Welcome to the “work” week: it’s M0nday again, and September 15, 2025, and National Double Cheeseburger Day. Why have a single when you can have a double? In one week I’m having a brief vacation in Boston and Cambridge.
Here’s the double bacon cheeseburger from Hodad’s in San Diego. They reputedly make the best burger in the world. But MUSTARD???? Do they think they’re in Chicago?
It’s also Butterscotch Cinnamon Pie Day (I’ve never had one), National Crème de Menthe Day (my late mother’s favorite drink), Google.com Day (the name was registered on this day in 1997), International Day of Democracy, National Cheese Toast Day, and National Linguine Day.
Google has a new Doodle celebrating salsa music. Click on the Doodle below to go to the site. WARNING: Loud salsa music plays on YouTube, so if it’s early in the morning, either don’t click or turn the volume down:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the September 15 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*I have to stop spending so much time on the Internet (not Twitter so much as Facebook), because there’s a huge not-yet-resolved argument about the ideology of Tyler Robinson, the accused murderer of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. You can understand why people think this is so important, because if Kirk was murdered by a Leftist, then Republicans will have a field day accusing us of being not only violent, but hypocritical: opposing free speech by killing and thereby silencing an opponent. And if he was killed by somebody on the Right, well, Lefists will have their own field day, though remember that in this case we’d have a conservative shooting a conservative.
I’ve mostly seen stuff coming from the Left (my reading isn’t completely balanced!), but here’s P.Z. Myers and some of his acolytes saying they’re SURE the shooter was a right-winger. And, despite reports from reliable sources that Robinson was on the Left and in a romantic relationship with a trans-identified man, they cling to the narrative that they like. Click to read the archived version
The post:
I’ve been disturbed for the last day by all the unfounded speculation that Charlie Kirk’s killer was a far left fanatic, gay or trans, and that this was a hate crime against conservatives, which I had to recognize as a possibility. That was the constant drum beat from social media (and Donald Trump, and Nancy Mace, and all sorts of irrational people) at any rate, but suddenly, since late this afternoon, the drums have stopped pounding. The shooter has been caught. His personal history revealed. Suddenly, it has become apparent that he is a weird gamer from a right wing family who had criticized Kirk for not being conservative enough…and he may be a follower of Nick Fuentes and a groyper. The Serfs summarize what we know so far.
And acolytes commenting:
I found this on Facebook:
Evidence adduced in favor of Robinson being on the Right are that his parents are on the Right, and that some of the stuff scratched on the bullet casings could be interpreted as far-fight (“groyper”) memes: even white supremacist memes. On the other hand, those bullet scratchings decried fascism, which points to a Leftie; and there are increasingly many reports that Robinson was in a relationship with a trans-identified male, or someone who was transitioning, like this one:
Left-leaning outlet Axios reports that six sources familiar with the investigation of Tyler Robinson told it that Robinson had a romantic relationship with a transgender roommate.
This follows similar reporting from right-leaning media earlier today. pic.twitter.com/Vj7E5jzXib
— i/o (@avidseries) September 13, 2025
The Axios report is here. And the New York Times just reported that the governor of Utah, speaking publicly, mentioned a trans relationship and said that Robinson was on the left:
Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah on Sunday provided new information about the background and political leanings of the 22-year-old accused of killing Charlie Kirk, saying that the suspect had a “leftist ideology” and had also been in a romantic relationship with a partner who was in the process of transitioning from male to female.
Mr. Cox, speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” described the suspect, Tyler Robinson, as a “very normal young man” who appeared to have been “radicalized” some time after he dropped out of college and moved back to his hometown in southern Utah, where he had spent the past few years.
Mr. Cox did not go into specifics about Mr. Robinson’s ideological views or offer a clear picture of them. Mr. Cox said Mr. Robinson had spent much of his time immersed in online gaming, message boards and parts of what the governor called the “deep, dark internet.”
Mr. Cox, a Republican, did not detail a motive for the shooting of Mr. Kirk, a prominent conservative activist. The suspect’s motive has become the subject of fevered debate as President Trump and some Republicans have blamed Democrats and the “radical left.”
Unless he’s extraordinarily careless in speech, I’d give his thoughts some consideration. If Robinson was indeed in a relationship with a trans-identified person, that would surely add weight to the view that he killed Kirk for Kirk’s conservative views, which included saying that being transgender is a “lie” and a “delusion”.
There are conflicting views, and are being given differential weight based on one’s politics. Luana asked Grok what we know about Robinson’s views on Kirk and it spit out the following:
Evidence on Tyler Robinson’s Views Regarding Charlie KirkTyler Robinson, the 22-year-old suspect arrested in connection with the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk on September 10, 2025, at Utah Valley University, has been linked to online discussions where he expressed strong negative opinions about Kirk. These appear tied to Kirk’s well-documented anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, particularly his opposition to transgender rights, gender-affirming care for minors, and transgender participation in women’s sports. While direct quotes from Robinson’s Discord messages specifically labeling Kirk as a “transphobe” or “homophobe” are not publicly verbatim in available reports (likely due to ongoing investigations and platform moderation), multiple credible sources indicate that Robinson voiced views aligning with this characterization in Discord chats. Below, I’ll outline the key evidence from news reports, official statements, and related online activity.1. Discord Messages Shared with InvestigatorsRobinson’s transgender roommate (identified in some reports as Lance Twiggs) provided federal authorities with access to Robinson’s Discord communications. These messages, sent around the time of the shooting, show Robinson discussing the weapon used (a rifle he allegedly retrieved from a drop point) and referencing the event. More critically, they reveal Robinson’s engagement in online communities focused on LGBTQ+ issues, where he criticized Kirk’s positions on transgender topics.According to Axios, investigators believe Robinson’s “anger at Kirk’s views” on gender identity—described as “hateful” toward transgender people—was a potential motive. Sources familiar with the case noted that Robinson viewed Kirk’s stance as personally offensive, especially given his roommate’s transition. This aligns with reports of Robinson participating in Discord servers tied to LGBTQ+ activism, Antifa, and even “furries” (an online subculture often overlapping with queer communities), where anti-Kirk sentiment was common.The Washington Times reported that the roommate shared specific Discord posts from Robinson about the gun, including etchings on bullet casings like “Hey Fascist! Catch!”—phrases echoing leftist critiques of Kirk as bigoted. These messages were posted in channels discussing Kirk’s upcoming event, with Robinson implying something “big” would happen. Discord subsequently removed Robinson’s account, stating it was not used to “plan or promote violence,” but the content focused on ideological opposition.Fox News and the New York Post corroborated that the roommate, who is cooperating fully with the FBI, had no prior knowledge of the plot but confirmed Robinson’s frequent Discord use to vent about figures like Kirk, whom he saw as promoting hate against the LGBTQ+ community.
So we’re still up in the air, but if I had to guess, I’d say Robinson was a Leftie, probably in a relationship with a trans person, and perhaps mentally unstable. But certainly full of hate. Yet to me the most important aspect of this killing is not a particular ideology, because we’ve had murderers like this one on both the Right and the Left. No part of the political spectrum can be completely exculpated.
What’s important is to keep emphasizing that you might dislike people’s views, or dislike people who hold people whose views we oppose, but it is NEVER okay to kill innocent people for those views. One look at Charlie Kirk’s wife mourning his passing, but saying his work will go on, or watching his bloody murder, presumably seen by his wife and two young kids, should convince folks that violence isn’t justified. Nor would it be okay to kill Donald Trump, as odious as he is. In the end, I’m not sure how important motive is in this case except insofar as we can curb that motive. But that seems impossible. In the end, I think we have to dial down our rhetoric and try to convince people, wherever they live on the political spectrum, to hate ideas and not people, and that words are NOT violence. And not desperately try to pin an ideology (not yours!) on the murderer.
*Remember Donald Trump trying to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook because he claimed she was simultaneously claiming simultaneous residency in two states based on owning homes in both states? That would be mortgage fraud and a violation of the law (mortgages are cheaper on Well, the WSJ reports that the situation isn’t quite like that, for Cook described one of her homes as a vacation home or second home:
Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, whom President Trump is attempting to fire for allegedly misrepresenting a property as her primary residence, described one of the properties at the heart of those allegations as a vacation home or second home on at least two documents.
Copies of the documents, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, could counter the Trump administration’s claim that Cook knowingly misrepresented her occupancy status.
The documents were earlier reported by Reuters Friday.
One document, a letter from the Bank-Fund Staff Federal Credit Union that is dated May 28, 2021, details the estimated costs associated with obtaining a mortgage for the purchase of an Atlanta condominium. The “property use” field is listed as “vacation home” on a preliminary loan estimate.
Cook described the property as a second home on a separate document, a December 2021 questionnaire submitted to Biden administration officials as part of a background check for a government security clearance ahead of her nomination to the Fed.
Trump administration officials have claimed that Cook misrepresented the occupancy status for either the Atlanta condo or a Michigan home when she took out a mortgage for each property, weeks apart, in 2021. Standardized loan forms that Cook signed show she pledged to live in each home for a year as her principal residence unless the lender otherwise agreed to a different arrangement.
Trump pointed to those loan forms as evidence of misrepresentations last month when he attempted to fire Cook. Cook has challenged the removal in court, and her lawyers have said she never committed mortgage fraud. The reason for the apparent discrepancy between those loan forms and the latest documents wasn’t immediately clear.
. . . The documents highlight for the first time evidence that Cook’s lender and others may have been aware that the condo wasn’t intended to be used as her primary residence.
Describing a property as a primary residence can sometimes help secure a lower mortgage rate. Cook’s financial disclosure forms indicate she obtained an interest rate of 3.25% on the Atlanta property, which was slightly higher than prevailing market rates at the time.
I doubt that Cook, who is a Fed official, would do this knowing it’s illegal, but it’s not quite resolved yet. But Trump is simply looking for a reason to fire Cook, as he wants the Fed to do his bidding (as he wants everybody to do his bidding), and one way is to remove its governors one by one. Cook is not going to go gentle into Pink Slip Land, though.
*I recently formally joined the Heterodox Academy (HxA), an organization that defends free speech by preventing the silencing of “heterodox” voices on college campuses (its website is here). Like FIRE, it’s a good organization and doesn’t tread on the mushy ground of Wokeness. And you can join for free so long as you’re an academic: faculty, student, or staff. But I had to wonder what the group was up to when I found the announcement of this talk at the Cornell University branch of HxA:
The blurb (you have to be a member and it’s in-person only:
Join Heterodox Academy (HxA) at Cornell University for a talk by Michael Behe on intelligent design in biology. Throughout history, most people, including most scientists, thought that the intricate mechanisms of life were purposefully designed. The design hypothesis fell out of favor in academia after 1859, the year Charles Darwin instead proposed that life evolved by utterly unguided random variation sifted by natural selection. In the past 75 years, however, much has been learned about the molecular basis of life that was completely unknown in Darwin’s era. In this talk, Michael Behe will argue that the astonishing discoveries of modern biochemistry require a reversal of our evaluation of Darwin versus design: the conclusion that, in large part, life was purposely designed has once again become rationally compelling.
Michael J. Behe is a Professor of Biochemistry at Lehigh University. He is the author of three books — Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (1996); The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism (2007); and Darwin Devolves: The New Science of DNA That Challenges Evolution (2019) — all of which argue that living systems at the molecular level are best explained as being the result of deliberate intelligent design. The books have been reviewed by the New York Times, Nature, Philosophy of Science, Christianity Today, and many other periodicals.
When: Tuesday, September 16 at 5:30-7:00 PM
Where: Cornell University – 186 Myron Taylor Hall
Now Michael Behe is a creationist of the Intelligent Design (ID) subspecies, and his arguments have been discredited, including those in his latest book saying that natural selection can’t explain the diversity of life because mutations most often break genes, and broken genes can’t contribute to adaptation. This is wrong in many ways. Yes, mutations do often break genes, but broken genes can be involved in adaptations. Further, we know now (see the work of my colleague Manyuan Long) that many, many genes originate through other processes besides inactivation, including fusion, gene duplication, insertion of other genetic elements, adaptive mutations that don’t destroy function, and so on.
In other words, is Behe “heterodox”? Well, certainly if you look at the mainstream views of biology. But he’s not just heterodox, he’s dead wrong and his ideas have been rejected even by his own department at Lehigh University. No university of any value would allow these views to be taught in its biology classes—not after Judge John Jones ruled Intelligent Design “not science” Behe testified for the defense in the Kitzmiller v. Dover intelligent-design trial in Dover, PA, and botched his testimony, as Wikipedia describes:
Some of the most crucial exchanges in the trial occurred during Behe’s cross-examination, where his testimony would prove devastating to the defense. Behe was forced to concede that “there are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred” and that his definition of ‘theory’ as applied to intelligent design was so loose that astrology would also qualify.
Behe’s testimony was very likely crucial in Jones’s ruling out the teaching of ID, a decision that has neither been appealed nor overturned. And if ID doesn’t qualify as science, as it doesn’t, then you can’t teach it in the science classroom without violating both academic freedom and perhaps the law.
I have no idea why the HxA at Cornell would commission a talk (presumably paying for at least travel, and perhaps a stipend), that is in effect the equivalent of a talk on “Why the Earth is Flat,” or “Why Alchemy Really Works,” but hey, this isn’t a classroom, and it’s free speech. I will not write to HxA or Cornell protesting his appearance, but they are wasting people’s time and money. They should have set up Behe’s appearance as a debate rather than a misguided lecture. I hope only that some HxA members from Cornell read this, so they can think about the issue and at least attend Behe’s talk to ask him challenging and genuinely heterodox questions.
But if HxA had its thinking cap on, it would have had a debate instead of a talk. Indeed, at the HxA meeting I went to recently in Brooklyn, there were plenty of formal sessions conducted as debates. And those were about real topics, not the phantasm of ID.
*Whaaaaat? The Washington Post has an editorial-board op-ed questioning the policies of NYC Mayor-to-Be Zohran Mamdani. I quote:
Anyone wondering about the change of heart, five years after the fact, need only look at the polling. Mamdani has a sizable lead but struggles to get more than half of the electorate to support his campaign. His latest modulation is an attempt at defusing his weakness on crime so he can pivot toward his preferred theme of affordability.
He is also distancing himself from some of the scariest ideas of the Democratic Socialists of America, of which he has been a member for most of his adult life. “My platform is not the same as national DSA,” Mamdani said last month. “If you cannot find a policy on my website,” he added in a subsequent statement, “then that is not a policy that I am running on.”He refuses to say whether he still supports decriminalizing prostitution, though he has clarified that he does not plan to stop enforcing all misdemeanors. Mamdani also reversed himself on getting rid of the admissions exam for elite city high schools — such as the one he attended.
Mamdani remains vehemently anti-Israel, which he accuses of genocide. Under pressure from the Jewish community, however, he agreed in July to discourage the use of the phrase “globalize the intifada.” He repeatedly declined to do so before the Democratic primary, despite its violent connotations.
Is this opportunism or maturation? Only Mamdani can really know, but it’s notable that his tonal shift hasn’t been met with much blowback from his left-wing base. There’s still plenty to like for the city’s well-educated revolutionaries.
It’s also notable where he hasn’t shifted. Mamdani has not backed off his signature calls for “free” universal child care and buses, city-owned grocery stores, freezing rent on 1 million regulated apartments, increasing the minimum wage to $30 an hour and crippling new taxes. These aren’t new ideas, and versions of them have failed elsewhere. Yet they test better with voters in liberal Gotham than Mamdani’s soft-on-crime tendencies.
Color ME unimpressed, too. The guy is an opportunist, a lower grade version of AOC. I of course don’t like his stand on Israel (In truth, if someone accuses Israel committing “genocide,” especially if they doesn’t add that Hamas is much worse, writing genocide into their first charter, I consider them both obtuse and antisemitic.) And a politician who refuses to answer a simple political question is hiding something or trying to not take a position to get elected.
*Ghost, the Pacific Giant Octopus who is dying of starvation (as they do) while tending her brood of unfertilized eggs, is still alive at the Aquarium of the Pacific. I looked her up on the Internet and found no sign that she had died. But it will be very, very sad when she does. An Instagram post featuring Ghost and an aquarium employee:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Editor Hili exercises her power while peeking through the window:
Hili: Don’t translate that article.
Andrzej: Why not?
Hili: It’s pure speculation.
In Polish:
Hili: Nie tłumacz tego artykułu.Ja: Dlaczego?
Ja: Dlaczego?
Hili: To czyste spekulacje.
*******************
From CinEmma:
From The Dodo Pet:
From Jesus of the Day, a happy car that needs a dentist:
Here’s a tweet by writer Steven King, which seems to imply that Charlie Kirk probably deserved to be shot. It’s real, but has since been deleted. (“He” refers to Kirk.)
Below are two apologies by King, but if you look at his Twitter feed you’ll see that the mob won’t forgive him. Indeed, my opinion of King, about whom I know little, has gone down since I saw the tweet above. But he shouldn’t be cancelled, for crying out loud!
I apologize for saying Charlie Kirk advocated stoning gays. What he actually demonstrated was how some people cherry-pick Biblical passages.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) September 12, 2025
I have apologized. Charlie Kirk never advocated stoning gays to death. https://t.co/Mezem81TNg
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) September 12, 2025
One from me on the NYT’s column. They’ve joined The Free Press in having regular features touting religion:
The Paper of Record starts a program of regularly touting superstition. Will they also cover nonbelief? I wouldn’t count on it. (Well, maybe they’ll let a token atheist slip in from time to time.) pic.twitter.com/ASGx8Spm0z
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) September 14, 2025
It’s the third anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini, beaten to death for wearing her hijab wrong. Masih has a post with a question (my answer is “Hell, no!), and some videos of women who got arrested, interrogated, or had their social media blocked for—singing! What a horrid place Iran is for women!
Would you, as a man living in the 21st century, go to a concert, stadium, or cinema if women were kicked out from the same place?
Today marks three years since the killing of Zhina #MahsaAmini a young woman murdered by the hijab police, whose name ignited a revolution.
The regime… pic.twitter.com/HGx01nH1yl— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) September 14, 2025
From Malcolm, a fantastic tie-dye job:
The fractal-like complexity of a tie dye t-shirt and the geometry of the final resultpic.twitter.com/laN2iM5Eos
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) September 2, 2025
One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial. A sad anniversary:
A sad tale: on this day in 1944 two prisoners at Auschwitz were executed. They had fallen in love and escaped, but were recaptured and executed.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-09-15T10:52:34.985Z
. . . and two from Dr. Cobb:
£3000 for a Darwin letter is cheap! I wonder what it finally went for:
Woah, a Darwin letter on carnivorous plants. That bid is underpriced at the moment
— Fossillocator (@fossillocator.bsky.social) 2025-09-13T18:36:40.830Z
Well, the answer came to quickly to this question; one has no time to think:
For your next pub quiz: “Name a European station served by 3 different track gauges.”
— The Man in Seat 61 (@seatsixtyone.bsky.social) 2025-09-12T15:51:26.371Z
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
There is no disguise that can for long conceal love where it exists or simulate it where it does not. -Francois, duc de La Rochefoucauld, aphorist (15 Sep 1613-1680)
Stephen King’s post is disappointing, though I am willing to accept that he was hasty and sloppy (most “just saying” posts seem to be, just saying what, Steve?)
As a UK resident who only ever sees tweets (or whatever they are these days), Facebook, Instagram, et al, on sites like this, I have no clue about Mr Kirk. It doesn’t matter to me what his views were, what happened to him was simply unnacceptable in a civilised society. The creationist Matt “Banana Boy” Powell has a publically available video saying that the government should execute “the gays”, humanely because he isn’t a monster, but they need to die. I find this abhorrent and I never type his name on YT, hence the quoted epithet (YT is very good at picking up insults, even when expressed in Latin or an obscure 15th century European dialect), but what I never do, and never will, is endorse anything that would lead him to the same fate as Kirk.
It’s only leftist politicians and commentators who are doubting Robinson’s politics. His neighbors and friends have been clear that in the last few years he’d take a hard left turn. The interesting question is, Did others know about what he planned? People have found tweets suggesting that other people knew. One X user had a pair of tweets saying, First: “Charlie kirk is coming to my college tomorrow i rlly hope someone evaporates him literally”< and, second, “Let’s just say something big will happen.” (See this story from Gateway Pundit for that and other tweets.) Authorities are now investigating that.
As for King, he apologized after people started suggesting that Kirk’s estate sue him for libel. I doubt strongly that most people have ever heard or read anything Kirk has actually said.
Yeah, my very lefty friends on Facebook are all insisting Robinson was hard-right, even now, when the evidence is pretty clear that he wasn’t.
I think most liberal people have read selected excerpts of what Kirk has said— the “lowlights” from their POV. He did say some harsh things from the liberal POV. But even had he said them more gently, he still would have been hated for openly stating homosexuality was wrong, transgenderism was wrong, abortion was wrong, fornication was wrong, etc. etc.
I think he also entertained some COVID conspiracy theories and promoted hydroquinone use.
Perhaps a more fundamental question is this, did Kirk actually call for stoning gays to death?
I saw the quote King is referring to and no, Kirk was referring to the Old Testament punishment for male homosexuality, sayIng it was God’s perfect law. It was in the context of saying that homosexuality was sinful and deviant behavior that shouldn’t be encouraged or condoned. You could make the case that Kirk may have been implying he was ok with that punishment, I suppose, but as an evangelical he was supposed to believe every single word of the Bible is true and divinely inspired.
I didn’t understand it like that in the context of the video snippet I saw, I understood the context like King did the second time around. Most Christian and Jewish believers live with the cognitive dissonance of believing some things to be divine law that they don’t actually want to see executed, literally in this case, in today’s reality.
Yeah, pretty much. I would bet Kirk thought homosexuality should be illegal, but not punishable by stoning to death.
Kirk was good friends with Dave Rubin, who is married to a man. From the clips I’ve seen, Kirk’s view of homosexuality was one of tolerance but not endorsement.
No, he did not. Here’s a brief (4 minutes) clip which should put that lie to bed.
https://youtu.be/FJmcqjP8mhk?feature=shared
There is, apparently, a note written by Tyler Robinson before the assassination. It is being validated as ‘evidence’ and may be entered during the formal charging process.
If it supports Tyler Robinson’s motivation as left wing it will be difficult to argue against.
I see this debate as being possibly settled (but I hold out until there is finality). But a note like that could settle it.
Then what? Unfortunately, then there will be more anti-trans activity, and that is a tragedy.
Is there a silver lining? Anywhere? One thing for sure, the Democratic Party will probably move to the political center.
I’m not sure you would consider this an anti-trans activity, but a hard look at what is happening with young men taking cross-sex hormones is long overdue. What is the mental/emotional effect (along with the ubiquity of the most deviant pornography, and sometimes combined with other drugs like SSRIs)?
The official narrative still is that these are confused young folks, who just want to be their authentic selves. But in many instances the desire to “transition” is largely a sexual fetish, with (for some) the added bonus of smashing norms. I think we sometimes forget, or deny, how incredibly powerful the male sex drive can be.
“instances the desire to “transition” is largely a sexual fetish, with (for some) the added bonus of smashing norms. I th”
See Ms. Susan – yes – that’s the thing and I’m glad you get it. By some multiple we gentlemen have more testosterone than ladies.
A multiple.
And that effects what turns men on, what is the center of our motivation. Very few men are autogynephilic – but those guys do cause a splash, societally. I’m personally glad I’m not among their number, but I get where they’re coming from.
To rant on:
It isn’t like differences in height (average diff: 6 inches) or differences in aggression (men are 10% more aggressive – as an average – which means at the tail end of the distribution there are MANY more very violent males than females in our species. Check your local prison for statistics)….
…..
but when it comes to our old friend “Vitamin T”estosterone – there’s a HUUUGE difference and this effects the way the brain is built, from about 8 weeks of “life” – when the “tube” decides it is a M or F with anti-Muller hormones or not, …..and on to the “androgen-arch” (8-ish years old) and at puberty the entire party begins.
And all that time our brains are literally wired differently. This leads to entirely separate views of the world for men vs women.
I love woman, don’t get me wrong, but both “sides” here have little understanding how HUUUUGE hormonal differences effect how we live, what we approve of, our interests, our instincts, what we do. Also our respective disgust sensitivities. All this from the chemicals that make the pathways and anatomy of our brains.
Haven’t you noticed? Bet you have!
Thank you for listening to my lecture.
Ever your loudmouthy friend, Ms. Susan.
D.A.
NYC
Except the trans individual tangentially involved has been nothing but helpful to police. Robinson was not trans; he was possibly romantically involved with a person who was transitioning. But he was just a radical leftist. If the shooter had actually been trans, that would certainly harm trans people coming so soon on the heels of another trans shooter. But Robinson appears to have been just a crazy homocidal leftist who drank the Koolaid that says that speaking contrary opinions is “violence”.
“Unfortunately, then there will be more anti-trans activity, and that is a tragedy.”
Reminds me of the great Norm MacDonald joke:
“What terrifies me is if ISIS were to detonate a nuclear device and kill 50 million Americans. Imagine the backlash against peaceful Muslims?”
I’m surprised that I haven’t yet seen anyone suggest/speculate (perhaps I have just missed it) what seems an obvious possibility to me, i.e. that Robinson was gay, but coming from a very conservative background, hated himself for it, and that his male partner might have been “transitioning” in order to assuage the guilt feelings in the relationship. After all, engraved on one of the bullets was an anti-gay slogan, and I suspect this conflicted aspect of his psyche may have played a central role in his extremism.
I thought of that too. A gay guy from a conservative, Mormon background.
The best double-cheese burger I’ve ever had was in one of the Vienna Beef affiliated grills in Chicago, Budacki’s. It’s located just south of Lawrence Avenue on Damen.
I would call the item pictured above, a cheeseburger-style sandwich as according to Hodad’s menu it includes, as we can see, pastrami. They do have a simple double cheeseburger on their menu. I just like the beef patties on hamburgers or cheeseburgers to speak for themselves, allowing condiments, lettuce, tomato, and, of course onion (raw or grilled).
I thought that looked like bacon spilling out??? Also, I like my double cheeseburgers with some Hatch green chiles
I will belabor the point because it is so nonearthshattering and unserious: the great Hodad’s visual menu via the link shows that the sandwich in the picture is likely a “Guido” and not a double at all but a single patty with pastrami – though I would not turn it down as it looks great. There is a double bacon cheeseburger also as well as a full range of singles and chicken burgers. I would not speculate on how many days eating one of these shortens one’s life, but if anyone ever does an investigation, I volunteer for the experimental group.
Sign me up as well!!
I may be totally wrong on this, but it seems to me that HxA provides a neutral platform, much like a university, to promote truth-seeking. (Which is one reason for my high regard for HxA). I do not think that HxA/Cornell has a responsibility to promote a debate rather than a lecture which offers significant time for q&a. They are simply presenting a point of view for the curious as maybe the curious might want to know the arguments for flat Earth, ufo’s are intelligent extraterrestrial visitors, or god exists. Maybe HxA should have an included tagline to the point that “views expressed in sponsored talk are neither endorsed nor renounced by HxA, but simply presented for the education of the audience”. Certainly any biologist or group of biologists at Cornell are free to, if they feel the need, provide a lecture countering Prof Behe’s thesis.
Although I am a bit surprised about their choice, I hope it does not become controversial to the point where it creates discord with people quitting, etc. I’d hate to see the HxA of all things develop a cancel culture!
Think of the family of the Kirk shooter. Imagine those poor people: normie, standard issue decent looking Americans. They’re predictable, dependable, the essence of stable middle class. Like The Far Side family with the tubby kid. Their yard is clean, cars in shape, nice neighbors and adorable pets.
(This from available evidence).
And then suddenly their life is entirely on fire.
“Its all over the evening news. All about the fire in your life on the evening news” – Paul Simon, “Crazy Love”.
D.A.
NYC
“Black against white, yellow against green, it doesn’t matter where the division line goes. As long as there’s an antagonistic clash… That is destabilization.”
-Yuri Bezmenov
1983
The above quote is a broad picture of dialectical political warfare – based on identity – which Mao Zedong used to advance the CCP.
“Your target’s reaction is your real action”
-Saul Alinsky
Rules for Radicals
Random House
1971
Also consider George Soros’ ideas of
fertile fallacies and reflexivity, which can be manipulated for “operational success”, as he puts it. That means the propaganda is going to be overwhelming, in a period of destabilization. Such periods, to Soros, are the only way significant change will happen.
I don’t think the flat earth idea and alchemy are as relevant to the American people as intelligent design. More people care about ID. Isn’t Behe an IDer who claims he does not believe in god? I recall that there was at least one of them.
And what if it is a classroom? Why shouldn’t a school, even a public one, have a course on intelligent design? Suppose that a significant proportion of the public believe that god created the world. I’m not saying that it is even a theory, never mind a good one, but why should a law prevent free inquiry in a public school if a significant proportion of the public think it should be investigated?
There are those who direct a lot of criticism at the current administration. Do people have more freedom of expression now than they had during the Biden years?
No, Behe is religious. Academic freedom, as defined by the courts, allows teaching of ideas that are either accepted or being debated by reputable academics as a subject. It does not allow teaching discredited theories as if they had any credibility. That is the law. Of course you can tout ID on campus or the public square, but you cannot teach it as science in a science course. But you can talk about it to mention its fallacies, as I used to show how Darwin refuted creationist theories in The Origin. But I never taught creationism and only mentioned it to show how Darwin had overturned that paradigm.
Academic freedom is not the same thing as free speech.
I was not considering it as a science course. What about as a philosophy course taught by an ID proponent? Why shouldn’t a young student have the opportunity to learn an important (at least in a sociopolitical sense) idea of the times at an institution of higher learning? Thanks! Shall stop my side of the conversation here.
Because, lest we forget, ID is repackaged Creationism.
– 1987 Edwards v. Aguillard decision ruled that teaching creationism in public schools violated the Establishment Clause.
– One transitional draft of the textbook Of Pandas and People, which was promoted as an “Intelligent Design” textbook, contained the typo “cdesign proponentsists”.
– This book was originally a creationism screed referring to “creationists” in early drafts.
– In later drafts, all occurrences of “creationists” were changed to “design proponents”.
– The “cdesign proponentsists” typo showed exactly where the term creationists had been partially overwritten with design proponents, proving that “Intelligent Design” was just a rebranded version of creationism.
Yes! I understand and even prefer that religion be kept out of public schools.
But this interpretation of the First Amendment means that an important sociopolitical view cannot be taught. We can point out the flaws of Creationism in a class on the philosophy of science, for example, but we cannot have it be taught by a proponent — not in a public school. Even though I understand why this is so, I think that’s a disadvantage of the system.
However, relaxing the law might make universities into venues for proselytization for other religions too, and we will face the inevitable problems of discrimination.
In contrast, one can learn science and Christianity at a school like Notre Dame.
“[Behe’s] books have been reviewed by the New York Times, Nature, Philosophy of Science, Christianity Today, and many other periodicals.” This is like noting that I have played some challenging golf courses. No word on how well, or what the score was at the end.
Maybe some HxA members at Cornell could dig up the cross-examination of Behe from the Kitzmiller trial, and just ask him those questions again in the Q & A.
I could give Behe some credit: the world in which things like ribosomes, DNA polymerases, and transfer RNAs evolved is hard to imagine, and could seem “irreducibly complex”. But that’s not an argument for how those things evolved, it’s just a statement about Behe’s mental state (he’s stumped).
“Your ideology is wrong” is not the same as “your ideology is different from mine”. People are much more likely to be murdered for the former. Differences of opinion can lead to debate but wrongthink is more likely to lead to death – especially in today’s climate of #NoDebate.
That’s why the “not conservative enough” theory doesn’t wash.
To me, it doesn’t matter whether Kirk’s murderer was a rightist or a leftist. What matters is that he was a violent extremist. All the rest is commentary.
Kirk’s murderer, not Kirk.
By “violent extremist”…you are referring to Kirk’s murderer, and not Kirk himself we presume?
Love the fractal t-shirt😻
In other words, he still believes it, but it’s very unpopular, so the campaign isn’t talking about it.
Exactly
I guess it matters whether Robinson was a politically-motivated murderer, and whether he wore a red jersey or a blue one, but then again only a loon would shoot someone like this. 99.9999% of Leftists would never do this, no matter how much they hated Kirk. Same percentage for those on the right.
So for me, the bigger issue is once again: gun control. Every society has some quantity of people who are both mentally unstable and violent…yet here in the good ol’ USA we seem to have a mass shooting every few hours, whereas other societies almost never have them.
I don’t know…could it be that we have too many guns floating around, and that it is too easy to get them?
+1
Common-sense gun control? Sure. Why not? What would a gun control regimen have to look like that would keep a .30-06 bolt-action hunting rifle out of the hands of someone like the accused murderer? Even Canadians can own those without restriction (a legal-technical term in Canadian firearms law), and many do. No U.S. state registers single-shot long guns or requires owners to have licences now. (Canada tried to build a national firearms registry that would include hunting rifles and shotguns several Liberal governments ago but the effort sank under the weight of its own red tape.) They are rarely used in crimes because the long barrel and heavy ammunition make them less “handy” but, as the shooter here showed, more accurate over longer range than lighter, less lethal bullets fired by the exotic scary assault-style rifles.
We don’t know enough about the accused’s mental health background for me to say if my colleagues in psychiatry could tell if anyone applying for a Firearms Acquisition Certificate — essentially a Canadian test of gun safety knowledge — was mentally unstable enough to be denied one. Paranoid schizophrenia, sure, but vaguer diagnoses like PTSD, “anger issues”, and “internalized homophobia”? Dunno. It would take up a lot of psychiatrists’ office time but more to the point they wouldn’t want to do it for fear of being sued if they got it wrong. And applicants they denied for mental instability would get angry and maybe murder the psychiatrist.
If you’re trying to keep this guy from getting ahold of this gun, I think you’re talking about repealing the Second Amendment and banning private possession of all guns. Wish you joy in confiscating them all, from people who don’t want you to, while respecting Constitutional search and seizure obligations.
Yes, as I wrote, Kirk’s murderer. Perhaps I should have written in the present tense.
Michael Behe sponsored by a Heterodox chapter? That may be disappointing but not a total surprise to me. It may be that there will be some sorting out of self-declared heterodox voices. For the most part, I’ve been impressed by what I seen of Heterodox Academy, but that’s mostly critiques of what is currently called “woke” policy, or academic post-modern baloney. For complex topic topics of science and medicine that may impact policy or public attitudes, I expect there may be some Brave Independent Credentialed Voices like Behe who are, in some views (standard science the brings us modernity) — wrong. One might expect odd opinions on anthropogenic climate forcing or infectious disease, for example. This can be rationalized as refreshing and stimulating debate.
Regarding: ” allows teaching of ideas that are either accepted or being debated by reputable academics as a subject.” But consider, for example, Peter Duesberg, PNAS member and of high repute being the major driver of HIV/AIDS denial, never changing his mind despite overwhelming evidence. The idea (denial) is not accepted in any credible medicine or in virology, but so long as enough people beat that drum, it’s still “debated”, and has been accepted at the highest policy levels in some countries with deadly results.
Intelligent design? Falsified long ago. That speech at Cornell will for the most part be a curiosity.
Is Charlie Kirk’s assassin aligned with the left or with the right? The fact that it matters is symptomatic of a big problem. Those on the left hope he’s aligned with the right so they can blame the right on the murder and, by extension, on all of America’s ills. Those on the right hope he’s aligned with the left so that they can blame the left on the murder and, by extension, on all of America’s ills. The purpose of the ongoing microscopic examination of this murderer’s addled brain is to determine which side of the political aisle deserves to be hated more. Won’t this foment more of the kind of hate that led to the assassination itself?
+1
Is Utah governor Spencer Cox the only person qualified/authorized to reveal investigation results? Has he held forth as extensively on prior murder investigations in Utah while he has been governor? For every fifty comments he makes, I’d like to hear (if only) one from the head of the investigative team. Does an announcement have more credibility if Cox utters it? (He couldn’t possibly have a political motive, could he?)
The news conference held after Robinson was taken into custody was incredibly toxic in its self-absorbed and self-congratulatory politico bloviation and rump osculation, especially from Patel. Would he have been fired had he forgotten to mention (“the leadership of”) Trump and Vance? Since becoming U.S. attorney-general where has Patel so intensely personally imposed himself into a STATE investigation? Would that he had been a tenth as interested in traveling to Charlotte or Minnesota or the sites of school shootings.
My opinion of Stephen King went down after I finished reading The Stand.
+1. I disliked that book immensely and I don’t think I’ve read anything by King since. (The only reason I trudged though it is because a guy I liked at the time wouldn’t shut up about it. One of the many red flags!)
Intelligent Design? Seriously? That’s still a Thing?
What about a campaign to stamp out jousting, or bring back elevator “operators”.
I.D. is so 20th century, yesterday’s non-hero.
D.A.
NYC
Yep, it’s just creationism.
I think the response of the left and right, and particularly the thought leaders of the left and right, are far more important than the ideology of the shooter.
So when Elizabeth Warren says “but people can only be pushed so far” in response to the murder of Brian Thompson she is tacitly supporting this crime.
As Stephen King demonstrates the potential for significant embarrassment through making statements based on dubious information about touchy subjects, I’d like to beg for extreme caution around any AI-generated summaries of current events.
The pop-culture association of “AI” (and computers in general) with rigidly logical electronic geniuses is great for the stocks of the companies that run those services, but the way that the current wave of LLMs like ChatGPT or Grok actually work is almost the complete opposite.
They are fundamentally word-prediction engines: autocorrect on the scale of an entire conversation. They’re less like an automated librarian retrieving records from an archive and more like the stories spun by a verbose but gullible neighbor who watches far too much cable TV news.
This paper does a fairly good job of explaining the flaws in the current popular AI approach by describing LLMs as “bullshit machines” using Harry Frankfurt’s concept of “bullshit” as a reckless disregard for truth.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5
I generally agree with the paper’s conclusions, though I think the authors don’t place enough blame on the deceptive way that AI companies have suggested their tools are more useful and trustworthy than they actually are, especially in light of the fact that LLMs built to be publicly appealing are inherently charismatic and easily exploit human social conditioning.
TL;DR please oh please don’t rely on a tool that makes stuff up based on the aggregate “wisdom” of the Internet to form opinions, especially not on sensitive breaking news stories; “I don’t know” or “I haven’t done enough research” are much safer positions to hold.
Ha excellent reference. I’m teaching that Hicks paper to the new grad students in my department. The most important sense in which AI output is Frankfurtian bullshit is that the bullshitter is indifferent to whether the thing he says is true or not, because he has some other purpose in saying it. Same for LLMs: their goal is not to say something true (information) or false (a lie); their goal is to mimic human speech and writing in response to a prompt. If what the AI says is true then that’s just by good luck because the same model that generated a true statement is also likely to generate a false statement in response to the next prompt. “Reckless disregard.”
I am with you on this. Emphatically so!
Where Robinson falls politically might be unresolved, but it is a secondary concern for me. What is quite clear, on the other hand, is the political leaning of many of our fellow citizens who either cheered or mocked Kirk’s death. Yes, there are those on the antisemitic and white supremacist far right who loathed Kirk, primarily for his willingness to engage in civil discussion with the “enemy,” but also for his zeal in supporting Israel and, to a lesser degree, his Christian faith. But their numbers in our society are small, a rounding error in the population, and their influence in our major institutions is nonexistent.
What isn’t small is the collection of teachers, professors, journalists, government employees, and others in positions of trust or influence who have long forgotten, if they ever knew, the foundations upon which a free society exists and thrives. Their hate for a father and a husband whom they didn’t even know, the ease with which they could be manipulated by 10-second clips or 20-word tweets, should give us all pause—especially when considering the supposedly educated among them.
Perhaps social media is giving an inflated impression of the numbers of respectably-placed miscreants on our political left, with some posts garnering tens of thousands of likes. Perhaps. But I suspect that many of the readers here will have an experience much like my own: you won’t have to mingle long in your social and professional circles to hear the same bile and ignorance that one can find on Bluesky and X.
Of the influential people on the political right, Charlie Kirk more than any was willing to meet people where they were and talk with anyone. And he was explicit in his view that talking together, agreeing to disagree yet searching for common ground is necessary to avoid eventual bloodshed. So, let’s advance that message. But how do we respond if millions retort, “They cheered and mocked the murder of the man who was most willing to talk with them. The discussions are over.”? I don’t believe we are on the verge of mass violence—witness the lack of riots in our cities after a law-abiding family man is slaughtered on live video. But a “discussion is over” mentality will shift tremendously the tolerance for Trump and his successor to test the limits of power.
Of course, given that Hitler is already in office and supported by his MAGA brownshirts, things can’t get any worse now, can they? The next election will be a jewel: join forces with those who believe an election was stolen, or link arms with those who delight in the murder of their political foes.
Agree in full, in part, or not at all, this recent post by J. D. Vance is well worth 13 minutes of time.
x.com/JDVance/status/1967659982507372822
” …reports of Robinson participating in Discord servers tied to LGBTQ+ activism, Antifa, and even “furries”… ” I am shocked, SHOCKED by any link of Mr. Robinson to the Furry community.
We of the truly peaceful trans-animal community prefer that our identities be limited to adorable animals, like kitty-cats, bunnies, raccoons, and wallabies. What kind of animal did Robinson think he was? A Nile crocodile, a hippopotamus?
I can go for a double cheeseburger with limited toppings. Lettuce and pickle at most.
Missing from the discussion regarding evolution and intelligent design is a good explanation to how life started in the first place. Some people on the religious right do not find the idea of life originating from abiogenesis, the RNA world hypothesis, or chemical reactions conducted in deep water thermo vents or during lightening strikes to be particularly convincing. In the absence of an explanation, people often turn to religion for answers.
I hear you. For me at least, a supernatural explanation is impossible on its face. Therefore I must accept the possibility of natural phenomena, however conjectural, improbable, and poorly understood by me, as long as they are thermodynamically favourable. This requires, as does modern life, that early anabolic processes were coupled in some way to exergonic reactions that allowed the complete system to proceed with negative free energy and that caused the entropy of the universe to be always increasing. (Two ways of looking at the same thing.) What these coupling processes were we may never know, as more efficient ones have surely supplanted the pioneers. Then you just need to wait for two billion years for membrane-bounded life to emerge, and another billion or so to make us.
That is a long long time. The probability that life would not emerge in two billion years of trial and error in a thermodynamically favourable environment is conceptually very small. The probability that a supernatural event didn’t occur even once in two billion years remains unity. That works for me.
For people who already believe in other manifestations of the supernatural, of course they will favour creationism as the explanation for life that trumps all others.