Belarus

6/26 Council on Foreign Relations reminding of the supposed incompetence of the Trump Administration in foreign policy:

For the past year, the Trump administration has been slowly renewing relations with Belarus, partly to enhance that country’s autonomy and thus diminish Russia’s ability to use Belarus to pressure NATO’s eastern flank. The warming fits a broader pattern of U.S. outreach to Armenia and Azerbaijan in the South Caucasus and to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in Central Asia, also with the goal of restricting Russia’s influence. But Washington needs to tread carefully. The challenge is to reduce Russia’s sway over Belarus without provoking Russia to formally annex the country, while preparing for that eventuality regardless.

Russian annexation would be an admission that Putin does not trust Lukashenko to be his puppet. Nor should he. Belarus' army is woefully inadequate compared to Ukraine. Belarussian reliance on Russian air defense systems after the last few days of wildly successful attacks on Russian petroleum refineries should be a hint that directly going to war with Ukraine might end badly for them. To quote Lukashenko:

In the interview, the leader went into great detail and spoke very frankly about this position.

“First, Belarus is highly vulnerable militarily should Ukraine begin attacking Belarus in the same manner it attacks Russia (we recognize this reality, so we have no desire to engage in war). Belarus is laid out like an open palm before the Ukrainian military. We are fully aware that our critical life-support systems, production facilities, and logistics hubs would come under attack. They have stated, they have already identified 500 such targets on the territory of Belarus.,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

Second reason, the head of state continued, is that the Belarusian people hate wars: “We have already suffered enough throughout our history; we understand that many of our military personnel would die. For what? Why should they die?”

Third reason: if Belarus joined the war, the front line would be extended significantly. “If Russia were to attack Kiev from Belarusian territory, the front line primarily for Russia (and naturally for us) would be extended by 1,500 km along the Belarusian-Ukrainian border,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said. “We and the Russians would be unable to defend this sector.” 

What a Shocker: Racial Discrimination is Illegal

6/18/26 College Fix:

The Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down a state-funded scholarship program Thursday that awarded financial aid to college students based on certain racial categories — a decision that drew praise from conservative legal groups.

Dan Lennington, an attorney at the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which represented taxpayers in the case, celebrated the ruling as a “major win.” 

“Wisconsin Supreme Court holds that [Gov. Tony] Evers Admin cannot offer scholarships based on race. This is a huge win for equality & provides a ROADMAP for Wisconsin Taxpayers to challenge many other programs worth BILLIONS,” he wrote on X. 

Sarah Parshall Perry, an attorney and vice president of Defending Education, also praised the ruling in an X post Thursday.

“The way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” Perry wrote. “Wisconsin got the message. Their Supreme Court just ruled the governor cannot administer scholarship opportunities based on race.”

 This is a sensitive subject for me because when I graduated from high school 27th in a class of about 1000, it seemed as though poor white kids were outside the scope of what university knowledge. I had a classmate of East Indian origin, back when East Indians were considered a victim group, who ended up with a full-ride scholarship to one of the Poison Ivy League universities.

If scholarships are awarded based on poverty or socioeconomic class, this will still award a lot to blacks and Hispanics, but not Robert L. Johnson's kids. 

I Think This is Progress

 

Another 2nd Amendment Victory

6/17/26 Fox News reports that Florida Court of Aopeals has ruled that 18-20-year-olds have a right to carry concealed and the Florida AG will not challenge the decision. This surprised me not in the least. A Florida Deputy A-G called me several weeks ago for expert opinion on the law's constitutionnality.

Why Academia Is Increasingly Held in Contempt

An historian at Boston University both praises a couple robber barons (Carnegie and Rockefeller) and then compares the UFC event at the White House to lynching.

She said during the Gilded Age there was no “open display of denigration of American symbols and American values” like there supposedly is now.

She then praised people like JD Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie for saying they were “offering a way forward for the United States.”

Richardson then said Trump “is deliberately tear that apart and he is doing so on the same cultural argument of course that people used to back the first Gilded age that is these cultural wars that turn white Americans against marginalized people of color.”

UFC does not appeal to me. I would not have hosted it at my home. But this comparison is just absurdly stupid. If there is anyone tearing apart our culture today and denigrating American symbols and values, look at the Poison Ivy League universities and the Democratic Party.

Lynching usually involved dragging men out of jails, frequently castrating them, hanging them or burning them to death.

9-0 Second Amendment Decision

6/18/26 CBS News:

 Washington — The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled in favor of a Texas man who challenged a federal law that bars certain drug users from having firearms.

In a unanimous decision in the case U.S. v. Hemani, the justices found that Ali Hemani's prosecution for having a firearm while he was an unlawful drug user is inconsistent with the Second Amendment. Hemani allegedly was only an occasional user of marijuana when the FBI found a handgun at his Texas home in 2022.

9-0. Language in decision emphasizes that disarming someone requires some sort of due process (criminal conviction, involuntary commitment).

The decision is here. Interestingly enough; Hemani's house was searched out of concern that he might be terrorist-adjacent. The government found nothing of that nature so file some charge, any charge 

Google Maps Compass is Magnetic

I assumed that since it had access to GPS that the little magnet symbol pointed true north. No. I should have realized this when trying to use it next to my Losmandy mount whose electric motors confused it horribly. 

The last couple times I have tried to use the goto feature, the first alignment star was a good ten degrees off. Because my polar axis was aimed at magnetic north, not true north; the 11 degree difference meant that sewing to Vega was about 10 degrees off. Unfortunately, Polaris is simply not visible at any hour for which I have to energy for which to stay up. Tomorrow i will make a North marker out front with a compass and a protractor.

 

No. Digital Compass app shows both magnetic and true north.