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.
Welcome to Thursday, March 13, 2025, and National Jewel Day. Here’s my favorite gem (after the fire opal): the star sapphire. I was once offered a gorgeous star ruby in the back alleys of Jaipur, India, by a dubious man. He wanted $300. But I wasn’t dumb enough to buy it.
Mitchell Gore, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 13 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*SpaceX has delayed the flight that was to bring home two American astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. stuck at the ISS for nine months after what was supposed to be a ten-day mission. The flight is scheduled to bring four fresj astronauts to the ISS and swap them for four used astronauts, including Wilmore and Williams. See Jim Batterson’s post about this yesterday.
A crew of international astronauts slated to launch to the International Space Station on a mission that will take the reins from NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, allowing them to return home after an unexpectedly extended and politically charged journey, will have to wait a bit longer.
“This is a ground issue. Everything was fine with the rocket and the spacecraft,” NASA spokesperson Darrol Nail said on the livestream.
SpaceX said earlier Wednesday that it could launch the Crew-10 mission again as soon as Thursday at 7:26 p.m. ET, though a decision to use that opportunity has not yet been made.
*On Tuesday the House narrowly passed (on party lines, of course) a bill that would keep the government open, for they were going to run out of money on Friday night. But that bill still has to pass the Senate, and of course there’s a filibuster there that takes 60 votes. What Senate Dems will do is not certain!
President Donald Trump needs Senate Democrats’ votes to keep the government funded and open this week. But the group is still agonizing over whether to use this rare point of congressionalleverage to extract concessions from Republicans and risk taking blame for a government shutdown.
Some argue that voting for a bill to fund the government through September, which the House passed 217-213 on Tuesday, would empower Trump to dismantle more of the federal government. Others contend that a shutdown would hurt federal workers and the government even more.The group spent two hours on Tuesday debating the issue in a heated closed-door meeting without coming to a conclusion on a path forward.
“I think that we need further discussion,” Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with the Democrats, said as he exited the meeting. The group is meeting again Wednesday to hash out a plan.
Senate Democrats are under pressure from grassroots liberals to join House Democrats in withholding their votes. Activists want Democrats to negotiate language in funding bills that explicitly bar Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service from impounding any congressionally mandated funds, in a bid to slow the Trump administration’s unilateral layoffs and cuts.
“This is really the only significant point of leverage the congressional Democrats have this year,” said Ezra Levin, co-founder of the grassroots liberal group Indivisible. “It’s crazy to me that any Democrat would be like, ‘Yeah, let’s vote for it.’ Have some respect for yourself.”
But some Democrats think they must surrender that leverage to avoid what could be a chaotic and politically risky shutdown.
This puts the Democrats between a rock and a hard place. Do we want more government workers to be (temporarily) laid off? That would be blamed on the Democrats, but long-term economic damage could be pinned on Trump. Both parties stand to lose something if the government shuts down, but the Republicans would lose more if it shuts down for a long period. I have no predictions about this, but I expect we’ll know by the time I post this on Thursday
Separatist militants hijacked a train carrying more than 400 people in an isolated mountainous area of southwestern Pakistan on Tuesday.
A militant group that claimed responsibility for the attack said it was holding scores of security personnel who had been on the train, and it threatened to kill them if the Pakistani government did not agree to a prisoner exchange.
The fate of the rest of the passengers was not immediately clear, though security officials said that at least 104 of them, mostly women and children, had been rescued, and that 17 injured passengers had been taken to the hospital for treatment.
The militants, Baloch ethnic fighters, forced the train to stop in the Bolan district of Balochistan Province after opening fire on it, according to railway and police officials.
The train was traveling from Quetta, the capital of Balochistan, to Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. It was scheduled to pass through several cities, including Lahore and Rawalpindi, near Islamabad. But it became stranded inside a tunnel about 100 miles from Quetta as it came under attack, and the driver was killed, according to the local authorities.
Attackers wearing suicide bombs were sitting next to passengers taken hostage after militants took over a train in southwest Pakistan, sources said on Wednesday, complicating rescue efforts a day after the country’s first such hijacking.
There are several secessionist groups in Pakistan, and Balochistan is one of them (it also includes parts of Iran and Afghanistan). They won’t succeed here, but people are going to die and I can’t imagine what it would be like to sit next to a terrorist wearing a suicide vest.
Insurgents who attacked a passenger train in Pakistan killed 21 hostages, the military said Wednesday, while security forces rescued over 300 others and killed all 50 of the assailants.
The military spokesman, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Sharif, told local media that three soldiers who had been guarding the track were also killed in the attack that began Tuesday in restive Balochistan province.
A federal judge said that Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University student arrested after his participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, would remain in Louisiana for now.
U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman set a schedule Wednesday for the lawyers to present written arguments later this week. He said that his order to keep Khalil in an immigration detention facility in Louisiana was due not to the merits of any arguments, but to provide time to address the “important issues that this case raises.”
Among those is in what court Khalil’s case should be heard. Lawyers for the government argued that the case shouldn’t be decided by a judge in New York, but rather in New Jersey, where he was first booked and processed, or in Louisiana.
Separately, Furman directed that Khalil’s lawyers be allowed phone calls with their client on Wednesday and Thursday. “Our access to our client is severely limited by the fact that he is in Louisiana,” said Ramzi Kassem, a lawyer for Khalil.
Outside the Manhattan courthouse Wednesday, more than 100 demonstrators gathered across the street, flanked by police officers. Many held pro-Khalil signs. “Hands off our students,” said one.
. . . .Columbia’s interim president Katrina Armstrong said Wednesday that she stood by all of her students and supported their right to express their views.
When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were arresting Khalil, his lawyer said, she spoke over the phone to one of the agents on the scene who told her the State Department had revoked Khalil’s student visa. She told the agent that Khalil was a lawful permanent resident and he replied that the department also had revoked that and hung up, she said.
It sounds as if Armstrong supports Khalil’s staying in the U.S., as do I (as far as know the facts). It’s not clear if ICE can remove a green card, and I’m pretty sure that this is going to be ultimately settled by the Supreme Court. And about that I simply have no prediction.
*The more I read Bret Stephens in the NYT these days, the more I like him. He’s taking out after Trump again in a column called “Democracy dies in dumbness” (archived here).
Until [Trump], no U.S. president has been so ignorant of the lessons of history. Until him, no U.S. president has been so incompetent in putting his own ideas into practice.
That’s a conclusion that stock markets seem to have drawn as they plunged following the Trump triple whammy: first, tariff threats against our largest trading partners, spelling much higher costs; second, twice-repeated monthlong reprieves on some of those tariffs, meaning a zero-predictability business environment; finally, his tacit admission, to Maria Bartiromo of Fox News, that the United States could go into recession this year, and that it’s a price he’s willing to pay to do what he calls a “big thing.”
In short, a willful, erratic and heedless president is prepared to risk both the U.S. and global economy to make his ideological point. This won’t end well, especially in a no-guardrails administration staffed by a how-high team of enablers and toadies.
What else isn’t going to end well, at least for the administration? Let’s make a list.
The Department of Government Efficiency won’t end well. It is neither a department nor efficient — and “government efficiency” is, by Madisonian design, an oxymoron. A gutted I.R.S. work force won’t lower your taxes: It will delay your refund. Mass firings of thousands of federal employees won’t result in a more productive work force. It will mean a decade of litigation and billions of dollars in legal fees. High-profile eliminations of wasteful spending (some real, others not) won’t make a dent in federal spending. They’ll mask the untouchable drivers of our $36 trillion debt: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and defense.
The threats to our allies won’t end well. It might seem sophomorically funny, sort of, to troll Justin Trudeau, just once, as “governor” of “the great state of Canada.” It’s grotesque, horrifying and idiotic to contrive phony pretexts to embark on a relentless trade war against our friendliest neighbor — not least because it has suddenly boosted the political fortunes of Trudeau’s successor, Mark Carney, at the expense of the Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre.
The outreach to the European far-right won’t end well. . . .
. . . . . The Ukraine negotiations won’t end well. . . .
There’s more of this: Sunday’s arrest and threatened deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a green-card holder and pro-Palestinian activist at Columbia, may even get pro-Israel civil libertarians to defend his rights while making a martyr of him on the far-left. But the pattern is clear. Ignoring the political corollary to Newton’s Third Law of Motion — that every action has an equal and opposite reaction — the administration will now reap precisely what it should avoid.
Trump’s critics are always quick to see the sinister sides of his actions and declarations. An even greater danger may lie in the shambolic nature of his policymaking. Democracy may die in darkness. It may die in despotism. Under Trump, it’s just as liable to die in dumbness.
I’m glad to see that he opposes the detention and threatened deportation of Khalil. Stephens is clearly the best conservative columnist at the NYT, and doesn’t waste his time defending (like Ross Douthat) a fiction like Christian doctrine.
*At the same time that Trump is rebuking and humiliating Zelensky, he’s resumed giving military aid to Ukraine—all while promoting peace talks. From the AP:
U.S. arms deliveries to Ukraine resumed Wednesday, officials said, a day after the Trump administration lifted its suspension of military aid for Kyiv in its fight against Russia’s invasion, and officials awaited the Kremlin’s response to a proposed 30-day ceasefire endorsed by Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said it’s important not to “get ahead” of the question of responding to the ceasefire, which was proposed by Washington. He told reporters that Moscow is awaiting “detailed information” from the U.S. and suggested that Russia must get that before it can take a position. The Kremlin has previously opposed anything short of a permanent end to the conflict and has not accepted any concessions.
U.S. President Donald Trump wants to end the three-year war and pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to enter talks. The suspension of U.S. assistance happened days after Zelenskyy and Trump argued about the conflict in a tense White House meeting. The administration’s decision to resume military aid after talks Tuesday with senior Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia marked a sharp shift in its stance.
I really detest Putin, and it drives me up the wall to see Trump kissing his tuchas. But surely Russia won’t accept an end to the ceasefire without getting part of the Ukraine that it’s taken over. I suggest that part of the deal involve North Korea becoming part of Russia (only kidding, but it would be good for North Korea!).
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej tells Hili, who’s becoming a little chonky, to get some exercise.
A: Hili, go and run a little.
Hili: There is no reason, one can exercise while lying down.
In Polish:
Ja: Hili, pobiegaj trochę.
Hili: Nie ma powodu, można się gimnastykować na leżąco.
Masih is testifying at the trial of her would-be assassins in New York, and of course she’s scared. But she’s also brave:
My heart is racing… My would-be assassin is testifying in a federal court in New York as I write this. I’m overwhelmed with mixed emotions. I love my life, and I don’t want to die — but I’m willing to sacrifice it for millions of women and men in Iran who long for the same… https://t.co/LtAZlLUf1rpic.twitter.com/s11OAmDg9R
I thought this was a joke, but it isn’t (see here and here):
New Jersey’s First Islamic City…
Paterson Declared ‘CAPITAL OF PALESTINE’ by Elected Officials – the “Mecca’ of NJ 🚨
Muslim politicians and their left-wing enablers have seized control of Paterson, raised Palestinian flags on government buildings, and are openly boasting… pic.twitter.com/tlMBIz5dTU
. . . and, as he says, “Be glad you’re not an octopus.” He means a female octopus:
"Male blue-lined octopuses inject females with venom during sex, paralysing their larger mates to avoid being eaten. Mating ended when the females regained control of their arms." #octopus #wildlife #nature 🧪
As of 2:00 this morning, Space.com reports that Crew-10 launch rescheduled for 7:03 pm EDT tomorrow, Friday March 14.
I aw that side-by-side movie bit also, very interesting! It’s like you imagine the depicted action occurring simultaneously on the Earth … like, the characters potentially could bump into each other…
I wonder how far this idea can go…
I thought that also Bryan. It is a cool concept.
It could be done with modern and more recent movies also. (E.T. meets Jaws, say, or Fast Times at Ridgemont High and American Psycho….)
D.A.
NYC
I think the chemis-tree is actually a Mandelbrot Tree! One wonders about the genetics that create such regular branching without variation. I’m glad people are constrained by such rigid development.
Don’t ask me who’s influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he’s digested, and I’ve been reading all my life. -Giorgos Seferis, writer, diplomat, Nobel laureate (1900-1971)
I think it’s unfair to knock Trump for having been unsuccessful in putting his ideas into action. During his first term he encountered massive and unprecedented obstructionism in the Executive Branch. He’s learned a lot.
Yeah, that obstruction was people telling him he couldn’t break the law and usurp the powers of the other branches. Now nobody is putting the brakes on him except for judges. And we are all paying the price.
+1
Indeed.
The GOP owned the White House, the Senate, and the House for two years. All they did was pass the massive tax cut for the wealthy and corporations. No new healthcare plan. Nothing to benefit the average US citizen.
“This is a ground issue. Everything was fine with the rocket and the spacecraft”
Shortage of air traffic controllers?
I understand that Republicans hold power, and that it is the supposedly sworn duty of those who proudly wave the Democratic Party banner to oppose nearly everything they do. The Republicans are generally afflicted with the same disease whenever power changes hands, but they do show a bit more internal dissent than do their colleagues across the aisle. Whatever name this disease might bear, it is called neither “leadership” nor “principle”—unless opposition is your core principle. I think Speaker Mike Johnson did well to assemble the below clips of the Democrats’ quite recent thoughts on shutdowns. Of course, how many voters of either party really care to see their elected officials stand for consistent governing principles?
This is my issue. I’ve been talking about this to everyone I know for years, pleading with them to try to stop focusing on which party an action originates from and to consider it on its merits exclusively. We are supposed to have one overriding desire and that is for as many people as possible to do well in our society. It may sound trite today, but my favorite bumper sticker that’s been among the 3 I still have from my bumper sticker days of long ago (they’re on my refrigerator now) says: “We all do better when we all do better”. I wish we could lose the labels. Who cares whether a well written article came from a so-called “conservative” or “left-leaning” outlet. Well written is well written. If we share a common goal, it shouldn’t matter who developed the policy that gets us there. I want to see more contributing and less criticizing. I want less focus on the person and more on the principle. Okay. I’m leaving my soapbox.
Loved the elephant rolling down the embankment. That’s so adorable.
Masih’s tweet today is a very good one. Her fears are rational, indeed.
Growing up in Australia I always looked for blue ringed octopus(es?) at the beach as a kid. Because they’re so undeniably cool! Tiny little brightly lit neon death monsters. (and they ARE very small). I didn’t even know their romantic adventures were as edgelord as they apparently are! Wow.
Never found one sadly. I heard they’re pretty rare, maybe not about in Melbourne?
D.A.
NYC
A thing to try is to look in iNaturalist for sightings. These will include a map that pinpoints those sightings.
Thank you, Mark. I’d never heard of that.
Blue Ringed Octopus sighting in Manhattan are… rare!
best,
D.A.
NYC
I probably disagree with Bret Stephens more often than I agree with him, but I agree with him here. Trump is an idiot, a chronic liar and an inveterate cheater. So many of his business ventures failed it’s hard to find one that didn’t. Stiffing those he owes money is a standard operating procedure, as is stabbing in the back those that have worked for him.
Watching so many people discuss his actions as president as if he is executing some complex strategy that will eventually result in him achieving just what he had planned is pretty funny. Reading / listening to the convoluted rationalizations people devise to make what he does seem as if it is the result of thoughtful policy illustrates to me how susceptible humans are to self delusion. No doubt there are real policy makers in Trump’s entourage, and no doubt they have a very hard time keeping Trump in line, and regularly fail to do so.
This is a mistake many opponents of Trump make, not just his MAGA fans. Trump can’t just do what he promises to do, not just because of his sheer incompetence but because the achievements would be fantastical. E.g., you can’t just negotiate a treaty to end the Ukraine War when Putin is not interested or cleanse the Gaza Strip when any Muslim leader taking in the Palestinians might as well kill himself and his family. He fucks up everything he touches, he is no miracle-worker.
Regarding cat and lamp: Good to unplug it — even so, there are a few things that can be knocked off that bedside table.
Shutting down the federal government did not seem to hurt the GOP during Trump’s first term. Given today’s rabid MAGA climate, his base would celebrate a total shutdown until it affected them personally.
I really hope these pregnant trans men aren’t harming their fetuses with the residual testosterone in their system.
Naturally, none of that paper’s authors had a medical qualification.
Every time I see that horrific paper cited it warms my heart that a few more people of good will who believe sincerely in inclusion and tolerance will read it, and thereby realize how morally bankrupt the trans ideology is.
Indeed! Partly why I publicise it whenever the opportunity arises.
Regarding the shutdown:
“I’ve got you this time, Brer Rabbit,” said Brer Fox, jumping up and shaking off the dust. “You’ve sassed me for the very last time. Now I wonder what I should do with you?”
Brer Rabbit’s eyes got very large. “Oh please Brer Fox, whatever you do, please don’t throw me into the briar patch.”
It’s hard to watch the Trump show. Another day, another outrage. Bret Stephens is spot on.
“Another day, another outrage” – I used to say that as well, but one outrage a day is now not the norm. It’s hard to keep track with their flood-the-zone strategy.
The juxtaposition of the trial in New York of Masih Alinejad’s near killers and New Jersey’s first Islamic city is horrifying.
It is bonkers, Claudia.
Patterson, the new “resistance” capital apparently – and no dis’ to our neighbors in New Jersey but Patterson is a hole.
Now a Pal hole. (Like that?)
Maybe the Patterson gvt local purple haired yokels will run things there like in Gaza and in imitation of their West Bank heroes. I look forward and have popcorn ready. I can nearly see it from Manhattan. 🙂
As well as the deportation of that Columbia Pal terrorist whose name I intentionally forget. With the latter, as a “resident at sufferance” – if you will – a conditional person here, the key legal issue is “is he a benefit to the US or not?”
Unarguably as I see it he is not.
We wouldn’t be having this conversation if (advised by an immigration attorney) he’d become a citizen earlier. But he didn’t so he is utterly deportable at a lesser legal bar than a citizen can be fined by a cop for speeding. There is really a black/white distinction in immigration law most people don’t get. Between citizen and alien.
Here’s a frame change: Would we be arguing about this if he were a Taliban or ISIS simp? — probably not, though Hamas for all intents, purposes and consequences is identical to the above.
Similarly — and hold your coffee friends: If you’re old enough (and WEIT skews a little older than average: we’re say, Gen X and above largely…) do you remember in the early 1980s how we thought about Khomeini keeping American hostages in our Tehran Embassy?
There are (now, possibly, more earlier) 6 American hostages in a tunnel as we read this. They are American. How different is the reaction?
Very.
I recall as a kid worrying whether a nuclear war or strike was worth American hostages but that was the level of talk. Now it is “From River to Sea” in the media and pushed by chubby girls who can’t get a date on campus.
Note that phase change, readers.
D.A
NYC
You’re on point in full form today, David. :thumbs up
The “Columbia Pal Terrorist” was a valued employee of the British diplomatic service, who had been extensively vetted. Certainly such a person might in fact be a terrorist. But is there any evidence he was a terrorist? He was a negotiator for a Columbia group (CUAD) which had members supporting violence. But again, does that make him a terrorist? Is there any evidence that would connect him with Hamas? He was a legal permanent resident of the US, and while people with that status are deportable, we certainly should think carefully about the issues raised by his treatment.
I hope someone will get Paterson officials on the official record regarding Ms. Alinejad’s situation.
Yes, indeed. I hope so too.
Also wonder how long it will be before all women in Paterson, Muslim or not, are forced to wear the hijab. Yay! Subjugation of women in America.
The White House has withdrawn Dr Dave Weldon, friend of RFK Jr and admirer of Andrew Wakefield (“vaccines cause autism”) from consideration as director of the CDC. Apparently Trump learned there weren’t enough votes to confirm.
Weldon is accepting it as “God’s will” but also suggesting that “Big Pharma” was involved. Kennedy is not happy.
Anyone remember the protest song Dylan wrote about Hurricane? It was on the “Desire” album from 1976. I loved that record.
William Carlos Williams came from there, if you’re keen on early 20th-Century American poets.
Bret Stephens: “They’ll mask the untouchable drivers of our $36 trillion debt: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and defense.”
Restricting myself to Social Security for brevity’s sake:
By the above statement does Stephens claim that the federal government has borrowed money (contributing to the $36T national debt) in order to fund Social Security?
Per: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Trust_Fund, the federal government owes the Trust Fund in excess of $2.5T, which has been spent for non-Social Security-related purposes.
Is Stephens somehow faulting Social Security for being a creditor of the federal government and to that extent responsible for a portion of the national debt? If Social Security did not exist and therefore not available to borrow from, to that extent the national debt would be less?! (I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel.)
Does Stephens (like many politicos) consider SS an “entitlement”? How can that be if people have paid in? (It rather seems that the federal government is “entitled” to borrow from the fund to pay for other expenses instead of raising income taxes, which I gather is fine with a president and Congress members seeking (re)election.) (Millennials gripe about having to pay in to support benefits for Boomers. ‘Twas always thus, and always thus shall be. The Boomers similarly paid in. The generation following the Millennials will get their turn to kvetch.)
Solutions to funding problems (due to a great extent Boomers more-or-less retiring en masse) include pushing up full retirement age. The upper income taxable amount could be pushed up. From the above Wiki: “Joe Biden’s campaign platform proposed new payroll taxes for those making $400,000 or more per year (but after taking office, his tax proposal included only Medicare tax changes).” By law, federal income tax on SS payments go to the SS and Medicare Trust Funds (and again of course get borrowed from for other purposes). Only a sliding scale portion of benefit payments gets taxed; perhaps that portion could be increased.
Are any funds borrowed from the Trust Fund channeled to the military (and/or foreign aid in its various forms)?
I have tried explaining these simple facts many times, never to any noticeable effect. People claiming that Social Security is an entitlement program that is breaking the budget have been accepting what they hear certain politicians say without checking the facts for themselves, or they have ulterior motives.
The Social Security trust funds, which fund social security benefits, had nothing to do with the federal budget until Reagan signed the Social Security Amendments into law in 1983. Among other things that allowed the federal government to borrow money from those trust funds, which are not part of the federal budget, to pay for other federal programs that are part of the budget.
Social Security works just fine, without impacting the federal budget, as long as the federal government doesn’t rob it blind.
As of 2:00 this morning, Space.com reports that Crew-10 launch rescheduled for 7:03 pm EDT tomorrow, Friday March 14.
I aw that side-by-side movie bit also, very interesting! It’s like you imagine the depicted action occurring simultaneously on the Earth … like, the characters potentially could bump into each other…
I wonder how far this idea can go…
I thought that also Bryan. It is a cool concept.
It could be done with modern and more recent movies also. (E.T. meets Jaws, say, or Fast Times at Ridgemont High and American Psycho….)
D.A.
NYC
I think the chemis-tree is actually a Mandelbrot Tree! One wonders about the genetics that create such regular branching without variation. I’m glad people are constrained by such rigid development.
Don’t ask me who’s influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he’s digested, and I’ve been reading all my life. -Giorgos Seferis, writer, diplomat, Nobel laureate (1900-1971)
I think it’s unfair to knock Trump for having been unsuccessful in putting his ideas into action. During his first term he encountered massive and unprecedented obstructionism in the Executive Branch. He’s learned a lot.
Yeah, that obstruction was people telling him he couldn’t break the law and usurp the powers of the other branches. Now nobody is putting the brakes on him except for judges. And we are all paying the price.
+1
Indeed.
The GOP owned the White House, the Senate, and the House for two years. All they did was pass the massive tax cut for the wealthy and corporations. No new healthcare plan. Nothing to benefit the average US citizen.
Shortage of air traffic controllers?
I understand that Republicans hold power, and that it is the supposedly sworn duty of those who proudly wave the Democratic Party banner to oppose nearly everything they do. The Republicans are generally afflicted with the same disease whenever power changes hands, but they do show a bit more internal dissent than do their colleagues across the aisle. Whatever name this disease might bear, it is called neither “leadership” nor “principle”—unless opposition is your core principle. I think Speaker Mike Johnson did well to assemble the below clips of the Democrats’ quite recent thoughts on shutdowns. Of course, how many voters of either party really care to see their elected officials stand for consistent governing principles?
https://x.com/SpeakerJohnson/status/1899437963404066916
This is my issue. I’ve been talking about this to everyone I know for years, pleading with them to try to stop focusing on which party an action originates from and to consider it on its merits exclusively. We are supposed to have one overriding desire and that is for as many people as possible to do well in our society. It may sound trite today, but my favorite bumper sticker that’s been among the 3 I still have from my bumper sticker days of long ago (they’re on my refrigerator now) says: “We all do better when we all do better”. I wish we could lose the labels. Who cares whether a well written article came from a so-called “conservative” or “left-leaning” outlet. Well written is well written. If we share a common goal, it shouldn’t matter who developed the policy that gets us there. I want to see more contributing and less criticizing. I want less focus on the person and more on the principle. Okay. I’m leaving my soapbox.
Loved the elephant rolling down the embankment. That’s so adorable.
Masih’s tweet today is a very good one. Her fears are rational, indeed.
Growing up in Australia I always looked for blue ringed octopus(es?) at the beach as a kid. Because they’re so undeniably cool! Tiny little brightly lit neon death monsters. (and they ARE very small). I didn’t even know their romantic adventures were as edgelord as they apparently are! Wow.
Never found one sadly. I heard they’re pretty rare, maybe not about in Melbourne?
D.A.
NYC
A thing to try is to look in iNaturalist for sightings. These will include a map that pinpoints those sightings.
Thank you, Mark. I’d never heard of that.
Blue Ringed Octopus sighting in Manhattan are… rare!
best,
D.A.
NYC
I probably disagree with Bret Stephens more often than I agree with him, but I agree with him here. Trump is an idiot, a chronic liar and an inveterate cheater. So many of his business ventures failed it’s hard to find one that didn’t. Stiffing those he owes money is a standard operating procedure, as is stabbing in the back those that have worked for him.
Watching so many people discuss his actions as president as if he is executing some complex strategy that will eventually result in him achieving just what he had planned is pretty funny. Reading / listening to the convoluted rationalizations people devise to make what he does seem as if it is the result of thoughtful policy illustrates to me how susceptible humans are to self delusion. No doubt there are real policy makers in Trump’s entourage, and no doubt they have a very hard time keeping Trump in line, and regularly fail to do so.
This is a mistake many opponents of Trump make, not just his MAGA fans. Trump can’t just do what he promises to do, not just because of his sheer incompetence but because the achievements would be fantastical. E.g., you can’t just negotiate a treaty to end the Ukraine War when Putin is not interested or cleanse the Gaza Strip when any Muslim leader taking in the Palestinians might as well kill himself and his family. He fucks up everything he touches, he is no miracle-worker.
Regarding cat and lamp: Good to unplug it — even so, there are a few things that can be knocked off that bedside table.
Shutting down the federal government did not seem to hurt the GOP during Trump’s first term. Given today’s rabid MAGA climate, his base would celebrate a total shutdown until it affected them personally.
I really hope these pregnant trans men aren’t harming their fetuses with the residual testosterone in their system.
They actually don’t care: https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/300608/2/300608.pdf
Naturally, none of that paper’s authors had a medical qualification.
Every time I see that horrific paper cited it warms my heart that a few more people of good will who believe sincerely in inclusion and tolerance will read it, and thereby realize how morally bankrupt the trans ideology is.
Indeed! Partly why I publicise it whenever the opportunity arises.
Regarding the shutdown:
“I’ve got you this time, Brer Rabbit,” said Brer Fox, jumping up and shaking off the dust. “You’ve sassed me for the very last time. Now I wonder what I should do with you?”
Brer Rabbit’s eyes got very large. “Oh please Brer Fox, whatever you do, please don’t throw me into the briar patch.”
It’s hard to watch the Trump show. Another day, another outrage. Bret Stephens is spot on.
“Another day, another outrage” – I used to say that as well, but one outrage a day is now not the norm. It’s hard to keep track with their flood-the-zone strategy.
The juxtaposition of the trial in New York of Masih Alinejad’s near killers and New Jersey’s first Islamic city is horrifying.
It is bonkers, Claudia.
Patterson, the new “resistance” capital apparently – and no dis’ to our neighbors in New Jersey but Patterson is a hole.
Now a Pal hole. (Like that?)
Maybe the Patterson gvt local purple haired yokels will run things there like in Gaza and in imitation of their West Bank heroes. I look forward and have popcorn ready. I can nearly see it from Manhattan. 🙂
As well as the deportation of that Columbia Pal terrorist whose name I intentionally forget. With the latter, as a “resident at sufferance” – if you will – a conditional person here, the key legal issue is “is he a benefit to the US or not?”
Unarguably as I see it he is not.
We wouldn’t be having this conversation if (advised by an immigration attorney) he’d become a citizen earlier. But he didn’t so he is utterly deportable at a lesser legal bar than a citizen can be fined by a cop for speeding. There is really a black/white distinction in immigration law most people don’t get. Between citizen and alien.
Here’s a frame change: Would we be arguing about this if he were a Taliban or ISIS simp? — probably not, though Hamas for all intents, purposes and consequences is identical to the above.
Similarly — and hold your coffee friends: If you’re old enough (and WEIT skews a little older than average: we’re say, Gen X and above largely…) do you remember in the early 1980s how we thought about Khomeini keeping American hostages in our Tehran Embassy?
There are (now, possibly, more earlier) 6 American hostages in a tunnel as we read this. They are American. How different is the reaction?
Very.
I recall as a kid worrying whether a nuclear war or strike was worth American hostages but that was the level of talk. Now it is “From River to Sea” in the media and pushed by chubby girls who can’t get a date on campus.
Note that phase change, readers.
D.A
NYC
You’re on point in full form today, David. :thumbs up
The “Columbia Pal Terrorist” was a valued employee of the British diplomatic service, who had been extensively vetted. Certainly such a person might in fact be a terrorist. But is there any evidence he was a terrorist? He was a negotiator for a Columbia group (CUAD) which had members supporting violence. But again, does that make him a terrorist? Is there any evidence that would connect him with Hamas? He was a legal permanent resident of the US, and while people with that status are deportable, we certainly should think carefully about the issues raised by his treatment.
I hope someone will get Paterson officials on the official record regarding Ms. Alinejad’s situation.
Yes, indeed. I hope so too.
Also wonder how long it will be before all women in Paterson, Muslim or not, are forced to wear the hijab. Yay! Subjugation of women in America.
Indeed, fire opals are glorious. I have one from Variance Objects: https://varianceobjects.com/products/mexican-fire-opal-jewelry
The White House has withdrawn Dr Dave Weldon, friend of RFK Jr and admirer of Andrew Wakefield (“vaccines cause autism”) from consideration as director of the CDC. Apparently Trump learned there weren’t enough votes to confirm.
Weldon is accepting it as “God’s will” but also suggesting that “Big Pharma” was involved. Kennedy is not happy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/13/health/cdc-weldon-confirmation-hearing.html
Is the takeover in Paterson a violation of separation of Church and State?
That is the main issue that I see of it.
I got the crawlies over that issue, too.
I was wrecking my brain what Paterson is famous for, and finally remembered. It’s not a good thing: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubin_Carter
Anyone remember the protest song Dylan wrote about Hurricane? It was on the “Desire” album from 1976. I loved that record.
William Carlos Williams came from there, if you’re keen on early 20th-Century American poets.
Bret Stephens: “They’ll mask the untouchable drivers of our $36 trillion debt: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and defense.”
Restricting myself to Social Security for brevity’s sake:
By the above statement does Stephens claim that the federal government has borrowed money (contributing to the $36T national debt) in order to fund Social Security?
Per: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Trust_Fund, the federal government owes the Trust Fund in excess of $2.5T, which has been spent for non-Social Security-related purposes.
Is Stephens somehow faulting Social Security for being a creditor of the federal government and to that extent responsible for a portion of the national debt? If Social Security did not exist and therefore not available to borrow from, to that extent the national debt would be less?! (I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel.)
Does Stephens (like many politicos) consider SS an “entitlement”? How can that be if people have paid in? (It rather seems that the federal government is “entitled” to borrow from the fund to pay for other expenses instead of raising income taxes, which I gather is fine with a president and Congress members seeking (re)election.) (Millennials gripe about having to pay in to support benefits for Boomers. ‘Twas always thus, and always thus shall be. The Boomers similarly paid in. The generation following the Millennials will get their turn to kvetch.)
Solutions to funding problems (due to a great extent Boomers more-or-less retiring en masse) include pushing up full retirement age. The upper income taxable amount could be pushed up. From the above Wiki: “Joe Biden’s campaign platform proposed new payroll taxes for those making $400,000 or more per year (but after taking office, his tax proposal included only Medicare tax changes).” By law, federal income tax on SS payments go to the SS and Medicare Trust Funds (and again of course get borrowed from for other purposes). Only a sliding scale portion of benefit payments gets taxed; perhaps that portion could be increased.
Are any funds borrowed from the Trust Fund channeled to the military (and/or foreign aid in its various forms)?
I have tried explaining these simple facts many times, never to any noticeable effect. People claiming that Social Security is an entitlement program that is breaking the budget have been accepting what they hear certain politicians say without checking the facts for themselves, or they have ulterior motives.
The Social Security trust funds, which fund social security benefits, had nothing to do with the federal budget until Reagan signed the Social Security Amendments into law in 1983. Among other things that allowed the federal government to borrow money from those trust funds, which are not part of the federal budget, to pay for other federal programs that are part of the budget.
Social Security works just fine, without impacting the federal budget, as long as the federal government doesn’t rob it blind.