Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
The Pulitzer Prizes were awarded today, which reminded me to recommend two good novels that I’ve recently finished. One is a short book while the other is quite long, but both are excellent and well worth reading.
First, the short one: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, her first book. It’s recent (published in 2025), short (285 small pages), and was issued by my own publisher, Penguin Random House. You can access the Amazon site by clicking on the cover image below.
It’s about the only “epistolary novel” I’ve ever read, which means it consists solely of a series of letters—written by and sent to one Sybil van Antwerp, a retired lawyer in her late seventies who lives in Annapolis, Maryland. van Antwerp is insistent that letters are the most efficient ways of expressing her thoughts and feelings, and she’ll write emails only when pressed. At this late stage of her life, she’s writing to her family (partly estranged), to an unknown troll her hates her, to her friends, and to writers like Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry, who answer her letters. (The correspondence, of course, is all made up.)
On starting the book one gets the sense of an honest, upright woman with strong feelings but also substantial empathy for others. Over the course of the correspondence, however, this image erodes as one becomes aware that Sybil has had immense trouble in her life and uses letters as a way to assuage it. As the book proceeds, her life become more cluttered, but in a good way: she takes in a troubled adolescent, gets involved with two men, and finds a long-lost relative using a DNA ancestry company. All the while she engages in writing a single continuous letter, one she never sends, to someone about whom she feels guilty.
The book is superb though not a classic: the task one faces is to figure out what Sybil is really like from her letters; and that impression changes over the course of the book. I won’t give any spoilers here, but if you’re in the mood for a relatively short and engrossing read, The Correspondent is a book you should consider.
Mating, by Norman Rush, is a much more complex and ambitious affair. It came out in 1991 (published by Granta Books and now Vintage) and won the National Book Award for Nonfiction that same year, so I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of it. Unusually, though the author is a man, the narrative comes from a woman—a strong-willed and opinionated (an unnamed) graduate student in her thirties, who abandons her work in Botswana because her field, anthropology, seems passé. Instead of doing her work, she accumulates experience, particularly with men. (This is a book about a woman’s experience written by a man, which may explain some of her authoritarian ideas and feelings. I doubt whether, given the disparity of sex between author and narrator, the book could be published today.)
The unnamed narrator becomes fixated on a male scholar, Nelson Denoon, who has founded a female-run utopian community in the Kalahari desert, a community so isolated that the narrator has to trek to it in an arduous weeklong journey through the wilderness with two donkeys. She finds Nelson in a small town with intricate rules designed to promote harmony. But the narrator can’t quite fit in, and spends a lot of time not only pondering how to act among a group of African women who jointly run the town as a commune, but also pondering her growing romance with Denoon. There is endless agonizing about the nature of their relationship, with the narrator constantly wondering whether her actions are fostering or eroding intimacy. While some might consider this a fault, it’s my experience that women analyze their relationships far more thoroughly than do men, particularly when talking to others of their own sex.
I won’t give away the plot or the ending beyond that. Although the book is nearly 500 pages long, I looked forward to reading thirty or forty pages of it each night, and again recommend it highly. At least start the book and see if the momentum carries you through it.
You can go to its Amazon page by clicking the link below. And, as always, let us know what you’re reading and what you’re liking—or not liking.
Today’s photos come from reader Jan Malik, who took pictures of wildflowers in the Catskills. Jan’s photos and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge them by clicking on them.
During my recent hike in the Catskills, near Woodstock, NY, I found some spring flowers, ephemerals as they call them. They are hardy plants that use the narrow window between snow disappearance and tree leaves developing to get nearly all of their photosynthesis done for the year. They seem delicate but they need to withstand temperatures well below freezing – it was snowing on the second day of my hike and these plants weathered it just fine. To use this quick growth strategy, these plants have to be perennials, with underground roots, tubers or bulbs preserving the nutrients. All of these are native to the Northeast – there is no shortage of “undocumented” plants in the Catskills but I haven’t included them here.
Bluets (Houstonia caerulea), not so common in the Catskills. They are more widespread in acidic regions like the White Mountains of New Hampshire or generally in acidic soil:
Red trillium (Trillium erectum), with their flowers pointing down (I had to get low to take this picture) despite the second part of their binomial; that part of the name refers to an upright stalk. Their close cousin, the white-petaled Painted trillium is rare in the Catskills, preferring more acidic soils of the Adirondacks:
Spring beauties (Claytonia virginica), were everywhere, their flowers opening as soon as the temperature was high enough for the small insects to fly. They have a variable amount of pink in the petals, some plants produce them very pale and some very pink:
Dutchman’s breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) have flower shape quite similar to the Bleeding hearts, and they are indeed in the same family Papaveraceae:
Downy yellow violet (Viola pubescens). I think the black stripes have the same function as landing strips on an airfield, guiding pollinators to nectar:
There were many blue violets, this one is probably a Selkirk’s Violet (Viola selkirkii):
Canada violet (Viola canadensis) has flowers growing from a tall stalk, unlike other violets. There were other violets too in that wood, each species with unique preference for moisture, sun exposure, acidity etc.:
A lovely plant, Catskills’ specialty – ramps (Allium tricoccum), or wild leeks as some call them. They don’t bloom until late May or June, when leaves will have withered. In early spring the leaves are juicy, fragrant and tender, can be stewed, fried or just eaten raw with a sandwich. I collect them by picking one leaf from a plant (there are two to three leaves per plant), which should not kill it. The underground bulb is also delicious, reportedly, but I could never bring myself to kill it. Ramps developed their chemical defences (thiosulfinates) against animal browsing, and while deer eat it only in an emergency, for great apes it is perversely a culinary attraction. Waking up to a chill morning and leaning out of the tent to collect a few leaves for breakfast is what makes early spring hiking in the Catskills so special:
Hobble-bush (Viburnum lantanoides) flowers grow from a woody shrub. The plant can spread vegetatively, by sending its twigs low on the ground and forming roots. Hobblebush thicket can be a real obstacle for an off-trail hiker, but the plant redeems itself by developing tasty berries (ripe when black) in fall. These berries are in short supply though as thrushes get to them first:
Wild oats (Uvularia sessilifolia), not much to do with cereals, just droopy leaves resembling ears of real oats:
Dwarf ginseng (Panax trifolius) has edible underground tubers. These plants are too rare in the Catskills to dig one up and try cooking it, though:
Crinkle root (Cardamine diphylla). It is a member of the mustard family and its leaves are edible (as a salad or stewed) when young:
Blue cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides) in its purple-petal variant. Later in summer, the plant will produce round dark-blue berries, somewhat similar to individual grapes. They look quite attractive but are said to be poisonous. Always eager to engage in culinary biology, I once tried to bite on a berry and can assure you there is no risk of being poisoned – the taste is so awful that swallowing it is out of the question:
Trout lily (Erythronium americanum) gets its name from spots on its leaves, which are not unlike those on the fish. There were plenty of those plants in the open Catskill forest, but only a small portion of them are in bloom. They need to grow for a couple years, collecting nutrients in their tubers before becoming mature:
Welcome to The Cruelest Day: May 5, 2026, and it’s National Hoagie Day (also called a “sub” or “submarine sandwich”. It was hard to find a photo of the longest one, but of course it was on Twitter. The damn thing was nearly half a mile long. Guinness says this:
The longest sandwich measured 735 m (2,411 ft 5 in) and was created by members of three teams in total. These teams were Groupe Notre Dame Hazmieh-Scouts de L’Independence (Lebanon), Municipality of Hazmieh (Lebanon)and Mini-B chain restaurants (Lebanon). The attempt took place in Hazmieh village, Beirut, Lebanon, on 22 May 2011.
The sandwich started at Notre Dame des Soeurs Antonines School and ended on Elie Street, in Hazmieh, Beirut, Lebanon. The width of the sandwich was 12.5cm and the overall estimated weight of the sandwich is 577.03kg.
The total number of participants from the three teams who were involved in the preparation and cooking of the sandwich was 136 and 639 participants filled the sandwich, which took 22 hours to make.
Four 4-wheel movable ovens were created especially for this attempt in order to bake one long continuous piece of bread. The dough had been divided into sections and rolled out, at which point they were then joined together by further rolling, before having the movable ovens on each end of the table rolling on top of the bread cooking it as it passed.
This sandwich consisted of chicken breast, lettuce, tomato, pickles, mayonnaise, red vinegar, salt, mustard, white pepper, lemon juice, kammoun spices and corriander.
And here’s a photo (a lot of other “long sandwich” records, like the one for Philly cheesesteaks, appear to simply involve regular sandwiches placed end to end, and no attempt to create a long piece of bread).
There’s a Google Doodle today celebrating National Teacher Day. Click on screenshot to see where it goes:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 5 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal discusses diverging answer to the question of whether the U.S. and Israel have defeated Iran—so far.
All of this brings us back to the lingering question that has haunted the Israeli defense establishment since the Iranian ceasefire: If the campaign stops here, was it a success?
Two highly informed Israeli experts—both of whom I deeply respect—have come to opposite conclusions. The first is Tamir Hayman, former head of IDF Military Intelligence, who spoke with my colleague Yonit Levi on Channel 12. The second is Yuval Steinitz, a veteran cabinet minister and current chairman of Rafael, whom I interviewed on Meet the Press. And so, in the great Jewish tradition, let us argue:
We can start with their overall assessments. Hayman, ever the measured intelligence chief, concluded that the overall balance of the campaign “leans toward the negative.” Steinitz diverged slightly, calling it “a massive victory” reminiscent of the Six-Day War.
This gap in perception hinges almost entirely on their assessment of Israel’s greatest existential threat: the nuclear program. Steinitz argues that by eliminating top scientists—an achievement he enthusiastically notes happened in the “first 7 seconds” of the campaign—and destroying weaponization equipment, Israel bought itself significant time. He claims that while Iran may have previously been months away from a bomb, “this time in my opinion it is several years,” because the physical mechanisms required to build a warhead were removed from the equation.
Hayman, however, refuses to grade on a curve. To the former intel chief, blowing up weaponization labs and eliminating scientists doesn’t matter if the raw materials are still sitting safely underground. He completely rejects Steinitz’s premise, warning that the fundamental components of a nuclear breakout—the subterranean facilities, the advanced centrifuges and the stockpiles of enriched uranium—were left intact inside the country. He bluntly states that “we hardly touched the nuclear issue,” warning that Iran’s breakout time remains dangerously short, leaving Israel in a situation “similar to the one in which we started the fighting.” While Hayman acknowledges his assessment might shift if a negotiated agreement ultimately collars the Iranian program, short of that, his conclusion is stark: “If the nuclear threat is not addressed, then the question arises—what did we do in this whole event?”
This profound divide extends to their views on the stability of the Iranian regime. Steinitz sees a government on its knees. He argues that the strikes so thoroughly decimated Iranian supply chains and infrastructure that the country has “turned from a tiger into a cat.” In his view, Iran is “highly weakened” and teetering “on the verge of collapse”—suggesting the ayatollahs would have fallen completely had the U.S. not prematurely halted the war.
Hayman views the exact same scenario and sees a disaster. To him, the regime’s sheer survival against a coordinated U.S.-Israeli coalition is a terrifying victory for Tehran. He argues that “in the eyes of the regime itself, it is stronger because it experienced the most severe thing—and survived it.” Worse, he warns that Israel will inevitably have to strike again in the future, and when that day comes in a post-Trump era, there is a very high chance Israel will be left to face an emboldened regime alone.
I have to say that I agree with the pessimist Hayman. If the attacks on nuclear facilities so far have only bought Israel a few years of respite, how can they be called a success? And isn’t it a victory for Iran if, at the end of the war, the hard-liners remain in control of its regime? One thing is for sure: we can’t count on a Democratic administration to support Israel’s strikes in the future.
Iran on Monday rejected a new U.S. effort to help free ships trapped by the Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, threatening to attack American warships or other vessels that tried to pass through the strategic waterway without Iran’s consent.
President Trump announced the plan on Sunday, but he did not provide details on how the United States would assist the trapped ships. The U.S. military’s Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East, said on Monday that two U.S.-flagged ships had safely crossed the strait, but it was not clear whether they did so with American military escorts.
The rising tensions across the Strait of Hormuz, a critical transit route for global oil, put the nearly month-old cease-fire between Iran and the United States on shakier ground.
In response to Mr. Trump’s new initiative, Ali Abdollahi, a top Iranian military commander, cautioned “all commercial ships and oil tankers to refrain from any attempt to transit without coordination with the armed forces,” Iranian state media reported on Monday.
“We warn that any foreign armed force, especially the aggressive U.S. military, if they intend to approach or enter the Strait of Hormuz, will be targeted and attacked,” Mr. Abdollahi said.
The U.S. effort was the latest attempt to break Iran’s grip over the strait, through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil and much natural gas is normally shipped. The Iranian blockade has rattled global energy markets, leading the Trump administration to retaliate by imposing its own blockade on shipping into and out of Iranian ports.
Scattered incidents on Monday reflected the fragility of the truce.
For the first time since a U.S.-Iranian cease-fire was reached in early April, the United Arab Emirates said that four cruise missiles had been fired from Iran at Emirati territory. Three were intercepted and one fell in the sea, the Emirati authorities said.
Also on Monday, the Emirates accused Iran of launching a drone attack on an oil tanker owned by the Emirati state oil company, ADNOC, while it tried to transit through the Strait of Hormuz. And South Korea’s government said a cargo ship belonging to a South Korean company caught fire after an explosion in the strait.
There was no immediate response from Iranian officials. State media in Iran also claimed that the country’s military forces had fired warning shots at an American ship traversing the strait, although the U.S. military denied it.
Mr. Trump, for his part, warned that any Iranian interference in the operation to free stranded ships, named Project Freedom, would be dealt with “forcefully.” U.S. forces, including destroyers and some 15,000 personnel, were work
All this shows is that the war with Iran is far, far from over, and now Iran is making the boneheaded move of attacking other Gulf Arab states. “Wait and see” is my motto.
The new film, voiced by a cast of A-list actors including Glenn Close, Seth Rogen, Steve Buscemi, and Woody Harrelson, earned bad press when its trailer was released late last year, but the reality is somehow even worse than it seemed back then. The film feels, to put it plainly, like a bad joke about Orwell that a right-wing X account would dream up to get mad at. Hey guys, what if those crazy, woke socialists in Hollyweird actually went back and rewrote “Animal Farm” to be about the exact opposite of what the author intended? In the film, the message is no longer about how the revolutionary dreams of doing away with capitalist hierarchy are inevitably dashed by the avaricious realities of human nature. The problem, as portrayed by Serkis, is instead corporate greed under capitalism.
In the film, we experience events through the eyes of a pig character named Lucky, who doesn’t appear in the book. In an opening scene, as the animals break out of a slaughterhouse truck, it becomes clear that their revolution is not ultimately against Farmer Jones, as in the original text. Rather, it’s against a bank to which Jones owes unpaid mortgage payments. And the bank is working hand in glove with a gigantic faceless conglomerate called Pilkington, which seems to own factory farms, malls, and hydroelectric plants. The conglomerate’s evil CEO also drives an unmistakably Tesla-like car. This is just the first sign that the movie is not about any longstanding political idea, but rather is an attack on right-wing figures as they currently exist. More attacks come fast and thick. The Joseph Stalin-like pig, Napoleon, voiced by Seth Rogen, repeatedly uses Trumpian locutions, arguing against the noble Leon Trotsky-like pig, Snowball, voiced by Laverne Cox, with such rhetorical flourishes as “many animals have been saying.”
You get the idea. But I promise you that it is worse than you think. For one thing, this film’s crimes are not merely its ideological smallness but also its sheer ugliness. There is the corny revolutionary rap version of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” that plays over the opening credits. There are the fart jokes and the shaking pig butts and the terrible attempts at timely dialogue. (Napoleon, who spends half the film driving a Lamborghini, is called “Napopo.”) Upon visiting a Pilkington-branded shopping mall, the greedy pigs express their consumerism thus: “Don’t think, just buy it. Buy it all!” Some kind of disco beat dance number breaks out seemingly every five minutes, in what feels like an ill-fitting attempt to capitalize on the success of films like Shrek or Despicable Me.
The biggest problem, however, is the movie’s ending. The bleak novel ends when the oppressed animals betray their utopian vision so completely that they are indistinguishable from their former oppressors. In the Animal Farm movie, Lucky instead has a change of heart, disgusted with what he and his fellow pigs have become after they have sold the farm to the conglomerate to build, I kid you not, a hydroelectric dam. (As it happens, building out large, clean-energy infrastructure projects is just about the most pro-social kind of activity a large conglomerate could ever engage in, but it is depicted as having very bad vibes.) Lucky goes back to the other animals and apologizes that the revolution has gone wrong. “I want us to remember that feeling that we had on the first day when we chased the slaughterhouse truck off the farm,” he says. Boxer (Woody Harrelson), the kindly and hardworking horse who represents the ordinary prole, delivers this howler: “To work hard for our friends, not because we have to but because we choose to, that is freedom.”
I ain’t gonna see this movie, but it’s ironic that the movie combines the theme of Orwell’s novel with that of another novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, which involved both the erasure and the reversal of history by the regime, which is precisely what the moviemakers are doing.
Here’s the trailer, though it doesn’t show much about capitalism:
The Supreme Court on Monday restored nationwide access to a widely used abortion medication in a temporary order that will, for now, allow women to once again obtain the pill mifepristone by mail.
In a brief order, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. paused a lower-court ruling from Friday that had prevented abortion providers from prescribing the pills by telemedicine and shipping them to patients, causing confusion for providers and patients. The one-sentence order imposes a pause until at least May 11. He requested that the parties file briefs by Thursday, and then the full court will determine how to proceed.
The state of Louisiana sued the Food and Drug Administration to restrict access to mifepristone, saying the availability of the medication by mail has allowed abortions to continue in the state despite its near-total ban.
Medication is now the method used in nearly two-thirds of abortions in the United States, and is typically delivered in the form of a two-drug regimen through the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
Friday’s ruling from the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit temporarily reinstated an F.D.A. requirement that patients visit medical providers in person to obtain mifepristone while the litigation continues. That rule was first lifted in 2021.
Two manufacturers of mifepristone, Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro, on Saturday asked the Supreme Court to intervene. In court filings, they said the Fifth Circuit ruling would cause chaos for providers and patients — and upend a major avenue for abortion access across the country. About one-fourth of abortions in the United States are now provided through telemedicine.
Justice Alito’s order, known as an administrative stay, was provisional and expected, but an important interim step for women seeking to obtain mifepristone in the next week. The order does not signal how the full court may eventually handle the case.
. . .After the Supreme Court’s decision in 2022 to eliminate the nationwide right to abortion, Republican-led states like Louisiana imposed strict bans. In response, many Democratic-led states passed shield laws that protect abortion providers who prescribe pills by telemedicine and send them to patients in states with abortion bans.
Louisiana and abortion opponents have asserted in court that the F.D.A.’s decision to allow abortion pills to be available by mail posed safety risks to women and in
Alito, who may be set to retire, decided this by himself, as he’s handling emergency orders. The full court will decide the case later, and what happens after May 11 is yet unknown. What we have here is a clash between state laws that will be adjudicated by a federal court. But the Postal Service is a federal agency, and it would be weird, I think, if the Supreme Court banned it from carrying medication that’s legal in prescribing states but illegal in some or all recipient states. I’ve always been “pro choice,” so I applaud this decision and hope it becomes permanent.
Has it hit you yet what we’re watching? Has it sunk in what is happening when Mason Miller takes the mound to finish off another thank-you-and-drive-home-safely baseball game in San Diego?
We are watching the most unhittable pitcher who ever lived. Period.
There. I said it. And now I’m here to prove it.
I’ve looked at everyone who ever had a case to hold that title: Nolan Ryan … Aroldis Chapman … Josh Hader … Edwin Díaz … Craig Kimbrel … Mariano Rivera … Eric Gagne … Pedro Martínez … Randy Johnson … Jacob deGrom … Sandy Koufax … Walter Johnson … and on and on.
I’ve talked to two of the greatest closers of modern times, Trevor Hoffman and Billy Wagner.
I’ve dug deep into every number that could shape this argument.
It has all pointed me right back to the same place: The Padres’ closer is the most unhittable pitcher who ever lived. Fortunately, I had no trouble finding two Hall of Fame closers who were right there with me.
But second, I honestly am prepared to prove this theory. It isn’t even that hard. Just check out these numbers for yourself.
I started with Miller’s appearance last Aug. 6, the day after his final run allowed last year — and kept counting until he finally gave up another run four days ago. Now get a whiff of Miller’s Sidd Finch-ian numbers in between. Unlike Sports Illustrated, I didn’t make any of these up:
• Opposing hitters went 7-for-127 (.055), with 87 strikeouts
• Let’s repeat that: 87 strikeouts … and … 7 hits
• He faced 141 hitters. Not one of them scored.
• 39 straight games with zero extra-base hits allowed
• 39 straight games without ever allowing more than one hit
Compares to Mariano Rivera, whose longevity gives him the title so far:
. . . . we’re not here to pretend that the current closer for the Padres is anywhere near that status. He’s a guy who has faced exactly nine hitters in October in his life. So he has another 500 to go before we start comparing him to Mariano. On the other hand …
So we don’t know yet where Mason Miller is going. But if it looks anything like this, whew. We might all be in for a show unlike anything we’ve ever witnessed.
“Is he going to pull off 10 seasons where he’s able to do these kinds of numbers?” Wagner wondered. “Only time will tell. But he’s — what, three years in? — and he’s as dominating a pitcher as there ever has been in the whole history of the game.
Here he is in his third season, striking out batter after batter. The ratio of strikeouts to balls on single pitches is astounding.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, a somewhat out-of-focus Hili’s still asking the Big Questions:
Andrzej: What are you looking for?
Hili: I’m checking whether the meaning of life isn’t lying under this bush.
In Polish:
Ja: Czego szukasz? Hili: Patrzę, czy pod tym krzakiem nie leży sens życia.
From Luana; and yes, I agree that there’s no more cultural need for whale hunting:
The left treats the Indigenous as some sort of mythical forest elves who cannot do wrong.
Whale hunting is bad. It was necessary for some people in ages past. But it is not anymore. I don’t care that it’s “cultural.” Many terrible things are cultural. They should knock it off. https://t.co/CF7pThMuk7
This French Jewish boy was gassed to death as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz. He was seven years old and would be ninety today had he lived. https://t.co/tdScHWpQcE
This delightful duck is an askos, a ceramic container used for storing and pouring oil.It was made over two thousand years ago by the Etruscans, who inhabited a reigon called Etruria in what is now central Italy.
Bill Maher is tired of heaing about stuff like the Overton window, MKUltra, the “shadow docket” of the Supreme Court, looksmaxxing, “heuristic,” “cognitive offloading” and other examples of what he calls “pedantic bullshit.” (But he really hates the Overton Window. His curmudgeonly diatribe segues into a Dr. Seuss-like poem. He winds up arguing that his brain having been filled with useless knowledge—like the names of all the Kardashians and the characters in “Friends”—is “violence.” Indeed!
I haven’t looked at Natasha Hausdorff‘s videos in a while, but you’ll remember her as a British lawyer, an expert in international law, and a “pro bono legal director of the advocacy group, UK Lawyers for Israel.” Here is her reaction to the latest anti-Jewish violence and anti-Israel protests in England, both of which have become regular events. Here she goes up against Owen Jones, left-wing “British newspaper columnist, commentator, journalist, author and political activist,” whose Wikipedia entry shows a photo of him wearing a Palestinian flag shirt. The channel is LBC, or Leading British Conversation.
The question is whether the pro-Palestinian marches in the UK should be banned because because they fall outside the boundaries of free speech. Hausdorff says they are violations because they constitute “hate speech” that incites violence against Jews, while Jones says that they’re not only legal, but a necessary outlet for opinions that Israel is committing genocide against Gaza. (He claims that Israel has killed 100,000 Gazans, which is surely untrue.) Jones is a big proponent of the “genocide canard”, and while I am not sure whether the marches violate British speech law, I agree with her that Israel has not committed genocide against Gazans. Anybody who knows what genocide is and how the IDF operates knows that’s a lie. But of course Jones has nothing bad to say against Hamas.
In response to Jones, Hausdorff can’t come up with anything that the Israeli government has done to justify the accusations of genocide (she doesn’t mention the West Bank, but may have done so somewhere in her talks or writing). But she correctly notes that the accusations of genocide aren’t being raised against the noncombatant deaths produced by the U.S. in WWII—and in that case, as in virtually all other wars, the ratio of noncombatant deaths to combatant deaths is much higher than seen in Gaza.
Jones cites several academics and “genocide scholars” who back the “g-word” as what Israel is doing in Gaza He adds that one can find identifiable Jews participating in the marches on the Palestinian side. He places the blame for hunger and destruction on Gaza squarely on the doorstep of Israel, while Hausdorff says that in contrast, it’s the fault of Hamas, which has embedded itself among civilians. Hausdorff argues that accusations of things like “starvation” are untrue, and also claims that the protests are a product of the “Hamas propaganda machine, ” which I think is an unwise accusation even though it is to some degree true: some of the figures and accusations bandied about by the protestors and by Jones and his experts come from Hamas.
Jones seems to argue largely from authority, citing none other than the Lancet and The Economist for the casualty figures, which must have come from Hamas. Hausdorff says that she’d be willing to debate the cited pro-Palestinian “genocide scholars” any time, but so far they’ve refused to do so.
Here are the notes added to the YouTube site by the UK Lawyers for Israel. I’m not whether if Hausdorff was interrupted in an unwarranted matter: you be the judge.
This recording includes comments on whether restrictions should now be placed on anti-Israel marches in London and other British cities, as well as strongly disputed allegations regarding casualty figures in Gaza, war crimes and genocide.
Unfortunately, Natasha Hausdorff was repeatedly interrupted by the interviewer when she tried to set out the inaccuracy of these allegations. It seems that many interviewers cannot stand to hear the expression of any view that supports Israel – as soon as a person interviewed starts to deploy facts contradicting the false propaganda the interviewer interrupts to prevent the truth being told.
For details of Gaza casualties according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry down to 10 November 2025, see this thread by Gabriel Epstein: https://x.com/GabrielEpsteinX/status/…. This shows that even according to this information (which may itself be distorted by Hamas propaganda):
1. A much higher % of males of fighting age died than of females of the same ages, indicating that Israeli military action targeted combatants and was not indiscriminate.
2. A much higher % of male teenagers died than of female teenagers, indicating that a significant number teenagers, who are classified as children, were killed because they were combatants.
3. The claim initiated by Hamas and disgracefully maintained by the BBC, that 70% of those killed were women and children, is false.
The claim stated by Owen Jones, that the IDF has admitted that 83% of those killed were civilians, is completely bogus, as Chief Magistrate Goldspring found in paragraph 81a of this recent ruling: https://www.uklfi.com/wp-content/uplo…
The details provided by the Gaza Health Ministry do not identify how they died. They probably include around 10,000 who died of natural causes: see Salo Aizenberg https://x.com/Aizenberg55/status/2021…. Thousands more may well have been killed by Palestinian fire – rockets falling short, explosive devices, and crossfire. They certainly include 471 allegedly killed in the explosion outside Al Ahli hospital caused by a Palestinian rocket that fell short: see https://www.uklfi.com/false-al-ahli-c…. Well over a thousand other Palestinian rockets also fell short; each of them may have killed dozens of people.
Finally, here’s a related email I got yesterday from the editors of a small publication in the Pacific Northwest that has clearly fallen for some of the Big Lies. I am accused of being a histrionic Zionist, a proponent of settler colonialism—and pro-genocide (they call it “modern Holocaust denial”) as well. Their arguments are largely the same as those of Jones, even citing casualty figures taken from medical journals. They also try to tell me how to write this website. Finally, they seem unaware of my criticisms of religious Judaism, made on this site as well as in Faith Versus Fact, so they haven’t done their homework. But they don’t really care if I’ve also criticized Jewish superstition: their point is that I am pro-Israel, which they see as immoral.
At any rate, they can take a hike. Their email will not change how I “write my blog”. The email is indented:
Reading your blog, we were appreciative of the fact that you seemed to promote science and counter narratives from the religious establishments.
However, your inability to separate your own Zionist histrionics from what should have been strictly an antitheistic, science-focused platform ruins the experience for anyone who isn’t A) a genocide apologist, B) deeply insecure about their ethnic identity to the point that they associate it with a 20th century settler-colonialist project, or C), both.
Does your criticism of religion only extend to Christianity and Islam, or do you take on the Jewish religious establishment too? The most tangible and powerful form of that, of course, being the state of Israel, which reputed medical journals estimate has killed close to 100,000 civilians just since 10/23.
Atheism today needs smart, conscientious voices to lead, not modern Holocaust deniers. We won’t change your views with this email, but maybe we can change the way you write your blog to not repel people (a hopefully increasing majority) who are appalled by the Zionist crimes of ethnic cleansing and mass displacement.
Welcome to the first Monday in May: May 4, 2026, and Bird Day in the U.S. A bit about the holiday:
Bird Day was established by Charles Almanzo Babcock, the Oil City superintendent of schools, in 1894. It was the first holiday in the United States dedicated to the celebration of birds. Babcock intended it to advance bird conservation as a moral value. It is celebrated on May 4 of every year.
Reader Jez writes, “Greenpeace is organising an online birthday card for David Attenborough’s 100th birthday on Friday that anyone can sign. Here’s the link, just in case you’re interested. I was, and I signed it.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 4 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Amit Segal at It’s Noon in Israel discusses something I didn’t know was in the works: trials of the perpetrators of the October 7, 2023 massacre and kidnappings are being planned by Israel. (Read more here about how the cases is being built.)
It’s Sunday, May 3, and two months ago, the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee convened for a pivotal discussion on one of the most sensitive questions of the post-October 7 era: how will the trials of the perpetrators be conducted? According to a compressive report by Yedioth Ahronoth’s Guy Asif, the committee is currently refining a bill that will serve as the legal, organizational, and moral framework for what is destined to be the largest and most complex judicial event in Israel’s history.
Amidst the legislative debate, the human dimension remains profoundly raw. Carmit Palty-Katzir, a daughter of Kibbutz Nir Oz, offered harrowing testimony to the committee. Her family was shattered: her father was murdered, her mother was kidnapped and died shortly after her release, and her brother, Elad, was murdered in captivity after 99 days. “I walk around with unsolved murder mysteries,” she told the committee, voicing a pain shared by hundreds of families seeking closure. While demanding that the perpetrators face the full severity of the law, she also issued a warning. She argued against the trials devolving into a “media circus” or a “gladiator arena,” urging that the pursuit of truth not be eclipsed by a “stampede toward the death penalty.”
Palty-Katzir’s concerns underscore the dilemmas of the Prosecution of Participants in the October 7 Massacre Events Bill. Having passed its first reading in January, the legislation is now being prepared for its final stages. Yet, even as the Knesset’s summer session approaches, several complex questions remain.
How public should the proceedings be? The judiciary must balance the public’s right to see justice served with the necessity of protecting survivors from secondary trauma.
What standard of evidence should be required? Applying the threshold of “beyond a reasonable doubt” to the scale of a mass massacre leaves a distinct possibility that a known perpetrator could walk free if the case isn’t perfectly airtight.
And then there is the most potent question of all: what punishment is truly appropriate? The prospect of the death penalty—a historical rarity in the Israeli legal system—remains the central point of debate.
. . .When it became clear that the civilian courts could not absorb the weight of hundreds of parallel cases, the responsibility shifted to the military. While the IDF didn’t want touch such a controversial process, it was the only viable option. The military possesses the unique ability to draft seasoned prosecutors and judges into reserve service, creating an instant, elite legal force. Furthermore, military infrastructure is inherently designed to manage the high-risk transport and detention of dangerous detainees—a logistical requirement that would paralyze any standard city courthouse.
The next question: where?
The Prison Service lobbied for a site near Ktzi’ot Prison for convenience, while others suggested the Gaza Envelope for its symbolic weight. Ultimately, the decision landed on Jerusalem. Plans are now underway to transform a massive industrial site in Atarot, north of the city, into a sprawling judicial complex. This “hangar city” will house a primary courtroom, multiple halls for parallel hearings, and dedicated viewing areas for the public. The court is expected to operate with an unprecedented focus: five days a week, eight hours a day, with judges dedicated exclusively to these cases. The goal is to begin within a year of the legislation’s passing and conclude the primary proceedings within a few years.
The trials promise to reveal investigative materials far more harrowing than anything yet released to the media. For the first time, victims will take the stand to testify, often face-to-face with the perpetrators. This brings a painful paradox to the forefront: the public’s right to historical truth versus the victims’ right to privacy.
. . . The prosecution faces the historic burden of framing a national narrative, but the primary challenge remains the “resolution” of proof: linking specific defendants to individual victims amidst the chaos of a mass massacre. Investigators have reportedly solved this issue by creating an exhaustive mapping system that catalogs every detainee by their military unit and infiltration point, cross-referencing their confessions with terabytes of bodycam footage, digital media, and forensic scene reconstructions.
This wil undoubtedly demonize the IDF more, but one would hope that terrorists’s own testimony would alert the world to the war crimes committed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. But it won’t.
The makers of the abortion pill mifepristone filed an emergency appeal at the Supreme Court on Saturday urging the justices to pause a lower-court ruling that temporarily blocked Americans from accessing the drug through the mail.
The fast-track case, filed with conservative Justice Samuel Alito, puts the drug and the issue of abortion back on the high court’s docket less than two years after the justices rejected a similar challenge — a decision that allowed the drug to remain widely available.
The rush appeal comes a day after the conservative 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a nationwide requirement that the medication be obtained in person, undermining access to the method of abortion that has grown more widespread since the court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 precedent that established a constitutional right to abortion.
The lower-court ruling, Danco Laboratories told the Supreme Court in its appeal Saturday, “injects immediate confusion and upheaval into highly time-sensitive medical decisions.”
“What happens when patients arrive for scheduled appointments this weekend and beyond, or walk into pharmacies in New York, Minnesota, Washington, and many other states today to obtain Mifeprex that was prescribed by a provider yesterday?” the company’s attorneys wrote. “What should a patient do if she cannot obtain an in-person appointment immediately?”
Danco urged the Supreme Court to issue an “administrative” stay that would immediately pause the 5th Circuit’s decision. It also urged the Supreme Court to case the case up on the merits.
GenBioPro, the maker of the generic version of the drug, filed a separate emergency application later Saturday. The court is likely to handle the two cases together.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, abortion-seekers have been able to obtain mifepristone – one of the two drugs in the medication abortion regimen – through telehealth appointments. President Joe Biden’s administration finalized rules that ended the requirement that the pills be obtained through an in-person doctor’s visit in 2023, after the US Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe precedent protecting abortion rights nationwide with Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
The Supreme Court had earlier blocked a request that the FDA ban the drug everywhere in America—based on a bogus claim that it was dangerous (there’a a lot of data showing that milfepristone is both effective and safe, and it’s now used in 2/3 of all abortions.) I’m not an expert on this, but although individual states can block the drug from being recommended or dispensed by doctors, or dispensed by pharmacies, the U.S. Mail is a national organization, and there’s I can’t see any constitutional grounds to prevent it from shipping a drug that is not federally banned. It will be interesting to see if a conservative court sides with the manufacturer or with the religious /anti-choice people who banned the drug in 15 states.
*A Washington Post/Ipsos/ABC poll reports that Trump’s approval ratings are lower than they’ve ever been, with just a 37% overall approval and not much better on any other matter (in fact, worse on most important issues):
Six months ahead of the November midterm elections, the Republican Party faces a deteriorating political climate, with Americans broadly dissatisfied with President Donald Trump’s leadership on the Iran war and other key issues and an electorate in which Democrats are significantly more motivated to vote, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll.
Trump’s approval on economic issues, which were critical to his political comeback in 2024, has fallen since he launched the Iran war in late February.
Americans disapprove of his handling of the situation with Iran by 66 percent to 33 percent. His rating on the economy has declined by seven points, to 34 percent, as gas prices have spiked. His approval rating on inflation has fallen five points in that time to 27 percent and his lowest rating comes on perceptions of his handling of the general cost of living, with 23 percent approving vs. 76 percent disapproving.
Trump’s overall approval now stands at 37 percent, largely the same as the 39 percent figure in February. But his disapproval has reached 62 percent, the highest of his two terms in office. Among Republicans, Trump’s approval has held steady at 85 percent, but his ratings among Republican-leaning independents have reached a new low of 56 percent. His approval rating stands at 25 percent among independents overall.
. . . Trump gets his best ratings for handling immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border (45 percent approval and 54 percent disapproval). His ratings for handling immigration overall are worse at 40 percent approving and 59 percent disapproving, hardly changed from 40 percent positive vs. 58 percent negative in February, though that marked the worst for his second term.
The president’s weak approval ratings put the Republicans’ slender House majority in grave danger and now threaten their Senate majority as well. Among registered voters, Democrats hold a five-point advantage on the question of which party people favor in House elections. That is up from a two-point edge in February and October.
I’m surprised that the ratings are so low for both immigration and U.S.-Mexico border immigration, but that may largely be attributable to the ICE shootings. However, given the political divisions in the U.S. most Democrats are simply going to disapprove of Trump’s performance in any area.
This is going to sting the GOP in the midterms unless more centrist voters don’t cast a ballot at all, but that’s unlikely. Pundits are saying that the House is likely to go Democratic, and the Senate less likely but still possible.
*The NYT’s Ross Douthat is both a conservative and religious, and not smart about either stand. But even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and Douthat is on the mark with his new op-ed, “Slouching toward Kamala Harris.” Oy, just the headline gave me shpilkes in my kishkas!
. . . The third [statistic that helps us understand the Democrats in 2026] is polling for the 2028 Democratic presidential primaries, in which the leading Democratic candidate is consistently Kamala Harris, the face of the party’s 2024 debacle.
All three numbers are linked to the dominant mode in Democratic politics right now. It’s not the rebellion or radicalism manifest in, say, Hasan Piker’s Twitch-streamer Marxism or Zohran Mamdani’s telegenic democratic socialism. Notable as those tendencies may be, the Democrats’ fundamental condition is a late-Trumpian stasis — in which the president’s stark unpopularity encourages his opponents to imagine that they can keep everything basically as it was in the Biden era, with the same broad priorities and deference to activists and interest groups, and float back to power automatically.
The continuing appeal of Harris is a useful indicator of this stasis. Yes, she is unlikely to be the 2028 nominee, and part of her support is name recognition; Mitt Romney did well in such polls in 2013 and 2014. But she seems to want a second run more than Romney did, and if she goes for it, she will have one notable advantage: the fact that many Democrats who find her renomination unthinkable are nonetheless incapable of acknowledging the real reasons that she lost.
I’ll list some of those reasons. First, her party was seen as too beholden to progressive activists on a range of issues, including immigration, crime, education, energy and the transgender debate. Second, Harris’s vice presidency was itself a creation of the 2020 identity politics moment, without which Joe Biden never would have picked her, and she succeeded him without a fight in part because no one wanted to acknowledge her painful limits as a politician. Finally, she tried to solve both the policy problem and the identity politics problem through evasion and distraction and yet more identity politics, with empty rhetoric of “joy” and circumlocution about her past positions and a mediocre Midwestern white guy running mate.
Despite being on the record taking radical positions, Harris was never a radical politician. Rather, she was a perfectly hapless embodiment of a Democratic establishment that aspired to manage its base without ever strongly resisting its demands and that aspired to win moderate voters not by moderating on the issues but through a change of affect or a change of subject.
That’s still clearly what Democratic elites would prefer to do, and it’s also what you see in many of the figures contending for influence in the party, outsiders and insiders alike. Politicians as distinct as Graham Platner, Gavin Newsom, James Talarico and Abigail Spanberger have all offered new directions for the Democrats that are primarily image-based. The theory is always: What if we had the same basic policy orientation that makes moderates distrust us, except that this time we’ll talk like a bearded oyster farmer … or like Trump himself on a social media bender … or like a sunny youth pastor … or like a former C.I.A. officer?
[To hold their gains and govern successfully], Democrats first need to consistently win over enough former Trump voters to claim a meaningful Senate majority — something the polls don’t show them doing yet. And then they need a theory of governance that doesn’t immediately alienate those voters — something that is nowhere in evidence at the moment.
I’m still groping about for a candidate (as in years gone by, I favor Pete Buttigieg), but I know one thing: the Democrats will not win with Kamala Harris, an unpalatable alternative to even the low-polling Trump. And I still resent those Democrats who pretended that she was a good candidate—one who even brought them “joy.” Are we really that dumb?
“He is doing well,” Mr. Gunz [one of the millionaires who funded the rescue] said in a message, adding that the whale had blown a “great fountain” as it swam away.
. . . . Though rescuers said that they expected Timmy to recover in his more suitable habitat, more than 200 nautical miles from where he was stranded, experts said there was no guarantee that it would survive for long.
“Even short-term survival is very questionable,” said Burkard Baschek, the director of the Ocean Museum Germany and the scientific coordinator of the second and third rescue efforts. The whale was extremely weak, having made very little movement over the past few weeks, and suffered from other issues in addition to the freshwater skin disease, he said.
The stress of being in a barge, including the loud echo of the water splashing against the steel hull, was also probably difficult for the whale, Dr. Baschek said.
“I know how sad it is to have an animal dying at the beach where you can watch it,” he said. But the rescue, he added, was “not increasing its survival chances.”
Dr. Baschek said that he was heartened by how much empathy for the whale had spread over Germany and the world. But he noted that more than 300,000 whales and dolphins die every year after becoming entangled in fishing nets. He hoped that attention in the future would focus not on rescue operations but on making oceans safer for marine life.
Timmy has become a symbol of determination, and I want it to live, for even though lots of whales die every year from entanglement, this is one life that we know about. If it recovered and swam the open North Sea, it would be a palliative in these troubled times.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is a keen weathercat:
Hili: It’s terribly dry.
Andrzej: Apparently it’s supposed to rain next week.
In Polish:
Hili: Strasznie sucho.
Ja: Podobno za tydzień mają być deszcze.
From Masih; Iran hanged this 21-year-old karate athlete for protesting. He was not a criminal, just a critic.
Arrested. Silenced. Hanged at dawn.
This is Iran in 21st-century: A photo of the lifeless body of the heroic martyr Sasan Azadvar, who was executed for protesting.
Imagine building a life for 21 years and losing it to a system that treats human beings as disposable.
From Luana; a tweet that proves once again that academics don’t have to be savvy. Mohamed Abdou was at Columbia University (of course) and apparently still is.
This French Jewish girl was gassed to death upon arriving at Auschwitz. She was 2 years old and would be 84 today had she lived. https://t.co/04YZMyfHbB
Two from Dr. Cobb. First, a great optical illusion:
The footsteps illusion-like pausing and sticking illusionThe rectangles in the upper half appear to move to the right and stop periodically; however, they are moving to the right at a constant speed in the same way as the rectangles in the lower half.
The NYT published a list of the 30 Greatest Living Songwriters that you can find here (archived here), and while many of the choices are no-brainers (Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Brian and Eddie Holland of Motown’s Holland/Dozier/Holland, Carole King, Smokey Robinson), but I immediately saw people whose songs I knew a bit about and don’t belong. Those include Taylor Swift (she doesn’t write most of her songs alone, but with a group, and I don’t think they’re “great” songs anyway), Bad Bunny, and Fiona Apple. And where the hell is Joni Mitchell, for crying out loud? What about Donald Fagan, or Laura Nyro, Marvin Gaye and of course, Paul McCartney, who is still alive, James Taylor, and Robbie Robertson? If you think that Bad Bunny is better than these, you have either a tin ear or a screw loose.
But don’t listen to me; listen to Rick Beato, who pondered the list and came to a similar conclusion: there are great songwriters on the list, but others whose presence is bizarre. Beato notes that the list is for American songwriters, so you can immediately exclude Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell as candidates. But music is a worldwide endeavor, and if you’re using only Anglophones, do you have to exclude people from the UK and Canada? Neil Young was born in Canada, but he’s now an American citizen, and dammit, he should be on that list!
Beato’s choice of notable omissions include Stevie Nicks/Lindsey Buckingham, Billie Corgan, Steven Tyler, Ann and Nancy Wilson. I disagree with some of these. For those with solo careers who were omitted, Beato mentions Jimmy Webb, Donald Fagan, James Taylor, and Billy Joel, all of whom belong.
Now Beato seems to use “number of plays” as an important criterion for greatness, which is a reflection of popularity rather than quality. And the NYT uses “mass appeal” as well, and I take issue with that. If you used the same criteria for literature, you’d have a bunch of dire but popular novelists like Ayn Rand and Barbara Cartland listed as “the greats”.
Now have a look at the NYT’s list and listen to Beato, and weigh in if you want. Beato asks people to put in his YouTube comments the singers would shouldn’t be on the list. Go tell him!
