Welcome to Thursday, May 30, 2024, and National Mint Julep Day, a quaffable drink if made with lots of fresh mint and good bourbon. Here’s one from Wikipedia, served, as tradition dictates, in a silver cup, which gets frosted from the crushed ice:
It’s also Corpus Christi, World MS Day, National Creativity Day, Lod Massacre Remembrance Day, (honoring the Japanese attack on the Tel Aviv Airport on this day in 1972, killing 26 people and injuring 80, and, finally, Indian Arrival Day inTrinidad and Tobago, which is “celebrated,” but that seems weird given this:
In Trinidad and Tobago, Indian Arrival Day is celebrated on 30 May. It commemorates the arrival of the first indentured labourers from India in May 1845 on a ship named Fatel Razack after a journey of five months, carrying 275 Indians. Trinidad and Tobago was the first country to start this holiday.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 21 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*First, New Delhi, a city I’ve visited often but never at this time of year, reached a record high temperature yesterday: 52.3°C, or in Fahrenheit, 126.1°! It must have been horrible, and on top of that is the omnipresent smog.
*The Trump case is now in the hands of the jury, which deliberated most of yesterday.
The judge emphasized that the verdict is solely theirs to make and that they should not take anything he has said or done from the bench as suggestive of whether Trump should be found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to an adult-film actress ahead of the 2016 election.
The jurors began deliberating shortly before noon. Around 3 p.m., they sent out a note asking to rehear testimony that had been presented during the trial on four distinct topics, which suggested they were focused on Trump’s alleged involvement and knowledge of the scheme.
Three of the jury requests were for certain pieces of testimony from David Pecker, a friend of Trump’s and the former chief executive of the company that published the National Enquirer supermarket tabloid. Pecker testified about his efforts to buy potentially damaging stories about Trump to prevent those details from harming his candidacy during the 2016 election.
Specifically, the jury asked to hear testimony about a phone call between Trump and Pecker, as well as Pecker’s testimony on the decision not to pay for the story of an adult-film actress who claimed to have had sex with Trump. The jury also wanted to rehear Pecker’s testimony about a key August 2015 meeting at Trump Tower that prosecutors say was central to the conspiracy, and former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s testimony about that same meeting.
Well, trying to figure out what such requests mean is like reading tea leaves. But there are some hints that Trump himself, who called this trial a “witch hunt” and something like “the biggest injustice in the history of the universe,” might be worried about being convicted:
Speaking to reporters outside court, Trump — who must stay inside the courthouse throughout the deliberations — offered a much shorter legal analysis.
“Mother Teresa could not beat these charges, but we’ll see,” he said, referring to the late nun who cared for the sick and dying in India.
Let’s have a poll! What say you, readers?
Loading ...*The British Medical Journal has an article called “Gender medicine in the US: how the Cass review failed to land“, detailing how the Cass Review, calling out wrongheaded “affirmative care” of gender-dysphoric children by the National Health system was a review that was taken seriously in the UK but has largely been ignored in the U.S. (See also this related critique of Scientific American and its editor in iftttwall.)
The newly released Cass review on transgender care for under 18s has had a seismic effect across the United Kingdom and Europe.1 Scotland and Wales promptly followed the NHS in England in ceasing the prescription of puberty “blocking” drugs outside of research protocols. The UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem, called the independent inquiry’s findings and recommendations “seminal” and stated that policies on gender treatments have “breached fundamental principles” of children’s human rights, with “devastating consequences.” Some charities and clinicians are disappointed with last month’s final review report. But the tone of major print and broadcast media in the UK has shifted: outlets that have previously reported criticism of gender services as transphobic now note how, as the Guardian reported, “the lack of high quality research, highlighted by Cass, has been a subject of growing unease among doctors.”
The review by Hilary Cass, paediatrician and former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, was commissioned by the NHS and built on the findings of Cass’s 2022 interim report. Then, she found that the evidence underpinning the treatment intensive, “gender affirming” model of care for distressed young people was “limited” and “inconclusive.” The final report is even clearer: “The reality is that we have no good evidence on the long term outcomes of interventions to manage gender related distress.”
But in the United States, where the gender affirming model is the norm, the effect of Cass’s four year investigation and final report isn’t yet obvious. “Unfortunately, Cass does not seem to be penetrating the public consciousness,” says Zhenya Abbruzzese, cofounder of the four year old Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine (SEGM), a group of researchers and clinicians that has pushed for systematic reviews and an evidence based approach.
. . .Of the eight systematic reviews that Cass commissioned, two looked at nearly two dozen professional guidelines and found that most lack “developmental rigour.” More concerning, Cass exposed how they are built on “circularity,” drawn from years old versions of guidelines issued by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and the Endocrine Society, each of which refer to the other rather than to high quality evidence. “This approach may explain why there has been an apparent consensus on key areas of practice despite the evidence being poor,” writes Cass. Neither group responded to The BMJ.
The American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP) and the Endocrine Society have stood by their guidelines. The Cass review “does not contain any new research that would contradict” them, the Endocrine Society said in a statement.4 WPATH issued an email statement that Cass “is rooted in the false premise that non-medical alternatives to care will result in less adolescent distress,” and added on 17 May that its own guidelines were “based on far more systematic reviews [than] the Cass review.”5 As The BMJ reported last year,6 WPATH’s own systematic review, one of an unknown number commissioned for the eighth version of its Standards of Care—just two were published—concluded that the strength of the evidence to support the mental health benefits of hormones was “low” and that it was “impossible” to conclude how they affect suicide risk.
And the prestigious BMJ goes after a not-so-prestigious journal that has resolutely ignored the Cass report:
But many outlets historically aligned with advocacy positions have held back on any ink. STAT News, which “delivers trusted and authoritative journalism about health, medicine, and the life sciences,” has so far ignored Cass (as well as The BMJ’s request for comment). So has CNN. Jesse Singal, one of the first American journalists to expose the potential harms of youth gender treatment, reported on his Substack that the legacy news network had recycled the pronouncement that “gender affirming care is medically necessary, evidence based care” in 35 separate articles over the past two years, practically verbatim.10 (CNN did not explain, and did not respond to a query from The BMJ.) “Many outlets dug themselves into a deep hole on this issue by simply acting as stenographers and megaphones for activist groups rather than doing their jobs,” wrote Singal.
Singal has also called out Scientific American for not covering the Cass report, while on 20 April running a question and answer piece with a prominent advocate of gender affirming care titled “Anti-trans efforts use misinformation, epistemological violence, and gender essentialism.” The oldest continuously published magazine in the US, Scientific American, has run several articles favourable to the affirmative model in recent years. In “Why anti-trans laws are anti-science,” written in 2021 and republished in 2023, the magazine’s editors stated that it is “unscientific and cruel” to claim that treatments are “unproven and dangerous” or that “legislation is necessary to protect children.” According to a 2022 article, “What the science on gender affirming care for transgender kids really shows,” data “consistently show that access to gender affirming care is associated with better mental health outcomes.” “Decades of data support the use and safety of puberty pausing medications,” declared one 2023 piece.11
The magazine’s editor in chief, Laura Helmuth, has promoted these pieces on Twitter/X with declarations like, “The research is clear, and all the relevant medical organisations agree”; policies that restrict treatments are “dangerous, cruel, bigoted, and contrary to all the best scientific and medical evidence.” She’s also disparaged inquiries on the subject. In a February 2023 tweet, Helmuth included gender affirming care among a list of “things we don’t need to be both-sidesing, be ‘objective,’ or be ‘just asking questions!’ about.” Neither Helmuth nor the magazine’s publisher, Springer Nature, responded to a detailed email referencing the articles and more than 15 tweets.
See the iftttwall piece for a longer critique of Sci. Am.’s treatment of gender studies and neglect of Cass, a piece that quotes me and also Steve Pinker, who called the editor a “woke fanatic.”
*How can you pass up a NYT op-ed by Nobel Laureate Tom Cech called “The long-overlooked molecule that will help define a generation of science.”? And if you know of Cech, you’ll know that molecule is RNA (DNA with the thymine replaced by uracil). Cech of course won his Big Prize for showing that RNA molecules had a diversity of unsuspected functions, including splicing themselves and acting as catalysts. (Remember that RNA plays a crucial role in CRISPR gene editing.)
In recent years, our understanding of RNA has begun to advance even more rapidly. Since 2000, RNA-related breakthroughs have led to 11 Nobel Prizes. In the same period, the number of scientific journal articles and patents generated annually by RNA research has quadrupled. There are more than 400 RNA-based drugs in development, beyond the ones that are already in use. And in 2022 alone, more than $1 billion in private equity funds was invested in biotechnology start-ups to explore frontiers in RNA research.
What’s driving the RNA age is this molecule’s dazzling versatility. Yes, RNA can store genetic information, just like DNA. As a case in point, many of the viruses (from influenza to Ebola to SARS-CoV-2) that plague us don’t bother with DNA at all; their genes are made of RNA, which suits them perfectly well. But storing information is only the first chapter in RNA’s playbook.
Unlike DNA, RNA plays numerous active roles in living cells. It acts as an enzyme, splicing and dicing other RNA molecules or assembling proteins — the stuff of which all life is built — from amino acid building blocks. It keeps stem cells active and forestalls aging by building out the DNA at the ends of our chromosomes.
RNA discoveries have led to new therapies, such as the use of antisense RNA to help treat children afflicted with the devastating disease spinal muscular atrophy. The mRNA vaccines, which saved millions of lives during the Covid pandemic, are being reformulated to attack other diseases, including some cancers. RNA research may also be helping us rewrite the future; the genetic scissors that give CRISPR its breathtaking power to edit genes are guided to their sites of action by RNAs.
Although most scientists now agree on RNA’s bright promise, we are still only beginning to unlock its potential. Consider, for instance, that some 75 percent of the human genome consists of dark matter that is copied into RNAs of unknown function. While some researchers have dismissed this dark matter as junk or noise, I expect it will be the source of even more exciting breakthroughs.
We don’t know yet how many of these possibilities will prove true. But if the past 40 years of research have taught me anything, it is never to underestimate this little molecule. The age of RNA is just getting started.
*Remember the “Miracle Stingray,” Charlotte, a lone female stingray in a Hendersonville, North Carolina aquarium that apparently became pregnant? I (or rather a reader) reported on this miracle in a “readers’ wildlife” segment in February, speculating that this might be a case of parthenogenesis (pregnancy without fertilization; there are various ways this can happen). Now reader Robert reports, via an article in The Assembly (archived here), that the birth is way overdue and that, in fact, Charlotte may not be pregnant at all. Perhaps it was all hype. Some quotes:
The national and international press went wild. Discussions of “shark rays” and a virgin birth blew up on Facebook and TikTok, and ECCO’s videos garnered millions of views. Although experts quickly debunked the shark theory as scientifically impossible, Charlotte’s fans waited eagerly for her to give birth.
Months went by without pups, and the aquarium’s social media updates became more sporadic and vague. The behavior of the aquarium staff also became increasingly bizarre. Boles and others say Ramer and her team blocked people who asked questions or shared scientific information.
Then on May 16, ECCO promised an update from Charlotte herself, a post that they deleted later that day. They posted again the next day: “Charlotte continues to appear healthy and has shown little to no change in any of her behaviors or temperment (sic). There is no new information to share at this time.” The Assembly asked ECCO’s PR representative via email why they’ve stopped frequent updates, and they replied, “We have made updates and shared news as we have been able to. We are waiting to have full notes from the veterinary team to provide additional updates.”
So what’s going on with the “virgin birth”? It’s been six months since the initial excitement, and the gestation period for this species is three months. Curiously, the aquarium is blocking information and even threatening reporters. (The “shark-ray hybrid” theory is that the ray was pregnant with babies from a male shark that lived in its tank.)
But the aquarium and marine science community was troubled. First, they were worried about Charlotte’s welfare. “Really from the beginning, all I said, and all my colleagues said, was that this animal needs to see a veterinarian,” said Boles. He was careful to point out that the aquarium could be working with a vet behind the scenes, and that he’s not an expert on stingrays–just an experienced marine scientist with more freedom to speak out than others whose employers may bar talking to the media.
Marine biologists were also disturbed by the shark-ray hybrid claim. David Shiffman, a marine conservation biologist at Arizona State University and a widely followed public science communicator, said he first learned about Charlotte when relatives and friends asked him about the stingray who mated with a shark—an idea that Shiffman knew was “cuckoo banana pants.” “Sharks and rays are separated by as many millions of years of evolution as humans and snakes,” he said. “If a human tried to mate with an anaconda, a lot of things would probably happen. But one of those things would not be a half-human, half-anaconda baby.”
“It’s click-bait garbage,” said Demian Chapman, a senior scientist at the Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium in Florida, who first discovered parthenogenesis in cartilaginous fish in 2007. Chapman and Shiffman were disturbed both by the absurdity of the claim and that the aquarium was cheerfully propagating it.
Things get darker: a reporter trying to inquire into the ray was threatened by police for trespassing. And that reporter, like me, thinks the virgin birth story is garbage. I’m worried that the ray has a tumor or something. At any rate, the aquarium should ‘fess up.
*According to the Wall Street Journal, for some bizarre reason North Korea is sending garbage and other assorted trash into South Korea, bagged and affixed to helium balloons. But WHY?
An unusual sight drifted into South Korean skies on Wednesday: Large white balloons carrying plastic bags of North Korean trash. Some contained something even more vile.
The air deliveries from North Korea were detected the prior evening, Seoul’s military said, triggering emergency warnings around 11:30 p.m. to border-town residents to avoid going outdoors because of “suspicious objects” floating in the sky.
All told, around 260 balloons were found scattered across a country roughly the geographic size of Indiana.
Some journeyed more than 180 miles. One landed gently on a street—the pair of balloons and a clear plastic bag left intact. Another crashed through the greenhouse roof of a local grape farmer. Many others broke apart and spilled their contents onto sidewalks and streets: shreds of pink, blue and white paper, an empty laundry-detergent bag and dark clumps that looked like excrement.
Asked what the bags contained, South Korea’s defense ministry offered up only “o-mul”—which can mean either “trash” or “excrement” in Korean.
There was no doubt the sender was Kim Jong Un’s regime, which days earlier had vowed in state media to heap “mounds of waste paper and filth” onto its southern neighbors. Then, on Wednesday evening, North Korea took full credit for inducing the messy madness in a statement issued by Kim Yo Jong, the dictator’s younger sister and regime mouthpiece.
She expressed bafflement over South Korea’s assertions the balloons had violated international law, suggesting they be received as sincere presents. “I cannot understand why they are making a fuss as if they were hit by [a] shower of bullets,” Kim said.
Pyongyang had been clamoring for retribution following its own unwelcome arrival of a swarm of balloons cast off by a South Korean activist group, which sent 300,000 antiregime leaflets and thousands of USB drives containing K-pop music from the likes of boy band BTS.
This is not a very inventive way to get back at South Korea for sending antiregime leaflets via balloons, which is a good idea. Here’s a photo of the contents of one of the DPRK’s “garbage balloons”:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is kvetching:
Hili: A plague of mosquitos.A: Are they biting you?Hili: No, but they irritate me.
In Polish:
Hili: Plaga komarów.Ja: Gryzą cię?Hili: Nie, ale denerwują.
And a picture of the affectionate Szaron:
*******************
From Science Humor:
America’s Cultural Decline Into Idiocy:
From The Dodo Pet:
Masih retweeted this series of women testifying about gender apartheid in majority-Mulsim countries:
Gender Apartheid means no independent identity for women in society because we are worth half a man & even inherit half! It means legalized child marriage, bacha poshi, no right to education, work, travel or custody & death sentence for LGBTQ people#unitedagainstgenderapartheid pic.twitter.com/FsUKbUb98Y
— United Against Gender Apartheid (@UAGApartheid) May 28, 2024
From Luana, some fodder for J. K. Rowling:
This is Tremaine Carroll, a male r*pist who identified as a girl & was then sent to THE FEMALE PRISON in California.
Guess what happened next. pic.twitter.com/1uyD0gC2SU
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) May 26, 2024
From my feed. Guess who the actor is (answer at bottom of page):
The most humble Actor in the world …
He has a great character! ❤️ pic.twitter.com/xiFvgSJmxz
— Figen (@TheFigen_) May 28, 2024
From Malcolm: First, an alert warthog, followed by a mother squirrel saving its baby from a vicious SNAKE.
The mother Squirrel never gave up on her baby. ….💓💓 pic.twitter.com/J8Vg6nWOa6
— I AM VICKY 🚨 (@IAMVICKYFANS) May 10, 2024
From the Auschwitz Memorial: a repost I made:
He lived but ten days after arriving at Auschwitz. https://t.co/ZxCNfcO2Yo
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) May 30, 2024
Two tweets from Matthew. This one shows up by accident on a news interview (complete with a blep) and the newsman goes wild:
— SillyCats (@catshouldnt) May 29, 2024
Too much avoirdupois!
Every now and then I have to drop this absolute banger….
Its the foreboding of the first ‘crack’ that always sends me https://t.co/Xi2pyFDJQZ pic.twitter.com/Dd0RNHTgGX
— Ryan Cummings (@Pol_Sec_Analyst) May 28, 2024
Answer to actor: Keanu Reeves (I think)
On the Trump verdict, I just don’t know. The judge has done something that seems wrong. As I understand it, there are three charges, and the judge has divided up the jury for deliberations. Four people are to consider each charge. He has also told them that unanimity is not required. I know that in some crimes that is true. In this instance, though, it seems that not only is unanimity not required, but even a simple majority, since, even if all four people vote ‘guilty’ on a charge, that still means that less than half the jury convicted on the charge. (And, if unanimity is not required for each group, then only three of twelve jurors would be voting ‘guilty’.) Assuming I am understanding that correctly, I don’t see how any conviction under these terms wouldn’t be thrown out by an appeals court. It frankly seems outrageous. Clearly, the goal here is to get Trump in jail for purely political purposes before the election. Hopefully, the juries will acquit.
There are conflicting accounts of the judge’s instructions. The AP report says that accounts suggesting a verdict could be based on non-unanimity of the jurors is misleading.
This is all wrong. The jurors are not divided into groups. (If that had happened the defense would have moved for mistrial and, if denied, sought an appeal.) The judge has instructed, properly under NY law, that there need not be unanimity as what acts fulfill each element of the counts but there must be unanimity that the elements are met.
you can read the jury instructions here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/05/29/nyregion/judge-trump-hush-money-trial-jury-instructions.html
The actual instructions that the judge read are freely available online. You can search the pdf and find nothing about groups of four people considering charges, or not needing unanimity, or so on.
A search of “unanim” yields occurrences on four pages.
“Your verdict, on each count you consider, whether guilty or not guilty, must be unanimous. In order to find the defendant guilty, however, you need not be unanimous on whether the defendant committed the crime personally, or by acting in concert with another, or both.” (p. 26)
“Although you must conclude unanimously that the defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means, you need not be unanimous as to what those unlawful means were.” (p. 31 and 44)
“Your verdict, on each count you consider, whether guilty or not guilty, must be unanimous; that is, each and every juror must agree to it.” (p. 49)
“To reach a unanimous verdict you must deliberate with the other jurors.” (p. 49)
Fake News.
hook/line/sinker
You misunderstand, as Robie has clearly explained. The judge did not do what you claim. I saw reports at dailymail and nypost e.g. that mention “groups of four” but only as explained by Robie. Perhaps you are convinced that all allegations against Trump are politically inspired and this colors your interpretation of events.
¶ North Korean crap balloons¶ floating in the summer sky¶ Panic bells, it’s red code brown ¶ Helium’s price must have come down ¶ (Apologies: Nena)
It’s my understanding that “unanimity is not required” is fake news from a FOX reporter named John Roberts (not the Chief Justice!)
I think the frosted cup sort-of symbolizes a Southern U.S. summer, humid as carnation but you’re kickin’ back on a rocker in the late afternoon, basking in the sunset, sippin’ a mint julep with Mark Twain on the porch….
The mint julep looks good.
oh dear. Typo- it was the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who committed the Lod airport massacre.
The attack was done by three Japanese terrorists (security was concentrating on looking for Palestinian terrorists). ‘Japanese attack” is an incredibly poor choice of words that surely jolted many readers (well, at least one, speaking for myself) and illustrates how the actions of a few can be used to demonize whatever group they are part of. [As done by others, not the intent here presumably.]
Japanese attack on Tel Aviv ? 🙂
From what I’m reading in the Cognitive Science of Religion (just ‘Minds and gods’ so far, free on archive.org) and also just picked up “The Enlightenment, And Why It Still Matters” but it is not looking good for The Program. Is there a plan ‘B’ or will we have to accept Marx as our lord and savior?
Not the same thing as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. This is a blog, not the AHR, so it’s okay 🙂
Marx is your lord and saviour whether you accept it or not. You may try plans B to Z, but The truth of Truth does not depend on your accepting it. With a few new Lion Philipses, it will be even more true than true. The irony is neither here nor there 🙂
Sorry. I meant to say ‘This is a website…’ I got that wrong.
And you think Jesus will fix the Muslim/Jewish Middle East, make the Christian Russians stop attacking the Christian Ukrainians, and convince the Chinese to be nice? Even if they all became Christian the Catholics and Protestants would start killing each other again.
The Twitter/X note about Tremayne Carroll should be followed up. KQED reported:
“Tremayne Carroll, a trans woman who uses a wheelchair, said that after she rebuffed sexual advances from a cisgender woman, that woman yelled to guards that Carroll had sexually assaulted her. When that went nowhere, the woman changed her story and said the two had had consensual sex.”
Thank you for that clarification.
Crazy stuff—the news, that is.
And what reason does the ECCO aquarium have for obfuscating and messing up the “Miracle Stingray” story so badly? Simply issue a press release saying the following:
“We’re still trying to figure out what’s going on, as Charlotte the stingray is well beyond her gestation period, but hasn’t produced any young. We’re working with [name goes here] to try to figure out what’s going on and will have more to say when we have a definitive answer. Thank’s to everyone for your interest in Charlotte and in Team ECCO. Visit our web site to donate.”
There. Done. Unless the aquarium has something to hide.
“Will Trump be convicted of any charges in this trial?”
I would bet money that the likely dissension among the jurors will be resolved with a compromise verdict, one that finds Trump guilty on some counts and not guilty (well, at least not proven) on others.
These jurors are saints. I can’t imagine the stress associated with deliberating as to whether to convict a former president — and one with his own vengeful goon squad — of one or more felonies in a case being watched by the whole world.
What I want to know about the Trump trial is: if he’s convicted and sentenced to jail will he have to eat whatever the sheriff’s wife serves inmates? That would only be fair. No hamburgers or chicken buckets. He gets only the swill all the others get. 😉
That sure looks like Keanu Reeves, and if it really is, I’m a little disappointed to see that he smokes.
Nth Korea has no emojis so they send the real thing.
The jurist in the tRump trial need to remember he is just another bloke and should be judged as one.
Pregnant virgin stingrays are wishful thinking like biblical fantasies. You want it badly to be so.
Turn on your TV… verdict reached… Guilty!
Guilty on all counts.
I hope his cultists don’t turn violent.