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.
Members and acolytes of the Democratic Socialists of America are making inroads into the Democratic Party, so it’s useful to see what they stand for. They may not enact all these pledges, but they will try. Click on the screenshot below to see their recently published program.
No capitalism and NO BILLS!
But what if you want a different house from the one that the government gives you? Too bad! But who’s gonna pay for all those free houses, medicine, and transportation? I suspect they’ll just say “tax the rich,” the common DSA answer. But there’s not enough money there to begin to pay for all the stuff promised above.
And no more law enforcement. Eventually, everyone will be law-abiding!
There’s this of course; a major plank of the DSA is the elimination of Israel (and, not said explicitly) and of Jews as well. Invoking the “right of return” of all descendants of Arabs who fled Israel in 1948 would lead to the elimination of Israel. Not a word about the actual genocide of Hamas and the terrorism of the Palestinian Authority.
. . and here goes the separation of powers carefully confected by the Founders:
This comes pretty close to Communism:
And some cant:
To achieve this future, our class must organize. The Democratic Socialists of America is building a party whose goal is a democratic society of the working class. Our enemies are not just individual bosses, but the entire global system of capital; not just this or that cop, judge, or president, but the entire anti-democratic structure of our society. We are workers fighting to transform society: to win the battle for democracy, draft a new constitution, and create a democratic socialist republic.
DSA has written this program for ending capitalist oligarchy and creating a real democracy. Some of these demands may be won under our current system, but we know complete victory will require building a new society from the ground up. We push these demands to their furthest extent today, so we can fight for their fullest realization in a socialist future. Join us.
But is that real democracy. What if people don’t want to run the big corporations or get rid of capitalism?
I don’t usually quote the conservative op-eds of the WSJ, but a new editorial-board op-ed describes the unconstitutionality of the DSA program:
The left has long targeted the Electoral College because it thwarts the ability of the most populous states to dominate presidential elections. But in its latest manifesto, “Workers Deserve More,” the DSA says it wants to “replace the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.” It also wants to “abolish the Senate.” James Madison, call your office.
It’s important to understand how radical this is, essentially blowing up the Constitution’s separation of powers. Letting Congress choose the President means adopting the parliamentary system that prevails in Britain. It would essentially remove the presidential veto power that the Founders designed as a check on the legislative passions of the day.
Ditto for ending an independent judiciary, which is a check against legislative and executive violation of individual rights. Third World dictators seek to make the judiciary subservient to the ruling party for this reason, as they did in Venezuela, and as Mexico’s Morena party is now attempting to do.
The left loathes the Senate because it is also a restraint on temporary majorities. The Senate’s design, with two Members from each state, gives an equal voice to small and large states. This prevents dominance by California, New York and Texas. And it buttresses the federalist principles at the core of the Constitution’s design, which preserves certain powers to the states as a check on Washington, D.C.’s commandments.
The Senate’s six-year terms are another check on momentary House majorities elected every two years. The Founders’ original design that Senators be elected by state legislatures has given way to direct election. But the 60-vote filibuster rule has developed as an alternative check on radical change by narrow majorities.
Article V of the Constitution says “no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.” This means the Senate couldn’t be abolished without the consent of every state, assuming the DSA doesn’t ignore the Constitution, as some on the left might want to do.
. . . . The common denominator in all of these DSA proposals is eliminating barriers to rapid, radical change. The socialists want a single-branch legislature that can sweep into power in a single election, dominate the President, and neuter the judiciary as a check on that power. With those checks gone, they can impose their agenda that will be nearly impossible to undo.
The job of Republicans now, and Democrats who have the guts, is to educate the country about this agenda. Not by doing what President Trump does and call them “communists.” That general attack won’t resonate with young people who don’t know what communism is.
Well, read the platform and get yourself educated. Sadly, young people may still learn what communism is, but they also have to study history to see how it worked out. They can’t do that on their phones.
Welcome to The Cruelest Day: Tuesday, July 28, 2026, and National Soccer Day. In honor of The Beautiful Game, here is a compendium of the best goals in modern World Cup soccer (if the video doesn’t display, just click “Watch on Youtube” or go here. There are some beauts, so if you’re a soccer fan, watch these five minutes: It finishes with Maradona’s fabulous run and goal against England in 1986 (not the “hand of God” goal).
“What are buffalo soldiers?”, you may ask. Wikipedia answers:
This Wikipedia photo is labeled “Buffalo Soldiers of the 25th Infantry Regiment in 1890.”
Buffalo Soldiers were United States Army regiments composed exclusively of Black American soldiers, formed during the 19th century to serve on the American frontier. On September 21, 1866, the 10th Cavalry Regiment was formed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. According to legend, during the exodus of the 1870s, more than 20,000 African Americans migrated to Kansas. They hoped their journey would take them far away from poverty from the South. Others escaped by being soldiers. They served in the segregated army units and fought in the Western Indian Wars from 1867 to 1896. According to legend, the men were called “buffalo soldiers” by the Apache and Cheyenne. The soldiers adopted the name as a sign of honor and respect. Units of Buffalo Soldiers answered the nation’s call to arms mainly in the West, however, also in Cuba, the Philippines, Hawaii, and Mexico. They had a huge impact on the Reconstruction era.
Although numerous Black Union Army regiments were raised during the Civil War (referred to collectively as the United States Colored Troops), “Buffalo Soldiers” were established by the U.S Congress as the first all-black Army regiments in peacetime. The regiments were racially segregated, as the U.S. military would not desegregate until 1948. On November 15, 2024, Robert Dixon, the last surviving Buffalo Soldier, died aged 103. The oldest Buffalo Soldier, Mark Matthews, died in 2005 at the age of 111 and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
From Wikimedia Commons and Library of Congress.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 28 Wikipedia page.
I have visitors and Hili dialogues may be thin or even absent this week.
In 1990, during George H.W. Bush’s presidency, Congress established a humanitarian immigration program called Temporary Protected Status. It was designed to shield from deportation people whose home countries were unsafe to return to because of extraordinary circumstances: an armed conflict, for example, or a natural disaster.
Last month, though, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to end the program. And today that is happening for some 350,000 immigrants, mainly from Haiti. They are losing their work permits and face the prospect of deportation by the Department of Homeland Security, with T.P.S. holders from a batch of other countries soon to follow.
“D.H.S. is upholding the rule of law and getting back to common sense,” a spokesman said.
Why is TPS ending?
Critics say T.P.S. is a problem because it’s not really temporary. Look at the Salvadorans, they say. They first became eligible for T.P.S. in 1990 because of the violent civil war in their country. Another wave came after two devastating earthquakes in 2001. Decades on, there are about 190,000 of them here, living and working legally. (At least for now — their protected status is slated to end in September.)
The Trump administration calls T.P.S. a loophole, a kind of amnesty program. It says that many people now in the program came to the United States unlawfully, or came as students or on tourist visas and transitioned to T.P.S., then stayed for years as previous presidents extended the protections again and again.
A very big hit
Miriam Jordan and Madeleine Ngo cover immigration and have been reporting on the economic impact of the curtailing of T.P.S. They spoke to the director of a nonpartisan research organization who said that “for particular places and particular industries,” having “tens of thousands of workers no longer able to legally work is going to be a very big hit.”
Miriam also spoke with the chief executive of Hebrew SeniorLife, a nonprofit in the Boston area that has hired many T.P.S. recipients. Since the start of Trump’s second term, he said, other policy changes have already cost him 60 immigrant workers.
Now, the organization is preparing to lose 40 Haitians who have — had — T.P.S. protection. They are housekeepers, cooks, dishwashers and nurses who are among the legions of Haitians who have come into the program since an earthquake devastated their country in 2010.
. . .The Haitian T.P.S. beneficiaries who lose their work permits today now have to decide whether to stay or to leave the United States.
Staying would not be easy. The government knows where they live
There are of course mass protests about the ending of TPS, and those are mainly by the left, especially “progressives” who believe, in their heart of hearts, that anybody who sets foot in America should be allowed to stay forever. The Democrats or their candidates need to propose sensible immigration laws, but of course any restrictions are seen as a sign of ideological impurity. Were I a reporter in the upcoming midterms, I’d ask candidates, “What revision of America’s immigration laws do you favor?” This puts them in a bind, because while the party, moving towards “progressivism”, has no position, but regular Americans want to see some restrictions.
In late 2024, Zohran Mamdani, then a candidate for New York City mayor, pledged in an interview that, if he was elected, he would arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if the premier came to New York.
“As mayor, New York City would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu,” Mamdani told Zeteo. “This is a city that our values are in line with international law. It’s time that our actions are also.”
He dismissed the fact that the US is not a party to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which had issued the arrest warrant for Netanyahu.
“It’s time that we actually step up and make clear what we are willing to do to showcase the leadership that is sorely missing in the federal administration,” he said.
That pledge collapsed on Tuesday night, when Mamdani acknowledged that the city could not carry out an ICC arrest.
The statement marked an admission, more than a year and a half after his initial pledge to arrest Netanyahu, that Mamdani had been forced to reckon with the fact that international law does not have any bearing on the city government, despite Mamdani’s repeated description of New York as a “city of international law.”
. . . Legal scholars had said for more than a year, though, that a New York City mayor could not arrest a foreign head of state for a variety of reasons.
Neither the US nor Israel is party to the ICC, so the court does not have any jurisdiction in the US; foreign affairs are the exclusive purview of the federal government; federal law bars the imprisonment of a foreign head of state and bans any cooperation with the ICC; the NYPD cannot make illegal arrests or take acts that are prohibited by federal law; and New York City cannot extradite defendants to The Hague for trial.
. . .Mamdani’s Tuesday statement raised questions about what had taken so long to make the determination. Asked twice about the timing in a press conference on Wednesday, he declined to say when he knew that the city couldn’t make the arrest.
Netanyahu travels to New York for the UN General Assembly each September, so Mamdani needed to resolve the issue by then.
The ordeal highlighted how Mamdani has used “international law” as a cudgel against Israel.
Mamdani has almost exclusively deployed international legal arguments against Israel. He has said that he believes ICC warrants against other leaders, like Russian President Vladimir Putin, should also be honored, and has condemned Hamas for “war crimes,” but has only made those statements while talking about Israel.
. . .Mamdani has accused Israel of genocide more than three dozen times on X alone since the start of the Gaza war. He has also made the accusation in debates, TV interviews, radio appearances and during a meeting with Trump. The only time he invoked the accusation in another context appears to be a statement about Armenia.
In Wednesday’s press conference, he twice declined to say that Hamas had committed genocide, only stating that the October 7 attack was a “horrific war crime.”
Yes, ladies, and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, this is the bellwether of Democratic politics. This performative behavior is embedded in the platform of the Democratic Socialists of America, of which Mamdani is a member. I’m no fan of Netanyahu, but have said that no prime minister of Israel could ever win approbation of “progressives.” An Israeli leader is, by definition, a “Zionist.” There will probably be something on Mamdani tomorrow, too, as I’m amazed that he got elected and that people don’t mind his turning NYC into Antizionist Central.
The problem is that Trump has been giving diplomacy a chance since April and he has little to show for it. That was when he first sent Vice President J.D. Vance to lead a U.S. delegation to Islamabad, Pakistan, to negotiate an end to the war. He made that decision 24 hours after threatening to bomb Iran’s power plants and bridges.
Ever since the war started, two separate negotiations have been conflated in Trump’s strategy. There is one set of talks aimed at reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and then there are negotiations over the future of Iran’s nuclear program.
Trump has used the prospects of negotiating to open the strait as a way to tame oil markets. And to his credit, it has worked for now. But as Trump learned last month, the price for a temporary opening of the strait is too high. Trump would not only have to commit to reviving the economy of a regime that struggles to pay its soldiers, but also concede that Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy in Lebanon, had a right to continue to hold that country hostage. The Hormuz negotiations were always destined to eventually fail. Perhaps Trump wanted them to fail slowly.
The other negotiation, though, to get the remaining hard-liners in Tehran to sign a nuclear pact, is folly. The main reason is that the nuclear program being negotiated has largely been destroyed. The only thing left to do is to secure what the president has called the “nuclear dust,” what remains of the highly enriched uranium buried deep beneath the remains of Iran’s underground facilities in Isfahan and Natanz.
. . .Now Trump risks looking like a paper tiger, a mad king lunging between war and capitulation. At this point, the Iranian regime has taken the measure of their adversary and called his bluff. They don’t care about the welfare of the Iranian people (the late Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordered a massacre of peaceful protesters in January). So Trump’s threats are not going to force his enemy to fold.
To be sure, securing the “nuclear dust” would be an ideal solution. But at this point it’s hardly necessary. Iran’s regime, for now and in the near to medium term, cannot get to that material either. And even if they could, they no longer have the centrifuge cascades or the workshops to turn that uranium into a nuclear weapon. Even still, if U.S. sensors and satellites detect an effort to secure that material, our military has the capability to end those efforts as they begin.
Lake’s suggestion (yes, every pundit has a suggestion):
The right strategy now is to play a longer game. Stop trying to get the Iranians to admit defeat and surrender the remains of their nuclear program. For now, just keep the military and the blockade in place as they are. This will disabuse Iran’s leaders of the hope that Trump is desperate to cut a deal that will revive its war machine and economy.
Over the coming weeks and months Trump can allow America and its allies to replenish its stock of interceptors and precision-guided munitions. Meanwhile, Trump can continue U.S. efforts to help plot alternatives to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, turning Iran’s blackmail leverage into a depreciating asset. Finally, Trump can authorize more cooperation between the CIA and Israel’s Mossad to assist Iran’s battered opposition to be prepared to take on the regime when the right moment comes.
When Trump threatens war only to back away at the last minute, he is fooling no one. He only makes the battered and impoverished regime in Iran look stronger than they really are.
Of course that strategy raises the price of gas, and Americans don’t like that at all.
Officials who separated former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg from his young twins last month relied on a vague and unsubstantiated allegation from an accuser authorities later deemed possibly “mentally unstable,” according to previously unreported police records.
The records, obtained by The Washington Post, and an interview with the apparent complainant offer the most detailed account yet of how a false tip led investigators to the home of one of the country’s most prominent Democrats, drawing bipartisan outrage.
Child welfare experts who reviewed the documents at The Post’s request said they illuminate a flawed process that was made worse by poor judgment by agencies and a lack of communication among investigators from two states.
Michigan State Police reports detail the chain of events from the allegation to its eventual determination it was unfounded and potentially politically motivated. Indiana child welfare authorities who received a tip on a hotline with “very limited information” about Buttigieg did not pass along the caller’s name or contact information when notifying officials in Michigan, where Buttigieg now lives, which the Indiana child welfare agency says is their policy.
Michigan police waited six days after approaching Buttigieg to attempt to identify the caller.
By then, Buttigieg, a former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and 2020 presidential candidate, had gone public with the ordeal in a June Substack post, describing it as “the ugliest thing that has happened to me since my career in service began.”
Michigan authorities had told Buttigieg he could not be alone withhis 4-year-old children until they could be interviewed away from their parentsthe next day, Buttigieg recounted. The children stayed with their grandparents who lived nearby. Buttigieg, who is widely expected to run for presidentagain, called that 24-hour separation “among the darkest hours of my life.”
Buttigieg said the authorities initially would not tell him what he was accused of. Vivek Sankaran, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School and child advocacy law expert, said he was troubled that Michigan State Police went to Buttigieg’s door with such a vague allegation that didn’t present any indication that children were imminently at risk.
Believe me, this allegation, which isn’t really an allegation since there is no accusation of wrongdoing, will be brought up by Republicans if Mayor Pete secures the nomination. But I’m told that there’s only a slim chance of his nabbing that nomination, for he’s openly gay. I find it hard to believe in this day and age that someone’s sexual orientation should bar them from the Presidency unless it impairs their ability. (It clearly has not for Buttigieg.) But, at least according to this 2024 Gallup poll, Americans would rather vote for a woman or a black person than for a gay or lesbian candidate. As for atheists, fuggedaboutit:
A South African couple found themselves in a rare situation when they witnessed a humpback whale “supergroup” consisting of nearly 300 of the giant marine mammals gathering together.
It’s an indication, scientists say, of how some whale species numbers have strongly rebounded in the southern hemisphere oceans decades after an international whale hunting ban came into effect in 1986.
Chris and Monique Fallows said they were used to seeing bigger and bigger groups of humpback whales off the west coast of South Africa but weren’t prepared for what they saw one morning last December. Plumes of whale breath and spray burst into the air one after the other from blowholes, and the husband and wife found their boat in the midst of what’s known as a supergroup.
“It was extraordinary,” said Chris Fallows, a renowned fine art wildlife photographer who has documented marine animals for 35 years. “Quite quickly we realized that there must be several hundred whales coming together in one particular area.”
He said what they saw can best be described as a “Manhattan skyline” of whale breath plumes.
Chris and Monique documented 299 humpback whales in the group, they said. They count whales by taking a photograph of their tail, which is called a fluke, said Monique Fallows, an author and naturalist.
Each whale’s tail is different and it’s a common tactic used by scientists to identify individuals.
It appears to be the biggest group of humpback whales sighted, according to Alex Vogel, the Africa coordinator for Happywhale. That organization has a global database of whales built off photos and information sent in largely by what it calls “citizen scientists” — ordinary people who capture images of whales that are then verified.
But all is not perfect:
Vermeulen [“Els Vermeulen, the chief scientist at the University of Pretoria’s Whale Unit in South Africa”] also raised a new threat for whales around South Africa: the conflict in the Middle East.
She said a recent preliminary assessment she co-authored showed that shipping around the southern point of Africa had quadrupled since December 2023 — after the Israel-Hamas war broke out and Yemen’s Houthi rebels began attacking ships in the Red Sea.
That is being made worse by the Iran war and the security crisis over the Strait of Hormuz, diverting more ships around Africa.
Because most whales killed by ships sink in the ocean there are no detailed statistics. But Gregg Oelofse, the coastal and environmental manager for the city of Cape Town, said more whales and more shipping clearly increase the risk.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, things are complex:
Hili: I’ve been wondering about the problem of complexity. Andrzej: It’s quite complicated. We’ll talk about it over lunch.
In Polish:
Hili: Zastanawia mnie problem złożoności.
Ja: To dość skomplikowane, porozmawiamy o tym przy obiedzie.
I’m a biology/biotechnology lecturer from Belgium. This is what Belgium is like today.
In Belgium, we have laws that allow self-identification of sex. In practice, this means that a man can go to the town hall, fill out an administrative form (with no other requirements), and…
Two from my feed. First, a polite but hungry Indian elephant:
The baby elephant drops by the café… not to cause any trouble at all, but to order some milk!
So adorably polite, waits so patiently, and even knows how to bow its head in thanks~ melting my heart already 🥰 pic.twitter.com/7neh5pClJR
— Beauty of music and nature 🌺🌺 (@Axaxia88) July 26, 2026
Israel tracks down the October 7 killers (I believe the name is spelled “Shani Louk“):
The Hamas rapist-murderers of Shani Luke have all been eliminated by a team dedicated to tracking down and eliminating anyone who planned, executed or otherwise partook in the Oct 7 massacre. Every last one is not an empty slogan, it’s a promise pic.twitter.com/McFbLDwWKP
— Ari ארי آري 🇺🇸 🇮🇱 (@AriFromKfarSaba) July 26, 2026
And one I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
This Dutch Jewish boy was gassed to death as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz. He was 3 years old, and would be 86 today had he lived. https://t.co/RpGuMhYbNv
One from Dr. Cobb, showing a calculation of selection against the black variant of the peppered moth after its previous rise during times of pollution. It’s strong selection, nearly 0.2, which means for every offspring left by a white individual, only 0.8 offspring are left by a black one.
I once calculated the selection pressure in the decline from linear regression of the logit phenotype frequency
All the ducks are doing well: the four offspring of Miss Duck are getting larger and have developed visible necks and tails. Yesterday was their “weekiversary,” as they came to the pond on Sunday, July 19.
Miss Duck is taking good care of them. It was wicked hot yesterday, but they survived by immersing themselves in cool water as well as sleeping most of the day. Here are a few snapshots from Sunday, including one video and two turtle snaps.
The lovely Miss Duck. While I love all hens, she is an exceptionally pretty and graceful one, possessing a long, slender neck:
Head-on shot:
A thriving duckling:
A video of the brood swimming, dunking, and diving after lunch:
And we musn’t forget our four turtles. Miss Duck is afraid of them, pecks at them underwater when she can, and quacks and moves away when they’re swimming nearby. But when the ducks are on the rocks, the turtles avoid basking there. I guess they harbor a mild dislike of each other, but there is no real animosity.
Here are three doing “turtle yoga,” stretching out their necks and limbs to catch the sun:
And one of the red-eared sliders. I believe it’s a male based on the long front claws.
Now that the U.S. has abandoned the Iranian people’s freedom as a goal in the ceasefire negotiations, it’s time to look back on what happened to women since the Islamic Republic of Iran was established in 1979, creating a theocracy. In the past I’ve done that, as I do here, by doing a Google image search for women in Iran. The results are telling. Here we see the regressive change wrought in the last fifty years.
First, the results of the Google image search, “Women in Iran, 1975″ , before the Revolution. Do the search for yourself, and click what’s below to enlarge it. Note the women in shorts skirts and Western dress, with only a very few in burqas or hijabs:
The results of the Google image search, “Women in Iran, 2025”. Most of the women are covered, and those who are not are protesting covering or demanding freedom. This is what the theocracy has done to women, and the argument that covering is a “choice” simply doesn’t stand up. It’s not chosen, but compelled. (Note: there are some areas of Tehran where women eschew veiling as the Morality Police don’t do their thing there.)
These are half of the people Donald Trump implied that he’d free: they would take over their government after he toppled it.
Welcome to another damn week: it’s Monday, July 27, 2026, and National Scotch Day. Although I’m not much of a Scotch drinker, when I do have one it’s the single-malt from Scotland highlighted below:
Here again are my mother’s brothers Bernie and Mo, honoring Aunts and Uncles Day, which was yesterday. My sister sent me this and added, “As you can see, Morley’s zipper is down. In almost every picture of these two, one of them has an unzipped zipper. It was a family joke!” Moe is on the left (the unzipping in the photos was accidental):
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 26 Wikipedia page.
President Trump often celebrates his unpredictability, declaring that it keeps allies and adversaries alike off balance.
By his telling, his willingness to bomb Iranian nuclear sites 13 months ago, and send Delta Force commandos in to snatch President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela from his bed in early January, reflected his determination to execute military operations that would have made his predecessors blanch. He told The New York Times he was limited only by “my own morality,” as he wielded the world’s biggest hammer.
But in recent weeks, he has seemed trapped, his presidency gradually consumed by a war he cannot find his way out of.
He has discovered limits on his power that he could have scarcely imagined as he began full combat operations on Feb. 28, when he set out goals for a swift end to Iran’s nuclear program and the overthrow of the country’s government.
Five months later, those goals remain almost entirely unaccomplished. And Mr. Trump, once confident that overwhelming force would enable him to pursue in Iran what he proudly called the “Venezuela model” — a change of government to one amenable to U.S. control — is now hesitant to plunge back into major combat operations that his intelligence agencies assess are unlikely to work as well in Tehran.
He has been unable to control surging oil prices, or their effects on the stock market. The shipping that crawled to a stop in the Strait of Hormuz, then was opened for a few short weeks, is back to a trickle, with a second choke point, between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, now threatened. And while the president has threatened to take Kharg Island, where Iran ships oil, or to seize its underground stores of enriched uranium, he has said publicly that he knows there is no appetite for sending in ground troops.
Those limits have left him deeply frustrated, his aides say, and have made him more erratic, even by Trumpian standards. Last week alone, Mr. Trump’s energy secretary signed a historic pact with Saudi Arabia to provide civil nuclear power to the kingdom, before the president undercut the deal less than 24 hours later, stunning the Saudis by declaring that the agreement, negotiated over 18 months, was dead unless the country joined the Abraham Accords and recognized Israel.
Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. diplomat with long experience in the Mideast, said that Mr. Trump again “alienated the Saudis, delighted Benjamin Netanyahu and gave Iran strong talking points as to why cutting deals with U.S. is a fool’s errand, bound to be betrayed.”
. . .Not all of Mr. Trump’s frustrations, people close to the president say, are driven by the war, now so unpopular that only 29 percent of Americans polled by The Washington Post and Ipsos approved of his handling of the conflict. But much of it is. And the angst is clear as he promises to stop Iran’s nuclear program at any cost, while his allies at home want out.
“We got to wrap it up,” Speaker Mike Johnson said last week, voicing a sentiment heard increasingly from Mr. Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters.
But the president does not have a clear way to accomplish that goal. Having entered the conflict with little strategy for victory, he now is struggling for a face-saving way to exit.
This is a “news analysis” piece, which is why it sounds like an op-ed, and it’s clearly designed to show Trump’s ineptness at handling the war. But it’s not far off, either. Winning the war definitively would seem to require boots on the ground, and the American people won’t tolerate that. I have no solution as I’m no strategist or pundit, but I wonder how many of the 71% who don’t approve of his handling the war would suggest that he do. Presumably many Democrats, “progressive” or otherwise, would tell him just to get the hell out of Iran, and stop bombing. But then, when Iran controls access to the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz, what would they suggest? (see the next item).
*The WSJ describes how the vast oil supplies of Saudi Arabia are beginning to depend on only a single exit route, through the Suez Canal. And the Canal itself is threatened by the Houthis, an arm of Iran.
Saudi Arabia’s vast oil exports increasingly depend on one last narrow exit.
Since the Iran war began, the kingdom has ramped up exports across the country to its Red Sea coast, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, and shipped them through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait to Asian customers. Now, threats from Houthi militants—and several attacks against Saudi vessels in recent days—risk choking off that workaround, forcing more Saudi barrels onto a longer, costlier and technically challenging journey through Egypt’s Suez Canal and around Africa.
This week, at least four tankers carrying Saudi crude abruptly reversed course before reaching Bab al-Mandeb at the southern end of the Red Sea to head north toward Suez, while Saudi Arabia has begun offering more crude cargoes for loading from Egypt’s Mediterranean ports, according to ship-tracking firm Vortexa. In the first three weeks of July, seaborne oil transit via the Suez Canal ran at its highest volume in 2½ years, while imports to the Sumed pipeline—which runs parallel to the canal—were up 50% from the previous month, Vortexa data showed.
The diversions mark the latest redrawing of global oil flows after months of war have forced producers, traders and shipowners to abandon familiar routes for ever costlier detours. Gulf producers from the United Arab Emirates to Kuwait have been racing to build routes bypassing the Strait of Hormuz. On Saturday, Iraq said it would sign an agreement with Syria to build a pipeline project to carry Iraqi oil to the Mediterranean Sea.
The stakes for the global economy are high: Persistent risks to regional shipping could push oil well above $100 a barrel, analysts say, stoking inflation and straining an already fragile global economy.
Here’s the current route, which still goes through the narrow 2-mile-wide shipping channel of Bab al-Mandeb. If the Houthis close that one off, presumably under Iranian orders, the alternative pathway to China (or anywhere, really), shown in orange, is a LOT longer. If Iran tries to block off both straits, or impose tolls for transit, somebody has to stop it. (Photo credits at bottom.)
(From WSJ): Fully loaded very large crude carriers sit too deep to pass through the Suez Canal and would have to carry partial loads. Source: Kpler
The “settler violence” narrative has a template. Settlers instigate, IDF forces arrive to back them, and trigger-happy Israelis, now with military cover, are unleashed on defenseless Palestinians. But consider what happened near Havat Gilad on Friday morning.
By the end, two Israelis were dead. Benayahu Melet, 32, a father of two from the outpost’s emergency squad, was murdered rushing to defend a group of hikers; Maj. Yuval Ezra, 27, an artillery battery commander, later succumbed to his wounds. The group—some 60 in all, a number of them minors accompanied by armed adults—had set out from Har Bracha before dawn on what was meant to be a hike. But they walked into Area B, where Israelis are not meant to enter without prior coordination. The army later confirmed the entry had not been cleared.
The first attack came around 7:05 a.m. as they passed the village: Palestinians throwing stones and swinging clubs, with one hiker struck in the face. Rather than escalate, the group fired warning shots in the air and withdrew toward Havat Gilad.
An hour later, dozens more surrounded them from three directions. Here the template says the soldiers arrive and the shooting starts. Instead, by the hikers’ account, armed civilians fired in self-defense while the first soldier on the scene refused to fire; when more troops arrived, they too “did nothing.” The video shows the IDF hesitant and trying to deescalate. Only when one of the attackers wrested a rifle from a civilian guard and opened fire—killing two Israelis—did the soldiers finally return fire.
The group should not have been in the area without IDF coordination. But the punishment for trespass is not death. Yet the international framing treats the mere existence of Jews beyond the Green Line as an implicit acceptance of that consequence—as if presence itself is provocation and violence its inevitable answer. This is not a story of settler violence. It’s an example of Palestinians treating the presence of Jews itself as an act of aggression—and answering that “aggression” with violence.
The question is how often the “international framing” episode takes place. I haven’t written much about the West Bank situation because I haven’t followed it nearly as closely as I’ve followed the conflict in Gaza, and the West Bank is a complicated issue. Undoubtedly the “settlers” have behaved badly with dire consequences for Palestinian residents. But as we see the opposite as well. In 2013 I was driven to the border of the West Bank, to an area which theoretically allows Jews and even Israeli Jews to enter, but I didn’t enter because this sign scared me. “Dangerous”!
*In an article called “Hoot and shoot,“The Washington Times reports that the mass slaughter of barred owls, in a misguided government attempt to save spotted owls, has begun,
It may be hard to imagine the federal government paying hunters to shoot and kill owls, but that is exactly what has begun in the Pacific Northwest and California, where the destruction of up to 450,000 barred owls is underway in a desperate bid to save spotted owls.
After years of planning and despite public backlash, objections from Congress and animal rights organizations, and an ongoing lawsuit, the shooting of thousands of barred owls has started.
The Yakama Nation Tribe in Washington, using grant money provided by the federal government, is hunting and killing up to 1,500 barred owls on reservation land. The Hoopa Valley Tribe in Northern California, operating off a $4.5 million federal grant, has started removing barred owls from area forests.
A team from the University of Wisconsin has been participating in the shotgun culling of barred owls for several years.
The UW team has helped destroy 3,373 barred owls in California — about a third of the state’s population — as part of a key study that researchers say shows that removing the brown-and-white raptors slowed the decline of the threatened California spotted owl.
“Removals stabilized spotted owl populations and halted the establishment of barred owls,” researchers wrote in Conservation Letters. “Our work provides direct support for the federal strategy to address this pressing issue and highlights general strategies to maximize conservation while minimizing invader killing.”
Opponents, including animal welfare groups, biologists and environmentalists, have tried to stop government-sanctioned massacres, arguing that the removal will not increase the spotted owl population and is inhumane and a waste of taxpayer dollars.
“We’re going to be picking winners and losers in nature,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action, which seeks to prevent animal cruelty and is suing to stop the plan. “Natural movements of animals are going to be judged as trespassing, and we are going to try to kill off these other animals to put our thumb on the scales for northern spotted owls. And it’s not going to work.”
Yes, the higher population of barred owls reflects a “natural” movement, as they weren’t imported to the area. It may be due to human effects, like global warming, though I don’t know. But I don’t think the solution is killing the barred owls to save the spotted ones. Whatever caused the incursion of barred owls will continue, and, like Pacelle says, I doubt that this mass slaughter will work. STOP KILLING THE OWLS!
*Martha Lillard, as this WaPo story describes, spent 73 years in an iron lung after contracting polio at age 5. What a horrible fate! When I was young polio, and the iron lung to which many victims were doomed, were much more common, and we all had to avoid swimming pools during epidemics. But soon thereafter there were vaccinations (the first ones when I was six), and polio is no longer much of an issue. But Ashely Alker, identified as “an emergency medicine physician and the author of 99 Ways to Die: And How to Avoid Them, tells us “What could die with the last person using an iron lung” (archived here).
In 1955, just two years after Lillard contracted the virus, the first polio vaccine became available, and by 1979, the disease was eliminated in the United States.
But when it comes to vaccine-preventable diseases in the U.S., society can be a victim of its own successes. As public health efforts such as vaccines eliminate the suffering caused by a disease, collective memory of the illness fades. Contemporary health information is often gathered from personal networks, the internet and the media, none of which is compelled to cover seemingly obsolete vaccine-preventable diseases, such as rubella, diphtheria and polio. The paucity of accurate information leaves a gap for profiteers, who may sensationalize vaccine skepticism in the hopes of going viral. This has proven especially concerning when supported by the leader of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Polio, or poliomyelitis, was once a feared childhood viral infection in the U.S., with 58,000 reported cases in 1952. Common symptoms include fever, sore throat, nausea and vomiting. The virus may spread through the bloodstream to the brain stem and spinal cord, where it attacks motor nerves, causing paralysis known as paralytic polio and often called infantile paralysis in children. Polio is still present outside of the U.S., with 52 cases confirmed last year, and most commonly affects children under age 5. Among those paralyzed, up to 10 percent will die once paralysis affects the breathing muscles. The disease is highly contagious: Patients can spread the virus for several weeks, which is how it killed or paralyzed over half a million people a year globally before the vaccine.
. . .Over the past 50 years, global immunizations have saved the equivalent of six lives a minute, an estimated 154 million lives — most of them infants. There is no effective cure for polio, or for most other vaccine-preventable diseases. Without adequate vaccine coverage in the population, outcomes may resemble those of the pre-vaccine era.
And vaccines do more than save lives; they protect economies and safeguard future generations — and ensure military readiness. In April, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth rescinded the U.S. military’s influenza vaccine mandate. Late last month, an influenza outbreak occurred at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, with initial reports of more than 280 ill, four hospitalized and one young man dead. Shortly after — by coincidence, said one Pentagon official — the Defense Department’s influenza vaccine mandate was partially reinstated.
Science may offer the most up-to-date information on vaccine-preventable disease, but history is an indispensable public health tool, too. On March 11, 1918, one of the first reported cases of the flu pandemic occurred at Fort Riley, Kansas, where overcrowding and poor sanitation led the virus to spread to more than 500 men within a week. This strain of influenza was more devastating than World War I, infecting one-third of the world and killing an estimated 50 million people. In 1945, when the influenza vaccine was licensed, it was immediately mandated by the Defense Department for active-duty service members, a decision that was informed by the memory of violent illness.
Here’s the lesson, and it’s clearly directed at RFK, Jr., who seems bent on reducing vaccination as much as he can get away with.
Likewise, Lillard’s story is an essential piece of American history. Understanding the risk posed by a vaccine-preventable disease is essential to the success of future public health initiatives. If Americans forget what vaccines fight against, then neither will they understand the importance of maintaining defenses.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Andrzej are discussing biology. I would have said “maybe ants,” but termites evolved well before ants did.
Hili: Who invented an artificial environment first? Andrzej: I would guess termites, but I’m probably wrong.
In Polish:
Hili: Kto pierwszy wymyślił sztuczne środowisko?
Ja: Podejrzewam termity, ale prawdopodobnie jestem w błędzie.
From Masih, who goes off on Mamdani; English translation below:
Masih Alinejad, the Iranian human rights activist, in a live television program directly addressed New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, saying, “I oppose your hypocrisy, Mr. Mayor.” She accused Mamdani of loudly taking stances on Netanyahu and Palestine, but remaining completely silent about the Islamic Republic’s crimes against the Iranian people—the same regime that executes protesters, tortures political prisoners, and exports terrorism across the region.
This is not just a political clash, but an exposure of a pattern among Western politicians who wear “human rights” like a theatrical costume, only when it suits their interests and never when they must confront Tehran head-on.
🔴#فوری | مسیح علینژاد خطاب به ممدانی، شهردار نیویورک
مسیح علینژاد، فعال حقوق بشر ایرانی، در یک برنامه زنده تلویزیونی مستقیم خطاب به شهردار نیویورک، زهران ممدانی، گفت «من مخالف ریاکاری تو هستم، آقای شهردار.» او ممدانی را متهم کرد که با صدای بلند درباره ی نتانیاهو و فلسطین…
From Luana via Maarten Boudry, who notes that Cofnas is “problematic” because he’s considered a hereditarian (and has also behaved badly, which led to his demonization at Cambridge University). But the story of this Cambridge professor, who appears to be both a fabulist and a plagiarist, is disturbing, for Cambridge seems to be covering up the facts (read the story here).
Every time you think academia has hit rock bottom, you read something like this, from the prestigious @Cambridge_Uni. If you’ll excuse me now, I need to go pick my jaw up off the floor.
(Please bracket whatever you think about @nathancofnas and his views on IQ & race, which are…
I wouldn’t mind having this, but it’s a lot of dosh!
This pretty perspex model of the double helix, from 1953, was just sold for $614,400. It was made at the Cavendish by Tony Broad, the ace technician who also ran the X-ray crystallography set-up. I think they cost around £50 each at the time (a lot, back then!). Watson’s copy is in the CSHL archive.
We are in dire need of wildlife photos, so if you have some good ones, please send them in.
Today we have the sixth and last installment of Ephraim Heller’s photos from his recent trip to Namibia. His captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
This is the last installment in my series on a May-June 2026 visit to Namibia. Today’s photos were taken inland, at the Ongava/Etosha region (where I photographed rhinos for last week’s installment) and at Nkasa Rupara National Park in the Caprivi Strip.
Most of the animals in this post are well known to readers, but the history of the Caprivi Strip is worth a digression on 19th century colonial competition in Africa. Here is a map (courtesy of WorldAtlas) of present-day Namibia. The Caprivi Strip is the odd extension in the northeast corner of the country that juts out to contact Angola, Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. It is 30 km wide and 450 km long:
Germany had established the colony of German South West Africa (modern Namibia) in 1884. Germany also had the colony of German East Africa (Tanganyika, the mainland portion of modern-day Tanzania). German Chancellor Leo von Caprivi wanted to establish a trade corridor between the two German colonies on the west and east coasts of Africa, but there was one problem: the British held colonies in between. He came up with the idea that if he could extend German South West Africa’s eastern border to the Zambezi River, there would be a navigable waterway linking the two German colonies.
This ambition led to negotiations with Britain and to the signing of the Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty in 1890. Britain transferred the Caprivi strip and ceded the North Sea island of Heligoland to Germany. In return, Germany recognized British authority over the Zanzibar islands (now also part of Tanzania) off of Tanganyika.
All of Chancellor Caprivi’s scheming came to naught, however, because the Germans were not aware of a small obstacle to navigation in the Zambezi River known today as Victoria Falls, one of the largest waterfalls in the world (photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons):
The cunning British, on the other hand, were well aware of the existence of Victoria Falls (David Livingstone having named them in 1855). Perfidious Albion, indeed. As usual during the Scramble for Africa, the indigenous people were not a consideration in this deal.
Now, on to the animals. I’ll skip descriptions as most species will be familiar to readers:
Welcome to the Sabbath for goyische cats: Sunday, July 26, 2026, and National Bagelfest Day. Below I put, as always, a genuine bagel rather than the large, airy bread toruses that pass for bagels in America. This was in Montreal ten years ago. No commentary is needed:
One with a schmear. Notice that the bagel is small and dense.
It’s also Aunts and Uncles Day, National Coffee Milkshake Day, and World Tofu Day. In honor of the first holiday, here are my late uncles Bernie (left) and Mo (right)—my mother’s brothers. They’re all decked out for a round of golf, at the Jewish country club, of course (Jews weren’t allowed to join the regular country club):
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 26 Wikipedia page.
I have visitors for much of this week, so posting will be light; perhaps even days without a Hili dialogue. Caturday posts are being eliminated because interest is low.
The war between the United States and Iran remained on pause for a second straight day on Sunday, while the Iranian Foreign Ministry said that there had been some movement in talks between Tehran and mediators over the Strait of Hormuz.
No U.S. strikes on Iran have been reported since Friday, while Iran has similarly held off attacking American allies around the Middle East after about two weeks of skirmishes brought the two countries back to the brink of full-blown war.
President Trump decided last week to put off plans to escalate the U.S. assault on Iran, at least for now, according to U.S. officials. Mr. Trump and his aides were motivated in part by dwindling stockpiles of interceptors to shoot down Iranian missiles, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.
Mr. Trump has struggled to decisively end the war on Iran that the United States and Israel started jointly five months ago, even as the global economic toll and number of American casualties have mounted. A cease-fire signed last month effectively collapsed after Iran continued to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway for global oil and gas shipments.
Iran is and will continue to be the main exporter of terrorism in the Middle East—indeed, in the world. If it’s allowed to retain the power it had to do that, America will have failed completely in our war aims.
President Trump met on Friday with top advisers and senior members of his cabinet to decide whether to intensify the military assault against Iran, according to four people briefed on the discussion.
The meeting took place as Mr. Trump faces a potential inflection point in his approach to Iran, after the collapse of a fragile cease-fire and a memorandum of understanding that was intended to bring the United States and Iran back to the negotiating table for a longer-term denuclearization.
The White House did not divulge whether Mr. Trump determined how to proceed. But the president indicated that the military was ready to carry out heavier assaults if ordered to do so even while leaving open the door to a diplomatic solution.
“Look, we’re locked and loaded,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Friday afternoon. “We’re ready to go, but we’re talking to them, so maybe there will be, maybe there won’t be a tipping point.”
He added: “Maybe they will cry uncle, or maybe they’ll just give up, or maybe they’ll just go into a cave and hide.”
Mr. Trump previewed some of his discussions in an interview with Axios on Thursday, saying: “I am considering a massive attack. Bigger than ever before. I am close to making a decision. We are all set for it.”
He also indicated that the Israelis most likely would not be part of a new escalation, saying there could be “consequences” for them, apparently meaning from Iran. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is coming to the United States on Monday and plans to meet with Mr. Trump, Mr. Netanyahu’s office announced.
Mr. Trump has insisted that the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran would be a relatively short “excursion,” although it has lasted nearly five months, with no end in sight.
In my view, that last sentence is on the border of news and opinion. Nobody knows how long a war would last when it’s started, and nobody predicted that the Iranian regime would decide to tough it out while inflicting economic damage on the world by controlling the Strait of Hormuz. I have no idea whether Trump will escalate (I’m starting to think he will), nor what route he would take if he did.
Somewhere around the two-hour mark in JD Vance’s nearly three-hour podcast interview last week with Joe Rogan, the pair got into a serious conversation about supernatural and extraterrestrial phenomena. By serious, I mean it in the sense that Rogan seemed to take the subject seriously while Vance cynically, or cretinously, or cravenly, or credulously or conspiratorially — or perhaps it’s all of the above — played along with him.
It contained the following insights from the vice president of the United States:
“If we’re talking about an extraterrestrial being that is humanlike, but not human, that contains effectively infinite powers and is torturing human beings, you can call it an alien if you want, but I think there’s a lot of historical precedent to call that a demon.”
And:
“If you’re looking for me to concede the point that there is something different or could be something different between an angel, a demon, a space alien, a supernatural but non-any-of-those-other-things beings, yes, I concede that.”
And:
“I got two-and-a-half more years as V.P., and I swear to you, if there are little green men, like body remains, I’m not going to text you. I’m going to try to smuggle a camera in and get a photo of these things.”
By this point, the two men had already propounded one conspiracy theory — that the Los Angeles mayoral election had been rigged (a claim previously debunked by a Trump-appointed federal prosecutor); followed by Vance’s accusation that Joe Biden’s staff got him to eat ice cream “in the most ridiculous, suggestive way imaginable” (a remarkable way of turning naked mendacity into adolescent prurience into another conspiracy theory); followed by an exchange about eating corn dogs in public (because, you know); followed by an argument about whether the Ten Commandments should be mandated in Texas public schools, in which neither man appeared to be aware that the commandments are not originally Christian.
The truth — that the most influential media figure in America today, with tens of millions of followers on social media, is a jocular bro with an Everyman affect who seems never to have encountered an idiotic or despicable conspiracy theory he isn’t willing to promote (moon-landing denial) or platform (Hitler revisionism). We are a nation that has moved at speed from the realm of fact colored by opinions to a kingdom of delusion infested with fear.
The truth — that the current vice president is by far the worst person ever to hold the office (move over, Aaron Burr, John C. Calhoun and Spiro T. Agnew); that he thinks, probably correctly, that there’s no political downside in today’s Republican Party to talking like a guy who thinks Dan Brown novels are works of nonfiction; and that it’s equally OK for a person who, by his own admission, has access to all U.S. intelligence to tease the possibility of deep-state conspiracies of the sort his political base is likely to believe. The prospect of this callow and sinister opportunist taking the place of the erratic buffoon now governing us may be the single scariest thought in world politics today.
The truth — that Vance’s interview with Rogan (as close as politics gives us to a national cancer diagnosis) was a blip in the news cycle, because crazy today is every day, and our capacity to feel shocked diminishes with every asinine utterance coming from the vice president’s mouth, to say nothing of that of his boss.
The truth is that the demons are here. We elected them.
Ouch! Well, this is good for the Democrats: there’s plenty of dirt on Vance if he runs for President. But perhaps his acolytes don’t care.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani has been running a campaign to demonize Israel and its supporters for committing “genocide.” He should reconsider after Thursday’s double-stabbing in New York, which included a kippah-wearing Jew attacked after exiting a synagogue.
Police arrested Raul Morales in connection with the stabbings. The mayor said victim and witness statements allege that Mr. Morales yelled “Allahu akbar” while attacking a Jew, Moshe Grunhaus and an Asian, Chok Sung. The NYPD is evaluating if this was a hate crime.
A friend who visited Mr. Grunhaus at the hospital tells us the victim was in the process of moving to Florida, in part due to concerns about crime, antisemitism and Mr. Mamdani. He returned to New York to tie up loose ends and attended synagogue during the fast of Tisha B’Av, when Jews mourn the destruction of the ancient temple in Jerusalem.
Earlier this week Mr. Mamdani taped a video accusing Israel of genocide and deliberate child murder. The next day he wished New York’s Jews a “peaceful” fast, in which “mourners will pause and reflect on the history and resiliency of the Jewish people.” That history is in Jerusalem and the land of Israel, but the mayor calls the Jewish state a “settler-colonial” project.
Thursday’s stabbing would fit comfortably with the Palestinian intifadas that Mr. Mamdani and his allies have been keen to “globalize.” Only after repeatedly excusing that phrase did he say that he would “discourage” it. He now sticks to “genocide,” “apartheid,” child-killing and other accusations to render Israel an enemy of mankind, along with the “Zionists” whose crime is to support its existence.
Before his mayoral run, Mr. Mamdani used “Zionist” as a casual slur. He also told comrades: “We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF,” Israel’s military.
Mr. Mamdani reacted to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Jews by bashing Israel, not Hamas, and mourning victims on both sides. His wife liked Instagram posts cheering on the Hamas attack. His party, NYC’s Democratic Socialists of America, endorsed a rally by pro-Hamas groups on Oct. 8 in “solidarity with the Palestinian people and their right to resist,” as the DSA put it.
. . .Mr. Mamdani isn’t responsible for Thursday’s stabbing. But he is responsible for promoting a culture of denigration that is all too easy for a fevered mind to hear and conclude that violence against Jews is acceptable. The mayor and his ideological groupies are playing with antisemitic fire.
“When I was growing up,” Rabbi Yosie Levine said Friday, after the attack on a congregant, “the only time we saw security outside my synagogue or my Jewish day school was when the mayor came to speak. The police were there to protect him. Today, every time the mayor speaks, we need the police to protect us.”
What can I say? Mamdani seems far more concerned with denigrating Israel and accusing it of apartheid and genocide than running his city. And the MSM, save for the conservative Wall Street Journal, won’t mention it at all. (That’s of course because they agree with the Mayor.)
*I am opposed to government-run lotteries and to sports betting, which is rapidly taking over the U.S. Lotteries are simply regressive taxes, and sports betting is a way to get people addicted to gambling, as well as for the government to collect taxes on a profitable enterprise (the government taxes the companies as well as the winnings of successful betters)—companies that are guaranteed to do better than the sports fans. In an essay in The Free Press, “The case against sports betting,” Coleman Hughes gives us his take.
Infamous as these offenses are, they became so because they were rare. For most of American history, it has been difficult and risky for a professional athlete to place a major bet on his own games.
But with the legalization of sports betting in most U.S. states—touched off by the Supreme Court’s overturning of a federal ban in 2018—we are now entering a darker era. With online betting legal and frictionless, athletes need only a few seconds on their smartphones in order to place a bet (or better yet, get a friend or family member to do the same). And they need not do anything as noticeable as throw a game. A professional basketball player, for instance, can simply bet on individual elements of their personal statistics line (called a “player prop” bet), and then subtly alter their play without drawing unwanted attention.
The scandals are now coming so frequently that it is hard to keep track of them. Just last Friday, the NFL suspended Arizona Cardinals executive Ryan Gold for allegedly betting on his team’s games. A few weeks prior, former NBA player Malik Beasley was indicted for allegedly manipulating his play in at least four 2024 NBA games in coordination with a group of bettors.
In the age of frictionless online betting on player props, all it really takes to cheat is to coordinate with one trusted friend or family member, tell them that you’re not feeling your best before a game, subtly underperform throughout the game, and then accept in-kind gifts from that person. Sure, the authorities will catch those who do this sloppily. But how exactly will they catch a duo who carries out such a scheme in an intelligent and patient manner?
But Hughes has an argument beyond the cheating argument given above—a view more similar to mine:
But the problem with sports betting is not just its effect on the integrity (both real and perceived) of sports. It’s also the unhealthy temptation it creates for sports fans. For psychologically well-adjusted bettors, it’s an innocent hobby. But for a significant minority, it’s a dangerous vice. One scholarly paper found that the introduction of online sports betting to a U.S. state caused a 12-point decline in average credit scores as well as an increase in “indicators of excessive debt, including bankruptcy filings, debt sent to collections, credit card delinquencies, and auto loan delinquencies.”
. . . And where is that money coming from? It’s what people would normally be saving in retirement accounts or for purchasing a home, worthwhile investments that can better their lives. A new study concludes that “risky bets crowd out positive expected value investments,” and instead drive up household debt, even as betting companies soak up billions in revenue.
What to do? As Hughes recognizes, once the government gets a taste of the money, and fans are used to betting, the cat is out of the bad for good. He proposes a more moderate solution:
So what should be done? Returning to something like the pre-2018 status quo—where sports betting was illegal in every U.S. state (except for Nevada, Oregon, Delaware, and Montana)—would be ideal. But it’s not going to happen. Now that states have a taste for the tax revenue that comes from the $167 billion industry, they are not going to bite the hand that feeds them. In principle Congress could ban it federally, but that is unlikely for much the same reason.
There are, however, more moderate alternatives. The SAFE Bet Act, introduced by Connecticut senator Richard Blumenthal and New York Rep. Paul Tonko, both Democrats, would keep sports betting legal while curbing its excesses. The bill would, among other things, ban in-game betting, advertising that targets minors, and player prop bets. Its main flaw is that it would require bettors to prove that they can afford bets before making them, which would require invasive financial disclosures. But on the whole, it is a decent first draft of the kind of legislation that we need.
I’d still favor a ban on betting, but it ain’t gonna happen.
*The FDA is considering whether to make peptides available to the public by allowing “compounding pharmacies” to make them. (A “compounding pharmacy” makes medicines on site.) The NYT tells us what peptides people want (archived here). I was interested because I heard on the news yesterday that there’s a peptide for insomnia, but I lost interest after I read about it.
An advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration convened Thursday to evaluate whether compounding pharmacies should be allowed to produce seven peptides that were previously banned over safety concerns.
Despite being prohibited, some of these peptides have become increasingly popular among consumers who purchase them from longevity clinics, alternative health providers, biohacking influencers and even TikTok. The peptides may be produced in unregulated labs, often in China, and sold as “research grade” compounds.
The F.D.A. is evaluating the peptides for specific uses, like treating ulcerative colitis, insomnia and osteoporosis. But they are marketed and used for many other purposes, which could be permitted if the drugs were cleared.
F.D.A. staff scientists reviewed the research on the peptides and have recommended against clearing the peptides, citing a lack of safety and efficacy data in humans. Here’s what they found.
I’ll give just two:
BPC-157
BPC-157, sometimes referred to as Body Protection Compound or bepecin, is one of the most popular “gray market” peptides.
The F.D.A. is evaluating it to treat ulcerative colitis, and it is also marketed as helping to reduce gastrointestinal inflammation and prevent ulcers. Another common use is to support muscle and joint healing — it is sometimes referred to as the “Wolverine compound,” after the Marvel superhero, especially when taken in combination with another peptide, TB-500.
A few small studies in humans have suggested BPC-157 might have benefits for knee pain, bladder-related pain or ulcerative colitis symptoms. But these had notable limitations: Two lacked a placebo group, and another was not published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Emideltide
Emideltide, also known as the delta sleep-inducing peptide, is naturally produced in the brain. Levels fluctuate throughout the day, which suggests it is connected to circadian rhythms, and it has been shown to increase deep sleep in animals.
The F.D.A. is considering an emideltide injections for insomnia, narcolepsy and opioid withdrawal. (Scientists think it acts through the opioid system.) It’s also marketed for stress, pain, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
There are several human studies of emideltide, most from the 1980s involving intravenous infusions. The research has generally suggested that emideltide helps people with insomnia fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer compared with a placebo. But the studies were very small and had limitations and did not all show a clear benefit.
The human data was even more limited for narcolepsy — just a single case report in one patient.
There are others, but with just as pessimistic a take. The upshot for all the peptides discussed is that the evidence is very thin, that there are some with side effects that may be serious, and tjat although some of these may eventually be useful, none are yet ready for prime time.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Andrzej have a high-level discussion:
Hili: How would you characterize the consciousness of artificial intelligence? Andrzej: The determinism of algorithms. Though you shouldn’t take me seriously.
In Polish:
Hili: Jak byś określił świadomość sztucznej inteligencji?
Ja: Determinizm algorytmów. Ale nie traktuj mnie poważnie.
From FIRE via Luana; this doesn’t seem to rise to the level of “fighting words,” though the speech was hateful and odious. Click to read full tweet and get link:
This makes me sad because my dad was a college professor, and if he was still alive he really, really would have enjoyed fucking with his students like this. https://t.co/xmX5vx3YOK
One from my feed, a lovely fawn. I’d like to see the adult:
On a farm in Michigan, a rare deer named “Dragon” was born with pure white fur and captivating blue eyes.
But because of his unusual color, his mother rejected him and abandoned him.
A kind family adopted him and cared for him until he grew up to become one of the most… pic.twitter.com/3QM8HAw4LY
A hare—and one who takes off very fast when it sees the human:
I’ve been standing stock still in this wood for about 10 minutes while I mess about with a photo on my phone. I look up, notice the shape, and slowly crouch down to filmThis has made me so happy I feel I could cry. It’s as close to magic as I hope to get.
