Another roundup
(1) VDH is recovering from his surgery and explains quite a bit here, including the fact that his lung cancer was of a rare type that’s difficult to diagnose and often mimics infection/inflammation on scans. That explains a lot.
The cancer doesn’t seem to have metastasized, which is excellent news.
(2) How Communists think, with director of Mamdani’s “Office to Protect Tenants” Cea Weaver as an example. The quotes are from 2021, when she was already a prominent tenants’ rights activist, and indicate very little understanding of the interface between renting and home-owning, as well as the distinction between home-owning and being a landlord owning multiple units. It’s slogans all the way down.
(3) It seems like it’s a good idea to know what a woman is, if you’re going to be a SCOTUS justice. Here’s why:
Oral argument took place on January 13, 2026, in two cases involving state law attempts to protect girls sports – in Idaho and West Virginia.
… Alito, who’s tied with Thomas for the best Justice on the court asked a question, and we don’t have video, but you know he had an ear-to-ear grin. He asked the attorney for the girls to give him the definition of what it means to be a girl or a boy. And she said, well, we don’t have that definition, which harkened back to Katanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearing, where she was asked, give me the definition of a woman. And she said, well, I can’t, ’cause I’m not a biologist. …
… Most of the argument today surrounded levels of review. A lot of words like heightened scrutiny and strict scrutiny. So a lot of it was kind of court sort of jargon as to what can we do to review this.
But when you get down to it, we are literally in the Supreme Court arguing whether a school district can protect girls’ sports or not.
Girls’ sports exist for a reason, and the reason is rooted in biology.
(4) Ann Althouse wonders what to call Reza Pahlavi:
I know he’s not the Shah. Not yet. Just testing the concept on you after Meade called him the Shah. I said he’s not the Shah, and Meade said it was like addressing a nun as “Sister” when you’re not Catholic. I said: “You mean like using someone’s preferred pronouns?” It doesn’t matter what you think the person really is, you’re showing respect.
Is it wrong to call Reza Pahlavi the “Shah”? Does it help him garner support or not? He’s not in power, not yet anyway, but is there good reason to refer to him as the Shah?
I suppose if I were to address him personally I might call him Shah. But I think I can safely say that it’s highly unlikely that I ever will be addressing him personally. In the meantime, there are lots of other perfectly good terms to use to refer to him: “heir apparent,” “would-be Shah,” or “Crown Prince.”
From his Wiki entry:
Born in Tehran, Iran, Reza Pahlavi was officially named crown prince of Iran at the time of his father’s coronation in 1967.
…… In 1980, following the death of his father in exile in Cairo, Egypt, Reza Pahlavi declared himself shah of Iran, styling himself “Reza Shah II”, and actively participated in political activities opposing the Islamic Republic from abroad.
So for approximately 45 years he’s been referring to himself as the Shah.
(5) DeSantis is not Walz:
Jennifer Cruz was arrested outside Mi Pueblo, a Mexican grocery store and meat market in Jacksonville, Tuesday morning after she allegedly jumped out of her car and punched a state trooper in the face while officers were working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents …
Another shocking video shared on X appeared to show Cruz kicking and screaming as officers struggled to get her into a squad car, laughing and taunting police and calling one officer a “weak-ass motherf–ker.”
Footage shows her lying in the back seat before suddenly popping up and kicking the officer who was trying to restrain her.
“Don’t you dare start kicking me!” one officer is heard warning her.
Cruz was then tased …
“This is not Minneapolis. This is not going to end well for you in Florida,” DeSantis vowed.
“You have a right to go out there and criticize government policy. You can go out there and protest within respected zones, but the idea that you’re going to assault one of our troopers is unacceptable, and you are going to face consequences as a result of that.”
One would think that would be very basic. These days, not so much.
Democrats have a lock on the Cluster B constituency.
Iran does not currently have a throne, so I don’t think “Shah” is appropriate. There are multiple royal families in Europe who pretend to thrones that no longer exist, and we don’t call the heads of their houses “King”.
For example, we don’t call Vittorio Emanuele of Savoy “King” because Italy is a republic and has no king. His father was King of Italy, and if Italy did have a King now presumably he would be it, but they don’t and he isn’t.
Likewise, Karl von Habsburg is not called King-Emperor of Austria-Hungary; both Austria and Hungary exist but no longer have kings and are no longer in union.
Jean-Christophe Napoleon, a 39-year-old investment banker, is not called Emperor because France does not have an empire; neither is his father Charles Napoleon who’s the only other person who has a good claim to the title.
There are a lot of pretenders to the same throne, as well, sometimes because old dynasties were ousted and never acknowledged their successors, or because without any reality to the title royal families tend to get in squabbles about how to determine the succession.
I think calling Mohamed Reza Pahlavi’s heir “Shah” is kind of stealing a base, granting him something that is not in our gift, presuming a legitimacy he doesn’t actually have. Only the people of Iran can decide if they want a monarch and if they want him specifically. It’s not as though Iran was his family’s property. His dynasty was founded in 1925 by an Iranian soldier serving under the British so it’s not exactly like Habsburg or Bourbon or indeed even Stuart; more like Kim Il Sung’s dynasty, a recent thing imposed by force. Not to say Pahlavi is personally a bad guy.
Cea Weaver is the daughter of two professors. Both started out at the University of Rochester; her mother was hired away by Vanderbilt in 2012. Her mother’s CV is chock-a-block with articles which remind you of Martin Peretz remark that in the disciplines he knew of, most academic / professional publication consisted of meditations on trivia. Her father has an endowed chair. He’s taken to environmental writing in his old age. He was, once upon a time, a collaborator with pinko Maurice Isserman.
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The term ‘privilege’ is stupidly over-used by people who confound privilege (i.e. ‘private law’) with advantages. Academicians, especially those like Applegate and Weaver, are people agreeably paid to follow their avocations, are given excessive job security, have remarkable discretion over their time, and are the beneficiaries of conventions buttressed by law. They’re privileged in ways businessmen are not.
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Cea Weaver’s brother is a lawyer. He works for the Illinois state government.
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What’s interesting to me about Cea Weaver is that she cadged a degree in urban planning but apparently had not even rudimentary instruction in microeconomics.
I’m hoping for Iran.
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The Pahlavi family are parvenus, with their prominence in the country extending only from 1921 to 1979. There is a Qajar pretender. His family was on the throne for about 135 years. He was born in 1949 and lives in Dallas; not sure he’s ever been to Iran or speaks any of the languages therein. The Safavid dynasty held the throne for 230 years. Would be interesting to discover if there is a Safavid pretender.
The simplest and most straightforward point you can make about women’s sports is asking the question, “Why do women’s sports even exist?”
If everyone was potentially athletically equal, individual and team sports would all consist of approximately 50% biologic women and 50% biologic men.
They need a cattle car to take some of these people to jail.
When did society devolve so much?
Careful strongyliodes. Such rational thinking can make one suspect in this day and age.
Cea Weaver’s real name is Celia. No idea what the dropping of the “li” is about.
“One would think that would be very basic. These days, not so much.”
If you recall, the students at Kent State and Jackson State were shocked that the National Guard had real live ammunition. They thought that what they were doing was just having a fun time. They got a rude awakening. One of my friends used to say that the worst trouble he ever got into started off as having fun.
“One would think that would be very basic. These days, not so much.”
If you recall, the students at Kent State and Jackson State were shocked that the National Guard had real live ammunition. They thought that what they were doing was just having a fun time. They got a rude awakening. One of my friends used to say, the worst trouble he ever got into started off as having fun.
Most have probably seen the video of Senator Hawley asking an ob-gyn a simple question, “can men get pregnant.” This is where the left is. She won’t answer because it will psychologically be uncomfortable for some of her patients.
The left, in their quest for perfect diversity, equity, inclusion, have drawn the logical conclusion (in their worldview) that nothing is abnormal so everything is normal.
That requires a subjective truth, that seems comically absurd to anyone who doesn’t accept their worldview.
‘Can men get pregnant?’ Sen. Hawley grills OB-GYN at a hearing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEe5I9QXdOs
This doesn’t directly relate to the arguments before the SC, except to the point that the question isn’t “what did the the language of Title 9 mean when referring to “woman”? The answer was direct. Biological women.
That question is ignored by the plaintiffs. Instead the argument centers around equal protection clause.
Overall, the plaintiffs’ position was that these bans harm transgender youth by isolating them and denying equal opportunities, while states countered that Title IX permits (and historically assumes) biological-sex-based separations to protect cisgender women’s sports.
” Cea Weaver’s real name is Celia. No idea what the dropping of the “li” is about. ”
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“Celia” is full of li’s. “Cea” doesn’t have a single li in her.
They keep asking if Men can become Pregnant. How about asking if Women have a Prostate? If the answer is NO (as it should be), then ask how then can a woman be called a Man?
@SHIREHOME:How about asking if Women have a Prostate?
Ah, but are there not men who don’t have a prostate? (You should imagine this asked in the voice of Sir Bedivere, who was so wise in the ways of science.) When a man has his prostate removed do we expect him afterward to use the women’s bathroom, wear a dress, etc? Do we put guards in the bathroom to check who does and doesn’t have a prostate?
There’s no point in playing definition games with the Left, that’s their ground. They will always claim that one exception or edge case makes all categories invalid when they wish, or dismiss a host of exceptions as meaningless when they choose.
Can only hope the best for VDH
Marx thought no one should own anything, especially property
The Supreme Court doest rule against this Culture Marxism and humans get to pick their sex, we are screwed. Suspect they will weasel out somehow.
I couldn’t care what Iran does after they overthrow the Mullahs
And that protester will learn the hard way sitting in prison I hope.
Great news about VD Hanson, finally! Sobering, but good.
Strange as it may seem they’ve lost.
“In 1980, following the death of his father in exile in Cairo, Egypt, Reza Pahlavi declared himself shah of Iran…
Declared himself? That’s not cricket, he disqualifies himself.
“Most have probably seen the video of Senator Hawley asking an ob-gyn a simple question, “can men get pregnant.” This is where the left is.” Brian E
Where they are indeed.
George Orwell spoke of one form of dissimulation. “When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were instinctively, to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”
The refusal to answer is of course another but a refusal to answer a simple question about basic terms is an implicit admission of intellectual bankruptcy. And, when they witness it, more and more are recognizing it. Amply demonstrated by Trump’s votes in Nov 2023 among Hispanic and black voters.
The democrat party has descended into self-parody and no one likes realizing they’re being played for a fool.
Men’s sports should be replaced by Open sports, to allow women, trannies, & the disabled to all compete with the Same Rules. All genders equal.
There should be XX women’s sports for the XX girls who identify as women. There should be special Olympics for the disabled.
Free humans have the choice to reject being males, or females, despite having XY or XX chromosomes & matching genitalia. Their individual rejection of reality doesn’t make them the other sex—the tranny movement is right that genders are more than two, so those males disabled (sterile) sexually who reject being men should be labeled otherwise, Strongly.
Weakly, I suggest q’women, to be courteous to them, or q’man for the XX females who reject being women. Q’she & q’he, q’her & q’him, become the pronouns. All legally able to compete in the Opensports with the men. Who dominate.
All such trannies should be fine calling him the Shah; I prefer Crown Prince.
Trump’s uncertain support means he can agree to better post revolution terms, but reduces the chances of regime change. I hope he’s using more time to plan so that when, not if, he attacks, there is a minimum of US casualties.
Iran casualties are far less Important except as PR justification.
I’m glad there is a Department of War. I wish, but don’t expect, that Trump asks for a declaration of war against Iran for their Crimes Against Humanity. Make the Dems either support it, abstain, or accept Iranian murdering thousands yet staying in power.
I think Trump is waiting for Israel. Suspect the Iranian people will reduce their Big Protesting only after losing some 20-40 k civilians butchered.
Tom Grey:
Nope.
Not too clever, the left never stops. The trannies want to dominate the girls and women. Why, because they are sick.
SHIREHOME on January 16, 2026 at 3:46 pm said:
“They keep asking if Men can become Pregnant. How about asking if Women have a Prostate?”
Some years ago I was in a library and happened to pick up a book by Stephen J. Gould.
Flipping it open I came across some discussion of the homology between male and female sexual organs/ components – i.e., they have a common source during embryo development and then “specialize” by sex as it matures. So after a fashion a woman does have a “prostate” and we call it a uterus. Or a man has a uterus and we call it a “prostate”. And so on for several other elements of physiology.
Unlike rhe “sanctuary cities” rebelling against rhe law, Republican States have witnessed falling rates of crime.
On FNC this week (Tuesday?), Laura Ingraham interviewed economist Peter St. Onge with details proving this case…Fox posts these online after that air date, but I am yet to find it.
I only cought the end myself. I’d like hear it all!