Beclown

beclown

Verb

Verb Forms: beclowned, beclowning, beclowns

* To make oneself or another appear foolish or ridiculous.
* To make a fool of.

Examples

* Challenging a valid word will only beclown you in front of the club.

-- Definition of beclown at Scrabble reference site WinEveryGame.com

Fresh And Growing

I must do something to keep my thoughts fresh and growing.  I dread nothing so much as falling into a rut and feeling myself becoming a fossil.

-- James A. Garfield (1831 - 1881), 20th president of the United States in 1881, Garfield's Words (1882) edited by William Ralston Balch

Not A Science

Die Politik ist keine Wissenschaft, wie viele der Herren Proffessoren sich einbilden, sondern eine Kunst (Politics is not a science, as the professors are apt to suppose.  It is an art).

-- Prince Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg (1815 - 1898), German aristocrat and statesman, expression in the Reichstag (1884), as quoted in The Quote Verifier : Who Said What, Where, and When (2006) by Ralph Keyes

RIP Rob Reiner

As you get older, all those dumb clichés, they're all true.  You only have a certain amount of time left, and you should only spend it doing the things that you want to do.

-- Robert Norman Reiner (6 March 1947 - 14 December 2025), American film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and political activist, "Rob Reiner on his favorite films, and why he changed the ending of When Harry Met Sally…" by Gwen Ihnat, A.V. Club (3 September 2016)

Three Great Questions

There are three great questions which in life we have over and over again to answer.  Is it right or wrong?  Is it true or false?  Is it beautiful or ugly?  Our education ought to help us to answer these questions.

-- John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury, PC (1834 - 1913), English banker, politician, naturalist and archaeologist, The Use of Life (1894), ch. VI: National Education

Contrary To Law

The Founders designed our government to be a system of checks and balances.  Defendants, however, make clear that the only check they want is a blank one.  Six months after they first federalized the California National Guard, Defendants still retain control of approximately 300 Guardsmen, despite no evidence that execution of federal law is impeded in any way -- let alone significantly.  What's more, Defendants have sent California Guardsmen into other states, effectively creating a national police force made up of state troops.  In response to Plaintiffs' motion to enjoin this conduct, Defendants take the position that, after a valid initial federalization, all subsequent re-federalizations are completely, and forever, unreviewable by the courts.  Defendants' position is contrary to law.  Accordingly, the Court ENJOINS Defendants' federalization of California National Guard troops.

-- US District Judge Charles R. Breyer ruling in Gavin Newsom, et al., v Donald J. Trump, et al., that defendants must return control of the California National Guard to Governor Newsom (10 December 2025)

Nothing But Sound

Your argument is sound, nothing but sound.

-- Anonymous quip quoted in an essay in Logic, an Introduction (1950) by Lionel Ruby

Not Conversely

Men grow old because they stop playing, and not conversely.

-- Granville Stanley Hall (1844 - 1924), American psychologist and educator, in Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education (1904)

Note The Difference

Note the difference between a right and a privilege.  A right, in the abstract, is a fact; it is not a thing to be given, established, or conferred; it is.  Of the exercise of a right power may deprive me; of the right itself, never.  Privilege, in the abstract, does not exist; there is no such thing.  Rights recognized, privilege is destroyed.

-- Voltairine de Cleyre (1866 - 1912), American anarchist and feminist writer and orator, "The Economic Tendency of Freethought" in Liberty Vol. XI, #25 (15 February 1890)

That Result

The majority today loses sight of its proper role.  It is supposed to review the District Court's fact-finding only for clear error.  But under that deferential standard, the District Court's "plausible" (actually, quite careful) fact-finding must survive.  The majority can reach the result it does -- overturning the District Court's finding of racial line-drawing, even if to achieve partisan goals -- only by arrogating to itself that court's rightful function.  We know better, the majority declares today.  I cannot think of a reason why.

And this Court's eagerness to playact a district court here has serious consequence.  The majority calls its "evaluation" of this case "preliminary."  The results, though, will be anything but.  This Court's stay guarantees that Texas's new map, with all its enhanced partisan advantage, will govern next year's elections for the House of Representatives.  And this Court's stay ensures that many Texas citizens, for no good reason, will be placed in electoral districts because of their race.  And that result, as this Court has pronounced year in and year out, is a violation of the Constitution.

-- Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, with whom Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson join, dissenting from the grant of the application for stay in Greg Abbott, et al. v League Of United Latin American Citizens, et al. (4 December 2025)

At Least For A While

I maintain that AI CAN be a very useful tool for someone who is experienced and knows what they are doing.  However, this idea that it can replace people OR drastically reduce the learning curve for inexperienced people seems perilous to me.  Someone who doesn't really know what they are doing yet would not be able to select the best options from the AI, but a lot of the folks in charge don't see it that way.  They think AI is magic and is going to replace all sorts of people.  It probably will, at least for a while. 

-- Susan Tiss via Facebook, 16 August 2024

Next-Token Predictors

Never would have guessed that decision leaders at huge companies would be so incompetent to actually think that stochastic next-token predictors incapable of causal reasoning are a replacement for human capital, who possess a cognition that took hundreds of millions of years to get to this point, and is still unmatched by all modern AI tools. 

-- Lucas Deschamps, Contract Senior Software Engineer from Mexico, in a discussion on LinkedIn, observing that LLMs are not AI, since they have no understanding, and function by sequentially selecting a statistically likely next word to follow each previous word of output (3 December 2025)

Unreliable Information

Some of what these declarants complain about is, while aggravating, insulting, or unpleasant, also Constitutionally protected.  For example, a protestor who happens to lawfully possess a weapon while protesting is exercising both their First and Second Amendment rights. ...  And with respect to Defendants' declarants' descriptions of the ICE Processing Center protests, the version of the facts set forth in these affidavits are impossible to align with the perspectives of state and local law enforcement presented by Plaintiffs.

The Court therefore must make a credibility assessment as to which version of the facts should be believed. ...   [T]his Court ... does note a troubling trend of Defendants' declarants equating protests with riots and a lack of appreciation for the wide spectrum that exists between citizens who are observing, questioning, and criticizing their government, and those who are obstructing, assaulting, or doing violence.  This indicates to the Court both bias and lack of objectivity.  The lens through which we view the world changes our perception of the events around us.  Law enforcement officers who go into an event expecting "a shitshow" are much more likely to experience one than those who go into the event prepared to de-escalate it.  Ultimately, this Court must conclude that Defendants' declarants' perceptions are not reliable.  

Finally, the Court notes its concern about a third declaration submitted by Defendants, in which the declarant asserted that the FPS "requested federalized National Guard personnel to support protection of the Federal District Court on Friday, October 10, 2025."  This purported fact was incendiary and seized upon by both parties at oral argument.  It was also inaccurate, as the Court noted on the record.  To their credit, Defendants have since submitted a corrected declaration, and the affiant has declared that they did not make the error willfully.  All of the parties have been moving quickly to compile factual records and legal arguments, and mistakes in such a context are inevitable.  That said, Defendants only presented declarations from three affiants with first-hand knowledge of events in Illinois.  And, as described above, all three contain unreliable information.

-- US District Judge April M Perry, in State of Illinois and City of Chicago v Donald Trump, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense et al, granting a TRO barring mobilization of the National Guard or deployment of the U.S. military over the objection of the Governor of Illinois

Procedural Safeguards

The history of liberty has largely been the history of the observance of procedural safeguards.  And the effective administration of criminal justice hardly requires disregard of fair procedures imposed by law.

-- Felix Frankfurter (1882 - 1965), Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, writing for the court, McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332 (1943)

Crime Is Contagious

Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen.  In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously.  Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher.  For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.  Crime is contagious.  If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.  To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means -- to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal -- would bring terrible retribution.  Against that pernicious doctrine this court should resolutely set its face.

-- Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (1856 - 1941), dissenting in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928)

Happy Thanksgiving

For the first time in several years we were able to get the whole family together today for Thanksgiving.  I was joined by all 5 daughters with all 5 sons-in-law, and all 11 grandchildren, plus my 18-year-old granddaughter's boyfriend, and my ex-wife and her boyfriend, for a total of 25 for dinner.  This is the first time I've had to cook more than one turkey at a time.  Much food was consumed, much conversation ensued.  After dinner we decorated the Christmas tree and had pie.  Today I have no trouble remembering to be thankful for what I have.  

Say Thank You To Someone

I would encourage all people, especially with this beautiful feast that we have in the United States, which unites all people, people of different faiths, people who perhaps do not have the gift of faith, but to say thank you to someone, to recognize that we all have received so many gifts, first and foremost, the gift of life.  

The gift of faith, the gift of unity to encourage all people to try and promote peace and harmony and to give thanks to God for them and the gifts we can give.

-- Pope Leo XIV in a Thanksgiving message, speaking from his summer residence, Borgo Laudato Si in Castel Gandolfo, 25 November 2025

Empty Cup

It would be erroneous to consider the empty space in a drinking cup in opposition to the water that eventually fills it.  While true that the emptiness gets overcome and eliminated by the water that fills the cup, an empty drinking glass has not fulfilled its implied purpose.  Similarly, a full glass of water constitutes equal meaninglessness for its implied purpose remains unachieved.  Only by drinking the water and returning the cup to a state of void (*yin*) does the meaning of cup-and-water become realized.  Hence, an empty cup alone (*yin*) remains unrealized in its potential until filled (*yang*), which means that *yin* will be unfulfilled until overcome by *yang*.  At the same time, a full cup (*yang*) will remain unrealized in its potential until drank, thus returning to *yin*.

-- Dr. Steve Pearlman, author, instructor, and martial arts philosopher, The Book of Martial Power (2006) Chapter 69 "Yin and Yang" p. 210

No Lawful Authority

On September 25, 2025, Lindsey Halligan, a former White House aide with no prior prosecutorial experience, appeared before a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia.  Having been appointed Interim U.S. Attorney by the Attorney General just days before, Ms. Halligan secured a two-count indictment charging former FBI Director James B. Comey, Jr. with making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding.  

Mr. Comey now moves to dismiss the indictment on the ground that Ms. Halligan, the sole prosecutor who presented the case to the grand jury, was unlawfully appointed in violation of 28 U.S.C. § 546 and the Constitution’s Appointments Clause.  As explained below, I agree with Mr. Comey that the Attorney General’s attempt to install Ms. Halligan as Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was invalid.  And because Ms. Halligan had no lawful authority to present the indictment, I will grant Mr. Comey’s motion and dismiss the indictment without prejudice.

-- US District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie dismissing the federal indictment of former FBI Directory James Comey (24 November 2025)

Queens Men Meet

The first man from Queens to be elected president and the first Queens resident to be elected mayor of New York City met for the first time in the Oval Office on Friday. 

Both said they were united over a mutual love of New York City.  They did not mention Queens. 

"We've just had a great meeting, a really good, very productive meeting," said Trump, who was  complimentary of the democratic socialist, who just a year ago was a relatively unknown local Queens legislator.  "We have one thing in common.  We want this city of ours that we love to do very well."

Whether or not the relationship between the two one-time Queens residents remains as cordial as it was on Friday, remains to be seen. 

-- Ryan Schwach, "Queens men meet", Queens Daily Eagle, 21 November 2025

Non-Intention

Think about a dam holding back a reservoir of water.  Were we to punch a hole in the dam, the water would gush out that hole.  The water would not decide to gush out, and it certainly would not intend to gush out.  Nor would it "not intend" to gush out the hole.  Intention, as a concept, simply cannot be applied to the water.  As hole, so gushing water.

Let me put it another way.  When reading this chapter, were you Intending to read this chapter, or was reading "happening"?  Were you Intending to read or were you just reading?  You certainly were not "not intending" to read.  Were you thinking about reading the words or were you reading them?  As chapter, so reading.  As living, so breathing.  As sleeping, so dreaming.  (And if you are wondering if we can say that there is "a chapter" aside from your reading of it then you have understood this chapter quite well.)

-- Dr. Steve Pearlman, author, instructor, and martial arts philosopher, The Book of Martial Power (2006) Chapter 68 "Non-Intention" p. 208

Doubt All

Believe those who seek the truth, doubt those who find it; doubt all, but do not doubt yourself.

-- André Gide (1869 - 1951), French author, 1947 Nobel laureate in literature, Gallimard, ed. (1952), Ainsi soit-il; ou, Les Jeux sont faits ("So be it; or, The die is cast"), p. 174

Sought For And Attended To

Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.

-- Abigail Adams (1744-1818), wife of John Adams, second President of the United States, in a letter to John Quincy Adams (8 May 1780)

The Parent

Ignorance is the parent of fear.

-- Herman Melville (1819 - 1891), American novelist, essayist, short story writer, and poet, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (1851) Chapter 3 "The Spouter-Inn" Paragraph 56

Contrary To Everything

In 1985, President Ronald Reagan appointed me as a federal judge.  I was 38 years old.  At the time, I looked forward to serving for the rest of my life.  However, I resigned Friday, relinquishing that lifetime appointment and giving up the opportunity for public service that I have loved.

My reason is simple: I no longer can bear to be restrained by what judges can say publicly or do outside the courtroom.  President Donald Trump is using the law for partisan purposes, targeting his adversaries while sparing his friends and donors from investigation, prosecution, and possible punishment.  This is contrary to everything that I have stood for in my more than 50 years in the Department of Justice and on the bench.  The White House’s assault on the rule of law is so deeply disturbing to me that I feel compelled to speak out.  Silence, for me, is now intolerable.

I resigned in order to speak out, support litigation, and work with other individuals and organizations dedicated to protecting the rule of law and American democracy.  I also intend to advocate for the judges who cannot speak publicly for themselves.

I cannot be confident that I will make a difference.  I am reminded, however, of what Senator Robert F. Kennedy said in 1966 about ending apartheid in South Africa: "Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope."  Enough of these ripples can become a tidal wave.

-- Mark L. Wolf, retired senior United States district judge in Massachusetts, "Why I Am Resigning", The Atlantic (9 November 2025)

Shipwrecked

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

-- Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955), German-born theoretical physicist, in his Essays Presented to Leo Baeck on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday (1954), p. 26

Stop Making Cents

The U.S. ended production of the penny Wednesday, abandoning the 1-cent coins that were embedded in American culture for more than 230 years but became nearly worthless.

When it was introduced in 1793, a penny could buy a biscuit, a candle or a piece of candy.  Now most of them are cast aside to sit in jars or junk drawers, and each one costs nearly 4 cents to make.

Billions of pennies are still in circulation and will remain legal tender, but new ones will no longer be made.

The last U.S. coin to be discontinued was the half-cent in 1857.

Most penny production ended over the summer, officials said.  During the final pressing, workers at the mint stood quietly on the factory floor as if bidding farewell to an old friend.  When the last coins emerged, the men and women broke into applause and cheered one another.

-- MaryClaire Dale, writing for Associated Press, "US Mint presses final pennies" (12 November 2025)

Brexit Impact Update

This paper examines the impact of the UK's decision to leave the European Union (Brexit) in 2016.  Using almost a decade of data since the referendum, we combine simulations based on macro data with estimates derived from micro data collected through our Decision Maker Panel survey.  These estimates suggest that by 2025, Brexit had reduced UK GDP by 6% to 8%, with the impact accumulating gradually over time.  We estimate that investment was reduced by between 12% and 18%, employment by 3% to 4% and productivity by 3% to 4%.  

These large negative impacts reflect a combination of elevated uncertainty, reduced demand, diverted management time, and increased misallocation of resources from a protracted Brexit process.  Comparing these with contemporary forecasts -- providing a rare macro example to complement the burgeoning micro-literature of social science predictions -- shows that these forecasts were accurate over a 5-year horizon, but they underestimated the impact over a decade.

-- Nicholas Bloom, et al, "The Economic Impact of Brexit", National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2025

Immortal Truth

Lower a bucket into a well of self-deception, and what comes up must be immortal truth, mustn't it?

-- Charles Reade (1814 - 1884), English novelist and dramatist, The Cloister and the Hearth (1861) Ch. V

One Never Notices

One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.

-- Marie Curie (1867 - 1934), Polish-born scientist, first woman to win the Nobel Prize (for Physics in 1903); first person to win a second Nobel Prize (for Chemistry, 1911), Letter to her brother (1894)

Continual Accretion

Congress, as a practical matter, can't get this power back once it's handed it over to the president.  It's a one-way ratchet toward the gradual but continual accretion of power in the executive branch and away from the people's elected representatives.

-- Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, in an exchange with Solicitor General D. John Sauer about Trump invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs (6 November 2025)

Web Crawler Meta

For the last 10 days I've been observing somewhat odd web traffic at trvth.org.  First I noticed that traffic was significantly higher than usual, with a few days of 300 to 500 page views, instead of the usual 70 to 100.  The next couple of days had more than 1000 page views each, and I started to look into it.

The culprit appears to be a bot running on Tencent Cloud Computing, connecting out of Singapore.  I suspect it is consuming trvth.org as training material for an AI.

The connections come every 1 to 2 minutes and last less than 5 seconds.  It started by reading the pages by year and is following every link, though not in any recognizable order, and the queries come from a range of IP addresses, not a single address.

I'm not sure how I should feel about all that.

A Price To Be Paid

All life is based on the fact that anything worth getting is hard to get.  There is a price to be paid for anything.  Scholarship can only be bought at the price of study, skill of craft or technique can only be bought at the price of practice, and eminence in any sport can only be bought at the price of training and discipline. 

-- William Barclay (1907 - 1978), Scottish author, radio and television presenter, Church of Scotland minister, and Professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism at the University of Glasgow, The Gospel of John (1955) Vol. 2 (1964), p. 77

Refusing To Accept

It is only by refusing to accept the situation that in the end we can change the situation.

-- William Barclay (1907 - 1978), Scottish author, radio and television presenter, Church of Scotland minister, and Professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism at the University of Glasgow, The Plain Man's Guide to Ethics (1973) Ch. 7, p. 89

Happy Halloween!

Tonight I had 106 Trick or Treaters come to my house for Halloween.  I started the evening with 102 full-size candy bars, with plenty of backup candy when that ran out.  The house was well decorated by my #5 daughter (pictured).  

Happy Halloween!

Generally Wrong

Majorities are generally wrong, if only in their reasons for being right.

-- George Edward Bateman Saintsbury (1845 - 1933), prolific and popular English historian and literary scholar, as quoted in A Last Vintage (1950) John W. Oliver et al. (eds.) p. 172

Absolute Conviction

All political movements are like this -- we are in the right, everyone else is in the wrong.  The people on our own side who disagree with us are heretics, and they start becoming enemies.  With it comes an absolute conviction of your own moral superiority.  There's oversimplification in everything, and a terror of flexibility.

-- Doris Lessing (1919 - 2013), British writer, 2007 Nobel laureate in Literature, "A Notorious Life" -- interview with Dwight Garner at salon.com (11 November 1997)

Armed Men

Armed men don’t sit down and talk.

-- Ursula K. Le Guin (1929 - 2018), American writer, recipient of the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Locus Award, and World Fantasy Award, The Eye of the Heron (1978) Chapter 8 (p. 107)

Facebook Privacy

Facebook Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation Settlement Administrator has sent you $36.12 USD.

Note from Facebook Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation Settlement Administrator:

"Your Facebook Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation settlement payment is now available in PayPal.

Thank you."

-- Email from PayPal telling me that I received $36.12 USD from the Facebook privacy class-action initiated in 2018 and settled for $725 million (27 October 2025)

Yi Dan

A hearty congratulations to my Taekwondo student, David, on achieving the rank of Second Degree Black Belt (Yi Dan) this past Saturday, October 18th.  

Although he turned 13 years old just 2 weeks before the test, David is an experienced martial artist with considerable skill.  His fine test performance demonstrated the integrity with which he prepared.  

Last October David became my third student to go from White Belt to Black Belt.  He is the first to continue on to advanced rank.  

Safety Valve

The continuing episodes of protest and dissent in the United States have their basis in the First Amendment to the Constitution, a great safety valve that is lacking in most other nations of the world.  The First Amendment creates a sanctuary around the citizen's beliefs.  His ideas, his conscience, his convictions are his own concern, not the government's.

-- William Orville Douglas (1898 - 1980), Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States; longest-serving justice in the history of the Supreme Court with a term lasting 36 years and 209 days, Points of Rebellion (1970) p. 3

The People Are The Sovereigns

Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us?  The constitutional theory is that we the people are the sovereigns, the state and federal officials only our agents.  We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily.  We can seek to challenge and annoy, as we need not stay docile and quiet.

-- William Orville Douglas (1898 - 1980), Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States; longest-serving justice in the history of the Supreme Court with a term lasting 36 years and 209 days, dissenting in Colten v. Kentucky, 407 U.S. 104 (1972)

10 Years And Counting

10 years ago today, at about 10:20 in the morning, I got a call from my doctor to tell me that a biopsy showed I had prostate cancer.  A few minutes later I walked into a meeting at work.  Over the following decade necessary interventions were made, and I'm still here.

I still get my numbers checked a few times a year.  So far I have been treated well by modern medical science.  

-- Don Appleman, 21 October 2025

The Ending Is A Beginning

All stories have a beginning, a middle and an ending, and if they're any good, the ending is a beginning.

-- James Clavell (1924 - 1994), British novelist, screenwriter, World War II hero and POW, Interview with Don Swaim of CBS Radio (11 November 1986)

Power Belongs

The Power Belongs to the people

In June, millions of everyday Americans from every walk of life peacefully took to the streets and declared with one voice: No Kings.  The world saw the power of the people, and President Trump's attempt at a coronation collapsed under the strength of a movement rising against his abuses of power.

Now, he's doubling down -- sending militarized agents into our communities, silencing voters, and handing billionaires giveaways while families struggle.  This isn't just politics.  It's democracy versus dictatorship.  And together, we're choosing democracy.

All No Kings events adhere to a shared commitment to nonviolent protest and community safety.  Organizers are trained in de-escalation and are working closely with local partners to ensure peaceful and powerful actions nationwide.

-- Text from NoKings.org regarding tomorrow's planned demonstrations against executive overreach by the Trump administration (17 October 2025)

Free And Independent

Today, we join virtually every other news organization in declining to agree to the Pentagon's new requirements, which would restrict journalists' ability to keep the nation and the world informed of important national security issues.  The policy is without precedent and threatens core journalistic protections.  We will continue to cover the U.S. military as each of our organizations has done for many decades, upholding the principles of a free and independent press.

-- Joint statement from ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, and NBC regarding a new Pentagon policy that limits journalists to information the Defense Department explicitly makes available to them (14 October 2025)

Sharp Nails

Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory.

-- Denis Diderot (1713 - 1784), French philosopher, as quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts : Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations (1908) by Tryon Edwards, p. 338

Verification

The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.

-- Thomas Huxley (1825 - 1895), British biologist, On the advisableness of improving natural knowledge (1866)

A Path Forward

I really commend President Trump and his administration, as well as Arab leaders in the region for making the commitment to the 20-point plan and seeing a path forward for what's often called the day after. 

Let's now support this process and bring it together, not just in a nonpartisan way in our own country, but literally internationally as a great global commitment to try to bring peace, security, stability and a better future to the Middle East. 

-- Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in an interview with Norah O'Donnell of CBS News regarding the Israel-Hamas peace plan brokered by President Trump (10 October 2025)

Compact For Academic Excellence

[T]he Institute's mission of service to the nation directs us to advance knowledge, educate students and bring knowledge to bear on the world's great challenges. We do that in line with a clear set of values, with excellence above all. 

These values and other MIT practices meet or exceed many standards outlined in the document you sent.  We freely choose these values because they're right, and we live by them because they support our mission -- work of immense value to the prosperity, competitiveness, health and security of the United States.  And of course, MIT abides by the law.

The document also includes principles with which we disagree, including those that would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution.  And fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.

In our view, America's leadership in science and innovation depends on independent thinking and open competition for excellence.  In that free marketplace of ideas, the people of MIT gladly compete with the very best, without preferences. Therefore , with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education.

-- MIT President Sally Kornbluth, replying to the Education Department's proposed "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education" (10 October 2025)