Welcome to Monday, January 27, 2025, and National Chocolate Cake Day. Once again I present you with one form in which it’s served in Chicago, as lumps in milkshakes from Portillo’s. I really need to try one of these (see it made at 4:15 in the video below, but watch the whole thing).
It’s also International Port Wine Day, Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day (who among us has not popped it?), National Geographic Day (it was incorporated on this day in 1888), and International Day of Commemoration of the Victims of the Holocaust Day, marking the day that Auschwitz was liberated by the Russians in 1945. A photo of the liberation labeled in Wikipedia: “Still photograph from the Soviet Film of the liberation of Auschwitz, taken by the film unit of the First Ukrainian Front, shot over a period of several months beginning on January 27, 1945 by Alexander Voronzow and others in his group. Child survivors of Auschwitz, wearing adult-size prisoner jackets, stand behind a barbed wire fence.”
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the January 27 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*First the FBI and Department of Energy admitted that the Covid pandemic was more likely the result of a lab leak than a wet-market contamination by the virus, though neither agency had huge confidence in their conclusions. Now, as the WSJ reports. the CIA has also given a higher probability to a lab leak.
The Central Intelligence Agency has now concluded that the deadly Covid-19 pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak, lending credibility to a view that has been the focus of sharp debate among scientists and politicians for years.
In doing so, the CIA has now joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Energy Department in identifying a laboratory mishap in Wuhan, China, as the probable source of the Covid virus. It has killed more than 1.2 million Americans and over seven million people worldwide.
“CIA assesses with low confidence that a research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin based on the available body of reporting,” an agency spokesman said in a statement released Saturday.
The spokesman added that the judgment was “low confidence” and that the CIA would continue to evaluate “any available credible new intelligence reporting or open-source information that could change CIA’s assessment.”
The agency had previously taken the stance that it didn’t have enough information to assess whether the virus had leapt from an animal to a human or arose from a laboratory mishap.
Covid-19 emerged in Wuhan in late 2019 and then spread rapidly through the world in 2020 and 2021 before the development of vaccines helped limit deaths. It marked one of the worst pandemics in modern history.
But the origins of the virus still divides the U.S. intelligence community, in large part because the Chinese government hasn’t cooperated with international investigations. Four U.S. intelligence agencies have favored, with low confidence, the animal transmission theory. So has the National Intelligence Council, a body of senior intelligence officers that reports to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The fact that the Chinese won’t cooperate with the investigation, which after all can help us understand worldwide epidemics, always makes me think that something fishy is going on, and by that I don’t mean “wet market”. My friend Luana has always been a big booster of the lab-leak hypothesis, and while I used to be pro-wet-market, I’m not somewhat agnostic leaning towards lab-leak. What cannot be denied is that both Facui and Francis Collins did their best to discourage the lab-leak hypothesis, and not solely on the grounds of science! They simply demonized those who suggested it, which is not a scientific attitude.
*According to CNN, the U.S. has frozen nearly all foreign aid—even to Ukraine, though Israel and Egypt are still getting US $$.
The US State Department has frozen nearly all foreign assistance worldwide, effective immediately, days after President Donald Trump issued a sweeping executive order Monday to put a hold on such aid for 90 days.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a cable, seen by CNN, to all US diplomatic posts on Friday outlining the move, which threatens billions of dollars of funding from the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) for programs worldwide.
Foreign assistance has been the target of ire from Republicans in Congress and Trump administration officials, but the funding accounts for very little of the overall US budget. The scope of the executive order and subsequent cable has left humanitarian and State Department officials reeling.
The cable calls for immediate “stop work” orders on existing foreign assistance and pauses new aid. It is sweeping in its scope. Essentially all foreign assistance appears to have been targeted unless specifically exempted. That means lifesaving global health aid, development assistance, military aid, and even clean water distribution could all be affected.
The cable provides a waiver only for emergency food assistance and foreign military financing for Israel and Egypt. The cable does not specifically mention any other countries that receive foreign military financing, like Ukraine or Taiwan, as being exempt from the freeze.
In the coming month, the cable said, the administration will develop standards for a review of whether the assistance is “aligned with President Trump’s foreign policy agenda.”
I happen to favor continued aid to both Ukraine and Taiwan, and so am not keen on this latest decision. Fortunately, it’s only for a short while (but every minute counts for Ukraine). One thing I hope: Trump continues to stop the funding to that Supporter of Terrorism: UNRWA.
* Presidential insanity of the day: Trump has upset the Danes by calling the Prime Minister and hectoring her about the U.S. buying Greenland again (h/t Matthew).
Donald Trump had a fiery phone call with Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen over his demands to buy Greenland, according to senior European officials.
Speaking to the Financial Times, officials said that Trump, then still president-elect, spoke with Frederiksen for 45 minutes last week, during which he was described to be aggressive and confrontational about Frederiksen’s refusal to sell Greenland to the US.
The Financial Times reports that according to five current and former senior European officials who were briefed on the call, the conversation “was horrendous”. One person said: “He was very firm. It was a cold shower. Before, it was hard to take it seriously. But I do think it is serious and potentially very dangerous.”
Another person who was briefed on the call told the outlet: “The intent was very clear. They want it. The Danes are now in crisis mode.” Someone else said: “The Danes are utterly freaked out by this.”
According to one former Danish official, the call was a “very tough conversation” in which Trump “threatened specific measures against Denmark such as targeted tariffs”.
Trump has previously said that the US needs to control Greenland and has refused to rule out using US military force to take over the territory. During a press conference a few weeks ago, Trump said that the US needed Greenland “for economic security”. The 836,300-sq-mile (2,166,007-sq-km) Arctic island is rich in oil and gas, as well as various raw materials for green technology.
The man is nuts, and I can see how his bullying form of conversation would scare the bejeezus out of PM Frederiksen. However, I don’t think that either she or the Danes have much to worry about. This is one case in which I think Ttrump’s threats are simply bluster. On the other hand, we’re learning that he’s serious about his campaign “promises.” He may slap some tariffs on Denmark, but I’m not sure how much damage that would do to the country. At any rate, I’d say, “Hey, Danes, don’t freak out so much. The optics of this are not good for Trump.”
*Heterodox STEM reports a blatant violation of antidiscrimination laws, this time by the National Science Foundation (NSF). This kind of action is palpably illegal by the agency.
By now, most are familiar with the term “People of Color,” but “Geoscientists of Color” was a new one to me—and deeply concerning. As someone skeptical of identity politics, the idea of dividing an already small field (just 24,620 employed in the U.S. as of May 2023, per BLS) by skin color is troubling. However, given the limited pipeline of geoscientists, it’s understandable why the National Science Foundation (NSF) launched the “Geoscience Opportunities for Leadership in Diversity”1 (GOLD) program in 2016, aiming to expand the field through outreach and other lawful means. But just like many of the zealous “diversity, equity, and inclusion” efforts that have morphed into outright unlawful discrimination, the GOLD program’s days are numbered.
The original mission of the GOLD program was “to achieve greater and more systemic diversity by creating a network of diversity and inclusion ‘champions’ who can generate greater implementation of evidence-based best practices and resources.” Reading this mission statement in 2025 certainly triggers a warning that discriminatory “DEI” styled as new-age “antiracism” could be at work. But in 2016, America had not yet seen the avalanche of race-based preferences we have recently witnessed– and certainly not at the hands of Federal agencies.
Indeed, it seems the GOLD program was founded with pure intentions. But as we have seen all too often lately, when individuals have intentionally or unintentionally blurred the line that separates true diversity and inclusion from outright race-based discrimination, the Federal government has not only turned a blind eye to it but thrown hundreds of thousands of dollars at it. But if you’re up to speed on President Trump’s Executive Orders, you know that those days are over.
Consider an incident reported to FAIR about a March 2023 summit organized by the University of San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The event promised an excellent opportunity to participate in a multi-day summit to plan a future professional conference, with housing, meals, travel, and a $500 stipend included. The catch? Only “Geoscientists of Color” were invited. The organizer openly embraced this exclusionary approach, even boasting on X (formerly Twitter): “I want to create a conference for only Geoscientists of Color. If you are a Geoscientist of Color, I invite you to join us.”
At FAIR, we immediately recognized this as illegal under Civil Rights laws and sought to address it. Our investigation uncovered the grant application for the summit, titled “Proposal for a SUMMIT to Plan a Conference Workshop for Minoritized Geoscientists.” The application made clear that participation would be restricted by skin color, yet the NSF’s GOLD program awarded over $90,000 in federal funds without objection. This negligence likely led the organizer to believe no laws were being broken (not that it would have saved UC San Diego from legal liability if they’d gone through with it as planned).
When FAIR alerted Scripps to the issue, they took swift corrective action, removing the discriminatory eligibility criteria and extending the application deadline so that all geoscientists would have ample opportunity to apply. While this outcome was positive, it highlights a broader problem: many federally funded DEI initiatives have been implemented without oversight or accountability, often violating civil rights laws.
*The other day I posted about a law (was it in Egypt?) allowing a husband to have sex with his wife for a certain period after she was dead. A few readers saw no problem with that, and, indeed, it’s somewhat of an ethical dilemma of the kind Jon Haidt used to discuss. But this is a report of behavior that’s clearly illegal: digging up dead bodies of women (to whom you’re not related) and having sex with the corpses. That (h/t Anna) is what a Pakistani man is accused of.
On Friday (9th August), Karachi Police arrested a 40-year-old man who ‘confessed’ to desecrating recently-buried graves and sexually abusing dead women at the Korangi graveyard in Karachi, ARY News reported citing police. For those unversed, committing sex with corpses is called necrophilia. According to the police, the accused confessed that he desecrated four graves of women and subjected their dead bodies to sexual abuse. The locals caught him desecrating the grave of a recently buried 55-year-old woman. They thrashed him before handing over to the Police.
Speaking to a TV channel, crime reporter Tahir Abbas identified the accused as Salman Waheed.
The Police added that the accused, who was arrested from Bagh Korangi Cemetery, confessed to the crime and revealed a shocking tale of sexual abuse and desecration of female graves. According to the Police, accused Saleem used to target fresh graves of women, exhume bodies, and commit sexual abuse.
. . .In a statement, the Korangi police stated that the accused was arrested “on the rape charge” in the Bagh-i-Korangi graveyard.
As per a person’s complaint stated in the FIR, he had buried his mother in the graveyard on Thursday evening. At around 10:30 pm, he learned that the accused desecrated the grave and molested the body. However, some of the locals caught him and thrashed him. They then handed him over to the local police. The FIR states that the accused was found using an emergency light to commit the heinous crime.
During interrogation, he told the police that he used to keep an eye on the burials of women, and during nights he dug up graves to commit the heinous crime against the dead.
. . .Earlier on 22nd June, a shocking incident came to light from Lahore. Hours after the burial, the body of a three-month-old child went missing from the grave. The horrific incident occurred in Miani Sahib Graveyard, Lahore. The child’s father, Abdul Rahman found that the body of the child went missing from the grave the next day, finding the shroud outside. He then alerted the police.
Subsequently, the Police arrested three individuals, including a security guard, in connection with the offense. According to the FIR, the incident occurred on 23rd April this year.
It is pertinent to note that numerous cases of necrophilia have been reported from Pakistan. [The article goes on to describe more, but I’ll refrain . . . .]
Here’s a tweet with the perp:
Police arrested a 40-year-old Muslim Man Muhammad Saleem and booked him on digging up the grave of a recently-buried woman and Raping with the corpse, in a graveyard in Karachi. https://t.co/0pUysfhRON pic.twitter.com/6Yp0U0msIu
— Faraz Pervaiz (@FarazPervaiz3) August 10, 2024
Perhaps one could justify criminalizing raping one’s dead wife because it leads to stuff like this, which is clearly illegal.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Malgorzata explains Hili’s pun:
This must be difficult (or impossible) to understand by a non-Polish speaker. The (mildly) amusing thing is that “hippo” and “hypo” sound exactly the same in Polish.
The dialogue:
Hili: Can a hippo be a hypocrite?A: You’ll have to ask somebody wiser.
Hili: Czy hipopotam może być hipokrytą?Ja: Musisz o to zapytać kogoś mądrzejszego.
*******************
From Jesus of the Day:
From Things with Faces:
From Cat Memes:
From Reddit: I have a last found an example of how indigenous knowledge could be usefully incorporated into modern science, in this case giving a suggestion to Elon Musk (h/t Andrzej). I cannot find the original cartoon nor the artist “Roy”.
From Masih, and yes, the Houthis are terrorists. How could anyone maintain otherwise?
Yes, let’s call terrorists by their name: It’s time to END the era of appeasement.
President @realDonaldTrump’s decision to re-designate the Houthis as a terrorist organization is a bold and necessary move. For too long, the Houthis have acted like international pirates,… pic.twitter.com/g22OnDS7kj
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) January 23, 2025
This came from Colin Wright. Watch the cartoon!
Why did @amazeorg remove this 5-year-old video from their YouTube channel today when @BillAckman brought attention to it on X?
Is it be because, as Bill said, it acts as a “transgender recruitment cartoon” for kids feeling awkward about their bodies during puberty?
Or is it… pic.twitter.com/am2fxAB4pW
— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) January 26, 2025
Barry wonders if this is true:
A dog making eye contact with you creates a love hormone called oxytocin. When a cat makes eye contact with you, the body produces two fear hormones, adrenaline, and cortisol, because the cat knows what you did.
From Malcolm; who is gonna win?
واضح الامور خرجت عن السيطرة pic.twitter.com/7HQvo3nqYd
— CUTE CAT (@cute_catse) December 31, 2024
From Ricky Gervais: a good girl crosses the Rainbow Bridge
Sad News. ‘Anti’, who played ‘Brandy’ in AfterLife, has died. She was 13 and a very good girl 😢 pic.twitter.com/KgxnFfAOWl
— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) January 22, 2025
She was the second to disappear in the ending of the series, which always brings tears to my eyes. Here’s the ending, recording successive deaths:
From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:
Today is International Day of Commemoration of the Victims of the Holocaust Day, marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Russians in 1945. This family, gassed to death, must stand for the 1.1 million people murdered at the camp, of which 1 million were Jews.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-01-27T11:42:38.881Z
Two posts from Dr. Cobb. He suspect this first one is a kind of amoeba, but it’s awful big!
The Xenophyophore is a single-celled organism that can grow several inches across, building its body out of sand, shells, and other seafloor debris. It’s a walking trash castle, but it’s thriving. #marinelife #science
— Dr Craig R McClain (@drcraigmc.bsky.social) 2025-01-25T21:00:04.510Z
This bizarre urchin is in a two-ninute video I’ve put below:
The deep-sea pancake urchin looks like a squishy disk but can move with spines and suction tube feet. It’s like evolution said, “Make it weird, but also kind of adorable, also let's give it little boots" #invertebrate #marinelife
— Dr Craig R McClain (@drcraigmc.bsky.social) 2025-01-24T18:31:27.521Z
Here’s the video:
Jon Stewart talking to Stephen Colbert on the “lab leak” 15 June 2021 : (see below for YouTube link).
Here’s the link I hope – the video has 8.4 million views : [ YouTube ] sSfejgwbDQ8?si=PHa5FdErsAcjbmm9
Should skip to ~2:50 where TL;DW he says we owe a debt of gratitude to science for solving a problem caused by science.
So the CIA now says it has “low confidence” of the lab leak supposition. All the lab leak govvies look like the same geniuses that gave us WMD’s some years ago. Meanwhile, I like Michael Worobey’s natural spillover analysis as early as 2021 published in Science and most recently last Fall in Cell. Full paper at https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)00901-2
I recall the TWiV gang supporting this tested hypothesis, but am certainly open to critiques from the subject matter expert readers (and host of course) on WEIT.
Is this like Facebook announcing it is now in favor of free speech? I suspect the CIA is just trying to suck up to the Trump admin.
I still take TWiV as a more reliable source for this. The scientists who TWiV quotes were on the Decoding the Gurus podcast laying out the evidence:
https://decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/episode/interview-with-worobey-andersen-holmes-the-lab-leak
I think China is covering up, but what it is covering up is the wet market. After it was determined that SARS 1 started in a wet market my understanding is that China banned wet markets. Officially they are banned, but they continued to operate. The one in Wuhan started SARS 2 and that would be embarrassing to China so they shut it down and cleaned it up before researchers could look into it. That is why there is less evidence than there was for SARS 1. They got DNA samples that include SARS and the animals, but the animals were all gone when they went to sample.
Even with the prior clean up the evidence that Worobey, Anderson and Holmes have is much better than “low confidence”.
I will want to look at the lab leak claims when I can. But those seem dated and I’ve never seen a single credible bit of evidence about that origin before. Meanwhile the zoonotic origin from the wet market had always looked best (with initial cases clustered from a particular part of the wet market. Covid DNA found there after the market was cleared out). But as we do in science, we don’t assign certainty but probability.
Covering up is what Chinese authorities do. That is their first reaction to anything and everything.
“I suspect the CIA is just trying to suck up to the Trump admin.”
This was my thought as well.
But the CIA (as well as the FBI and the DoE) had the Worobey study, and, despite that, concluded that the lab leak hypothesis was the more-probable one. Did all the intelligence agencies ignored this study? I suppose it is possible, but I doubt it.
Dr Paul Offit (rotavirus vaccine) doubts lab leak. Free to read:
https://pauloffit.substack.com/p/lab-leak-mania
Good to see that there are other TWiV followers here. I think they did another summary more recently than this, but here’s their summary from this past June that also contains links to all of the OTHER times they’ve delved into this, always with the same conclusion.
A few key points – the lab is IIRC seven km from the market. If it was an escape, why no cases in-between. And after swabbing places in the already-cleaned market, traces of SARS-CoV-2 were found at highest levels in the stalls where the suspect animals had been kept. Further, and maybe even more importantly, two strains were found there. Only one strain would have been expected with a leak.
Why do the CIA and FBI continue to lean toward leak? First, by their very nature, they lean toward a nefarious explanation for everything. Second, I’ve known people who, after receipt of their advanced degree in microbiology/molecular biology/biochemistry, have gone off to jobs in the brewing industry/tech sector/patent law sectors. I don’t know of any who have gone to the CIA/FBI, altho my best pal in HS went into the Agency as they refer to it. But his PhD’s in Engineering.
And as far as “Isn’t it an odd coincidence…”, the whole reason that lab was built in Wuhan, as I understand it, is that these sorts of things have historically happened there, same as why the CDC is in Atlanta – there used to be a lot of Yellow Fever there.
Is there any example of a lab-modified virus escaping and then causing disease? It seems to me that any downplaying of such a hypothesis by Collins and Fauci would be a natural response to the rarity (or absence?) of any such event, and to the forces pushing that scenario for political purposes. So a good, probably correct, position to take is: it’s natural and we need to focus on how to limit the spread (not get sidetracked blaming the Chinese).
Ah, but you see, the leak people think that they’re focusing on that. This is their logic, which I have heard directly from some of them before: “If we figure out how it was made we can figure out how to un-make it.” And then they strut off.
I see – turn back time, undo the modification, and problem solved! (If it wasn’t just natural.)
“Is there any example of a lab-modified virus escaping and then causing disease?”
Actually, there is an example of something worse. In 1979, Anthrax leaked from a Soviet production facility in Sverdlovsk. 68+ people died.
A (long) list of laboratory leaks can be found in Wikipedia (“List of laboratory biosecurity incidents”).
What does it even mean suggesting a solution and saying immediately that you have low confidence in that solution. And what does ‘low’ mean? None, very little, some or whatever you can make it mean if necessary?
This was meant as a reaction to 2. Jim Batterson
Right
Relatively low
So
Relative to what?
“Low confidence generally means that the information’s credibility and/or plausibility is questionable, or that the information is too fragmented or poorly corroborated to make solid analytic inferences, or that we have significant concerns or problems with the sources.”
Source: Office of the Director of National Intelligence
Was COVID 19 part of gain-of-function research? If so, the takeaway from this pandemic is don’t fund gain-of function research.
Or….
Do fund it, while trying to convince your adversary not to.
Prisoners’ Dilemma.
Very much so Leslie. I’m very concerned about private, gonzo editing of viruses by privateers, terrorists and whackos. Today’s tech puts it within reach way easier than building a nuke would be.
Yet nobody is talking about this hazard.
D.A.
NYC
Thank you for calling our attention to the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR) in the Heterodox STEM article. The article shows a great example of the drift over time from good intentions to bad action in an NSF grant. As a NASA supervisor, I thought that one of the best things I could do for encouraging next generation workforce diversity (and fairness of opportunity for all children) was to have all of my engineers, and particularly women and those of color, participate in judging K12 and particularly K-5 science and engineering fairs and visit local museum programs identifying themselves as NASA engineers. We have a minority majority school system and it just seemed like this was a simple way to quietly introduce these children to the vast world of possibilities they have unrestricted by their skin color or sex.
Regarding FAIR, their board of advisors has some excellent people on it; I have signed up for their newsletter; and will consider them as a recipient of some of the funds that I am redirecting from my recently cancelled wapo subscription to more worthy causes.
And with a h/t to da Roolz, I think that is it for me for today.
The whole kerfuffle about the legalization of necrophilia in Egypt reminds me of the time my seminar in philosophy debated the morality of necrophilia. At some point in the discussion I somehow found myself having to argue from the position of the dead woman in a hypothetical. Since the body in question was now mine, this rather heightened my investment in defending the position that necrophilia is immoral. I think the argument I fell back upon was that, even though I was admittedly beyond hurting or caring, my family would be greatly troubled if anyone had sex with my body and for that reason alone it would be immoral.
It was certainly one of the most uncomfortable philosophy discussions I ever had.
I’m pretty sure that it was in Mary Roach’s “Bonk” that I read that Arabs like dry sex. That’s surely one way of getting it. (Another of her titles is “Stiff”).
I’ve had Bonk on my wish list for a long time. It’s time to check it out. As for Stiff, I’m kind of cool about it, if you get my drift.
I think you mean, “Arab men like dry sex.”
!!!!😬😩!!!!
If one is arguing for or against something from a perspective of “morality” I would suggest a different tack.
I believe the Scripps Institute of Oceanography is associated with U. C. San Diego, not University of San Diego.
I will be thinking about the victims of the Holocaust all day today. It’s an obligation to humanity.
And speaking of humanity, Trump’s harangue at the PM of Denmark was inhumane. His bullying nature will be a big problem over the next four years. I feel sorry for the Danish PM.
Finally, those cases of necrophilia in Pakistan are surely illegal, but they also seem to be the acts of people who are mentally ill. Aren’t they?
Elizabeth Warren fires 34-pg warning shot over Jr Kennedy’s bow. Good reading!
RFK Jr is also a liar. Dr Paul Offit (rotavirus vaccine) has this disturbing account (he ended up getting death threats thanks to RFK Jr):
https://pauloffit.substack.com/p/my-conversation-with-robert-f-kennedy
Thank you for sharing. I certainly hope he is asked to respond to these questions she raised in this letter.
Bubble wrap. . .I once walked by a moving van that had its rear doors open. A sign on the inside of the door read “Please resist the temptation to pop the bubble wrap.”
According to The Sunday Times, the UK has the first option to buy in the event that Denmark gives up its ownership of Greenland: https://archive.is/s3sc1
Thanks for the link. It’s an old claim, based on being close to former UK colony Canada.
Of course Trump also plans for Canada to become the 51st state!
Amateur historian Mark Felton talks about the UK Greenland thing lately here:
Personally I think some kind of Micronesia-like commonwealth is a better idea. Anything to keep the Ruskies and the Commie Pukes in Beijing OUT.
I was always against US adventurism abroad (Iraq, etc.) but we must rearrange our priors given today’s geopolitical realities. Times change.
D.A.
NYC
I’m more concerned about his Canadian plans. The 51st state talk is just talk but not the 25% tariffs.
The rationale keeps varying (he reasonably complained about Mexico letting in huge numbers of illegals but the numbers from Canada are a few thousand. And that to be counterbalanced with illegals coming here from the US. At one point the mayor of NYC was busing illegals to the border!)
I believe President Trump is speaking metaphorically about statehood for Canada. Surely Canada (like Greenland) would be annexed as a territory and remain so for a long, long time, to prevent the baleful influence on the U.S. political process from 40 million sullen, resentful, new citizens of doubtful loyalty. Our only national identity since the British lost interest in the Empire is anti-Americanism, don’t forget. Our Prime Minister even said so on U.S. TV just last week. Elevation to statehood would be up to Congress but I can’t see that as being in the national interest of the United States until at least two generations of schoolchildren had grown up knowing themselves to be Americans.
I am sure those tariffs are not going to hurt Denmark and only the US. Unless he manages to replace a lot of the US senior military command I doubt he will get away with invading Greenland or Canada. There are some trumpists amongst the US high command to be sure; after all Flynn was a LTGen. But there are not enough admirals and generals and troops or equipment to fight a land war in Canada an overseas hostile occupation in Greenland a bloody occupation in Panama, protect the Southern Border, put down a possible insurrection in the continental US like Northern Ireland in the 1970s and probably only be able to get fellow war criminals Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu, and autocrats and tyrants Orban, Xi and that strange little fellow from North Korea over for lunch at Mar a Lago
In 2018 a research proposal called “DEFUSE” was submitted to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) by a collaboration between EcoHealth Alliance, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and the University of North Carolina.
In DEFUSE, the researchers proposed to engineer novel SARS-related coronaviruses by inserting furin cleavage sites at the S1/S2 junction of the spike protein. No SARS-family coronavirus had ever displayed a furin cleavage site.
Lo and behold, in 2020 a pandemic was caused by a SARS coronavirus with a furin cleavage site at the S1/S2 junction of the spike protein.
The researchers literally proposed to create the SARS-CoV-2 virus at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in their DARPA proposal.
Maybe I have watched too many detective movies, but I would call that a “smoking gun.”
Its a technical one, but there are reasons why its best to not jump to conclusions despite all that innuendo.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2211107119 What got me was how the accusers were pretty specific about where the gain of function researchers supposedly borrowed the furin cleavage site, and yet the codons used generally don’t match. Also fcs in other coronaviruses are not unusual. Viruses do borrow sequences from other viruses that they encounter, of course.
I think that rather than say it is suspiciously this, or suspiciously that, the better position to take is to conclude: We Don’t Know. Like most other significant viruses, we are not going to pin-point this one.
Sorry but not true. The MERS coronavirus from the early 2010’s has a furin site. Further, here’s a paper delving into the phylogenetic relationships of coronaviruses with furin sites.
Via Perplexity:
Notable Absence
The furin cleavage site is notably absent in:
• SARS-CoV and other sarbecoviruses (except SARS-CoV-2)
• HCoV-229E (the first coronavirus confirmed to infect humans)
Historical Context
Since 1954, scientists have identified 248 different coronaviruses with 86 distinct furin cleavage sites across 24 animal hosts in 28 countries. The presence of these sites appears to be a natural feature that has evolved multiple times in various coronavirus lineages, though their specific location and sequence can vary significantly.
Where is this wrong?
I read the study and some lit on the dog-stare – oxytocin story with great interest a few years ago. From my own experience with my puppers I think it is absolutely true.
Presumably dogs have been selectively bred for this behavioral trait.
I had a lovely cat for 12 years and while excellent there does seem to be a difference in the experience of dog vs cat stares. I miss my kitty though.
Didn’t they at least hose down the Karachi grave romance guy before the mugshot? Jeez.
Glad you connected this to John Hait’s “moral dumfounding” ideas as it is relevant and deeply curious. He gives many such examples. He and his mentor at NYU (Kaplan?) started by studying the disgust reflex in humans – also a fascinating topic brain science wise.
Good to see some of the hostages coming home verses the horror of Israel letting loose Palestinian murderers. Terrible bias in the press about this.
I’m not so worried: Israel no doubt knows where these people live. Perhaps it will be only a matter of time before they hear the faint buzz of a drone nearby, the last sound they hear. I bet it is hard for them to get walking partners around Gaza.
Onwards Israeli heroes.
D.A.
NYC/FL
“Minoritized geoscientists” the first entry on my 2025 list of Obnoxious Words abd Phrases.”
It must gall that pestiferous carbuncular Trump that the Danish prime minister presumed to stand her ground with him. 45 minutes on the phone with him is enough for a lifetime. She shouldn’t take another bloody call from him (though of course from any other U.S. official who has two neurons to rub together and some casual acquaintance with civility). Will he threaten economic sanctions should she refuse to take further calls?
It is not impossible that Trump could order a military invasion of Greenland.
(If the Monroe Doctrine presumably extends to the tip of South America, does it extend to Greenland? We certainly didn’t mind invading that major world power Grenada in October, 1983. The U.S. had no problem with Indonesia subjugating East Timor once the Portuguese left. Beyond that, does any other country have any less a right to proclaim its own such doctrine?)
That would be a real test of the moral fiber of military personnel vis-a-vis the Uniform Code of Military Justice (and presumably stout back-boned Congress). How many Greenlander lives would Trump be willing to sacrifice? (The My Lai massacre comes to mind.) Not every human primate in the world desires to be led by or subordinated to the alleged Apple of God’s Eye, the United States.
Here’s Denmark’s reaction to Trump:
“Denmark to spend billions more on Arctic security:
Denmark has said it will spend 14.6 billion kroner (£1.6bn; $2.05bn) to boost security in the Arctic region, in partnership with its autonomous territories Greenland and the Faroe Islands.
The deal includes three new Arctic ships, more long-range drones with advanced image acquisition capacity and stronger satellite capacity.
“We must face the fact that there are serious challenges regarding security and defence in the Arctic and North Atlantic,” Denmark’s Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said.
The move comes after US President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants to acquire Greenland, an island which has wide-ranging autonomy but remains part of Denmark.”
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly5661xd3no