Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood Gentrification (VIDEO)

I don't watch SNL anymore, but you gotta get a kick out of Eddie Murphy.

At LAT, "Eddie Murphy returns to ‘Saturday Night Live’ with Buckwheat, Mr. Robinson and Gumby in tow."

Brendan Simms, Hitler

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Brendan Simms, Hitler: A Global Biography.

GPA vs. SAT: Which is Better Predictor of College Success

I never took the SAT, and I did fine in college. I had to take the GRE to get into graduate school, so it's not like I'm unfamiliar with these standardized tests, and their drawbacks. That said, I certainly wouldn't eliminate them. This whole debate is stupid. Banning placement tests will only dumb down college further.

At LAT, "Grades vs. SAT scores: Which is a better predictor of college success?":

Grades vs. SAT scores: Which is a better predictor of college success? https://t.co/IG6zb7g5u7

— L.A. Times: L.A. Now (@LANow) December 22, 2019

As a student at Kaiser High School in Fontana two years ago, Melissa Morfin-Acevedo bombed her SAT test, scoring in the bottom third percentile nationally.

The daughter of an immigrant single mother with a fifth-grade education, Morfin-Acevedo lived below the poverty line and couldn’t afford test prep tutors. She took the 8 a.m. test exhausted, having returned home from her theater job past midnight that day.

But her 4.1 GPA helped her win admission to UC Riverside — and today the second-year student in political science is thriving in the honors program, earning mostly A’s, and preparing for a career in law or public service.

“The SAT score does not reflect your future possible success in college,” she said. “If you want it, you can do it.”

Pressure is growing on the University of California and California State University to drop the SAT and ACT exams as admission requirements because of their perceived bias against disadvantaged students and underrepresented minorities. As part of the debate, policymakers are considering increasing the weight of high school grades in the admissions process.

Research has shown that grades are the best single predictor of college performance and aren’t as heavily influenced as the standardized exams by income, parent education levels and race.

But the ACT and College Board, which owns the SAT, argue that a combination of grades and test scores is the best overall guide to selecting students who are likely to succeed in college. Using grades without test scores could exacerbate inequities, test officials say, because grade inflation is worse in affluent schools, according to research they have reviewed.

The UC Academic Senate, which sets admissions standards, is expected to issue recommendations on the tests by February, with Cal State to follow. The issue, which has drawn international attention because of the size and prestige of the public university systems, raises several pressing questions. How do students with high grades but low SAT scores actually do in college? What support do they need — and get? Are there drawbacks to relying more heavily on grades?

UC Riverside is a living laboratory that offers some answers.

Among the University of California’s nine undergraduate campuses, UC Riverside has the second lowest SAT scores for entering freshmen — an average 1260, the 82nd percentile. But the Inland Empire campus has won accolades for helping disadvantaged students succeed, including a No. 1 ranking for graduating low-income students among national universities by US News & World Report this year. The majority of its 24,000 students are low-income and the first in their families to attend college; 4 in 10 are underrepresented minorities.

To flesh out the questions, the campus provided data on SAT scores, high school GPAs and student outcomes for 7,889 freshmen who enrolled in 2012 and 2013. The bottom line: The most successful students had both high GPAs and high test scores. But those with equally high grades and lower test scores weren’t far behind.

Among 1,807 UC Riverside students with GPAs of 3.75 or higher and SAT scores above 900 — the 32nd percentile — outcomes were not so different between those with higher- and lower-end SAT test scores:

*The six-year graduation rate for those with SAT scores between 900 and 1090 was 81% compared with 83% for those with SAT scores between 1100 and 1600, the highest score possible.
*The rate of students returning for a second year was 91% for those with the lower scores and 94% for those with the highest scores.
*The first-year GPA was 2.78, a B-, for students with lower scores compared with 3.36, a B+, for those with the highest scores.
*Students with SAT scores below 900, however, did noticeably worse. Their graduation and second-year retention rates were 10 percentage points below the group with the highest SAT test scores. Still, 73% graduated within six years compared with 65% of peers with higher SAT scores but lower GPAs.

If UC drops the SAT and ACT in favor of giving grades greater weight, systemwide graduation rates are likely to drop. But the benefits will be substantial to students who otherwise might not have qualified for UC admission because of low test scores, said Zachary Bleemer, a research associate at UC Berkeley’s Center for Studies in Higher Education.

His analysis last year looked at the academic records of about 8,000 UC students who enrolled under a program that guaranteed admission to the top 4% of each high school’s graduating class between 2001 and 2011, but whose average SAT scores were nearly 300 points below their peers at the UC campuses they attended.

Their five-year graduation rate was 77% compared with an average 83% among UC peers. But it was substantially higher than it would have been if they had attended a Cal State or community college campus, his analysis found. The UC students also earned nearly $15,000 more annually six to eight years after enrolling.

The findings suggest that students with high grades but lower test scores can thrive at UC schools and counter the “mismatch hypothesis” that less competitive students are better off at less selective universities, Bleemer said.

For university officials who must weigh the complexities of the criteria in their admissions decisions, there are no easy answers.

Emily Engelschall, UC Riverside director of undergraduate admissions, says she sees the shortcomings of standardized testing but that the scores do help evaluate grades across vastly different high schools. She also worries that dropping the testing requirement could exacerbate grade inflation.

“If you don’t have some sort of standardized tests to balance out grade inflation,” she said, “then that does take one piece of the puzzle away from an admissions professional to help make a decision about a student.”

Jessica Howell, the College Board’s vice president of research, has said that a greater reliance on high school grades in the name of equity would be “misguided” because grade inflation is associated with wealth.

The College Board points to a 2018 study of North Carolina public school students in grades eight through 10 between 2005 and 2016. The study found that median GPAs rose across the board over time, but did so more in affluent schools than in low-income ones.

The study also raised questions about the reliability of grades in measuring mastery of content. It found that only 21% of students who received A’s in algebra I achieved the highest proficiency level in end-of-course exams and 57% of those who received Bs failed to score marks indicating college and career readiness.

“The latest research is resoundingly clear,” Howell said in a statement. “Grade inflation is a serious problem, particularly in high schools that serve more affluent communities.”

Yet the Riverside campus is filled with students from less privileged backgrounds whose hard work has helped them transcend low test scores and rise to UC’s academic rigor...

Keep reading.

Playmate Iryna

Following-up, "Nice Playmate Lady."

Sugar daddy applications 🤣, jk - TEXT HERE https://t.co/M03maYOVmJ pic.twitter.com/0ZWx5sLZoq

— playmateiryna (@IrynaIvanova) December 21, 2019

Rita Ora in Metallic Halterneck Swimsuit

At London's Daily Mail:

Rita Ora showcases plenty of side-boob in a metallic halterneck swimsuit as she continues to soak up the sun during festive family break to St. Barts https://t.co/GJKzB9ywj0

— Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) December 22, 2019

BONUS: "Rita Ora in Red Bikini."

Rachel Cook Shaved Head

At Inquisitr, "Rachel Cook Goes Nude for Second Issue of ‘WTVR’ Magazine."

And Celeb Jihad, "RACHEL COOK SHAVED HEAD NUDE PHOTOS."

Minka Kelly

At Celeb Jihad, "MINKA KELLY TOP-SLIP VIDEO."

Also at Phun.

https://t.co/V36GnWpZdW pic.twitter.com/2O6ozHWB9e

— Minka Kelly (@minkakelly) October 7, 2019

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model Brooks Nader

Seen on Twitter:

Brooks Nader on the Red Carpet Braless in Nipple Pasties - https://t.co/uOTmD4hQBu - pic.twitter.com/tPdeTVLYTm

— Taxi Driver (@TaxiDriverMovie) December 11, 2019

Brooks Nader is a total GODDESS. https://t.co/E5rqWMWgtf pic.twitter.com/UII3cqYpYh

— Sports Illustrated Swimsuit (@SI_Swimsuit) December 19, 2019

How Russian Agents Hunt Down Kremlin Opponents

Very dramatic.

At Der Spiegel, "Putin's Killers in Europe":

Putin's Killers in Europe: How Russian Agents Hunt Down Kremlin Opponents https://t.co/hERYQFCzUu pic.twitter.com/5PFZg8GTaH

— SPIEGEL ONLINE English (@SPIEGEL_English) December 9, 2019

In the summer of 2013, a killer in Moscow rode a bicycle toward his victim. The Russian businessman Albert Nazranov saw him, and a short brawl ensued. The killer shot the man in the head and upper body at close range. Then he rode away. All of that can be seen in surveillance footage of the crime.

In the summer of 2019, a killer also rode a bicycle toward his victim, only this time in Berlin. He shot Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, of Georgia, in the head and upper body at close range, before riding away. That's how witnesses described the scene.

Reporting by DER SPIEGEL, Bellingcat, The Insider and The Dossier Center now reveals that not only were both murders very similar -- they were also likely carried out by the same person. A forensic comparison of both perpetrator photos reveals clear similarities. The man who carried a passport bearing the name Vadim Sokolov in Berlin was the Russian Vadim Krasikov, the killer who is thought to have also struck in Moscow.

German General Federal Prosecutor Peter Frank has now assumed responsibility for the investigation into the Berlin murder case at the federal level because, he says, they are of "special importance." Germany's chief prosecutor believes that Russian government authorities deliberately issued Krasikov's new identity, an assumption based on the fact that Moscow took the surprising step in 2015 of revoking an international search warrant for Krasikov and issuing a new identity card to him with the name "Vadim Sokolov" a short time later. It's not likely to have been a coincidence.

The Chief Federal Prosecutor's Office is accusing the Russian government or one of its henchmen of having murdered Khangoshvili in broad daylight at the end of August, a hitjob on German soil against a man who had come to the country as an asylum-seeker,

A similar crime committed in the United Kingdom last year sparked an international crisis when suspected agents with the Russian military intelligence agency GRU conducted an attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter using the Russian neurotoxin Novichok. Twenty-nine countries expelled 146 Russian diplomats in response to the crime. Berlin also forced four representatives of Russia to leave the country.

A Slow Political Response

Despite the similarities, officials in Berlin seemed to be struggling in coming up with a political response to the Khangoshvili murder. For some time, officials said evidence in the case was too unclear. They argued that a fake ID in Russia could also be obtained through bribery and that it couldn't automatically be assumed that the Russian government had been involved.

But last Wednesday, just as the German federal prosecutor took over the case, the government in Berlin also adopted a tougher line. They ordered the chargé d'affaires at the Russian Embassy to the Foreign Ministry, where officials informed him that two staffers in the defense affairs division of the embassy, both of whom are believed by German security authorities to be members GRU intelligence service, would be expelled from Germany.

The Foreign Ministry justified the decision by saying that the cooperation by the Russian authorities has been "insufficient." "We view the expulsions as a very strong message to the Russian side to provide us with immediate and comprehensive support in clarifying the identity and background of the alleged perpetrator," said Helge Braun, chief of staff at Angela Merkel's Chancellery. "Given that there has been a lack of support for months, I have absolutely no comprehension of how Russia could be outraged or even be thinking about countermeasures."

Addressing a question about the case at last week's NATO summit in London, Chancellor Merkel stated: "We took this action because we have not seen Russian support in helping us solve this murder." Merkel has left open whether she will take up the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Ukraine summit in Paris on Monday. But it's difficult to imagine that she wouldn't.

The government in Berlin wants to wait until the investigationsproceeds further before considering whether to take further punitive action against Moscow. Officials in the Chancellery are still wary about comparing the foreign policy fallout of the Khangoshvili killing with the Skripal case. But the circumstantial evidence is strong and there is much to suggest that Georgian national Zelimkhan Khangoshvili was killed for political reasons, even if Russia, as so often in the past, has denied all accusations...

More.

The End of the World Trade Organization?

Who cares, really?

The conflict between economic regionalism and global economic openness, embodied in the post-WWII multilateral trade regime, has been a longtime topic in international relations theory.

The Trump administration is accelerating the shift to regionalism.

Not to mention Brexit, which should go through on January 31st, thanks to the Conservative triumph in the general election.

All is not lost, as bilateral trade agreements will take the place of wider multilateral pacts.

In any case, at the Los Angeles Times, "House passage of USMCA marks major shift away from free-trade policies":

WASHINGTON —  The House of Representatives on Thursday overwhelmingly passed the new North American trade deal, voting in unusually bipartisan fashion just a day after impeaching President Trump strictly on party lines. 

Approval of the trade bill, which now goes to the Senate for almost certain ratification, did far more than help Trump notch a major achievement: It marked a significant change in U.S. economic strategy toward the rest of the world.

For much of the last 70 years, throughout the Cold War and down to more recent times, Washington used America’s vast wealth and economic power to build friendships and alliances that bolstered national security.

That strategy included a fundamental commitment to free trade — opening the large U.S. market to products from all over the world. For the most part, American companies and their workers had to compete against foreign businesses and labor with little or no protection from the federal government.

As Trump has long complained, that free-trade policy cost millions of American jobs. But leaders of both parties and economic experts considered it worth the price because it boosted American growth, generating many new jobs, and opened new opportunities for many U.S. companies to profit in a global economy. At the same time, it helped cement U.S. leadership in the world.

“In the post-World War II era, we were so much more powerful and so much richer than everybody else that we could improve the living standards at home and still give away the store on trade,” said Clyde Prestowitz, a former top trade negotiator in President Reagan’s administration.

“And we’re now culminated at a moment in which the cost of our old policy is really hard to bear, and so we’re de facto changing our policy,” he said.

The march toward free global markets with lower tariffs and other barriers always had exceptions. Beginning in the 1970s, U.S. companies began to complain about unfair competition: dumping of textiles and steel by foreign producers subsidized by their governments, for instance, or the sale of below-cost television sets, electronics and other consumer goods.

Reagan and his successors responded to these complaints with demands for import quotas and other measures. But overall, the United States remained committed to a broad strategy of free trade — relying on market forces and competition to determine outcomes.

While Republican business leaders complained about specific instances of what they saw as unfair tactics, such as currency manipulation and intellectual property theft, they largely remained committed to the overall free-trade strategy.

Democrats, responding to their union supporters, complained that American workers were paying a heavy price for a system that primarily benefited corporations and upper-income Americans.

The original North American Free Trade Agreement, which passed the House in 1993 by a margin of only 34 votes, highlighted the political unease about trade.

The agreement, however, fit squarely into that strategy of using trade in part for geopolitical reasons. It aimed to make Mexico more prosperous and hence make the United States more secure at a time when radical, leftist regimes seemed to be on the rise in Latin America. Economically, many saw it as a bulwark against rising competition from a unified Europe and Asian tiger economies.

NAFTA tore down tariffs and shaped North America into a powerful economic bloc — three-way trade in goods now reaches $1.3 trillion — but it was in many ways outdated in a global economy driven much more by technology and data.

Trump long attacked NAFTA, calling it one of the worst trade agreements ever and promising to renegotiate it. As president, he has attacked the whole system of free trade, undermining the World Trade Organization, which the U.S. helped create in the 1990s, and starting trade wars not only with China but with longtime U.S. allies such as Europe, Canada and Mexico.

He has enjoyed quiet but significant Democratic support on the issue. Witness the large bipartisan majority for the new version of NAFTA.

Renamed United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, the measure won approval by the Democratic-majority House 385-41, a remarkable show of unity at a time of deep partisan acrimony.

Not that there wasn’t the usual jostling and one-upmanship which have characterized relations between congressional Democrats and Trump.

“Of course we’ll take credit for it, because what he proposed did not fill the bill of what he described,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said shortly before the vote, referring to Democrats’ successful pressure on the administration to amend the trade deal to strengthen enforcement of labor and environmental protections.

Earlier Wednesday night, at a rally in Battle Creek, Mich., Trump insisted that Pelosi and other Democrats had no choice but to pass USMCA.

“She had a lot of pressure, especially from manufacturing areas, farm areas, a lot of pressure to sign it.... I had a lot of union labor vote for me, tremendous amount of labor,” he said...

More.

Men's Mid-Weight Puffer Vest

At Amazon, Amazon Essentials Men's Mid-Weight Puffer Vest.

Plus, Books.

Jennifer Delacruz's Weekend Forecast

Well, pre-Christmas football all day today, and wonderful SoCal weather!

Here's the lovely Ms. Jennifer, for ABC News 10 San Diego:

Comparing Modern Dodge Muscle Cars to the Iconic Vehicles of the 1960s (VIDEO)

My buddy Greg Joseph is interviewed in this L.A. Times feature on the new Dodge Hellcat lineup.

See, "Do modern Dodge muscle cars capture the magic harnessed by Big Willie Robinson?":

The Daytona Big Willie drove — he dubbed it the King Daytona — was especially rare. It was one of only a few dozen 1969 Daytonas built with a Hemi motor, whose hemispherical combustion chambers aid performance. https://t.co/ddue5mx1cb

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) December 19, 2019

I couldn’t get any seat time in the late Robinson’s car — it was destroyed in 1971, and his wife’s matching car was wrecked a few years later. But I did track down a 1969 Hemi Daytona owned by car collector Greg Joseph.

Joseph actually knew Robinson; he met the leader of the Brotherhood of Street Racers in the 1990s via former Times Publisher Otis Chandler. At the time, Joseph was curating the muscle car collection of Chandler, whose holdings included a 1969 Hemi Daytona of his own.

Joseph said he was touched by the realization that he, Chandler and Robinson and his street racer wife each owned one of these unique rides.

“They truly were icons,” Joseph said. “It kind of brings back the nostalgia, the memories of the time when I went to all the drag races.”

Joseph, a retired history professor who long taught at Long Beach City College, said he sees the through line from the Daytona to the Redeye, in part because both harness what he called “state-of-the-art technology to go fast.”

“This is all-out high-performance,” said Joseph, gesturing at the Redeye. “Same with the Daytona.”

Still, the Redeye isn’t entirely state-of-the-art. It derives its power from a pushrod V-8 — that’s old-fashioned technology in an era of overhead cam motors with variable valve timing — but I get Joseph’s point. This is a car whose launch can be programmed via a special mode that holds the RPM at a desired spot in the power band for optimal acceleration.

And the Redeye carries over other technology from the 2018 Challenger Demon, an even higher-performance version of the car that put out 840 horsepower — and did zero to 60 in 2.3 seconds — but was sold for only one year. Among the goodies that have found their way from the Demon to the Redeye is an intercooler chiller system that keeps the motor at the ideal temperature.

Although the Redeye was the more extreme of the two cars I tested, the Charger Hellcat seemed to turn more heads during the week I drove it. As with the Challenger, this version of the Charger has been around for several years, but in Hellcat guise, the exterior modifications stand out. Perhaps that’s because they’re transforming a sedan with comparably more sedate looks.

At one stoplight, a man in a black minivan eyed the Charger Hellcat lustily from the neighboring lane. I edged the car forward, summoning a bark from the big V-8, and the other driver laughed appreciatively. Up the street, our lanes merged into one, and he happily ceded the road.

The minivan may have been no match for the Charger Hellcat, but the American muscle car rivalry is alive and well. And in many ways — even as manufacturers move toward increased electrification and hybridization — we are in the midst of a new golden age for these vehicles. A horsepower war touched off by the launch of the 2015 Challenger and Charger Hellcats shows no signs of slowing down. Chevrolet’s Camaro ZL1 offers 650 horsepower, and Ford is readying a top-end Mustang — the Shelby GT500 — packing 760 horsepower.

The Hellcat cars both deliver a quintessential muscle car ride. But it wasn’t easy for me to see a link to the Dodge drag strip heroes of yore, amid the many trappings of modernity.

Still, I was able to find a connection to the past in an unexpected place: some of the new cars’ shortcomings. Details like the Redeye’s subpar seats — yielding in all the wrong places — seemed to telegraph Dodge’s focus on speed, and little else. Thinking about the Hellcat cars this way, I grew to view many of their flaws as charming. And the ties to the 1960s were ultimately driven home via a mishap.

Before the Redeye was lent to The Times, it underwent some mechanical work that left the interior smelling of gasoline. Workers had attempted to mitigate it, but the bouquet of fuel stubbornly persisted.

But it didn’t bother me. It felt a little rough, a little raw. Like how old cars sometimes smell after they’ve been throttled hard.

Even if it was unintended, it made the Redeye feel a little bit closer to 1969.

A little bit closer to the Daytona. A little bit closer to Robinson.

Meghan L. O'Sullivan, Windfall

At Amazon, Meghan L. O'Sullivan, Windfall: How the New Energy Abundance Upends Global Politics and Strengthens America's Power.

The Queen's Speech Introducing Boris Johnson's Conservative Government (VIDEO)

At the Guardian U.K., "Queen's speech: PM points to harder Brexit and 10-year rule."

And the Los Angeles Times, "Boris Johnson unveils ambitious agenda for Britain’s Brexit and government reforms":

LONDON —  Prime Minister Boris Johnson signaled an end to Britain’s era of Brexit deadlock Thursday, announcing a packed legislative program intended to take the U.K. out of the European Union on Jan. 31 and overhaul a range of government services, including the cash-starved National Health Service.

The commanding House of Commons majority won by Johnson’s Conservative Party in last week’s general election all but guarantees he will be able to turn those promises into law, although with Brexit casting a shadow over the British economy, there’s a question mark over how he will pay for it all.

In a speech delivered from a golden throne in Parliament by Queen Elizabeth II, Johnson opened the legislative floodgates after three years in which minority Conservative governments tried in vain to win legislators’ backing for their Brexit plans.

“This is the moment to repay the trust of those who sent us here by delivering on the people’s priorities,” Johnson told lawmakers after the speech. “They want to move politics on and move the country on.”

In less than 10 minutes, the monarch rattled through more than two dozen bills the government intends to pass in the coming year. The first will be the EU Withdrawal Agreement Bill, the law needed to make Brexit a reality, which is set to receive its first significant parliamentary vote Friday.

The bill commits Britain to leaving the EU on Jan. 31 and to concluding trade talks with the bloc by the end of 2020. Trade experts and EU officials say striking a free-trade deal within 11 months will be a struggle, but Johnson insists he won’t agree to any more delays. That vow has set off alarm bells among businesses, which fear that means the country will face a “no-deal” Brexit at the start of 2021.

The government also plans to pass several other Brexit-related measures, including a new “points-based” immigration system that will be introduced after Brexit, when EU citizens will lose the automatic right to live and work in the U.K.

There are also plans to overhaul agriculture, fishing, trade and financial services after Brexit in ways that will have a huge — though still largely unknown — effect on the British economy...

Carla Guetta

At Drunken Stepfather, "CARLA GUETTA FULL PHOTOSHOOT OF THE DAY."

Will Mitch McConnell Reject the House Articles as Not Stating an Impeachable Offense?

At Instapundit, "COCAINE MITCH: McConnell Rips Apart Democrats’ ‘Partisan Crusade’ on the Floor of the Senate."

Democrat Rashida Tlaib Celebrates Trump's Impeachment (VIDEO)

Actually, it's perfectly natural to celebrate something for which you've worked so hard.

The problem is that Democrats keep moaning about how solemn and sober are the proceedings.

At Pajamas, "Solemn Much? Rashida Tlaib Shares Giddy Video Celebrating Trump's Impeachment," and the Blaze, "VIDEO: Far-left US Rep. Rashida Tlaib can't hide her happiness as she walks to House to vote for President Trump's impeachment."

So solemn. So somber. pic.twitter.com/H6J6sTBBo8

— The Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) December 19, 2019

Pelosi's Impeachment Disaster

At AoSHQ, "Granny Nasty McBotoxRictus: I'm So Proud of Our Fake Impeachment I'm Scolding the Press Not to Ask About It, and I'm Obstructing it from Going to Trial."

The glare Pelosi gave her caucus when some Dems started to clap after she announced the first article of impeachment passed pic.twitter.com/8vONZlEyZ3

— Peter Stevenson (@PeterWStevenson) December 19, 2019

Robert Stacy McCain on Impeachment

The latest at the Other McCain, "Trump Unites Republicans":

Impeachment has united Republicans in support of Trump, and nowhere is this unity more solid than in the Senate, where Mitch McConnell seems determined that the Democrats’ bogus ginned-up charges against the president will get a fair (but brief) hearing before being dismissed with the contemptuous ridicule it so richly deserves. As might be expected, Nancy Pelosi is not happy about this.

pic.twitter.com/DutxclyZw9

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 19, 2019