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 CaturSaturday, September 6, 2025, sabbath for all good Jewish cats and National Read a Book Day. Last night I finished Barbara Kingsolver’s wonderful book Demon Copperhead, which won (with another book) the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It was long (560 pages) and started slowly, but then became a page-turner about fifty pages in. The subject is the vagaries of life experienced by a poor boy growing up in the mining area of SW Virginia, a place with which I’m familiar.
It’s also Barbie Doll Day (the physically distorted doll first went on sale on this day in 1959), International Vulture Awareness Day (please be aware of vultures), National Tailgating Day, National Coffee Ice Cream Day, and National Hummingbird Day (they are starting their migration south from America’s east coast). Here’s a Barbie song (the official video of “Barbie Girl” by Aqua); you will either love it or hate it. I love it, though I thought the recent movie sucked and couldn’t finish watching it.
Negotiations between Harvard University and the White House have stalled, leaving both sides uncertain about how to finalize a landmark settlement that appeared near completion just weeks ago.
The White House has not issued any new demands to Harvard as part of a potential deal to restore billions of dollars in research funding and end a crush of federal investigations. But the steady back-and-forth that characterized earlier talks has significantly slowed in recent weeks.
One major reason is an emerging divide within the administration between aides eager to deliver President Trump a political victory by announcing a deal and those who contend the current framework is too favorable to Harvard. Some Trump advisers argue that one way to strengthen the agreement would be to subject Harvard to an independent monitor who would ensure compliance. Harvard has consistently opposed that idea.
Immigration authorities arrested hundreds of workers for a major South Korean battery maker at a Hyundai plant in Georgia, U.S. officials said Friday, calling it the largest ever Homeland Security enforcement operation at a single location.
Agents on Thursday arrested 475 people, most of whom are South Korean citizens, at a construction site for an electric vehicle battery plant in Ellabell, Ga., near Savannah, Steven Schrank, a special agent in charge of Homeland Security investigations for Georgia, said at a news conference.
He said that the workers arrested were in the United States illegally or were working unlawfully. No criminal charges would be announced on Friday, he said, adding that investigators were still determining employment details for those arrested, some of whom worked for subcontractors.
“This operation underscores our commitment to protecting jobs for Georgians and Americans, ensuring a level playing field for businesses that comply with the law, safeguarding the integrity of our economy and protecting workers from exploitation,” Mr. Schrank said.
Most of those arrested were held at the Folkston detention facility on Thursday night and would be moved based on their individual circumstances, he said. One person arrested was treated at the scene for overheating, and one agent suffered a “minor laceration,” but there were no major injuries, he added.
The battery manufacturer, LG Energy Solution, which co-owns the plant with Hyundai Motor Group, said in a statement that employees of both companies, including executives, had been taken into custody.
. . . The operation, part of President Trump’s crackdown on immigration, caused diplomatic alarm in South Korea. Just over a week earlier, Mr. Trump hosted President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea at the White House, where the South Korean leader pledged to invest an additional $150 billion in the United States, including in battery manufacturing.
The South Korean embassy sent some people down there to check out the situation. I’m betting that a large percentage of these people are not in the country illegally. If they are, well, take them to immigration court, but the U.S. should tread carefully here since South Korea is our strongest ally (save Japan) in that part of the world, and it’s not good to do anything to damage that relationship. I also have trouble thinkng that South Koreans would immigrate illegally en masse.
*Speaking of Korea, the NYT reveals that the U.S. sent a team of Navy Seals into NORTH Korea in 2019 to plant devices that would allow us to spy on Kim Jong-un. The mission failed, and left North Koreans dead. (The article is archived here.)
A group of Navy SEALs emerged from the ink-black ocean on a winter night in early 2019 and crept to a rocky shore in North Korea. They were on a top secret mission so complex and consequential that everything had to go exactly right.
The objective was to plant an electronic device that would let the United States intercept the communications of North Korea’s reclusive leader, Kim Jong-un, amid high-level nuclear talks with President Trump.
The mission had the potential to provide the United States with a stream of valuable intelligence. But it meant putting American commandos on North Korean soil — a move that, if detected, not only could sink negotiations but also could lead to a hostage crisis or an escalating conflict with a nuclear-armed foe.
It was so risky that it required the president’s direct approval.
For the operation, the military chose SEAL Team 6’s Red Squadron — the same unit that killed Osama bin Laden. The SEALs rehearsed for months, aware that every move needed to be perfect. But when they reached what they thought was a deserted shore that night, wearing black wet suits and night-vision goggles, the mission swiftly unraveled.
A North Korean boat appeared out of the dark. Flashlights from the bow swept over the water. Fearing that they had been spotted, the SEALs opened fire. Within seconds, everyone on the North Korean boat was dead.
The SEALs retreated into the sea without planting the listening device.
. . . The 2019 operation has never been publicly acknowledged, or even hinted at, by the United States or North Korea. The details remain classified and are being reported here for the first time. The Trump administration did not notify key members of Congress who oversee intelligence operations, before or after the mission. The lack of notification may have violated the law.
. . .The New York Times proceeds cautiously when reporting on classified military operations. The Times has withheld some sensitive information on the North Korea mission that could affect future Special Operations and intelligence-gathering missions.
It is unclear how much North Korea was able to discover about the mission. But the SEAL operation is one chapter in a decades-long effort by U.S. administrations to engage North Korea and constrain its nuclear weapons programs.Almost nothing the United States has tried — neither promises of closer relations nor the pressure of sanctions — has worked.
This is risky business for by all account the DPRK has nukes, and although it doesn’t have a delivery system to the U.S., it could strike countries like Japan or South Korea. And the soldier who landed were brave as hell, because if they were caught they’d be tortured and shot, or, worse, put in a camp. I can’t criticize this operation, for I hate what Kim Jong-un and his dad and grandad have done to the people of their country: the most miserable and oppressed people on Earth. I wish I’d live to see the end of that regime, but I won’t.
*Thank Ceiling Cat that Nellie Bowles is back writing her weekly news/snark summary for The Free Press. This week’s column is called “TGIF: Free Rosie“, and I’ll steal three items from it.
→ The first gay president: Every week Trump reveals himself to be a uniquely campy commander-in-chief, and this week brings a beauty.
He’s petty. He’s obsessed with women who haven’t been famous for decades. He took the time (or had a staffer take the time) to digitally alter a photo of Ms. O’Donnell to make her extra heavy. The official White House X/Twitter account shared the same thing. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Trump’s our first gay president (Obama was the first Jewish president, but I’ll save that one for another day). Men posting on social media is already gay-adjacent behavior. But posting a Photoshopped image of Rosie O’Donnell with some catty commentary about deportations? That’s monkeypox. Get on PreP.
This is our White House:
The trouble with a White House this trashy is that it kills a humor column. When the White House posts like this, I am left begging for decorum. All I can say is: Please, some sanctity! Please, dignity! Please, spare Rosie!
→ Zohran Mamdani is not a real socialist: Don’t worry, silly readers. Zohran Mamdani is not a real socialist. Sure, he describes himself as a democratic socialist whose team includes so very many communists. But there’s nothing to worry about. Here’s The New York Times: “The closest Mr. Mamdani gets to socialism is in his belief in treating people more equitably.”
It’s not socialism, it’s being kind. Are you anti-kindness? It sounds like you are, the NYT reporter says, his boot on your neck. We’re just all treating people nicely, okay?
Apropos of that, various reports are coming out about Zohran Mamdani’s team, who we can expect to see in power and running New York City soon. Like, let’s take his new housing adviser, Celia “Cea” Weaver. The New York Post found these gems on her X account: “Seize private property!” And: “Private property including and kind of ESPECIALLY homeownership is a weapon of white supremacy.”
That’s not socialism, silly. This policy adviser is just advocating for sharing. Essentially, she wants to do a weapons buyback program. It’s just smart policy. Are you anti-sharing now too?
→ USA Cycling finally lets women compete against each other: This week, USA Cycling announced that females will be allowed to compete among each other in their women’s division. See, females (or women, if you’ll forgive me for using the controversial term) were getting crushed by trans women in cycling. Destroyed. It was one of the more depressing athletic situations to watch over and over—and I used to go to Columbia University athletic events (that’s a lie but too useful). I imagine women as good cyclists, what with our thick, childbearing hips. I am big on babywearing, and I feel I could do the Tour de France because of it. But still, if the category is moving quickly through space, I’m not trying to compete against anyone who doesn’t have breasts. That’s just aerodynamics, kids. (Copy editor just tried to come in saying that there is breast implant technology. Never heard of it.)
BTW: Good on Malcolm Gladwell. He came out this week and said he was “ashamed” of his previous stance on transgender athletes in women’s sports. “Trans athletes have no place in the female category,” Gladwell said. Better late than never. A real-life tipping point.
Meanwhile, in a little preview of the culture war to come, the Department of Justice is apparently looking into banning trans people from buying guns.
Oh, one more short one related to the above:
→ I love The Washington Post for hanging on to this:
Good for them. Sticking with a bit this long shows commitment. I stand with WaPo and people with depression who menstruate. It’s not easy for people with depression who menstruate.
The damn paper can’t even bear to use “women”!
*I’m late to the party on this one, but wanted to post it because it shows how little free speech is left in the UK. An Irishman was arrested and put in jail as he arrived at Heathrow. His crime? Posting “hate tweets”: tweets that I don’t like, and wouldn’t post myself, but would constitute free speech in America. (I think the First Amendment and its legal interpretation is the gold standard of discourse.)
Something odd happened before I even boarded my flight from Arizona to London. When I handed over my passport at the gate, the official told me I didn’t have a seat and had to be re-ticketed. At the time, I thought it was just the sort of innocent snafu that makes air travel such a joy. But in hindsight, it was clear I’d been flagged. Someone, somewhere, had made a phone call.
The moment I stepped off the plane at Heathrow, five armed police officers were waiting. They escorted me to a private area and told me I was under arrest for three posts on X. In a country where pedophiles escape prison, where knife crime is out of control, the state had mobilized five armed officers to arrest a comedy writer for these three posts (and no, I promise you, I am not making this up).
Here are the tweets:
Anything to do with opposing immigration or gender activism is almost guaranteed to bring the coppers down on you, and I wouldn’t have posted the first two, but crikey, the third is OPPOSING BIGOTRY. More:
When I first saw the cops, I actually laughed. I couldn’t help myself. “Don’t tell me! You’ve been sent by trans activists,” I said. The officers didn’t react.
This was the theme throughout most of the day. Among the rank and file of the police, there was a sort of polite bafflement. They were entirely professional and even kind, but most had absolutely no idea what any of this was about.
Once the officers began reading me my rights, and I realized what was happening, the red mist descended. The officers saw how upset I was and treated me gently after that. They even arranged for a van to meet me on the tarmac so I didn’t have to be perp-walked through the airport like a terrorist. Small mercies.
At Heathrow police station, my belt, bag, and devices were confiscated. Then I was shown into a small, green-tiled cell with a bunk and a silver toilet in the corner.
Later, during my interview with an officer, the tone shifted. He asked about each of the posts in turn, with the sort of earnest intensity usually reserved for discussing something serious like. . . oh, I don’t know—crime?
I explained that the post about punching a trans-identified man in a female-only space was a serious point made with a joke. Men who enter women’s spaces are abusers, and they need to be challenged every time.
I was offered bail, on one condition: I am not to go on X. That’s it. No threats, no speeches about the seriousness of my crimes—just a legal gag order designed to shut me up while I’m in the UK, and a demand I face another police interview in October.
The fact that the individual officers were civil doesn’t alter the fundamental reality of what happened. I was arrested at an airport like a terrorist, locked in a cell like a criminal, taken to the hospital because the stress nearly killed me, and banned from speaking online—all because I made jokes on X.
The UK has become a country that is hostile to freedom of speech, hostile to women, and far too accommodating to the demands of violent, entitled, abusive men who have turned the police into their personal goon squad.
That does seem to be the case. I wouldn’t want to be writing this website from the UK, I tell you that. I guess Brits don’t care about this erosion of their rights, because they should be rising up en masse and flooding the newspapers with letters. People accept this kind of Pecksniffian monitoring, but the longer it goes on, the longer it’s likely to stay.
KENNEDY, on the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines: “The only confusion I expressed is exactly how many lives were saved. I don’t think anybody knows that.”
THE FACTS: Kennedy was answering a question from Sen. Maggie Hassan on whether COVID-19 vaccines have saved millions of American lives. Myriad studies on the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines have been published since they first became available in late 2020. Although protection does wane over time, they provide the strongest barrier against severe infection and death.
AD
For example, a 2024 study by the World Health Organization found COVID-19 vaccines reduced deaths in the WHO’s European region by at least 57%, saving more than 1.4 million lives since their introduction in December 2020.
. . A 2022 study published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases found that nearly 20 million lives were saved by COVID-19 vaccines during their first year. Researchers used data from 185 countries to estimate that vaccines prevented 4.2 million COVID-19 deaths in India, 1.9 million in the United States, 1 million in Brazil, 631,000 in France and 507,000 in the United Kingdom. The main finding — that 19.8 million COVID-19 deaths were prevented — is based on estimates of how many more deaths than usual occurred during the time period. Using only reported COVID-19 deaths, the same model yielded 14.4 million deaths averted by vaccines.
LIE #2
KENNEDY, on COVID-19 booster shots: “Anybody can get the booster.”
THE FACTS: The Food and Drug Administration has approved updated COVID-19 shots, but only for seniors or younger people with underlying health risks. Many pharmacies are unwilling or legally barred from giving vaccines outside the uses endorsed by the FDA and other federal authorities.
The question of who will be able to get a shot is complicated for many people. The answer may depend on your age, laws and policies in the state where you live, insurance coverage and finding a health care professional who will give you the shot.
LIE #3
KENNEDY: “Today’s children have to get between 69 and 92 vaccines in order to be fully compliant, between maternity and 18 years. It’s 19 vaccines, 92 doses. Only one of those vaccines has been tested against a placebo.”
THE FACTS: The current childhood vaccination schedule recommends routine protection against 18 diseases. How many shots between birth and age 18 that entails can vary for many reasons. The list recommends a once-a-year flu vaccination, for example. Some on the list may not be recommended for every child, such as a preventive shot for RSV in young babies. Another variable depends on what type of vaccine is used against a particular disease, where one choice may require two doses and another three.
AD
Decades of research before and after their approval has shown those on the market are safe and effective — including placebo-controlled studies. There is no evidence that the childhood vaccine schedule is harmful. It’s backed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and doctors say multiple vaccines are not a problem.
Well, Masih appears to have bailed on tweeting. I’ll keep checking her, but she’s thrown in her lot with podcasting (not a good idea if people in Iran read her tweets). At any rate, here’s her substitute. Yesterday I put up a video of Malcom Gladwell saying he lied under pressure about women’s sports (eventually admitting that men should not compete in them), and here’s JKR’s long tweet about it (read the whole text).
Gladwell’s career wouldn’t have been destroyed if he’d spoken out against the glaring unfairness, not to mention dangers, of allowing men to compete in women’s sport. He’d have faced loss of approval from the cultural elite and received activist blowback, and even that wouldn’t… https://t.co/WnAIf98k5l
From Luana; Bill Maher speaks uncomfortable truths:
Bill Maher’s audience goes silent when he starts speaking the truth about modern day liberals
“They say in politics, liberals are the gas pedal and conservatives are the brakes. And I’m generally with the gas pedal, but not if we’re driving off a cliff.
And a bit of biography from Matthew’s own feed. I still think everyone should read both volumes of Browne’s biography, as they’re fantastic. One volume is catering to the short attention span of even those people who still read:
So glad I turned down my editor’s suggestion I write a biography of Darwin, saying that Browne could not be surpassed.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it’s going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt. -Robert M. Pirsig, author and philosopher (6 Sep 1928-2017)
One of my favourites. The version I often mention (to paraphrase): “The more passionate one is about a belief, the less likely it is to be true.”
Ooo, good one – and one of those authors that stands the test of time…
I agree with Rowling and Murray. Gladwell and other journalists saying they were cowering in fear is absolutely pathetic. Grow a pair and call it as you see it. Lia Thomas looked gigantic next to the other women. If our brave truth seekers can’t state the most comically obvious, what other uncomfortable truths might they be avoiding? Now that I’m thinking about it, maybe one of them could write about how journalism should be more than monetized virtue signaling and gossip.
“Lia Thomas, looked gigantic next to the other women.”
Other? Perhaps you meant to say something like “Lia Thomas, a large man, looked gigantic next to women.”
Right. At the linked WaPo article (about “people who menstruate”) a huge fight broke out in the reader comments.
The idea that people can change their sex continues to have plenty of support. Yet it’s such a bizarre idea, and its wide acceptance is pretty recent.
Lol, I’m pretty ticked at how I wrote that. I simply mean it’s absurd that men can compete in women sports. I’m part of the problem damnit!
… what other uncomfortable truths might they be avoiding?
A vast number of uncomfortable truths about the actual causes of race disparities America.
And what would those be? Please bravely state your views in an open and clear manner, since this is about avoiding behaving like Gladwell.
Achievement gaps are not due to evil white men.
There. That’s one.
And to what are they due? Please speak bravely and openly.
I am, of course, under no obligation to satify you, especially since you’ve now changed the goal posts (a very “progressive” thing to do, I might add). You first asked for an example of a “…uncomfortable truths about the actual causes of race disparities America.” I gave you one. But, unsatified with an answer, now you demand an explanation. That’s not very friendly, but fair. I suppose.
Ok. Noone listens to me anyway, so I haven’t anything lose. Here goes…
I think that the main reason is cultural; the black community does not value educational excellence and families are unstable. It’s certainly NOT due to lack of spending on education as there is no correlation between amount spent per pupil and academic achievement. You can go look that up yourself, Jared.
In addition there is a genetic component (oops…you’re not gonna like THAT, I can tell already). We know there is a genetic component to intelligence and thus to learning, but we are not even allowed to ask if any of the genetics tied to intelligence is associated with ancestry. It’s ludicrous to think that race plays no role, actually, because that’s what genetics essentially is; the study of ancestry and its role in our lives. The only question is, to my mind, how much do genetic traits that are associated with racial ancestry are also associated with intelligence and learning. But, naturally, those questions are VERBOTEN!
I do also think that among the causes of acheivement gaps is a minor contributor, and this is what I KNOW you are trying to elicit; there is a residium of the bad old days of Jim Crow and our racist past, mostly having to do with things related to family wealth and access in the past to a culture that values education, merit and academic work.
Happy to oblige:
1) Disparate outcomes (in 2000s America) are not caused by “systemic racism” or “oppression”. Since about 1980, America has been pretty fair, and now (if anything) favours blacks (e.g. in college admissions).
2) Measured IQ differs a lot between races. The mean for Ashkenazis seems to be about 12 IQ points above the “white European” average. East Asian average also seems to be above that for “whites”. Black Americans test about 15 IQ points below average.
3) That, not anything else, is the prime cause of disparate outcomes at school and elsewhere.
4) How much of that difference is genetic, as opposed to cultural or environmental, is unclear. The opinion of those who study this seems to typically say that at least half of it is.
5) Black culture (with tends to involve a rejection of traits that typically lead to success, and an embrace of those that don’t) is a large part of poorer outcomes. This culture often includes a rejection of trying hard at school as “acting white”, and an acceptance of or even lauding of criminality.
6) Black Americans, being 13% of the population, commit about 50 to 55% of the homicides and the violent crime. This, coupled with their tendency to resist arrest, explains why the cops kill more blacks (it is not the fault of the police).
7) Contrary to popular supposition, economics is not the cause of any of this (since controlling for family SES when comparing races is easy to do and does nothing to explain it). [“Crime causes poverty” is more true than “poverty causes crime”.]
8) None of the above is explained by “poor schools”, since study after study over decades has shown that the only real factor in determining which schools are “good” (in terms of discipline and academic outcomes) is the intake of kids.
9) Identity-based hiring (rather than merit-based hiring) has lead to a lot of people in roles that they are not competent for. Often this matters (e.g. in medicine).
I’ll bet you haven’t seen anything like the above list in the MSM, though everything above is what the evidence strongly points to (and everyone knows it, if they’re honest with themselves). At some point we need an adult, evidence-based discussion of these things.
Absolutely Coel and Ed – you list some of the big unspeakable facts in our society. If we had any chance of honestly confronting them we’d go a long way to actually improving the lives of all Americans.
But we can’t, b/c leftist pieties and standard issue takes/myths have marked them “raaaacist” – which they’re not.
D.A.
NYC
That got testy in a hurry. I’m glad you and EdwardM seem to agree with each other….and with me which is what matters to me. [<–self-deprecating irony there.]
It does take courage to say all that in so many words as you and EdwardM both did. Especially when so many people do know it’s true but still don’t dare say it.
Well yes, for the good of society we need to say certain things, including “trans women are men” and “there are one-standard-deviation differences in the mean IQs of different population groups”, and “the gender wage gap is caused by men tending to prioritise their careers and women tending to prioritise family and work/life balance”. Reality matters.
Several folks have pointed out the irony of Gladwell prostrating himself on this issue the same week the story broke that Bari Weiss is going to make bank on The Free Press and its persistent insistence that “transwomen” are men. Instead of “What is a woman?” they should ask Gladwell “What is a journalist?”
Our very brave Australian Sall Grover wrote a touching fantastic response to JKR. There are many women paying a heavy price for objecting to one of the greatest absurdities and scandals ever created.
Gladwell is just admitting he is a craven fool who fears rejection and prefers adulation. This is a common trait amongst celebrities. Their opinions should be regarded as useful as tits on a bull.
Not sure the AP is fit to be fact-checking anyone.
Is Hyundai in trouble for hiring non-citizens? As far as I know it is illegal. I have noticed that no one seems to mention that in all of the coverage of raids.
The news stated it was contractors and subcontractors building a plant that would assemble batteries, not working for Hyundai assembling vehicles.
There is a reason that Senate committee did not swear in RFK, Jr. There is no penalty for lying if you’re not under oath.
“Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch swears in new Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with his wife and family.”
Good summary of the news. When I read the AP piece on Kennedy’s lies, I thought they were being rather generous. But perhaps they limited their coverage only to the lies that he made in his testimony to Congress.
The news of the Navy Seal operation in North Korea was amazing. I almost wish that it hadn’t been published, at it may reveal to the North Koreans something we didn’t want them to know about. They probably knew. After all, a ship full of dead soldiers was left in the operation’s wake.
Oops. I just read that the dead North Koreans were civilian fisherman. My bad.
Had the fishermen instead been drug smugglers perhaps we would have heard of the incident in 2019.
Claire Lehmann on RFK Jr. and vaccines: “Once liberty conservatives had aligned with wellness progressives, anti-vaccine rhetoric that was once confined to the fringes suddenly became mainstream…Preying on disillusionment, [Kennedy] has been able to fuse two previously separate moral worldviews into one large-scale rejectionist movement.”
“As always, if any of your IM Force are caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. Good luck, Jim. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds.”
Did you see Pinker on Bill Maher’s show last night? He was pretty standard-Pinker, but I was annoyed afterwards.
For a guy who has an excellent bead on culture and politics, Israel even… every time Bill opens his fat maw on anything about biology/medicine he stuffs his foot in it. Amazing. He’s been in CA too long, too crunchy, anti-vax adjacent and full of trendy nonsense.
Also note today’s video by Yoran/TravellingIsrael and the “Gaza Famine,” UN, Amnesty, etc. You should watch the entire 10 minutes. He is the best thing for Israel’s struggle for hearts and minds out there.
Onwards Israeli heroes.
D.A.
NYC
PCC(E) says, “I’m betting that a large percentage of these [South Korean workers detained in the ICE raid] are not in the country illegally.”
I’ll happily take that bet, if you name a stake and sharpen what you mean by a large percentage, and if there is some way to find out what the number really is when the dust settles. But are you sure you want to make that bet? It sounds like a sucker bet against yourself, given that the ICE agent in charge, Steven Schrank, says the South Koreans citizens arrested at the work site “were in the United States illegally or were working unlawfully.” The prior that he’s telling the truth loads the dice against you.
If more than a handful (say, five) of these detainees are legally in the U.S. as U.S. citizens, Green Card holders, or aliens in possession of still-valid work visas I will be most surprised. (Mistaken identity, perhaps.) Most of them likely entered the U.S. legally, as bogus tourists or on work visas valid at the time they entered, probably recruited from SK, (yes, en masse) for the purpose of work at the factory. But as soon as a tourist picks up a shovel or sits down at a sewing machine he becomes an illegal alien. Ditto someone who stays after his visa expires or violates the terms of work visa. Others may have snuck into the U.S. via Mexico or Canada and gravitated to Georgia as news of work for native Korean-speakers reached them by social media. The rest of the world does that. Why shouldn’t South Koreans? There is trivial downside risk for the illegal workers. If they get caught, they get sent home and probably barred from re-entering the U.S. The “executives” arrested may be in hotter water as it is a more serious offence to hire illegal aliens as workers especially if they didn’t remit payroll taxes to Uncle Sam.
It’s understandable that the SK Embassy would be taking quiet interest. This could be a major embarrassment if two of SK’s flagship companies, well-connected to the government, were involved in illegal trafficking of their own citizens in this way.
Maybe this belongs in “Words/Phrases I Detest” but I would put “undocumented immigrant” on the list, (with hesitation because “detest” is too strong a word for how I feel about most things except rhubarb.) It’s a confusing contradiction in terms. An immigrant is someone who has been granted legal permission, with documentation in the form of a Green Card in the U.S., to live permanently in the country, with a path to citizenship. There are only documented immigrants. Everyone else is a non-resident alien. They can be legal aliens (those with visas allowing them to stay for certain lengths of time under certain conditions, or with other permissions like amnesty proceedings) or they can be illegal aliens (those who have lost the privilege to stay in the country but haven’t left or who never obtained permission to enter in the first place.) Homeland Security is alleging that these 475 workers arrested in Georgia are therefore illegal aliens (in various categories of illegality.)
A bit of backstory: Conceptually Leslie many people don’t understand the dynamics of US immigration – particularly Americans b/c… well… it doesn’t concern them. Fair enough.
Citizens of S. Korea are one of a few dozen (mainly rich) countries whose citizens have “visa waiver agreements” so do not need a visa to enter the US for 90 or so days. All others do. Some overstay that grace period – or work (illegally) – but if enough break the rules their country can be de-waiverized (see Uruguay).
These Koreans almost certainly entered legally, it is possible they worked without a proper work visa though. It is strange: rich country citizens coming here to do cut rate construction jobs….?
In their own country citizens of Mongolia do that kind of dirty work (legally).
D.A.
NYC
It is possible that the South Koreans do not want to jeopardize their product quality. Trump’s plan to bring manufacturing back to America is cruising into the heavy headwinds of a low-caliber workforce. Talk to people who own their own businesses or supervise the shop floor. It is extraordinarily difficult to find high-school graduates who are conscientious, have sufficient reading and thinking skills for technical work, and don’t botch moderately-complicated jobs. We shuffle most such people off to college. (Whether most of them belong there is a different matter.) During our manufacturing heyday, our trades were full of bright, conscientious men and women who could both anticipate and solve potential problems without committing a lot of unforced errors. That is no longer the case. Manufacturers who require precision and initiative in their working-class employees are struggling—no matter the pay scale.
Yes, Doug. It is one of the main disasters of the tariff deal. In today’s tech and manufacturing globalized world “bring back smokestacks” is…. idiotic.
The ONLY real benefit of Trump’s tariff mania is he can use it as a cudgel to make other countries do what we want. (One eg.- hassling the World Shipping Org. to not do insane green environmental extremist stuff to shipping, say. Or pushing India to quit buying sly Russian oil.) For leverage it is great, as a trade policy it is stupid.
best to you Doug,
D.A.
NYC
When you look at those Periscope films on YouTube of wartime production in the Arsenal of Democracy, (yes, of course edited to show the best) you are struck by how quickly whole factories full of machine tools could be built from scratch. And then make things accurately and in quantity like the piston-cylinder interface in many thousands of internal combustion engines, or the nine big rifles of a battleship, (never mind the rest of the ship.) The reduction gears between turbines and propellor shafts are industrial jewelry, yet there is film of a guy with a bastard file carefully making them perfect. The mechanical fire-control computers used in warships, refined over decades, are fascinating in themselves for the precision of the fabricated interdigitating metal parts inside that integrate numbers accurately enough to shoot long distances from a rolling ship moving at speed. Men (and many women) often without high-school diplomas toiled away on these machines, troubleshooting with their micrometers when things wandered out of spec or cutting blades got dull. Often smoking, no eye protection except for welding, and no hard hats. Nobody was fat, though.
When we moved to Ontario in the early 1960s from a pre-industrial part of the country, we were amazed at just what people in a factory could do, making things. Newcomers were welcomed on tours, especially church and Scout groups. Now, yes, most factory workers, even skilled machinists and tool-and-die makers didn’t want their sons to follow them. So they went to college. But you and David are right. That’s not coming back.
I thought Demon Copperhead was OK, but not one of Kingsolver’s best. I was very pleasantly surprised that I loved the Barbie movie and even watched it a second time streamed.
Pinker on Overtime (Bill Maher’s show)
I’m a big time free market fmr Wall St’r but that Stephen Moore guy who has been polluting our public space for decades is ….. horrible.
Pinker is excellent of course. xo
D.A.
NYC
Two things in todays post.
I have been to a Aqua concert and have a collection of barbies in the house.
I read Janet Browne’s ” Charles Darwin Voyaging” many years ago and it has reminded me to read it again.
The Gladwell ‘confession’ to the great unwashed.
Simply put and musing away, as a no free will individual we humans as far as cognitive abilities go are a binch of electro chemical signals firing off in the brain resulting in some behaviors.
All that happening with help from your particular set of genes and all the downstream effects.
Bit of a shift here but bear with me I’ve just read that the shining cockoo, pīpīwharauroa (Chrysococcyx lucidus) are migrating again and it occurred to me Gladwell acted like the brood parsitic host. Even the giant frame of Lia Thomas next to women competitors did not jolt a captured hoodwinked mind.
It was the funnist thing and gave some stress release thinking of the whole trans activist dump in this light.
In short a chemical induced lie to yourself and at lest the shining cockoo’s parsitic host does not know any better and in their arms race it seems they never will.
Re Demon Copperhead: I read it soon after it came out, thought it was a good re-telling of David Copperfield, but not great. As I recall, I thought the author kept beating me over the head regarding the drug company’s (Sacklers) pushing Oxycodone. I also didn’t like the way the hero was able to shrug off the death of his girlfriend. JMHO.
In terms of basing fiction on old Dickens classics, I much preferred Fagin the Thief, by Allison Epstein, which doesn’t re-tell the story of Oliver Twist, but focuses instead on what it might have been like for a Jew at that time with a talent for picking pockets, and how an Oliver might have come briefly into his world (and is briefly mentioned as a smarmy and quite lucky orphan). Again, my 2 cts.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it’s going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt. -Robert M. Pirsig, author and philosopher (6 Sep 1928-2017)
One of my favourites. The version I often mention (to paraphrase): “The more passionate one is about a belief, the less likely it is to be true.”
Ooo, good one – and one of those authors that stands the test of time…
I agree with Rowling and Murray. Gladwell and other journalists saying they were cowering in fear is absolutely pathetic. Grow a pair and call it as you see it. Lia Thomas looked gigantic next to the other women. If our brave truth seekers can’t state the most comically obvious, what other uncomfortable truths might they be avoiding? Now that I’m thinking about it, maybe one of them could write about how journalism should be more than monetized virtue signaling and gossip.
“Lia Thomas, looked gigantic next to the other women.”
Other? Perhaps you meant to say something like “Lia Thomas, a large man, looked gigantic next to women.”
Right. At the linked WaPo article (about “people who menstruate”) a huge fight broke out in the reader comments.
The idea that people can change their sex continues to have plenty of support. Yet it’s such a bizarre idea, and its wide acceptance is pretty recent.
Lol, I’m pretty ticked at how I wrote that. I simply mean it’s absurd that men can compete in women sports. I’m part of the problem damnit!
A vast number of uncomfortable truths about the actual causes of race disparities America.
And what would those be? Please bravely state your views in an open and clear manner, since this is about avoiding behaving like Gladwell.
Achievement gaps are not due to evil white men.
There. That’s one.
And to what are they due? Please speak bravely and openly.
I am, of course, under no obligation to satify you, especially since you’ve now changed the goal posts (a very “progressive” thing to do, I might add). You first asked for an example of a “…uncomfortable truths about the actual causes of race disparities America.” I gave you one. But, unsatified with an answer, now you demand an explanation. That’s not very friendly, but fair. I suppose.
Ok. Noone listens to me anyway, so I haven’t anything lose. Here goes…
I think that the main reason is cultural; the black community does not value educational excellence and families are unstable. It’s certainly NOT due to lack of spending on education as there is no correlation between amount spent per pupil and academic achievement. You can go look that up yourself, Jared.
In addition there is a genetic component (oops…you’re not gonna like THAT, I can tell already). We know there is a genetic component to intelligence and thus to learning, but we are not even allowed to ask if any of the genetics tied to intelligence is associated with ancestry. It’s ludicrous to think that race plays no role, actually, because that’s what genetics essentially is; the study of ancestry and its role in our lives. The only question is, to my mind, how much do genetic traits that are associated with racial ancestry are also associated with intelligence and learning. But, naturally, those questions are VERBOTEN!
I do also think that among the causes of acheivement gaps is a minor contributor, and this is what I KNOW you are trying to elicit; there is a residium of the bad old days of Jim Crow and our racist past, mostly having to do with things related to family wealth and access in the past to a culture that values education, merit and academic work.
Happy to oblige:
1) Disparate outcomes (in 2000s America) are not caused by “systemic racism” or “oppression”. Since about 1980, America has been pretty fair, and now (if anything) favours blacks (e.g. in college admissions).
2) Measured IQ differs a lot between races. The mean for Ashkenazis seems to be about 12 IQ points above the “white European” average. East Asian average also seems to be above that for “whites”. Black Americans test about 15 IQ points below average.
3) That, not anything else, is the prime cause of disparate outcomes at school and elsewhere.
4) How much of that difference is genetic, as opposed to cultural or environmental, is unclear. The opinion of those who study this seems to typically say that at least half of it is.
5) Black culture (with tends to involve a rejection of traits that typically lead to success, and an embrace of those that don’t) is a large part of poorer outcomes. This culture often includes a rejection of trying hard at school as “acting white”, and an acceptance of or even lauding of criminality.
6) Black Americans, being 13% of the population, commit about 50 to 55% of the homicides and the violent crime. This, coupled with their tendency to resist arrest, explains why the cops kill more blacks (it is not the fault of the police).
7) Contrary to popular supposition, economics is not the cause of any of this (since controlling for family SES when comparing races is easy to do and does nothing to explain it). [“Crime causes poverty” is more true than “poverty causes crime”.]
8) None of the above is explained by “poor schools”, since study after study over decades has shown that the only real factor in determining which schools are “good” (in terms of discipline and academic outcomes) is the intake of kids.
9) Identity-based hiring (rather than merit-based hiring) has lead to a lot of people in roles that they are not competent for. Often this matters (e.g. in medicine).
I’ll bet you haven’t seen anything like the above list in the MSM, though everything above is what the evidence strongly points to (and everyone knows it, if they’re honest with themselves). At some point we need an adult, evidence-based discussion of these things.
Absolutely Coel and Ed – you list some of the big unspeakable facts in our society. If we had any chance of honestly confronting them we’d go a long way to actually improving the lives of all Americans.
But we can’t, b/c leftist pieties and standard issue takes/myths have marked them “raaaacist” – which they’re not.
D.A.
NYC
That got testy in a hurry. I’m glad you and EdwardM seem to agree with each other….and with me which is what matters to me. [<–self-deprecating irony there.]
It does take courage to say all that in so many words as you and EdwardM both did. Especially when so many people do know it’s true but still don’t dare say it.
Well yes, for the good of society we need to say certain things, including “trans women are men” and “there are one-standard-deviation differences in the mean IQs of different population groups”, and “the gender wage gap is caused by men tending to prioritise their careers and women tending to prioritise family and work/life balance”. Reality matters.
Several folks have pointed out the irony of Gladwell prostrating himself on this issue the same week the story broke that Bari Weiss is going to make bank on The Free Press and its persistent insistence that “transwomen” are men. Instead of “What is a woman?” they should ask Gladwell “What is a journalist?”
Our very brave Australian Sall Grover wrote a touching fantastic response to JKR. There are many women paying a heavy price for objecting to one of the greatest absurdities and scandals ever created.
https://x.com/salltweets/status/1964066226570989931
Gladwell is just admitting he is a craven fool who fears rejection and prefers adulation. This is a common trait amongst celebrities. Their opinions should be regarded as useful as tits on a bull.
Not sure the AP is fit to be fact-checking anyone.
Is Hyundai in trouble for hiring non-citizens? As far as I know it is illegal. I have noticed that no one seems to mention that in all of the coverage of raids.
The news stated it was contractors and subcontractors building a plant that would assemble batteries, not working for Hyundai assembling vehicles.
There is a reason that Senate committee did not swear in RFK, Jr. There is no penalty for lying if you’re not under oath.
“Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch swears in new Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with his wife and family.”
https://www.c-span.org/clip/white-house-event/justice-gorsuch-swears-in-new-hhs-secretary-rfk-jr/5153536
Good summary of the news. When I read the AP piece on Kennedy’s lies, I thought they were being rather generous. But perhaps they limited their coverage only to the lies that he made in his testimony to Congress.
The news of the Navy Seal operation in North Korea was amazing. I almost wish that it hadn’t been published, at it may reveal to the North Koreans something we didn’t want them to know about. They probably knew. After all, a ship full of dead soldiers was left in the operation’s wake.
Oops. I just read that the dead North Koreans were civilian fisherman. My bad.
Had the fishermen instead been drug smugglers perhaps we would have heard of the incident in 2019.
Claire Lehmann on RFK Jr. and vaccines: “Once liberty conservatives had aligned with wellness progressives, anti-vaccine rhetoric that was once confined to the fringes suddenly became mainstream…Preying on disillusionment, [Kennedy] has been able to fuse two previously separate moral worldviews into one large-scale rejectionist movement.”
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/purity-and-liberty-obsession-is-making-america-sick-again/news-story/86d8019650da5bf97658d3fd729c97b9?giftid=udOoyFPbTp
[paywalled 🙁 ]
“As always, if any of your IM Force are caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. Good luck, Jim. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds.”
Did you see Pinker on Bill Maher’s show last night? He was pretty standard-Pinker, but I was annoyed afterwards.
For a guy who has an excellent bead on culture and politics, Israel even… every time Bill opens his fat maw on anything about biology/medicine he stuffs his foot in it. Amazing. He’s been in CA too long, too crunchy, anti-vax adjacent and full of trendy nonsense.
Also note today’s video by Yoran/TravellingIsrael and the “Gaza Famine,” UN, Amnesty, etc. You should watch the entire 10 minutes. He is the best thing for Israel’s struggle for hearts and minds out there.
Onwards Israeli heroes.
D.A.
NYC
I’ll happily take that bet, if you name a stake and sharpen what you mean by a large percentage, and if there is some way to find out what the number really is when the dust settles. But are you sure you want to make that bet? It sounds like a sucker bet against yourself, given that the ICE agent in charge, Steven Schrank, says the South Koreans citizens arrested at the work site “were in the United States illegally or were working unlawfully.” The prior that he’s telling the truth loads the dice against you.
If more than a handful (say, five) of these detainees are legally in the U.S. as U.S. citizens, Green Card holders, or aliens in possession of still-valid work visas I will be most surprised. (Mistaken identity, perhaps.) Most of them likely entered the U.S. legally, as bogus tourists or on work visas valid at the time they entered, probably recruited from SK, (yes, en masse) for the purpose of work at the factory. But as soon as a tourist picks up a shovel or sits down at a sewing machine he becomes an illegal alien. Ditto someone who stays after his visa expires or violates the terms of work visa. Others may have snuck into the U.S. via Mexico or Canada and gravitated to Georgia as news of work for native Korean-speakers reached them by social media. The rest of the world does that. Why shouldn’t South Koreans? There is trivial downside risk for the illegal workers. If they get caught, they get sent home and probably barred from re-entering the U.S. The “executives” arrested may be in hotter water as it is a more serious offence to hire illegal aliens as workers especially if they didn’t remit payroll taxes to Uncle Sam.
It’s understandable that the SK Embassy would be taking quiet interest. This could be a major embarrassment if two of SK’s flagship companies, well-connected to the government, were involved in illegal trafficking of their own citizens in this way.
Maybe this belongs in “Words/Phrases I Detest” but I would put “undocumented immigrant” on the list, (with hesitation because “detest” is too strong a word for how I feel about most things except rhubarb.) It’s a confusing contradiction in terms. An immigrant is someone who has been granted legal permission, with documentation in the form of a Green Card in the U.S., to live permanently in the country, with a path to citizenship. There are only documented immigrants. Everyone else is a non-resident alien. They can be legal aliens (those with visas allowing them to stay for certain lengths of time under certain conditions, or with other permissions like amnesty proceedings) or they can be illegal aliens (those who have lost the privilege to stay in the country but haven’t left or who never obtained permission to enter in the first place.) Homeland Security is alleging that these 475 workers arrested in Georgia are therefore illegal aliens (in various categories of illegality.)
A bit of backstory: Conceptually Leslie many people don’t understand the dynamics of US immigration – particularly Americans b/c… well… it doesn’t concern them. Fair enough.
Citizens of S. Korea are one of a few dozen (mainly rich) countries whose citizens have “visa waiver agreements” so do not need a visa to enter the US for 90 or so days. All others do. Some overstay that grace period – or work (illegally) – but if enough break the rules their country can be de-waiverized (see Uruguay).
These Koreans almost certainly entered legally, it is possible they worked without a proper work visa though. It is strange: rich country citizens coming here to do cut rate construction jobs….?
In their own country citizens of Mongolia do that kind of dirty work (legally).
D.A.
NYC
It is possible that the South Koreans do not want to jeopardize their product quality. Trump’s plan to bring manufacturing back to America is cruising into the heavy headwinds of a low-caliber workforce. Talk to people who own their own businesses or supervise the shop floor. It is extraordinarily difficult to find high-school graduates who are conscientious, have sufficient reading and thinking skills for technical work, and don’t botch moderately-complicated jobs. We shuffle most such people off to college. (Whether most of them belong there is a different matter.) During our manufacturing heyday, our trades were full of bright, conscientious men and women who could both anticipate and solve potential problems without committing a lot of unforced errors. That is no longer the case. Manufacturers who require precision and initiative in their working-class employees are struggling—no matter the pay scale.
Yes, Doug. It is one of the main disasters of the tariff deal. In today’s tech and manufacturing globalized world “bring back smokestacks” is…. idiotic.
The ONLY real benefit of Trump’s tariff mania is he can use it as a cudgel to make other countries do what we want. (One eg.- hassling the World Shipping Org. to not do insane green environmental extremist stuff to shipping, say. Or pushing India to quit buying sly Russian oil.) For leverage it is great, as a trade policy it is stupid.
best to you Doug,
D.A.
NYC
When you look at those Periscope films on YouTube of wartime production in the Arsenal of Democracy, (yes, of course edited to show the best) you are struck by how quickly whole factories full of machine tools could be built from scratch. And then make things accurately and in quantity like the piston-cylinder interface in many thousands of internal combustion engines, or the nine big rifles of a battleship, (never mind the rest of the ship.) The reduction gears between turbines and propellor shafts are industrial jewelry, yet there is film of a guy with a bastard file carefully making them perfect. The mechanical fire-control computers used in warships, refined over decades, are fascinating in themselves for the precision of the fabricated interdigitating metal parts inside that integrate numbers accurately enough to shoot long distances from a rolling ship moving at speed. Men (and many women) often without high-school diplomas toiled away on these machines, troubleshooting with their micrometers when things wandered out of spec or cutting blades got dull. Often smoking, no eye protection except for welding, and no hard hats. Nobody was fat, though.
When we moved to Ontario in the early 1960s from a pre-industrial part of the country, we were amazed at just what people in a factory could do, making things. Newcomers were welcomed on tours, especially church and Scout groups. Now, yes, most factory workers, even skilled machinists and tool-and-die makers didn’t want their sons to follow them. So they went to college. But you and David are right. That’s not coming back.
I thought Demon Copperhead was OK, but not one of Kingsolver’s best. I was very pleasantly surprised that I loved the Barbie movie and even watched it a second time streamed.
Pinker on Overtime (Bill Maher’s show)
I’m a big time free market fmr Wall St’r but that Stephen Moore guy who has been polluting our public space for decades is ….. horrible.
Pinker is excellent of course. xo
D.A.
NYC
Two things in todays post.
I have been to a Aqua concert and have a collection of barbies in the house.
I read Janet Browne’s ” Charles Darwin Voyaging” many years ago and it has reminded me to read it again.
The Gladwell ‘confession’ to the great unwashed.
Simply put and musing away, as a no free will individual we humans as far as cognitive abilities go are a binch of electro chemical signals firing off in the brain resulting in some behaviors.
All that happening with help from your particular set of genes and all the downstream effects.
Bit of a shift here but bear with me I’ve just read that the shining cockoo, pīpīwharauroa (Chrysococcyx lucidus) are migrating again and it occurred to me Gladwell acted like the brood parsitic host. Even the giant frame of Lia Thomas next to women competitors did not jolt a captured hoodwinked mind.
It was the funnist thing and gave some stress release thinking of the whole trans activist dump in this light.
In short a chemical induced lie to yourself and at lest the shining cockoo’s parsitic host does not know any better and in their arms race it seems they never will.
Re Demon Copperhead: I read it soon after it came out, thought it was a good re-telling of David Copperfield, but not great. As I recall, I thought the author kept beating me over the head regarding the drug company’s (Sacklers) pushing Oxycodone. I also didn’t like the way the hero was able to shrug off the death of his girlfriend. JMHO.
In terms of basing fiction on old Dickens classics, I much preferred Fagin the Thief, by Allison Epstein, which doesn’t re-tell the story of Oliver Twist, but focuses instead on what it might have been like for a Jew at that time with a talent for picking pockets, and how an Oliver might have come briefly into his world (and is briefly mentioned as a smarmy and quite lucky orphan). Again, my 2 cts.