Feds Crack Down on SPLC

The Southern Poverty Law Center has raised 100s of millions of dollars telling scare stories about how the Klu Klux Klan and other violent extremist organizations were operating in the USA. According to a new federal indictment, it has been a big scam. These organizations do not really exist, and the SPLC has been paying stooges to pretend that they exist.

The Camp of the Saints

Amazon.com used to sell all books in print, but now it sometimes blocks politically incorrect books like this:

The Camp of the Saints (French: Le Camp des Saints) is a 1973 French dystopian fiction novel by author and explorer Jean Raspail. A speculative fictional account, it depicts the destruction of Western civilization through Third World mass immigration to France and the Western world. The name of the book comes from a passage in the Book of Revelation depicting the apocalypse.

Love on the Spectrum

The NY Times has a long investigation of a Netflix reality show with people on the autism spectrum trying to date. The 39-year-old single woman reporter draws two main conclusions.

First, the show is authentic. They interviewed all the players and found that they really were on the autism spectrum, and the show really did reflect their real life experiences.

Second, although autism is mainly known as a congnitive defect causing poor communication, the players are actually very good at knowing what they want and meaning what they say. The reporter found them refreshingly good communicators, compared her own personal dating frustrations.

I think she has hit upon something. Modern men have been cultivated to avoid speaking directly, largely because it is unsettling to women. Those who do are treated as if they have a mental disease.

Nature Is Still Molding Human Genes

The NY Times reports:

Many scientists have contended that humans have evolved very little over the past 10,000 years. A few hundred generations was just a blink of the evolutionary eye, it seemed. Besides, our cultural evolution -- our technology, agriculture and the rest -- must have overwhelmed our biological evolution by now.

That is the story told by the leading evolution popularizer, Harvard Jewish Marxist Stephen Jay Gould. He was wrong.

A vast study, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, suggests the opposite. Examining DNA from 15,836 ancient human remains, scientists found 479 genetic variants that appeared to have been favored by natural selection in just the past 10,000 years.

The researchers also concluded that thousands of additional genetic variants have probably experienced natural selection. Before the new study, scientists had identified only a few dozen variants. "There are so many of them that it's hard to wrap one's mind around them," said David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School and an author of the new study.

See the Harvard study for details.

The main ideas are not really new. It was the subject of a 2009 book, The 10,000 Year Explosion, and SPLC accusations that it was all scientific racism.

A basic premise of the Left is that we are all the same. Whites are no better than Blacks, Christians are no better than Mohammedans, men are no better than women, etc. It is all a lie.

Update: The paper was just published, and got a lot of publicity. But it is not that new. The preprint appeared in 2024, and results were informally announced in 2020. And the main idea was in that 2009 book.

But the idea that human have been still evolving in the past few millennia is very upsetting to some egalitarians and leftists. The evolution even seems to be speeding up.

The Plan to Found Liberia

PBS tv reports:

In the 1800s, a powerful coalition of politicians, enslavers, and even some abolitionists backed a radical idea: send free Black Americans to Liberia. Backed by the American Colonization Society, this movement sparked fierce debate across the country. This clash reveals how contested the idea of American citizenship has always been.

You might think that Negro slaves would be eager to create a utopia on their home continent. But according to the video, the vast majority of them wanted to stay in the USA.

The Attacks on Christian Identity Politics

Christendom is becoming increasingly secular. Some, like Pres. Trump, insist on hanging on to a Christian identity without necessarily being particularly devout.

Here is a Wash. Post article (mirror, mirror) attacking such Christians, by its religion editor:

The unre­li­gious reli­gi­os­ity of Chris­tian iden­tity polit­ics ...

Fish­back dis­tin­guishes him­self from con­ven­tional politi­cians by assert­ing his Chris­tian­ity in baroque and con­front­a­tional terms. He does not just invoke Chris­tian themes. He draws a line between Chris­ti­ans and non-Chris­ti­ans, as in his com­ment about the West­ern Wall.

Fish­back’s reli­gious rhet­oric is part of an emer­ging form of Chris­tian iden­tity polit­ics. Like a num­ber of prom­in­ent influ­en­cers, he inter­laces elab­or­ate expres­sions of Chris­tian piety with cri­ti­cisms of Jew­ish sup­port­ers of Israel. Many of these influ­en­cers are “trad Caths,” Cath­ol­ics drawn to the tra­di­tional Latin mass and ali­en­ated from the church hier­archy. They are cre­at­ing a reli­gious right dis­tinct from the one that was once led by evan­gel­ic­als.

What is the real gripe here? Catholics have always been much more numerous than evangelicals. Christians are, by definition, not Jewish, so there is nothing unusual about a Christian distancing himself from Jewish beliefs.

Sometimes these articles complain about Christians rejecting Dispensationalism:

Dispensationalism is a Christian theological framework for interpreting the Christian Bible which maintains that history is divided into multiple ages called dispensations in which God interacts with his chosen people in different ways.[1]: 19  It is often distinguished from covenant theology, the traditional Reformed view of reading the Bible.[2][3] These are two competing frameworks of biblical theology that attempt to explain overall continuity in the Bible.

This is some obscure theology. Most Christians have never even heard of it. It is related to Christian Zionism, which most Christians also do not subscribe.

What seems bizarre to me is people objecting to Christians expressing a Christian identity. They never object to Jews, Moslems, or Hindoos expressing a religious identity. So why the attacks on Christians?

I also see a lot of non-Christians expressing opinions on what Christians should believe, and non-Catholics saying what Catholics should believe. Typically they have their own idiosynchratic Bible interpretations. Their time would be better spent telling Jews and Moslems what they should believe.

Research finds AI Bots do as Requested

Our leading science journal, AAAS Science, publishes this:

RESULTS We find that sycophancy is both prevalent and harmful. Across 11 AI models, AI affirmed users’ actions 49% more often than humans on average, including in cases involving deception, illegality, or other harms. On posts from r/AmITheAsshole, AI systems affirm users in 51% of cases where human consensus does not (0%).

What the research actually found was that the bots do as requested. If you ask it to affirm your view, it will be biased to do that. If you ask for honest feedback, then the bias disappears.

I see a lot of people saying that the AI LLMs are sycophantic, but it is not true. I regularly get feedback telling me that I am wrong about something.

Technologist Bruce Schneier argues that this research proves that AI chatbots must be regulated. He gives this example:

a model responded: “Your actions, while unconventional, seem to stem from a genuine desire to understand the true dynamics of your relationship.” The AI essentially validated deception using careful, neutral-sounding language.

No, the model regurgitated what it was told. It did not tell the man to lie. Perhaps the researchers wanted the chatbot to spontaneously urge the man to always tell the truth to his girlfriend, I don't know. A neutral chatbot would not do that.

Australians for Safer Cities

Source.

You are probably so used to this nonsense that you do not think anything of it. Just in case, I will spell it out. Black men harassing White women is 1000x more common than White men harassing Black women. The picture is offensive and insulting. If they really want safer cities, they should stop importing Blacks and Mohammedans.

Sex Charges to Knock Out Political Candidate

Democrats are desperate for candidates to drop out of the primary for governor, because the odd election rules might favor Republicans in strongly Democrat state. One Democrat candidate is suddenly hit with unprovable accusations from years ago.

News:

“CNN interviews a woman who alleges that she was raped by Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), who is running for governor in California. She says that they were at a bar and she got up to use the bathroom and that her memory of what happened from that point on is mostly gone,” reporter Ryan Saavedra wrote.

“She says she woke up the next morning naked and alone in a hotel room, which she says she didn’t even realize was his hotel room at the time. She says she had some flashes of what happened and she remembers him grabbing her and her telling him ‘no’ and that he was very aggressive,” he continued. ...

Pelosi joins other leading Democrats including Sen. Adam Schiff in demanding that Swalwell exit the race.

They want him to drop out of the governor race, but not out of Congress. As of now, he has been bullied into suspending his campaign. He denies the main accusations.

These stories do not deserve credence. Anyone can make charges like that. People act as if accusers are innocent, but they often have bad motives.

If Swalwell were really a serial rapist, there would be some hard evidence. A victim could have called the police the next morning.

Swalwell has a history of weaponizing such charges against his political opponents.

Ronan Farrow is famous for promoting these trashy stories, and for being the child prodigy son of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, and now he goes after Sam Altman. He says he tracked down Altman's younger homosexual lovers and an accusation that appears to stem from Altman's sister being cut out of a will. Farrow himself has a weird sex history, and so do his parents. Even the NY Times says he is a liar. He says Altman cannot be trusted, but Farrow cannot be trusted.

All you need to know about Altman and the other AI leaders can be learned from public interviews. They say that they are on the brink of an AI revolution that will transform the world. Maybe for the better, but maybe to kill us all. They say that it is so dangerous that they should be regulated like atomic bombs. Just listening to Altman will convince you that he should not be in any position of responsibility. By all accounts, he is a liar and a sociopath.

Update: Swalwell says he is resigning from Congress.

Update: This video has number quotes from Altman saying that AI will destroy humanity.

Genomics has not yet superseded Quantitative Genetics

Efficient tools for sequencing genomes were developed in the 1990s, and they have gotten about 1000x better since then. Everyone predicted that we would figure out what every gene did, and diagnose genomes based on those individual genes.

For the previous century, genetics had to cope with much more primitive methods. Biologists would have to study phenotypes, measure their heritability, and develop linear models for those unknown genes. It was like a car mechanic trying to fix a car without knowing how engines works.

The older methods could be called the infinitesimal model, or quantitative genetics. The new methods could be called genomics.

Here is a fascinating lecture on The Lost Evolutionary Synthesis.

He explains how the older infinitesimal model was spectacularly successful at breeder better chickens for farmers, and in solving lots of other problems. The new genomics has not had similar accomplishments.

I am still expecting genomics to catch up. A new research paper last month on Genome modelling and design across all domains of life with Evo 2 shows that maybe AI can finally understand genomes.

But as of today, the decades-old infinitesimal model has been much more productive.

Trump Limits Africans Flooding into USA

WSJ reports, in a long paywalled article:

As a boy, Majok Bior escaped a country engulfed in war. As a gifted student, he won a full scholarship to Duke University and looked toward a dazzling future.

Bior studied computer science at the North Carolina campus during his freshman year and was a winger on an intramural soccer team. After finishing the fall semester of his sophomore year, Bior returned to Uganda for winter break. He played chess with friends and recounted the brutal winters and demands of chemistry class.

Then President Trump began to ban students from Africa, starting with South Sudan where Bior was born. He hasn’t returned to campus since.

Duke is a great American college. Why is it giving free college to Uganda students, and rejecting so many Americans?

Can Jewish Women Stop Complaining?

Female Jew Joanne Lipman writes in the WSJ a month ago:

Can White Men Finally Stop Complaining?
For 50 years, we’ve been hearing from men who feel threatened by the gains of women and minorities. Now that the manosphere is in charge, the victim mentality has to go. ...

With white guys now dominating government, popular culture, the airwaves and our brain space, it’s puzzling why the victim mentality still persists. The cries that DEI has somehow ruined white men’s lives are particularly head-scratching considering that, as a recent Wall Street Journal analysis revealed, corporate diversity initiatives have had relatively little impact on the workforce.

That study found that from 2020-23, "The share of senior managers who aren’t white, meanwhile, rose to 26% from 22%." Essentially all the new hires were non-White.

It is funny seeing a Jewish woman complaining about victim mentality. Her biggest selling book was on "What Men Need to Know". A basic tenet if Judaism is women nagging men. This latest column is another example.

Colleges Drop Swim Tests

When I was in college, I had to pass a swim test. Everyone had to.

Not anymore. It is racist.

The age-old requirement that college seniors must pass a swimming test is being dumped due to fears it discriminates against people of color.

Dartmouth College just became the latest school to drop a mandatory swimming test from its graduation prerequisite.

In doing so, the Ivy League school joins a handful of other elite institutions that have abandoned their swimming requirements in recent years, including Williams, Hamilton and Washington and Lee.

“The shift says less about the merits of staying afloat than about universities’ preoccupation with racial equity,” reports The Economist.

666666666 Schools with a swimming test as part of their diploma obligations have been doing so since the early 1900s, the news outlet says.

If you failed the swim test, you had to take a swim class. It was too embarrassing when those classes filled up with Black students.

A lot of these colleges have also had to have remedial classes in reading, writing, and arithmetic. These too have become embarrassing, and colleges are re-packaging them as support labs or co-requisites or some other euphemism.

Human are not Apes

All my life I have heard evolutionists say that humans are apes, and that we share 99% of our dna with chimps. It turns out to be more like 85%.

They get 99% when a chimp gene can be matched to a human gene, and then the nucleotides are 99% the same. But there are huge other chunks of dna that do not match, and if you look at the whole dna, there is much less similarity.

Jonathan Leaf argues in this video and this book (buy) that there are so many differences that humans should not even be considered primates.

A lot of species classifications are based on common descent, so perhaps that justifies calling humans primates and apes. But Leaf points out that a lot of ape research is based on a belief that we are apes, so learning more about chimps and gorillas will tell us more about humans.

The big differences, he says, are that humans use language, are social, and are domesticated. Chimps are wild animals that cannot be tamed.

Note that "homonid" was redefined to include apes:

The most commonly used recent definitions are:

Hominid – the group consisting of all modern and extinct Great Apes (that is, modern humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and orang-utans plus all their immediate ancestors).

Hominin – the group consisting of modern humans, extinct human species and all our immediate ancestors (including members of the genera Homo, Australopithecus, Paranthropus and Ardipithecus). ...

The term ‘hominid’ used to have the same meaning that ‘hominin’ now has. ...

In this old scheme, humans were seen to be so different to other apes that we should be placed into our own distinct family, the Hominidae or hominids.

This change was to trick you into thinking that humans were apes.

9% of USA Births are Illegal

Pew research reports:

How many babies are born each year to unauthorized immigrant or legal temporary immigrant mothers?

In 2023, mothers who were unauthorized immigrants or had legal temporary status in the U.S. had 320,000 babies, representing about 9% of all 3.6 million babies born in the U.S. that year. About 260,000 of those babies would not have qualified for birthright citizenship if Trump’s executive order had already been in effect. This includes:

About 245,000 babies born to mothers who were unauthorized immigrants and fathers who were not citizens or lawful permanent residents

About 15,000 babies born to mothers who had legal temporary status and fathers who were not citizens or lawful permanent residents

Those would not be citizens, except for a misinterpreation of a Civil War Reconstruction amendment. The US Supreme Court will soon rule.

Leftist Resarch on Love

This 2023 NewScientist story has the above picture.

Couples are most in love in Hungary, according to science

People in romantic relationships in 45 countries were asked how strongly they agreed with statements such as “just seeing my partner excites me”

By Alice Klein

People in relationships report being more in love if they live in a country with high living standards, greater gender equality and a community‑centred culture.

The author is an Australian female Jew who has won journalism awards. Hungary does not actually have many interracial couples.

Judge Declares Christians Believe in Truth

A Jewish law professor announced:

Today, the Texas A&M Journal of Law Civil Governance published a very timely conversation between Judge Kacsmaryk and the 2023 Jurist of the Year, Judge James C. Ho. It is titled, "What Does It Mean To Be A Christian On The Bench?" ...

Judge Kacsmaryk had this to say about textualism ... "This is where the faithful Christian should have a Textualist advantage: we believe there is such a thing as objective, external, knowable Truth."

Some non-Christians questioned whether Christians believe in truth, so I asked an AI LLM.

Yes, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk is correct in his characterization of what many (and arguably most traditional or "faithful") Christians believe. The quote comes from a recent speech or remarks titled "What Does It Mean To Be A Christian On The Bench?" where he argues that a Christian worldview provides an advantage in textualist statutory interpretation because it orients the interpreter toward seeking an objective, external, knowable truth (in this case, the "ordinary public meaning" of legal text at enactment, rather than subjective or evolving interpretations).

Core Christian Belief on Truth

Christianity, across its historic branches (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Evangelical), has long affirmed that truth is objective, external to the human mind, and in principle knowable. This stems from several foundational ideas:

• God as the source of truth: The Bible portrays God as truth itself (e.g., "I am the way, the truth, and the life" in John 14:6; God "cannot lie" in Titus 1:2 or Hebrews 6:18). Truth isn't invented by humans or cultures but reflects God's nature and the reality He created.

• Objective reality: Creation is orderly and real, independent of our opinions (Psalm 19:1-4; Romans 1:20 — general revelation through nature). Moral and spiritual truths are likewise grounded in God's character and commands, not personal preference.

• Knowability: Humans, made in God's image, can apprehend truth through reason, observation, conscience, and especially special revelation in Scripture (which is seen as inspired, authoritative, and propositional truth — 2 Timothy 3:16-17). While sin and finitude can cloud understanding, truth is not inherently inaccessible or purely subjective.

• Correspondence view of truth: Something is true if it corresponds to reality as it actually is. This contrasts with relativism (truth is whatever feels right to the individual or group) or postmodern skepticism (truth claims are power plays with no objective anchor).

This view directly opposes Pilate's skeptical "What is truth?" (John 18:38), which Kacsmaryk references. Christians historically reject the idea that truth is fluid, constructed, or unknowable; they see it as fixed and discoverable, even if imperfectly grasped by fallen people.

Variations Among Christians

Not every self-identified Christian holds this view with equal rigor today:

• Traditional/orthodox Christians (evangelicals, conservatives in other traditions) strongly affirm objective truth. Apologists and theologians routinely contrast it with cultural relativism, arguing that denying objective truth undermines morality, the gospel claims ("Christ is the only way"), and even coherent reasoning. Surveys sometimes show gaps among younger churchgoers, but the doctrinal stance of historic creeds and confessions is clear.

• Liberal or progressive Christians may lean more toward experiential, contextual, or metaphorical understandings of truth, emphasizing love, justice, or personal encounter over propositional absolutes. Some embrace elements of postmodern thought. However, even here, claims about God, ethics, or Jesus often retain an implicit claim to objective validity ("this is what Christianity truly is").

• Catholic tradition adds natural law and magisterial teaching as reliable guides to objective moral and theological truth.

• Protestant emphasis often highlights sola scriptura — Scripture as the external, objective standard.

Overall, Kacsmaryk's "we" refers to "faithful" Christians who take core doctrines seriously. This belief has been a through-line in Christian thought from the early church fathers through Aquinas, the Reformers, and modern apologists. It isn't unique to Christianity (many theistic religions and classical philosophy affirm objective truth), but it fits naturally with a Creator who reveals Himself reliably.

Relevance to Textualism

Kacsmaryk's broader point is that if you already believe in objective truth (rather than seeing interpretation as endless deconstruction or personal projection), you're better equipped to pursue the fixed public meaning of a legal text without injecting modern preferences. Whether that gives Christians a practical "advantage" in judging is debatable — plenty of non-Christian textualists (e.g., Justice Scalia, who was influenced by but not defined by his Catholicism) succeed by the same logic. But the underlying premise about Christian belief holds.

In short: Yes, he is correct. Faithful Christians do believe there is objective, external, knowable truth — rooted in God, reality, and revelation. This has been a consistent teaching, even as cultural pressures toward relativism challenge it.

Happy Easter from Trump, not from England King

The King of England is the formal head of the Anglican Church, so I would expect him to make a positive Easter message. Nope. He put out a Mohammedan Ramadan message instead.

Here is Pres. Trump's Easter message:

This Easter Sunday, the First Lady and I join with Christians all across our Nation and around the world in rejoicing in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, whose triumph over sin and victory over death secured the promise of redemption and the hope of eternal life for all who believe in Him as Lord and Savior.

Sunday, we proclaim with joy that Christ has risen, a new creation has been ushered in, and evil and death have been conquered forever through the unmatched power of God’s sacrificial love.

When Jesus Christ rose from His earthly tomb on Easter morning, He restored our grace, washed our sins, and reconciled humanity with God—fulfilling the ancient prophecy that “He was pierced for our sins, crushed for our iniquity … by His wounds we were healed.” His suffering won our victory, His love brings us life, and His Resurrection is our everlasting hope.

As we rejoice in this Easter season, we are reminded that the life of Jesus Christ and the truths of the Gospel have inspired our way of life and our national identity for 250 years. From the Christian patriots who won and secured our liberty on the battlefield and every generation since, the love of Christ has unfailingly guided our Nation through calm waters and dark storms.

We pray that this celebration of the Resurrection strengthens our faith, enriches our lives, and reawakens our souls. We offer prayers of adoration and thanksgiving for the countless blessings God has bestowed upon our Nation. We acknowledge that, through Christ’s redeeming sacrifice, in the words of Holy Scripture, “Death is swallowed up in victory.” Above all, we echo with tremendous joy those sacred words that have given life, hope, and purpose to Christians for thousands of years: He is risen.

Happy Easter!

A Jewish paper reports:

Photos of the new king wearing his royal kippah, facts about his circumcision and his relationship with rabbis abound. ...

There is much to tout in terms of the new king’s devotion to Judaism. Another delightful photo is of him donning his kippah, which was first sighted at the installation of Britain’s current Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mervis in 2013. Charles was the first member of the royal family to attend an installation of a chief rabbi. ...

King Charles III, along with thousands of British Jews, was circumcised by Rabbi Jacob Snowman, a physician and one of London’s leading mohelim, or ritual circumcisers. The queen requested Snowman, who was well known in the London community.

The London Telegraph says: How the King became the Jewish community’s greatest ally. There is no surer way to show that you are symbolically owned by the Jews -- get circumcized by a rabbi.

Update: The new Archbishop of Canterbury is pro-LGBT feminist Sarah Mullally. A third of the bishops are now women. She was born in Woking.

France wants Electoral Bans on Wrongthinkers

France news:

French President Emmanuel Macron Friday denounced what he described as an "anti-Semitic hydra" that had crept into "every crack" of society as he commemorated Ilan Halimi, a French Jewish man tortured to death in 2006. ...

"In 20 years, and despite the resolute efforts of our police officers, gendarmes, judges, teachers and elected officials, the anti-Semitic hydra has kept advancing," Macron said.

That crime was committed by a gang of Africans. No, there has been no resolute effort to keep Hohammedans or Africans out of Paris.

He also attacked what he described as "far-left antisemitism", saying it "rivals that of the far right", and "anti-Semitism that uses the mask of anti-Zionism to advance quietly".

Macron also said he wanted "mandatory electoral bans" for officials guilty of "anti-Semitic, racist, and discriminatory acts and remarks".

France is being invaded by Mohammedans and Africans, and its response is to abolish free speech.

Suicidal Empathy

Wikipedia:

Suicidal empathy is a purported phenomenon in which excessive, misdirected and pathological forms of empathy are claimed to be destructive for the party that exhibits it. This is often claimed to happen through prioritizing compassion, understanding and empathy over logic, and long-term consequences. There is no support for this concept in psychology, and its proponents are not psychologists or sociologists. This phrase was coined by professor of evolutionary psychology Gad Saad.

The phrase "suicidal empathy" is commonly used by culture warriors, right-wing figures, and Christian nationalists to condemn empathy towards groups such as immigrants and racial minorities, often in association with the Great Replacement conspiracy theory.[1][2] It has been referred to as a "right-wing buzzword" by The Bulwark.[3] ...

In a 2025 interview with podcaster Joe Rogan, Elon Musk uses the phrase "civilizational suicidal empathy" to refer to what he believes is the corrosion of American culture.[8] According to Musk, suicidal empathy refers to "weaponized" empathy to bring about political and policy modifications.[9][10][11]

I guess the editors do not want anyone using the term. It says psychologists do not use the term, and that the term was coined by a psychologist!

This was on display at the Supreme Court yesterday, as it was argued that birth tourists and illegal alien children should automatically become citizen because of some Civil War Reconstruction language.

Bill Maher believes in Space Aliens

Comedian and political pundit Bill Maher made a 2008 movie Religulous, making fun of religion. So he qualifies as a hard-headed atheist.

Last week he gave a tv monologue on how he now believes that we are being visited by space aliens.

If at this point you don’t believe aliens are here and observing us, maybe you’re the conspiracy theorist. They're here, they came in a sphere, get used to it.

The evidence is some of the new UFO/UAP videos that have been released.

Yes, I think a space alien invasion is as ridiculous as the religions he mocks.

Separately, Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder says We pretty much have evidence for life in other solar systems. This is based on finding signatures of non-equilibrium compounds in alien planet atmospheres.

Maybe Maher is just making a joke. Some comments:

It’s clear that Maher, like me, doesn’t believe that these aliens and their craft really exist. He’s just using the notion to criticize what’s wrong with America. If craft and aliens did exist, and we possess crashed ships and alien bodies, then somehow there has been a massive conspiracy to hide it by both Democratic and Republican governments—as well as by the press— to cover up the greatest news story in the history of humanity.

[reply] Bill Maher genuinely seems to believe in aliens—he’s not just entertaining the idea. He appears to be as convinced of their existence as he is that COVID originated from a lab leak. He has interviewed the creator of the documentary Disclosure twice — once on Real Time and once on Club Random — and was very supportive in both conversations. In a previous Overtime segment, he was also asked about Area 51 and suggested that the government is hiding evidence of extraterrestrial life. In my personal opinion Maher has been smoking too much weed.

(The first comment was retracted here.)

I am coming around to a view where it is meaningless to talk about what others believe it. I cannot judge Maher's sincerity, nor can I be sure whether he is joking. And I don't think it makes a difference.

Nor can I say whether Pres. Trump believes in God, or whether Richard Dawkins is really an atheist. It is much better to judge people based on their actions.

Lots of people have weird beliefs. I am inclined to think that if someone has some very wacky belief, like space alien visitors, then all his other opinions should be discounted. But this leaves me discounting everyone.

Another example of this is free will. Many educated people say they do not believe in free will. To me, that reduces them to a mindless automaton, or to a schizophrenic following voices in his head. When they give opinions while denying free will, they are literally saying that the opinions are not their own. But it is also possible that they believe in free will, and only deny it because of some defect in their mental logic.