Despite its uselessness, homeopathy persists

June 18, 2026 • 9:15 am

Homeopathy is one of the biggest scams I know of.  The products have no curative properties and yet people spend billions on them. And, as Dara O’Briiain says in the bit below, “It’s JUST WATER.” (h/t Andrew Petto:

First, the NIH describes its uselessness and the principles said to underlie it. Some products could even be dangerous!

What do we know about the effectiveness of homeopathy?

  • There’s little evidence to support homeopathy as an effective treatment for any specific health condition.

What do we know about the safety of homeopathic products?

  • Some products labeled as homeopathic may contain substantial amounts of active ingredients and could cause side effects and drug interactions.

What Is Homeopathy?

Homeopathy, also known as homeopathic medicine, is a medical system that was developed in Germany more than 200 years ago. It’s based on two unconventional theories:

  • “Like cures like”—the notion that a disease can be cured by a substance that produces similar symptoms in healthy people.
  • “Law of minimum dose”—the notion that the lower the dose of the medication, the greater its effectiveness. Many homeopathic products are so diluted that no molecules of the original substance remain.

Homeopathic products come from plants (such as red onion, arnica [mountain herb], poison ivy, belladonna [deadly nightshade], and stinging nettle), minerals (such as white arsenic), or animals (such as crushed whole bees). Homeopathic products are often made as sugar pellets to be placed under the tongue; they may also be in other forms, such as ointments, gels, drops, creams, and tablets. Treatments are “individualized” or tailored to each person—it’s common for different people with the same condition to receive different treatments. Homeopathy uses a different diagnostic system for assigning treatments to individuals and recognizes clinical patterns of signs and symptoms that are different from those of conventional medicine.

There is no empirical basis for either of these two “theories”, and many homeopathic products are basically water, since the “like” substance has been eliminated through multiple dilutions (see below), and in principle can have no curative properties.

According to Grok (data from S&S insider), billions are spent on this scam, and the market is growing as people buy into “natural” remedies:

 

The U.S. Homeopathy Market was valued at approximately USD 4.12 Billion in 2025 and is expected to reach approximately USD 13.38 Billion by 2035, growing at a CAGR of 12.50%.

The U.S. is the second largest market for homeopathic drugs globally in terms of revenues. OTC homeopathic remedies for symptoms such as cough, cold, pain, sleep aid, and pediatric use can be found at major retail outlets like CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart as well as natural food stores. Hyland’s Homeopathic and Boiron are the leading brands. The FDA regulation of homeopathic products under the OTC drug paradigm has been increasingly progressive. The FDA’s risk-based regulatory strategy enhanced product regulation without taking out commercialized products from store shelves.

The world market for homeopathic remedies is $12-15 billion per year, but Americans spend more on this scam than any other nationality (India is second with about $1 billion/year).  I’ve seen homeopathic remedies in most of the U.S. chains mentioned, and if you want to see the big array of homeopathic remedies in Whole Foods, go here.  (You can go to any of the chains and simply insert “homeopathic” into their search function.)

It would be nice if the quacks health experts in the Trump administration would denounce these products as useless, but you know that ain’t gonna happen.  In fact, people are still publishing papers touting homeopathic remedies, as recounted in the article below from the (usually) rational site Science Based Medicine (SBM). The author’s description shows he has cred:

The author is described in the article: “Mark Crislip, MD has been a practicing Infectious Disease specialist in Portland, Oregon, from 1990 to 2023. He has been voted a US News and World Report best US doctor, best ID doctor in Portland Magazine multiple times, has multiple teaching awards and, most importantly,  the ‘Attending Most Likely To Tell It Like It Is’ by the medical residents at his hospital.”

His Wikipedia page also says that Crislip is a co-founder of SBM.  Click headline to read:

It’s a bit of a strange article, disursive, and with the author bent on getting attachment to homeopathic remedies classified as a “delusional disorder.” It really is, but I doubt it would make the DSM given that many of us are subject to delusions like this. The problem is that this delusion involves not only a huge waste of money, but also potential damage to health. People should not be diagnosing themselves and buying nostrums when there are doctors around. And so Crislip reminds us again to stop using these fricking remedieds.

A few of the papers that Crislip mentions.

. . . . homeopathy continues to be inflicted on patients by homeopaths and naturopaths in lieu of useful therapy. Much to my ongoing wonder, research on the fiction continues with around 200 papers indexed on the PubMeds in the last year. Like my recent journey down the rat hole that is chiropractic, let’s see what those delusional homeopaths have been up to in the last year or so. Of course I am not going to discuss all 200 plus papers, just those of interest to me. You know, the crazy stuff.

And right of the chute, first reference, first paragraph, is gibberish in Homeopathy at a Turning Point [JAC: this is in the journal Homeopathy as a “letter to the editor” so it’s not a paper]:

In the Hippocratic conception, medicine is a synthesis of technique, philosophy and humanism, but in essence it is nothing more than the expression of the living being to counter predestination. Its foundation is the dose–response relationship that a living organism expresses when perturbed by an external agent. In practice, however, this interpretation is defined by the knowledge, thought, economic means, politics and religious sentiment of the community to which the organism belongs.

The author is out of Italy and perhaps this is the best translation ChatGPT could do, although the paper does not get much more coherent. For example, what to make of

These findings lead me to define a homeopathic remedy as a “clathrate of clathrates of gas molecules”, present as nanobubbles.

Well, I doubt that “peer review” in this journal means anything, though it looks as if the letter was reviewd, but the letter is long and typical of the word salad involved in defenses of homeopathy.

The Journal of Integrative and Complementary Medicine has a big summary of all the theoretical underpinnings of homeopathy:

Not everyone agrees that homeopathy is a “clathrate of clathrates of gas molecules”, present as nanobubbles and there have been numerous attempts to justify the delusion by a variety of mechanisms by which water could have a therapeutic effect. Some are summarized in Mapping the Theories and Models on the Mode of Action of Homeopathy: A Scoping Review and found 72 theoretical approaches to justify homeopathy but reduced them to 14 largely nonoverlapping frameworks. Those frameworks are water structures, general physics, nanostructures, mathematical models, chemistry, quantum physics, biochemistry, weak quantum theory, hormesis, quantum analogie, biophotons, complex systems, electrodynamics, and humanities.

Another tendentious paper from the journal Homeopathy. I quote the SBM article:

Why does homeopathy fail to show efficacy in clinical trials? Not because homeopathy doesn’t work, but that

In homeopathy, however, where treatment is individualised, past and present context-sensitive, and closely related to the therapeutic encounter, RCTs cannot readily capture the core principles of practice.

or so says in Improving the Relevance of Research in Homeopathy. It suggests other, less rigorous, more pragmatic, evaluations of the delusion, since

While it’s important for us to understand how homeopathy works, it’s equally important to demonstrate that homeopathy does work

This paper is a “special editorial”, and tries to dismiss randomized control trials as ways to test homeopathy. From the article (bolding is mine):

Reading these pages and having attended the recent congress of the Homeopathy Research Institute, I’ve been heartened to see an increasing quantity and quality of scientific research in homeopathy being conducted from around the world. While it’s important for us to understand how homeopathy works, it’s equally important to demonstrate that homeopathy does work and I would like to see more practice-related research submitted to Homeopathy.

As readers are well aware, clinical trials are regarded as the gold standard in medical evidence and randomised placebo-controlled trials (RCTs), in particular, are central to the concept of evidence-based medicine. In homeopathy, however, where treatment is individualised, past and present context-sensitive, and closely related to the therapeutic encounter, RCTs cannot readily capture the core principles of practice.

Indeed, the RCT model is built on assumptions that directly conflict with homeopathic principles, focusing on uniform interventions and outcomes, imposing strict eligibility criteria that exclude many potential beneficiaries, and minimising interaction between the patient and the practitioner. Such demands for homogeneity strip away the features that define homeopathy and create an artificial clinical environment for the sake of trial design,[1] a mismatch that helps explain why results from homeopathy RCTs are often equivocal or contradictory. Two systematic reviews led by this journal’s esteemed Editor found only limited convincing efficacy after methodological flaws were accounted for.[2] [3] Does this mean homeopathy is ineffective…or rather that the RCT method is an inadequate basis for forming such a conclusion?

Note the list of reasons why the “gold standard” of testing medicines cannot be used here (e.g., it “minimizes interaction between the patient and the practitioner”, which of course you want to do so there is no placebo effect).  Indeed, the author (Lee Kayne) says that homeopathy has its own methods of demonstrating efficacy (they suggest case studies and “long-term cohort studies”.  That, of course, is a red flag indicating quackery. From the paper:

Opponents argue the former and that, by virtue of our claim that homeopathy cannot be forced into a conventional trial framework that seeks to measure efficacy within tightly controlled parameters, we are admitting it does not work. Yet at the same time, they refuse to accept that alternative methods of investigation and reporting might better reflect the effectiveness of homeopathic practice and outcomes in the real world. So it’s not evidence unless it’s ‘their’ evidence? Except when their evidence does not produce the outcomes they desire – then they may fail to publish the results  or simply note that “many RCTs can render…results of little relevance to clinical practice”.

To be sure, the journal does publish failures of the method. From the SBM article:

. . . if you have a rigorous study, like Homeopathy for Chronic Non-specific Low Back Pain: Randomised, Double-Blind, Crossover, Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial Investigating the Efficacy of rigorhe Biotherapic Lumbar Vertebra (BIOVERT Trial), you find

No specific effect of the Lumbar Vertebra LM2 biotherapic was demonstrated. Improvements are likely due to non-specific effects such as the therapeutic environment, patient expectations and placebo response.

Although I could not find what the standardized homeopathic biotherapic (Lumbar Vertebra, LM2 potency) was. I was curious what was used applying the so-called Law of Similars. How does one use, say, chopping wood (gives me low back pain) as a homeopathic remedy. Not out of the question for a delusion that can prescribe moonlight. And homeopaths want to be taken seriously.

Here’s one in which Crislip cites a paper in the Journal of Ayurveda and integrative Medicine. It’s a case study, of course:

I do not think homeopaths are intentionally funny, but you have to wonder with articles like

Cystic swelling and inflammation of MCL of knee joint managed with homeopathy; a case study with literature review and diagnostic pitfalls

Following a thorough case evaluation, the patient was prescribed Ruta graveolens 200CH, followed by Thuja occidentalis 200CH. The anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor, and anti-cancer properties of both these medicines have been thoroughly demonstrated via many scientific experiments.

One in vitro paper each, both evaluating actual chemicals, would be two, so technically many. And where is the like cures like in the treatment?

The paper above touts homeopathy as a cure for cancer, and I believe “200CH” means the “curative” substance is diluted 1:100, and this is done 200 times in succession. Nothing remains of the original “curative” substance. This is considered “high potency”!  Be sure to look at the dilution factor if you are foolish enough to buy homeopathic remedies. Also be sure to see what else is in there.

Cancer and tuberculosis? No problem for homeopathy.  The last quote from the SBM paper:

Some papers seem to be written to scare those attached to reality:

Integrating Traditional Medicine with Conventional Therapies to Combat Tuberculosis: A Comprehensive Review. Yeah. Let’s treat TB with homeopathy. That’s gonna work.

and

Exploring Holistic Healing of Cancer: German New Medicine (GNM) and Homeopathic Treatment Beyond Traditional Therapies And let’s treat cancer with homeopathy, since cancer is due to emotional trauma and amenable to homeopathic treatment. OH GOD, OH MAN, OH GOD, OH MAN.

And that’s what I could suffer through, er, I mean, found for homeopathy in 2025.

I get angry when I see homeopathic “remedies” sold in presumably reputable stores, and think about the waste of money involved when poor suckers (and I include the ignorant) buy the stuff.  And ignorance of science is no excuse, because it takes only a few minutes to find reputable sources online that tell you why homeopathy is worthless (e.g., here and here).

Thursday: Hili dialogue

June 18, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to Thursday, June 18, 2026, and National Cheesemakers Day. Bless them all! Here is a picture of the cheese platter in one of my erstwhile favorite restaurants in Paris (Astier), where you could have as much and as many cheeses as you wanted after dinner.

And one of my favorite cheese stores in Paris. This is a but a small part of the selection, with the goat cheeses on the bottom shelf. Choose three of these, a baguette, and a bottle of wine, and you’ll have the makings of a fine picnic:

It’s also, coincidentally, International Picnic Day, International Sushi Day, and World Tapas Day.

There’s a World Cup Google Doodle today; click on the icon below to see where it goes:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 18 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

Footie news: England beat Croatia 4-2. From the BBC:

England made a winning start to their World Cup campaign as they overpowered Croatia in a thriller in Dallas.

Thomas Tuchel’s side demonstrated strength in attack and frailty in defence, but possessed the firepower to finally overcome Croatia and set the platform for progress in Group L.

Harry Kane put England ahead on 12 minutes with a twice taken spot-kick after Luka Modric fouled Noni Madueke, Croatia keeper Dominik Livakovic saving his first attempt but penalised for encroaching off his goalline.

Croatia, always dangerous opponents, were level after 36 minutes when Martin Baturina sent a powerful drive high past Jordan Pickford, who got a touch but could not keep the ball out.

Kane, inevitably, restored England’s lead three minutes before the break with a powerful header from Declan Rice’s corner, bringing him level with Gary Lineker on 10 World Cup goals, his 81st in 115 England appearances.

England, however, never looked at ease defensively, Croatia equalising again with a well-worked goal seconds before half-time, Petar Musa steering Ivan Perisic’s header beyond Pickford.

A video of the highlights (shorter videos aren’t available in the U.S.:

*The NYT has two views of the war, one from the U.S. side and the other from the Iranian.  The U.S. article reports that Trump is in a bind because, to look good, he has to make a better deal with  nukes than Obama did (article archived here).

Only minutes into a phone call to a New York Times reporter to explain the deal he had just agreed to with Iran, President Trump turned to an issue that clearly grates on him: the comparisons to the deal that President Barack Obama struck with Tehran in 2015.

The Obama deal, he said on Sunday evening, repeating a well-worn line, was “a disaster.”

“It was a road to a nuclear weapon and ours is a wall against a nuclear weapon in the truest sense of the word,” Mr. Trump said. “So let’s start there.”

Mr. Trump’s sensitivity is easy to understand. He campaigned against the Obama-era deal as far back as 2015, and ultimately killed it during his first term over the objections of many of his top national security aides. At the time, he had a long list of complaints about its failings. The 2015 accord “lifted crippling economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for very weak limits on the regime’s nuclear activity,” Mr. Trump said in a 2018 speech, and “no limits at all on its other malign behavior,” especially its support of terror activities around the Middle East.

. . .Now the moment of reckoning has come for Mr. Trump. He is caught in what could best be described as the Obama-deal bind.

The accord he described on Sunday is simply a cease-fire and an agreement to fully open the Strait of Hormuz for 60 days. It commits both sides to begin negotiating on the future of the nuclear program. So for now, there is no way to compare the old and new deals; they are completely different in nature.

Yet Mr. Trump clearly knows he must significantly improve upon Mr. Obama’s results in order to justify the huge human and economic cost of taking the United States to war over the past three months.

The 2015 deal resulted in shipping about 97 percent of Iran’s nuclear stockpile at the time out of the country. The fate of the current stockpile, a far more dangerous one, is undetermined, and Mr. Trump sounded on Tuesday as if he was in no rush to get the nuclear material out of Iranian territory. There is no resolution about how to deal with future nuclear research and enrichment activities inside Iran, or whether all of its major nuclear sites will be shut down. There is no discussion yet about limits on its missiles or of resumed support for what is left of militias it supports, such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.

Trump is out of his depth here, and so am I.  All I can say is that if Trump stops military activity now to negotiate for two months, it will be very hard for him to start military action again. Also, Iran always lies about its nuclear ambitions, and whatever deal is forged has to take that into account.

*And, on the other side, the NYT reports that (as expected), “Iran will enter nuclear talks feeling emboldened” (article archived here).

In the days after Iran and the United States reached a preliminary agreement to pause their war, Iranian politicians, generals, and clerics from a range of political factions described the deal as a victory that showed Tehran’s resilience against a far more powerful enemy.

That is the position Iran’s leaders are pushing even though the country lost a slew of its top political and military figures, suffered a battering to its stock of ballistic missiles and was left with an economy strained even further by a naval blockade.

“Iran has taken a major step toward final victory,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian Parliament who has played a major role in negotiating the deal, wrote on social media on Monday.

As negotiators were nearing an agreement, Sadegh Amoli Larijani, chairman of a powerful appointed council that supervises the work of the government, wrote on social media on Saturday that Iranians had shown a “renewed spirit of resistance” and defeated U.S.-Israeli plans to overthrow the Islamic republic.

. . . . The style of Iran’s leadership has also changed as a result of the war. Some pragmatic figures, such as the national security official Ali Larijani, were killed, while the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps — the military force that defends Iran’s system of clerical rule — has consolidated power. The long-term impact of those changes is still to be seen, but the shifts raise the question of how willing the military, now even more powerful, will be to make serious concessions at the negotiating table.

Mr. Trump’s rhetoric also appears to be adding to Iranian leaders’ confident tone. The American president has publicly excoriated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel for mounting attacks on Lebanon that nearly derailed the U.S.-Iran deal, and he has described Iran’s current leadership, including the supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, as pragmatists.

On Tuesday, Mr. Trump said Iran’s leadership was now “rational,” compared to, in his view, the leaders who were killed at the outset of the war.

According to Mr. Trump’s account of the deal, Iran is to allow shipping through the Strait of Hormuz — a return to the status quo before the war. But in what is perhaps an indication of the leverage Iran feels it has, Tehran has indicated that it intends to charge ships for passing through the strait, which it did not do before the war.

“Iran is certain to be emboldened by this deal,” said Mehrzad Boroujerdi, an Iran expert at Missouri University of Science and Technology. “I cannot recall another instance in which Iran suffered such serious military setbacks yet emerged with what could be considered a diplomatic victory.”

What the deuce does Trump mean by saying that Iran’s leadership is “rational”?  Of course it is; it’s getting what it wants. But it’s not rational in Trump’s sense, which means “seeing reason about nukes and terrorism.”  I always entertained the hope that Trump was playing some kind of clever game, but now it’s clear that he didn’t know what he was doing.

*The WSJ has an item-by-item explication and analysis of the “memorandum of understanding” that’s serving as a framework for the U.S./Iran ceasefire. I’ll give a few items.

1. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States, together with their allies in the current war, declare upon the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding an immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, and undertake that from now on they will not launch any hostile action against each other, and will refrain from the threat or use of force against each other. The final agreement will confirm the provisions of this Article and the remaining Articles.

WSJ analysis
The inclusion of Lebanon is highly controversial in Israel, which is fighting a war there with Hezbollah.

2. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States undertake to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to refrain from interfering in each other’s internal affairs.

WSJ analysis
President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began the war calling on Iranians to overthrow the regime, a goal that faded in Washington as the government in Tehran held firm.

4. Immediately upon the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, the United States Lift the naval blockade and prevent any interference or obstruction against the Islamic Republic of Iran, and restore traffic within a maximum of 30 days to its full capacity; the traffic of ships shall be proportional to the pre-war volume of traffic on the part of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States also undertakes to withdraw its forces from the surrounding areas within 30 days after the final agreement.

WSJ analysis
This is the meat of the initial deal, reopening the strategic Strait of Hormuz and winding down the war.

10. The United States undertakes that immediately after the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, and until the date of the lifting of sanctions, the United States Treasury Department will issue waivers for exports of Iranian crude oil, petrochemical products and their derivatives, and all related services, including banking, insurance, transportation, and the like.

WSJ analysis
A major upfront American concession freeing Iran to sell oil as it likes and reap the financial benefits.

13. Following the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, and upon receipt of assurances regarding the commencement of implementation of Articles 4, 5, 10, and 11 of this Memorandum of Understanding, and the continued implementation of these steps, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States will enter into negotiations for a Final Agreement solely with respect to the remaining Articles.

WSJ analysis
Limits the scope of discussion in the second phase, leaving out Iran’s ballistic missile program and its network of regional militias.

*Here’s Jonathan Conricus, who used to be the main spokesperson for the IDF but is now a non-IDF commenter, describing why the sentiment of the entire political spectrum in Israel is “bitterness towards Trump” and a feeling that the “evilian Iranian regime” has won at the negotiation table.

All I can say is to echo Bret Stephens:

I write this as someone who supported the war from the outset and hoped to see Trump carry it through to a decisive result: if not regime change, then at least a deal in which Iran would be forced to relinquish all of its enrichment capabilities and access to the Strait was unfettered. Those goals were well within the president’s reach, particularly if he had continued to attack Iran’s military-industrial infrastructure until it agreed to terms, rather than conducting most of the negotiations after the fighting had mostly stopped.

Iran is surely happy that it seems to have driven a wedge between the U.S. and Israel. And it’s not just Netanyahu, either: any Israeli PM who tries to defend Israel against terrorism can expect little help from Trump, and even less help from any future Democratic President.

*The Babbling Beaver, the spoof magazine of MIT, has highlighted Luana’s Heterodox STEM post which I wrote about the other day (she attended two lectures on “fat studies” that purveyed a lot of harmful misinformation). The Beaver’s piece is called “Williams College: Where the belly of the beast comes to weaponize fatties.” (Luana teaches at Williams.)

Williams College has developed a robust curriculum in what its more outspoken social justice warriors call Fat Studies. Regular offerings over the years have included a seminar titled Don’t Tell Me to Love My Body, a workshop on Fatphobia and Body Liberation, and sundry other learning opportunities where undergraduates could expand their consciousness to match their waistlines. A Williams biology professor, troubled by the assault on empirical science these events represent when it comes to health problems caused by obesity, recently published a careful and restrained account in Heterodox STEM, declining to name names out of professional courtesy.

The Babbling Beaver labors under no such compunctions.

The 2026 Michael A. Dively ’61 Lecture on LGBTQ+ Life and Cultures — endowed by a formerly closeted Republican Michigan state legislator who found his true calling funding queer theory at his alma mater — presents this year’s adipose luminary: , self-described “Black, fat, queer and trans theorist and abolitionist,” and author of Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness.

Harrison’s thesis, stated without embarrassment, is that observing a person’s obesity is an act of racism; that medicine’s interest in weight loss is rooted in white supremacy; and that the entire edifice of nutritional science is a racial project dressed up in a lab coat. Cornell’s gender studies department arrived at similar conclusions and responded with pole dancing therapy.

Harrison made it clear: your scale is racist, your doctor is a Klansman, and the Cheetos are innocent. Corpulent Williams students in attendance, each paying $84,000 a year for the privilege, nodded gravely. One was overheard whispering that the buffet table at the reception was, itself, a form of reparations.

Williams is paying for this. We all may be laughing but Williams’ STEM professoriate is not.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej is being the Jon Haidt of Poland:

Hili: Schools should bring back calligraphy lessons.
Andrzej: Why do you think that?
Hili:So children’s brains can take a break from clicking.

In Polish

Hili: Powinni w szkołach przywrócić lekcje kaligrafii.
Ja: Czemu tak sądzisz?
Hili: Żeby mózgi dzieci mogły odpocząć od klikania. So children’s brains can take a break from clicking.

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

Here’s the final iteration of a caricature of myself I made on ChatGPT. There are at least five changes from the previous version; can you spot them without looking back?

From Bad Spelling or Grammar on Signs and Notices:

From Cats Doing Cat Stuff: the fortune says, “You will take a chance in the near future.”

Masih is very quiet about what’s happening with Iran; I imagine she’s distraught.

From Larry, who notes (and it’s true) that some bars in Boston ran out of beer because of the thirst of Scottish soccer fans:

One I found about the ceasefire framework:

From Luana, a 216-page report of “grooming gangs” and “rape gangs” in the UK (report is here).

Two from my feed.  I think this first experiment needs a control: a man making noise and calling the horses but not making music:

Styling a hijab, which is not illegal:

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

Two from Dr. Cobb. First, stabilizing sexual selection: a male changing his courtship won’t appeal to females. But female preferences may change more easily:

These dune flies perform 41 courtship moves, but isolated populations still kept nearly identical routines. Only the timing of one wing movement showed a hint of divergence. doi.org/cmdm6b

— Science X / Phys.org (@sciencex.bsky.social) 2026-06-15T15:20:21-04:00

Matthew and the Matterhorn. He’s now spent a day in Lyon and is on his way to Arles, famous for being Van Gogh’s village:

Me below Sunnegga

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-06-15T13:32:30.285Z

“Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi

June 17, 2026 • 10:30 am

The other day I reported on the death of Marjane Satrapi, comic book creator (she preferred that term to “graphic novel”), film producer, and author.  She was only 56, and her family reported that she became depressed and “died of sadness” about a year after her partner, Mattias Ripa, died of cancer.  Wikipedia outlines her accomplishments, headed by the comic book Persepolis, which came in two volumes:

Her best-known works include the graphic novel Persepolis and its film adaptation; the graphic novel Chicken with Plums; Woman, Life, Freedom; and the Marie Curie biopic Radioactive.

The success of Persepolis established Satrapi as one of the most widely read Iranian authors in the world, and her role in co-directing the film adaptation led to her becoming the first woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Yesterday I finished the first volume of Persepolis, and was greatly moved by the illustrated account of Satrapi’s life in Iran, both under the Shah and thereafter.  Her disillusionment with 1979 Iranian Revolution is the centerpiece, and the illustrations are instrumental in conveying her feelings.

Below, the volume I read; click to go to the Amazon link, where it’s only about eight bucks. The publisher’s website is here, where you can buy both volumes in hardback.

Since I started reading this book, which won many awards, I’ve been surprised at how many people also know of it and have read it.  Besides Maus, which I thought was a masterpiece, and two volumes of The Rabbi’s Cat, which was also superb, this is the only “graphic novel” I’ve read.  I recommend it highly, and have asked Interlibrary Loan at the University of Chicago for the second volume.

Here are two pages from the book as reproduced by Emma Knopik , who gave it a favorable review on Medium.  Knopik’s explication of each page is indented:

I found page 43 particularly interesting. After a series of massacres and revolts, the Shah finally fled Iran and sought refuge with Anwar Al-Sadat in Egypt. Satrapi’s parents explain that although the Shah has left, people’s celebration will be ephemeral as long as the Middle East has oil. In this panel, her father’s expression shifts from his regular reassured, pleased look to a more cynical, concerned expression. Satrapi achieves this shift by raising his eyebrows, lowering his eyes and simplifying them, and turning his mustache downward as in a frown. The black background of the panel intensifies the unfortunate realization. Perhaps the most compelling panel on this page is the bottom left panel, that depicts Satrapi and her parents along with a dragon figure. The dragon represents the former Shah, and even though Satrapi’s parents are glad that the “devil” has left, this dragon figure exerts an invisible claw before the family. The dragon’s body acts to outline the panel, suggesting these figures unclenching control over Iranian’s lives.

This page below made a big impression on me. It depicts the death of many Iranian boys, age 14 and up, who were used as cannon fodder and trotted through minefields to find the mines (by being blown up, of course). Some of the boys were given plastic keys to wear around their necks, and assured that if they became “martyrs,” the key would let them into Paradise.

Knopik:

Additionally, page 102 illustrates the complex political situation in Iran that Satrapi was forced to process while also experiencing the staples of adolescence. The two panels on this page break from Satrapi’s smaller, more grid-like panelled pages. The top panel occupies a majority of the page, and it illustrates the young, impoverished children who were convinced to sacrifice their lives for religion. The figures are shown with the keys to paradise around their necks as they are dying in explosions. The figures are blurry and dark, with no distinguishing features, which illustrates the high degree to which they were robbed of their lives. The bottom panel depicts Satrapi going to a party and experimenting with a punk rock style that many teenagers cycle through. Unlike the children in the previous panel, Satrapi and her friends have distinguished facial features. Her friends’ poses while they dance mirror the children who are dying in the panel above.

The book is sad and moving in recounting Satrapi’s disillusionment with both the Shah and the mullahs, and the tales of her friends and relatives she lost who were tortured and executed. It’s a short read, and I recommend it highly.

Here’s Satrapi talking about Persepolis (she could speak six languages).

Although Satrapi was doubtful about whether her work could be made into an animated movie. In 2007 it was, directed and written by Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, and it’s supposed to be good. It certainly got a lot of awards and acclaim, including the Jury Prize (tied) at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007.

Here’s the trailer.

The “Memorandum of Understanding”

June 17, 2026 • 9:30 am

I understood that Trump was going to make public the “Memorandum of Understanding” (MoU) that laid out the framework for a peace deal between the U.S. and Iran, and was even going to read it aloud on television. That apparently didn’t happen, and if you look for the text of the MoU on the Internet, you see several versions. For example, the one I put below—the most comprehensive one I’ve seen—comes from Bloomberg News, but there are different versions at the NY Post and MEMRI.

Here’s from Bloomberg:

Below is the text of the 14-point draft memorandum, as seen by Bloomberg News.

  1. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States, together with their allies in the current war, declare upon the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding an immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, and undertake that from now on they will not launch any hostile action against each other, and will refrain from the threat or use of force against each other. The final agreement will confirm the provisions of this Article and the remaining Articles.

  1. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States undertake to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to refrain from interfering in each other’s internal affairs.

  2. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States undertake to negotiate and reach a final agreement within a maximum period of 60 days, extendable by mutual consent.

  3. Immediately upon the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, the United States Lift the naval blockade and prevent any interference or obstruction against the Islamic Republic of Iran, and restore traffic within a maximum of 30 days to its full capacity; the traffic of ships shall be proportional to the pre-war volume of traffic on the part of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States also undertakes to withdraw its forces from the surrounding areas within 30 days after the final agreement.

  4. Upon signing this Memorandum of Understanding, the Islamic Republic of Iran will immediately take steps to ensure that the movement of merchant ships from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of ​​Oman and vice versa is resumed within 30 days to the pre-war volume, taking into account the need for the removal of technical obstacles and the neutralization of mines by Iran.

  5. The United States undertakes, together with its regional partners, to create a comprehensive plan agreed upon by both parties for the rehabilitation and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran, While ensuring financing of at least $300 billion. The implementation mechanism of this plan, as part of the final agreement, will be formulated within 60 days.

  6. The United States commits to ending, on a schedule to be agreed upon as part of the final agreement, all types of sanctions currently facing the Islamic Republic of Iran, including resolutions of the United Nations Security Council and the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and all unilateral U.S. sanctions, both primary and secondary.

  7. The Islamic Republic of Iran reiterates that it will never produce nuclear weapons. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States have agreed that the fate of enriched material and the fate of all other mutually agreed nuclear-related issues, including Iran’s nuclear needs, will be adequately addressed in a final agreement; the final agreement will confirm the provisions of this Article.

  8. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States agree that, pending a final agreement, they will maintain the status quo: Iran will maintain the status quo on its nuclear program, and the United States will not impose new sanctions on Iran or strengthen its forces in the region.

  9. The United States undertakes that immediately after the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, and until the date of the lifting of sanctions, the United States Treasury Department will issue waivers for exports of Iranian crude oil, petrochemical products and their derivatives, and all related services, including banking, insurance, transportation, and the like.

  10. The United States undertakes that, in light of the progress of negotiations towards a final agreement, frozen or restricted funds and assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran will be released and made fully available. These funds, whether held in the master account or transferred, will be used for any final beneficiary payment determined by the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran and will be fully available for use. The United States undertakes to issue all necessary permits and licenses on this basis.

  11. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States agree that an implementation mechanism will be established to oversee the successful implementation of and future commitment to the Final Agreement.

  12. Following the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, and upon receipt of assurances regarding the commencement of implementation of Articles 4, 5, 10, and 11 of this Memorandum of Understanding, and the continued implementation of these steps, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States will enter into negotiations for a Final Agreement solely with respect to the remaining Articles.

  13. The final agreement will be approved through a binding resolution of the UN Security Council.

Note several things about this version:

a) It declares a cessation of hostilities in Lebanon (i.e., Israel and Hezbollah will stop fighting), though Israel did not sign on to this agreement.

b) A “final agreement” is to be signed within 60 days, and that doesn’t mean “final agreement about nuclear weapons,” but final about all stipulations

c) The Strait of Hormuz is to be reopened: “the Islamic Republic of Iran will immediately take steps to ensure that the movement of merchant ships from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of ​​Oman and vice versa is resumed within 30 days to the pre-war volume.”  It does not say that the movement will be unimpeded by fines or fees that could be charged by Iran

d) The agreement stipulates that Iran will “never produce nuclear weapons”, and the final agreement will address what will be done with enriched uranium.

e) The U.S. agreed that all “frozen or restricted funds and assets” of Iran will be unfrozen, though “in light of the progress of negotiations towards a final agreement”.

f) The final agreement must be ratified as binding by the UN Security Council.

The MoU as given by the NY Post: note that it differs in some respects from what’s above:

The following 12 points were first revealed by Axios reporter Barak Ravid, who also works for the Israeli channel. The document has previously been described as a 14-point agreement.

  • Iran, the US and their allies would stop fighting across the region — including in Lebanon.
  • Tehran would reaffirm its pledge never to build a nuclear weapon.
  • The US and Iran would work out what happens to Tehran’s enriched uranium stockpile.
  • Both sides would open talks on Iran’s future enrichment activities and nuclear needs.
  • Iran would maintain the “status quo” of its nuclear program — which has been largely decimated — while negotiations continue.
  • The US would lift its naval blockade, hold off on new sanctions and refrain from sending more troops to the region.
  • Iran would guarantee safe, toll-free passage for commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz for 60 days.
  • Washington would release an unspecified amount of frozen Iranian assets once the MOU takes effect.
  • A final deal reached after the 60 days would see the US withdraw its forces within 30 days and lift all sanctions on Iran.
  • It would pave the way for a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran.
  • The US would allow Iran to resume oil sales through temporary sanctions waivers.
  • Iran, Oman and Gulf states would negotiate new shipping and maritime security arrangements for the Gulf.

The last stipulation, according to the paper, means that Iran and Oman would charge for transit through the Strait of Hormuz—something that did not exist before the war and gives Iran a source of revenue it did not have.

To me, this is a U.S. loss: our efforts gained us nothing: not the cessation of terrorism, not the drive of Iran to produce a nuclear weapon (we all know they’ll continue trying), nt the freedom of the Iranian people or even a weakening of the hard-line Islamist regime, and we may have even lost the right of free (unpaid) passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Plus we’ll release the Iranian funds frozen by the U.S.

I’ve already noted that this is a terrible deal for the U.S., and, in his latest column, “Iran found Trump’s bone spur” (archived here).  I quote from Stephens’s piece, and I’ve put a bit in bold, a bit that makes me both sad and angry:

Iran’s military leaders have greeted the cease-fire agreement with President Trump as a triumph, crowing that “through the imposition of their divine and iron will” they had “humiliated American and Zionist enemies.”

Mostly, they’re right.

Mostly, because it’s worth remembering that the current regime in Iran is far less formidable than it was before the Hamas assault on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Back then, Iran had potent allies and proxies in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen. Its nuclear program was intact and steadily accumulating ever larger quantities of highly enriched uranium. It had a powerful military-industrial base, a weak but functional economy and a government that — for all its repressiveness — was internationally recognized as legitimate.

Today, much of that is either gone or diminished. Iran is no longer within sprinting distance of a bomb. Its ally in Syria was deposed. Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis have lost much of their fighting strength. The Iranian rial is the world’s most worthless currency. The leadership rules an unhappy population that — outside of die-hard loyalists — would almost certainly overthrow it if given the chance. Its latest ballistic missile salvo against Israel failed to land a serious single blow. Its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz strained, but did not strangle, the world’s energy markets.

Those are real achievements against an evil, ambitious regime. Yet the outcome of war rarely rests on a tally of relative strength. War is a contest of wills. And in that contest, the hard men of Tehran appear to have scored a decisive victory over the vain man of Washington.

I write this as someone who supported the war from the outset and hoped to see Trump carry it through to a decisive result: if not regime change, then at least a deal in which Iran would be forced to relinquish all of its enrichment capabilities and access to the Strait was unfettered. Those goals were well within the president’s reach, particularly if he had continued to attack Iran’s military-industrial infrastructure until it agreed to terms, rather than conducting most of the negotiations after the fighting had mostly stopped.

But Trump got spooked after the regime didn’t instantly crumble and energy prices shot up. He then effectively abandoned the war he had started after less than six weeks of sustained combat — combat in which the United States lost fewer service members than in the 1983 invasion of Grenada. He compounded the error with an almost comical succession of military threats and last-minute climb-downs, each of them signaling indecision and weakness to Iranian adversaries practiced in the study of weakness.

Though the details of the deal remain murky — a telling indicator of its likely shoddiness, since the administration would surely trumpet the terms of a strong agreement — it’s already clear that Trump has betrayed his promise to the Iranian people, after they were massacred in January to quell antigovernment protests, that “help is on its way.” As in Venezuela, to say nothing of China and Russia, this administration’s message to oppressed people everywhere is that their rights come last.

Trump is also on his way to betraying Israel, our principal ally in this fight, by pushing Jerusalem to stand down in its effort to stop Hezbollah’s attacks on its north, in that way handing Tehran the victory of creating a diplomatic linkage between Lebanon and Hormuz. If Iran is now allowed to extract some kind of service fee for permitting ships to transit the Strait, Trump will have also betrayed our allies in the Persian Gulf by giving Iran financial and strategic leverage to which it has no right, and which it didn’t previously have.

. . . There’s a word for this: debacle. Not because the war, for all its costs or errors of execution, was a mistake. It’s because this pretense of a peace is an act of geopolitical self-harm that will haunt our standing in the world for years to come.

It’s very sad.  Please weigh in below, giving your thoughts and opinion whether this is a good deal for the U.S., a bad deal, or whether you have no opinion about it.

I don’t know how Trump can claim victory when he’s merely restored a somewhat less favorable status quo, but you can be sure he’ll be crowing himself.

Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ context

June 17, 2026 • 8:15 am

There’s a new Jesus and Mo comic, called “context,” which came with the note, “Another eternal, uncreated Jesus & Mo strip,” as well as this caption:

And it’s eternally important that you don’t hang around after dinner.

As I point out in my foreword to the latest J&M collection (see below), Mo always instantiates the very thing he’s criticizing. In this case, he overturns his own claims.  The verse at hand is here (bolding is mine):

O believers! Do not enter the homes of the Prophet without permission ˹and if invited˺ for a meal, do not ˹come too early and˺ linger until the meal is ready. But if you are invited, then enter ˹on time˺. Once you have eaten, then go on your way, and do not stay for casual talk. Such behaviour is truly annoying to the Prophet, yet he is too shy to ask you to leave. But Allah is never shy of the truth. And when you ˹believers˺ ask his wives for something, ask them from behind a barrier. This is purer for your hearts and theirs. And it is not right for you to annoy the Messenger of Allah, nor ever marry his wives after him. This would certainly be a major offence in the sight of Allah.

This stuff is added, and you might want to throw some dosh the way of the artist (remember, his strips make fun of religion, and for that he has to be anonymous:

Why not become a patron of J&M?

Books are still available – The latest J&M collection of J&M strips, which has a foreword by Jerry Coyne, is available here.

Wednesday: Hili dialogue

June 17, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to a Hump Day (“Dies Gibbosus” in Latin): June 17, 2026, and National Apple Strudel Day. Here’s a great snack: an apple strudel and an Einspänner (coffee) at a famous cafe in Vienna. Eaten and photographed in October, 2012.  Lots of Schlag here!

It’s also the Islamic New Year, National Eat Your Vegetables Day (no, thank you), and World Croc Day. Here’s a giant crocodile I photographed in 2016 at a field station in eastern India. We were not allowed to leave our huts at night because these things roamed the grounds.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 17 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Footie News.  Argentina defeated Algeria 3-0 in the World Cup, with all three goals scored by perhaps the greatest soccer player ever, Lionel Messi. He also tied the record for goals by an individual in a World Cup:  16.

Lionel Messi made history Tuesday night by tying Miroslav Klose’s record for most men’s World Cup goals at 16 after scoring a hat trick to lead Argentina to a 3-0 win over Algeria.

The hat trick was the 11th of Messi’s international career but first at the World Cup. At 38, he became the oldest player to score three goals in a game at the tournament. He came off late in the second half to a rousing ovation from the partisan Argentina crowd at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium.

“It’s an honor being up there for what it means, being alongside Klose and [Brazil’s] Ronaldo, who is there also. But it doesn’t mean anything,” Messi said after the game. “[Kylian] Mbappé is there, too, he scored twice today. At the end of the day, they are stats and nothing more.

“It’s an honor to compete with them, but it doesn’t mean anything. For me, Ronaldo, who I watched and is one of the greats, is not at the top. So, it’s just stats.”

When Messi took the field for defending champion Argentina’s first group stage match — his 200th with the national team — he also became the first player to feature in six World Cups.

Messi broke the record of five World Cups held by Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal); Antonio Carbajal, Andrés Guardado and Rafael Márquez (all Mexico); and Lothar Matthäus (Germany). (Ronaldo should equal the mark in Portugal’s opener against Congo on Wednesday.)

Messi’s comment about Ronaldo is quite uncivil, and I have no idea what he’s on about. Anyway, here are the highlights with Messi’s three goals. At 38, he’s still got it, and he’ll undoubtedly score at least one more goal to set the record. I note, however, that some observers are saying that Messi should have been given a red card and sent out of the game for stomping on an Algerian player’s calf—a foul for which he didn’t even get a yellow card (see photos here).

*The NYT reports that further talks between the U.S. and Iran on their peace deal will begin Friday when the “permanent agreement” is signed. Trump also gave assurances that the preliminary agreement (which none of us have seen) prevents Iran from ever having a nuclear weapon. For more on the memorandum of agreement, which seems to be circulating in various versions, see the next post. 

Iran said on Tuesday that talks on a permanent peace deal with the United States would begin immediately after the countries signed a preliminary agreement on Friday, as President Trump reiterated his claim that it prevents Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

“Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. It says it loud and clear,” Mr. Trump said on Tuesday at the Group of 7 summit in France.

Under the preliminary agreement, the United States and Iran agreed to a new 60-day cease-fire and to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. But the text has not been publicly released and the thorniest differences between the two sides, including the future of Iran’s nuclear program, have been deferred to the next round of negotiations.

Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, said on Tuesday that he also expected Israeli forces to immediately withdraw from Lebanon and halt their attacks in the country. Israel has said its military would remain in Lebanon, where they have been targeting the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia, and it has continued to launch strikes since the U.S.-Iran deal was announced over the weekend.

Mr. Trump urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Tuesday to “be more responsible with respect to Lebanon,” and suggested that Syria would be more effective at dealing with the threat from Hezbollah. There is no indication that Syria is willing to involve itself militarily in that long-running conflict.

Mr. Trump has said that the Strait of Hormuz would fully reopen starting Friday. But shipping companies have responded cautiously to the preliminary agreement, and traffic through the waterway, a crucial transit route for oil and gas supplies, remained minimal on Tuesday. Some companies have warned that they would need more details and security guarantees before resuming operations there.

*From It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal gives another pessimistic assessment of the sketchy peace deal:

It’s Tuesday, June 16, and “what we know is this agreement is going to make Israel safer, it’s going to make the entire region safer,” Vice President JD Vance told NBC News, adding that he “feels confident” Israel will join the U.S.-Iran deal “further down the road.” It is difficult to share Vance’s confidence when the rest of the cabinet has remained entirely silent on the matter.

Though that isn’t entirely true. According to Axios’s Barak Ravid, CIA Director John Ratcliffe told Donald Trump and other senior officials that evidence gathered by U.S. intelligence agencies raises serious doubts about Iran’s willingness to make the nuclear concessions the U.S. is seeking in any final deal. He was joined by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, both of whom expressed concerns and raised questions about the memorandum of understanding—while Vance and the White House’s Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, advocated for it.

I’ll try to sprinkle in some optimism and sweeten this bitter pill. But first, we should go through the details as they appear so far. Vance says the deal runs “about a page and a half.” That’s not a lot of room for an American victory—especially once you fit in all those Iranian concessions. Let’s look at what has been conceded so far:

Just a week ago, Trump declared there was absolutely no way he would release frozen assets before a comprehensive peace deal was signed. Yet by Iran’s account, the regime gets a significant signing bonus the moment the ink is dry. “The agreement says they are not getting a single dime of American money,” Vance insisted on Fox—reassuring, I’m sure, for American taxpayers, but a strange thing to stress, since he’s calming a concern no one raised. The money in question was never America’s; it’s Iran’s own frozen assets. The administration insists they’ll be released only as Iran complies with the deal, but given how compliant the U.S. has been to Tehran’s demands so far, I don’t see it holding the line on a few billion the moment Iran threatens to walk.

Trump also stated he would not agree to any arrangement that doesn’t include dismantling Iran’s proxies and halting their terrorism. No such language seems to appear anywhere in the MOU. In place of any written commitment to dismember the Axis of Resistance, the Americans simply claim the funds headed to the regime will be kept strictly out of terrorist hands. After all, the White House assured everyone, the bulk of the money is expected “to go into spending that improves the economy” they are under “intense pressure to deliver results at home”—whoops, that was Obama in 2015. Silly me. But we needn’t reach back that far: this is the oldest trick in the Hamas playbook—insisting Qatari or humanitarian aid serves purely legitimate, benevolent civilian needs, when in reality it just frees up other capital for far more nefarious ends.

Trump also once insisted on the destruction of all Iranian nuclear facilities and zero uranium enrichment. Now he has told The New York Times that Iran would be permitted low-level enrichment—meaning “zero enrichment” won’t even make it to the negotiating table.

The agreement reportedly requires Iran to “open” the strait. Vice President JD Vance asserts this means open and “toll-free” for the long term. Iranian officials and state media, however, claim they will merely pause fees for sixty days, but plan to resume charging “service fees” after that period, and maintain that keeping the strait “open” implies keeping it under Iranian and Omani management.

Israel is far from thrilled with this deal—just ask the markets. On Wall Street, the signs of peace sent the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite up about 795 points, a three percent jump and its best day in months. In Tel Aviv, the mood was the opposite: as global markets rallied, the benchmark TA-35 slid roughly 1.3 percent, with banks and insurers falling harder still—local investors reading the agreement as more likely to bring war than peace.

*And, finally, the NYT editorial board’s op-ed is definitive: “President Trump lost this war.” I agree, but they also said that he never should have started this war, and I’m not so sure I agree there—as that judgement comes from the benefit of hindsight (op-ed archived here).

The preliminary deal ending President Trump’s four-month war with Iran is welcome but brings with it hard truths. Mr. Trump made a terrible mistake starting this war. He prosecuted it recklessly and in open defiance of the law. The United States is emerging weaker — militarily, diplomatically and economically — and will pay strategic costs for years to come.

The details of the deal are unclear, but the announced framework suggests that Mr. Trump has won few of the terms he insisted that he would. It is a humiliating comedown for him and the nation he leads.

Since the war began, he has said the United States would achieve “total and complete victory” and that Iran must agree to “unconditional surrender.” He suggested that regime change would occur. He said that Iran would be permitted “no enrichment” of uranium and that “the United States will, working with Iran, dig up and remove all of the deeply buried” near-bomb-grade nuclear material that it already holds.

None of this appears to be true. Iran’s hard-line government remains in place. The specifics of the nuclear agreement will apparently be negotiated over the next two months, but the terms seem likely to resemble those of a 2015 deal that President Barack Obama negotiated and that Mr. Trump canceled in 2018. He described the Obama agreement as the “worst deal ever” and said it put Iran on “a route to a nuclear weapon.” He criticized it for failing to force Iran to stop supporting terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and for loosening economic sanctions. Yet his destructive war seems likely to leave him with a similar deal.

His biggest achievement in the cease-fire framework is the expected reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to global shipping traffic, which will eventually reduce the prices of energy and other goods. That, of course, is merely a reversion to the prewar status quo.

Yep, yep, yep, and yep.  If you ask me what he could have done differently, well, I wouldn’t accept all of these conditions, and would keep attacking until Iran cries “uncle” about nuclear weapon cessation, getting rid of its enriched uranium, opening the Strait of Hormuz, and leaving Lebanon out of the deal. Of course Iran wouldn’t agree to that now, but perhaps it would had if we’d  bombed its oil-delivery facilities on Kharg Island. I don’t think that Obama’s nuclear agreement was so great: how else would Iran have so much uranium enriched to 60%—far above what is needed for peaceful uses? Iran has lied about its goals and amount of enriched uranium, and it will lie again.

*Reader Frau Katze pointed out in a comment yesterday that Nicholas Kristof is behaving badly again, this time breaking a promise he made to his readers.

When The New York Times announced that columnist Nick Kristof would return following a scuttled 2021 bid for governor of Oregon, the paper made a promise to readers.

In a response to questions about Kristof’s return from Rolling Stone in 2022, the Times said that Kristof would refrain from writing about the financial supporters of his campaign, or would disclose those connections in his journalism.

But in at least a dozen instances since then, Kristof failed to make those disclosures. And after an inquiry from Semafor, the Times is reviewing his work.

“Previous political donations made by some people Nick Kristof mentioned in his columns should have been made more clear to readers,” Times spokesman Charlie Stadtlander said in an email. “Editors from Times Opinion are reviewing these articles to determine further clarifications for readers.”

In a series of pieces between 2022 and 2025, Kristof wrote favorably about Bill Gates and his nonprofit. In one case, he touted Gates’ plan for fighting global hunger. In others he cited statistics from Gates’ foundation, as well as his predictions on gene editing and his recommendation of an author. Kristof made no mention of the fact that Bill and Melinda French Gates had donated a combined $100,000 to his campaign for governor.

When Kristof mentioned Council on Foreign Relations member Deborah Fikes in a 2024 column about North Korea, he did not say that she had donated $10,000 to his political campaign.

In a 2023 column about India’s economic growth, Kristof quoted McKinsey Global Managing Partner Bob Sternfels without noting that Sternfels and his wife both donated a combined $5,000 to his campaign. And when he quoted the late Harvard professor Joseph Nye in two separate columns, in 2023 and 2024, he failed to note that Nye had donated $1,000.

When he decided to run for governor in 2021, Kristof put the Times in a somewhat unique position. It was uncommon, but not unheard of, for writers to leave mainstream journalism to pursue politics. It was more unusual for someone to try and return to the paper.

But Kristof’s path is an increasingly common one, as news media continues to polarize into political and ideological camps and as modern campaigns favor candidates skilled in capturing and maintaining attention.

But the site, Semafor, which looks pretty good vis-à-vis journalistic rigor, also looked for dissent and has editorial comments after it:

In an email to Semafor, Patrick Lee Plaisance, a professor in ethics at Penn State, told Semafor that Kristof’s quotes of various campaign donors did not necessitate disclosure, noting that there was no quid pro quo for coverage, regardless of the Times’ disclosure promise. He noted that in many of the examples reported here, Kristof was quoting high-profile public figures or subject matter experts who were “simply allowed to comment on the topic that [Kristof] is addressing.”

“While quoting a donor five years after your campaign ended may be grist for the conspiracy-minded, it is hard for me to see the substantive interests that are in conflict here,” Plaisance said. “Unless there is other evidence … that would revive a conflict concern.”

Still, if this was no big deal, why did the NYT spokesperson say that the paper should have admitted the connections and why is it reviewing his other articles? Anyway, I still think they should dump the guy, for his transgressions were far more serious than those of, say, James Bennet.

*Although I have a love/hate relationship with The Free Press (too little news, and a slight right-wing slant), it does seem to be getting better in that it’s covering the important stories more regularly.  And it’s improving more now as they’ve just taken on Douglas Murray as a regular columnist (he’s previously published the “Things Worth Remembering” column from time to time.  Murray is a conservative, but he’s also smart, well-read, eloquent and pro-Israel (his Munk debate with Natasha Hausdorff is a classic), and one of the few journalists willing to publicly bring up the possibility of high immigration to Europe eroding Western culture. At any rate, I look forward to reading him and here’s some of his self-introduction:

. . . four years ago I was already writing several political columns a week for other publications and wasn’t sure I had another one in me. Bari suggested I write one on topics far afield of politics. She proposed the idea of the Things Worth Remembering column—a series of short essays, each on a single text, that capture eternal values and insights.

Of all the columns I have written in the past 25 years, few have given me greater pleasure to write. The response of Free Press readers moved me deeply and—not for the first time—proved that Bari was onto something. For the two years that I wrote that column, I felt like I was in a wonderful, enthusiastic, deep dialogue with readers.

But then other things—principally wars—got in the way. I remained a very occasional contributor to The Free Press. Yet I remained an avid reader and admirer of this amazing, growing publication. And I never drifted far from the FP family. One of the highlights of my past year was coming onstage in New York at a live event to introduce Coleman Hughes (who was on the trombone) and Justice Amy Coney Barrett (who was not).

Now I find myself in the very happy position of being asked to return to The Free Press as a regular columnist on the broadest possible range of topics. Nothing could excite me more.

That’s because the assault on Western values has become even more withering in the past several years. Internal critics in the U.S., the United Kingdom, and across Europe threaten to dismantle the systems that created mass prosperity, and suppress the teaching of history in favor of new ideological fashions. External enemies in the Middle East, Asia, and around the world seek to wear down opposition to their oppressive social systems, and expand their own influence throughout the free world.

The breadth and depth of issues that The Free Press covers is something that most writers dream of being a part of. And so I am thrilled to rejoin the growing bank of writers who include many—even most—of the writers that I most admire. Back here, I hope to inform readers about world events and stay in the fight for the values we share.

A lot is going to happen in the coming years. I couldn’t be happier to be back at The Free Press and am ready to go through them with all of you.

Yep, he’s a conservative, but where would we be if we read only those writerad and those arguments were already congenial to our views and those of our tribe?

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Andrzej are lost in memory, for it was a year ago today that Malgorzata died.

Hili: The roses were blooming a year ago, too.
Andrzej: Yes, I was thinking about that today as well.

In Polish:

Hili: Rok temu też kwitły róże.
Ja: Tak też o tym dziś myślałem.

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

From Bad Spelling or Grammar on Signs and Notices, with the caption that Yoda must have written this sign:

From Meow Incorporated:

From Stacy:

Masih is quiet; I expect she’s stunned at the U.S. peace deal with Iran, which leaves the Iranian people out in the cold.  So here’s one from Luana:

From the Number Ten Cat, no fan of Trump (he’s right in this tweet, too):

Ricky Gervais has a new comedy:

Two from my feed.  First, “Beat it” played on medieval instruments. I’ll give the English translation:

 

The English translation: “A bird that skillfully strips the main veins from leaves needed for nest-building and stores them in its tail to carry them back.”  I love the tail tucking!

One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

Two from Dr. Cobb, heading to France from Switzerland. First, his pics from Zermatt:

More Matterhorn and adjacent pics

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-06-13T14:01:13.756Z

And a walk down the mountain (there are three other posts linked to this one):

We got the funicular up to Sunnegga from Zermatt then walked for around 4 hours and eventually descended to Riffelalp railway station. Here are the trains, with pics of walk in linked posts.

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-06-15T13:32:30.282Z

Readers’ wildlife photos

June 16, 2026 • 8:15 am

Today’s plant photos come from Rik Gern of Austin, Texas.  Rik’s captions and IDs are indented and, as always, you can click on the photos to enlarge them.

Here are a few odds and ends from around my neighborhood for you.

When it’s the leaves fill out in the Summertime the Chinaberry Tree (Melia Azedarach) is pretty nondescript, but in the Winter when all that’s visible are the branches and berries, it is interesting and looks like it could have been designed by Dr. Seuss. The Chinaberry Tree is an introduced species, but is quite popular in this area:

The berries look like small wrinkled white grapes, but are hard as stones:

Here is another picture of the full tree, this time in black and white:

Another introduced species, originally from the Mediterranean, Rue (Ruta graveolens) is very popular with home gardeners:

Goldshower (Galphimia Glauca) hails from neighboring Mexico, but does quite well in the region:

This scrappy little plant is indigenous. It’s called a Silverleaf Nightshade (Solanum elaeagnifolium) due to the color of its flower, but I didn’t get to see it in bloom:

Here it looks like a tomato from a tough neighborhood, but it’s apparently more closely related to the potato:

The last image is a distortion of Chinaberry branches and berries. The clusters of berries made me think of the tinker-toy like models of chemical structures that you used to see in chemistry class, and that got me to thinking of DNA and all the plasticity of expression it allows for. Since this ended up with a vaguely Art Nouveau feel, I’m calling it DNA Nouveau: