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.
Here’s my friend Hempenstein about the barbecue some carcass outside of Pittsburgh. But I can’t remember what we ate! Perhaps he’ll weigh in below:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the October 19 Wikipedia page.
There’s an animated Google Doodle today, giving you the chance to see a dinosaur in the Santa Maria Formation in Brazil (7 slides). Click on it to go there:
Da Nooz:
*If you follow the election polls and forecasts, as I do in Nate Silver’s newsletter, you may have noticed that the betting market seems to have jumped substantially for Trump lately—far more than the popular-vote polls. But that may be misleading, for, as the WSJ reports, the betting market has been influenced by four batches of bets on Trump that amount to about $30 in cryptocurrency:
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are neck and neck in the polls. But in one popular betting market, the odds have skewed heavily in Trump’s favor, raising questions about a recent flurry of wagers and who is behind them.
Over the past two weeks, the chances of a Trump victory in the November election have surged on Polymarket, a crypto-based prediction market. Its bettors were giving Trump a 62% chance of winning on Thursday, while Harris’s chances were 38%. The candidates were in a dead heat at the start of October.
Trump’s gains on Polymarket have cheered his supporters, and they have been followed by the odds shifting in Trump’s favor in other betting markets. Elon Musk flagged Trump’s growing lead on Polymarket to his 200 million X followers on Oct. 6, praising the concept of betting markets. “More accurate than polls, as actual money is on the line,” Musk posted.
But the surge might be a mirage manufactured by a group of four Polymarket accounts that have collectively pumped about $30 million of crypto into bets that Trump will win.
“There’s strong reason to believe they are the same entity,” said Miguel Morel, chief executive of Arkham Intelligence, a blockchain analysis firm that examined the accounts.
The big bets on Trump aren’t necessarily nefarious. Some observers have suggested that they were simply placed by a large bettor convinced that Trump will win and looking for a big payday. Others, however, see the bets as an influence campaign designed to fuel social-media buzz for the former president.
Polymarket is investigating the activity in its presidential-election markets with the assistance of outside experts, a person familiar with the matter said.
Adam Cochrane, described as a veteran crypto advisor, says this kind of skewing the betting market is “by far the most efficient political advertising one can buy,” And the article says the four bets may have been placed by the same organization or individual. They don’t name anybody, but I detect the scent of musk. . .
*Matti Friedman writes in the FP about what the death of Yahya Sinwar means (to him, of course). He’s hopeful it will help end the war in Gaza:
Sinwar was the man responsible more than any other for this war, but his death in a booby-trapped house in Rafah—he was reportedly found with a rifle, ammo, cash, a pack of Mentos, prayer beads, and a passport under someone else’s name—doesn’t mean it’s over. He’ll quickly be replaced as Hamas’s leader, probably by his brother and accomplice Mohammed. The organization is in tatters but hasn’t collapsed. His death, however, does bring the end of the fighting closer in Gaza.
Following the assassination of Sinwar’s counterpart from Hezbollah—the shrewder and more prominent Hassan Nasrallah—less than three weeks ago, it’s clear that Israel has successfully brought the war to a turning point.
. . .Will Israel seize this moment? It now has a chance to begin to orchestrate the end of the Gaza operation after a year of bloodshed; to allow the people of Gaza to start rebuilding what Sinwar, his henchmen, and their deluded supporters have destroyed; and to return the 100 hostages still held by Hamas, dozens of whom are thought to be alive.
The killing of Sinwar shows that Israel’s patience in prosecuting this war—despite the high price in the lives of our soldiers, and the constant fear of civilians under rocket fire from a half-dozen enemies—is yielding results. And so, it must be said, is Israel’s attitude toward the often hysterical and misguided advice of its allies, who have repeatedly sought to force a ceasefire that would leave Hamas and Hezbollah on their feet. We’ve heard repeatedly, from Western officials who have never fought wars, that military force is counterproductive and that Hamas is an “idea” that can’t be defeated. It was just this spring, amid a broad international pressure campaign to keep the Israeli army out of Rafah, that Vice President Kamala Harris said a major incursion into Rafah would be a “huge mistake.”
. . . It may indeed be impossible to defeat ideas. But the tank crewmen who just settled Israel’s account with this terrorist mastermind have illustrated why it’s sometimes necessary to kill the monsters who act on them.
South Korea’s spy agency said Friday that North Korea has dispatched troops to support Russia’s war against Ukraine. If confirmed, the move would bring a third country into the war and intensify a standoff between North Korea and the West.
The South Korean announcement came a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his government has intelligence that 10,000 troops from North Korea are being prepared to join Russian forces fighting against his country.
The National Intelligence Service said in a statement that Russian navy ships transferred 1,500 North Korean special operation forces to the Russian port city of Vladivostok from Oct. 8 to Oct. 13. It said more North Korean troops are expected to be sent to Russia soon.
The North Korean soldiers deployed in Russia have been given Russian military uniforms, weapons and forged identification documents, the NIS said. It said they are currently staying at military bases in Vladivostok and other Russian sites such as Ussuriysk, Khabarovsk and Blagoveshchensk, and that they will likely be deployed to battle grounds after completing their adaptation training.
. . . South Korean media, citing the NIS, reported that North Korea has decided to dispatch a total of 12,000 troops formed into four brigades to Russia. The NIS said it could not confirm the reports.
The NIS has a mixed record in finding developments in North Korea, one of the world’s most secretive countries. If confirmed, the move would be North Korea’s first major participation in a foreign war. North Korea has 1.2 million troops, one of the largest standing militaries in the world, but it hasn’t fought in large-scale conflicts following the 1950-53 Korean War.
Asked about the NIS finding, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said “At this moment, our official position is that we cannot confirm reports that North Koreans are actively now as soldiers engaged in the war effort, but that may change.”
Remember, North Korea now has nukes, so they could, if they formed alliances with Iran, post a considerable threat to the Middle East. But I’m not sure how good the North Koreans are as fighters. Remember, the sample of N = 1 DPRK soldier who defected to South Korea a while back suggests that they’re malnourished and have worms.
*As always, I’ll steal three items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news summary, called this week “TGIF: Super Heavy Booster“.
→ Try not to get killed: Because if you do, tough luck. In Canada, Anthony Warren Woods, 31, randomly stabbed a senior citizen to death and then fully confessed it to the police. The judge decided against any jail time at all: “My conclusion is based on the following collective factors; Mr. Woods’s direct and indirect experiences as an Indigenous person, his significant cognitive deficits, his ADHD and to a lesser extent his state of intoxication.” So having ADHD is now just a license to kill? I never finished Crime and Punishment—does that mean I get to do a little smash and grab?
And in Nevada, a young man intentionally drove over and killed a retired police chief riding his bicycle. His friend recorded it, laughing the whole time. When the killer was arrested, he told cops: “I’ll be out in thirty days.” And: “It’s just a hit-and-run. Slap on the wrist.” Not too far off. This week, he was found unfit to stand trial and moved to a psychiatric facility.
→. . . . Meanwhile, a pro-Kamala group called “Creatives for Harris” put out a new ad meant to appeal to men who might be on the fence about voting for Kamala Harris. The actors they hired to play the men look like men, yes, well done. One is super fat and one has a beard, to indicate maleness. But the script was so clearly written by women, probably over some Sweetgreen, and it’s so bad it’s charming. Here are real lines from the guys in the ad (or what the ladies at “Creatives for Kamala” imagine men talk like):
I’m a man. I’m a man. I’m a man. I’m a man, man. I’m man enough to enjoy a barrel proof bourbon. Neat. I’m man enough to dead-lift 500 and braid the shit out of my daughter’s hair. You think I’m afraid to rebuild a carburetor? I eat carburetors for breakfast. I ain’t afraid of bears: That’s what bear hugs are for. I’m not afraid of women. A woman wants to be president? Well, I hope she has the guts to look me right in the eye and accept my full-throated endorsement. Because I’m man enough to support women. Man enough to know what kind of donuts I like. I’m man enough to raw-dog a flight. I’m man enough to be emotional in front of my wife, in front of my kids, in front of my horse.
Something about full-throated, raw-dogging, and crying in front of the horse makes me really uncomfortable. This isn’t an ad for someone who has ever met a straight man, let alone interacted with one. If it were, it would be communicated in grunts.
Here’s the video given by the FP. Yep, it’s cringey, but really, Nellie, must you diss straight men?
→ Speaking of crypto and our presidential candidates: Donald J. Trump is hawking another product this week, and it’s faker than ever. Profoundly fake. It’s a World Liberty Financial “token” that you can buy and put in your “wallet.” The tagline is: “Shape a New Era of Finance: Be DeFiant.” And: “The only DeFi platform inspired by Donald J. Trump.”
This may feel implausible eighteen days out from the election, but no matter. Here’s the Republican front-runner selling it hard with a video, standing before his American flags, that now are just his weekly scam flags.
The World Liberty Financial token cannot be used as a currency. You cannot sell it or trade it. All buying a World Liberty Financial token allows is for you to vote in World Liberty Financial matters. Even within the world of scam cryptocurrencies, this is unfathomably scammy. Because usually crypto tokens can be bought and sold. That’s kind of the whole point of them.
*I’ve written before about how Rachel Levine, Biden’s assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services and herself a man assuming the identity of a woman, urged a group of medical researchers to eliminate any minimum age for transgender surgery. This is an unconscionable decision. In this she went along with the same decision by WPATH (the World Professional Association for Transgender Health: the most influential organization dealing with doctors and therapists who provide care for gender dysphoric and trans people). WPATH is, to my mind, totally ideological and not science-oriented, having agreed with Levine’s view for both surgery and “affirmative care”, and resisted the cautious recommendations of the NHS’s Cass Review for no good reason. Now Andrew Sullivan is in a fury about this and is in fact not just calling for Levine’s resignation, but thinking about changing his presidential vote away from Kamala Harris:
I have to say that the news this week has made me reconsider voting for Kamala Harris.
What news? I’ve no doubt many of you will roll your eyes, think I’m off on another tangent, obsessed with something trivial — or, in Harris’ formulation, a “remote” issue. But the discovery from a lawsuit against the State of Alabama over its ban on the medical sex reassignment of children has left me reeling. It shows a staggering level of bad faith from the transqueer lobby, and, also, from Rachel Levine — the Assistant Secretary for Health at HHS. Read the amicus brief here. Everything in this piece is based on it.
The broad contours laid out in the brief were already known. But, with discovery, the specific details of private, internal emails make this medical scandal even more vivid. We knew that the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) commissioned its own version of the Cass Review by asking a team at Johns Hopkins to conduct a systematic review of the evidence for “gender medicine” for children. But we now find the conclusion. An internal email from the Hopkins team concluded that there was “little to no evidence about children and adolescents.” Many WPATH members, we discover, also knew the studies would “reveal little or no evidence and put us in an untenable position in terms of affecting policy or winning lawsuits.”
In other words, WPATH knows full well that their transing of children has little to no medical evidence behind it. So when Johns Hopkins presented the review, WPATH instantly buried it, suppressing publication of all the studies but two. Other contributors drew on their experiences as expert witnesses to suggest removing “language such as ‘insufficient evidence,’ ‘limited data,’ etc.” that could ‘empower’ groups ‘trying to claim that gender-affirming interventions are experimental.’” SOC-8 — the latest Standards of Care from WPATH — was therefore knowingly based on concealing the truth, and written for lawsuits, not patients. Not medicine. Ideology.
And all along, this allegedly professional group, WPATH, conferred with Levine at HHS. They gave her an early embargoed version of SOC-8, with lower age limits for some treatments, and her office responded, horrified. They feared that the listing of “specific minimum ages for treatment … under 18, will result in devastating legislation for trans care”.
. . . Levine should resign. She intervened in a medical process for entirely political reasons, putting children at risk, destroying all safeguards for them. So should the heads of every so-called gay group that have pushed and lied about “gender-affirming care.” WPATH’s former president, Marci Bowers (she was replaced on October 1) is another matter. It seems to me that a doctor who privately doubts if her child patients can give meaningful consent and operates on them anyway is not a doctor, but a sociopath. She has violated the Hippocratic oath and admitted practicing the equivalent of FGM on children. FGM is illegal in federal law and in 41 states if the girl is under 18. “Gender-affirming” FGM, thanks to Rachel Levine, is fully legal without any lower age limits.
Levine is a bad actor who interfered in crucial health decisions in a duplicitous way. Sullivan is also angry because he sees Levine (and WPATH) as having fomented “the worst attack on gay kids since Anita Bryant.” But you don’t have to be gay to agree that Levine should resign, and, if she doesn’t she should be fired.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, we have a lovely photo of Hili as she ponders the future (Andrzej is now using Paulina’s camera):
Hili: I’m looking into the future.
A: And what do you see?
Hili: Darkness but there are lights here and there.
Here is a Sukkah booth that the Jewish organization Chabad put up on campus. They do this every year, so it’s not a political statement:
But, two days later, there is a response, and definitely a political one: a “Gaza Solidarity Sukkah”:
From Masih: Iranian women get permanently disfigured—for wearing an improper hijab!
In Iran, the real criminals make the laws.
Today marks the anniversary of the Isfahan acid attacks on these women, whose “crime” was wearing an improper hijab. Ten years later, the attackers walk free, because why arrest yourself when you hold power? Meanwhile, those who dared… pic.twitter.com/WSUrkQVNv2
From Jez: The insanity of British law enforcement:
On the same day Lucy Connolly was jailed for 31 months for a FB post: a policeman who sexually assaulted 2 women, a registered sex offender who asked children for naked pics online & a pervert voyeur who secretly filmed women on the toilet because he was “horny”, all walked free pic.twitter.com/Wq97veyRC0
Andrew Sullivan… a man always on the verge of a nervous breakdown!
Hope my comment isn’t viewed as being overly mean.
Not even mean in IMHO, Mark. I think that a number of us feel on the verge of a nervous breakdown these days.
+1!
Andrew is a high anxiety bird – nervous. He’s smart, and a good writer for sure, but a little panicky.
He’s right here though. WPATH is a deranged political action group playing at being a medical org. “They’re not like the American Diabetes Ass’n, y’know” I advised a friend whose kid is about to be fed into the maw of gender “affirmation”.
D.A.
NYC
Many of the boys who would have “gender-affirming care” to supposedly turn them into girls are likely just gay.
If they have surgery this can have many negative side effects. As for taking hormones, who knows what that might do in the long run?
I read an article the side effects that was awful. I can’t find it now as Google is relentlessly positive on the subject.
I agree with Sullivan. It could have been him if he’d been younger.
(I’ll keep looking for that article.)
Try Bing or another search engine. Google is um… biased.
As I read your daily invitation to readers to cull out events from today’s Wikipedia page, I just remembered that a few days ago, you said that Jezgrove was back. Welcome back, Jez!
+1!
Canada is due for a major conservative correction.
Election day in BC.
While Biden’s assistant secretary for health sounds as though she should be fired, it is good to keep in mind that during Trump’s administration there were probably dozens of his troop that should have been criminally indicted and many of them were. Many should have been fired if only for their willingness to facilitate the Orange Man’s attempt to overthrow the election.
I can see why many are upset with Biden/Harris for various failings, but these sins are trivial compared to the alternative. Where is the perspective?
+muchissimo!
See below. I will send all those who chastise me for not criticizing Trump over to Pharyngula, where criticizing Trump and Republicans is the order of the day. I really wish those who take me to task for this would stop it, as I’ve explained my stand over and over gain.
P.Z. will welcome you!
As I keep saying, my brief is to try to keep the mishigass out of my own party. If you want a bunch of people howling about the perfidies of Trump, I suggest you go over to Pharyngula. I’ve said what I think of Trump, and it’s not pretty. But it’s not fun at all for me to do what all the MSM and other liberal writers are doing: calling out Trump.
I am not a newspaper that has to give equal attention to both sides.
Here is Rool #6 from the Roolz:
Please do not tell me how to run my site. That is, comments about “too many cats,” “too many boots,” “not enough biology,” “too much religion,” etc., are not welcome. I provide content free of charge, and if you don’t like the mix of posts, you’re free to go elsewhere. By all means take issue with what I say, but don’t argue about the balance of topics.
Rick, Mr. Levine is basically promoting the chemical castration of children.
I don’t think tu quoque–or ipsi quoque–is relevant here.
Big fan Lady M.
D.A.
NYC
Following up on Matti Friedman’s piece, the war in Gaza was never about destroying the idea of Hamas. It was (and is) about destroying Hamas’s ability to attack Israel and about permanently removing it from political power. Both are eminently feasible (and are in process of taking place). Those who whine that you can’t destroy an idea are bashing a straw man. They are pretend pundits who seem to want Hamas to win.
In other words, a ceasefire should occur when there are no more Hamas weapons and no more Hamas terrorists to shoot them. Only then can we move forward toward peace.
Those who say you can’t destroy an idea. Maybe so. But the ideas and values of the Nazis can no longer be executed because Nazi Germany was destroyed. See how this works?
There’s an argument against that Rick.
That is that fascism in Japan and Germany was a new thing, promising only a better life while its adherents were alive.
Hamas/Hezb taps into Islam and is 1300 years old, as is its antisemitism, and it promises an afterlife and eternity in paradise. Bigger prizes for stupid games. Bigger than Hitler or Tojo could argue.
That said… I agree.. as political units Hezb/Hamas CAN be destroyed. And any hopes of “Palestinian nationalism” must be crushed utterly.
So… a measured response from me, Rick.
Cheeri-o
D.A.
NYC
Agreed. This was the straw man Jon Stewart promoted last year when he returned to host the Daily Show. It is exasperating how much traction terror apologists and pundits get from this line of reasoning. Peace can only come once Hamas (and Hezbollah, and Iran…) stop attacking Israel.
It would be difficult for President Biden to fire Rachel Levine because Levine was hired specifically because he is transgendered. This is exactly the message the President was trying to send when he hired him and there is no evidence the President regards his views or conduct as anything but appropriate advocacy in his role as Surgeon-General. (Remember the nuclear fuel-rod guy was fired not because he was trans but because he was caught stealing women’s luggage off airport carousels, so the Administration had cause for him.)
“Targeting then stealing the custom clothing made by black women fashion designers and then posing in the outfits on social media.” He was a walking cry for help, but with a security clearance.
And yet luggage-clothing thief Sam Brinton was only fired because after being caught, he persisted. (And he did act like he thought his protected status would protect him from such minor… eccentricities.)
Regarding Dr. Cobb’s video of a sprinting cat, my cats do the same and when they’re doing them I say they’re doing the zoomies.
On cats v dogs I’ve had both, currently a dog. To wit, puppers:
Older than Joe Biden now but he’s my best bud. Cats are hard in an apartment for various reasons but for me the change of lifestyle walking a dog downstairs in Manhattan is a life changing thing. The neighborhood know us b/c he’s adorable. Really though, living with a dog is a very different experience – and better – than without one, here in NYC at least. And childless people need pets I think or we go bonkers.
North Korea I’m convinced are sending “helpers” to Russia. I follow NK closely and have written about the place in my column and other places. I’ve been fascinated by crazy countries and dictatorships since I was a teenager.
I believe that they’re sending engineering units, rather than fighters. Mainly bc of the language gap – which is unbridgable. You can send a bunch of NKs to build a trench or a dyke or a pontoon bridge with little conversation. And NK has millions of disposable troops to sacrifice for the Kim-Putin bromance. NK badly needs friends.
And Russia is almost certainly using NK ammunition which has an even lower success rate than the Russian stuff (about 1/3rd to a half all duds). But still deadly.
Along with Iran NK is the most malign country on earth.
Just my Saturday two cents,
D.A.
NYC
– ps I’ll post my column about Sinwar here tomorrow. 🙂
I suspect you’re right. Well said.
Children surgically and chemically mutilated into sterility and inability to experience sexual pleasure. Free speech and dissent recast as “misinformation” and “hate” that must be controlled by a government-corporate partnership. Righteous indignation at an unacceptable riot on January 6th, while a “summer of love” in 2020 was cheered and encouraged, now having been memory-holed despite over a billion dollars of destruction and hundreds of injured police officers. An (intentionally?) uncontrolled border for over three years. An insistence that “no one is above the law,” except for many from “oppressed” groups who commit crimes and are readily released without charges. “My body, my choice,” unless the choice is about an experimental vaccine (the injection of which does little to protect others) and your freedom to enroll in college or keep your job. The ongoing destruction of meritocracy in the universities and professional associations. The ideological capture of the media and culture-producing institutions to the degree that they can differ little from state-sponsored media (when one party is in charge). An aversion to “book banning” but a zealous offensive to prevent offending books or articles from being either published or marketed. A lockstep conformity that would make the Politburo proud. A party that plays footsie with the Ayatollah in Iran and coerces its closest ally in the Middle East. A party that now embraces Dick Cheney. The list could continue.
To those who say that “Trump is worse,” what do you mean? I’m not suggesting that Trump is better; I am setting aside Trump entirely. Do you mean that you support all the above that is now embraced (or allowed) by the Democratic Party? That, at least, would be honest. You don’t? Are you still a straight ticket voter? Is there a single Republican that could have enticed you across the aisle had he or she defeated Trump in the primary? If Trump is worse than the empty pantsuit he now faces (and I can understand this claim), does that mean you will split your votes so that the above pathologies can be blocked, at least in part, by a Republican Senate or House? Does that mean you are voting for people at the local and state level who will not continue this madness in your city and state? Or does “Trump is worse” allow one to deny complicity with a party that has gone badly astray. Oh, the Republicans certainly have their own pathologies, and they have their parallel: “But the Democrats are worse, so I’m voting for Trump.” It’s easy to see that many of them are sacrificing their once-touted principles for political expediency (and out of fear). Are the red-hatted fan boys the only ones doing so? I have trouble understanding people of either side who are not conflicted about this election. (And I welcome our host’s public wrestling with these issues.) So, to those who aren’t conflicted, please help me understand.
My take: The lesser of two evils is still evil. How did we ever get to this point? How do we move beyond it? Has one party in recent times proven itself better at allowing (even encouraging) the public to dissent from its platitudes and policies, particularly when it is in charge? Is either particularly censorious or prone to enforced conformity in either the public sphere or the workplace? That to me is the entire election: which, if either, party will hold to founding principles that allow free speech, dissent, and toleration? Without this, we cannot even hope to fix the problems in either party.
Doug, I could not have said it better.
I understand that people hate Trump viscerally. I think a large part of it is the media barrage and influence (though people affected by it will say it’s not; no, you’ve been influenced).
But I’m tired of the Democrat shift to the fringe positions you outline, and maybe what is needed is for enough of us to say, sorry, you’re not getting my vote this time; change your priorities and I’ll think about it next time.
After the first debate, there was no way I could vote for Biden. Harris seems empty, and I don’t believe her seeming shift slightly away from the extreme left; her record speaks otherwise.
But you know what really got me? The Dick Cheney endorsement. After years of demonizing him, rightly IMHO, to brag that he’s endorsing her was unconscionable. If he changed at all, OK, maybe. But he’s still the neocon he’s always been. Looking at the huge profits made by our war machine producers under the current administration, I suppose he fits right in though, so maybe it’s not so much of a surprise.
Yes, I struggle with this. I’ve voted both R and D over the years, and could not stomach to vote for Trump in the past two elections. But I can’t vote for Harris and the Democratic party in this one.
+1
Did anyone force you to get vaccinated vs. COVID vaccine? Those vaccines were tested very well in advance. The “Experimental” terminology was technical because at first it wasn’t approved for those under16. And it was Orange Julius who hectored the head of the FDA for their approval in advance of the last election. But since release, people are no longer dying in droves from COVID as previously.
While I am annoyed by Team Blue as well, I still recognize the flaw in looking at the bad things of one party and then advocating for voting for the other on a split ticket. You could have at least made it a choice between the party chemically castrating kids and the party forcing victims of rape to carry the rapists baby. Between the party every expanding the list of what is “hate” and the party espousing religious dogma. Between the party cheering on racial riots and the party cheering on political riots. Between the party espousing lived experience and the party espousing intelligent design.
How do you move beyond it? The only way I can see is if you somehow scrap your first past the post voting system, since you Americans are just too pragmatic to keep more than two parties around. Look at how it plays out in French politics once power trumps personality. Dozens of parties but actually only 4 choices. But given that in order to change the system, both parties would need to accept competition it’s hard to imagine.
FX, While I left the Republican party “pathologies” unstated in my lengthy post, I did so both in trepidation of the Roolz and knowing that any reader here would readily fill in the gaps. (We tend less to see the hypocrisy and inconsistencies of our own team.) That said, your post helps illustrate the dilemma: we oftentimes have nothing but lousy choices. Oftentimes, but not always. My observation is that at the local and state level one can sometimes still find Republicans who are not religious extremists, who do not support the more extreme abortion measures, who are not looking to thrust creationism into the classroom, who are not sold out to Trump. And it is very easy to find Republicans who immediately condemned the January 6th riots and who remain steadfast in that condemnation. It is much more difficult at this moment to find Democrats who will break ranks from party dogma.
I have lived in over a dozen US states, from the deepest of the deep red to its polarized blues, and for many years in one of the most even battlegrounds. I have never declared a party, have voted for members from both, and tend to follow a simple rule: when the ship leans too far left, I move right; if I think it is too far right, I move left. (I am open to the possibility that I might become disoriented if the ship is sinking in the night.) Thus, I could vote for politicians from either party—or both—in each election cycle depending on which jurisdiction I lived in.
My chief frustration now is shared by many Americans: we live in places where the outcome is a foregone conclusion. Our votes are either overkill for the dominant party or a futile pissing in the wind. The first past the post system bothers me less than our primaries, which regularly filter out any candidates who might have cross-party appeal. But we as citizens must take responsibility, as well. There is a distinct lack of grace, sympathy, and understanding for those with whom we disagree that characterizes our polity. I suspect that if we could have tamed the arrogance and sneering condescension of one influential element of our electorate, then I doubt that Donald Trump could have ever gained traction.
(Late to this one today.) On opening the post I wondered what a guy that looked like me was doing in the lead pic. NB: this was well before red ballcaps carried a stigma. I’m surprised that I’m wearing one, tho, because I rarely wore red anything even back then.
Anyway, that was Goatfest, the weekend after WEIT the manuscript went off to the publishers. But we just did a goat leg, not a whole goat.
Andrew Sullivan… a man always on the verge of a nervous breakdown!
Hope my comment isn’t viewed as being overly mean.
Not even mean in IMHO, Mark. I think that a number of us feel on the verge of a nervous breakdown these days.
+1!
Andrew is a high anxiety bird – nervous. He’s smart, and a good writer for sure, but a little panicky.
He’s right here though. WPATH is a deranged political action group playing at being a medical org. “They’re not like the American Diabetes Ass’n, y’know” I advised a friend whose kid is about to be fed into the maw of gender “affirmation”.
D.A.
NYC
Many of the boys who would have “gender-affirming care” to supposedly turn them into girls are likely just gay.
If they have surgery this can have many negative side effects. As for taking hormones, who knows what that might do in the long run?
I read an article the side effects that was awful. I can’t find it now as Google is relentlessly positive on the subject.
I agree with Sullivan. It could have been him if he’d been younger.
(I’ll keep looking for that article.)
Try Bing or another search engine. Google is um… biased.
As I read your daily invitation to readers to cull out events from today’s Wikipedia page, I just remembered that a few days ago, you said that Jezgrove was back. Welcome back, Jez!
+1!
Canada is due for a major conservative correction.
Election day in BC.
While Biden’s assistant secretary for health sounds as though she should be fired, it is good to keep in mind that during Trump’s administration there were probably dozens of his troop that should have been criminally indicted and many of them were. Many should have been fired if only for their willingness to facilitate the Orange Man’s attempt to overthrow the election.
I can see why many are upset with Biden/Harris for various failings, but these sins are trivial compared to the alternative. Where is the perspective?
+muchissimo!
See below. I will send all those who chastise me for not criticizing Trump over to Pharyngula, where criticizing Trump and Republicans is the order of the day. I really wish those who take me to task for this would stop it, as I’ve explained my stand over and over gain.
P.Z. will welcome you!
As I keep saying, my brief is to try to keep the mishigass out of my own party. If you want a bunch of people howling about the perfidies of Trump, I suggest you go over to Pharyngula. I’ve said what I think of Trump, and it’s not pretty. But it’s not fun at all for me to do what all the MSM and other liberal writers are doing: calling out Trump.
I am not a newspaper that has to give equal attention to both sides.
Here is Rool #6 from the Roolz:
Rick, Mr. Levine is basically promoting the chemical castration of children.
I don’t think tu quoque–or ipsi quoque–is relevant here.
Big fan Lady M.
D.A.
NYC
Following up on Matti Friedman’s piece, the war in Gaza was never about destroying the idea of Hamas. It was (and is) about destroying Hamas’s ability to attack Israel and about permanently removing it from political power. Both are eminently feasible (and are in process of taking place). Those who whine that you can’t destroy an idea are bashing a straw man. They are pretend pundits who seem to want Hamas to win.
In other words, a ceasefire should occur when there are no more Hamas weapons and no more Hamas terrorists to shoot them. Only then can we move forward toward peace.
Those who say you can’t destroy an idea. Maybe so. But the ideas and values of the Nazis can no longer be executed because Nazi Germany was destroyed. See how this works?
There’s an argument against that Rick.
That is that fascism in Japan and Germany was a new thing, promising only a better life while its adherents were alive.
Hamas/Hezb taps into Islam and is 1300 years old, as is its antisemitism, and it promises an afterlife and eternity in paradise. Bigger prizes for stupid games. Bigger than Hitler or Tojo could argue.
That said… I agree.. as political units Hezb/Hamas CAN be destroyed. And any hopes of “Palestinian nationalism” must be crushed utterly.
So… a measured response from me, Rick.
Cheeri-o
D.A.
NYC
Agreed. This was the straw man Jon Stewart promoted last year when he returned to host the Daily Show. It is exasperating how much traction terror apologists and pundits get from this line of reasoning. Peace can only come once Hamas (and Hezbollah, and Iran…) stop attacking Israel.
It would be difficult for President Biden to fire Rachel Levine because Levine was hired specifically because he is transgendered. This is exactly the message the President was trying to send when he hired him and there is no evidence the President regards his views or conduct as anything but appropriate advocacy in his role as Surgeon-General. (Remember the nuclear fuel-rod guy was fired not because he was trans but because he was caught stealing women’s luggage off airport carousels, so the Administration had cause for him.)
“Targeting then stealing the custom clothing made by black women fashion designers and then posing in the outfits on social media.” He was a walking cry for help, but with a security clearance.
And yet luggage-clothing thief Sam Brinton was only fired because after being caught, he persisted. (And he did act like he thought his protected status would protect him from such minor… eccentricities.)
Regarding Dr. Cobb’s video of a sprinting cat, my cats do the same and when they’re doing them I say they’re doing the zoomies.
On cats v dogs I’ve had both, currently a dog. To wit, puppers:
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2020/06/10/photos-of-readers-93/
Older than Joe Biden now but he’s my best bud. Cats are hard in an apartment for various reasons but for me the change of lifestyle walking a dog downstairs in Manhattan is a life changing thing. The neighborhood know us b/c he’s adorable. Really though, living with a dog is a very different experience – and better – than without one, here in NYC at least. And childless people need pets I think or we go bonkers.
North Korea I’m convinced are sending “helpers” to Russia. I follow NK closely and have written about the place in my column and other places. I’ve been fascinated by crazy countries and dictatorships since I was a teenager.
I believe that they’re sending engineering units, rather than fighters. Mainly bc of the language gap – which is unbridgable. You can send a bunch of NKs to build a trench or a dyke or a pontoon bridge with little conversation. And NK has millions of disposable troops to sacrifice for the Kim-Putin bromance. NK badly needs friends.
And Russia is almost certainly using NK ammunition which has an even lower success rate than the Russian stuff (about 1/3rd to a half all duds). But still deadly.
Along with Iran NK is the most malign country on earth.
Just my Saturday two cents,
D.A.
NYC
– ps I’ll post my column about Sinwar here tomorrow. 🙂
I suspect you’re right. Well said.
Children surgically and chemically mutilated into sterility and inability to experience sexual pleasure. Free speech and dissent recast as “misinformation” and “hate” that must be controlled by a government-corporate partnership. Righteous indignation at an unacceptable riot on January 6th, while a “summer of love” in 2020 was cheered and encouraged, now having been memory-holed despite over a billion dollars of destruction and hundreds of injured police officers. An (intentionally?) uncontrolled border for over three years. An insistence that “no one is above the law,” except for many from “oppressed” groups who commit crimes and are readily released without charges. “My body, my choice,” unless the choice is about an experimental vaccine (the injection of which does little to protect others) and your freedom to enroll in college or keep your job. The ongoing destruction of meritocracy in the universities and professional associations. The ideological capture of the media and culture-producing institutions to the degree that they can differ little from state-sponsored media (when one party is in charge). An aversion to “book banning” but a zealous offensive to prevent offending books or articles from being either published or marketed. A lockstep conformity that would make the Politburo proud. A party that plays footsie with the Ayatollah in Iran and coerces its closest ally in the Middle East. A party that now embraces Dick Cheney. The list could continue.
To those who say that “Trump is worse,” what do you mean? I’m not suggesting that Trump is better; I am setting aside Trump entirely. Do you mean that you support all the above that is now embraced (or allowed) by the Democratic Party? That, at least, would be honest. You don’t? Are you still a straight ticket voter? Is there a single Republican that could have enticed you across the aisle had he or she defeated Trump in the primary? If Trump is worse than the empty pantsuit he now faces (and I can understand this claim), does that mean you will split your votes so that the above pathologies can be blocked, at least in part, by a Republican Senate or House? Does that mean you are voting for people at the local and state level who will not continue this madness in your city and state? Or does “Trump is worse” allow one to deny complicity with a party that has gone badly astray. Oh, the Republicans certainly have their own pathologies, and they have their parallel: “But the Democrats are worse, so I’m voting for Trump.” It’s easy to see that many of them are sacrificing their once-touted principles for political expediency (and out of fear). Are the red-hatted fan boys the only ones doing so? I have trouble understanding people of either side who are not conflicted about this election. (And I welcome our host’s public wrestling with these issues.) So, to those who aren’t conflicted, please help me understand.
My take: The lesser of two evils is still evil. How did we ever get to this point? How do we move beyond it? Has one party in recent times proven itself better at allowing (even encouraging) the public to dissent from its platitudes and policies, particularly when it is in charge? Is either particularly censorious or prone to enforced conformity in either the public sphere or the workplace? That to me is the entire election: which, if either, party will hold to founding principles that allow free speech, dissent, and toleration? Without this, we cannot even hope to fix the problems in either party.
Doug, I could not have said it better.
I understand that people hate Trump viscerally. I think a large part of it is the media barrage and influence (though people affected by it will say it’s not; no, you’ve been influenced).
But I’m tired of the Democrat shift to the fringe positions you outline, and maybe what is needed is for enough of us to say, sorry, you’re not getting my vote this time; change your priorities and I’ll think about it next time.
After the first debate, there was no way I could vote for Biden. Harris seems empty, and I don’t believe her seeming shift slightly away from the extreme left; her record speaks otherwise.
But you know what really got me? The Dick Cheney endorsement. After years of demonizing him, rightly IMHO, to brag that he’s endorsing her was unconscionable. If he changed at all, OK, maybe. But he’s still the neocon he’s always been. Looking at the huge profits made by our war machine producers under the current administration, I suppose he fits right in though, so maybe it’s not so much of a surprise.
Yes, I struggle with this. I’ve voted both R and D over the years, and could not stomach to vote for Trump in the past two elections. But I can’t vote for Harris and the Democratic party in this one.
+1
Did anyone force you to get vaccinated vs. COVID vaccine? Those vaccines were tested very well in advance. The “Experimental” terminology was technical because at first it wasn’t approved for those under16. And it was Orange Julius who hectored the head of the FDA for their approval in advance of the last election. But since release, people are no longer dying in droves from COVID as previously.
While I am annoyed by Team Blue as well, I still recognize the flaw in looking at the bad things of one party and then advocating for voting for the other on a split ticket. You could have at least made it a choice between the party chemically castrating kids and the party forcing victims of rape to carry the rapists baby. Between the party every expanding the list of what is “hate” and the party espousing religious dogma. Between the party cheering on racial riots and the party cheering on political riots. Between the party espousing lived experience and the party espousing intelligent design.
How do you move beyond it? The only way I can see is if you somehow scrap your first past the post voting system, since you Americans are just too pragmatic to keep more than two parties around. Look at how it plays out in French politics once power trumps personality. Dozens of parties but actually only 4 choices. But given that in order to change the system, both parties would need to accept competition it’s hard to imagine.
FX, While I left the Republican party “pathologies” unstated in my lengthy post, I did so both in trepidation of the Roolz and knowing that any reader here would readily fill in the gaps. (We tend less to see the hypocrisy and inconsistencies of our own team.) That said, your post helps illustrate the dilemma: we oftentimes have nothing but lousy choices. Oftentimes, but not always. My observation is that at the local and state level one can sometimes still find Republicans who are not religious extremists, who do not support the more extreme abortion measures, who are not looking to thrust creationism into the classroom, who are not sold out to Trump. And it is very easy to find Republicans who immediately condemned the January 6th riots and who remain steadfast in that condemnation. It is much more difficult at this moment to find Democrats who will break ranks from party dogma.
I have lived in over a dozen US states, from the deepest of the deep red to its polarized blues, and for many years in one of the most even battlegrounds. I have never declared a party, have voted for members from both, and tend to follow a simple rule: when the ship leans too far left, I move right; if I think it is too far right, I move left. (I am open to the possibility that I might become disoriented if the ship is sinking in the night.) Thus, I could vote for politicians from either party—or both—in each election cycle depending on which jurisdiction I lived in.
My chief frustration now is shared by many Americans: we live in places where the outcome is a foregone conclusion. Our votes are either overkill for the dominant party or a futile pissing in the wind. The first past the post system bothers me less than our primaries, which regularly filter out any candidates who might have cross-party appeal. But we as citizens must take responsibility, as well. There is a distinct lack of grace, sympathy, and understanding for those with whom we disagree that characterizes our polity. I suspect that if we could have tamed the arrogance and sneering condescension of one influential element of our electorate, then I doubt that Donald Trump could have ever gained traction.
(Late to this one today.) On opening the post I wondered what a guy that looked like me was doing in the lead pic. NB: this was well before red ballcaps carried a stigma. I’m surprised that I’m wearing one, tho, because I rarely wore red anything even back then.
Anyway, that was Goatfest, the weekend after WEIT the manuscript went off to the publishers. But we just did a goat leg, not a whole goat.