Free speech martyr Salman Rushdie makes a surprise appearance at a PEN event last night. Read all about it.

‘That this kind of weapon is a favorite of school shooters, and these are schoolchildren, only adds to the disgusting character of the events here. Carrying a gun like this in the public square is a way to constantly communicate the threat of deadly force to those around you. A gun like this exists for two purposes: to maim and kill, and to communicate the threat thereof…

 [R]ight-wingers [routinely] show up heavily armed to statehouses in an explicit communication of the threat of deadly force if they do not get their way on matters of public policy. This is not normal political expression…’

This happened in Severn, Maryland, not far from UD‘s ‘thesda.

 ‘From 2011 to 2020, people [dying] at the hands of firearms in Tennessee increased by 48%.’

California’s governor notes Disney’s cancellation of a one billion dollar, 2,000 job Florida project.

It’s all part of Ron DeSantis’ Don’t Say ‘Stay’ policy. Good on ya, Ron, for being too arrogant to deal with Disney like an adult.

… in UD’s garden.

Just when folks on the Escambia Florida school board thought they had solved their penguinal poofter problem, along come Penguin (the publishing house Penguin), PEN America, and a waddle of other perverts — to sue them!

This year’s Templeton Prize winner is an African woman who has made it her life’s work to destroy this scourge. Her against-all-odds life story is every bit as inspirational as you’d imagine. At age 85, she’s busy training hundreds of midwives at the hospital she founded.

Stung by taunts from rival strongman Donald Trump about the DeSantis candidate’s recent loss in the Jacksonville mayoral race, the Florida governor, in a show of force, is reportedly readying a battery of six hypersonic KH-47M2 Kinzhal (“Dagger”) air-launched missiles for deployment Thursday at the New College alternative commencement.

The New College students’ $131,000 war chest has apparently been significantly enhanced by Bob Iger, who sources report has been reassuring close associates that every possible defensive weapon, including Patriot air defense interceptors, is being made available to the commencement. “It will certainly get bumpy on Thursday,” said one of the organizers; “but our main worry is that a desperate DeSantis will turn to nuclear weapons.”

University Diaries mainstay, Philip Esformes, who was convicted of running the “largest single criminal health-care fraud [scheme]” in the history of the Dept of Justice (he got twenty years), and who soon after was miraculously pardoned by Donald Trump, is on UD‘s mind this morning. Everyone’s talking about the increasingly plausible claim that DT and R. Giuliani sold pardons for two million dollars apiece.

Did they? Did Esformes, a way-pious orthodox Jew (I’ve already told you how much I love shout-out-loud hypocrisy!), shell out the bucks? Can’t wait to find out.

Meanwhile, right after Esformes got sprung, the pissed off feds filed another big criminal case against him (when you’re a world-historical crook, the pickins ain’t slim) so that was maybe two million down the crapper but thanks to tens of thousands of dead and dying old people (nursing homes were Phil’s MO) Esformes has TONS of money so don’t worry.

Matthew 19:16-18.

[Sing it.]

If you’re young and armed.

For it’s hard with your skills

To resist random kills
If you’re young and armed
You can go to extremes
With big massacre schemes

You can laugh when your dead
Have a hole for their head
And life gets more exciting
With each passing day
And hate is either in your heart

Or on its way
Don’t you know that it’s worth
Every treasure on earth
To be young and armed
For as rich as you are
It’s much better by far
To be young and armed

And if you should survive to 105
Look at all you’ll destroy
You adorable boy
And here is the best part
You’ve had a head start
If you are among the very
Young and armed

LOLOLOL.

Je dois dire I too am stunned that courts all over Europe are currently dragging this poor man into aggravated rape proceedings. Sure everyone knew big deal he got violent with the sex slaves brought to his hotels if they refused to be raped! But mon dieu who’d have thought this Oxford don actually raped? Coulda knocked me over with a burqa.

******************

The Ramadan file.

Giuliani [allegedly] demanded that [his then-staffer] give him oral sex as he took speakerphone calls from then-president Trump.

She’s suing.

Austrian authorities have now issued an explanation: Rep. Paul Gosar is visiting the country this week.

There are 16 counties in the United States with populations of at least two million residents. Eleven of them were less religious in 2020 than they were a decade earlier...

Just saying.