Welcome to a “Hump Day” (“Kilumbu ya Hump” in Kituba), Wednesday, March 26, 2025, and National Spinach Day. This is one of the very few green vegetables I like, and it makes you STRONG. Remember?
Most important, it is National Science Appreciation Day. Why today?:
On March 26, 1953, American medical scientist Dr. Jonas Salk revealed the successful development of his polio vaccine. It was a landmark achievement of science and continues to make life healthier and safer even today.
The CDC estimates the polio vaccine has prevented 18 million cases of paralysis and saved 1.5 million lives worldwide since 1988.
It somehow pleases me to know that, like Salk, Albert Sabin, who invented the attenuated live vaccine (the Salk vaccine used dead virus), was Jewish. And between them they saved 1.5 million lives. Now THAT is a legacy!
Here’s a very famous exchange between Salk and Edward R. Murrow about who owned the patent for the Salk vaccine. Salk did not get a dime!
It’s also Purple Day (my favorite color), National Nougat Day, World Math Day, and Manatee Appreciation Day. Remember that mammals have independently invaded the sea seven times, with two lineages extinct and five still with us. Here are the five: cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises), sirenians (manatees and dugongs), pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, and walruses), mustelids (otters), and ursids (polar bears). I’m not sure the polar bear counts as a marine mammal, though.
Here’s a NASA photo of Paris from Space.com, taken from the ISS, 261 miles above (h/t NASA and Bat). It’s pretty amazing, and makes me want to return. They don’t call it the “City of Light” for nothing! Notes from the site:
This photo of Paris was taken at 9:54 p.m. local time on March 14, 2025 from 261 miles (420 kilometers) above the city through a window aboard the International Space Station.
The astronaut who captured this shot — possibly Expedition 72 flight engineer Don Pettit, who has been working on photo documenting cities at night — used by Nikon Z9 full-frame mirrorless camera with a 200mm lens.
From this orientation, the Eiffel Tower can be seen glowing brightly in yellow light left of center. Just north of it, lit in white is the Arc de Triomphe.
The Palais Garnier and the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre can be seen above the center of the photo,
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 21 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*You all know about how several members of Trump’s security team fluffed a supposedly confidential group text chat on military action in Yemen, including by mistake the head editor of the Atlantic, Jeff Goldberg. And Goldberg did disclose some of what he learned–after the action in Yemen came about (there was some disagreement among the members of the chat, which included Vice President JD Vance, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. But they all denied that classified material was revealed. even though that seems misleading:
Two of the Trump administration’s top intelligence officials denied in a frequently contentious Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Tuesday that classified information was shared in an encrypted group chat in which details of an attack on Yemen were discussed in the presence of a journalist who had been mistakenly added to the conversation.
Pressed repeatedly about the security breach in the previously scheduled intelligence committee hearing, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, and John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, both denied that classified material had been shared in the chat in which they were included.
The White House also sought to downplay the serious nature of the extraordinary security breach, as bipartisan criticism of the incident grew and leading Democrats called for the resignation of the national security adviser, Michael Waltz, who set up the group chat, and the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, who reportedly shared classified war plans in it.
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Bipartisan criticism: The vice chairman of the intelligence committee, Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, denounced what he called “sloppy, careless, incompetent behavior” by the country’s top intelligence officials. Representative Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska and a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, told reporters that the White House should “be honest and own up” to what happened.
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Defending Waltz: President Trump defended Mr. Waltz, saying in an interview with NBC News that the national security adviser had “learned a lesson” and suggested a staff member was to blame for including a journalist in the secret group chat.
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Damage control: The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said no classified material was sent to the group chat, despite the inclusion of specific details of the Yemen strike before it took place, and she attacked the journalist who revealed it, Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, as “sensationalist.” Her statement came a day after Mr. Hegseth suggested the leak was a “hoax.”
Some of the Republicans who were part of that call had criticized Hillary Clinton for using her own email to do government business, which wasn’t too cool, but the beefing about those Republicans for hypocrisy doesn’t move me much. What bothers me more is how something like this could happen in the first place, especially with the ability of some countries, like China, to do pretty good jobs of hacking.
*Columbia University caved to the Trump administration, making a number of demanded changes in return for restoration of $400 million in federal funds withheld from the University. I think some of those changes needed to be made, but I don’t at all like the government using science funding as a lever to alter universities in ways it wants. After all, a liberal administration could do the same thing to make universities less conservative! The principle is that the government should not use science funding to impose its ideology on universities, a precious resource in America. And now the interim President of Columbia is in trouble with the faculty for caving:
Columbia University interim president Katrina Armstrong met with anxious faculty over the weekend in an effort to generate support, warn of the jeopardy the school faces and play down concerns that the deal the school cut with the government on Friday undermined its academic independence.
In meetings with about 75 faculty leaders, Armstrong and her team said six federal agencies are investigating the school and could pull all federal support from it. The Trump administration has already canceled $400 million in grants and contracts over concerns Columbia failed to protect Jewish students from harassment.
“The ability of the federal administration to leverage other forms of federal funding in an immediate fashion is really potentially devastating to our students in particular,” Armstrong said, according to a transcript of the meetings reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. “I think it is a really critical risk for us to understand.”
Lawyers for the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights are scheduled to visit campus and question faculty this week about potential violations of federal civil rights laws, people familiar with the matter said.
Columbia receives more than $1 billion a year in federal funds, Armstrong said. Much of the school’s approximately $15 billion endowment is earmarked by donors for specific programs. The school has begun to consider what it would give priority to if all federal funds were cut, according to a transcript.
. . . . The weekend meetings with faculty highlight the tangle of pressure points Armstrong is navigating. The Trump administration could end funding, a potentially existential threat. At the same time, internal conflicts are dividing faculty. Without enough support, Armstrong could face a faculty vote of no confidence, undermining her ability to lead.
Medical and research faculty, who are most affected by federal cuts, are angry they are bearing most of the financial brunt for the political activism of more liberal co-workers in arts and humanities. Many also believe Columbia hasn’t adequately protected Jewish students.
Arts and social sciences professors worry more about ceding independence to Trump, suffering reputational damage and not yielding to what they perceive as an authoritarian erosion of civil liberties. Some criticized Armstrong for not taking a harder line with President Trump.
Others expressed frustration that the school has received little support from other university presidents.
This is a tough one because the money withheld hurts mostly scientists and, as the report notes, it is people in the humanities who created most of the troubles. And, of course, President Trump shouldn’t be doing this, though there’s a small part of me that has some approbation for him doing this. However, I have no idea what I’d do were I president of that beleaguered school. I suppose this is one reason why college Presidents make so much money. (The penultimate President of Columbia made nearly $4 million per year.)
*The law in New York mandates that products to help with menstruation be freely available, but enforcement (and availability) is spotty. Now a nonprofit group and a student are suing the state for noncompliance:
Alisa Nudar was in the middle of her math exam when she realized she had unexpectedly started her period.
Nudar raised her hand and asked for permission to go to the bathroom. When she got there, she found that she had bled through her underwear. She didn’t have any period products with her, and there were none in the bathroom. “I kept asking people who were coming in and they were, like, Oh, I’m so sorry, I don’t have any,” Nudar said. “And already 10 minutes had passed.”
She walked out of the bathroom looking for a better solution and bumped into a friend who ran back to her classroom to get one of her own pads.
All of that searching took about 15 minutes, Nudar said — wasted time that she could have put into her exam. Back then, in 2021, Nudar was a freshman at Bard High School Early College in New York City. And legally there should have been tampons and pads in the school bathroom, provided for free by the New York City Department of Education.
Now a nonprofit organization called Period Law and an anonymous student are suing the Education Department for not providing those products in schools, a failure that, according to the legal complaint, effectively amounts to discrimination against menstruating people.
In 2016, New York City became the first jurisdiction in the country to pass a law mandating every school to be stocked with free period products. The law paved the way for other legislators to pass their own versions of a similar law. Today, 28 states and the District of Columbia have laws on free period products in schools.
In the years since, however, implementation in New York has been weak and inconsistent, said Laura Strausfeld, founder and executive director of Period Law, which was instrumental in crafting the law.
The failure makes it seem as though period products are an optional benefit rather than a necessity akin to toilet paper or soap, Strausfeld said. “No kid is sitting in class worried whether there will be toilet paper in the bathroom — that is where a lack of access to menstrual products is discriminating against menstruators.” Filing this lawsuit at a time when equity initiatives are being scaled back across the country is an attempt to keep the issue front and center, Strausfeld said, rather than let it get “back burnered.”
Studies have shown that the lack of availability of these products has an inimical effect on students’ performance, as periods cause girls to miss school or class. I agree with this free dispensation, for period products are a necessity to women. All you need to realize in adjudicating this is that if men had periods, this would be a non-issue: free tampons or pads would be everywhere.
*Trump didn’t like the 2019 portrait of him posted in the Colorado State Capitol, and so it’s being removed. Even the Democrats agreed to take it down!
On Monday, Republican state lawmakers in Colorado followed Trump’s directive. They asked for the portrait to be taken down, and the Democratic lawmakers who hold the majorities in the legislature signed off on removing it, Colorado House Democrats spokesman Jarrett Freedman said.
“If the GOP wants to spend time and money on which portrait of Trump hangs in the Capitol, then that’s up to them,” Freedman said in a statement.
In his complaints Sunday evening on social media, Trump falsely claimed that the portrait had been arranged for by Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) and alleged that his likeness had been “purposefully distorted” — but in reality, the portrait was commissioned during Trump’s first term and backed by Republicans. It has hung in Colorado’s Capitol since 2019, and its funding was led by a Republican former state Senate president, Kevin Grantham.
“Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State Capitol, put up by the Governor, along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before,” Trump wrote Sunday night on Truth Social.
Trump didn’t say why he didn’t like the portrait or what had prompted him to post about it, but he used its existence as a chance to take jabs at Polis, writing, “Jared should be ashamed of himself!”
Here; you can see the portrait in question. I don’t think it’s so bad, but remember how vain Trump is. Does he wanted to be bare-chested with a six-pack sitting on a horse?
*And, on the light side, two engineers from the Royal Air force were chewed out by a British judge for breaking and then stealing a statue of–Paddington Bear!
They didn’t look after this bear.
In fact, two men who had been drinking kicked and yanked on a statue of Paddington, the fictional orphaned bear who came to England from Peru, until it broke in half. Then they took it.
A judge on Tuesday chastised the duo — both military personnel — for being the “antithesis” of everything Paddington’s character stands for.
Daniel Heath and William Lawrence, both 22 and engineers in the Royal Air Force, admitted in Reading Magistrates’ Court that they were responsible for the March 2 vandalism in Newbury, the hometown of Paddington creator Michael Bond.
“Paddington Bear is a beloved cultural icon with children and adults alike,” Judge Sam Goozee said. “He represents kindness, tolerance and promotes integration and acceptance in our society. … Your actions were the antithesis of everything Paddington stands for.”
The statue of the bear in his signature blue coat and red hat was one of 23 installed last fall as part of a Paddington trail across England to mark the release of “Paddington in Peru.” The introspective bear is gazing skyward while clutching a sandwich — with marmalade about to drip on his lap.
The judge noted that the label on Paddington’s coat says, “Please look after this bear.”
Prosecutor said Jamie Renuka said the men were drunk during the escapade that was captured by a surveillance camera on the empty street just before 2 a.m. The two spirited away half of the statue in a taxi and returned to RAF Odiham base where the purloined Paddington was later found in Lawrence’s car.
Goozee said the crime could “only be described as an act of wanton vandalism” and that the two had failed to uphold the respect and integrity expected in the military.
The pair, who admitted criminal damage, were ordered to perform community work and each to pay 2,725 pounds ($3,527) for repairs to the damaged statue.
Military discipline might be imposted on top of this, but that would be a private matter. Here’s a video of the very moment of the vandalism and theft:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, a leak in the ceiling was fixed, but Hili ponders everyone’s increasing age:
Hili: Has the water stopped dripping from the ceiling in the kitchen?A: Yes, the plumber exchanged the old gasket.Hili: Gaskets are also getting old.
Hili: Czy w kuchni woda z sufitu przestała kapać?Ja: Tak, hydraulik wymienił w łazience na górze starą uszczelkę i wszystko jest już w porządku.Hili: Uszczelki też się starzeją.
And a photo of Szaron and Kulka, also getting old. . . .
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From Seth Andrews (I am that guy holding the sign):
From Jesus of the Day:
From Godless Mom:
From Masih: another brave and blinded Iranian woman, shot in the face for dissenting. Sound up (there are subtitles).
Blinded by the Islamic Republic for protesting Mahsa Amini’s murder in the hands of morality police. She lost an eye, but not her resilience. Now, she stands tall to end this regime & its apartheid against women. The world must see her.@kosareftekharii
pic.twitter.com/A30Gi5kchp— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) March 25, 2025
From Bryan. There’s never any end to Schrödinger’s Cat memes, but here’s a new one:
Schrodinger’s car #test pic.twitter.com/btAGaPiZ9M
— Physics Memes (@ThePhysicsMemes) March 24, 2025
And from Malcolm; one minute of smart cats:
Happy #Caturdaypic.twitter.com/lqDDPag6AC
— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) March 22, 2025
It may be illegal to wear political symbols on your clothes in this school, but everybody is overheated. Then the student makes himself really stupid by pointing to the “Gulf of America”. This is America in 2025:
This can’t be real life – how will these people mentally survive the next 10 years? pic.twitter.com/a1DNdgIJqs
— Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPyscho) March 25, 2025
From my feed: ants solve a problem:
They are ants solving a geometric problem and it is great in color. pic.twitter.com/jQp4nMPO1Z
— The Figen (@TheFigen_) March 24, 2025
From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:
This French Jewish boy was gassed to death upon arriving at Auschwitz. He was nine.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-03-26T10:08:32.282Z
Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, a thread of cat art (there are some lovely pieces in the thread):
Inagaki Tomoo – Black Cat, c. 1940-1950
— Rabih Alameddine (@rabihalameddine.bsky.social) 2024-12-19T00:11:31.820Z
It’s hard for me to believe that this is real!
youtu.be/GQcN7lHSD5Y
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake. -Viktor Frankl, author, neurologist and psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor (26 Mar 1905-1997)
I think the TikTok with a MAGA hat guy is a “training” video – I’ve seen them before, e.g. a woman ripping down a rainbow flag and a big drama unfolds.
So I call that one agitation/theater/staged.
IMHO I can kind of tell where the drama is directing the empathy. Here, I sort of empathize with the MAGA guy (I’ll have to see it again). But, perhaps this is the magic of psyops – people react in specific ways 🧠🧠🧠
The ants/humans obstacle puzzle is amazing – there’s a paper that goes with it (I have it somewhere… I think it was linked in the original video post by the authors…)
Yeah, I expect the video to be a put-up job of some type also. Because I expect the school system has an attire rule against wearing hats indoors (with the exception of religious articles such as yarmulkes or kifeyehs ), the proper response of a teacher would be to politely remind the guy of the rule, and if he does not comply, bring in an administrator to handle the matter. Of course, in an extended version of the video, we could see the kid getting maga classified as a religion and a maga hat added to acceptable religious exceptions to the no-hats rule. I must say that in our current world I do not know if I offer this tongue in cheek or not!
Kifeyehs (“campus swastikas”) aren’t “religious” my friend Jim. Lots of clothing issues ARE with Islam but the kifeyehs are of more recent, Yemeni-Iraqi secular origin. (Of course there’s lots in the Koran telling/bossing people, particularly women, how to dress.)
They’re associated with Palestine ONLY b/c terrorists in the 70s started used them to disguise their identity when doing Palestinian hobbies like assassinations, hijackings, massacres, etc. Ha! So KIND of religious but not as per the koran or hadith which predates them by a millennium.
all the best, keep up the interesting comments.
D.A.
NYC
ps I think the video is fake, for the record.
I think it’s fake, too. The “teacher” stumbles over her line a bit at about 26 seconds in.
Yes, thanks David. But being aware of woke lawsuits and all the public hay they make, I thought that I would try to preclude them. Since I have not been on a school board in thirty years now (gosh time went fast), I do not know the policies on face coverings under religious guise (disguise under guise?). I do recall a board discussion during crafting of a policy on renting school facilities to religious organizations regarding bringing in snakes, but the result of that discussion has faded from memory.
Plus, even as what they are, they are likely allowed as political speech under Tinker….unless trump has cancelled tinker by e.o. Of course.
That’s an excellent point, Jim, and you might be right.
Because of woke mission creep I wouldn’t be surprised at all if school boards and the like now include keffeyahs as “religious” even though they’re not strictly Islamic at all, just commonly associated with Islam.
After all… mission and definition creep are very in vogue: In our day “feeling like a woman” wouldn’t be a serious defense for a dude being in a girls’ changing room. But now….
Similarly, the headdress issue could easily follow the same insane path.
cheers,
D.A.
NYC
With the ant videos, there are others that compare how quickly ants solve the challenge, versus how quickly humans solve the same challenge. We don’t do well.
There are lots of staged videos like this. Whether they’re for training or intended to get views I don’t know, but there is a lot of Tik Tok and YouTube Shorts content that is clearly acted and produced to elicit an emotional response. This includes “Karen” videos, “found” puppies and kittens, political “owns”, mean people, etc., and other confrontation vids. There are also the vids in which an aggravation occurs, and only the resulting reaction is filmed with a “why are you so mad?”. Social media is heavily manipulated, regardless of the political tribe – it’s amazing how many influencer marketing companies exist and the reach of those companies.
When the message aligns with your personal feelings, it can be especially hard to tell – I’m sure a lot of MAGA types believe this classroom incident is real because it matches their existing beliefs about biases in the classroom, just as many liberals believe some of the obviously staged racist videos that float around occasionally.
Social media can be especially tricky – we all recognize MSNBC’s or Fox News’s bias but it’s not so easy to tell when social media is not authentic.
I agree. My take, the relevant words by the teacher:
“do you see anyone else wearing a hat in class” regardless of religious exceptions, another issue, this youth ‘actor’ if that’s what this is, is being a jerk (simple) Like the idiots vanderlizing the Paddington bear statue.
Class rules are for them not me, I’m special.
In the “period products” story quote: a reference to “menstruating people” and “menstruators”. How dehumanizing to be referred to in terms of a bodily function. Sigh. How come I’ve never seen the terms “ejaculators” or “inseminators” in print anywhere?
And re: that Trump portrait—- it’s not nearly orange enough! He’s too human-colored.
I was coming here to comment on these two items as well.
I’m insulted to be referred to as a “menstruator”. Or even “menstruating people”. Talk about eclipsing women.
And the picture of Trump actually makes him look better than he does. One has to wonder what picture of himself he has in his mind’s eye, if he thinks the picture makes him look bad. Haha.
+1 both items.
I cannot imagine giving up 15 min. of exam time as opposed to wadding up some TP and dealing with the issue in a better manner post exam.
That “menstruating people” phrase drove me nuts too. A complaint about it was also the most liked comment at the NYT article.
I think he wanted a portrait with a crown.
Since you ask, Adrienne, the answer lies in the fundamental misogyny that male homosexual activism today, post same-sex marriage, is steeped in. These are men who for their entire lives have never had a meaningful personal relationship with any woman but their own mothers. (Often being only children or second sons, most didn’t even have sisters.) Nor have any men in their intimate circle. They, endorsed by their allies who aren’t themselves trans, just gay activists, can say they “feel” like women without having had any experience knowing women to be told that this feeling is absurd. So they seek to dehumanize actual women by regarding their parts and functions, which they as men can never have, as depersonalized residuals. Dehumanizing you is the whole point. It’s the menstruators against the oppressed “real” women who were made not born, just as Simone de Beauvoir said.
The reason they don’t refer to themselves as ejaculators or inseminators or even as penis-havers is three-fold. They don’t need to dehumanize themselves, by divorcing their humanity from their bodies, the way they need to dehumanize you as a woman. Also, because these male functions are claimed to be the source of their gender dysphoria and transphobia, they don’t want to brag about them.* Third, almost none of them are going to be inseminating anyone, either from amputation and castration, drug-induced impotence and anorgasmia, or simple lack of interest.
(*Some female YouTube content creators doing sex education do sometimes refer to “gendered partners with penises” but I think this is just to forestall complaints from activists that would get their channel demonetized.)
Trans-identifying men need what makes a woman to be attainable for them – hair, clothes, makeup, mannerisms – so everything that is unattainable has to be erased as “biological essentialism” etc.
I’m getting at something deeper and darker, Jez.
https://badfacts.substack.com/p/attack-of-the-clones-gender-doctors
I disliked the way it was explained too. The availability of menstrual products to follow on is a big problem especially in third world countries. The vulnerability of women in rural India where they are cast out of their home to filthy conditions in a half way house. No security, risky as hell. Although I know of a case where a charity built a new home with lockable doors.
In the South Pacific islands I know of concerned women here in NZ who sent products, material, and designs of how to make their own. I can only imagine what that meant to these young girls.
Personally I’ve lived with two females who suffered terribly, for levity, sometimes I wondered who I was living with, especially the younger one, although it gave me one of my closest father, daughter moments.
Nature isn’t exactly even handed where female biology is concerned.
Not forgetting “inseminated persons”: https://archive.is/gVqtq
Your comment just gave me a twang of realisation regarding how women might feel about being called ‘menstruators’. I’ve always hated these woke and dehumanising terms with a vengeance, especially those that mention ‘bodies’ like people are somehow vessels of meat lacking sentience or human agency. It all drives me mad. However, reading the word ‘ejaculators’ immediately made me react viscerally – it really annoyed me, and I could feel myself wanting to shout: “I’m more than a f**cking ejaculator! This is entirely equivalent to being called menstruator as a woman, and it made me realise just how rude, reductive and dehumanising it is to be referred to using a physiological function, particularly a sexual one.
I read this years ago, it had to be a joke.
Transwomen want women to stop talking about their menstrual cycles because it’s not inclusive.
It is rather curious, isn’t it, that three experienced NatSec hands are running an NSC principals’ committee meeting on the “commercial” app Signal—as if it were their own little sandbox.
Waltz is the national security advisor and has deep experience in these matters since his days with Dick Cheney in the VP office; Ratcliffe is the CIA director and former director of national intelligence; and Rubio is not only the current secretary of state but as the former vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence he was a member of the “gang of eight” legislators who have access to our most sensitive intelligence matters.
The much, much bigger potential story is sitting right there under everyone’s eyes while the partisan tribes twirl around in their usual dance of (fake) outrage and defensiveness.
Are you suggesting it wasn’t a “mistake”? I mean, an accident.
I work in cybersecurity, and until recently, I used to work on classified government systems in the UK. I held a UK security clearance for about 10 years, but I know the guidelines and procedures aren’t that different in the US as I’ve worked with many US govt employees. Any normal person (i.e. one not in Trump’s cabinet) who holds a SC would never use non-certified systems for classified information. In my experience, it doesn’t happen; I’ve certainly never seen it, and there are two main reasons for that:
1) people tend to take their responsibilities very seriously in those jobs and do not take risks with classified info, I would never even dream of it personally
2) The penalties can be extreme—for instance, I had to sign the Official Secrets Act, which clearly states that you can go to jail for 25 years if you do something dodgy with classified data. Even if not prosecuted, you would lose your clearance and, therefore, almost certainly your livelihood.
The official systems are also exceptionally well monitored. Everything is logged and saved, and all records are kept for long statutory compliance periods.
Such experienced people would not be so complacent or ignorant enough to inadvertently use Signal, which makes me think they had my previous point in mind. Operating confidentially on official systems is simply impossible, so they deliberately chose Signal to avoid the unavoidable scrutiny and oversight on official channels. They didn’t want anyone finding out what they were up to. I’m pretty sure that was the reason.
In addition to the mammals that took to marine habitats, there are also a few additional little-known groups of mammals that have invaded fresh water habitats (in addition to the marine mammals that have secondarily invaded fresh water, like the dolphins). One of my favorites is the Water Shrew, which I saw as a child while I was fishing in the middle of a Wisconsin lake. It skated over the water at high speed in circles. It seemed to be attracted by the caught fish dangling in the water on our stringer. They walk on water using surface tension, and they can dive in their own bubble chamber.
Another freshwater aquatic mammal is the Water Opossum, a fancy black-and-white diver. The female’s pouch has a tight sphincter muscle that seals it when underwater so its babies don’t drown. The male also has a pouch and puts its testicles in it!!
Finally, maybe the Fish-eating Bat could count as semi-aquatic, since it gets all its food by flying with its clawed hind feet trailing in water, catching fish.
The Water Possum is such a gnarly thing. One feature is that it effectively has 6 fingers on its hands, where the 6th finger looks to be a greatly elongated wrist bone. The famous ‘Panda’s thumb’ is small in comparison. You can get glimpses in the video, but there are pictures online that really show it well.
I didn’t know that, Mark. Thanks for adding it. They are really weird creatures.
Fascinating.
The Atlantic has published all the texts from the Houthi chat group. We’ll see if the Administration’s claims that there was no classified information revealed or any war plans discussed hold true. I expect not.
DNI Tulsi Gabbard said on March 14, “Any unauthorized release of classified information is a violation of the law and will be treated as such.”. I’m not holding my breath that there will be any consequences for those involved. WhiskeyGate is what happens when you have inept people cosplaying as serious government officials.
A larger question is why are they using Signal? I expect to avoid accountability and leaving an official trail.
Yes, this assumption has been made more frequently on social media. Some people have also commented that members of the Trump administration obviously want to conceal illegal or even criminal activities by using not officially sanctioned communication channels. It was pointed out that members of the former PiS government in Poland used a similar approach.
You mean like Clinton setting up her own email server in her basement? Do you think her reason for doing that was honorable?
“I expect to avoid accountability and leaving an official trail.”
This should always be among the initial assumptions, but if a review of the actual conversation reveals nothing other than routine discussion, then the “don’t leave a trail” argument starts to fade. Has anyone yet reported anything from this conversation that was worth hiding from the official record? I’ve not seen it yet.
This is links to The US Central Command Security Classification Guide. It’s dated 2012, but it defies reason, in my opinion, that the information items on page 63 have been deemed unclassified in any updates to the document.
https://sgp.fas.org/othergov/dod/r380-14.pdf
The principle reason many use Signal is that the messages are encrypted. My son is a US Marine serving in an embassy and they are required to use Signal for that reason.
To me, the exasperating thing about the botched group chat is that Trump supporters—and in particular Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth—have been screaming about how Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg is a peddler of fraud and hoaxes, and is deceitful and discredited. In other words, rather than accepting responsibility for their mistake, Hegseth and the others are attacking Goldberg for having been added to the thread. (Of course, it was one of the other participants who added Goldberg.) Hegseth and the others should have owned the mistake and said that they will up their game—use proper security protocols—so that this never happens again. But no. Instead a one-day story has become a major drama. This is the essence of the Trump administration. Another day, another outrage.
Responsibility? Responsibility? Norman, We don’t need no stinkin’ responsibility! I think this crowd looks at responsibility as I believe it was Cheney, who looked at the Geneva Conventions…a quaint idea.
In re spinach as a wonder food: Consumption should be avoided with those with kidney disease due to its high potassium content, even when cooked.
In re the ideological interference with Universities and the selective enforcement of civil rights violation for political purposes: I can’t help thinking that, in the end, everything will be blamed on the Jews.
To me every day is science appreciation day. I took six and a half years as an undergraduate studying all the science I could as well as history and other stuff. My dad was a professor, so I had tuition remission and cost was not an issue. I had to strategically delay finishing the requirements of my double math/physics major so I could stay on taking courses in chemistry and biochemistry and geology and stuff. I wanted to be like Science Officer Mr. Spock, expert in ALL fields of math and science. That is not a realistic goal, but I enjoyed trying.
That is awesome!
Archived copy of Jeffrey Goldberg’s Atlantic article:
https://archive.ph/gAe0L
Thanks, Frau.
I share your feelings about the showdown at Columbia: it’s all awful, but totally predictable, and the scientists who were less culpable in politicizing the academy end up bearing most of the consequences.
Do the Germans have a word for this flavour of schadenfreude that includes having to share in the just desserts of one’s opponents?
It’s interesting that Trump’s portrait has been hanging in the Capitol since 2019. The Republicans commissioned the painting for $10,000. And of course, The Orange Buffoon blames Governor Polis and the Democrats for the “outrage.”
Why are they using Signal? Quite possibly because there is no other system in the government that allows for secure meetings to occur that are not face to face. Maybe this should be corrected as a positive outcome from this mistake?
This was a blatant mistake by the people in the conversation. I’m not familiar with Signal, but when I’m in a Zoom or Teams group discussion or conference, I’ve called out people whose number I don’t recognize to ensure that only people I wanted were in the meeting. These people should have done the same.
The result should be better security protocol and then move forward. This was a mistake, but part of me also questions the outrage and concern by the media over this, as I wonder how many parallel instances were not covered during the previous admin. Jake Tapper defended Biden’s obvious mental decline as a stutter, and then wrote a book about how this cognitive decline was covered up when he himself was part of the cover-up.
I also wonder why Goldberg would spill the beans except as a gotcha. We all get a thrill from stuff like this, but personally I can’t imagine being accidentally privy to this type of discussion and then publicizing it regardless of whether I agreed with the administration or not. Then again, I’m not a journalist (remember Geraldo in Iraq?)
Reviewing the transcript of the conversation, there seems to be discussion of the events and timing but no exact details or names. Regardless, it’s a big error by this team and luckily the conversation was relatively minor in terms of impact of the leak.
“Quite possibly because there is no other system in the government that allows for secure meetings to occur that are not face to face.”
You are joking, right? You don’t really believe that to be true, do you?
Yes, sorry, should have added a \sarc note to that comment. The smirk in my head doesn’t always trasmit to my fingers properly.
There are definitely better ways to communicate confidentially and they should have done so.
Regarding using Signal because there’s nothing else: not true. Read the archived version of the article that I provided in an earlier comment.
There are definitely secure communications platforms they’re supposed to use.
We should be pleased these sloppy people weren’t using tick tok for their communications. Good we didn’t give a heads up to Beijing on our activities wiping out terrorists in Yemen.
But …. Beijing/TikTok were probably more centered on promoting “PALESTINE!” than other issues anyway. That’s how our campus protest girls get their info on world affairs (sigh).
I’d hardly even heard of Signal but I imagine there are more secure methods for military people to talk. Or don’t cc journalists is a good start.
D.A.
NYC
They should have that Trump painting ‘restored’ by the lady who produced the Monkey Christ. It may even become a better likeness, at least on a symbolic level.
“All you need to realize in adjudicating this is that if men had periods, this would be a non-issue: free tampons or pads would be everywhere.”
Why would that counter factual be accurate? What reason is there.to believe, that men who forgot to bring their own personal hygiene products would not just be shamed and laughed at?
This is Derrick Bell “Space Trader” level of assertion.
Well put. Even though we rule the world, men don’t have free razors and blades just sitting there for the taking. (Well, except in cities that have legalized organized shoplifting.) Until fairly recently, shaving was an exclusively male necessity….every damn day, too, sometimes twice, and often demanded of us by women. The least they could do is tax themselves to buy our supplies for us.
“I’m not sure the polar bear counts as a marine mammal, though.”
They’ll be doomed soon, then. 😥
The Trump administration targeted Columbia for its longstanding failure to enforce Title IX against campus antisemitism. That is not imposition of ideology; its enforcement of existing federal civil rights law.
Correction: Title VI.
I also tend to mix up the titles.
“don’t at all like the government using science funding as a lever to alter universities in ways it wants. After all, a liberal administration could do the same thing to make universities less conservative! ”
Wasn’t the Dear Colleagues letter of the Obama administration essentially the same thing? Follow our progressive interpretation or else we’ll cut your funding?
Thanks for that reminder – I forgot about the Dear Colleagues letter.
The Schrodinger’s Cat meme brings to mind this passage from Douglas Adam’s “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency”.
I’m tired of people expecting so much to be provided by schools. I have a heart and I feel bad for the girl who got caught (haven’t we all been there, women?) but shit (blood) happens. Sue the education system? What? Life will present that student with much greater challenges and she’d better toughen up prepare herself.
California girls get free feminine hygiene products, too. Not when I was in school. I remember in seventh grade watching some girls play basketball when one stepped out of the game and asked if anyone had a quarter bandaid. Not understanding what she meant, I naively asked, “Oh, did she hurt her knee?”
Did the same thing in cooking when my partner was in an uproar about some dirt on her clothes and had to go home and change her outfit. “It’s just dirt,” I said, “you can wait til you get home after school.” I didn’t realize so many were already getting their periods.
In 2022, California began providing free lunches and breakfasts to all students, eliminating the previous income-based criteria, and other states have since adopted similar policies. When I entered high school, which had a population of around 2,500, the cafeteria was closed due to budget cuts. Throughout my four years there, we relied on vending machines located outside the cafeteria for our meals. Actually most students left campus and got food at nearby fast food joints, so much for healthy food.
The wearing of masks has a long (and bad) history. Anti-mask laws were introduced decades ago to suppress the Klan. They need to be enforced now. Trump should be praised for demanding that Columbia ban them.
I love the guy with the “no X in espresso” sign.
How about one that reads, “there’s no K in etcetera”? That one is like nails on a chalkboard to me.
I actually know a person who was a friend of Jonathan Salk. It is quite true that he never made any money from his (justifiably, quite famous) Polio vaccine. However, he was widely acclaimed for his work (rightfully so). Polio was a scourge of mankind. Salk and Sabine made huge contributions.