIU, there’s no reference to Answers in Genesis anywhere in it. They name-drop Harvard and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, but the noisy loud creationist/Christian organization that has been associated with him for years? Not a whisper.

It’s unclear what they are going to accomplish with this appointment. He is still employed at AiG, they don’t discuss what his teaching duties will be, other than just talking to students. This is purely an attempt to swap titles and connections, but CIU is going to do this without openly acknowledging AiG.

This is also not going to help Jeanson’s career. CIU is a private Christian college that used to be called Columbia Bible College. It requires a whole lot of fundamentalist bullshit to graduate from there.

There are seven doctrinal points which students must consent to as a part of their admission to and candidacy for a degree from CIU. These are biblical inspiration, natural separation of humanity from God, salvation by grace through faith in Christ, the historical doctrine of the Trinity, the bodily resurrection of Christ from the dead, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the believer, and the evangelical mandate to witness to the gospel of Christ. The doctrine of Premillennialism is officially held by the school, but students are not required to adhere to this doctrine. CIU requires all teaching faculty to affirm Premillennialism.

That’s a fake school. It’s a Sunday School with delusions of grandeur.

Chlodnik night!

It’s unpleasantly hot and humid — we just had a thunderstorm drench us — so I decided to try something completely different and made chlodnik, a cold beet soup.

I found the recipe here. If you try it, caution: the proportions there are sufficient for a whole family of 6 or more. We’re going to have chlodnik oozing out of our pores for a few days. Next time I’ll cut everything in half.

The flavor is interesting. Imagine digging up everything in a Slavic peasant’s garden, chopping it up fine, and drowning it in yoghurt, kefir, and sour cream.

It’s cold, though, which was the important criterion.

We already knew Bryan Johnson was going to die someday

Remember Bryan Johnson? Here’s a reminder of his silly obsession.

Johnson famously claims to spend millions on his health each year, which goes towards keeping a personal army of doctors on hand who constantly monitor his biomarkers, and help carry out more unorthodox health interventions like swapping his blood out with his younger son’s and monitoring his nighttime boners (though he’s seemed to pare things back as of late).

Unfortunately, poor little Bryan is sick.

Bryan Johnson, in his quest for eternal youth, has been dealt a mortal blow.

Last week, the longevity-obsessed tech investor revealed that he had been diagnosed with an incurable autoimmune disease in which his “stomach is eating itself.”

He’s got autoimmune gastritis. It’s not a mortal illness, but it is a serious and uncomfortable chronic disease, nothing to be made light of. Pity him, but don’t plan the funeral just yet.

Besides, he’s going to turn this into a profit-making drama.

But, true to his mission, Johnson believes he can biohack his way out of this gut-punch, too.

“I’m going to try and solve it,” he wrote on X. “Will share all.”

The man is rich, he already spends millions of dollars on his health every year, and gastritis is a manageable illness. I’m pretty sure he’s going to live through this, it’s just become a significantly more uncomfortable process.

But someday, he will die.

Schrodinger’s McConnell

Mitch McConnell has been MIA for a few weeks. Credible sources say he’s been in the hospital since 14 June, “recovering”.

Laura Loomer says he is “brain dead” and never coming back.

Who are you going to believe? I think we’ve caught Loomer in a lie. McConnell is a Republican, if you’re going to say he’s brain dead, I’m going to ask, “how can you tell?”

Kalshi is not evidence. Shut the fuck up, Harry Enten

I really, really, really dislike Harry Enten, the annoyingly hyperkinetic weirdo on CNN who stands in front of an image board and waves at poll numbers and tells us how important they are. I despise all the poll nonsense on the news media — learn to talk about issues and policy rather than the horserace. Now it’s gotten even worse, because he’s not babbling about legitimate, credible polls, it’s all about numbers extracted from prediction markets, which are also paying the networks for promotion.

Since December, CNN has featured Kalshi in a segment called “The Odds” at least 115 times. In these segments, Harry Enten, CNN’s chief data analyst, frequently suggests that Kalshi predictions are more accurate than other sources. While polling relies on volunteers, Enten repeatedly reminds CNN viewers that prediction markets are driven by people who “put their money where their mouth is.”

On January 7, Enten highlighted that, in six days, the odds on Kalshi that the United States would buy part of Greenland by the end of Trump’s first term increased from 12% to 36%. Enten said this was proof that “the people putting their money where their mouth is” are “absolutely taking this seriously.”

“Whoa… way up there now to 36%,” Enten exclaimed. “A tripling in less than a week. My goodness gracious.”

Wishful thinking by gullible people is not evidence.

The good news is that some people are trying to take down these corrupt companies.

On Monday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signed a total ban on futures trading platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket. The Trump administration filed a lawsuit Tuesday to prevent the ban from going into place on Aug. 1, with the CFTC arguing its authority supersedes the state’s ability to regulate futures trading. Notably, Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. is a strategic advisor for Kalshi and has invested in Polymarket through his venture capital firm.

You can tell that Kalshi and Polymarket are not to be trusted just by looking at the scumbags who are investing in it. They’re parasites all the way through. It makes me suspicious of the Young Turks that they are also taking Polymarket money.

These are just barely legal gambling sites. Let’s make them illegal.

P.S. There is no evidence that we are imminently going to get evidence that aliens exist.

Mmmm, taurine…

I guess I’ve made it now. I got a partnership offer.

Dropping you a line because we’ve been looking closely at a select group of creators to bring into the fold for the rest of 2026. Your page jumped out at us – especially how you capture the culture around pushing boundaries and living boldly.
Nothing about it feels corporate or safe – and that’s what we need when we’re considering brand fit.
We’re not interested in a quick send-and-forget partnership – we’re aiming for something that gives you wings to do what you do best.
Want to learn more? Reply and I’ll walk you through the details. This time of year tends to move fast, so didn’t want to wait too long to connect.
Appreciate you reading this, pzmyers.

It was from Red Bull. I’m flattered by the “pushing boundaries and living boldly” comment, but no, just no. Part of my “living boldly” ethos involves rejecting corporate influence.

Also, I’ve never had so much as a sip of Red Bull, so it would be dishonest of me to promote it.

When MBAs decide they’re qualified to run higher ed…

In my years of teaching, I have occasionally had students with conservative views, and that’s fine. They’re a minority, but tolerance is one of the default principles of liberal arts education, so they get to express their position, everyone else shares their ideas, we all learn.

The problem isn’t conservatism, it’s authoritarianism. We are living in a country with a rising authoritarian minority that wants to shut everyone else down, and that is a problem. And that’s why Ohio is a problem — authoritarians want to dictate the content of a college education.

Ohio universities’ new centers to combat “liberal bias” aren’t popular with students, so a Republican leader wants to require attendance.

Bringing in America’s 250th anniversary, the Republican supermajority in Ohio’s legislature wants to expand civics education at colleges and universities. That hasn’t been getting the warmest of welcomes on campuses.

This puckered prune of a beancounter doesn’t like free speech

So this Republican, Jerry Cirino, has passed a new law.

S.B. 1 focuses on what Cirino calls “free speech,” banning public universities in Ohio from Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives, having “bias” in the classroom and limiting how “controversial topics” can and can’t be taught. “Controversial” under Ohio law includes “belief policy that is the subject of political controversy, including issues such as climate policies, electoral politics, foreign policy, diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, immigration policy, marriage, or abortion.”

I appreciate how the report mentions that Cirino is a “free speech” advocate, and the next word is “banning”. It goes on to say that he opposes “controversial” ideas, in which he gets to categorize what ideas are to be policed. “Climate policies”? Climate change is real and has serious consequences (witness the heat wave we’re experiencing now), but Cirino wants to control discussion of what to do about it.

“electoral politics, foreign policy”…do Ohio universities lack political science and history departments?

I know Republicans hate DEI, but Ohio is a diverse state, and universities tend to hire from an international pool of academic candidates.

Ohioans can’t even discuss immigration policy? Are we just supposed to accept a conservative white man’s opinions without recourse to evidence, or the consequences, or the literature?

The primary consumers of college education are 18-22 year olds. Lord forbid that marriage and abortion be a topic of interest and concern among that group.

Jerry Cirino is a retired medical device company executive. Don’t assume that he therefore has experience in medicine or engineering, though — he has a BS in business and an MBA, and has completely foregone the kind of breadth of knowledge a typical liberal arts graduate gets, and instead has been narrowly focused on making money.

Yet he thinks he has the qualifications to overhaul higher education in Ohio? Jesus. This really is the age when incompetence rules.