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.
“Peace for our time” was, of course, the phrase uttered by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain on September 30, 1938 after he returned from signing The Munich Agreement with Hitler. That treaty allowed Nazi Germany to occupy the Sudetenland, part of Czechoslovakia, in return for Hitler’s promise to leave the rest of Czechoslovakia—and Europe—alone. That was a lie, of course, and Germany invaded Poland, beginning World War II, on September 1, 1939. Chamberlain, and other dupes who believed Hitler, had thought that the treaty would avert war in Europe. Skeptics like Churchill disagreed, and Chamberlain resigned on May 10, 1940, giving the PM slot to Churchill.
It doesn’t say much about Israel except Trump had a “very good call” with Netanyahu. Israel is being shoved aside in Trump’s hell-bent desire to get some kind of peace with Iran. But what kind will we get? We can see more details in The Times of Israel. which partly quotes the NYT (headings below are mine, extracts from the ToI are indented, and my words are flush left):
Uranium:
Iran has agreed to give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium as part of an agreement with the US to end the war, two US officials tell the New York Times.
According to the officials, Iran has committed in a general statement to giving up the uranium, rather than reaching an agreement with the US on exactly how it will relinquish it. Instead, the exact details will be worked out during the negotiations that will begin once a deal is reached.
The report comes days after Iranian sources claimed that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, had issued a directive that the near-weapons-grade uranium should not be sent abroad.
Iran has a stockpile of more than 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium in its possession, which Israeli officials have said is sufficient for 11 nuclear bombs if enriched further.
Earlier this month, a senior Israeli military official said if the uranium wasn’t removed, the war launched in February could be considered “one big failure.”
More on uranium:
And, reports the Times, the officials say issues relating to Iran’s nuclear program will be put off, to be negotiated within 30 to 60 days.
The Times adds the caveat that it is “not clear if the proposal Iranian officials said they had agreed to was what President Trump was referring to in his post on social media.”
Citing Middle East officials, The Times also says the leaders of Arab and Muslim-majority countries with whom Trump spoke in a conference earlier today told him that they support the proposal and urged him to accept it.
The Strait of Hormuz:
While Iran’s Fars news has derided President Donald Trump’s talk of a deal being nearly done, with the Strait of Hormuz to reopen, three senior Iranian officials tell the New York Times that Tehran has agreed to “a memorandum of understanding that would stop the fighting and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.”
The deal would release $25 billion in Iranian assets frozen overseas, the officials are quoted as saying.
The Times says the officials say the agreement “would halt fighting on all fronts, including in Lebanon.”
They add that its terms focus “on opening the strait— including lifting the US naval blockade against Iran and allowing free commercial traffic without Iran charging any tolls.”’
. . .Iran’s Fars news agency says the Strait of Hormuz will remain under Iran’s management under the provisions of the latest exchanged text for a deal between Iran and the US.
Fars, a semi-state outlet close to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, dismisses as “incomplete and inconsistent with reality” Trump’s announcement two hours ago that the deal was now being finalized and would include the reopening of the strait.
Trump posted on social media that an agreement with Iran “has been largely negotiated.” He specified that the deal would include the opening of the strait, the key pathway for the global oil supply that Tehran has largely blocked since the beginning of the war some three months ago.
Regime change:
None, of course. Although some in the Trump administration say there has been regime change, all that means is that the Ayatollah Khamenei is dead, his son, the Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, may be alive but isn’t doing much, and military hard-liners still run the country and the war. The Iranian people are no closer to freedom than they were before the war.
Lebanon and Hezbollah:
No information yet; see Segal’s excerpt below in which Iranian sources claim that the agreement would stop fighting in Lebanon (but would presumably not require Hezbollah to disarm).
As you see, not much is clear, and the fate of Iran’s uranium stockpile—the reason Trump says we attacked Iran—remains unclear.
Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal’s post about it is called “The art of a bad deal,” with the subtitle, “Trump’s proposed deal threatens to leave Iran stronger than it was before Operation Epic Fury.” Excerpt:
t’s Sunday, May 24, and at the outset of Operation Roaring Lion, there were two definitions of victory on the table: capturing Iran’s enriched uranium or toppling the regime altogether. Given that regime change does not appear to be materializing and one of the parties appears hesitant to make the necessary investments for such an outcome, the sole remaining path to victory appears to be securing the uranium.
The most recent proposal—which Donald Trump claims is already “largely negotiated”—seemingly attempts to follow this path. According to a report from Channel 12, the agreement would reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for the lifting of the naval blockade and substantial financial relief. However, the core issues regarding the nuclear program and the extraction of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile would not be resolved upfront; instead, they would be deferred for separate negotiations over a 60-day period. Critically, Senior Iranian sources speaking with The New York Times said the deal would release $25 billion in Iranian assets frozen overseas. They added that the agreement “would halt fighting on all fronts, including in Lebanon.”
If the enriched uranium is indeed surrendered to the United States, it is indeed a notable achievement, but there are two caveats:
The first caveat concerns the actual scope and reality of the nuclear concessions. According to current reports, the negotiations slated to follow the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz will focus exclusively on uranium enriched to 60 percent—the roughly 440 kilograms currently believed to be buried beneath the rubble of the Natanz facility. Meanwhile, the tons of uranium enriched to three percent appear destined to remain inside Iran, with any future restrictions on its enrichment left dangerously ambiguous. Compounding this uncertainty, a senior Iranian official bluntly told Reuters today that Tehran has not actually agreed to hand over any material at all, emphasizing that the preliminary agreement does not even formally address the nuclear issue.
The second caveat is procedural, but no less critical. The framework currently on the table is not a finalized treaty, but merely a temporary Memorandum of Understanding meant to serve as a baseline for future talks. All the thorny details regarding the nuclear stockpile are slated to be ironed out over a 60-day negotiation window. The official justification for this delay is logistical—that safely extracting highly enriched uranium from bombed-out, irradiated rubble is a highly complex operation. In practice, however, it is far more likely a calculated delay, offering Tehran an extended opportunity to rest and recover before entering their next phase of nuclear intractability.
Israel has greeted the news with deep skepticism and more than a touch of fear. The reported memorandum makes zero mention of ballistic missile restrictions. What began largely as a defensive shield for Iran’s nuclear ambitions has mutated into a formidable threat in its own right. Even without the ultimate deterrent of a nuclear warhead, an Iranian ballistic arsenal numbering in the tens of thousands is more than sufficient to paralyze any military action against the Islamic Republic. According to Channel 12, this critical issue—whether through an immediate American concession or a simple lack of interest—never even made it to the negotiating table.
The current form of the deal also leaves the Islamic Republic holding another critical asset: the Strait of Hormuz. While the strategic waterway is slated to reopen, it does so not by virtue of an American victory, but rather by Iran’s sufferance. The current framework temporarily ensures toll-free passage, but absolutely nothing in the agreement guarantees that Tehran won’t eventually set up a toll booth—or abruptly choke off shipping the moment they feel the subsequent 60-day negotiations are stalling.
A secondary, but equally pressing concern in Jerusalem is that the regime has not yet fallen. While never explicitly declared as a military objective, regime change has been the unofficial policy undercurrent of the entire conflict. So far, Tehran has successfully managed to cling to power. Yet, senior Israeli intelligence officials maintain that a collapse from within remains a distinct possibility—provided the crippling economic blockade is sustained through the end of 2026. If the blockade and economic warfare are traded away for a partial agreement today, that window permanently closes. Meanwhile, domestic repression continues apace; just this morning, Iran executed a man accused of sending information to the US and Israel during the war. Cutting this deal now would not just throw Tehran a financial lifeline—it would constitute a total abandonment of the Iranian protesters who began this entire conflict.
Segal also discusses Lebanon, where fighting has escalated but Israel has pretty much held its fire until Iran stopped fighting. Tehran wants to link the Iran peace deal to Lebanon, allowing Hezbollah to continue attacking Israel. Israelis won’t stand for that, or so I think. Segal sums up the deal this way:
For a leader who has spent decades building his brand as the sole guarantor of Israeli security, accepting a deal that leaves the regime intact, Hezbollah armed, the ballistic missile program recovering, and Tehran flush with sanctions relief is electoral assisted suicide for Netanyahu. Hanging in the balance of these negotiations is the fate of more than one regime.
To me, this seems like a bad deal for the U.S. and especially for Israel. Nuclear enrichment could continue with the unenriched uranium possessed by Iran, it could eventually build a bomb, Hezbollah might persist as a threat to Israel, there is no regime change (we’re blowing a chance for one, says Segal), and the fate of the Strait of Hormuz remains unclear. Trump just keeps putting up deadline after deadline and then ignoring them, hoping that something will fall into place.
So I ask readers to weigh in by checking one box in this unscientific poll. I’ve given a deadline, but am just assessing reader sentiment here; so please check a box:
Once again I’ve stolen some photos (with permission) from the Facebook page of Scott Ritchie of Cairns, Australia. Scott has documented a trip to Queensland, and his text and IDs are indented. You can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.
Artemis Station, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, Australia. The name that signifies excellence in Australian birding. This past weekend, I went on a wonderful camping trip with the Cairns Birders, led by Shane Kennedy and Doug Herrington, to Artemis Station. Doug then led us on a drive past Musgrave Roadhouse to Marina Plains. The last time I went up the Cape with Doug, we saw an adult Southern Cassowary with its chick at the top of the Kuranda Range. Well, lightning did strike twice.
Up the cape. It was magic. The weather was great, the sunsets so beautiful. The night sky was full on Milky Way. The sunrises were full of bird song. And the key “lifers”, the iconic Golden Shouldered Parrot (GSP) and the Red Goshawk, were on show. Here are some of my favourite photos from this trip.
My hat goes off to the staff of Artemis Station. Not only for hosting us, but for their heroic conservation efforts to save the last of the “termite” parrots in Queensland. Thank you Sue and Tom Shepherd, who own the station and tend to the parrots.
Adult Southern Cassowary (Casuarius casuarius). Great way to start the trip!:
And his chick!:
Galahs (Eolophus roseicapilla) were common, flying around in noisy flocks at dawn and dusk:
Galahs, in the outback!:
Patrick of Artemis Station shows us the ant (termite) mound used by Golden-Shouldered Parrots (Psephotellus chrysopterygius). They dig a tunnel in the mound. An electric fence barrier us used to keep out marauding snakes and monitor lizard. Great lengths are taken to maximise survival and production of these critically endangered birds.
The ant hill also has interesting camouflaged invertebrates, such as this cicada:
Female and male Golden-Shouldered Parrots (GSP) at a feeding station. Wild birds are provided with a feeding station of grass seeds to enhance survival:
An immature male GSP flies past a trail camera at the feeding station. They keep an eye out for predators, and to monitor bird health and numbers:
Another critically endangered bird, the Red Goshawk (Erythrotriorchis radiatus), also lives in Cape York. A male goshawk keeps a sharp eye on his partner:
. . .who is building a nest for the seasons brood:
“What do you think, is it sturdy enough?”:
We were greeted at the campsite by an Australian Boobook (Ninox boobook):
This cute owl kept a close eye on us for 2 nights.:
An Australian Hobby (Falco longipennis), a species of falcon, was seen regularly at a nearby pond:
Welcome to Sunday, May 24; the Sabbath that was made for gentile cats, and Asparagus Day. And here’s the answer to everyone’s question about asparagus (and yes, I am one of the victims):
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 24 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
**PEACE FOR OUR TIME? The news is full of reports that the U.S. and Iran (and Israel, which appears not to have been consulted) are close to striking a peace deal. See the next post for more on this–and a poll.
Many readers asked: Given the volume of the critical response, do you stand by this column?
Kathleen Kingsbury: Yes.Nick built upon a growing body of evidence regarding the mistreatment of detainees in Israel. Numerous human rights organizations and reputable news outlets — including prominent Israeli media — have documented abuse by Israeli security forces and settlers. Previous accounts include reports of sexual violence and physical degradation.
Before publication, Nick’s reporting underwent a rigorous vetting process by Opinion’s fact-checking department to ensure that every testimony and anecdote he personally reported was supported by independent sources, as is the case with all sensitive pieces. The Times’s standards and legal teams also reviewed the column and offered feedback. After publication, we reviewed the factual challenges that readers and others raised, as is standard practice with any published piece. Editors found no errors.
Readers have said the allegations involving dogs abusing detainees is not only impossible but also a “blood libel” against Israel and its citizens.
Kristof: This passage provoked the most disgust and disbelief. A Palestinian journalist detained in 2024 told me he was held down, stripped, blindfolded and handcuffed while a dog was brought in and, with encouragement from a handler, mounted and penetrated him. Before he spoke to me, he confided his account to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, an Israeli human rights organization.
I thought carefully about whether to include this. In the end I did because he had told his account previously and because what he described has happened before. Other Palestinian prisoners and human rights monitors have cited reports of dogs sexually assaulting prisoners. The Pinochet regime in Chile used a dog to rape political prisoners. Peer-reviewed medical literature documents rectal injuries caused by canine penetration.
Readers will have their own take on the use of anonymous sources, biased sources, and sources who have changed their stories. But the last sentence is garbage: the “medical literature documents” cited by Kristof on X were cases of bestiality, not forced rape by dogs.
You might want to read, as a (free) counterpoint, a fairly balanced column by Rabbi Steven Abraham called “This is who Nicholas Kristof is” (h/t Suzy). One excerpt:
So here is where I have arrived.
The abuse inside the Israeli prison system is real, and Israel must reckon with it, both because reckoning is a Jewish obligation and because the alternative is rot. Ben-Gvir is a disgrace to the office he holds. Netanyahu’s coalition is failing in its basic duty to govern sovereign power with discipline. A rabbi who loves Israel must say so, and must keep saying so, regardless of who else is in the room.
And: Nicholas Kristof’s column is a smear built on propaganda from an organization committed to Israel’s erasure. He chose those sources because they travel further than the credible, documented, Israeli-sourced indictment that was available to him. He has done this kind of thing before, against other targets, across decades. He will do it again. The Times will let him.
Both of those sentences are true. Neither cancels the other. The discipline of holding both, at the same time, without flinching from either, that is what Torah asks of us when we read.
This is who Nicholas Kristof is. The Times knows, and lets him be it. We are not obligated to pretend otherwise.
Mi-d’var sheker tirchak. Keep far from a false thing. Even when the false thing is dressed in the typography of the paper of record. Especially then.
Most applicants for green cards will need to go abroad to apply for permanent residency at an American Consulate, rather than filing from within the U.S. as they do now, the Trump administration announced Friday.
Under the new policy, most foreigners—from tech workers to spouses of U.S. citizens—would need to prove they have “extraordinary circumstances” to apply for permanent residency within the U.S., or else risk being denied. Most would need to go abroad to apply at a U.S. Consulate, where they risk losing whatever legal status they held in the U.S. and being unable to return.
The change marks a shift in how the U.S. immigration system has functioned for decades, and will affect immigrants in the country illegally as well as foreign professionals sponsored by U.S. companies.
The new approach would particularly affect the millions of immigrants who are living in the U.S. illegally, but gain legal status either by marrying a U.S. citizen or having U.S. citizen children sponsor them once the children turn 21. If an immigrant without legal status leaves the country, they could face anywhere from a three-year to a lifetime ban on returning.
“This policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivizing loopholes,” said U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman Zach Kahler in a statement. “When aliens apply from their home country, it reduces the need to find and remove those who decide to slip into the shadows.”
People with green card applications currently pending may be able to complete the process without leaving the country if they are determined to “provide an economic benefit,” though others may be asked to go abroad to a U.S. Consulate, Kahler said.
This is fair reporting, without opinion. Just the facts. But on the NBC News on Friday, their entire “news” report on this was slanted towards saying how unfair it was, interviewing lawyers and undocumented immigrants who weighed in against the decision (which is clearly made to cut down on illegal immigration). It was one of the most blatantly biased “news” stories that I have seen on major television news
In the run-up to the Feb. 28 attack on Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was not only in the Situation Room with President Trump, he was leading the discussion, predicting that a joint U.S.-Israeli strike could very well lead to the demise of the Islamic Republic.
Just a few weeks later, after those sanguine assurances proved inaccurate, the picture was starkly different. Israel was so thoroughly sidelined by the Trump administration, two Israeli defense officials said, that its leaders were cut almost entirely out of the loop on truce talks between the United States and Iran.
Starved of information from their closest ally, the Israelis have been forced to pick up what they can about the back-and-forth between Washington and Tehran through their connections with leaders and diplomats in the region as well as their own surveillance from inside the Iranian regime, said the two officials. Like others for this article, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
The banishment from the cockpit to economy class has potentially significant consequences for Israel, and especially for the prime minister, who faces an uphill re-election battle this year.
Mr. Netanyahu has long sold himself to Israeli voters as a kind of Trump whisperer, uniquely capable of enlisting and retaining the president’s support. In a televised speech early in the war, he portrayed himself as the president’s peer, assuring Israelis that he talked to Mr. Trump “almost every day,” exchanging ideas and advice, “and deciding together.”
He had led Israel to war in February with grand visions of achieving a goal he has pursued for decades: stopping Iran’s push for nuclear weapons once and for all. As the war began with a stunning decapitation of much of the government in Tehran, it seemed as though an even more grandiose dream might come true: the toppling of the regime.
But many in Mr. Trump’s inner circle had always viewed the idea of regime change as absurd. . . .
I’ll say it again: we will not stop Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons unless there is regime change. Trump now seem satisfied with an Iranian promise that “we won’t pursue nukes for 15 years”. But he’s president for only 2.5 more years, and Iran has violated agreements repeatedly. If people don’t know how much Iran wants nuclear weapons, they must be deaf or blind. The report above jibes with the news about a proposed peace deal that will be the subject of the next post.
*I’ve stopped subscribing to Andrew Sullivan’s column since he went full-on anti-Zio and anti-Israel a while back. But I will still get his lucubrations until my yearly fee runs out, And of course there are good and thoughtful bits among the bad. In his piece this week, “The ‘Learned Helplessness’ of 2026,” he had some advice for Democrats and an analysis why they’re advancing a message that will help them win.
Yes, the polls are showing a real slide for Trump. But it’s still incredible that a president this corrupt, this incompetent, and this vile still commands 37 percent support. Yes, this week there were some tiny signs that the constitutional corpse is twitching: maybe paying off violent criminals in a giant, far-right slush fund is not so great, and maybe a ballroom fit for a Russian oligarch can wait — mutter some men pretending to be Senators. But don’t kid yourselves. This is a one-man cult, not a party. They’ll cave. They always do.
And when you look at the alternative that’s supposed to rescue us, the learned helplessness really kicks in.
The Democrats are still ideologically split, have a lame bench of candidates for 2028, and haven’t shifted an iota from the positions that lost them the last election. Their 2024 “autopsy” says nothing of any consequence, and dodges the Biden age issue and the Harris uselessness issue. Even now, with Trump at 37 percent, “70 percent of all registered voters said they were dissatisfied with Democrats. 64 percent said the same of Republicans.” Does it get any more damning than that?\
The next paragraph is a severe but true indictment of what the Democratic party seems to stand for, though it’s largely from the “progressive” part of the party.
And yet the current Dem mood is to do nothing but win the midterms by default — then use that as an excuse to do nothing again. Check out the cross-tabs in the NYT poll. Only 38 percent of Dems think they need to shift on transing children or having boys compete with girls in sports. They still love mass migration and will promise another massive influx in 2028 (as long as it’s “orderly”). “White” is still a term of abuse. Gay men and lesbians are still “queers”. Men are still women and women are still men. When you ask Democrats what they mean by moderation, it’s the exact same far-left policies as Biden’s, but delivered more nicely. Woke isn’t dead. It’s merely waiting.
. . . . So many normie friends of mine have just stopped engaging the news. Every day, another headline is like another electric shock we have become used to. If you actually care — about America, the Constitution, basic decency — the psychic impact is greater: you will be slowly ground down into the dust. There is no point resisting and so, eventually, no point in even paying attention. Reason and deliberation are irrelevant.
That’s why, I suspect, so many very online folks have become crazy caricatures. It’s the only way to survive mentally. It’s psychologically Sisyphean to try to retain intellectual honesty or complexity or a grip on truth in this environment. So many people have just put on a performative partisan mask, and pander. The alternative — to keep being assailed by both sides with brutality and venom most humans naturally recoil from — becomes too much to bear.
I have tried to resist the depression this Weimar culture engenders. It’s my job. I’ve tried to tell the truth about both extremes. I haven’t given up on liberal democracy. But I’d be a fool to believe I have gotten anywhere these past ten years of trying. Trump’s re-election really was an extinction-level event for our former way of life. I was right in 2016. We could have escaped after 2020. But then Biden shat the bed.
All the mountains of ink spilt on Trump’s malfeasance? Hasn’t changed a thing. All the arguments about immigration, crime, transing children, and “white supremacy”? The Democrats are where they were in 2015 and not budging. Only the about-to-die — like Barney — have a chance of saying anything honest, and among Republicans, only those headed for the exits. Obama? A sphinx with a giant ugly stump in Chicago, Netflix gigs, and trips on yachts with billionaires. The few ordinary folks who have stood up in office? Like Massie, they’re just play-putty for the mad king.
Like the rest of us for the foreseeable future.
I am not going to argue about Sullivan’s views on Israel, as there’s nothing novel about them. He just hates the place, and I’m tired of his rants. But ehe lesson in this week’s column is that the Democrats need to clean up their act and realize what the country really wants (and that includes what Democratic voters want). Many voters have become news-weary, and I suspect that translates into a lack of motivation to go to the polls. I too am news-weary, but have to read it, and I will go to the polls.
*NASCAR driver Kyle Busch, one of the best there ever was, died suddenly last week at only 41. Up until now all we knew is that he called for a doctor while in a race, and was coughing up some blood. Earlier in may he reported a “sinus cold” and a caugh. He was taken to the hospital on May 21, where he died after a short while. Now it’s been revealed that he had “severe pneumonia that progressed into sepsis.”
Kyle Busch died after severe pneumonia progressed into sepsis, resulting in rapid and overwhelming associated complications, according to a statement released by his family.
Dakota Hunter, vice president of Kyle Busch Companies, said in a news release the family received the medical evaluation on Saturday.
Busch, a two-time NASCAR champion, died at 41 on Thursday, a day after passing out in a Chevrolet simulator.
Sepsis is considered a life-threatening medical emergency that occurs when the body has an extreme, overactive response to an infection, causing the immune system to damage its own tissues and organs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Typically the immune system releases chemicals to fight off pathogens like bacteria, viruses or fungi, but with sepsis the response goes into overdrive. The results can cause widespread inflammation, form microscopic blood clots and make blood vessels leak.
Busch was thought to have had a sinus cold while racing at Watkins Glen on May 10 and radioed in to his team saying that he needed a “shot” from a doctor after the race.
. . .Busch, who was preparing to race Sunday at the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, was testing in the Chevrolet racing simulator in Concord on Wednesday when he became unresponsive and was transported to a hospital in Charlotte, several people familiar with the situation told The Associated Press.
During the emergency call placed late that afternoon, an unidentified caller calmly told the dispatch: “I’ve got an individual that’s (got) shortness of breath, very hot, thinks he’s going to pass out, and is producing a little bit of blood, coughing up some blood.”
You can read about sepsis here. Busch and his wife had an 11-year old son (who plans to race) and a four-year-old daughter. It’s very sad. Please get your pneumonia shotl, though they’re recommended mostly for young children and adults over 50.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej enlightens Hili:
Hili: History repeats itself. Andrzej: Yes, but it stutters while doing it.
In Polish:
Hili: Historia się powtarza.
Ja: Tak, ale się przy tym jąka.
From Masih: two more Iranian political protestors executed:
While all the mainstream media are talking whether Ahmadinejad is going to replace Khamenei, innocent people are being executed in in Iran every day.
The New York Times, spent this week doing political analysis on a regime that, as you were reading it, was dragging two Kurdish… pic.twitter.com/L08K99ckGp
Posting will probably be limited to this very short Hili today; I am dispirited because the brood of nine mallards (plus mom) that I rescued yesterday was driven out of the pond area by aggressive mallards. I do not know if they will return. This is of course the second time this has happened, and it may well be a duckless summer. I will show pictures when I can bear to look at them.
The drakes are simply too aggressive and mean to permit new broods in the pond; there are too many of them and they attack the mother.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 23 Wikipedia page.
We have made it through the work week intact: it’s Friday, May 22, 2026 and World Paloma Day, celebrating a cocktail that I haven’t had, much less heard of. It sounds good: a mixture of tequila, lime, and either grapefruit soda like Squirt, or grapefruit juice. Here’s one from Wikipedia:
Special meals are eaten, consisting of dairy products. Common foods include cheese blintzes, quiches, and casseroles. Jews do not work on the day, although Jewish custom says that cooking, baking, carrying objects and equipment, and transporting fire are permitted. Jewish confirmations sometimes take place around the same time as the holiday.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 22 Wikipedia page.
Barney Frank, the brassy, lightning-quick former Massachusetts representative who for decades was the most prominent gay politician in the country and who was an author of the most significant overhaul of the nation’s financial regulations since the Great Depression, died on Tuesday at his home in Ogunquit, Maine. He was 86.
His friend James Segel confirmed the death. Mr. Frank said last month that he had entered hospice care with congestive heart failure.
Mr. Frank, a liberal Democrat who represented a diverse suburban Boston district for 32 years, starting in 1981, was the first gay member of the House to come out voluntarily; others had been outed in scandals. His public declaration of his sexual orientation in 1987 — spurred by a fear of being outed, by the death of a closeted colleague and by his own determination to show that homosexuality was nothing to be ashamed of — helped normalize being openly gay in public life.
“Prejudice is based on ignorance,” Mr. Frank told The Boston Globe in 2011, as he prepared to retire. “And the best way to counterbalance it is with a living example, with reality.”
A Harvard-trained lawyer, Mr. Frank bristled with intellectual firepower, acidic turns of phrase and a zest for verbal combat.
His shivs were often cloaked in wit. Referring to the Moral Majority, the conservative Christian organization that opposed abortion but also opposed child nutrition programs and day care, Mr. Frank said in 1981: “From their perspective, life begins at conception and ends at birth.” Of the flawed intelligence behind the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that led to nearly a decade of combat, he said the problem “is not so much the intelligence as the stupidity.”
In Washingtonian magazine’s annual poll of Capitol Hill staffers, he was frequently voted the “brainiest,” “funniest” and “most eloquent” member of the House.
Here’s a two-minute memorial to Frank showing some of his own words:
House Republicans on Thursday abruptly canceled a vote on a resolution directing President Trump to withdraw U.S. forces from Iran or win approval from Congress to continue the war, after it became clear they lacked the votes to defeat the measure.
The retreat was a striking setback that exposed fractures within the G.O.P. over the conflict at a moment when the party has begun pushing back forcefully on Mr. Trump and his agenda.
And in the Senate, Republicans are peeved at Trump’s self-aggrandizing deal with the IRS, which could prevent him from ever being audited and compensate his friends who were “unjustly” treated by the law, like the insurrectionists of January 6. In response, they canceled a vote approving an immigration crackdown.
When Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, arrived at the Capitol on Thursday to meet with Republicans questioning the Justice Department fund that President Trump has said he wants to use to pay people who claim to have been unfairly targeted by the government, he may have expected a few strident complaints.
Instead, what unfolded in an ornate room just off the Senate floor on Thursday morning was a two-hour blowup in which dozens of Republican senators vented their anger and concern about the president’s fund at Mr. Blanche.
They questioned its legal basis, whom it would pay and how the process would work. And they made it clear they wanted no part of the plan, the product of a deal struck between Mr. Trump’s lawyers and his own administration to use money that Congress does not control to pay off purported victims of government mistreatment, potentially including some of the rioters who violently assaulted their workplace during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.
By the end, Republicans were so livid that party leaders scrapped planned votes on the party’s top priority — a $72 billion immigration crackdown measure it had planned to muscle through before Memorial Day — punting action for fear of having to cast votes on the fund.
It’s strange: Trump is showing muscle in getting his approved Republican candidates winning in primary elections, but the Congress is showing strong disapproval of his policies.
The Justice Department announced charges on Wednesday against Raúl Castro, the 94-year-old former president of Cuba, accusing him of murder and a conspiracy to kill American citizens stemming from the fatal downing 30 years ago of two planes over waters off the coast of his country.
The indictment, issued in Federal District Court in Miami, was an extraordinary escalation of the Trump administration’s multifaceted pressure campaign against Cuba’s Communist government at a moment when President Trump has been seeking to topple it.
The charges brought to bear on Mr. Castro, the brother of Fidel Castro, the vast powers of the U.S. criminal justice system, saddling him with a possible maximum penalty of life in prison. They also raised the possibility that the United States could be paving the way for its military to remove him from the country through a means similar to how U.S. Special Operations forces used an indictment against Nicolás Maduro, the former leader of Venezuela, to swoop into Caracas in a brazen operation in January and capture him.
The indictment, which also accused five fighter pilots involved in the attack on the planes, was secretly returned last month by a federal grand jury and built on earlier charges, first filed in 2003, against one of them.
At a news conference in Miami, the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, and Jason A. Reding Quiñones, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, accused Mr. Castro and the pilots of killing four people when the Cuban military shot down the planes on the afternoon of Feb. 24, 1996. The planes were operated by Brothers to the Rescue, a Cuban exile group that often scoured the seas for Cubans fleeing the country.
Fidel Castro took responsibility for downing the planes shortly after they were brought from the sky, claiming that the organization had been dropping anti-regime leaflets over Havana in earlier flights. The indictment said that Raúl Castro was also responsible because he and his brother were “the final decision makers” in the Cuban military chain of command.
The wife of one of the men killed in the February 24, 1996 attack was on the news last night, saying that her husband was an American citizen (her point was that this supported the murder indictment against Castro). I don’t think the U.S. should be invading other countries and removing their leaders, as they did with Maduro, but if I were Raúl Castro, I would go into hiding. Given the ability of U.S. intelligence to use precise intelligence to capture people, as they did with Maduro, though, perhaps there is no safe place to hide. Whether you think attacking Cuba to apprehend a 94-year-old man is worthwhile is another question. There are other cases in which Americans unjustly executed on foreign soil have not been avenged in this way.
Noa Argamani, who was seized less than a week before her 26th birthday, spent 245 days captive in Gaza. After she was freed in a rescue mission, two men seen in the video holding back Argamani’s boyfriend were tracked down by Israeli intelligence officials and killed in separate airstrikes.
The men were crossed off a list of thousands of names kept by an Israeli task force created for one job—to kill or capture all who planned or joined in the Oct. 7 attack, said current and former Israeli officials. Hundreds have been struck from the list, in one of the most personal and highly technical targeting campaigns in the history of warfare. The campaign continues amid the demands of the war with Iran and a cease-fire agreement in Gaza.
No participant is deemed too insignificant—down to the man who drove a tractor through a border fence that day. Nearly two years after he breached the border, the tractor driver was identified, located and blown up in an airstrike as he walked a narrow urban street in Gaza, according to footage released by Israel’s military.
The campaign spans the rank-and-file to Hamas’s top leaders. On Friday, Israel killed Ezzedin al-Haddad, one of the last living senior militants from the group’s military leadership that planned the Oct. 7 attacks. He had been Hamas’s military commander in Gaza since 2025.
“The IDF will continue to pursue our enemies, strike them and hold accountable everyone who took part in the October 7th massacre,” Israel’s military chief Eyal Zamir said Saturday after Haddad’s killing was confirmed.
Militants who videotaped their Oct. 7 exploits on phones or GoPro cameras to share on social media, or those who phoned home to brag, learned too late the degree of Israel’s surveillance acumen and desire for retribution.
Security forces mark men for death without trial if they find at least two pieces of evidence showing they took part in crimes during the Oct. 7 attacks, according to current and former Israeli security officials. Agents from military intelligence and Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, pore over militants’ videos posted on social media, these officials said.
Agents run the images through facial recognition programs to sift for names, the officials said, and comb through intercepted phone calls. They view location data from cell tower logs and interrogate Gazan detainees to uncover who did what.
Despite the October cease-fire with Hamas and release of the last surviving hostages, names continue to be crossed off the list. Israel says it kills targets who allegedly pose a threat, such as approaching the front lines or planning an attack.
. . .Israeli agents, after failing to prevent the Oct. 7 attack, approached the head of Shin Bet to set up a task force they named NILI. It is a Hebrew acronym for the words, “The Eternal One of Israel Doesn’t Lie.” The name, first used by a band of World War I-era Jewish spies, signified that no one identified in the attack would be forgotten.
The campaign is centered in Gaza but has struck Hamas leaders in Lebanon and Iran. It echoes Israel’s assassinations of a dozen or so Palestinians responsible for killing 11 of its athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972.
“The clear message to all future enemies is to think again about the price of a terrorist operation like that,” said Shalom Ben Hanan, a former senior official in Shin Bet.
The issue, of course, is whether this is a deterrent given that many jihadis apparently want to be martyrs, and may not be deterred by such Israeli revenge. (It’s another issue whether Israel should be killing these people instead of capturing them and trying them; one problem with that is that prisoner swaps often dramatically shorten long sentences.)
While the show’s cancellation carries the stench of suspected political interference for many fans and viewers, its conclusion also comes at a moment of seismic changes for the classic television format.
“Like all broadcast television, it was cultural glue. We all fed from the same cultural trough at the same time,” said Robert Thompson, a Syracuse University professor of television and popular culture. “That is gone and only remains in a few pockets, and those pockets are falling one by one. When Colbert leaves, another one of those important pockets will have fallen.”
. . .We no longer choose from a handful of late-night hosts to get our fix ofbreezy celebrity interviews; there’s a seemingly endless supply of video podcasts for that. And airing in Colbert’s place starting Friday? A decidedly non-topical comedy show, “Comics Unleashed,” that CBS isn’t even paying to make. In fact, CBS is being paid to air it.
It’s quite the conclusion for “The Late Show,” a program that debuted in an era when late night was so important to network television that the ratings rivalry was dubbed a “war.” The program premiered in 1993, born out of a beef between Letterman and Jay Leno over who would inherit Johnny Carson’s vaunted perch as host of “The Tonight Show.” Letterman got passed over, went to CBS and started a rival program with a hefty contract.
When Colbert took over from Letterman in 2015, the late-night show still reigned supreme — in part because of renewed cultural relevance after Jon Stewart began hosting “The Daily Show” and turned late-night into urgent political satire. (He also introduced most of America to one particularly deadpan correspondent: Colbert.) A rash of similar shows premiered across networks and streaming services.
A host “getting up, telling a bunch of jokes, sitting down at a desk and interviewing people is the fussiest, most old-fashioned thing in the world,” Thompson said. “The paradox is that, starting in 2000, the late-night talk show completely transformed itself.”
Hosts’ monologues and jokes were constant internet fodder, and celebrities still needed to go on the talk-show circuit to promote new movies. Colbert, on “The Late Show,” found his footing with funny and unexpectedly profound interviews, but also by getting political. It was the first Trump administration, and there was no shortage of material in skewering the first reality TV star turned president.
But as the years went on, people increasingly turned to the internet for entertainment and away from linear television. Broadcastaudiences declined, including for late night. Colbert would top the ratings among his peers, but the overall pie was much smaller. Meanwhile, video podcasts have boomed.This is the new late night: stars sitting for multiple celebrity-hosted podcasts during the same press tour, and on each show, having the whole episode to themselves.
I have to admit that when I want to watch celebrity interviews and the like, as when I’m going down rabbit holes on YouTube, I wind up listening to Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel and regular late-night t.v. hosts rather than podcasts. The interviews are shorter and sharper, and the hosts were simply damn tood at their jobs. And, frankly, since I spend a lot of the day reading the news (which includes mockery of politicians), that’s the last thing I want to hear to relax. This is the kind of stuff I prefer to podcasts:
*Speaking of podcasts, readers know, I’m not a fan and hardly ever listen to them (I can read much faster than listen). Over at the Free Press, Liel Leibovitz likens them to a faith in “The strange religion of the American podcast.” (Maybe that’s why I’ve avoided them!)
As you read these lines, the single greatest event in American history has already unfolded: Candace Owens has interviewed Hunter Biden on her podcast, in an episode that will drop on Thursday. Hookers, blow, shady deals with Ukraine—there’s no telling what we’re going to learn.
All right, so perhaps the interview isn’t exactly the single greatest event in American history—the Battle of Yorktown is a slightly better fit for the title—but many of us no longer live in America. We live in the People’s Republic of Podcastistan, where Candace is queen and every new revelation is just the greatest, the wackier the better.
In case you’re new to our fantasyland, here, in no obvious order, are a few gems shared recently by our most popular podcast hosts: Charlie Kirk was a literal time traveler who predicted his own death (Owens); Joseph Stalin was a great man whose birthday we should all be celebrating (Nick Fuentes); Israel manipulated America into fighting the war in Iran (Dave Smith); officers at the highest ranks of the military are telling their soldiers that the ultimate goal of the war in Iran is to usher in the return of Jesus Christ (Joe Rogan).
I could go on. After all, these hosts frequently sit down to bounce their outlandish theories off each other. Just this Monday, we were gifted with a three-hour conversation between Dave Smith and Nick Fuentes himself.
What ought we to make of this torrent of mind-bendingly, earth-shatteringly stupid pronouncements? Ask the medium’s many critics, and you’ll hear one of two prognostications.
The first is that the Era of the Podcast is over, done with, finished. Media malignancies metastasize rapidly these days, this argument goes, and podcasting as a medium spread so quickly and aggressively that it eventually killed its host body. Now, podcasting has become just a bunch of hotheads chatting with one another and competing to see who can come up with the most outrageous conspiracy theories—so people have simply stopped taking the medium seriously.
Not so fast, argues theory No. 2: Podcasts are still popular.
. . . . So, which of these theories is true? Is Podcastistan growing stronger, or is it collapsing in on itself?
The answer, sadly, is both.
Pay close attention, and you’ll see that your average superstar podcast host is busy building a theological universe for the social media age.
They borrowed the cadences and clout of religious fervor to deliver something new and intoxicating—a hermetically sealed universe where nothing is true and everything is permitted.
No one, alas, does it better than Owens. Her insistence that Charlie Kirk was actually, literally, and physically a time traveler was met with much derision—look at that nutjob Candace!—but it was actually extraordinarily sophisticated. People, Owens realizes, are innate believers. Tear down their churches and their synagogues, tell them the faiths of their fathers are bad and oppressive and passé, and they’ll merely look for something else to believe. In telling her listeners that Kirk was a time traveler, that he always knew he would die young, that he was “marked since he was a child,” Owens turns Kirk into that “something,” cloaking his life and death in the kind of religious language that inspires rabid devotion. Call it the law of spiritual thermodynamics: Spiritual energy never dissipates, it just searches for a different form.
Other examples of religiously tinged performances abound. Theo Von, for example, has transformed himself from a dudebro par excellence into something like a St. Augustine with a mullet, regularly engaging in teary on-air confessions about faith, shame, and trauma. And after Joe Rogan riffed on Von’s mental health on a recent episode, saying Von’s use of antidepressants “freaks” him out, Von responded, “Sad to see this kind of stuff”—compelling Rogan to apologize publicly with an earnest, lengthy mea culpaexploring friendship, loyalty, and love.
The religious element of this second interaction is evident less in the language than in the collaboration itself. That Rogan spends so much time talking about—and to—Von is no coincidence. The principals of Podcastistan love having each other on their shows not because theirs is a tiny and airless bubble, but because they realize that there’s nothing more appealing to an audience than feeling you’re being let into a small and persecuted circle of courageous truth-tellers. . . .
This is all Greek to me, as I don’t watch these things. I can’t see any reason to watch Owens save to marvel at her insanity, canny or not, and I can take only about a minute of Rogan. Perhaps, when it comes to podcasts, I’m an atheist.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has no time for persiflage:
Sharon: I need to tell you something. Hili: Not now, I’m thinking about serious matters.
In Polish:
Szaron: Muszę ci coś powiedzieć.
Hili: Nie teraz, myślę o poważnych sprawach.
Big muscles wrapped in too-low body fat is uncomfortable to cuddle, and means the fella is gonna be counting not just his but your calories/macros, obsessively.
From Captain Ella (really a Lt. Col.), the official Arabic spokesperson for the IDF (yes, she’s a Muslim). The translation from the Arabic is below:
On the eve of the blessed Eid al-Adha, I toured the various fronts to listen to the latest field assessments, and there I met the sons of the Israeli community—Muslims, Druze, Christians, and Jews—standing shoulder to shoulder in defense of humanity and the home.
From the south of #Lebanon to the #Gaza Strip, I saw our youth in the field… the guardians of this country, and the watchful eye that never sleeps.
May this Eid bring with it goodness, security, and peace of mind for all.
Wishing you all a happy Eid
قبيل عيد الأضحى المبارك، تجولتُ في مختلف الجبهات لأستمع إلى آخر التقييمات الميدانية، وهناك التقيتُ بأبناء المجتمع الإسرائيلي، من المسلمين والدروز والمسيحيين واليهود، يقفون جنبًا إلى جنب دفاعًا عن الإنسان وعن البيت.
Yesterday the Prime Minister’s team won the Premier League for the first time in two decades, today the Prince of Wales’ team won a trophy for the first time in three decades; anyone know who King Charles supports? https://t.co/yvHA8FvWFO
Hooray, it’s happy #worldbeeday !For 10 points can anyone tell me why these bees are called Pantaloon bees 😂😂😂😂Canon R5 and Sigma 150mm SS1/2000 F8. ISO8000Natural light handheld while laying down 👌🏿#bee #bees #macro
“Chiropractic” (a name that in my mind should really be “chiropracty”) is a form of treatment for various disorders in which the cure supposedly comes from mechanical manipulation of the body, especially the spine. It is considered “alternative medicine,” and, as Wikipedia says, is of dubious efficacy for everything:
Many chiropractors (often known informally as chiros), especially those in the field’s early history, have proposed that mechanical disorders affect general health, and that regular manipulation of the spine (spinal adjustment) improves general health. A chiropractor may have a Doctor of Chiropractic (D.C.) degree and be referred to as “doctor” but is not a Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) or a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.). While many chiropractors view themselves as primary care providers, chiropractic clinical training does not meet the requirements for that designation. A small but significant number of chiropractors spread vaccine misinformation, promote unproven dietary supplements, or administer full-spine x-rays.
There is no compelling evidence that either primary or maintenance chiropractic adjustment is effective for any symptoms or diseases, including low back pain. A 2011 critical evaluation of 45 systematic reviews concluded that the data included in the study “fail[ed] to demonstrate convincingly that spinal manipulation is an effective intervention for any condition.” Conclusions about cost-effectiveness are limited by low-quality studies, uncertainty about efficacy, and insufficient evidence.
There is not sufficient data to establish the safety of chiropractic manipulations. It is frequently associated with mild to moderate adverse effects, with serious or fatal complications in rare cases. There is controversy regarding the degree of risk of vertebral artery dissection, which can lead to stroke and death, from cervical manipulation.Several deaths have been associated with this technique and it has been suggested that the relationship is causative, a claim which is disputed by many chiropractors.
Here’s the meta-analysis article referenced by Wikipedia, click to access:
Part of the paper’s abstract:
Results Forty-five systematic reviews were included relating to the following conditions: low back pain (n=7), headache (n=6), neck pain (n=4), asthma (n=4), musculoskeletal conditions (n=3), any non-musculoskeletal conditions (n=2), fibromyalgia (n=2), infant colic (n=2), any medical problem (n=1), any paediatric conditions (n=1), carpal tunnel syndrome (n=1), cervicogenic dizziness (n=1), dysmenorrhoea (n=1), gastrointestinal problems (n=1), hypertension (n=1), idiopathic scoliosis (n=1), lateral epicondylitis (n=1), lower extremity conditions (n=1), pregnancy and related conditions (n=1), psychological outcome (n=1), shoulder pain (n=1), upper extremity conditions (n=1) and whiplash injury (n=1). Positive or, for multiple SR, unanimously positive conclusions were drawn for psychological outcomes (n=1) and whiplash (n=1).
Conclusion Collectively these data fail to demonstrate convincingly that spinal manipulation is an effective intervention for any condition
Based on the reports of fatalities associated with this procedure (see here for one study of 26 deaths from arterial dissection associated with neck manipulation), I would avoid this therapy: as the paper says, “The risks of this treatment by far outweigh its benefit.”
A new article in the NYT, however, while warning people of using chiropractic for most things, says that it can be useful in alleviating lower back pain. Click below to read it and you may find it archived here (I can’t access it). We thus have a contradiction between the paper and the analysis above.
From the article:
While chiropractors often refer to themselves as doctors, their degree is different from medical doctors.
To practice in the United States, chiropractors typically attend a four-year program where they take courses in basic science and lifestyle and nutrition counseling. They also learn how to perform manual adjustments, which involve putting pressure onto the joints and creating a deep stretch in the tiny muscles that connect the spine’s vertebrae, said William Lauretti, a professor of integrated chiropractic therapies at Northeast College of Health Sciences and a spokesman for the American Chiropractic Association.
(The popping sound heard during this adjustment is a result of gas being released from the fluid that surrounds your joints. While satisfying, Mr. Lauretti said the sound is not the goal of the adjustment.)
After training, chiropractors must pass a national board exam to be eligible for state licensure.
What chiropractors can and can’t do depends on where they practice. For example, in Oregon chiropractors are legally allowed to deliver babies (though they do so rarely) and perform very minor surgery, like stitches and removing skin tags. New York, which has stricter laws for chiropractors, requires them to focus to spinal conditions.
Many insurers will cover many services offered by chiropractors, including adjustments, nutrition counseling and X-rays. Medicare coverage is more stringent, often only covering adjustments, though chiropractors are lobbying Congress to change this.
The paper does say that they’re of some use for lower back pain, in contrast to the Wikipedia article, but I would still consult a genuine M.D. for any pain. As for neck pain, I myself would stay far away:
Chiropractors advertise their services for a wide range of conditions: back pain, arthritis, diabetes, asthma and ear infections. But what the research says chiropractors are effective at treating is doesn’t necessarily match up.
There’s robust evidence that shows chiropractic adjustments can be mildly to moderately effective at managing lower back pain, said Christine Goertz, a professor of musculoskeletal research at the Duke Clinical Research Institute and a licensed chiropractor. An analysis of 47 randomized controlled trials — often considered the gold standard of scientific evidence — determined that manual manipulation was equally effective as treatments like acupuncture or massage therapy.
The article referenced above is from the British Medical Journal, and you can find it here. Back to the NYT:
And the risks of side effects are low compared to some other common interventions, like anti-inflammatory medications and corticosteroid injections. Fractures or other serious complications from spinal manipulation are possible but rare, occurring in roughly 1 per 2 million manipulations, according to one study.
“It is at least as good as, or maybe a little bit better than, other care options for low back pain,” Dr. Goertz said. (Though, as skeptics note, treatments for lower back pain are not very effective in general.)
There is less evidence supporting the use of chiropractic treatment for neck pain. A review of six studies found that chiropractic adjustments did improve acute neck pain. However, the researchers noted that more research was needed to draw any firm conclusion, since many of the studies had only a small number of participants and other limitations.
Some doctors advise against manipulating the neck because of the potential risk of arterial dissection, in which vessels that supply blood to the brain are torn. This can lead to stroke or death. Some analyses have suggested an association between neck adjustments and this injury, but it’s not clear there is a causal link.
I don’t know of a causal link between the spine’s position and stuff like diabetes and ear infections, so I would never go to a chiropractor for anything. But I’m sure some readers have, and perhaps they’ve been helped, though there’s no blind test with individual readers’ cases. If you have experience with chiropractic, describe it below. Note: I am not touting this therapy; use your own judgement. As I said, I will never use it myself.
The article ends with a section on what you should look for if you’re shopping for chiropractors, but I’ll let you read that yourself.
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From the article: