Lowering the Bar

No surprise — law schools are going woke. Which means even corporate-lawyers-in-training have to pretend to hate capitalism. This fall, first year students at Stanford Law School were greeted with a National Lawyers Guild guide on how students can reconcile their “anti-racist, anti-capitalist, etc. beliefs” with the law school experience. According to The Washington Free Beacon, this guide comforts first-years that, thanks to the Guild’s support, “every day you learn about how evil the U.S. legal system is.” It also lays down the law on Stanford itself: “Elite law schools exist to serve elite interests — upholding the patriarchal racial colonial capitalism that crushes people and planet.” Incoming students are reassured that they will be “learning how not to give a f—.”

Tips for dealing with the eeeevil law education include: seeing a therapist, skipping homework, and remembering that great grades aren’t everything. According to the Stanford Law website, the Stanford National Lawyers Guild is “dedicated to the liberation of all people.” But if prospective lawyers really wanted to be liberated from this gobbledygook, they’d file a class-action suit to stop capitalist-based student fees from supporting it.

Bum Rap 

The Chi-Com propaganda beat goes on. China has already infiltrated American culture — they’ve co-opted the sports world and Hollywood — now they’re aiming at rap. As evidence mounts that covid-19 originated from the Wuhan lab, the Chinese Communist Party [ccp] is trying to drum up blame to deflect elsewhere: an American military lab. As The Washington Free Beacon reports, the Chinese government is using a ridiculous rap video to carry their disinformation. Because the Chi-Coms apparently consider bad rap the best instrument for their anti-American bs.

In a heavy foreign accent, the wannabe rapper slams Fort Detrick, MD as “a witch’s cauldron,” wildly mispronouncing the improbable lyrics, including “sanctimonious” as sanni-moan-ee-us. Classic rap it is not. Singing the same tune, Chi-Com newspaper China Daily and Foreign Ministry spokesman Lijian Zhao are also blaming Fort Detrick for the pandemic, because everyone knows Maryland was the coronavirus epicenter. not.

The conspiracy-theory rap video includes psychedelic-effect footage of Anthony Fauci calling Rand Paul a liar, spliced with Jen Psaki asking China “to be transparent, to be forthcoming with data and information.” You would stop the music right there, ccp Central, if you gave a rap about the truth.

Grounded Mound

An “artificial hill” in central London was slated to be one of the city’s newest highlights, but visitors have a universally low opinion of it, reports AP. Marble Arch Mound was designed to attract shoppers back to the commercial heart of London. At 80 feet high, it’s supposed to offer inspiring views of Oxford Street and Hyde Park. However, actual viewers were inspired to dub the mound “a slag heap.”

The thing cost $8.3 million to construct, almost double the pre-build estimate. The Westminster Council member who oversaw the project resigned as the cost soared — and profits took a nosedive. Tickets were originally $6.50, but everything went downhill from there. The greenery died and visitors complained, calling it “London’s worst tourist attraction,” according to the bbc. The Council minimized the issues as “teething problems,” reassuring the public that “the mound is a living building by design. We’ll continue to adapt and improve London’s newest outdoor attraction.” So far, the most notable improvement is the price reduction. Climbing the mound will remain free until it closes in January, when it will presumably become an official junk pile.

Buzzy Brew

Would you feed bees coffee? No, you would not. Because you are not engaged in the gallant and noble pursuit of science. The New York Post reports on a new study published in the essential journal Current Biology, in which scientists gave bees caffeine to see how diligently they pursued floral aroma. In order to “disentangle the effects of caffeine-improving memory for learned food-associated cues versus caffeine as a reward” (because this is how science works), researchers used “robotic experimental flowers.” Whatever they are.

One group of bees was trained to pursue a strawberry smell with a sugary reward, while another group received a caffeine reward. Turns out, the bees with the caffeine buzz got busier. They made more visits to scented fake flowers than the other bees. The caffeinated bees also spent less time visiting each flower, implying that they found food faster with wake-up juice.

So now what? Will the next issue of Current Biology reveal studies in bee rehab to kick caffeine addiction? Or will scientists now spritz pumpkin spice latte into beehives to kick off their mornings amongst the robotic flowers? Only science knows.

Illustrations Bum Rap/Lowering the Bar/Power Shopping/Grounded Mound/Doom Drills ©2021 Allison Smith for The Limbaugh Letter; Illustrations Against the Tide/Buzzy Brew: ©2021 Shutterstock/Vectortatu/Victor Metelskiy/laduhis72; Rainbow Tree: ©2021 Getty Images/George Wood/Stringer