More on the Jason Arday Controversy
Whenever I discuss the Jason Arday case, I get accused of “whataboutism.” As I’ve argued at some length, I find this an unimpressive criticism, but there’s a simpler and more obvious way of putting things than I previously did. The fact is that there is no way to avoid whataboutism when discussing the Arday case, and no one is in fact avoiding it. The people accusing people like me of whataboutism are simply blind to their own engagement in it. The issue is not whether to engage in whataboutism, but which whataboutism to engage in. About what should we be whatabout-ing?
Circling Back to Roundabouts
I’m grateful for the many off-line responses to my roundabouts post, particularly those from decision-makers at Princeton Municipal Council. I thought I’d re-visit the issue to respond to some of what was said.
One set of comments suggested that I over-complicated a simple issue: roundabouts are safer than right-angle intersections, so that’s that. But it’s not that simple. “Safer” is equivocal as between safer at the intersection and safer all things considered, and it’s not clear that roundabouts are safer all things considered.
Continue readingWake Up
True to form, Bret Stephens has an essay in yesterday’s New York Times in which, following AOC’s claims that “Woke 1.0” was “crazy,” he reiterates her point, then offers up a list of nine of Woke 1.0’s victims, and demands restitution for them. The common denominator of all of these victims is that they’re writers or intellectuals of centrist to conservative views, all of whom unjustly lost their jobs (or so we’re told) to the forces of Wokedom.
Continue readingIf Looks Could Kill
“Jason Arday’s hiring at Cambridge shows us that higher education needs to take a hard look at the structural problems at its core!”
And what does Nathan Cofnas’s presence at Ghent show us? Any structural problems there?
Protocols of the Elders of Academia
If Jason Arday’s presence at Cambridge proved that academia is full of undeserving black hires, why doesn’t Nathan Cofnas’s presence at Ghent prove that academia is full of Zionist hereditarians bent on using higher education as a launching pad for a eugenicist revolution? How did Arday become the tip of a submerged iceberg, and Cofnas a mere anomaly?
Silicon Valley’s Human Shields
Consider this excerpt from a Guest Essay in today’s New York Times by Sharon Weinberger, editor in chief of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and author of a forthcoming book, Valley of Death: How Big Tech is Fueling the Future of War.
People seem to forget that Silicon Valley was largely born on the back of Pentagon funding during the Cold War. Fairchild Semiconductor, a company that became the wellspring of the computer chip industry’s growth, was one of those beneficiaries. Conventional wisdom held that, by 2016, many firms, not to mention their employees, found the idea of working on defense projects distasteful, if not unthinkable. Mr. Trump’s election that year seemed to widen the divide. In 2018, Google, under pressure from employees, pulled out of Project Maven, a Pentagon-funded A.I. project to advance drone warfare.
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Roundabouts
One of the topics discussed at the Princeton Town Council this past Monday was roundabouts. The Council wants to install one at the corner of Terhune and Harrison, I believe it was. I don’t like roundabouts, and hope they don’t build this one, but I have to admit that the issue is more complicated and more interesting than my personal preferences, so I thought I’d lay out the structure of the problem involved.
Continue readingMasters of the Universe
The Times “Covers” the Iran War
Here’s The New York Times describing recent developments in the US-Israeli war against Iran and Lebanon:
The June memorandum of understanding was widely seen as a boon for Iran, granting the regime badly needed sanctions relief even as talks over tough concessions like nuclear enrichment were postponed for later. But Iranian leaders opted to escalate again rather than consolidate their gains from the deal, according to Nate Swanson, an Iran expert at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based research group.
Ships could move through the Strait of Hormuz freely before the war. Iran’s insistence that the deal’s vague language on the issue gave it control over the waterway led to the deal falling apart. Iran began firing on ships that transited in channels outside Iranian waters, and American forces retaliated by bombing southern Iran, prompting a cycle of attacks and counterattacks across the Middle East.
In other words, according to the Times, “expert” opinion tells us that the failure of the ceasefire is to be chalked up to Iranian belligerence and irrationality. In fact, what it actually tells us is that the “experts” are full of shit. Every claim made in this passage is factually challenged nonsense.
Continue readingWho Kidnapped Najam Sethi? And Who Didn’t?
Originally published at the History News Network, March 15, 2004.
The letters section of The New York Review of Books for February 12, 2004 contains a heated exchange between Bernard-Henry Levy, author of Who Killed Daniel Pearl? (2003) and William Dalrymple, who reviewed Levy’s book in the December 4 issue of the NYRB (“Murder in Karachi”). As it happens, I have a document that settles a contentious issue between them. I reproduce it below.
Continue readingICE-Free Zone for Princeton
Statement to Mayor & Municipal Council of Princeton
400 Witherspoon St., Princeton, New Jersey
August 10, 2026
Almost exactly a year ago today, the Mayor and Council unanimously passed resolution R-25-275, a resolution supporting passage of what was then called the Immigrant Trust Act. Among other things, the resolution called on other municipalities to join with Princeton in urging the state legislature to pass the Act. In the end, 30 municipalities and seven counties passed resolutions, and an amended version of the ITA passed the legislature in January 2026.
Policy of Truth 