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.
Jon decided to leave a review of the book on its Amazon page (his review is shown below in the Amazon rejection). Yep, his submitted review was rejected. He sent the rejection to me and I reproduce it and his emailed speculations (with permission). I’ve put a red box around the submitted review:
At first I was puzzled, as I don’t follow Amazon reviews and know nothing about the ideology of the site or company. Can you guess why the review was returned with requests for changes? I suspect you’ve guessed correctly, though we can’t be sure. I asked Jon what he thought, and here’s some of his response:
Use of the term “woke” in a less than reverential tone is no doubt classified by Amazon’s editors as “hate speech”. After all, it makes wokies feel unsafe. My hunch is that the dopier Communications majors from the 2010s work as review editors at Amazon. The better-connected ones get into the editorial offices of some Nature publications we have encountered.
In truth, I can see no other explanation. The review was not worshipful enough of wokeness, and in fact made fun of it, even expressing a hope that it would disappear. If you have another explanation, by all means put it in the comments. I had no patience to read Amazon’s “community guidelines” to see if there were other infractions.
I don’t know if Jon will resubmit his review, but I thought that this was both sad and amusing. The other reviews (126 of them) are bimodal (70% five star, 18% one star), and it’s also amusing to look at the negative ones, most of them finding the book guilty of association with the wrong people, or not hard enough on Trump and right-wing assaults on science (not its purpose)
Send in your good wildlife photos, as I’m out save for singletons and doubletons.
Today’s photos come from reader Jan Malik from New Jersey and are geese and DUCKS. The captions and ID’s are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
Here are some Barnegat Inlet ducks (and other visitors) from the last day of this February.
Canada Goose (Branta canadensis) and Brant (Branta bernicla) in flight. Same genus, similar body form, and a fairly recent common ancestor—only about 1–2 MYA in Pleistocene North America. Anne Elk’s (Mrs.) theory about brontosauruses could be adapted to geese: they are thin at one end, much, much thicker in the middle, and thin again at the far end. My new theory is that these two species split when the Laurentide Ice Sheet separated the American coast from the inland regions. The Brant specialized in coastal habitats and feeding on seaweeds, while the Canada Goose evolved inland, feeding mostly on herbs and grasses. Perhaps this theory is not new. Or not mine.
Arguably the biggest stars of the winter Barnegat Inlet are the Harlequin Ducks (Histrionicus histrionicus). The drakes’ plumage is so dramatic—and their calls so comical (resembling a bath rubber ducky)—that many people come to Barnegat Light just to see them. The hens’ coloration is more subdued but still lovely.
Every year I see them bobbing along the jetty, sometimes tossed around by heavy seas but always masterfully avoiding the rocks. They seem attracted to heavy surf and avoid the open sea. They stay mostly in a loose flock, which in recent years appears to have declined from 20–30 ducks in 2010 to just 10–15 in the last couple of years.
Drake:
They can preen while in the water, but they do catch a breather by climbing onto slippery rocks. Their feet are set a bit farther back, like in other diving ducks, but they can walk on land—although a bit awkwardly. By late February most of them are gone, heading back north to their nesting grounds on Labrador’s whitewater rivers and streams:
Like other diving ducks, they dip their heads before diving for fish. My other theory—Theory Number Two—is that by doing so they defeat the air–water interface diffraction and better locate prey:
They are exceptionally buoyant, which makes sense given their rocky surf habitat, but it also means they must put extra effort into diving. They have to jump slightly into the air before the dive to gain momentum, then use their wings as paddles to become submerged:
I once heard that the difference between geese and ducks is that ducks can launch themselves directly into the air from a resting position, while geese need to run for a while, either on water or land. This is probably true for dabbling ducks (like Mallards), but a Harlequin—with its feet set back a bit—must run some distance to become airborne:
Another common winter visitor: the Red-breasted Merganser (Mergus serrator), drake. Their bill serration is more pronounced than in other diving ducks, helping them catch fish:
Merganser hen. These are the most sea-loving mergansers. The other two I’m familiar with—Common and Hooded Mergansers—rarely appear in coastal waters. They are said to be very active underwater predators pursuing fish, but I’ve never seen that myself:
Common Eider (Somateria mollissima), probably an immature drake in transitional plumage. They are quite large and plump, which—together with the proverbial “eider down”—makes them well adapted to nesting in the Arctic. Reportedly, hens with ducklings may form crèches on their nesting grounds (a defense against polar foxes and skuas perhaps?) One day I must see that:
Cheez Doodles are a cheese-flavored baked cheese puff made of extruded cornmeal and are similar to Frito-Lay’s Cheetos and Herr’s Cheese Curls. The snack was created by Morrie Yohai and is produced by Pennsylvania-based snack foods producer Wise Foods.
The Doodles appear to be yet another Jewish contribution to American culture. Wikipedia adds “The name came to [Morrie] while he sat around the table with other employees sampling different alternatives for the cheese flavoring.” The snack became popular only around 1964. I don’t much care for them, but many people are addicted (you know them by their orange fingers. Here’s a video showing how the crunchy version is made. I wonder what’s in the “cheese flavoring”. (The video starts 9 seconds in, so be patient):
As of yesterday afternoon, our two ducks are still here. I haven’t yet named them.
Here is a plate of hot-dog poutine that I wolfed down on March 1, 2016 at La Banquise, perhaps the most famous poutine joint in Montreal (it’s featured in the Wikipedia article on the dish, created in the late 1950s.. There is probably no food worse for you than poutine, but I do love it as a treat (I haven’t found it in America, but I’m sure it’s here somewhere for expat Canucks):
Standing in front of the restaurant are my friends Claude and Anne-Marie, who gave me a five-star tour of the city.
The menu (click to enlarge):
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 5 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*The war goes on, and will for a while. Now Iran has pulled another dumbass move by sending a missile over Turkey (it was shot down). Granted, it could have been aimed at U.S. bases there, but Turkey is the closest country in the Middle East to being a U.S. ally, though it’s also a member of NATO, and thus part of an alliance that includes the U.S.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that the U.S. military campaign against Iran was accelerating, with more warplanes arriving in the region, as he warned Iranian leaders that American forces would deliver “death and destruction all day long.”
Just before Mr. Hegseth briefed reporters on the fifth day of the U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran, Turkey’s defense ministry announced that NATO air defenses had shot down a ballistic missile fired from Iran that had been heading toward Turkish airspace. The ministry did not say what the missile’s intended target was, and Iran did not comment on the claim, but an attack on Turkey, a NATO member, would mark a dangerous escalation in Iran’s retaliatory targeting of neighboring countries.
Hundreds of people in Iran have been killed in the U.S.-Israeli strikes, and Mr. Hegseth said there would be no letup in the attacks. He and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the United States and Israel would soon establish total control of Iranian airspace and that the strikes were devastating Iran’s ballistic missile program and its naval fleet.
But Iran’s leaders have vowed not to bow to the bombing campaign, and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait all announced new Iranian attacks on Wednesday.
. . . China, the largest buyer of Iranian oil, said it would send a special envoy to the Middle East to help conduct conflict mediation efforts, according to Xinhua, the state news agency. The move came as the United Kingdom, France and Greece said they were deploying military assets to the region to defend their citizens and interests, even as their governments voiced misgivings about the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
. . . Mr. Hegseth said that a U.S. submarine-launched torpedo was used to sink an Iranian warship, the first time an American sub has fired a torpedo against an enemy ship since World War II. Dozens were feared dead after an Iranian naval ship with a crew of 180 people sank in the Indian Ocean on Wednesday off the coast of Sri Lanka, according to the authorities in that country.
Iran can continue firing missiles at its present pace for “several more days” before its capacity to hit targets in the Middle East diminishes, Western officials said. U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian launch sites and missile depots have already caused a drop in the rate of Iranian fire, officials said. “If the current rates continue, we assess that Iran has several more days of capability,” one official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject.
What’s after that? Boots in the ground? Iran has clearly lost this one, and it’s far from over. So far most of the U.S. actions seem to have been careful, aimed only at the administration of Iran (they’re going after the police as well as the military, for the police have been a prime instrument of oppression). So far most of the Democrats are in lockstep against the war, save for Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), Greg Landsman (D-Ohio), and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.). Pity. The Party’s mantra is “If Trump did it, it’s bad.”
Here’s today’s NYT front page from the web. Note that there’s a “news analysis” in the headline spot (I put in the red box), which is unusual since it’s usually a slot for news, but the NYT doesn’t like the war:
*Meet the New Boss, same as the Old Boss Department. Several sources including the NYT have identified Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the slain Ayatollah, as his dad’s likely successor (article archived here, Wikipedia bio here). That will be the least possible regime change. Given that Trump has said he will not tolerate a continuation of the hardline theocracy, Mojtabi, 56, now has a target on his back.
The younger Mr. Khamenei, 56, is the second son of the ayatollah, the supreme leader who was killed on Saturday in a strike on his compound in Tehran. Mojtaba Khamenei was born in 1969 in Mashhad, an important religious center in Iran, about a decade before the Islamic Republic was established in 1979.
Known for having close ties to the Revolutionary Guards, Mr. Khamenei first joined the Islamic military corps around 1987 after finishing high school. He served during the latter period of Iran’s long war with Iraq from 1980 to ’88.
The next year, his father was named supreme leader, replacing the deceased Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Mojtaba Khamenei went on to study with the country’s most esteemed clerics in Qom, and to teach in a religious seminary himself, forging connections with the religious leadership and gaining esteem in their eyes in part thanks to his father’s position.
But he was not a well-known figure and has operated mostly in the shadows, running the office of the supreme leader from behind the scenes, making headlines only occasionally in recent decades.
. . . In 2024, Iran’s Assembly of Experts met to plan the supreme leader’s succession. The Ayatollah Khamenei said at that time that his son should be excluded from consideration.
His selection could ruffle feathers in Iran because it rings familiar bells. The Islamic revolution in 1979 ousted the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and, with him, it seemed, the dynastic passage of power, replacing it with the rule of clerics.
Installing the younger Khamenei in what was once his father’s role could anger Iranians who took to the streets in economic protests that morphed into a referendum on the regime earlier this year.
Here’s the dude:
Tasnim News Agency, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
This guy will surely not stop oppression of the Iranian people, nor does he satisfy Trump’s minimal desire for the country to have a leader that is not strongly anti-American. Don’t expect him–or any replacement–to live too long after they take power.
*Over at the Free Press, Michael Doran, identified as Director of the Middle East Center at the Hudson Institute and cohost of the Israel Update Podcast, claims to discern “Trump’s endgame” (the subtitle is “Through the fog of war, it’s possible to see where all this is heading”).
. . . This brings us back to Trump’s two promises. The first—neutralizing nuclear capabilities, degrading missile forces, and constraining proxies—is achievable through sustained military, economic, and diplomatic pressure.
The second—freedom for the Iranian people—depends on Iranians themselves: politicians recognizing that survival requires change; security officers refusing to fire on their own citizens; young people willing to risk confrontation. The United States can shape conditions. It cannot create a revolution by remote control.
Trump is giving himself wide latitude to define the endgame. He has repeatedly said the war will continue until its objectives are achieved. When asked Monday night how he would know when that moment had arrived, he replied: “I know a lot, and I will absolutely know when it’s achieved. It’s getting very close, too. We’re doing a lot of damage, we’re setting them back a lot.” This gnomic confidence is vintage Trump—positioning himself as the ultimate decider while preserving maximum freedom of action.
. . . . But ending the war without securing a path to regime change raises three critical follow-up questions. Does Trump force Tehran to accept, as the price of a ceasefire, all three core demands—nuclear dismantlement, missile elimination, and an end to proxy financing? Does he try to settle for progress on the nuclear file alone? Or does he repeat his behavior of last June and end the fighting before receiving any concrete commitment from the Iranians at all?
Tehran, of course, will seek a ceasefire without binding conditions. If forced to make a concrete concession up front, it will discuss, as it did in the recent talks in Geneva and Oman, nuclear compromises while resisting negotiations on missiles and proxies.
Trump cannot afford to blink here. The endgame requires a comprehensive settlement, not tactical trades.
If Iran dismantles its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief while retaining its missile arsenal and proxy networks, the regime will simply rebuild. Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and Iran-backed militias in Iraq would soon be flush with cash. Tehran has demonstrated repeatedly that it can regenerate these capabilities even under pressure.
All three demands must therefore remain a single package.
None of those demands say anything about the freedom of the Iranian people. I wish that were at least consideration 3½.
*This is so heartening. First, the announcement from the Iran Spectator via Khajida Khan:
Iran’s women’s football team declined to sing their national anthem before their opening match of the Asian Cup in Australia on Monday, their first fixture since the war in the Middle East began.
Every member of the team stood silently, facing straight ahead, during the anthem prior to kick-off in their Group A match against South Korea, who went on to win 3-0 at the Gold Coast Stadium in Queensland. Iran’s head coach, Marziyeh Jafari, and her players declined to comment on either the war or the death of their long-serving leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, when asked by the media.
The Iranian team arrived in Australia to prepare for the tournament several days before air strikes began in the Middle East. They will face the host nation on Thursday, before playing their third and final group-stage match against the Philippines on Sunday, both at the same venue.
Iran’s players have been praised for their courage. “Our heart goes out to them and their families, it’s a difficult situation and it’s really brave of them to be able to be here and to perform,” said the Australia midfielder Amy Sayer. “They put on a really strong performance, even with the political climate that’s going on and the struggles that they might be going through.
I hope they aren’t arrested when they go back to Iran (if they are going back to Iran; they could be residents of other countries). And note: they are notmourning the death of Ali Khamenei.
. . . the video of the non-singing:
*The Associated press susses out the likely Oscar winners. Previously, “Sinners” was thought to be a no-questions-asked Oscar winner for Best Picture and Best Director, but things have changed. Here is the AP’s takes on the the top five categories. (I saw “Sinners,” and like it okay, but am not sure it’s a winner, for the second half becomes a zombie movie.
A March 15 Academy Awards may feel late. By then, it will be almost a year since “Sinners” sunk its teeth into moviegoers last April. Some nominees have been on the campaign trail since the Cannes Film Festival in May.
But the upside of a prolonged Oscar race has meant some unexpected late drama. Think about the same movies long enough, and minds can change. For months, Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” sailed through awards season, picking up prize after prize. But the wins for “Sinners” and Michael B. Jordan at Sunday’s Actor Awards — along with some other recent developments — have given the Oscar race what Smoke or Stack might call fresh blood.
An Academy Awards that had looked like a runaway might be a close call, after all. With Oscar voting ending Thursday, let’s survey the top categories.
Best Picture:
Where things stand:
“One Battle After Another” has won at the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs, the Producers Guild and the Directors Guild. But its nearly unblemished record was shaken up at Sunday’s Actor Awards (formerly the SAG Awards), where “Sinners” took the top prize. You’d have to have quite a few rounds at the “Sinners” juke joint to convince yourself that anything else has much of a chance.
Who has the edge:
The tea leaves are strongest for Anderson’s “One Battle After Another.” The Producers Guild, which uses a preferential ballot like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences does, is among the most predictive of bellwethers. Their winners have matched the last five years and in eight of the last 10 years.
I’ve seen that movie, and it was okay but didn’t thrill me. It is of the One Big Chase Scene Genre, although the plot is cleaver.
Best Actor:
Where things stand:
This has been one of the most competitive and hard-to-call races of the season. Look at Leonardo DiCaprio. He gives one of the best performances of his career, in the best picture favorite, and he’s still a long shot. Instead, Timothée Chalamet was widely perceived as in the lead after early wins at the Globes and the Critics Choice Awards for his frenetic performance in “Marty Supreme.” But the BAFTAs muddied the waters (Robert Aramayo, not in the Oscar mix, was the unexpected winner). And “Sinners” star Michael B. Jordan, much to his surprise, won at the Actor Awards.
Who has the edge:
Chalamet’s maybe meta campaign, full of swagger and braggadocio, rubbed some voters the wrong way. At the same time, many in the academy felt the 30-year-old should have won last year, for his Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown” — a year when he won with the actors guild but lost to Adrien Brody (“The Brutalist”) at the Oscars. Chalamet will hope the reverse happens this year. But the academy is notoriously resistant to rewarding young stars. Jordan, 39, isn’t much older. But it now suddenly feels like his moment.
I haven’t seen “Marty Supreme,” but my friends who have all like it.
Best Actress:
Where things stand:
Since the fall festival launch of “Hamnet,” Jessie Buckley has been the favorite. She’s won at the Globes, the BAFTAs and the Actor Awards. Her closest competition is probably Rose Byrne, who won at the Globes in the comedy/musical category for “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.”
Who has the edge:
This one’s easy. Fortunes have fluctuated in most of the top categories, but Buckley has been entrenched as the front-runner for months.
I’ve seen “Hamnet” (and also read the book) and if Buckley doesn’t win for her performance, particularly the last ten minutes, in which her facial expressions are a movie in itself, I’ll give up on the Oscars.
Best Supporting Actor:
Where things stand:
Sean Penn, a two-time Oscar winner, has done nearly no campaigning, yet he finds himself the favorite after winning at the Actor Awards and the BAFTAs. But several other nominees remain in the mix. Stellan Skarsgård (“Sentimental Value”) won at the Globes and is the kind of widely-liked veteran actor the academy likes to reward. But so is Delroy Lindo (“Sinners”), who was a surprise Oscar nominee. In the eyes of many, Lindo has quickly joined the contenders.
Who has the edge:
Penn’s recent wins put him clearly in the lead, and he might stay there. But this remains a category rife with possibilities. The academy’s strong international leanings should help Skarsgård. And it wasn’t an accident that when “Sinners” won best ensemble at the Actor Awards, Lindo gave the acceptance speech.
Penn was good in “One Battle After Another,” but I haven’t seen “Sentimental Value”.
Best Supporting Actress:
Where things stand:
This category has been all over the map. Teyana Taylor (“One Battle After Another”) won at the Globes. Wunmi Mosaku (“Sinners”) won at the BAFTAs. And Amy Madigan (“Weapons”) won at both the Actor Awards and the Critics Choice Awards.
Who has the edge:
Any of those three could win. Two of them — Taylor and Mosaku — have the benefit of co-starring in films the academy obviously loves. “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another” have 29 nominations between them, while “Weapons” has only the one. Yet the 75-year-old Madigan, another celebrated character actor who’s been great for decades, has the momentum thanks to her charming Actors Award speech.
Taylor and Mosaku were bothy excellent in their roles, but again, I can’t compare them to the others.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, man and cat are conversing deeply:
Hili: What hides in the darkness, what cunning figures?
Andrzej: Fear sometimes builds deceptive images.
In Polish:
Hili: Co się w mroku ukrywa, jakie podstępne postaci?
Ja: Lęk nieraz buduje złudne obrazy.
From Luana. I’ve tried these (they’re sometimes called “thousand-year-old eggs”) and had the same reaction as the monkey:
A monkey is grossed out by century egg
A century egg, also called pidan, is a Chinese delicacy made by preserving duck, chicken, or quail eggs in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, quicklime, and rice hulls for several weeks to months, not a hundred years.
This French Jewish girl was gassed to death as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz. She was 5 years old, and would have been 89 today had she lived. https://t.co/GjqYq0a4Q5
You're watching the hypnotic movements of a flock of Red-billed queleas, taken by Johan Vermeulen in Zambia.They're the most populous species of non-domesticated bird, with global population estimated at 1.5 billion.So why move like a rolling cloud?Let's talk about "Africa's feathered locust."
Several readers astutely mentioned in comments on today’s Hili Dialogue that a primary goal of the American attack on Iran wasn’t to democratize the country, but to remove Iran as a Chinese proxy. As Haviv Rettig Gur, a journalist who writes for the Times of Israel, argues in the piece given below, a mutualistic relationship between Iran and China has developed, with Iran providing China with cheap oil that allows the People’s Republic to build a strategic petroleum reserve (nobody else will buy that oil), and China providing Iran with missiles and sophisticated weapons to go after Israel and the West. As Gur says:
Iran is to America what Hezbollah is to Israel—the smaller second-front proxy you have to take out to have a clean shot at the main foe later on.
This is also why President Trump seems to be pursuing a strange sort of regime change—something very different from what George W. Bush or the neocons meant by the term. Trump doesn’t care one whit about democratization, or, as Venezuela showed us, about changing any element of a regime that doesn’t stand in America’s way. He’s interested in regime change in Iran only because it is fundamentally, in its founding theology, unswervingly anti-American. It is thus not swayable from the Chinese orbit by any other means.
He doesn’t need a democratic Iran, he just needs a not-anti-American Iran.
Why are we so worried about China? Because, says Gur, a potential conflict with China is in the offing—over Taiwan:
The picture that emerges from all of this is of a Chinese forward base, a linchpin of the country’s naval architecture; cyber efforts; an economic Belt and Road influence program—every element of Chinese power projection and empire-building—positioned at the throat of the global oil supply, armed with weapons designed to penetrate advanced American defenses and kill American sailors, and embedded in a strategic architecture whose explicit purpose is to constrain American military freedom in any future conflict over Taiwan.
When Iran began to look like that, it stopped being Israel’s problem and became America’s.
Click below to read, but only if you have a subscription to TFP. They don’t allow their articles to be archived.
Gur begins by noting that this is not one war but two: America’s on the one hand and Israel on the other, with Israel having existential worries as opposed to America’s concern with China:
. . . across the world, from Brazil to Beijing, London to Karachi, the argument is the same: America is fighting Israel’s war.
But this isn’t true. And the confusion matters, because if you misread what this war is actually about, you will misread everything that follows.
This is not a war about Israel. This is not a war for Israel’s sake. Israel is a beneficiary, a capable and willing local partner, but it is not the reason America is in this fight. America is playing a much bigger game, about more than what happens in the Middle East. The subtext, that Israel exercises outsize influence or “drags Americans into wars they don’t want,” borders on the conspiratorial.
This isn’t one war, but two.There is a regional chessboard, on which Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the other Gulf states all play. Iran’s proxies, its drones and ballistic missiles, its nuclear ambitions, its funding of Hezbollah and the Houthis: All of that belongs primarily to this smaller game. Israel has always understood this board. So have the Saudis. So has everyone in the neighborhood.
But there is a second chessboard, vastly larger, on which the United States and China are the primary players. On this board, the central question of the next 30 years is being worked out: whether the American-led global order survives, or whether China displaces it. Every significant American foreign policy decision, from the pivot to Asia to the tariff wars to the posture in the Pacific, is ultimately a move on this board.
Of course dodos like me (I never claimed to be a pundit) have missed all this, but Gur gives reasons why the U.S. decided to attack now (remember that China has said it will go after Taiwan within seven years):
. . . Reports emerged in late February of a near-finalized deal to supply Iran with supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles capable of speeds exceeding Mach 3 and engineered to evade the Aegis defense systems deployed on American carrier strike groups. China was replacing Iranian government and military software with closed Chinese systems, hardening Iran against CIA and Mossad cyber operations. Joint naval exercises between China, Russia, and Iran in the Straits of Hormuz were becoming regular events, building real-time operational familiarity between the three navies. Iran had switched from the GPS system to the Chinese BeiDou system. And Iran was providing China with the port at Jask, as part of China’s “string of pearls” base system in the Indian Ocean.
The picture that emerges from all of this is of a Chinese forward base, a linchpin of the country’s naval architecture; cyber efforts; an economic Belt and Road influence program—every element of Chinese power projection and empire-building—positioned at the throat of the global oil supply, armed with weapons designed to penetrate advanced American defenses and kill American sailors, and embedded in a strategic architecture whose explicit purpose is to constrain American military freedom in any future conflict over Taiwan.
Gur adds that the U.S. has had a hard time articulating this, but I can understand why they would not want to, even if that articulation would lessen America’s opposition to the war (more than 50%). But it wouldn’t, since the American public doesn’t think much about China.
Now the first thing I asked myself why I saw Gur’s thesis was this: What is the evidence that this is the real American strategy? Here is what counts as evidence:
The Americans went to war together with the Israelis because that’s the best way to fight a war like this. Having a capable and loyal local ally willing to deal damage and absorb blowback lowers the costs to America and increases the chances of success. If America ever finds itself in a kinetic fight with China, it presumably expects Japan and Taiwan and South Korea to play a similar role in the fighting. It’s one hell of an operational advantage.
To Gur, the targets give away Trump’s intentions:
. . .In the first 24 hours of the war, American strikes, as confirmed by U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), focused on Iranian naval vessels, submarines, ports, and anti-ship missile positions along the southern coast. The port of Bandar Abbas, headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, was hit. So was Jask, which China had hoped would become a permanent naval foothold on the Indian Ocean. Isfahan and Tabriz, hubs of ballistic missile production and drone assembly, were struck. The goal, explicitly stated by American officials, was not merely to degrade existing stockpiles but to destroy the industrial base from which those weapons are produced, so that China cannot spend the next few years quietly rebuilding it.
President Trump announced the operation in terms that could not have been more direct, explicitly mentioning all those elements of Iranian power—the navy, the missile production sites—that would serve as that second front in a war with China.
Many of these targets so central to CENTCOM’s efforts are no threat whatsoever to Israel.
So far from China: crickets. It’s been silent and has left Iran hanging. In truth, there’s little that China can do save join the war itself—and it’s clearly not keen to do that. As for Trump’s notable omission of words about freeing the Iranian people, or creating a democracy in Iran, Gur says “He doesn’t need a democratic Iran, he just needs a not-anti-American Iran.” Finally, as to why the U.S. has remained mum about what are supposedly its real goals, Gur says this:
So why can’t Secretary Rubio say it? Why hem and haw and offer half-hearted non-explanations to a question that has set the conservative movement aflame?
One obvious answer: They don’t want to push the Chinese to more overt responses. One should always give one’s enemy an excuse not to respond in kind, on the off chance that they don’t want to. It’s a sensible ambiguity on the world stage, but it’s causing damage at home. It may be time for the administration to speak clearly on its grand strategy—not in policy papers, but in clearly articulated statements that actually answer the good-faith questions of a great many Americans.
America went to war in Iran because Iran made itself a Chinese weapon. It didn’t need to do this, to invest so much of the administration’s political capital and of the military’s firepower, just to shore up a second-run Israeli operation. This isn’t about Israel. Iran has been a growing threat to Israel for decades, and yet Trump has always resisted intervening.
As I said, I’m no pundit, and although this all sounds plausible, it hasn’t convinced me completely. Gur makes a good argument, and one that several readers agree with. Perhaps they’re right, and if so kudos to them. But I’m depressed at the thought that if Gur is right, Trump doesn’t give a fig for freeing the beleaguered Iranian people, or about creating a democratic regime. The Iranian people are hoping for that, and perhaps we’re deceiving them.
And if we ever go to war with China, Ceiling Cat help us all!
Andrew Doyle, the creator of both Jonathan Pie and Titania McGrath (both of whom some people still take seriously), has taken out after wokeness in the article below from his own site (free to access). It contains 20 short but inadvertently funny videos documenting the “woke era”—an era that Doyle sees as circling the drain. (I wish!). Here’s his intro:
There is little doubt that historians of the future are going to look back on the ‘woke’ era with utter bafflement. How is it that intelligent people were suddenly caught up in this identity-obsessed hysteria? Why did they forget that free speech mattered? Or that human beings cannot change sex? Or that judging people by the colour of their skin rather than the content of their character was a bad thing?
The lunacy was so intense that these same historians will probably have to be persuaded that any of it happened at all. So I thought it would be helpful to compile some of the more ludicrous and shocking video clips from this recent culture war. A kind of digital time capsule, if you will, for the sceptics of the future.
Woke may not have ended, but with any luck we are over the worst of it. With that in mind, here are my top twenty snapshots of this bonkers period of our history. Enjoy!
Here are the 20 topics; I’ve put asterisks next to my favorites. Some of the topics include more than one video. Do watch them all; it’s a good summary of how crazy things have gotten.
The homophobic horses
The no-no square*
Gay conversion therapy goes mainstream
The abolition of history
The alphabet soup (starring Justin Trudeau)
Queers for Palestine*
Problematic allies
“Progressive” racism
Pronoun lunacy, starring Kamala Harris and Jeremy Corbyn*
Student meltdown (the Christakis incident at Yale about the Halloween-costume fracas. It’s worth finding the whole thing on YouTube.)*
You ain’t black
Humza Yousef’s own goal
Childhood indoctrination
Male breastfeeding*
Politicans forget about biology
Thought police*
Misogyny becomes “progressive”
Everyone is a Nazi*
Osama bin Laden gets some new fans (his “Letter to the American people” that the young wokesters so admired was removed from the Guardian, but can be seen here (and read about it here).
The sancification of drag
I suppose my overall favorite is #2: the “no-no square”, described this way:
In Finland, Oulu city council established a €2.5 million project to address the rising cases of sexual assaults by migrants. It was called ‘Safe Oulu’, and this was the official dance.
This performative “dance” is supposed to reduce sexual assault, as if people don’t already know where are the parts that shouldn’t be touched.
Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “alps2” is “A resurrection. . . from 2008”.
And Mo is basically right on the etymology, at least according to this NPR site:
Cretin is a word derived from an 18th century Swiss-French word meaning “Christian.” The connection is basically pious, asserting that a mentally innocent person so-labeled is possessed of a Christian soul by way of baptism and is worthy of our mercy and pity.
As for “rug-butter,” I couldn’t find it but assume it is a derogatory reference to Muslims worshiping on prayer rugs, touching their heads to the ground. But no, Jessus is not literally a cretin as he’s neither deformed nor hails from the Swiss Alps. But I guess Mo literally butts rugs, though I’ve never seen him kneeling in prayer.
We have a few more batches in the queue now, but it’s never enough.
And today we’re featuring lovely bird photos from Ephraim Heller. I had no idea this gorgeous creature existed! Ephraim’s ID and captions are indented, and, as usual, you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
I never had a favorite bird. Oh, sure, I’ve seen plenty of bewitching bee-eaters, mesmerizing manakins and motmots and macaws, plummy pigeons, parrots and pheasants, and tangy toucans and tanagers, but they never held my attention.
In Trinidad I first met a tufted coquette (Lophornis ornatus):
My coquette is 6.6 centimeters (2.6 in) long and weighs just 2.3 grams (0.081 oz) – much smaller than my thumb! My coquette doesn’t eat at hummingbird feeders with the big boys – its bill is too short:
Its food is nectar, taken from a variety of flowers, and some small invertebrates. Across hummingbirds, specialization often involves bill length and curvature for particular flowers; my coquette is relatively unspecialized in bill morphology. My coquette often must sneak nectar from the territories of other hummingbirds. With its small size and steady flight, my coquette resembles a large bee as it moves from flower to flower:
Many hummingbird genera have territorial males, but the combination of extreme ornamentation, very small body size, and intense aggression is a hallmark of Lophornis.
There are 11 species in the genus Lophornis, all as beautiful as my coquette. The name Lophornis combines Greek for “crest” (lophos) and “bird” (ornis), calling out a shared trait of all the birds in this genus:
Per the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a coquette is “a woman who endeavors without sincere affection to gain the attention and admiration of men.” But I forgive my coquette. The females are more subdued than the males, but still marvelous:
In French my coquette is called “Coquette huppe-col,” which literally translates to “tufted collar coquette.” That sounds lovely in French. In German it is called “Schmuckelfe,” which combines the literal terms “jewelry or ornament” and “elf or fairy.” To my ear, “jeweled fairy” sounds more pleasant and less insulting than “schmuckelfe”:
