HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE.

That's the quintessence of existential philosophy, if one excuses the oxymoron, as summarized by Jean-Paul Sartre.  There might be something to it all the same.

Now comes America's Newspaper of Record, perhaps with special knowledge of the ways of the Almighty, calling the roll of the damned.  "In Lieu Of Hell, Unbelieving Introverts Will Be Sent To A Business Networking Event That Lasts Forever."

FOR "SENSITIVE ISSUES," READ "SACRED PRIORS."

It is the custom of college newspapers to recognize Conrail Day, er, sorry, April Fools' Day, for those of you in Cucamonga, with stories too crazy to be true.  For example, "NIU scraps Mountain West plans, pivots to Big Ten," which came with the disclaimer, "This story is entirely satire."

ALL BRACKETS ARE BUSTED. SOME BRACKETS ARE MORE BUSTED THAN OTHERS.

By the time the field of sixteen had been determined, all of the brackets submitted in the men's tournament had at least one game incorrectly picked, and all but one of those submitted in the women's tournament, where there's still enough by way of inequity that picking the higher seed puts you in a pretty good place to win the office pool.  Thus, the over-under on all the brackets being imperfect by the end of the round of 32 is "Under 48."  (Not to be confused with Proto:48).

That got me thinking, though.  How many of the submitted brackets got the round of sixteen right?  On the men's side, it's Them That Has Gets.  The Sweet 16 invite is for power-conference programs only.  But when I ask the Google search engine "How many bracket contestants correctly identified the round of sixteen?" or variations thereon, I mostly got information about the rarity of "perfect" brackets.  Recall one guy got the first 48 men's games right in 2019, and somebody has done so in the ongoing women's tournament.  The fellow who got the first two rounds bang on did not do so well getting to the round of eight and the title.  So it goes, as America's Newspaper of Record notes.  "Woman Unable To Distinguish Between Basketball And Hockey About To Smoke Your March Madness Bracket Again."

TAKE PRESIDENTS DAY. PLEASE?

Five years ago, Reason's Billy Binion got it about right.  "On This Presidents Day, Stop Worshiping the Imperial Presidency."  You'll get no disagreement from me.  What has changed in the past few years is that Republicans have gotten as obnoxious as Democrats have long been at running presidential cults.

Similar to the idolatrous presidential merchandise, the bloating of the executive is not a problem exclusive to Republicans or Democrats. "Early in the 20th century, it was the left, the progressives, that wanted a dominant and domineering presidency," Gene Healy, a vice president at the Cato Institute, observed in a recent Reason TV documentary. "Later in the 20th century, it's the conservatives that see their political salvation in a strong executive branch."

Healy notes that "crisis tends to give you power on steroids." And, if history is any sort of indication, that's certainly true. "World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, 9/11, and the financial collapse of 2008: All of these led to a concentration of power in the executive branch," he says. "There's a ratchet effect when it comes to presidential power. Each new executive power grab that a new president makes is rarely given back."

Congress often declines to fight such expansions when the majority shares a party affiliation with the president. But little thought is given to what will happen when future leaders—ones without their ideological priors—have those same powers.

It's an attitude that appears to be lost on the bulk of partisans today.

Mr Healy once wrote the book on presidential cults, and his history is correct, although he elides the role of the professional-managerial class types in journalism and the academy, with their tendency to turn minor irritations into crises and advocate for an expansion of presidential powers in the form of an allocation czar or something similar, or perhaps to codify what they view as a bundle of conflicting local powers by expanding federal powers beyond what the Federal Constitution permits.

At the time Mr Binion wrote the article, a Democrat court intellectual said the quiet part out loud.  "A weakened presidency would hamper national governance, and Democratic policies in particular."  In the past quarter-century plus of pathetic presidents, though, it's been executive order undoing prior executive order, da capo al fine.

That cognitive dissonance isn't going away anytime soon, and it will take quite some time before we see the air let out of the presidency. Maybe we never will. But we can apply that same mindset to how we approach the office. So celebrate this Presidents Day for what it is: a three-day weekend with time to recharge.

That is, if you rate a Monday holiday.  Rush Limbaugh used to loudly proclaim his show proceeding as usual on several of those Federal Mondays, and that continues to be a talking point among Militant Normal radio talkers.  But too many of them are so into their Trump-praising that they're not advocating for letting that air out of the presidency.

SOCIALIST IT GIRL RESURRECTS THE MEME.

Lauren Caitlin Upton worked for years to get her answer to "Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?" off her permanent record.  Then one of the younger Members of Congress attempted to be profound at an international affairs gathering in Germany, and all she did was top the former Miss South Carolina Teen in gaining international notoriety for an incoherent response.  Julie Banderas of Fox News might have been the first political media type to make the connection and the social media team for Clay Travis and Buck Sexton did the mash-up.

Who gave the better answer to a foreign policy question: AOC or Miss South Carolina? Listen and decide: pic.twitter.com/V5LrWHc4JU

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) February 16, 2026

It is altogether fitting and proper that they do so, as it might have been Rush Limbaugh first recoginzed Miss South Carolina for a national audience.

THOSE AWFUL WOKE WINE WOMEN.

The Militant Normals have been running an information operation for some time, and it's having an effect.  Clyde McGrady, opinion columnist for New York's Times, complains, "Vocal Trump supporters are demonizing Renee Good, her partner and their allies, with some even using an acronym: AWFUL, or Affluent White Female Urban Liberal."  The horror!

Beyond labels and name-calling, the death of Ms. Good and the protests and anger in its wake have sparked a response from many on the right that is particularly targeted at white women in the streets, even though men have been just as involved. A majority of college-educated women, including white women, have long been skeptical of President Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, and that skepticism has been growing, according to exit polls after the 2024 election. And for months now, such women are attracting the ire of the president’s supporters.

Liberal white women are only the latest group to be on the receiving end of right-wing animus.

"Right wing animus" being the one kind of lumpenproletarian authenticity that doesn't get an indulgence from the Church of Intersectionality.  Pajamas Media's Scott Pinsker has none of it.  "The Same New York Times That Called Trump a ‘Nazi’ and ‘Fascist' Objects to THIS Hateful Word for Women."  Nor should he.  "Yet there’s nothing sexist about disliking Karens. (News flash: Most women don’t like Karens, either.) Disliking their behavior doesn’t make you a sexist."  I lose track, there are some guys now referring to "Karens" as "Jessicas" (perhaps as in Jessica Yogamat?)

THE LOGIC OF DEATHBED CONVERSIONS.

A heavenly news report from The Babylon Bee.  "At publishing time, Scott Adams had been moved into a shared cubicle with French philosopher Blaise Pascal."

WRITE THE BOOK, MATT!

A column about serendipity during college noting, "Early-career breaks are largely accidental; you’re likelier to be accident-prone if you’re where the action is. An otherwise-wonderful school in the middle of nowhere won’t have the same sorts of accidental opportunities as one in or near a major city." that might be as much about the importance of a core curriculum to help students figure out their strengths and weaknesses as it is about agglomeration economies at large universities includes one of Matt Reed's pet parenthetical asides that might be an advertisement for a survey course about Western Civilization.  "(Someday, somewhere, I’ll get the chance to teach my dream course: Money, Sex and Power: An Introduction to the Social Sciences. If you can’t find anything interesting among those three topics, I really don’t know what to tell you.)"

Well, yes, if you didn't already know it, economics has no boundaries.  I prefer the formulation "sex, death, and why the lines are longest at the roller coaster," but yes, you can probably work either my formulation or his into any of the traditional social sciences.  Well, "relentless combination of mischief and logic" might also work.  But you can't let the Critical Theory types who destroyed English anywhere near such a course.

YES, THAT CHEAP LABOR SUBSIDY IS REAL.

In two published papers, Eliakim Katz and I analyzed immigration amnesties as a way of screening the pool of illegal immigrants by subjecting them to exploitation in the underground economy and confronting a positive but not certain prospect of an amnesty, in order to induce favorable self-selection, meaning it wouldn't pay to sneak into a rich country in the hopes of going on welfare later.

Yes, that sounds cynical, and yes, we did get some grief for characterizing the underground economy as a sort of apprenticeship.  Other scholars subsequently expanded on our work.

We show that an amnesty is more desirable the bigger is the gain to aggregate income induced by granting legalized workers access to all the available employment opportunities. On the contrary, a more redistributive welfare state makes an amnesty less desirable, as low-skilled legalizedforeign workers will gain access to benefits. We also find that the introduction of a legalization program can only be optimal if there is a positive shock affecting the income received by the natives. In this case, the legalization allows the government to mitigate the adverse effects of an excessively restrictive policy implemented in the first period.

That paper offers the following elaboration on our work.

Karlson and Katz (2003) consider instead the role of amnesties as a tool for governments to induce immigrants to self–select based on ability. Similarly to our model, they also consider migrants that differ in their skill level. In particular, they emphasize that a legalization will offer skilled workers better labor market opportunities. As a result, the latter might be enticed to migrate even as illegals, in the hope that an ex–post legalization will improve their income opportunities. Differently from us, in Karlson and Katz’s (2003) model and in their companion paper (Karlson and Katz 2010), legal immigration is not explicitly considered together with illegal immigration.

The authors continue in an academic vein, and it looks like light bedtime reading.  But not tonight.  Rather, I'm in the mood to thank loudmouth leftist Jill Filipovic for simultaneously validating our cheap labor argument and demonstrating the folly of minimum wage laws.

If you would like to pay $30 for a pint of strawberries, $700 for someone to clean your one-bedroom apartment, and $100,000 for a new roof on your normal-sized house, then deporting all undocumented people is a policy you should support. https://t.co/l3m7JyCzfP

— Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) November 18, 2025

Twitchy's Brett T. compiled a few of the more pungent ripostes.  "Are Americans that spoiled by cheap, illegal alien labor?"  Hie thee hence, and judge for yourself.

NO KREMLIN PARADE FOR YOU.

It's 108 years since Great October Socialist Revolution.  I don't know whether there's inchoate socialist revolution in United States electoral politics, tavarish.  I submit, though, that Babylon Bee have proper perspective on current socialist mania.

Enjoy, and don't forget to thank Student Affairs for providing education!  Do svidanya.

FUN TRIGGERS THESE LOONS.

Thus did Pajamas Media's Stephen Kruiser expand on yesterday's observation about joyless footie fans.

Dems have been heavily invested in misery since long before Trump came on the political scene, though. Their core political beliefs can only be sold to people who are deeply unhappy and wallowing in despair to the point that they believe only the seemingly benevolent hand of a politician can save them.

Even the ones who are making millions off the grift are cheerless; you can see it in their faces. When your sole function is to try and make people feel awful, it rubs off on you. Look at Bernie Sanders's face. Elizabeth Warren is always yelling. Squeaky is the most constipated-looking young woman I've ever seen in politics.

Had George W. Bush been the Republican president who wanted to build a White House ballroom, the reaction would have been almost as laden with hysteria.

With Hallowe'en coming at the end of next week, no doubt the guilt-tripping both political and cultural will proliferate along with the house decorations and the defrosting of Mariah Carey.  This Badger Herald alum from the days when that paper epitomized campus dissent endorses succeeding generations of Normals in their "laughing the rabid Left into impotence."

A TEAM THAT WILL LIVE IN IGNOMINY.

For years, some sports pundit has offered "Bottom Ten" rankings for college and professional teams.  I'm old enough to remember one iteration listing Bay (Green) along with Bay (Tampa), the aftermath of the Lombardi Era being nearly thirty years in the wilderness with a team not much better than an expansion team, and another iteration featuring the Los Angeles Lambs.

These days, the pundit is Ryan McGee with ESPN, and he hits close to home.  Go, Northern Ill-ugh-noise.

The Other Other Huskies are one of a whopping six #MACtion team stuck at 1-and-something, but won, er, lost out for this spot over the other five because: 1. They actually played a game last weekend; C. They lost to San Diego State, which isn't terrible, but the final score of the game was 6-3; and secondly, we wanted a chance to hype this week's Pillow Fight of the Week, when they host My Hammy of Ohio, which is now 1-3 after beating Lindenwood, a school you've never heard of unless you are a big Pierre Desir fan.

That's the way to motivate fans on homecoming weekend at the teachers' college that claims to have invented homecoming.

A HUMILIATION RITUAL.

That sounds about right.

The season premiere of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test was just one big humiliation ritual.

And something tells me this is going to be the toughest season yet, and by “toughest,” I’m talking about the most difficult season to watch.

Yet, I couldn’t take my eyes off the installment, as we watched privileged princesses like the Giudices get shoved face-first into the mud, and Jussie Smollett already got one of the roughest edits yet for someone intent on using this for his second chance.

It sounds like TV Fanatic's Jasmin Blue shares my guilty pleasure.  She also, as one might expect of somebody who writes columns dealing with television, is much more familiar with the foibles of this year's recruits.  "It’s one of the most questionable casts, and that’s coupled with it already coming across as one of the most degrading seasons yet."

Former Green Bay Packer Randall Cobb, who joined the Aaron Rodgers receiver reunion with the Jets, is also in camp, so far not coming to the attention of the training staff.

And, contrary to last week's post, the show airs on Thursdays, freeing up Wednesdays to deal with Chicago's budgetary woes getting in the way of all the fishing off the company pier at the firehouse and the detectives' bullpen.

IT GETS TIRESOME.

"People die when the government messes up."  Well, yes, but the argument usually presents as emotional blackmail.  "Do Republicans Want Some of Us to Die?"  "Millions Will Die Unless US Aid Money is Replaced."  "Incompetence Is Not Virtue.  Also, People Will Die."  "Public radio, a matter of life and death."

HOW DID YOUR WORK WEEK GO?

What better way to close out a week of reporting on Eventful Things than with a sketch worthy of Mad?

That's a wrap for this week. Thanks for looking in.

HOT DOGGING.

Red State's Ward Clark put together a column featuring the Indianapolis version of racing sausages.

One Wienermobile dropped out with mechanical problems; to be frank, it looks as though that team could use a new mechanic. Later in the race, though, the Wienermobile from the southeast United States, playing ketchup, took the lead and rolled to the win. The winning team, we can be sure, threw a sausage party after the event. They should be proud; their historic win lands them in the honor roll of American sports. The losers, though, may find themselves in a bit of a pickle.

The heavy wordplay in that paragraph is no worse than the Fox Sports call of the race, which was decided in the final furlong.

Mr Clark also embedded an Oscar Mayer commercial from sixty years ago.  I don't know whether the people who wrote the original "everyone would be in love with me" anticipated the way kids would parody that song, or if they leaned into it, as you'll see in the clip.  Milwaukee elementary school kids of the era were singing that "there would soon be nothing left" verse as early as 1964.

Kids participating in hot dog commercials were a thing during the waning years of the American High.  Armour might have had the more edgy tag line, with "the dog kids love to bite."

Those references to "fat kids" and "sissy kids" bothered Excessively Earnest People of that era.  In the Oscar Mayer reference to "all good meat" might have been a response to rumblings about what went into industrial-scale hot dogs.  (Somewhere in the operations research canon there is a linear programming problem involving snouts and eyeballs, and it's not for the faint of heart, because you might find those in the mix as well.)  And thus the regional variations on artisanal hot dogs, intended as the Arch Deluxe alternative to grilling an Oscar Mayer or an Armour at day camp.

SUMMER DRIVING SEASON IS UPON US.

Sometimes, all you can do is grin and bear it.

History was made today as the guy weaving in and out of traffic ahead of you on the freeway was awarded an impressive 1st place trophy after he arrived at the offramp a full 15 seconds before all the other cars he impatiently swerved around.

"I feel really proud of this momentous achievement," said Brent Larson after pulling up to the stop light a few seconds ahead of the other cars. "Those other losers were just going too slow. I've gotta get off the freeway, man! Now look at me — I'm sitting here at the red light at the bottom of the ramp, and all those cars I passed are stuck staring at my tail lights. Suckers!"

Larson credited his overly aggressive driving and wanton disregard for roadway safety for his astounding ability to arrive at the light one-quarter of a minute ahead of other motorists. Drivers of the vehicles Larson passed seemed oblivious to his accomplishment. "Yeah, he doesn't seem very patient," said Ken Rawlings, who drove at a respectable speed and arrived at the same place only a few seconds later. "But, hey, if it makes him feel like he did something impressive…yay for him, I guess."

Larson was undeterred by the lack of enthusiasm from his fellow drivers. "They're just jealous, man," he said. "They wish they were the ones who got here at the same offramp stop light at virtually the same time after those sweet driving moves I put on display. Ha ha! Whatever, losers!"

It's a satire site, and the guy illustrated brandishing his trophy looks way too relaxed, compared with the usual stressed-out countenance of those aggressive lane-changers.

We leave as an exercise whether the article is mocking the maltimed traffic lights that trip up the law-abiding and the lane-switching alike.

PROTECTING THE HERD.

Elephants can also form a protective circle to fend ditzes off.

Man, this is hard to watch.

Is this how Kamala Harris wants to make her debut back into the public spotlight? pic.twitter.com/i9Ii9IwQG7

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 1, 2025

I'm asking for a show of hands, who'd rather have this in the Oval?

CLEAVAGE IN THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM.

Didn't the first iteration of Star Trek crew Enterprise with some skimpily-clad yeomen?

Elle cover retrieved from Sasha Stone.

MERCURY WAS IN RETROGRADE DURING THE EQUINOX.

That might have made for interesting Women's Studies gatherings.  It gave two Northern Star columnists something to hash over.  Both have female names, no April foolin' here!