MPAI: Even Worse Than You Think

In fact, most people are less intelligent and less capable than many of you can probably imagine:

How many US adults score at literacy level 4 or higher? About 12%, or 1 in 8.

Since over 60% of high school grads go on to enroll in college, we know for a certainty that the vast majority of them are below level 4 in literacy. College kids are functionally illiterate. QED. But what about those level 5 literate types, the ones who comprise around 1% of adults? What can they do?

This is the subject of a recently released study making waves in the education world. Researchers decided to sit with current college English majors and see how much they understood of what they read. In other words, these are competent high-school level readers by any national standard.

So how do they do on more complex and archaic language, like Dickens? Not well!

We placed the 85 subjects from both universities into three categories of readers: problematic, competent, and proficient. A summary of our major conclusions gives some basic data for our ensuing discussion:

* 58 percent (49 of 85 subjects) understood so little of the introduction to Bleak House that they would not be able to read the novel on their own.

* 38 percent (or 32 of the 85 subjects) could understand more vocabulary and figures of speech than the problematic readers. These competent readers, however, could interpret only about half of the literal prose in the passage.

* Only 5 percent (4 of the 85 subjects) had a detailed, literal understanding of the first paragraphs of Bleak House.

To summarize even further for those skimming:

  • 58% of students understood very little of the passages they read
  • 38% could understand about half of the sentences
  • 5% could understand all seven paragraphs

These are college students majoring in English. About half of them are English Education majors, which means they will be teaching books like Bleak House to high school students after graduating. But they themselves cannot understand the literal meaning of the sentences in the opening paragraphs.

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It’s Time to Surrender

The Ukrainian Army officers know they can’t win the war or even hold back the Russians any longer.

  • “There is coming a collapse of the front and a collapse of the Pokrovsk Defense.
  • The situation here (and not only here) is critical for the Ukrainian Army, as I have reported repeatedly in recent weeks.
  • Especially in Drone matters, the Russians have caught up dramatically, if not even overtaken the Ukrainian Defenders.
  • Hundreds of Fiber Optic Drones are deployed every day. There is almost no defense against them.
  • As a result, Ukraine is losing far more vehicles than it can replace. This makes Logistics almost impossible.
  • In addition, new Russian Infantrymen are constantly arriving and, for the past month, numerous Russian Armored Vehicles have also been advancing alongside civilian vehicles.
  • The failure of his Western Partners has meant that  Zelensky  would now accept any compromise.
  • However, since this same failure also means that the Russian Army has no reason whatsoever to rely on negotiations, the situation will continue to deteriorate.”

Those who have studied the history of war know that there always comes a breaking point after which the outcome simply isn’t in doubt any longer. Tragically, the kings, generals, and politicians who wage wars very seldom accept the inevitable, and so they drag things out long past the breaking point, thereby leaving the losing country worse off than it would have been if they’d waved the white flag at the appropriate point and at the cost of far more lives than needed to be lost.

Ukraine is now at that point. Russia is advancing faster than at any point since the initial invasion, at a rate of 30 square kilometers per day, and it is doing so without launching the sort of Zhukov-style mass offensive for which the Russian military is famous. What Putin and his generals are waiting for, I do not know, but the extent to which the Ukrainian forces have been degraded suggests that this summer will bring one or more large-scale offensives that will finally break the Ukrainian lines and cause a crisis for the Kiev regime.

And at that point, many recriminations will be correctly aimed at the US and European leaders who failed to force a surrender that would have cost less in terms of territory and lives than the one that will inevitably follow.

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Calling Out the Media

President Trump openly called out the national media for its complete failure to cover one of the most important stories of the previous administration: the autopen and the forged signatures of the Fake President:

After dodging smears, spin, and nonstop gaslighting, Trump had one more message for the American people—and a brutal question for the press.

He reminded the media just how bad things had gotten under the last administration.

“We were losing $5 billion a day under the past administration,” he said.

Then he dropped the hammer.

“And by the way, you oughta—the real question: who ran the auto pen?”

“Okay, who ran the auto pen?!”

The room fell silent.

Trump was referring to mounting evidence that critical documents from the Biden era were being signed without the president’s full awareness—or possibly without his involvement at all.

With Biden’s cognitive and physical health now finally under public scrutiny, the question isn’t rhetorical.

Trump spelled it out for the press unwilling to do their job:

“Because the things that were signed, were signed illegally in my opinion. I think we’ve just proved that.”

It’s been disappointing to see how so few public officials and politicians are being arrested and charged with the crimes that we all know they have committed over the last five years, but it’s still a joy to see the President wielding his rhetorical hammer to such positive effect.

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The Gaza War Comes to DC

One of the many benefits of globalization and mass immigration is the way that different groups of foreigners can extend their violent conflicts to your country.

A pro-Palestinian gunman suspected of shooting a young Jewish diplomatic couple dead was seen in chilling video manically screaming ‘Free Palestine’ as he was hauled into custody. Chilling footage emerged overnight of 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez as he was taken into custody after two Israeli embassy staffers were gunned down outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington D.C.

Israeli embassy staffer Yaron Lischinsky and his girlfriend Sarah Milgrim were identified as the victims in the vile attack that was condemned by President Donald Trump. Lischinsky was a German-Israeli dual national employed as a research assistant for Middle East & North African Affairs at the Embassy’s Political Department, according to his LinkedIn profile. 

Details emerged of the suspect’s background and political affiliations overnight on Thursday, including his reported membership of a far-left group. He’s believed to have been involved in activism with the Part for Socialisma and Liberation and Black Lives Matter.

And now we get to listen to somber lectures about anti-semitism, October 7th, and the Holocaust, as if tens of thousands of Palestinians aren’t being murdered in their homeland. But it’s really not that difficult. Pakistanis and Indians are squaring off everywhere from Toronto to Birmingham, UK because of what’s taking place in Kashmir. The Israeli diplomat was targeted for assassination because of what Israel is doing in Gaza, not because random Hispanic immigrants happen to harbor irrational hatred for Jews.

What should be of considerably more concern to everyone is that the killer wasn’t Palestinian, or even Arab or Muslim. It’s another sign that the vast majority of the world is vehemently opposed to the Netanyahu regime and its insane campaign of murderous ethnic cleansing in Gaza. It’s a little difficult to convincingly cry victim when everyone knows which party is the aggressor and initiated the hostilities.

UPDATE: Didn’t that hater know that diplomats are supposed to be sancrosanct!

Approximately one hour ago, around 7:47 AM eastern US Time today, Israeli soldiers fired at foreign diplomats from European and Arab states who were touring Jenin in the West Bank. The delegation reportedly included 35 ambassadors, consuls, and diplomats from the European Union, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Jordan, China, Russia, Japan, and others.

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They Knew the Vaxx was Bad

I’m sure this will come as no surprise to anyone here, but documents have revealed that the Administration of the Six Bidens knew the vaxx was causing heart damage in the vaccinated, but ordered the information suppressed:

The Biden administration has been accused of purposefully covering up potentially deadly side effects of the Covid vaccines. A Congressional investigation found White House officials held back warnings about heart damage from Covid vaccines in younger people, even after getting early alerts from other countries, including Israel.

Internal emails and memos suggest a planned Health Alert Network (HAN) message by the CDC regarding myocarditis was not released. Drafts of this alert reportedly downplayed risks, emphasizing vaccine benefits over potential adverse events, according to the report. Emails indicate FDA officials, including then-Commissioner Janet Woodcock, expressed reservations about the language in the proposed HAN, leading to its suppression.

The Biden administration, the report alleges, gave former top infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci talking points to downplay the myocarditis risk, instructing them to say that the reported cases ‘have been mild and often go away without requiring treatment.’

Meanwhile, the report reveals CDC officials privately briefed Pfizer and Moderna about the potential myocarditis warning while keeping the American public in the dark.

Now, remember this ex post facto revelation, so next time, when all your NPC friends, family, and coworkers tell you to “trust the science” you will know better than to do so. The science, such as it is, quite literally lies to you.

Anyhow, the revelation is impressive, very nice. Now do turbocancer and infertility.

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Big Fun Needs a Remix

Apparently “Teenage Suicide” is now just fine as far as the Canadian government is concerned.

A special committee of MPs and senators studying Medical Assistance in Dying has recommended allowing MAiD for mature minors. A mature minor is a child or teen who is deemed capable of making a decision for MAiD. This would essentially remove the minimum age of eligibility. The committee also suggested parents may not be consulted and wouldn’t need to consent to their child’s death via MAiD. Children are uniquely vulnerable. Canada’s first priority must be to provide high quality medical care for children.

And by “high quality medical care” they mean “killing teenagers”.

“Teenage suicide… just do it!”

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The Divisions Survive

The first attempt by the NFL to destroy its history and eliminate its divisions has comprehensively failed.

The Detroit Lions withdrew their proposal to reseed the NFL playoffs just before league meetings resumed Wednesday. In an effort to keep late-season games more competitive, the Lions had proposed a bylaw that would guarantee only the division winner in each conference with the best record a home playoff game. The rest of the playoff field would have been seeded strictly by record.

Steelers coach Mike Tomlin, a member of the competition committee, wasn’t in favor of the reseeding proposal when it was first discussed at the April league meeting in Palm Beach, Florida. “I’m a division purist, to be quite honest with you,” he said. “I love the rivalries that are division play. I love the structure of our scheduling that highlights it. I just categorized myself as a division purist. I think the division winner should get a home playoff game.”

Though there’s a desire among NFL executives to make late-season games more exciting and incentivize teams to play their starters in Week 18, there wasn’t enough support from league owners to approve Detroit’s proposal, so the Lions withdrew it before a formal vote.

The reason the proposal was pulled was because the league didn’t want a public record of how little support there was for such a prodigiously stupid idea. Which means that it will surface again the moment that the media can concoct a false narrative of public outrage over a 7-10 division champion having home field in the playoffs.

Never mind that the Vikings lost to the Rams anyhow, and not because they weren’t playing at home. The proposal needs to be stomped on, hard, every time the idiots in the media and the league office bring it up again.

UPDATE: The Tush Push survived as well.

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Peter Turchin’s Substack

I’m a fan of Peter Turchin and his work in the historical field he has termed “cliodynamics”. He’s quantified and articulated a number of the things that those of us in the pattern recognition business had only dimly recognized, and it’s very exciting to see that he’s now permitting us to see more of his work outside his very good books, such as this recent post on the so-called French Wars of Religion:

I asked ChatGPT to give me a one-sentence explanation of the causes of this bloody and lengthy civil war. Here’s what it said: “The French Wars of Religion were primarily caused by growing tensions between Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots) in France, fueled by religious intolerance, political rivalries among noble families, and a weak monarchy unable to maintain order.” This answer perfectly encapsulates the standard story as seen in popular historical books, or online encyclopedias (LLMs, such as ChatGPT, are great at summarizing such common wisdom).

Readers of my books and blog posts would immediately realize that Cliodynamics gives a very different answer. Noble rivalries and religious tensions were what happened on the surface. But the deep structural causes of the FWR were popular immiseration, elite overproduction leading to intraelite conflict, and fiscal collapse of the state. In other words, the usual suspects when we talk about structural-demographic crises.

The Day of the Barricades (Paris, 1588), an ostensibly spontaneous popular uprising, which was in reality organized by counter-elites

What I’d like to do in this post series is delve a bit into these structural causes (for a deeper dive read Chapter 5 of Secular Cycles). I have two reasons to do so. First, the onset of the FWR gives us a nearly perfect example of how structural-demographic trends lead to state collapse and civil wars. Second, it was the fiscal collapse of the state that triggered warfare in c.1560. I wrote about the possibility of such a trigger for the America today in a recent post, where I concluded that we are fairly immune against it. But France in the sixteenth century was, most emphatically, not immune.

The ultimate driver, as usual in agrarian states, was population growth. During the integrative phase of the cycle (1450 to 1560) the population of France doubled: from 10–11 to 20–22 million. The French Kingdom in the sixteenth century was an overwhelmingly agrarian state and agricultural productivity couldn’t keep up with such massive population growth. As a result, food prices exploded. The price of a setier (a measure of volume) of wheat in livres tournois (the standard monetary unit in early-modern France) increased 10-fold between the 1460s and 1560s. Overpopulation created a high demand for food, inflating its price, and it increased the supply of labor, deflating its price. During the sixteenth century real wages lost two-thirds or more of their buying capacity. The daily wage of the Parisian laborer could buy 16 kg of grain in the 1490s, compared to less than 4 kg one century later.

Turchin makes it easy to see how the mainstream historical narrative is every bit as dumbed-down and falsified as the current news reporting. If you’ve got any interest in history or the truth, and if you’re here, you probably do, I highly recommend taking a gander at his substack.

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Vibrancy in Los Angeles

It’s always intriguing to observe how everyone who opposes racism and supports diversity eventually laments the inevitable result of replacing law-abiding, civic-minded Northern Europeans with people from literally every other culture in the world.

Los Angeles Realtor describes what LA has become Almost everyone she knows has recently been burglarized and attacked in their own homes. Some at gunpoint

“If you live in Los Angeles like I am, please watch this video. I need your help. This is affecting all of us and it’s becoming a real life issue

For the past couple of months, my best friend, my best friend’s mom, my doctor, 4 properties in my community, 3 plus clients, 2 other girlfriends that I have, they all have been burglarized. They have been attacked in their own homes.

In one of these cases, my friend actually left the property. Her kids were home with their nanny and someone broke in while they were in the property.

On top of that, this past Friday night around 10pm in front of my community, some of the residents trying to get in were stopped at the roundabout by someone and have been robbed at gunpoint. At gunpoint at 10pm and they stole literally everything that they had on, including watches, jewelry, anything that they had, personal belongings

— It shows that the crime is actually down around 30%. But from my experience, from the people that I talk to, that is definitely not accurate.

Of course, the police are still there to investigate hate crimes and prevent people from defending themselves. It’s increasingly obvious that not only are the police not a solution to the problem, they are an inherent part of the problem. Meanwhile, conservatives actually imagine that the problem is insufficient support for the police…

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Goodell’s Paradox

The NFL’s pursuit of “fairness” in potentially prioritizing win-loss records over division championships for playoff seeding has exposed how an even greater unfairness will be created if the league’s stupid proposal to devalue the divisions passes at the league owners’ meeting today.

The Commissioner wants the playoff tree to be reconfigured to tie seeding to record, without regard to whether a team won its division. The goal isn’t to promote equity when it comes to who’s at home and who’s on the road in the playoffs; the objective is to make late-season games more compelling by giving teams more to play for.

Whether that happens remains to be seen.

If the Commissioner gets his way on this (yes, the Lions proposed it, but the league office instigated it), it creates a separate issue as it relates to the scheduling formula.

Currently, every team plays: (1) six games against the three other teams in its division; (2) four games against all teams from another division in the conference, which rotates every year; (3) two games against the teams from the remaining divisions in the conference that finished in the same position the year before (first, second, third, fourth); (4) four games against all teams from a division in the other conference, which rotates every year; and (5) one game against a team from a division in the other conference that finished in the same position the year before.

By devaluing a division championship and emphasizing competition within the conference, the eight games every year that arise from an effort to ensure variety in schedule need to be reconsidered. Last year, the teams of the NFC North benefited from playing two of the weak divisions — the AFC South and NFC West. This year, it’ll be a much different story for the Lions, Vikings, Packers, and Bears; they play eight games against the teams of the AFC North and NFC East.

Likewise, the Rams have a very real chance at being in the No. 1 seed in 2025, given that they’ll play eight games against the teams of the AFC South and NFC South.

If a team’s record relative not to its division but to its conference will take on more importance in a playoff tree constructed based on total record, teams need to play more games in their conference. Ideally, every team would play one game against every other team in its conference — like college conferences did before they became too big to allow that.

If there is no value to divisions, or winning a division, then there is no reason to have the playoffs in the first place. Just do it like they do in soccer and award the conference championship to the team with the best record, and play the Super Bowl between the AFC and NFC champions.

But wait, that could be unfair to a team in one conference that had a better record than the best team in the other conference. So really, the playoffs should be eliminated altogether and the Super Bowl should be played between the teams with the two best records, regardless of conference.

Then again, isn’t that unfair to the team that finished with the best record? Why play the Super Bowl at all?

UPDATE: Another excellent suggestion that Roger Goodell should contemplate.

I just think there should be an equitable lottery of who should be the Super Bowl winner based on participation trophies.

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