Tuesday: Hili dialogue

January 27, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to The Cruelest Day: Tuesday, January 27, 2026, and Holocaust Remembrance Day, marking the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945.  Here’s a 15-minute movie showing the liberation of the camps and giving interviews with the liberators and survivors:

I visited Auschwitz in 2013, and a visit there will affect you forever.  Here is a display of suitcases discarded by people who were transported to the camp in cattle cars. Note that the owners carefully put their addresses on the suitcases, assuming they’d get them back. They never did; most of the owners were gassed as soon as they arrived at the camp:

It’s also International Port Wine Day, National Chocolate Cake Day, National Geographic Day (the society was founded on this day in 1888), and Thomas Crapper Day, celebrating the man who helped perfect the toilet (he invented the ballcock, for example, and died on this day in 1888).

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the January 26 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz

* Current and former immigration officials in the government are beginning to publicly express frustration about law enforcement’s role in the chaos in Minnesota.

Oscar Hagelsieb spent nearly 25 years as an immigration officer and special agent, proud of his work enforcing federal laws.

But watching the chaos unfolding in Minneapolis, and the fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen there on Saturday, Mr. Hagelsieb said he felt anger and despair at how the Trump administration was deploying his former agency.

“You’re not addressing the problem by throwing a 500-pound gorilla into these inner cities,” said Mr. Hagelsieb, 52, who said he voted three times for President Trump and retired from the Department of Homeland Security in 2023. “It’s completely unfair to the agents who have been put in this position.”

“They’re causing chaos, and unfortunately it’s costing lives,” he added. “There’s only so much they can handle before bad things start to happen.”

Mr. Hagelsieb’s comments reflect a growing sense of fear, frustration and disillusionment among some current and former immigration officials at the department, which is leading Mr. Trump’s push to arrest and deport millions of people. In interviews with The New York Times, more than 20 of them expressed anxieties that the administration was sending federal agents into situations in Minneapolis and other major cities that were increasingly dangerous both for them and civilians they encountered. They said that long hours, arrest quotas and public vitriol were taking a significant toll on morale.

Many also worried that the fallout would irreparably damage how the public perceived the two main homeland security agencies involved in Mr. Trump’s crackdown, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Border Patrol, hurting long-term recruitment and retention. Several said they worried that Democrats would draw on voter outrage to shut down ICE, which has been the most publicly visible arm of the immigration operation, if they returned to power.

That damage has already been done, as evidenced in the bill described below.

The WSJ has a good moment-by-moment video analysis of the shooting showing that the government’s descriptions are clearly wrong. The gun had been taken from Pretti before he was shot, and at least ten shots were fired. This also irreparably damages any credibility that the government has when making statements about specific crimes.

UPDATE: Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar,” is headed to Minneapolis to take control of federal enforcement of immigration enforcement. Trump said, in an interview with the WSJ, that he had no comment on the Pretti case but added “We’re looking, we’re reviewing everything and will come out with a determination.” The NYT link also says that a federal judge is considering whether the influx of federal law-enforcement agents into Minnesota violates that state’s sovereignty.

*Barry Friedman and Stephen Vladek, law professors at NYU and Georgetown respectively, relate in a NYT op-ed, “This may be the only path to accountability for the Minneapolis shootings.”  It’s the courts, Jake: prosecution not for federal but for state crimes.

In the wake of another fatal shooting by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis, many people are wondering what can be done. The answer has been right in front of us all along.

Despite the incredulity with which some legal observers meet the idea, state and local prosecutors can prosecute federal officials for violating state criminal laws. Prosecutors should be gathering and securing evidence and seriously considering filing charges — sooner rather than later.

Not every prosecution will succeed, and all will face obstacles that are built into our legal system. But critically, bringing these state and local prosecutions could produce deterrent effects that are so desperately needed now.

U.S. law, at least theoretically, provides a range of options for holding government officers accountable; the problem is that many of those options are unavailable in practice where federal officers are concerned.

. . . .a series of decisions by the Supreme Court has made it all but impossible to hold federal officers liable for damages in federal lawsuits for violating our constitutional rights — such as in a February 2020 decision involving a Border Patrol agent who shot and killed an unarmed teenager without provocation.

Instead, the historical backstop for a lack of federal accountability, going all the way back to the founding, has been state law. States prosecuting federal officers for crimes committed in the course of their federal duties would certainly face complications, but those hurdles would not be insurmountable.

One such complication: The federal officer charged by state prosecutors for a crime committed while on duty could move any such case to a federal court. But that would simply change the courthouse (and the judge and the jury pool). State prosecutors would still be seeking to enforce state law — which, among other things, means that any conviction would not be subject to the president’s pardon power.

In other words, the ability to prosecute federal law enforcement officers who commit state crimes in the course of their duties would turn on whether a reasonable officer in their position would have believed that their actions were necessary to fulfill their duties. That standard may be appropriately strict, to maintain federal authority when it is needed (think of federal protection for civil rights protesters in the 1960s), but at least based on the videos so many of us have seen, it should not be impossible.

Nor should state and local prosecutors think this power to bring charges under state law exists — or should exist — only when the offense results in a death. Every day, Americans are seeing an unending stream of videos showing federal officers destroying property, pepper-spraying individuals on a whim and using what at least appear to be excessive degrees of force. Many, if not most, of these acts are potential violations of state criminal laws. If those crimes are not “reasonable and well-founded” in light of federal duties, the officers can be convicted and penalized, even jailed.

And the solution:

What prosecutors should be doing now is what Minnesota prosecutors did after the murder of Renee Good: establishing online portals to which individuals can upload their videos and other evidence. Will there be a flood of evidence? Yes. Will it all justify prosecution? No. Will some offenders be charged? We can’t say for sure, but it looks to us like the answer ought to be yes, and that’s true even if the final result is not a conviction. (That, after all, is why we have trials and juries.)

If the federal government won’t investigate the Minneapolis convictions, the state should, though I’m not sure whether the feds are required to hand over to the state all the evidence they have.  I sure looks as if Pretti was murdered, but we should still presume innocence before a trial, and in that trial guilt has to be determined beyond a reasonable doubt.  But we need real courts, not the court of public opinion. The latter is useful for pressuring change on the way the authorities apprehend people.

*Finally, in Congress, Democrats have vowed to veto a new spending bill if it includes any funds for ICE.  This could lead to another government shutdown.

Bipartisan legislation to fund a broad swath of the government and avert a shutdown at the end of the week appeared to be in grave danger on Saturday, as key Senate Democrats vowed to oppose it after federal agents shot and killed a Minneapolis resident.

The rapidly escalating opposition to the measure, which includes $64.4 billion for the Department of Homeland Security, including $10 billion for ICE, amplified the likelihood of a partial government shutdown at the end of the month. The legislation requires the support of Democrats to muster the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster and advance in the Senate.

“Senate Democrats will not provide the votes to proceed to the appropriations bill if the D.H.S. funding bill is included,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said in a statement, calling what is unfolding in Minnesota “appalling” and “unacceptable in any American city.”

Recognizing the depth of Democratic outrage, Senate Republicans immediately began examining whether they could separate the homeland security funding from the rest of the package and preserve the bulk of what had been a bipartisan deal to fund a large chunk of the government. The measure also funds the Pentagon and State Department, as well as health, education, labor and transportation programs.

“I’m exploring all options,” said Senator Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who is the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, adding that she had been in touch with Senator John Thune, the South Dakota Republican and majority leader. “We have five other bills that are really vital, and I’m relatively confident they would pass.”

The new bill is not going to get 60 votes assuming that the Democrats vote as a bloc, for the Republicans have only 53 seats. If some compromise can’t be effected, once again we’ll be faced with a government shutdown.

*The Times of Israel, quoting Time Magazine, says that Iranian officials now admit that the death toll of protestors could top 30,000. From Time:

As many as 30,000 people could have been killed in the streets of Iran on Jan. 8 and 9 alone, two senior officials of the country’s Ministry of Health told TIME—indicating a dramatic surge in the death toll. So many people were slaughtered by Iranian security services on that Thursday and Friday, it overwhelmed the state’s capacity to dispose of the dead. Stocks of body bags were exhausted, the officials said, and eighteen-wheel semi-trailers replaced ambulances.

The government’s internal count of the dead, not previously revealed, far surpasses the toll of 3,117 announced on Jan. 21 by regime hardliners who report directly to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. (Ministries report to the elected President.) The 30,000 figure is also far beyond tallies being compiled by activists methodically assigning names to the dead. As of Saturday, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said it had confirmed 5,459 deaths and is investigating 17,031 more.

TIME has been unable to independently verify these figures.

The Health Ministry’s two-day figure roughly aligns with a count gathered by physicians and first responders, and also shared with TIME. That surreptitious tally of deaths recorded by hospitals stood at 30,304 as of Friday, according to Dr. Amir Parasta, a German-Iranian eye surgeon who prepared a report of the data. Parasta said that number does not reflect protest-related deaths of people registered at military hospitals, whose bodies were taken directly to morgues, or that happened in locales the inquiry did not reach. Iran’s National Security Council has said protests took place in around 4,000 locations across the country.

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“We are getting closer to reality,” Dr. Parasta said. “But I guess the real figures are still way higher.”

The death toll is huge, and is approaching the population of the small city of Davis, California, where I used to live (I think of death tolls as analogous to the extermination of cities).  I am still guessing that the U.S. and Israel are going to attack Iran within two weeks with the aim of toppling the regime, and the silence of the U.S. about Iran right now may be merely a ploy.

Also, the last Israeli hostage killed by the IDF has been found, and his body is being returned to his family. The subheading is “[Ran] Gvili’s remains ID’d by dental, fingerprint match; 250 bodies were checked, all being returned to their graves * PM: We promised to bring everyone back, and we did * Hamas says return of Gvili’s body shows it is committed to ceasefire.” Yeah, but Hamas won’t lay down their arms and disband.

From NBC News:

The remains of the last hostage held in Gaza have been identified, the Israeli military said Monday, ending a more than two-year saga for captives’ families in Israel — and paving the way for the second phase of the ceasefire in the war-torn enclave.

For months, only one hostage body remained in Gaza, that of Ran Gvili, a 24-year-old police officer killed during the Hamas-led attack Oct. 7, 2023.

The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement Monday that Gvili’s family had been informed “that their loved one has been identified and will be returned for burial.”

“With this, all hostages from the Gaza Strip have been returned,” it said.

*The WaPo describes the best meals you can get on an airplane, and by that they mean which flights and which meals have stood out.

In the photo, the tray table meal was supposed to be first class, but the traveler who received it called it a “bowl of sadness.”

Shiny layers of meat, squares of cheese and a bruised whole tomato are visible in the X post that has more than 15 million views since it was posted Jan. 4

The robust response included commenters sharing photos of their own sad airline meals. A few compared the food to the famously paltry offerings at Fyre Festival. Many suggested flying private or a BYO meal approach.

Or fly business class (QSuite) on Qatar Airways, which I almost got to do.  Or Emirates.  Here are a few tweets about great meals:

And two more (I suggest you look at YouTube for business-class flights on Qatar Airways and Emirates. I’ve watched a lot of those:

Caviar service and lobster on Qatar Airways

Charmaine Lamsin, a physician from Washington state and frequent traveler, said she loves the caviar service in first class on Qatar Airways, part of the appetizer course. She has had it twice, in 2024 and 2025.

“It includes the accoutrements with blinis, diced red onion, eggs and chives and sour cream and lemon,” she said in an email. She said more courses follow, so she’s never hungry. Actually, she gets “so full I can’t eat most of it.”

She said she will also get lobster when she sees it on the menu. She loves seafood, but said most airlines offer dry salmon or bland shrimp.

Sashimi on All Nippon Airways

Freelance travel reporter Chris Dong said Japanese carriers Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways have served his favorite in-flight meals.

One standout during a first-class flight on ANA a few years ago was the sashimi as part of a multicourse meal: “a dedicated raw fish course, which was insane.”

It was followed by an entrée of “super tender” beef, Japanese rice and pickles. “It was delightful,” he said.

In economy, he remembers an “amazing” version of the Malaysian dish nasi lemak — coconut rice with sambal, chicken, hard-boiled egg, fried anchovies and peanuts — that he preordered on the budget carrier AirAsia.

Note that the best food is on long-haul foreign flights with foreign carriers, and in business and first class. If I could choose (and somebody else paid), I’d go on Qatar Airways or Emirates.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is (surprise!) thinking about food:

In Polish:

Hili: jestem bardzo ostrożna w moich sądach.
Ja: Zawsze?
Hili: No nie, mam stanowcze sądy w sprawach kulinarnych.

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

From CinEmma:

From Cole & Marmalade:

From Now That’s Wild (I love this one):

Screenshot

From Masih; a woman cuts her hair at her sister’s funeral (her sister was shot in a protest in Iran). Sound up:

My response to a “pro-compatibism” tweet by Michael Shermer. Why are all the cool kids compatibilists? Can’t they just say that we feel that we have libertarian free will but we really don’t?

From John Cleese:

The Number Ten Cat is almost as arrogant as Hili the Queen:

One from my feed; look at this d*g go!

One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial, celebrating the liberation of Auschwitz:

. . . and two from Dr. Cobb, who’s flogging his book in Brighton:

Matthew says that this will restore my faith in humanity. I’m not so sure. . .

The 19th century Struve Geodetic Arc is, to me, one of the most extraordinary properties on the World Heritage List. It crosses 10 countries and was used to determine the size and shape of the world. 🧪 🏺 #ContemporaryArchaeology

— Dr Space Junk (Alice Gorman) (@drspacejunk.bsky.social) 2026-01-26T00:01:02.854Z

Look at this fossil! Read more about it here.

An astounding fossil of a crocodile-like Ikechosaurus (Inner Mongolia)

— Natalia Jagielska (娜塔莉) (@nataliajagielska.bsky.social) 2026-01-26T08:50:37.161Z

Antisemitism flourishes in psychotherapy

January 26, 2026 • 9:45 am

I’ve known for a short while that psychotherapists (both psychiatrists and psychologists) are increasingly evincing antisemitism in their professional communications, despite the fact that the field was started by—and still largely consists of—Jews.  One would think that therapists, trained to be empathic and caring, wouldn’t go so far as to criticize and even refuse to treat Jewish patients, but that is sometimes the case. I know it’s true in Chicago, where the American Psychological Association had an online discussion group that became increasingly antisemitic, to the point where the APA President had to stop the bigotry.

In the post below from Commentary (click on screenshot, or find it archived here), psychiatrist and Yale lecturer Sally Satel describes how the Jew-hating termites are boring into the structure of American psychotherapy:

Some excerpts. Note that Jewish therapists or patients are often called “Zionists”, even when their views on Israel are unknown. This shows more than ever that “anti-Zionist” is simply a euphemism for “Jew hater” or “antisemite”.

It starts in Chicago:

Shortly after October 7, 2023, an Arizona-based group called the Jewish Therapist Collective received a sharp increase in calls from Jewish therapists. The collective is an online community that offers support to Jewish therapists and helps Jewish patients find welcoming practitioners. Its director, Halina Brooke, learned that in the wake of Hamas’s attack on Israel, many Jewish therapists were being told by their colleagues that their very presence was ‘triggering to non-Jewish therapists.’”

A therapist in Chicago named Heba Ibrahim-Joudeh felt that patients, too, needed to be protected from Zionist therapists. In winter 2024, Ibrahim-Joudeh, a member of the Chicago Anti-Racist Therapists Facebook group, organized a “blacklist” of local Zionist therapists. “I’ve put together a list of therapists/practices with Zionist affiliations that we should avoid referring clients to,” she wrote to colleagues, who responded with thanks.

As I understand it, that list was put together not even knowing whether all the blacklisted therapists were Jewish; some were included simply because they had “Jewish names.”

In 2025, a young Jewish woman had her first appointment with a psychotherapist in Washington, D.C. During the session, she mentioned a recent months-long stay in Israel. The therapist, who was part of a group practice, smiled and said, “It’s lucky you were assigned to me. None of my colleagues will treat a Zionist.”

The intolerance is not confined to isolated examples. It’s roiling the American Psychological Association (APA), the nation’s foremost accreditor for psychological training and continuing education programs. Tensions reached a new level last winter when more than 3,500 mental health professionals calling themselves Psychologists Against Antisemitism sent a letter to the APA’s president and board. The signers called upon the association to “address the serious and systemic problem of antisemitism/anti-Jewish hate.” The letter told of APA-hosted conferences for educational credits in which speakers made “official statements and presentations [including] rationalizations of violence against Jews and Israelis; antisemitic tropes; Holocaust distortion; minimization of Jewish victimization, fear, and grief.”

Singled out by name was the former president of the APA Society of Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology from 2023 to 2025, Lara Sheehi. In addition to diagnosing Zionism as a “settler psychosis,” Sheehi had posted expletive-laced messages on social media, including one stating “destroy Zionism” and another describing Israelis as “genocidal f—ks.” Her sentiments infiltrated the annual meeting of the APA in Denver last summer, where, according to psychologist Dean McKay of Fordham University, professional Listserv postings urged attendees to wear keffiyehs at the convention and read a “land and genocide statement” before giving their presentations, some of which contained Hamas propaganda. McKay has alsodocumented cases of therapists urging their clients to go to anti-Israel protests as part of what they see as their role in promoting activism.

Satel describes how some therapists reject patients who say they are Zionists, with the therapists explaining that “their values do not align”.  That is a violation of how therapists are supposed to work, without regard to whether their political opinions are in synch.  Yes, therapists can reject patients who are hostile, or those whom they think they can’t help because of other factors. (One example: patients who seek treatment for alcoholism “because my wife told me to come here,” for therapy won’t work unless the patient comes in of their own volition.) But requiring an alignment of politics a professional violation.

. . .one might be surprised to read the APA’s current Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct: “Psychologists establish and maintain knowledge and awareness of their professional and personal values, experiences, culture, and social contexts. They identify and limit biases that may detract from the well-being of those with whom they professionally interact.”

These tenets do not preclude therapists from making choices about whom they will treat. Such decisions, however, should spring from an individualized consideration of whether they can serve a patient well, not whether they morally disapprove of him. A therapist who lost a loved one on October 7, for example, might not want a patient who is a pro-Hamas activist. A therapist with relatives in Gaza could understandably pass up a potential patient who organizes pro-Israel marches.

But those tenets don’t matter.  The culture of therapy is becoming an ideological enterprisem with spreading “social justice” takes priority over helping the patient. Bolding below is mine:

. . . the culture of psychotherapy is changing. Before the murder of George Floyd, an identitarian approach to therapy had been simmering for at least a decade. Afterward, it burst upon the clinical scene. My colleague Val Thomas, a psychotherapist in the UK and editor of Cynical Therapies: Perspectives on the Antitherapeutic Nature of Critical Social Justice, calls it Critical Social Justice Therapy. Untested as a form of therapy, it views patients as either perpetrators or victims of oppression and understands this simple dynamic as the root of their problems.

Social justice therapists—who see themselves as activists first, healers second—usurp the goals of therapy. They override patients’ needs and preferences in favor of their own politicized aims, such as “dismantling racism.” To the extent that Zionism is, in some quarters, considered a form of racism or white supremacy, pro-Israel patients face an uncertain reception when they show up at therapists’ offices.

. . . Yet now, regardless of the best interest of patients, the post–October 7 therapist seems to feel entitled to make his own comfort paramount, to quell his own anxiety. In the realm of responsible psychotherapy, this is a grave transgression.

If you’re Jewish and seeking therapy, it might be useful to ask potential therapists about their reaction to your beliefs. As Satel says, “Today, Jewish and Zionist individuals who seek psychological care must search carefully for an experienced therapist who, no matter his or her politics, will regard the patient, foremost, as a fellow human who is suffering.”

Even if you’re one of the rare Jews who doesn’t favor the existence of Israel, you’re still considered a “Zionist” (you’re still a “racist” and “white supremacist”, something I was called this morning), and shouldn’t have to spell that out for a therapist.

I had this post in draft, and saw this morning that Steve Pinker posted about Sally’s article, noting that he’d quit the APA some years ago.  Apparently at that time antisemitism was already on the rise.

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 26, 2026 • 8:15 am

We’re almost out of photos again: one more batch to go. If you have any good wildlife photos, please send them in. Thanks!

Today we have some birds from British Columbia from reader Paul Handford, including DUCKS.  Paul’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Here’s a few more species of non-passerine birds from south-central British Columbia, all within a few miles of where we lived from 2011-2021 in Barnhartvale, Kamloops, before retiring to Ireland.

First, a few waterfowl from the South Thompson River, upstream from Kamloops, in the vicinity of Campbell Creek.  It’s a great place for viewing a diversity of ducks, geese, and swans, especially in winter and spring:

Barrow’s goldeneye [Bucephala islandica]:

Common mergansers [Mergus merganser]

Male:

Female:

Ring-necked duck [Aythya collaris]:

More waterfowl, this time from a small lake in Barnes Lake natural area.

Redhead [Aythya americana], dabbling:

Close-up, redhead:

American wigeon [Mareca americana]:

Now a couple of land birds, regular visitors in our back yard.

Mourning doves [Zenaida macroura]:

Dusky grouse [Dendragapus obscurus], male:

Dusky grouse, female:

Monday: Hili dialogue

January 26, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to the last Monday in January; it’s January 26, 2026, and Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day. Who among us has not popped the stuff?  Here’s a 3½-minute video about how they make the stuff:

Here’s the weather forecast from Chicago with temperatures (high and low for each day) given in degrees Fahrenheit. My nose is frozen. We will not be above freezing for at least a week, and more snow is on tap.

It’s also National Green Juice Day, National Peanut Brittle Day, and, for masochists, Dental Drill Appreciation Day.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the January 26 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

NOTE: I will remind people what I wrote about ICE yesterday, since I am getting anonymous emails from trolls accusing me of being in favor of Trump and white supremacy. After reporting the NYT’s analysis of the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, I said this.

The upshot: all signs so far are that Pretti was killed by ICE agents, and though he had a weapon, he was not brandishing it in a way that would justify killing him (there are police protocols on how to deal with armed people, and these were violated). This has all the signs of a murder, with the administration blaming the victim.  I do not trust the government accounts, nor do I trust DHS to conduct an objective investigation of the killing.  I think it’s time for ICE to get out of Minnesota, as what they are doing is not only ripping the country apart, but seems palpably illegal, like the armed response of a dictatorial regime.  I do not know how immigrants with criminal records should be apprehended, as local law enforcement won’t help ICE, but right now it’s more important to stop the violence than continue ICE operations.  The treatment of Pretti by federal agents is both thuggish and incomprehensible.  He seems to have been a good guy, doing a valuable job, and his death is a tragedy.

The government is pushing back on views like mine, and there is no sign that ICE will leave, so more trouble is in store. If what I wrote above is not enough for you, there are other websites completely devoted now to ICE, some even blaming their brutality on Israel.

*The NYT has a long multimedia editorial-board piece called “The great American cash grab,” and the grabber is Trump, who apparently has enriched himself by more than a billion dollars during his Presidency (article archived here).  Bolding is the paper’s

President Trump has never been a man to ask what he can do for his country. In his second term, as in his first, he is instead testing the limits of what his country can do for him.

He has poured his energy and creativity into the exploitation of the presidency — into finding out just how much money people, corporations and other nations are willing to put into his pockets in hopes of bending the power of the government to the service of their interests.

A review by the editorial board relying on analyses from news organizations shows that Mr. Trump has used the office of the presidency to make at least $1.4 billion. We know this number to be an underestimate because some of his profits remain hidden from public view. And they continue to grow.

A hotel in Oman. An office tower in western India. A golf course on the outskirts of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. These are a few of the more than 20 overseas projects the Trump Organization is pursuing, often requiring cooperation with foreign governments. These deals have made millions for the Trumps, according to Reuters. And the administration has sometimes treated those same governments favorably. One example: The administration agreed to lower its threatened tariffs on Vietnam about a month after a Trump Organization project broke ground on a $1.5 billion golf complex outside of Hanoi. Vietnamese officials ignored their own laws to fast-track the project.

Amazon paid far more for the rights to “Melania” than the next highest bidder — and far more than the company has previously paid for similar projects, according to The Wall Street Journal. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chairman and one of the world’s richest people, has many reasons to curry favor with the administration, including antitrust regulation, Amazon’s defense contracts and his space company’s federal contracts.

Mr. Trump’s sale of crypto has been by far his biggest moneymaker, according to Reuters. People who hope to influence federal policy, including foreigners, can buy his family’s coins, effectively transferring money to the Trumps, and the deals are often secret. One that has become public: A United Arab Emirates-backed investment firm announced plans last year to deposit $2 billion into a Trump firm — two weeks before the president gave the country access to advanced chips.

Nowadays President often get rich in office, simply by putting their assets in a blind trust, but many, like the Obamas, continue to accumulate millions, which I’m not that keen on.

When President Harry Truman left office in 1953, he did not even own a car. He and his wife returned to Missouri by train and lived for a time on his Army pension. He refused to take any job that he regarded as commercializing his public service, explaining, “I knew that they were not interested in hiring Harry Truman, the person, but what they wanted to hire was the former president of the United States.” Mr. Trump has said that when he leaves office, he plans to take with him a $400 million Boeing 747 that was a gift from Qatar, and to display it at his presidential library.

 

This tally focuses on Mr. Trump’s documented gains. The $1.4 billion figure is a minimum, not a full accounting. It is probable that Mr. Trump has collected several hundred million dollars in additional profits from his cryptocurrency ventures over the past year. The Trumps have acknowledged as much. When The Financial Times asked Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons, about its estimated value of the family’s crypto gains, he said they were probably even larger than the news organization thought.

Total enrichment of Trump, according to the paper: $1,408,500,000. That’s about 17,000 times the median American household income.  And we’ve got three more years to go. The lesson? We already know it: when it comes to policy decisions, cui bono?

It is impossible to know how often Mr. Trump makes official decisions, in part or entirely, because he wants to be richer. And that is precisely the problem. A culture of corruption is pernicious because it is not just a deviation from government in the public interest; it is also the destruction of the state’s democratic legitimacy. It undermines the necessary faith that the representatives of the people are acting in the interest of the people.

*In an article called “How Iran crushed a citizen uprising with lethal force,” the NYT pronounces the protests in Iran dead in the water (excuse the metaphor).

On Friday, Jan. 9, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordered the Supreme National Security Council, the body tasked with safeguarding the country, to crush the protests by any means necessary, according to two Iranian officials briefed on the ayatollah’s directive. Security forces were deployed with orders to shoot to kill and to show no mercy, the officials said. The death toll surged.

Despite Iran’s shutting down the internet and disrupting phone service, some Iranians managed to evade restrictions to share witness accounts and hundreds of videos, many of which The New York Times was able to collect and authenticate.

The Times has verified videos of security forces’ opening fire on protesters in at least 19 cities and in at least six different neighborhoods in Tehran in early January.

These videos show the breadth and ferocity of the regime’s crackdown. So do the testimonies of doctors and a nurse working in hospitals in Iran, and photographs shared by a witness and authenticated by The Times of hundreds of victims taken to a Tehran morgue.

The Times also interviewed two dozen Iranians in Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, Rasht and Ahvaz who had attended protests, as well as relatives of people killed. Protesters, residents and medical staff interviewed for this article all asked that their names or full names not be published for fear of retribution.

By Monday, Jan. 12, the protests had largely been crushed.

As more information emerges from Iran, the death toll has hit at least 5,200 people, including 56 children, according to the Washington-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. Iran Human Rights, a Norway-based group that also monitors the situation in Iran, has confirmed at least 3,400 killed. Both organizations say that the numbers could prove two or three times as large as verification continues.

Iran’s National Security Council said in a statement that 3,117 people had been killed, among them 427 of its security forces. Officials, including Ayatollah Khamenei, have blamed terrorist cells tied to Israel and the United States for the uprising and killings.

“This is not merely a violent protest crackdown,” said Raha Bahreini, a lawyer and an Iran researcher at Amnest

. . .Across the country, hospitals swamped by thousands of injured protesters were unprepared for the scale of the gunshot wounds they were seeing, according to interviews and text messages with eight doctors and one nurse in Iran.

Gun violence is rare in Iran, and private citizens are not allowed to own weapons. The doctors and the nurse sharing their experiences in Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan and Zanjan described scenes of chaos: medical staff frantically trying to save lives, white uniforms drenched in blood. They said patients lay on benches and chairs, and even on bare floors, in the overcrowded emergency rooms.

They said hospitals were short of blood and searching for trauma and vascular surgeons. The internet shutdown prevented medical staff from checking patients’ names and medical histories, they said.

It’s surprising to me that Americans aren’t protesting this kind of violence, one committed by a theocracy against its own people, who are pining for freedom. The people are almost completely unarmed but brave enough to take to the streets—until that became a lethal exercise.  The next item deals with the possibility that the U.S. and Israel may cooperate in a second attack on the country, this time not to impede its production of weapons-grad uranium (though that will surely be one goal) but to oust the regime. There are, of course, problems with that; see the next item.

*Despite Iran being quieter than a few weeks ago, there are signs that the U.S. and Israel may mount a second attack on the country. The Times of Israel reports:

Commander of the United States Central Command Adm. Brad Cooper was in Israel on Saturday for meetings with senior officials, The Times of Israel learned, as US President Donald Trump indicated he was maintaining the possibility of strikes on Iran amid its crackdown on protests.

Cooper met with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir at the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv. Intelligence Directorate chief Maj. Gen. Shlomi Binder and Operations Directorate chief Maj. Gen. Itzik Cohen also participated in a meeting with the military chiefs.

In a statement Sunday, the IDF said Saturday’s meetings between Cooper, Zamir and other top Israeli military officers enhanced the “close strategic relationship” between the sides.

The military did not specify the topics of the meetings, but Cooper’s visit to Israel comes amid heightened tensions with Iran and a reported disagreement between Israeli and US officials over the next steps in the Gaza ceasefire. The IDF has been also been on high alert and has carried out preparations in recent weeks after Trump threatened military action against Iran.

Cooper and Zamir first held an “extended one-on-one meeting,” which was followed by one with other Israeli generals, the IDF said.

“This engagement serves as another expression of the relationship between the commanders and constitutes an additional step in enhancing the close strategic relationship between the IDF and US military and in strengthening defense cooperation between the two nations,” the statement said.

US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were also in Israel on Saturday to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, mainly to discuss Gaza, two people briefed on the matter told Reuters.

Trump has threatened military action if Iran carried out mass executions of prisoners or killed peaceful demonstrators, but he recently backed away, claiming Iran halted the hangings of 800 detained protesters. He has not elaborated on the source of the claim, which Iran’s top prosecutor called “completely false.”

However, Trump appears to be keeping his options open, saying Thursday aboard Air Force One that his threatened military action would make last year’s US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites “look like peanuts” if the government proceeded with planned executions of some protesters.

He added that the United States had an “armada” heading toward Iran, including an aircraft carrier group and its thousands of troops, but hoped he would not have to use it.

The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and three accompanying destroyers left the South China Sea and began heading west earlier this week, a US Navy official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military movements, said Friday that the Lincoln strike group was in the Indian Ocean.

Iran, however, is making threats and presumably preparations for a strike:

The commander of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which was key in putting down recent nationwide protests in a crackdown that left thousands dead, warned that his force is “more ready than ever, finger on the trigger,” as U.S. warships headed toward the Middle East.

Nournews, a news outlet close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, reported on its Telegram channel that the commander, Gen. Mohammad Pakpour, warned the United States and Israel “to avoid any miscalculation.”

I go back and forth on the wisdom of strikes on Iran. On one hand, they could finally topple the regime, which is what the people of Iran want. On the other hand we have to think about the U.S. interfering in internal affairs of another country (Iran, though, is posing a threat to both Israel and U.S. forces), and there’s the not insignificant problem of who will run the country if the theocracy is brought down.

*Rock climber Alex Honnold, famous for free-soloing the face of El Capitan in Yellowstone National Park, successfully completed his climb of Taiwan’s 1,667-foot-tall skyscraper Taipei 101, the world’s tallest building from 2004 to 2009. The climb was streamed live by Netflix with a 10-second delay, presumably because he was free-soloing the building, and they could cut the feed if he feel.

From Climbing Magazine:

After wet weather in Taipei City necessitated a rain check, Alex Honnold began climbing around 24 hours after originally scheduled. A possible rain delay had long been part of the event planning process. Wet conditions would considerably raise the difficulty level of the climb, creating unnecessary risk that Honnold wasn’t willing to take.

After clear skies allowed the glass and steel surfaces of the 1,667ft skyscraper to dry out, Honnold officially began his climb at 6:12 p.m, Mountain Time on January 24.

The climb took Honnold approximately one hour, 31 minutes, and 34 seconds. His own crew, including Brett Lowell, the cinematographer behind The Dawn Wall and The Alpinist, filmed his ascent for live broadcast. More friends, climbing partners, and family also joined Honnold in Taiwan for the event. Pro climber Emily Harrington, who recently starred in the documentary Girl Climber, provided live commentary during the Netflix special.

When Honnold and Netflix first claimed that Taipei 101 would represent the “biggest urban free solo ever,” we initially questioned the veracity of this claim. The night before the event, Climbing sent Alain Robert, the unequivocal GOAT of urban free soloing, a few questions over WhatsApp to verify Honnold’s claim. According to Robert himself, the highest building that he has ever scaled without a rope was one of the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which stand 1,483ft (452m) tall. Robert reached the top of the Petronas in 2009. Taipei 101 rises 1,667 feet (508m). That’s 184 feet (56m) taller than the Petronas Towers. No other climber has free soloed a taller skyscraper, according to our research.

The payday from ABC 10:

Honnold hasn’t told anyone an exact number, but reports say it’s in the six figures and he called it an “embarrassing amount.”

“If you put it in the context of mainstream sports, it’s an embarrassingly small amount,” he told the New York Times before the climb. “You know, Major League Baseball players get like $170 million contracts.”

Though the number isn’t in the millions, and was less than his agent aimed for, Honnold said he would have done it for free.

“If there was no TV program and the building gave me permission to go do the thing, I would do the thing because I know I can, and it’d be amazing,” he said. “Just sitting by yourself on the very top of the spire is insane.”

He said he wasn’t getting paid to climb, he was “getting paid for the spectacle.”

A 12-minute video of the climb:

At the top:

*Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania has written a new memoir dealing with how he was vetted as the VP candidate by Kamala Harris’s team. It is not pretty. It also suggests that Shapiro may be a Democratic candidate for President in the 2028 election.

Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, a prominent Democrat who was a top contender to serve as former Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate in 2024, offered his most detailed accounting to date of the vice-presidential search process in his new memoir, which was obtained by The New York Times.

In short: He suggests that it was far uglier than is commonly known.

In Mr. Shapiro’s book, “Where We Keep the Light,” the governor is measured in describing his interactions with Ms. Harris herself. But Mr. Shapiro, who is Jewish, details a contentious vetting process in which Ms. Harris’s team focused intensely on his views on Israel — so much so that at one point, he wrote, he was asked if he had ever been an agent of the Israeli government.

“Had I been a double agent for Israel?” wrote Mr. Shapiro, describing his incredulous response to a last-minute question from the vetting team. He responded that the question was offensive, he wrote, and was told, “Well, we have to ask.”

“Have you ever communicated with an undercover agent of Israel?” the questioner, Dana Remus, a former White House counsel, continued, according to Mr. Shapiro, who recounted, “If they were undercover, I responded, how the hell would I know?”

Mr. Shapiro wrote that he understood that Ms. Remus was “just doing her job.” But the fact that he was asked such questions, he wrote, “said a lot about some of the people around the VP.”

Ms. Remus and a representative for Ms. Harris did not respond to requests for comment on Sunday night.

The vetting process unfolded as emotional debates over the Gaza war convulsed the Democratic Party, threatening to tear it apart.

Mr. Shapiro, an outspoken critic of what he saw as antisemitism on college campuses amid the Israel-Hamas war, wrote that he faced skepticism of that record during vetting. When Ms. Harris asked if he “would be willing to apologize for the statements I had made, particularly over what I saw happening at the University of Pennsylvania,” he replied that he would not, he wrote.

“I believe in free speech, and I’ll defend it with all I’ve got,” he wrote. “Most of the speech on campus, even that which I disagreed with, was peaceful and constitutionally protected. But some wasn’t peaceful.”

It’s telling that Shapiro, a Jew, was dumped for Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota who has now said he won’t run again. It’s worth nothing that Illinois governor J. B. Pritzker, who has been an excellent executive for my state, is also Jewish, and has been touted as a Presidential candidate. Would Americans vote for a Jewish President? According to a Gallup poll from 2019, they would, but atheists, socialists, and Muslims would have a hard time (see below).  Of course how people answer polls and how they really feel may not be the same:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Szaron are hanging out, and guess what they’re thinking of. Any excuse for noms!

Hili: I feel like history is rushing forward so fast it doesn’t even notice red lights.
Szaron: Maybe so, but I have no idea which way it’s rushing.
Hili: Then maybe we should get something to eat?

In Polish:

Hili: Mam wrażenie, że historia pędzi tak szybko, że nie zwraca uwagi nawet na czerwone światła.
Szaron: Być może, ale ja nie wiem, w którym kierunku ona tak pędzi.
Hili: To może byśmy coś zjedli?

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

From The Language Nerds, an incorrect correction:

From Cats Doing Cat Stuff:

From Jesus of the Day:

From Masih, another Iranian woman killed for protesting.

The Number Ten cat decked out for Burns night:

From Emma, who calls herself a “niche internet micro celebrity”. I don’t agree with her about cold tortillas.

Two from my feed. First, a heartwarmer:

Clearly real! The translation: “All these AI cat videos are really getting on my nerves. Thank God this one here is real.”:

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

Two from Matthew. First, his cat Harry, a “break from the horror”:

A break from the horror.

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-01-25T09:30:16.565Z

A mutant pink grasshopper. I wonder if a predator will get it:

Ever seen a pink grasshopper? A genetic mutation called erythrism (overproduction of red pigment) leaves some individuals looking pretty in pink! Though these rare insects are beautiful, their vivid coloring makes hiding from predators more difficult.Photo: Back from the Brink, CC BY-NC 2.0, flickr

— American Museum of Natural History (@amnh.org) 2026-01-21T15:08:27.895Z

Two old ladies hunt deadly sea snakes

January 25, 2026 • 11:30 am

We’re not going to have a political discussion today, which can apparently lead to a website version of a fractious Thanksgiving dinner involving a family with sharply different political views. Instead, marvel here at the courage of two aged Japanese ladies, whose job is to catch deadly sea snakes—to make soup. It’s shown in the four-minute BBC video below.

Now all banded sea snakes are highly toxic, and are the kraits (genus Bungarus). Although bitten victims can be treated with antivenom, mortality from some species can be as high as 80% in untreated victims (age of victim and time until treatment begins are crucial). The venoms are neurotoxic and the symptoms are dire.

The snakes being hunted in this video, are probably the black-banded sea krait (Laticauda semifasciata), and they’re caught for food. From Wikipedia:

Black-banded sea krait venom is reportedly ten times stronger than that of a cobra; however, as with the vast majority of venomous snake species, the black-banded sea krait generally does not aggressively strike at humans unless it is cornered or threatened (or otherwise maliciously provoked), preferring to conserve its energy and venom supplies for hunting purposes, reacting defensively only as a very last resort.

Despite its potent venom, which is concentrated in the snake’s venom glands (behind the eyes), the meat of the erabu snake is a winter staple food in southern Japan, where it is believed to replenish a female’s womanhood or increase fertility. Irabu soup, or irabu-jiru (ja:イラブー汁), is said to taste like miso and a bit like tuna. This dish was a favorite of the royal court of the Ryukyu Kingdom; it is thought to have analeptic properties.

During certain warm years, the sea snakes are drawn en masse to the sea caves and tide pools of the coastal Ryukyu cliffs, in search of fresh water to drink and possibly to mate. It is in these cryptic spots where, by cover of darkness (and usually guided only by lantern light), elderly women—who are the most experienced at preparing irabu-jiru—explore the dangerous caverns in pursuit of black-banded sea kraits, which the ladies catch with their bare hands. Some areas may contain hundreds of the snakes, some engaged in active breeding balls, yet the women hike through the caves barefoot or with minimal protective gear. As with the handling of any venomous snake species, the sea snakes are grabbed quickly behind the head, as to avoid any potential envenomation. They are placed in a cloth bag, alive, and later quickly dispatched and prepared in a simple broth with kombu or other edible kelp, and possibly a bit of pork.

Look how they handle these snakes! Bare-handed, and no real protection.  Would you do this?

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 25, 2026 • 9:00 am

Fortunately, some kind readers have come through with a few batches of photos. But the tank is still low.

Today’s photos of birds (and one flower) come from Pratyaydipta Rudra, a statistics professor at Oklahoma State University. Pratyay’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. Pratyay and his wife Sreemala have a big bird-and-butterfly website called Wingmates.

It’s bitter cold outside as the winter storm is here in Oklahoma. So, I decided to share some more photos from the warmer days – A series of backyard bird images from the fall. While we mostly have native plants on our property, most of the images here involve some non-natives that we already had around our property when we moved in. But they do show some nice colors in the fall. We have a raised deck in the backyard which results in some nice eye-level views of the birds.

Female Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis) and fall foliage.=:

Male Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis):

Female Northern Cardinal working on some berries:

Yellow-rumped Warbler (Setophaga coronata) in light drizzle. It always makes me smile when these little guys show up every fall:

Another Yellow-rumped Warbler from the same day:

Tufted Titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor) on our pecan tree with some seed that it grabbed from the bird feeder. Titmice and Chickadees don’t spend too much time on the feeder. They like to grab a seed and take it to a nice perch on a tree where they can break it and enjoy it at its own pace:

Our yard has some larger birds too! This Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus) has been a regular visitor for a while, and by now we kind of know some of its unique personalities:

Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus). At this time of the year, these woodpeckers are usually busy hiding seeds with the goal of storing them for the winter. I don’t know how many they actually find again:

This is not a bird image, but it has a connection with birds. These low maintenance native Maximilian Sunflowers (Helianthus maximiliani) put on an amazing show every fall, albeit for a short duration. However, during this time, they attract a huge number of pollinators including all kinds of butterflies, moths, and bees. We keep the dried plants after they are done blooming since the seed-loving birds have a feast on them:

House Finches (Haemorhous mexicanus) are one of them. Here is a male and a female House Finch on the dry sunflowers:

American Goldfinches (Spinus tristis) also enjoy the seeds. They are usually much duller by this time compared to their bright breeding plumage:

Couple of goldfinches from the same scene – a wider view:

One more goldfinch from a warm day:

A male Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis) on the sunflower stalks:

Sunday: Hili dialogue

January 25, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to Sunday, the Sabbath for goyische cats: it’s January 25, 2026, and we have cold and snow. Here’s the forecast: we won’t get above freezing this week (temperatures are in Fahrenheit, and the highs and lows are given for each day):

A view on my walk to work. We’re advised to stay inside, but really, 11°F (-11° C) feels balmy and I was invigorated by being outside. Here’s a photo on my walk to work, I think there are 2-3 inches of snow.  Right after I took the photo, a car came by in the opposite direction, towing a skier on a rope, who happily waved at me and said “hi!”.  It’s winter in Chicago!

Appropriately, it’s National Irish Coffee Day.  The problem with this drink is that you should be having it in the afternoon, but the caffeine would keep me up at night (I have one cup of coffee per day, at about 6 a.m., and that’s it).  The delicious and warming drink is made with coffee, a bit of sugar, whisky (Jameson, please) and heavy cream, added as a floating layer by running it over a spoon, comme ça:

Anke Klitzing, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s also National Fish Taco Day and Burns Supper (the poet was born on this day in 1759, and the supper consists of soup, haggis, mashed potatoes, and mashed “neeps,” or turnips). Here it is with the traditional glass of whiskey. There is often bagpiping when the haggis is served:

Evelyn Hollow, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the January 25 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Breaking news (as of yesterday afternoon and this morning): A U.S. citizen was killed by a border patrol officer in Minneapolis yesterday, and the photographs contradict the Administration’s description of what happened (article archived here). From the NYT:

Federal officials sought to portray a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident killed by Border Patrol agents on Saturday as a domestic terrorist, saying he wanted to “massacre” law enforcement, even as videos emerged that appeared to directly contradict their account.

The man, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, was an intensive-care nurse described by the Minneapolis police chief as a U.S. citizen with no criminal record. Federal officials said he was armed, but there is no sign in videos analyzed by The New York Times that he pulled his weapon, or that agents even knew he had one until he was already pinned on the sidewalk.

An agent had already removed Mr. Pretti’s gun when two other agents opened fire, shooting him in the back and as he lay on the ground. At least 10 shots were fired, killing him. Mr. Pretti had a legal permit to carry a firearm, said the police chief, Brian O’Hara.

The shooting on a frigid morning in Minneapolis’s Whittier neighborhood renewed protests and clashes with law enforcement in a city where tensions have reached a breaking point after weeks of aggressive federal immigration action. Federal agents deployed tear gas and flash bangs to drive demonstrators away from the shooting scene as they demanded that local police officers arrest the agents who killed Mr. Pretti.

Officials said protests in Minneapolis had remained mostly peaceful, with a few exceptions. But as dusk fell, officials deployed the National Guard to ensure that demonstrations did not turn violent. At least 1,000 people turned out for a vigil for Mr. Pretti in Whittier Park on Saturday night, despite subzero temperatures.

A colleague of Mr. Pretti, Dimitri Drekonja, said he had worked as a nurse at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Minneapolis. “He was a really great colleague and a really great friend,” Mr. Drekonja said. “The default look on his face was a smile.”

Here’s what we’re covering:

  • Video analysis: Video footage posted to social media and verified by The Times shows Mr. Pretti stepping between a woman and an agent who is pepper spraying her. Other agents then pepper spray Mr. Pretti, who is holding a phone in one hand and nothing in the other. His weapon remains concealed until federal agents find and take it from him. Concealed or open carry is legal for permit holders in Minnesota. Read more ›

  • Federal claims: President Trump and administration officials declared without evidence that Mr. Pretti intended to attack federal agents. Gregory Bovino, the official in charge of the president’s Border Patrol operations, said that Mr. Pretti was intent on a “massacre.” Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, said, “This looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage.” Their accounts directly contradict video evidence of the encounter. Read more ›

  • Investigators blocked: Drew Evans, who heads the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said federal agents had initially barred state investigators from the scene of Saturday’s shooting. Mr. Evans said his agency took the rare step of obtaining a search warrant for access to a public sidewalk, but were still stymied. Federal officials eventually left the scene after clashing with protesters, but the demonstrations had grown large enough by that point to prevent state agents from investigating.

  • Self-investigation: Federal authorities said the Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE and Border Patrol, would lead the federal shooting investigation, with assistance from the F.B.I. But senior Homeland Security and Justice Department officials said it was already clear that Mr. Pretti and local officials were to blame.

  • Minneapolis outrage: Mayor Jacob Frey accused the Trump administration of terrorizing his city. “How many more Americans need to die or get badly hurt for this operation to end?” he asked. At least two other people have been shot there by federal agents this month, including Renee Good, 37, who was killed on Jan. 7. Read more ›

  • “Force of good”: Accolades poured in for Mr. Pretti from those who knew him. Ruth Anway, another nurse who worked with him, described Mr. Pretti as a passionate colleague and kind friend with a sharp sense of humor. “He wanted to be helpful, to help humanity, and have a career that was a force of good in the world,” she said. Read more ›

The upshot: all signs so far are that Pretti was killed by ICE agents, and though he had a weapon, he was not brandishing it in a way that would justify killing him (there are police protocols on how to deal with armed people, and these were violated). This has all the signs of a murder, with the administration blaming the victim.  I do not trust the government accounts, nor do I trust DHS to conduct an objective investigation of the killing.  I think it’s time for ICE to get out of Minnesota, as what they are doing is not only ripping the country apart, but seems palpably illegal, like the armed response of a dictatorial regime.  I do not know how immigrants with criminal records should be apprehended, as local law enforcement won’t help ICE, but right now it’s more important to stop the violence than continue ICE operations.  The treatment of Pretti by federal agents is both thuggish and incomprehensible.  He seems to have been a good guy, doing a valuable job, and his death is a tragedy.

All this turmoil in America now has, as I’ve said, got me quite depressed, and the turmoil is spilling over onto this website. For the time being, I ask readers not to use threads, including this one, to further comment on what’s happened in Minnesota. If for no other reason, I make this request for my own well-being. Readers had their say in yesterday’s thread, and please do not use this one to continue the discussion. I gave me opinion above, and for the time being I think that should be the last of this discussion.  Please honor this request.  After the snow settles and more facts emerge, we may continue the discussion later.

*More scary health news from the administration: the head of Trump’s advisory panel on vaccines has declared that some—and maybe all— immunizations, considered essential (including polio vaccine!!) should be optional (h/t Peggy).

Offering a startlingly candid view into the philosophy guiding vaccine recommendations under the Trump administration, the leader of the federal panel that recommends vaccines for Americans said shots against polio and measles — and perhaps all diseases — should be optional, offered only in consultation with a clinician.

Dr. Kirk Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist who is chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, said that he did have “concerns” that some children might die of measles or become paralyzed with polio as a result of a choice not to vaccinate. But, he said, “I also am saddened when people die of alcoholic diseases,” adding, “Freedom of choice and bad health outcomes.”

In the case of an infectious disease, a personal choice to decline a vaccine may also affect others, including infants who are too young to be vaccinated or people who are immunocompromised. But a person’s right to reject a vaccine supersedes those risks, Dr. Milhoan said.

“If there is no choice, then informed consent is an illusion,” he said. “Without consent it is medical battery.”

The polio and measles vaccines are widely acknowledged as staggering successes in public health, credited with preventing disability and millions of deaths worldwide. The polio vaccine in particular has strong bipartisan support, including from President Trump and some Republican lawmakers, who have invoked the horrific time before the vaccine was available.

But Dr. Milhoan said that making the vaccines optional, rather than requiring them for entry into public schools nationwide, as is now the case, would ultimately restore trust in public health.

Outside experts had sharp words for Dr. Milhoan, saying the changes in vaccine policy he was suggesting would result in unnecessary deaths among children.

This is very troubling. There are situations—and this is one of them—in which government coercion should override personal consent.  No, people should not be allowed to be exempt from vaccination, as the toll to the country as a whole is much more important than the violation of an individual’s “right” not to be vaccinated or the very small possibility of bad side effects from a vaccination. I don’t think there should be any exemptions from immunizations deemed crucial (and that includes measles and polio)—not religious excemptions, not philosophical exemptions. Only medical exemptions, as when an indi =vidual is immunocompromised, should be allowed, and for that doctors should be consulted.  It was bad enough for RFK, Jr. to okay delaying measles vaccination, but what Milhoan is suggesting is far more dangerous. I remember the aftereffects of polio epidemics when I was a small child, with people living for years in iron lungs, and I would not want to see a polio outbreak happen again.

*Philosopher and now self-anointed biologist Colin McGinn (he says several times that he has two degreees and psychology but also claims he’s a biologist) has responded to my critique of his views about the evolution of “knowledge”. His piece is on his website and is called “Coyne on McGinn” (he doesn’t link to my piece).  I am not impressed. He touts his credentials a lot, and apparently you can’t really apprehend his argument without having read his entire oeuvre. A few quotes:

I am not just a philosopher of mind but have written on many philosophical subjects. I was also trained as a scientist and have two degrees in psychology.

. . . . Coyne is wrong to say that biologists (scientists generally) are more cautious than philosophers; the opposite is true. I am both.

. . . The person out of his lane here is Jerry Coyne. I can guarantee that I have studied a lot more science than he has studied philosophy to judge from these comments (I do have a first-class degree in the science of psychology and used to teach experimental psychology).

After that credential-mongering, he denies what is clearly apparent from his piece.

. . . . This was an opportunity for constructive dialogue between disciplines, but it came out as tetchy incomprehension. All I can suggest is to read a philosophy book on epistemology: Russell’s The Problems of Philosophy would be a good place to start. Coyne never sent me his comments to get my response.

. . . . I was expecting my readers to be philosophers, so I didn’t spell out everything for the non-philosophical reader. This is true of everything on my website; it is not for beginners and I keep it concise.  [It’s apparently not for evolutionary biologists, either.

. . . Pain is important because it is highly motivating and very widespread. There can be other theories, such as tactile knowledge, which would deliver different results for later knowledge. See the articles footnoted. I was simply presupposing earlier work in the present article instead of repeating it.

I see, although his article concentrated on pain as the “primal knowledge”.

. . . Pain is more than adaptive reflexes; it is a sensation.

How does he know that other species feel pain as a sensation? If they don’t, where in evolution did it become a sensation? I stand by what I said, and you can read both articles and judge for yourself. However, apparently you have to have read McGinn’s other works, as well as a lot of other books, as well as being a philosopher, to be able to read his article.  But nowhere does he say: “Warning, for philosophers only.” I’m not going to write a long response to McGinn because it’s not worth it.  The evolutionary scenario he proposes, as well as his understanding of “knowledge” are misguided.

*Ryan Wedding, a erstwhile snowboarder who competed in the Olympics for the U.S., has been arrested in Mexico for big-time drug smuggling and murder, as well as other crimes. There was a fifteen million dollar bounty for information leading to his arrest, but the government hasn’t revealed if anyone claimed it. This is one of those weird stories that makes you wonder how it all happened:

A former Olympic snowboarder from Canada who the F.B.I. says is one of North America’s most notorious drug smugglers was arrested on murder and drug trafficking charges, the agency announced Friday, ending a yearslong search.

The former Olympian, Ryan Wedding, 44, who was arrested in Mexico City on Thursday night, the F.B.I. said, was charged with smuggling cocaine and other narcotics into the United States and Canada. Among the accusations he faces from the authorities: ordering the brazen daytime assassination of a Canadian informant in Medellín, Colombia.

Mr. Wedding had been on the F.B.I.’s list of its 10 most wanted fugitives. Kash Patel, the F.B.I.’s director, said of Mr. Wedding on Friday, “Just to tell you how bad of a guy Ryan Wedding is, he went from an Olympic snowboarder to the largest narco-trafficker in modern times.”

A statement from the U.S. Embassy and Consulates in Mexico said Mr. Wedding had surrendered.

Mexico’s security minister, Omar García Harfuch, said in a post on social media that he and Mr. Patel had met in Mexico City and that Mr. Patel had left the country with “a Canadian citizen who voluntarily surrendered yesterday at the U.S. Embassy.”

Hours after the announcement, on Friday evening, the F.B.I., shared two videos of Mr. Wedding in handcuffs being escorted off a plane at the Ontario International Airport, in Ontario, Calif. At 6 feet 3 inches tall and with a sculpted build, he towered over the F.B.I. agents. He wore running shoes, a black baseball cap, light wash jeans, and a dark puffer vest over a long sleeve white shirt.

The F.B.I. said Mr. Wedding had collaborated with the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, where the authorities said he had been hiding. They did not provide any details about his links to the cartel.

Since the Mexican cartels seem to have the ability to hide people almost indefinitely, I’m wondering why Wedding turned himself in.  Here’s a 3-minute CBC video:

*Over at The Weekly Dish, Andrew Sullivan, in a piece called “The Abyss,” continues his plaint about what Trump is doing, even suggesting that we’re lapsing into a monarchy (that will have to end, though, in three years). He also says that most Americans don’t care about Trump’s depredations, which isn’t really true, but his approval rating still hovers around 40%.  Sully doesn’t spare the invective:

An abyss is being in mid-air in this rupture in our civilization.

It is where lies and truth are entirely interchangeable; where the rule of law has already been replaced by the rule of one man; where the Congress has abdicated its core responsibilities and become a Greek chorus; where national policy is merely the sum of the whims and delusions of one man; and where every constitutional check on arbitrary power, especially the Supreme Court, is AWOL. In that abyss, even an attempt to explain events through the usual rubric of covering a liberal democracy is absurd. Because that rubric is irrelevant.

And so the wheels spin.

The only honest way to describe what is in front of our noses is that we now live in an elected monarchy with a manic king whose mental faculties are slipping fast. After 250 years, we appear to have elected the modern equivalent of King George III, and are busy dismantling the constitution Americans built to constrain him.

The situation is not irrecoverable — the forms of democracy remain even if they are functionally dead. We have centuries of democratic practice to fall back on. But every moment the logic of the abyss holds, the possibility of returning to democracy attenuates. Tyranny corrupts everything and everyone — fast.

. . .How does one even respond to such an obscenity? As a proudly pro-American European by birth, maybe I feel this more acutely. But for this draft-dodging pig to erase the sacrifice of 1,160 men and women from America’s allies in the post-9/11 war on terror is a disgrace. And for what? NATO is all but destroyed for just the momentary, sick pleasure of mockery.

And, yes, all of this is now infused with a triumphant, delusional, and hyperactive mania that will only get worse. Trump’s hubris extends to his speeches, where the mood is essentially sing-songy boredom — as if to say: “Why do I even have to explain myself to these morons when my glories are so self-evident?” And so there is no preparation, no coherence — just a stream of addled, entitled, demented consciousness.

. . . .All of this is devastating enough. More devastating is how Americans are responding. They aren’t. They don’t really care. The president can violate two of the most cherished and basic tenets of Western civilization — that might does not mean right, and that citizens have inalienable rights the government cannot infringe upon — and most Americans just shrug. Almost every person who was outraged by the senile blather of Biden hails Trump’s senile blather as greatness, four-dimensional chess, the art of the deal, etc. The honesty required for any real democratic deliberation is completely absent. We live in a totalitarian culture of lies everywhere — but primarily from the very top. The White House doctors photos to humiliate American citizens. The lies are the point.

The world sees this too. The menace and malaise can longer be attributed merely to Trump, but to America as a whole. A critical mass of the people of this country want to tear up the Constitution in order to seek revenge and retribution on their domestic opponents and end our alliances for the shits and giggles of pissing on the entire world.

That’s strong stuff, perhaps stuff that could be written only by a naturalized Brit who became an American out of love for this country.  I don’t fear the waning of democracy, but yes, to see Trump’s perfidy portrayed as Mencken might portray it is sobering.  Sullivan ends by saying what little we, as distressed citizens, can do: “All we can do now — as this abyss engulfs us — is to tell the truth about it.”  That’s not very much. We can vote, of course, and write our representatives (that won’t do me much good as my Representative and both of my Senators, as well as the governor, are Democrats), but only through the vote can we have a real effect. One can demonstrate, of course, but I don’t that will do much good right now.

*In physics news, Nature reports that it’s not just single atoms or electrons that can be in a state of superposition—a condition in which particles can exist in several states simultaneously (e.g. Schrödingers cat in the box), but large groups of atoms can as well. (h/t Andrew).

Schrödinger’s cat just got a little bit fatter. Physicists have created the largest ever ‘superposition’ — a quantum state in which an object exists in a haze of possible locations at once.

A team based at the University of Vienna put individual clusters of around 7,000 atoms of sodium metal some 8 nanometres wide into a superposition of different locations, each spaced 133 nanometres apart. Rather than shoot through the experimental set up like a billiard ball, each chunky cluster behaved like a wave, spreading out into a superposition of spatially distinct paths and then interfering to form a pattern researchers could detect.

“It’s a fantastic result,” says Sandra Eibenberger-Arias, a physicist at the Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin.

Quantum theory doesn’t put a limit on how big a superposition can be, but everyday objects clearly do not behave in a quantum way, she explains. This experiment — which puts an object as massive as a protein or small virus particle into a superposition — is helping to answer the “big, almost philosophical question of ‘is there a transition between the quantum and classical?’,” she says. The authors “show that, at least for clusters of this size, quantum mechanics is still valid”.

The experiment, described in Nature on 21 January1, is of practical importance, too, says Giulia Rubino, a quantum physicist at the University of Bristol, UK. Quantum computers will ultimately need to maintain perhaps millions of objects in a large quantum state to perform useful calculations. If nature were to make systems collapse past a certain point, and that scale was smaller than what is needed to make a quantum computer, “then that’s problematic”, she says.

I though we already knew that everyday objects do obey quantum theory, and classical mechanics is simply quantum mechanics write large, and obeys with high precision the “laws” of classical physics. But if you want to read the article, click on the title below (warning! You must be a physicist!)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Andrzej discuss mortality:

Hili: Death spares you the stress.
Andrzej: That’s the gospel truth, but some people believe in eternal life without stress.
Hili: I read a fairy tale once about happy hunting grounds.

In Polish:

Hili: Śmierć oszczędza stresów.
Ja: To święta prawda, ale niektórzy wierzą w życie wieczne bez stresu.
Hili: Gdzieś czytałam taką bajkę o szczęśliwych łowach.

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

From Stephen, an obviously fake but hilarious photo. Trump gets yet another trophy!

From Cats Doing Cat Stuff:

From The Language Nerds; learn about contronyms:

Masih is getting pushback from those blockheads who love the Iranian regime:

From Luana: the head of the Liberal Democrats in the UK is not so liberal when it comes to free speech:

From reader Bryan, very inventive performance art:

From Jay: a woman talks to her woke ophthamologist:

One from my feed; insane haute couture and an imitator:

One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, can you find all 12 mistakes?:

An observation test for your inner 8-year-old. You’ll be doing well to spot 12 deliberate mistakes.From Treasure magazine, 1963Official answers coming soon(Even if you don’t reply, could you please ‘like’ or share this one?)

— Helen Day (@lbflyawayhome.bsky.social) 2026-01-24T08:16:57.067Z

Some good Charles Addams cartoons. Remember him? (He died in 1988.)

Couple more Addams bangers, all with a genuinely eerie quality to them.

— Kasey Gifford (@kaseygifford.bsky.social) 2026-01-19T02:51:58.139Z