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.
It’s time for a duck report. Things have been erratic, duckwise, over the last couple of weeks, with the weather going nuts. On some days it’s been 70°F (21°C), on others it’s been below freezing, with snow or driving rain. Through it all the ducks have been here, though in the last week or so Vashti makes only sporadic appearances.
Usually Vashti (the hen) has been absent in the mornings, leaving Armon (the drake) to sit disconsolately on the rocks, staring into space. It’s clear he wants to be with his boo, and only Ceiling Cat knows where she goes. I suspect she’s building a nest somewhere and perhaps laying eggs (1 per day until they’re all laid). But she can’t be incubating eggs yet, as she returns in the afternoon for hours, much to the delight of Armon, who begins eating again. This is a true duck romance.
It’s a bit early to incubate eggs, as the weather in April may be cold and rainy for ducklings. But I can’t control wild birds.
The breeding goes like this. First, Vashti will build a nest. They’ve almost always been on the window ledges of the building to the east of Botany Pond (Erman Hall), but I see no nest there, and if she were breeding there Armon would be in the water under the nest. Nor is she nesting under the tree where Esther nested last year. I have no idea where the nest is, and of course I can’t follow her.
As I said, hens lay one egg per day, but don’t start incubation until all the eggs are laid, whereupon she sits tight on the entire clutch, ensuring that all the embryos begin development at the same time and that they will hatch within a day of each other. The incubation period is 28 or 29 days, so when Vashti disappears, I begin the countdown. (I’ve already ordered a big stock of duckling food.) During incubation she may come to the pond every day or so for a very short period to have a bath and a feed (if I’m lucky enough to see her). But she won’t leave the eggs for very long.
During incubation, wild mallards can lose up to 30% of their body weight as they neither eat nor drink. Vashti, though, is pampered and can get fed during incubation. My intention is to feed her up so she has plenty of mass and energy to incubate the eggs, and, when she begins incubation, to watch the pond from my office to run down and feed her if she makes a short appearance. This will ensure that when the babies arrive, mom will be in good condition to tend them. That worked well for Esther last year, though she nested on the ground under a tree.
But I’m jumping the gun. Here are some photos and video I took over the last couple of weeks. Since the weather has been miserable, the sunny-day photos were all taken about the middle of March when it was warm.
Here’s a panorama of Botany Pond. Can you spot the pair? The answer is at the bottom. Erman is the building to the left, and you can see the two pond-watching benches. There is a narrow channel of water behind where I stood to take this photo.
Armon and Vashti having luncheon:
Their main diet is Mazuri Waterfowl Chow, which provides a complete diet for ducks. New ducks usually must learn that what I throw them is what they should eat. (At first they are frightened.) But this pair learned quickly, which made me suspect that they are familiar with Botany Pond and the feeding ritual. Perhaps they were here in previous years, and one or both of them may be the offspring of Esther and Mordecai from last year. I whistle to them at feeding time, and they swim to me when they hear me or see me (they knew this from the outset). This again constitutes evidence that these ducks are familiar with Botany Pond.
Here’s a video of them having noms (Mazuri pellets):
After the pellets they get dessert: freeze-dried mealworms, their favorite. Mealworms are pricey but I don’t stint on them at this stage, since Vashti needs to be fattened up, and mealworms are a good source of protein.
Butt view of the pair swimming away:
Mallards on the rocks (a good name for a drink):
They are a handsome couple, no?
Lately they have actually been coming out of the water to greet me when I call. But I let them go back into the pond before I feed them, as they need to sip water during and between bouts of eating pellets and mealworms:
One day I watched Vashti foraging on the ground after lunch. I have no idea what she’s finding to eat in all the dirt and mulch, but she was very busy and clearly finding noms. Worms, slugs, whatever:
Here’s a video of Vashti foraging on the ground. Armon is of course nearby (they are never separated by more than a couple of feet when they’re in the water). Armon peeks over the ledge to see that his hen is okay. Notice her full crop!
And, ladies and gentlemen, comrades, brothers and sisters, here is Vasthi in all her mallardly glory. She’s pretty plump, which is how I want her when she starts incubating her eggs:
And we can’t neglect the handsome Armon, all decked out in his breeding plumage:
I will of course keep you updated, though I wish I knew where the nest was!
Finally, here are the ducks in the pond panorama, circled:
Welcome to the Cruelest Day: Tuesday, March 24, 2026, and National Cheesesteak Day, celebrating a fine sandwich and exemplar of American cuisine. It’s best sampled in its home, Philadelphia. Here’s a one-day attempt to find the best cheesesteak in Philly (Pat’s is touted as the city’s best version, but how does it rate here?). John’s and Dallesandro’s are tied for the top spot.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 24 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*NOTE: See below. Trump put a five-day hold on the bombing of infrastructure. It looks like Israel and the U.S. are about to striking Iranian infrastructure, including power plants, as per their promise if the Straits of Hormuz remained closed by Monday evening (US time). . And the new Ayatollah is out of action. From It’s Noon in Israel: (bolding is theirs)
The Washington Post reported that Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is injured, isolated, and unresponsive, according to intelligence officials from both Israel and the United States. Despite his apparent incapacitation, Israeli officials say the remaining clerical leadership and the Revolutionary Guards have managed to consolidate their grip on the country. Both the U.S. and Israel assess that Mojtaba is still alive; intelligence indicates that senior Iranian officials have attempted to arrange face-to-face meetings with him—efforts that have so far failed, reportedly for security reasons.
Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz have ordered the destruction of all bridges over the Litani River in an effort to cut off Hezbollah’s supply and movement routes. The IDF has more than doubled its troop deployment along the northern border, expanded ground operations—eliminating dozens of fighters and seizing weapons—and is conducting targeted raids on evacuated villages to dismantle Hezbollah’s military infrastructure.
Trump’s ultimatum expires at 7:44 PM EDT (1:44 AM Israel time). Iran must fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz or the United States will begin striking its power stations.
It seems that after securing concessions over the Panama Canal, Trump has developed a fondness for critical waterways. Israel and the United States have now settled on a new war goal: ending the conflict with the Strait of Hormuz under American control—not just temporarily.
The operation appears to have two parts. The first is seizing Iran’s most valuable card—the small island in the Persian Gulf that processes over 90 percent of its oil exports: Kharg Island. The second is securing the strait itself.
The question is how. The plan seems to combine Marine forces expected to arrive on Friday, ongoing airstrikes targeting Iran’s naval and drone capabilities, and advanced monitoring technologies to prevent any disruption to shipping.
The operation is expected to take roughly two to three weeks. That gives Israel enough time to complete the destruction of the remaining military industry and regime targets.
Residents reported blackouts across large parts of Tehran, the Iranian capital, after heavy airstrikes struck multiple areas of the city early Monday. The outages came shortly after Israel announced it would target infrastructure in Iran.
President Trump said Monday that the United States and Iran were negotiating a “total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East,” and that he would postpone American attacks on Iranian power plants by five days after the two countries traded threats over the weekend.
Iran did not immediately comment. It was unclear what kind of communication might be taking place and who might be mediating; Iran has previously denied seeking a cease-fire. Mr. Trump had threatened on Saturday to bomb Iran’s energy infrastructure within 48 hours unless Iran agreed to open the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, a critical shipping route for the global oil trade.
Mr. Trump did not elaborate on the details of the talks, but analysts have said it is difficult to see a straightforward offramp for the American-Israeli air war with Iran, which began on Feb 28. and has morphed into a wider conflict in the Middle East. Despite Mr. Trump’s calls for the ouster of the Islamic Republic and his vow to help Iranian protesters overthrow their leaders earlier this year, the Iranian government is still very much in place, as is much of its nuclear program.
The Truth Social announcement:
Back and forth, back and forth. The erratic and contradictory pronouncements of Trump make this military action confusing and distressing. Whatever he does, he has to create regime change, which was originally one of his goals. And he has to stop the enrichment of uranium and the ongoing program of Iran to create nuclear weapons. Apparently Iran denies that these talks are even going on.
*The Times of Israel reports that a March 13 anti-Zionist rally in NYC, taking place near a pro-Israel rally, accused the Jews of—wait for it—eating babies! It’s one of the oldest blood libels: the accusation that Jews used the blood of non-Jewish children to make Passover matzos.
On Friday, at an Al Quds Day protest in Times Square, a protest leader directed the crowd to chant “Stop eating babies” toward a handful of mostly Jewish counter-protesters.
As surprising as it was to hear the charge that Zionists “eat babies” in New York City in 2026, equally surprising was the willingness with which the crowd took up the chant. There was no confusion or hesitancy about the outlandish allegation — the hundreds in attendance repeated the chant with enthusiasm, without skipping a beat.
“Stop eating babies! Stop raping kids!” they chanted toward counter-protesters holding Israeli flags across the street behind a line of police officers and metal barricades, recalling the age-old blood libel that says Jews murder and consume children for ritual purposes.
The rally illustrated how anti-Israel activists incorporate historical manifestations of anti-Jewish discrimination under the guise of anti-Zionist political activism, from the blood libel to Nazi-era tropes, mixed with contemporary academic theories. Anti-Zionism acts as a container for these historical tropes, blending them together with progressive talking points.
A cadre of scholar-activists has argued that anti-Zionism is the third major iteration of discrimination against Jews. The first was anti-Judaism, based on religion, the second was antisemitism, focused on race, and the third, anti-Zionism, is a hatred of Jewish peoplehood, the activists say.
The worst part of all this is indeed the crowd joining in. What the hell are these people thinking? And is there any doubt that this is antisemitic? Eating babies? Is it only Israelis who eat babies, and not Jews in America? Or is it only Zionist Jews who eat babies? And what is this about “raping kids”? That’s something I haven’t heard in these protests.
The body lay slumped on the jail floor, curled around a metal toilet.
Investigators found no evidence of homicide, just a few scraps of rolled-up paper, singed and scattered on the floor like scorched confetti.
For months, inmates had been falling ill at the Cook County jail in Chicago. Officials said they had heard rumors that extremely toxic drugs were infiltrating the facility, delivered on something so ordinary that it seemed impossible to stop.
Then the body appeared, and “something clicked,” said Justin Wilks, the head investigator at the jail.
The paper itself must be the culprit — and it was deadly.
More overdoses soon followed. The next month, in February 2023, another inmate died from smoking paper laced with mysterious new drugs. In April, one more.
“People were dying so fast,” Mr. Wilks said. But when officials at the jail told their law enforcement colleagues about it, they said, some found it hard to believe.
By year’s end, at least six people had died of overdoses, putting the jail at the vanguard of a new kind of drug war, one in which extraordinarily powerful drugs can be invented faster than the authorities can identify them.
And where something as ubiquitous as paper can become lethal.
The drugs are new synthetic drugs, dissolved in a solvent that is then used to soak sheets of paper that were smuggled in.
. . . . . Today, fringe chemists are ushering in a total transformation of the illicit drug market. Operating from clandestine labs, they are churning out a dizzying array of synthetic drugs — not only fentanyl, but also hazardous new tranquilizers, stimulants and complex cannabinoids. Sometimes, several unknown drugs appear on the streets in a single month. Many are so new they are not even illegal yet.
Nearly all of them are harder to trace than conventional drugs, less expensive to produce, much more potent and far deadlier, according to scientists and law enforcement officials across the globe.
After that first death in the Cook County jail in January 2023, it took months for Mr. Wilks’s team to realize that these mysterious new drugs were being sprayed onto the pages of the most innocuous-seeming items: books, letters, documents, even photographs.
The sheets of drugs, worth thousands of dollars a page, were being torn into strips and smoked by inmates who went into crazed, exorcistic fits, as if possessed by a phantom narcotic the authorities could not see, much less stop.
Just figuring out what the paper had on it was maddening. The specialized labs needed to run the tests often took months to send back mind-boggling chemical formulas that left some officers scratching their heads.
There are chemists out there synthesizing new compounds similar in structure to existing compounds. But some may be toxic, and were. And the prisoners are the guinea pigs.
*We’re several weeks into the partial government shutdown in which Democrats won’t give additional money ICE unless stringent conditions are imposed on officers’ behavior, Republicans won’t put up with it, and the Coast Guard and TSA agents are still not getting paid. (ICE, however, has a comfortable backlog and is still operating. Now Trump is demanding that any compromise be tied to voter-identification legislation.
President Trump has rejected one of the possible offramps for the standoff over funding the Department of Homeland Security, leaving an impasse unresolved that has led to hourslong lines at some airports as security staff don’t show up for work.
White House staff briefed the president on an idea to fund all parts of DHS except for the agency responsible for enforcing immigration law, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Republicans could separately fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement through a procedural move—known as reconciliation—that would allow the money to clear the Senate on a simple-majority vote instead of requiring the 60 votes needed to pass most legislation. But not all Republicans think this is necessary because ICE received billions of additional funding in Trump’s sweeping tax cuts and spending bill passed along party lines last year.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) walked Trump through the strategy in a weekend conversation, the person said, but Trump rejected the idea. Some top Senate Republicans had met on Sunday with White House liaison James Braid to discuss ideas for ending the shutdown. The conversation between Thune and Trump was reported earlier by Punchbowl News.
Over the weekend, the president said he would send ICE agents to select airports around the country to assist with security lines. Trump on Monday said that move brought Democrats to the table to negotiate, but he told his negotiators to hold firm until a spending bill is paired with legislation requiring proof of citizenship to vote, along with other requirements.
Trump also indicated that he wanted to use the funding fight as leverage to pass what he considers his top legislative priority, the SAVE America Act. That legislation would ratchet up ID requirements to vote in federal elections and mandate proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Trump also wants to add a ban on most mail-in voting and restrictions on gender-transition procedures for minors.
ICE in airports is going to anger a lot of people, who will suspect that they’re really in airports to spot and arrest people accused of entering the U.S. illegally (a Guatemalan woman was apprehended yesterday). But if they’re just there help move security lines, which have extended to four hours in busy airports like Newark and Atlanta, that would be okay. As for showing proof of citizenship to register to vote, I have no problem with that, but I’d have to see the rest of the demands , especially about gender transition, as I think that surgery and drugs should be allowed only for people “of age” (I’m settling on 18). Mail-in ballots are okay by me; I’ve used them for years, and that’s made me lazy.
*The video of a cat beauty competition in Romania is the most-watched video on the Associated Press site, but fortunately it’s also on YouTube. The AP also has a great page of photos from that competition, though I can’t find any news beyond what is in the videos. (I can’t reproduce the photos because of possible copyright issues, but you can see them at the link, and don’t miss them if you like cats (the huge Maine Coon is spectacular).
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili thinks she’s fixing the world:
Szaron: It’s a bit boring here. Hili: Start fixing the world, you’ll see what great entertainment it is.
In Polish:
Szaron: Trochę tu nudno.
Hili: Zacznij naprawiać świat, zobaczysz jaka to fajna rozrywka.
A couple weeks ago, Jerry Coyne wrote about his “new law”: ” At least half of new medicines advertised on t.v. have the letters “x”, “y”, or “z” in them.”
Obviously, as he argued, this is much higher than their frequency in the English dictionary, or what would happen if letters of a medication name were picked randomly with each letter in the English alphabet having equal probability.Now, what are the chances that I see this at Costco the very next day?
I was a little sad that they did not call it XYZAB.
From Masih, speaking on behalf of Iranians who want the present regime out:
This should have been on the front page of The New York Times.
I’ve spoken with students in America. Most have no idea that more than 32,000 unarmed, people have been killed for demanding freedom in Iran. Hundreds more are on death row, waiting to be hanged.
💔
Thank you, New… https://t.co/RQltCCMqNKpic.twitter.com/UKxjCepIvv
From Sciencegirl via Keith. Would you drink this coffee? (I’m sure it would be expensive.) I’ve tried kopi luwak coffee made from beans that have transited the digestive tracts of palm civets (it was just ok), but not elephants. It’s all hype, I suppose:
Black Ivory Coffee, one of the rarest and most expensive coffees, made from beans processed by elephants
— Antidepressant Content (@depressionlesss) March 22, 2026
Yes it’s d*gs but it’s heartwarming. Kudo to Chairman Corgi, but I hope the photographer lent a hand as well:
Seven dogs stolen from their owners have gone viral after escaping from an illegal transport truck and making their way home.
They traveled around 17 km together, led by a corgi across highways and fields, now safely back with their respective owners..🐶🐾🥺❤️ pic.twitter.com/H5VB9BQkGB
This French Jewish boy was gassed to death as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz (along with the 82% of people in his train). Jacques was seven years old. https://t.co/m5nkcT9vlE
I promise, I am NOT photographing a dead duck here. 😜This Northern Shoveler just decided to flop over in the water and scratch that itchy chin in the midst of the red duckweed.#BirdOfTheDay #Preeners&Scratchers#MallardMonday📷🪶🦆
Reader Thomas from Marginal REVOLUTION sent me the linked article piece, which shows a video of the 1957 doo-wop hit “Little Darlin'” by the Diamonds. If you’re my age, you’ll remember it. I always thought it was a serious song, and apparently so did most Americans, but the first comment says this:
From what I recall, the Diamonds were a conventional vocal group who recorded “Little Darlin'” at the end of a session as a kind of joke song – a parody of the Ink Spots and Mills Brothers. Fortunately for them, the studio musicians joined in with perfectly irresistible beat and the song became a rock and roll hit. Early rock and roll was born as parody as much as anything else, like Elvis’s Jokey rendition of Bill Monroe’s “Blue Moon of Kentucky” turning out to be the founding document of rockabilly.
Really? And then they present the video, which, unlike any music video I know from that era, shows the group clowning around. Have a look at the video for a hit song (more cowbell!). But yes, this is the original song. which went to #2 on the Billboard charts.
To get to the bottom of this, I sent to AI, in particular Grok. Sure enough, the bot pronounced it a parody after scanning what’s published about it.
“Was “Little Darlin'” by the Diamonds a parody song?”
Yes, “Little Darlin'” by The Diamonds (1957) is widely regarded as a stylistic parody/satire of the doo-wop genre—not a lyrical parody like a Weird Al track (the words and melody are the same), but a deliberately exaggerated, campy cover that poked fun at the over-the-top clichés of the style.Here’s the story, straight from music historians:
The song was written by 16-year-old Maurice Williams and first recorded in January 1957 by his group The Gladiolas (on the Excello label). Their version was a straight, heartfelt R&B/doo-wop track with a Latin-tinged rhythm, falsetto, spoken bridge, and percussion. It charted modestly (#11 R&B, minor pop crossover).
The Diamonds (a Canadian quartet) rushed out their cover just a month later on Mercury Records. It was reportedly a last-minute, end-of-session lark—they had about 15 minutes left, no drummer, so they improvised with castanets. Lead singer Dave Somerville and the group leaned hard into the nonsense syllables (“ai-ya-yi-yai-yai-ya,” “wella-wella,” etc.), hamming it up with theatrical flair. They even performed it in an over-the-top way on TV (like The Steve Allen Show).
AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine noted that the vocal phrases “verge on self-parody… which may be why The Diamonds’ version is superior.” Radio historian John Gilliland (on the Pop Chronicles series) explicitly stated that their recording “was in fact a parody of the genre.” Other sources describe it as a “joke song,” “satire of doo-wop,” or “intended as a satire” with “campy vocal delivery.”Despite (or because of) the tongue-in-cheek approach, it became a monster hit: #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 for eight weeks (behind only Elvis’s “All Shook Up”), the biggest version by far, and now the definitive classic. The original Gladiolas take is respected by R&B fans but far less known.It’s a classic example of a white cover version (common in the 1950s) that amplified the style for mainstream appeal—here with humor that stuck. Later, Elvis Presley covered the Diamonds’ arrangement on his final album Moody Blue, and Joan Baez even recorded an actual lyrical parody.
From Wikipedia, we learn that the hit version was actually a re-recording of a song recorded just a month earlier by a black group, the Gladiolas, one of whose members wrote the song. There’s also a brief not about the parody aspect:
It was written by a 16-year-old Maurice Williams with both melody and doo-wop accompaniment strongly emphasizing a calypso rhythm. First recorded in January 1957 by Williams’ group the Gladiolas, it was quickly released as a single on Excello Records, a small swamp blues label owned by Nashville record man Earnie Young, who was responsible for creating the song’s Latin feel, naming the group and ensuring Williams would retain the song’s publishing.
The recording, inspired by a book Williams was writing, and originally called “Little Darlin’/ The Beginning,” is noted for its trademark doo-wop falsetto by Fred Mangum and its spoken bridge by Williams (“My Darlin’ I need you …”). The Gladiolas were from Lancaster, South Carolina, where they had been together since high school.
The Diamonds‘ successful cover version followed a month later. The Diamonds were a Canadian pop group that evolved into a doo-wop group. The Diamonds’ version reached number two in sales for eight weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. Billboard ranked this version as the No. 3 song for 1957. In Canada, the song was No. 11 on the premiere CHUM Chart, May 27, 1957.
The Diamonds’ version is generally considered superior. AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine argues that the Diamonds “Little Darlin'” is an unusual example of a cover being better than the original:
[T]he Diamonds’ take remained the bigger hit, and over the years, the better-known version. Normally, this would have been an outrage, but there’s a reason why the Diamonds’ version has sustained its popularity over the years: it’s a better, fiercer recording. Both versions are good, even if they’re a little silly, because it’s a good doo wop song, giving each member of the quartet a lot to do. At times, the vocal phrases verge on self-parody — the “ai-ya-yi-yai-yai-ya”‘s or the “wella-wella”‘s — which may be why The Diamonds’ version is superior.
On the Pop Chronicles, host John Gilliland claimed that their version was in fact a parody of the genre. Nonetheless, “Little Darlin'” (primarily the Diamonds’ version, but to some extent the Gladiolas’ version) remains an all-time rock ‘n roll R&B classic.
Here’s the original version by The Gladiolas, and sure enough, it’s pretty much like the parody (or cover), including the talking interlude. It was not a hit. Is this cultural appropriation?
Sam Harris is widely demonized by the know-nothings, and I’m not quite sure why. Yes, he discussed the possibility of torture in certain circumstance, but this was a philosophical rumination which is perfectly justifiable if you have a utilitarian or consequentialist view of ethics, and in fact a similar discussion appears in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. His view are speculative and nuanced, and he thinks the torture by the American government should remain illegal. Nevertheless, over and over again I’ve seen him damned for advocating willy-nilly torture, as if he were some kind of latter-day Josef-Mengele. And that is what I’ve seen people emphasize, though Sam has also discussed the possibility of American preemptive nuclear strikes, the nature of Islam (he’s been deemed an “Islamophobe”), and for profiling groups of people for airline security. That has been more fodder for going after him, though people always neglect the nuance.
I myself have criticized his position on “objective morality,” but that would never make me dismiss Sam, as his writings are always measured and thoughtful—and largely philosophical. They promote thought, and that is, after all, the goal of philosophy. But I guess when an avowed atheist dips into philosophy, he’s almost automatically damned. So be it; I will continue to read him.
Yesterday Sam posted his views about our war with Iran, and his overall take is summarized in the title of this post. You can read his discussion by clicking on the link below, or reading the the piece archived here.
I think the moral confusion about the war, which I see as the conflict between feeling it’s a just war and the despair at the rationalizations for the war by our administration and Trump’s repeated lies about what’s going on and what he intends to do—all of this is the cause for the increasing anomie many of us feel about our engagement, as well as for the widespread opposition to the war by Americans. As Sam says, “To think clearly about this war, we need to hold two sets of ideas in our minds at the same moment: the Iranian regime is evil, and the Trump administration is dangerously amoral, corrupt, and incompetent.”
I’ll give a few quotes from Sam (indented). Text that is flush left is mine, as are the bold headings:
Why it’s a morally just war
The Islamic Republic has tormented its own people for forty-seven years. It has hanged dissidents from cranes, crushed peaceful protests with live ammunition, tortured political prisoners, and funded jihadist proxies throughout the Middle East and beyond. When Salman Rushdie was nearly killed by a knife-wielding fanatic, after living for thirty-three years under the shadow of the Ayatollah’s imbecilic curse, this was a direct export from the theocracy in Tehran—which has grown increasingly unpopular with the Iranian people. The protests of 2025 and 2026 reminded the world, yet again, of the Iranian majority’s desperation to be free. The assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei on the first day of this war was greeted with celebrations in Tehran, Isfahan, and among the Iranian diaspora in Los Angeles and New York. Whatever else one thinks about the decision to strike Iran, it is obscene to pretend that there was no moral or pragmatic argument for doing so.
Note that a credible figure for civilians killed by the Iranian regime for protesting is 30,000+. The regime apprehends political prisoners for protesting the war, including the families of protestors, and tries to assassinate critics of the regime even when they are overseas (e.g., Masih Alinejad). There’s no doubt that the Iranian people, overall, want to acquire the freedoms they had before the Revolution. All this, and the determination of Iran to export terrorism throughout the Middle East, makes this a just war.
And yet, most critics of the war speak as though Iran was a peaceful nation attacked by foreign aggressors. Notions of “sovereignty” and “international law” are invoked as though the Islamic Republic were Sweden. Almost no prominent critic of this war has anything cogent to say about the decades of misery the mullahs have inflicted on their own citizens, the threat that Iran’s network of proxy militias poses to the entire region, or the inconceivability of establishing deterrence once a jihadist death cult acquires nuclear weapons. If your opposition to this war cannot acknowledge the evil we are facing, your opposition is not morally sane.
I’ll add to this something that Sam takes up later: some of the motivation for criticizing this war comes from the fact that we’re allies with Israel, seen as a settler-colonialist and evil apartheid regime,and of course a Jewish state.
The justified criticism of this war.
But there is a serious case to be made against this war. One might believe, along with Damon Linker, that the risk of Iran becoming a failed state—a larger, more dangerous version of post-invasion Iraq—far outweighs the benefits of toppling the regime today. One could point to the apparent absence of a credible plan for what comes next, or to the fact that three weeks of bombardment haven’t produced anything resembling the “unconditional surrender” that Trump once demanded. Iranian state media has reported that the conflict has already killed more than 1,500 people, including over 200 children. Whatever the actual numbers, there can be no doubt that the humanitarian toll is real and mounting. These are intelligible concerns, and they deserve to be taken seriously.
But this is not the argument that most opponents of this war are making. They are making a much lazier set of claims—and often treating any American use of force as inherently unjust. Most critics are simply ignoring the question of what the world should do about a jihadist regime that has spent decades aspiring to commit genocide, views any peace as a temporary interval in which to gain the upper hand, and happens to be on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons.
Admittedly, it is difficult to separate the ethics of destroying the Iranian regime, and seeking to liberate the Iranian people, from the staggering incompetence and callousness of the reality-television stars who are now sit atop our vast machinery of war and wield it for no clearly stated purpose.
Sam then recounts a lot of Trump’s lies (or confusions), including his back-and-forth on whether we’ve destroyed the regime and its nuclear program, whether or not he’ll demand “unconditional surrender”, his failure to include Congress in his deliberations, and his failure to prepare the American people for the conflict. This leads to feelings of both anomie and impotence:
Congressional Democrats now face the agonizing reality that they cannot stop a war that is already underway—the question is whether they can impose constitutional oversight on an administration that started it without asking anyone’s permission.
How the war increased antisemitism
I think we all know that antisemitism is now a tenacious termite in Western democracies. Though not ubiquitous, we see it growing in America, in Canada, in Europe, and in Australia. I’m not sure whether the conflict with Iran has actually increased it, or simply given antisemites an excuse to parade their views more openly. Sam blames Trump for his incompetence that has created an explanatory vacuum that’s fbeen filled with Jew-hating.
Finally, all of this bluster, confusion, dishonesty, and strategic incoherence has been a gift to the world’s antisemites. In the three weeks since the war began, antisemitic incidents worldwide have spiked by 34 percent. The resignation of Joe Kent, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center—who blamed “high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media” for encouraging the conflict—gave mainstream respectability to the conspiracy theory that most of our wars are fought at the behest of perfidious Jews. Far-right figures have seized on the joint U.S.-Israeli operation to push the narrative that American soldiers are dying for a foreign power. And the antiwar Left, rather than reject this framing, has amplified it. While the similarities between the far Right and the far Left may be overstated, for the Jews, “horseshoe theory” is now a daily reality.
And Trump’s chaotic messaging bears much of the blame. When a president cannot clearly articulate why his country has gone to war, he leaves a vacuum that conspiracy theories will fill. A competent leader would have made the case for this war on its merits—the destruction of a terroristic theocracy’s military infrastructure, the elimination of its nuclear program, the liberation of 88 million people from a regime that jails and tortures women for the crime of uncovering their hair. Instead, Trump has offered a jumble of contradictions: Iran’s military is destroyed, but we need more troops; the war is almost over, but we may yet put boots on the ground; Iran wants to talk, but there is no one to talk to. This moral and logical void has become a vessel for antisemitic paranoia on both the Right and the Left. Needless to say, it doesn’t help that Trump and his family have been accepting personal gifts and payments from the Gulf states—a plane from Qatar, secretive investments from the UAE—while American forces protect those same regimes. The man is simultaneously waging a war of choice and running what appears to be an extortion racket.
The resultant ambivalence.
I think the first paragraph below, which involves us believing things that seem at odds with each other, explains at least for my ambivalence about the war. A nutjob is in charge, someone who continually contradicts himself and acts on impulse, and yet he’s in charge of a just war.
It is possible, even necessary, to believe all of the following at once: the Iranian regime is a monstrosity that should be destroyed; the Iranian people deserve to be free; the risk that this war will end in catastrophe is real, largely because of the character of those who are waging it; and the rising tide of antisemitism that this conflict has unleashed is yet another moral emergency that people on both sides of the debate have a responsibility to confront.
The tragedy of this moment is that the right war is being waged by the wrong people, for the wrong reasons. And the opponents of the war, rather than making this case, have mostly opted for blinkered pacifism and conspiracy theories, while refusing to grapple with the manifest evil of the Iranian regime. Of course, the Iranian people, caught between their own tyrants, a reckless American president, and his feckless critics, will pay the heaviest price.
Send ’em in if you got ’em. The photo situation is dire.
But today we have whale photos by reader Ephriam Heller. His captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.
The best whale watching I have experienced is observing gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) in the San Ignacio Lagoon on the Pacific coast of the Baja peninsula in Mexico. These whales are curious and “friendly,” often swimming up to boats to observe their occupants and even allowing themselves to be touched. Here is an example of an interaction between two species that each appear to exhibit curiosity and intelligence:
They engage in numerous photogenic behaviors, such as rolling, riding the surf, waving their flippers and flukes in the air, and spyhopping to observe their surroundings.
The gray whale has longitudinal double blowholes. People claim that they form a heart shape, but think a heart with this shape needs immediate treatment:
When the sunlight hits their spray just right, one sees “rainblows”:
The gray whale has the most parasites of any whale, carrying up to 180 kg. At birth, babies have no barnacles or sea lice, but quickly acquire them from their mothers. The older the whale, the more barnacles and lice they collect. The whales rub along the seabed and piers to try to rid themselves of the parasites.
The whales carry one species of barnacle and four species of whale lice. The barnacles are Cryptolepas rhachianecti (whale barnacles) which are specific to gray whale hosts (i.e., they rarely occur on any other species), and they die when the whale dies.
There are four species of “whale lice,” which are not true lice (which are insects) but are amphipods in family Cyamidae: Cyamus scammony (the most common), Cyamus kessleri, and Cyamus eschrichtii are all found only on gray whales. Cyamus ceti is found on gray and bowhead whales. These cause minor irritation to healthy whales. Researchers view cyamid coverage and distribution (e.g., heavy clusters near blowhole, mouthline, genital slit) as indicators of stress, nutritional status, and chronic skin disease rather than as a primary cause of these problems.
There are two populations. The larger Eastern North Pacific population migrates along the continental coast between its breeding grounds in Baja, Mexico and its feeding grounds in Alaska. The small Western North Pacific population migrates along the Pacific coast of Asia. Gray whales hold the record for the longest migration of any mammal, with typical round-trip distances of about 20,000 km annually (although this isn’t close to the 70,000 km migration of the arctic tern).
Whales fall into two suborders: baleen (Mysticeti) and toothed (Odontoceti). Gray whales are in Mysticeti and use their baleen to feed on amphipods and plankton on the seafloor. During the six month summer feeding season, adults consume over 1 ton of food per day. They then fast for the remainder of the year, including the migration and winter birthing / breeding season. They exhibit “handedness,” in that most gray whales feed by scooping up sediments from the seafloor with the right side of their heads, resulting in their right sides having fewer adhering barnacles and sea lice.
They live up to ~70 years. Biggs transient killer whales (orcas) kill up to 35% of the calf population annually. Based on scarring, researchers speculate that almost every gray whale has been attacked by orcas. Most attacks occur as the young calves migrate north through Monterey Bay, California and Unimak Pass, Alaska.
The Eastern North Pacific population dropped to ~1,000 individuals around 1885 due to whaling, but has since recovered to ~27,000 in 2015-2016. The Western North Pacific population is tiny, comprising just a few hundred individuals. North Atlantic populations were extirpated (perhaps by whaling at the end of the medieval warm period) on the European coast in the 12th to 14th centuries, and on the American and African Atlantic coasts around the late 17th to early 18th centuries. Remains of gray whales from the time of the Roman empire have been found in the Mediterranean Sea, and they are still rarely seen there in modern times.
The gray whale has a dark slate-gray color and is covered by characteristic gray-white patterns, which are scars left by parasites that drop off in its cold feeding grounds. Individuals can be identified by their pigmentation patterns and their scars. I got this great photo of a whale’s tail; but it was just a fluke:
In case you are the kind of person who is interested in this sort of thing, this is what it looks like when whales mate:
Anyone with a younger brother will recognize this as the “head butt” greeting, a conserved behavior across all mammal species:
And this is the view when you saddle up a gray whale (I use a western saddle):
The eyes of gray whales are unlike the eyes of any other mammal I have seen, with what appear to be tangled filaments. My AI friend assures me that this is not the case and that they do not have any “extra” organs in their eyes: “The ‘tangled filaments’ you’re seeing are structures in the gray whale’s iris and surrounding tissues that become visible because the eye is small, very dark, and strongly three‑dimensional, so you are effectively looking across folded, ridged iris and ciliary tissues rather than through a flat, open pupil as in most mammals you see up close.”
Welcome to another damn Monday: it’s March 23, 2026, and the temperature in Chicago is 31°F, just below freezing, but with the wind it feels like 15°F. My ducks! (Vashit didn’t show yesterday; I hope she’s not incubating eggs at this early date.) It’s also National Melba Toast Day. Why this thin rusk deserves celebrating is beyond me, but at least it’s in the same subspecies as Peach Melba (named after the same person):
It is named after DameNellie Melba, the stage name of Australian opera singer Helen Porter Mitchell. Its name is thought to date from 1897, when the singer was very ill and it became a staple of her diet. The toast was created for her by a chef who was also a fan of her, Auguste Escoffier, who also created the peach Melba dessert for her. The hotel proprietor César Ritz supposedly named it in a conversation with Escoffier
I’ve had it a few times, and it’s okay, but it’s best if you smother it with goodies, like this plate served with goat cheese and tomato jam:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 23 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Former FBI director Robert Mueller died at 81. Perhaps his biggest accomplishment was revitalizing the FBI, but he’s most famous for investigating claims that Russia (possibly with the cooperation of Trump) interfered with the 2016 Presidential election. (His report concluded that Russia did but Trump didn’t.)
Robert S. Mueller III, who led the Federal Bureau of Investigation for 12 tumultuous years, brought politically explosive indictments as a special counsel examining Russia’s attack on the 2016 presidential election, and then concluded that he could neither absolve nor accuse President Trump of a crime, died on Friday. He was 81.
His family confirmed the death in a statement but did not say where he died or specify the cause. Last August, the family disclosed publicly that Mr. Mueller was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in the summer of 2021. The law firm WilmerHale, from which Mr. Mueller retired in 2022, said he died on Friday night in Charlottesville, Va.
A button-down, lockjawed, rock-ribbed exemplar of a vanishing caste, the liberal Republican, Mr. Mueller became the F.B.I. director just a week before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
He went on to impose the most significant structural and cultural changes in the history of the F.B.I., seeking to transform the bureau into a 21st-century intelligence service that could protect both national security and civil liberties. And his counterterrorism agents were the first to blow the whistle on abuses at the secret prisons that the C.I.A. had established after 9/11 to detain, interrogate and, in some cases, torture terrorism suspects.
But he may be best remembered for what he did after he left the F.B.I., when he was summoned to investigate a sitting president.
The Justice Department named Mr. Mueller special counsel on May 17, 2017, eight days after Mr. Trump dismissed the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, who was investigating the interactions between the Trump campaign and a Russian covert operation to help him win the White House.
The president’s reason for dismissing Mr. Comey was no secret. The next day, in the Oval Office, he told the Russia foreign minister and the Russian ambassador: “I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy.” Mr. Trump continued: “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
And here, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, and comrades, is Trump’s reaction from Truth Social:
Maybe some people can express glee at the death of a person, but it’s inappropriate for a U.S. President, and it’s inappropriate with respect to Robert Mueller. He was not, after all, like Jerry Falwell, whose death Christopher Hitchens celebrated. And of course Mueller had a family who is grieving, and the President makes a public pronouncment like this. It’s reprehensible.
*A reader told me of what looks like a good site for news from the Middle East, It’s Noon in Israel by Israeli journalist Amit Segal. The reader touted it for its “solid facts and anlysis”, and that seems about right. Curious that Israeli sites often give more objective news than, say, the New York Times. A summary from yesterday.
Last night Iranian ballistic missiles struck the southern cities of Dimona and Arad, injuring nearly 200 people—11 of them seriously—after Israeli air defenses failed to intercept two missiles. Iran said it was targeting Israel’s Negev Nuclear Research Center near Dimona, claiming the strikes were in retaliation for an alleged U.S. attack on Natanz, which the IDF denied. As a result of the attacks, in-person schooling—which had resumed in certain areas of the country—has been canceled for the next two days.
Fifteen people were wounded—most lightly—in an Iranian missile strike on central Israel this morning. The ballistic missile carried a cluster bomb warhead, scattering bomblets across a wide area.
Trump threatened last night to destroy Iran’s power plants “starting with the biggest one first” if the Strait of Hormuz is not fully opened within 48 hours. The ultimatum follows signs of growing international acceptance of Iran’s position. Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi told Japan’s Kyodo News that Tehran has begun talks with Tokyo about possibly allowing Japanese-linked vessels through the strait. Meanwhile, Iran is reportedly considering a separate proposal to levy transit fees on ships passing through—an attempt to monetize its grip on the waterway.
The Pentagon is deploying a second amphibious ready group to the Middle East in as many weeks—adding roughly 2,200 to 2,500 troops. This follows last week’s deployment of a 5,000-strong force based in Japan, bringing total U.S. troop levels in the region to approximately 50,000.
Iran fired two ballistic missiles at the joint U.K.–U.S. base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean—and missed. One missile failed in flight; the other was intercepted by a U.S. warship. The attempted strike revealed something significant: the missiles traveled roughly 4,000 kilometers, double Iran’s previously declared self-imposed limit of 2,000 kilometers—putting most of Western Europe within range.
And some commentary:
The prime minister (or his avatar, if one is to believe the Iranians) believes that Trump needs many more achievements in this war than Israel does. Israel’s war aims are regional: nuclear capabilities, missiles, terror proxies. America’s war aims include severing the threat Iran waved around for decades and has now been pushed to use: closing the Strait of Hormuz and sending oil prices soaring. The Gulf states are pressing Trump to eliminate that threat once and for all. They do not trust a future regime not to extort the entire region and the world with the threat of shaking the energy market.
And so Israel finds itself helping the United States achieve that goal. The rationale, beyond returning a favor for a favor, is clear: every joint action against Iran frames the Middle East as a story of fundamentalists versus moderates, not Jews versus Muslims. The broader implications of the event are only beginning to emerge. For example, Qatar’s warnings to senior Hamas figures that the Palestinian issue is dropping off the agenda and that they must immediately choose which side to support. For example, the expanding IDF operation up to the Litani River. Is this a temporary, isolated event? Soldiers who went deeper into Lebanon this week should think again, and remember that IDF forces have now been on the summit of the Syrian Hermon since the end of 2024, with no expiration date.
The newsletter is giving a day-by-day account of the doings; what’s above is the report sent Sunday. I’d get a subscription to this news letter (some are free) if you want to follow the war without cant.
*Even if the Strait of Hormuz is secured, that doesn’t mean the danger to oil shipments is over, for there’s still the narrow Red Sea. The WSJ reports on the possibility that the Houthis could start attacking shipping there.
Iran has successfully strangled the Persian Gulf, the most critical maritime route for energy supplies in the world. It hasn’t yet prevented its foes from using a workaround that runs through the Red Sea.
That could change if the Houthis get involved.
The U.S. and its partners in the Middle East are keeping a close eye on the Yemeni militant group which—armed and funded by Iran—crippled shipping through the Red Sea for much of two years.
The Houthis have recently stepped up threatening rhetoric that has caught officials’ attention. While they haven’t started shooting yet, the militants are an important lever for Iran, if it decides to further squeeze the global economy or expand its targets to Saudi Arabia and nearby U.S. assets, such as a base in Djibouti.
“If the Houthis enter the conflict, it really raises the stakes,” said Adam Baron, a fellow at think tank New America who specializes in Yemen and the Gulf. “It pulls the Suez Canal and the Egyptians in, it brings Saudi further in.”
Iran has long cultivated militia allies across the Middle East as a way to project power and as a deterrent against attack. Hezbollah, in Lebanon, and Iran-aligned militias in Iraq have jumped into the war to attack Israel and U.S. bases.
The Houthis are a notable holdout but have signaled they could jump in at any moment.
Here’s a digram from the region, showing the Strait of Hormuz at 3 o’clock (the passage with the pointy bit), and the Red Sea and Suez Canal to the left. The narrowest passage at the southern end is about 20 miles wide.
Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
The Suez Canal is owned by Egypt, which makes billions of dollars per year from ships taking that short cut. Closing it will bring Egypt into the conflict, when it’s already been dragged into the war between Israel and Hamas. And if the Houthis start firing on ships, then the war with Iran will expand into Yemen.
It took three decades of battles and lobbying for Cesar Chavez’s name and likeness to grace hundreds of buildings, roads, parks and schools.
It is taking just days for them to come down.
In the two days after allegations emerged that the famed farmworker rights leader and Chicano figure sexually assaulted minors and fellow labor icon Dolores Huerta, Chavez is being erased at an unprecedented rate. This is especially true in California, where his fight for agricultural workers’ rights was cemented in state history.
In San Fernando, a completely covered Chavez statue was pulled off its pedestal and put into storage. Murals depicting Chavez in Los Angeles were unceremoniously painted over. In Fresno, the City Council voted to strip his name from a major street — just three years after its controversial decision to rebrand it in his honor. Soon, the old street names — Kings Canyon Road, Ventura Street and California Avenue — will return to the nearly 10-mile-long corridor.
. . . On Thursday, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and members of the City Council announced they would abandon the holiday honoring Chavez’s birthday and instead rename it “Farm Workers Day” to honor laborers who toil in the fields.
. . . There has been talk within some communities to removed the Chavez name and replace it with a more generic honor for farmworkers and activists, placing the movement above any individual.
In an interview with Latino USA, Huerta said that streets named for Chavez should be renamed instead after the movement.
“Everything should be named for the martyrs of the Farm Workers Movement. Every street should be named after them,” Huerta said.
There has been a steady drumbeat to honor Chavez after his death in 1993. One of the first was renaming old Brooklyn Avenue on L.A.’s Eastside for Chavez. That faced some controversy from the community who argued the city was erasing their history and burdening them with the cost to change stationery. But over time, naming things after the labor leader became shorthand for honoring Latino civil rights and activism.
Historians and educators of history, including Gudis, said instead of zeroing in on one person to encapsulate a historical movement or event, there should be a greater effort to uplift lesser-known figures in the community who have contributed to a broader cause. These are people whom the community can actually resonate and connect with.
The Cesar Chavez Foundation and family said on Friday that it is aware of the city of Los Angeles’ intent to rename the holiday that once celebrated its namesake to instead honor farmworkers and supported it.
“The decision about how to commemorate the movement and its participants rests with the local communities who organize those recognitions, events and commemorations. That has always been the case,” the foundation’s statement said. “We support and respect whatever decision they ultimately make.”
Nobody is contesting the allegations or even arguing over them (at least I haven’t heard any criticisms of the cancellation): the evidence is too pervasive. It’s being handled well, and they’re replacing Chavez as the symbol of the movement with the farmworkers as a group, as well as Dolores Huerta (now 90), a largely unrecognized force in the farmerworkers movement (she was also assaulted by Chavez and had two of his children). Of all the cancellations I’ve seen, this is the one that most saddens me, as Chavez was a hero to me and many of my peers. I even boycotted grapes.
*The baseball season is about to begin, and with it is the advent of the robot umpire. The NYT explains (free archived link.)
Ready or not, the robots are here … in … the … house. You can find them in a big-league batter’s box near you, fully locked and loaded to decide baseball’s most important question: What’s a strike?
Technically speaking, of course, they won’t be whizzing around the field like your Roomba, wooing batters, catchers and paying customers with their robotic charms. They’re actually invisible, lurking in the background, waiting for somebody to tap his cap, challenge and ask their opinions.
But this is not the latest “Star Wars” installment, and it’s not a laughing matter. Those robot umpires are here to stay.
MLB’s Automated Ball-Strike challenge system (ABS) is up and running this spring. And unlike last year, when this was just a fun experiment, this time that challenge system will remain once the real games start. It will be ball-striking away in every game, in all 30 parks, from Opening Day through the postseason and then (theoretically) …
The system is a series of cameras honed in on a player’s strike zone, which differs from player to player. And it doesn’t call every pitch: each team gets two challenges of an umpire’s call in each game:
This is the easy part. The rules will be the same as the ones used in Triple A and in big-league spring training last season. Each team gets two challenges per game. If it gets a challenge right, it keeps that challenge. If it gets that challenge wrong, it loses a challenge.
Only hitters, catchers and pitchers have the power to challenge — and they need to do that within two seconds of the umpire’s call. They’re being told they have to both tap their head and verbally challenge so there’s no confusion. Hmm, think we’ll make it through a whole season with no confusion? Why do I think that answer is … no!
Here’s a video showing it in action; note the pitcher challenging the umpire’s call by tapping his head and calling “challenge that!” as per the rules.
Here’s a called ball in the tweet: note that the ball is wholly outside the strike zone
We almost had today’s Blue Jays-Phillies game end on a robot-off!
Jays catcher Aaron Parker challenged this 1-2 pitch to Dante Nori that was called a ball.
So it would have been game over if it had even right. But…
I used to watch a lot of baseball, both live and on television (my dad was a big fan). I am not a huge fan of this, but we do have instant replays in football that can be reviewed by referees. But other changes in the game have upset me more, including having to vacate the stadium during double header and pay twice to see two games, as well as starting each half-inning with a man on second if a game is tied after the ninth inning. These rules were made to speed up the game, and probably at bottom involve revenue. It’s not right to start with a man on second when he didn’t do anything to get on second. And of course pitchers haven’t batted in years!
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is angling for some pets, but Andrzej turns her request around:
Hili: Everyone enjoys a gentle stroke from time to time. Andrzej: You can stroke me.
In Polish:
Hili: Każdy lubi być czasem pogłaskany.
Ja: Możesz mnie pogłaskać.
*******************
From The Language Nerds: Pay attention! There will be a quiz. “Enormity”, “nauseous,” and “peruse” are especially important.
From Masih: a disturbing look at how the families of executed Iranian protestors are treated:
Breaking: in this video, the mother of one of January’s killed protesters has exposed that she was threatened with gang rape. Now, it’s just come out that her husband has been arrested. First, they kill the child. Second, they threaten gang rape. Finally, they arrest the father.… pic.twitter.com/90N1j52ms2
Matt Ridley gave a lecture at the NIH defending his view that the SARS coronavirus was engineered in the Wuhan virus lab. I haven’t followed this controversy, but it seems that scientific opinion is coalescing around the “wet market” origin theory. Matthew sent me a tweet about Ridley’s talk and discussion (see link below), and a virologist, who participated in the discussion below, also took apart Ridley’s arguments on a Bluesky thread. You can find the thread by clicking on the screenshot below, which leads to the rest of the comments:
Click on the screenshot below to see three evolutionary virologists vs. Ridley in an NIH-sponsored “Freedom from Science” lecture, all taking apart Ridley’s claims in real time (i;e., his lecture is sporadically interrupted and corrected; it’s a bit hectic). This annotated video was put up on virologist Angela Rasmussen‘s private Substack site, and you can see her and two colleagues take strong issue with not only Ridley’s claim of lab engineering, but also with similar claims by NIH director Jay Bhattacharya. I have watched only part of the video as it’s 4½ hours long!
From Luana, public prayer in New York, promoted by Mayor Mamdani. It’s legal, of course, and should be, but I see it as a way to parade Islam in public. Group prayers in public are prohibited in some Muslim countries if they obstruct traffic or are a disruption, and in most of them group prayer is encouraged to take place in mosques, not in the streets. I’ve always thought as Mamdani as an Islamist, and that impression has only been strengthened by his encouragement of public religious activities. As I mentioned a few days ago, the Freedom from Religion Foundation has rebuked Mamdani for mixing religion with public business.
This is Washington Square Park, New York. One of the many locations that Muslims took over for their mass public prayers.
Again, NOBODY does this in Muslim countries. If they did this in Saudi Arabia or Dubai, they would be arrested!
One from my feed: A young girl doing a lovely Iranian dance, but I wonder how she gets away with it. I thought public dancing by women was forbidden in Iran.
🇮🇷 An Iranian girl performing a traditional dance at the Rasht Fish Market, Gilan Province, Iran. (August 2025)
This Jewish boy, born in Tel Aviv and whose family moved to Paris, was transported to Auschwitz and gassed upon arrival, along with 90% of the people on his train. https://t.co/6OSkRm1uyZ
And two from Dr. Cobb (besides the one above). The first one is amazing, and not fake:
Doomscrolling break…A pantropical spotted dolphin about 15 feet / 4.5 metres in the airPhoto by Jessica McCordic, MSc around 2017, a research biologist for the Pacific Whale Foundation at the time – now working at NOAA fisheries monitoring marine acoustics
As usual, I watched the NBC Evening News last night, even though some of its reporting has seemed slanted against Israel. Since I wrote about the Guardian article yesterday, though, I’ve become more sensitized to how the media uses language to express political opinions—even in supposedly objective news reports.
Here’s a video showing all the NBC Evening News from last night, but you don’t have to watch it all unless you want to see bodycam video of a clearly inebriated Justin Timberlake being arrested for DUI (17:05). The part that made me prick up my ears is at 4:07, when the news shows cute little Lebanese Muslim kids getting presents at the end of Ramadan. But they are not in their homes. The narration says this (bolding is mine):
While across the Muslim world, the end of Ramadan means presents for children. These kids are among the one million people displaced in Lebanon by Israel’s expanding offensive against Hezbollah.
The rest of the short segment seems designed to evoke the viewers’ sympathy for Lebanese people—especially the kids—displaced by the wicked Jewish state. And indeed, it’s sad that people have to flee their homes. HOWEVER, the report neglects to mention that there had been a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah that largely held until March 2 of this year. Then, on March 2, three days after the U.S. and Israel struck Iran, Hezbollah in fired a barrage of missiles and drones from Lebanon at northern Israel, explicitly saying that this was in response to the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and what Hezbollah called were “repeated Israeli aggressions” (there were minor attacks by both sides during the ceasefire, with UNIFIL and the Lebanese government failing to rein in Hezbollah, as they are supposed to. Israel responded big time, but to construe that as an “expanding offensive” minimizes the defensive nature of Israel’s attacks, designed to stop Hezbollah’s rockets and drones for once and for all.
Again, it’s a small remark, but a telling one. “Expanding offensive” implies that Israel started the attacks in Lebanon going on now. It didn’t, just as Israel didn’t start the war with Hamas on October 7.
But at the end you might want to see the inevitable “there’s-good-news-tonight” segment (several nice pieces starting at 18:05, with an especially moving bit at 19:54 as a woman is assigned to take the final call from an Air Force officer as he leaves the military—an officer who happens to be her dad). As the world is falling apart, nearly all the major television news stations like to leave viewers with a good taste in their mouths.
From what I recall, the Diamonds were a conventional vocal group who recorded “Little Darlin'” at the end of a session as a kind of joke song – a parody of the Ink Spots and Mills Brothers. Fortunately for them, the studio musicians joined in with perfectly irresistible beat and the song became a rock and roll hit. Early rock and roll was born as parody as much as anything else, like Elvis’s Jokey rendition of Bill Monroe’s “Blue Moon of Kentucky” turning out to be the founding document of rockabilly.