Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Welcome to Thursday, November 27, 2025. This is a special Thanksgiving edition of WEIT as it’s a holiday. For Americans who are celebrating, happy Thanksgiving!
From Allison:
Today is also National Bavarian Cream Pie Day, though everyone will be eating pumpkin or sweet potato pies (two of my favorites). According to Wikipedia, Bavarian cream is “a French dessert consisting of an egg-based cooked custard (milk thickened with eggs) and gelatin or isinglass, into which whipped cream is folded.” I’m sure it would be good in a pie, but I’ve never had one. Nor can I find a photo, but here’s what Wikipedia says is a Bavarian cream bismark, which looks like a type of donut:
Tanis Coralee Leonhardi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Today I am giving thanks for the fact that I am alive and pretty healthy, but also for the cats and ducks of the world that brighten our lives. If you’re thankful for something this year, please put it in the comments.
There’s a Google Doodle today that is, I think, the first one to use AI in its link. Click below to see where it goes:
Two National Guard members remained in critical condition on Thursday, a day after they were shot near the White House, as the authorities investigated the background of the suspect in what they said was a targeted attack.
The two members of the West Virginia National Guard were shot near a metro station in downtown Washington, D.C., on Wednesday afternoon by a lone gunman who was also injured and later detained, officials said.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the suspect had come to the United States in September 2021 through a Biden-era immigration program for Afghans fleeing their country after the government fell to the Taliban. People familiar with the investigation identified the suspect as Rahmanullah Lakanwal.
The FBI director, Kash Patel, and other law enforcement officials were expected to address the news media at 9 a.m. Eastern.
After officials disclosed the suspect’s nationality on Wednesday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency overseeing immigration in the United States, said that it had stopped processing immigration applications from Afghanistan. The pause will affect Afghans seeking to remain in the United States through immigration avenues like asylum and permanent residency, or those trying to enter the country.
In a video address late Wednesday, President Trump said he had ordered 500 more National Guard troops to Washington, though it was unclear when they would arrive or where they would come from.
*As always, the President pardoned turkeys for Thanksgiving. Although millions of gobblers will be killed and consumed today, the two turkeys, named Gobble and Waddle, were pardoned, joining many other cronies of Trump this year. But Trump couldn’t resist turning the occasion into an attack on his enemies.
President Trump wandered far off topic during the pre-Thanksgiving turkey-pardoning ritual at the White House on Tuesday, talking about gas prices, Hunter Biden, drug dealers who’d “poured into our country like we were stupid people” and a governor he considers a “big, fat slob.” [JAC: that was our governor, J. B. Pritzker]
“I think those turkeys were standing there being, like, ‘Just [expletive] kill us. Put us out of our misery,’” Seth Meyers said on Wednesday.
A few quotes from comedians about the ceremony.
“Now, most presidents at the turkey pardon keep it light. They make a few bad puns, they wish everyone a ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ and they go back to work. But that’s not Donald Trump.” — JIMMY KIMMEL
“In that same press conference, he said there’ve been no murders in Washington D.C. in the last six months because of him. There’ve been 62 murders in Washington, which already indicates a vivid imagination. But does he really look at himself in the mirror and go, ‘I am thin’?” — JIMMY KIMMEL, referring to Trump’s remarks about the Illinois governor’s weight
“Again, this was supposed to be a turkey-pardoning ceremony.” — SETH MEYERS
“This morning, on the freshly paved-over Rose Garden, our commander in chief presided over an important American tradition — the annual pardon of the turkeys. Which, at this point, are the only thing Trump hasn’t pardoned this year.” — JIMMY KIMMEL
“President Trump participated in the National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation at the White House and pardoned both turkeys, Gobble and Waddle. And then, like everyone else he pardons, they were both rearrested on weapons charges.” — SETH MEYERS
“That’s right, President Trump participated in the annual Thanksgiving turkey pardoning, passing out pardons to Gobble, Waddle and Ghislaine.” — SETH MEYERS
“Their names are Gobble and Waddle, which is what Trump does every night at dinner.” — JIMMY KIMMEL
Here’s Trump’s twaddle during his pardon. Note that he also goes after Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and Joe Biden.
The FBI is working to schedule interviews with the six Democratic lawmakers who appeared in a video urging members of the military and intelligence community not to comply with illegal orders, according to a person familiar with the efforts.
Details of the investigation were not immediately clear. The lawmakers confirmed they had heard from the House or Senate sergeants-at-arms about the FBI effort.
In a joint statement, four of the Democrats in the video, all members of the House, accused Trump of “using the FBI as a tool to intimidate and harass Members of Congress.”
“No amount of intimidation or harassment will ever stop us from doing our jobs and honoring our Constitution,” the statement from Reps. Jason Crow of Colorado, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, and Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania said. “We swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. That oath lasts a lifetime, and we intend to keep it. We will not be bullied. We will never give up the ship.”
The other two Democrats in the video are senators: Mark Kelly, of Arizona, and Elissa Slotkin, of Michigan.
Slotkin said at an event in Michigan on Tuesday afternoon that the lawmakers were contacted by the FBI on Monday evening.
“Last night the counterterrorism division at the FBI sent a note to members of, the members of Congress saying they are opening what appears to be an inquiry against the six of us,” she said.
Justice Department guidelines require investigative steps against sitting members of Congress to go through an approval process within the Justice Department to ensure that federal law enforcement power isn’t being used for political purposes. But the Trump administration has dismantled the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, which traditionally served as a check on investigations into political figures. That office now has just two prosecutors, down from 36 at the beginning of Trump’s second term, according to a source familiar with the office.
I don’t think there should be an investigation of statements that are legal. This is free speech and should not be suppressed (investigation of such speech counts as an attempt to suppress it by chilling it). On the other hand, it was unwise for the lawmakers to produce such a video, as no specific unlawful orders are specified. It thus comes off as a swipe against Trump with no substance behind it, and that can’t be good for these Democrats or for their party.
A judge in Georgia dismissed the last pending criminal prosecution against President Trump on Wednesday, effectively ending efforts to hold him criminally responsible for attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
The president has now seen three criminal cases against him dissolve since he was re-elected last year. A number of his allies are also defendants in the Georgia racketeering case, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, his former personal lawyer, and Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff.
A motion seeking to end the prosecution was filed Wednesday morning by Pete Skandalakis, the executive director of the state’s nonpartisan prosecutor council. The case was once seen as one of the most serious legal threats to Mr. Trump, because state criminal convictions are not subject to presidential pardons.
Mr. Skandalakis, a career prosecutor who ran for office early in his career as a Democrat but later as a Republican, shredded the case originally brought by Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, taking it apart charge by charge in a 22-page filing. He asserted that “it is not illegal to question or challenge election results.”
Mr. Skandalakis concluded that the inquiry undertaken by Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed by the Justice Department under President Biden, was the more appropriate venue for an investigation of Mr. Trump’s attempts to stay in power after the 2020 election. He added that the idea of pursuing a case against a sitting president in Georgia was impractical.
He noted that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last year, which granted presidents “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution for acts within their constitutional authority, meant that it would take “months, if not years” to litigate immunity issues in the Georgia courts — and that all of this would have to occur after Mr. Trump left office in 2029.
“Bringing this case before a jury in 2029, 2030 or even 2031 would be nothing short of a remarkable feat,” Mr. Skandalakis wrote, adding that “the citizens of Georgia are not served by pursuing this case in full for another five to ten years.”
Mr. Trump’s indictment in August 2023 prompted a unique moment in the history of the American presidency, when he traveled to Atlanta to be booked at the county jail. Mr. Trump, who was out of office at the time, would soon embrace his scowling mug shot as a symbol of defiance; his campaign still markets the image on coffee mugs, posters and pins.
The man is made of Teflon, though I wouldn’t recommend him trying to shoot a guy in the middle of NYT’s Fifth Avenue. And he’s been extraordinarily lucky, though he did lose one civil suit. The important cases, however, are those that will go before the Supreme Court this coming term, cases dealing with matters like birthright citizenship, banning trans people from the military, and deporting people at will,
*Not long ago I wrote a critical review of a letter in the San Francisco Chronicle by Roughgarden and Veale arguing that sex and gender are both spectra. Now Colin Wright has done a better job than I in dismantling that dreadful paper. Colin’s dismantling is in an article in The Washington Examiner called “Activists are redefining ‘gender’ to save a collapsing narrative.” It’s long but you can read it for free, so I’ll just show my favorite bits,
My favorite line is the question that ends this section:
. . . Roughgarden and Veale’s first move is to try to root transgenderism in biology by claiming that “transgender people are a natural part of the human species” who have existed “across cultures and through time.” This statement is misleading. It relies on yet another definitional sleight of hand in which activists expand the definition of transgender into “an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression, or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth.” But no reasonable person, let alone any biologist, denies that masculine girls and women, or feminine boys and men, are natural parts of human variation. Of course they are. And it must be pointed out that gay and lesbian people are considered transgender according to this expansive definition, as being attracted to the same sex is a behavior that “does not conform to that typically associated” with one’s sex.
Calling such people “transgender,” a label that implies a pathological misalignment between one’s brain and body, is both regressive and harmful. It is regressive because it effectively reclassifies masculine girls as boys and feminine boys as girls. And it’s harmful because activists have constructed a “gender-affirming” medical pathway — puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries — designed to “correct” this perceived misalignment. This pathway permanently alters healthy bodies and can render people sterile and medically dependent for life.
Roughgarden and Veale defend this medical pathway and cite seven major medical associations that “support transgender people and their right to appropriate care.” But statements from medical associations are not a substitute for evidence. And as revealed in the highest-quality systematicreviews conducted to date by multiple countries, there is no clear evidence of benefit and a growing list of known harms and possible risks. It is therefore grossly irresponsible for the authors to characterize these interventions as “appropriate care” when the available evidence provides no basis for such a claim.
Roughgarden and Veale then pivot to the central aim of their essay, which is to set the record straight on the biology of sex and gender. Here, we witness an attempt to redefine the debate landscape in real-time.
They begin with an apparent concession to sex realists such as myself. While medical practice might rely on “practical but inconsistent markers to define sex, such as genitals, chromosomes and hormones,” they argue that these traits only “statistically correlate with human sex, but do not define it.” They go on to accept the universal, binary definition of the sexes: “males make small gametes (sperm), females make large gametes (eggs).”
But immediately after this concession, Roughgarden and Veale unveil a new framework entirely. They claim that although an individual’s sex is defined in terms of gamete production, “gender” refers to “all the anatomical and behavioral traits that correlate with sex taken together.” “Beyond gamete size,” they write, “everything else — including secondary sex characteristics, body size, shape, color, behavior and social roles — is gender.”
Fuentes and Lents are not saying, “There is no such thing as biological sex,” or that “sex differences are purely the result of culture.” Good! The authors have a passed a sanity check. They are not saying, “Male and female are not real or useful categories for humans.” Another sanity check passed. However, in the “What we are saying” column, Fuentes and Lents cannot admit the obvious, namely that male and female will continue to be indispensable because people need to categorize others as one sex or the other. People of one sex usually want to find someone of the other sex and make babies. To meet girl, boy must recognize girl, which means being able to categorize others as girls (a type of female).
Fuentes and Lents might object that this is problematically heteronormative. According to them, the main reason why “sex categories remain important” is “equity and justice.” Perhaps they think that when full equity and justice have been achieved, the words “man” and “woman” will become as outdated as “Betamax” and “VHS.”
Despite Fuentes and Lents’s talk of “sex categories,” the upshot is supposed to be that the “nature of sex” is “non-categorical.” This is, they say, “best illustrated by example.” What is the example going to be? Sex-changing clownfish? Pregnant male seahorses? Pseudo-penis-wielding female hyenas? Gender-bending sunfish? No, it’s us:
… the totality of the human experience, including our bodies, cannot be reduced to either specific innate (biological) or external (environmental/cultural) influences; it is a synthesis of both; humans are biocultural.
In effect, the point is to downplay the relevance of sex to humans by picturing it as one minor player in a blizzard of “complex interactions,” “lived experiences,” “biotic and abiotic factors,” “sex related traits,” “biological, cultural, individual, and environmental variables,” “synergistic roles,” “globally dynamic cultural processes,” and so forth. This rhetorical tactic leads to the most remarkable sentence in the entire essay:
… other than infertility, it’s difficult to imagine a social or healthcare context in which gamete type or production matters much at all.
“Gamete type or production” refers to sex as standardly understood by biologists. Fuentes and Lents do absolutely nothing to dislodge the equation of “male” with “small-gamete producer,” and similarly for “female” and “large-gamete producer.” Indeed, Lents endorses (for the most part) this equation in his book, and in Fuentes’s Sex is a Spectrum he appears to fleetingly endorse it at one point. So the quoted sentence could be written more perspicuously:
… other than infertility, it’s difficult to imagine a social or healthcare context in which being male or female matters much at all.
It really isn’t difficult to imagine!
Alex is a professor of philosophy (at MIT) and a lot of the article is written in a philosophical way, showing conclusiont that don’t follow from premises and so on. The upshot is the same, the arguments against a sex binary don’t work. Will this pack of the benighted admit they’re wrong? Hell no, for they’re doing this for ideological rather than scientific reasons. Nor will they ever engage their critics; they make the same arguments over and over and over and over and over and over again. . . .
A copy of the first Superman issue, unearthed by three brothers cleaning out their late mother’s attic, netted $9.12 million this month at a Texas auction house which says it is the most expensive comic book ever sold.
The brothers discovered the comic book in a cardboard box beneath layers of brittle newspapers, dust and cobwebs in their deceased mother’s San Francisco home last year, alongside a handful of other rare comics that she and her sibling had collected on the cusp of World War II.
She had told her children she had a valuable comic book collection hidden away, but they had never seen it until they put her house up for sale and decided to comb through her belongings for heirlooms, said Lon Allen, vice president of comics at Heritage Auctions. The brothers uncovered the box of comics and sent a message to the auction company, leading Allen to fly out to San Francisco earlier this year to inspect their copy of “Superman No. 1″ and show it to other experts for appraisal.
“It was just in an attic, sitting in a box, could have easily been thrown away, could’ve easily been destroyed in a thousand different ways,” Allen said. “A lot of people got excited because it’s just every factor in collecting that you could possibly want all rolled into one.”
Here’s a video showing the comic:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Szaron are nice and cozy in bed, and contemplating the future.
Hili: What lies ahead?
Szaron: Brew some tea and check the leaves.
In Polish:
Hili: Co ukrywa przyszłość?
Szaron: Powróż sobie z fusów.
This French Jewish girl was gassed to death upon arriving at Auschwitz. She was six years old, and would be 88 today had she lived. https://t.co/Ijz3jmeuqk
And one from the mesmerizing Ziya Tong. The article to which she refers is free here.
“Thiel does not hesitate to name potential Antichrists, including Greta Thunberg, communism, and even tech regulation.” It’s almost like if you were the *actual* antichrist you’d be trying to concoct a red herring. 🤔
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. -Jimi Hendrix, musician, singer, and songwriter (27 Nov 1942-1970)
Hey, a Happy Thanksgiving all ’round! I think here, I’m thankful I can express and write some unpalatable stuff but the crowd here are generally Voltaire and Orwell fans, as am I, so it’s good!
PCC(E), I’ll make a point next year to send some comestibles your way for the day. Meanwhile, the Coynezaa plan proceeds unabated 😁
Oh cool, I found some Hendrix in Stockholm on the Bold As Love recording (goes with our quote of the day!) as offered on a certain music subscription out of Cupertino
I think that the joint statement of the former military and national security congressional men and women was important and showed their selflessness, given the trumpasian attacks on other Members who have stood strong for the Constitution in the past. It is very important for these senior people to remind their relatively junior 18-25 year old current service men and women of the actual rules for a professional fighting force in light of the current administration’s apparent disregard for convention BEFORE they are put in a bad position.
In particular, I look at a genuine hero and public servant, Mark Kelly, a self-made naval aviator, combat vet, test pilot, four-times over an astronaut (as we are reminded flew into orbit on a rocket built by the lowest bidder on a government contract), whose wife lives everyday with the results of real political violence, and now continues to serve the nation as a congressman and am thankful, particularly on this day that our nation has people of his heart, mind, and backbone.
In addition to the generalized fear that the administration may try to further break precedent, and likely the law, in its deployment of military force, the specific unlawful subtext for the former military and intelligence officers is the campaign of air attacks on boats alleged to be carrying drugs in the southern Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
The Trump administration has prepared a legal justification for these attacks, but has refused to share it. Essentially no one outside the administration believes they are legal under either American or international law.
David French, a former U.S. Army lawyer who served in Iraq, details the obligations and duties of military personnel in a recent piece in the NY Times, which I commend to all as required reading on the subject.
“The United States boldly broke with the ancient military custom of swearing loyalty to a leader. Article VI required that American Officers thereafter swear loyalty to our basic law, the Constitution”
Thanks Different Mike: a very nice album of Constitution Corner; don’t let this administration know – it is liable to be bulldozed and turned into a ballroom. I recall a predecessor secDef named Rumsfield referring to the Geneva Convention as “quaint”. There is no level of depravity too outrageous for bullies like we currently have in charge.
Thanks Greg, You are surely correct, but I did not try to justify with things already done for two reasons: 1. There is always a Jack Soo in the house to write a rationalizing memo; and 2. I thought there be no need to because the principle simply stands on its own.
First off, I agree that the video is protected free speech—for all except Mark Kelly. Retired officers never truly again become civilians; we remain subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice and, while it doesn’t happen frequently, can be recalled to active duty to face trial by court-martial for certain offenses. Free speech as practiced by civilians is not allowed by military officers—active or retired. UCMJ Article 88, for instance, might surprise some; contemptuous words about the President, Congress, and basically any senior political leader—federal or state—can land you in a court-martial. But that is not the issue here. Mark Kelly, in invoking his rank and service, has opened himself to legal peril under Article 134, a catch-all article which covers “all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces, all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces . . .”. (Ignore the chatter about sedition.) I think Kelly’s language in the video, while deeply irresponsible, was lawyerly enough to evade conviction but close enough to the line to justify investigation. An otherwise good man and great officer acted foolishly; he let politics distort his judgment.
Regarding the “we’re just reminding young kids to follow the law.” All service members know that “I was just obeying orders” is no defense if the order was not lawful. A young troop knows that he cannot knowingly follow orders to stand guard while the sergeant rapes a villager; a sergeant knows he cannot burn down the village simply because the lieutenant demanded it. An ensign cannot forward classified information to a clearly unauthorized recipient under orders of his ship’s commander. At these ranks, that is the type of judgment regarding legality that servicemembers are expected to show.
Servicemembers are not constitutional scholars. If a presidential order is in question, the leaders in the Pentagon E-Ring and at the applicable combatant command headquarters will address it. The military’s first line of defense is with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. While he lacks operational command authority, as the President’s top military advisor, he is generally in the loop and would intervene with the President.
But let’s assume the Secretary of War is complicit with the President and bypasses the Chairman in transmitting orders to the field, which would then arrive with the appropriate combatant commander. Our eleven combatant commanders—four-star generals and admirals who exercise operational control over all U.S. military activities—have their own legal staffs to vet any orders. Should legality be in question, each combatant commander has recourse to the President, Secretary of War, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, each other, and—importantly—to Congressional leaders who oversee the Armed Services. No order in question would ever make it down to Johnny Airman, Sergeant Jones, or Lieutenant Smith. By the time an order has made it to those in the field, it has gone through at least two four-stars, their legal staffs, their subordinate three-, two-, and one-stars, and down to a colonel (or Navy equivalent captain, as Mark Kelly is) who has direct responsibility for the weapons and other equipment.
So, sure, go ahead and encourage young troops to doubt that the extensive review process functions properly, to believe that his chain of command is derelict, and that the 18-25-year-old in the field is the nation’s last line of defense against what some claim is, or could be, a tyrannical and unlawful president. If you succeed, you can visit the young troop in long-term confinement, which is where he or she would likely soon be.
“On the other hand, it was unwise for the lawmakers to produce such a video, as no specific unlawful orders are specified. It thus comes off as a swipe against Trump with no substance behind it, and that can’t be good for these Democrats or for their party.”
Well, how about the murder of civilians at sea by the US armed forces? I think that counts as an illegal order, which the trump administration have not rationally defended.
I think the reason why the video does not specify any particular illegal action is because if they did so, then a future prosecution against the lawmakers would hinge on judicial interpretations of whether the bombings were illegal or legal. It was prudent of the lawmakers to not bring up the bombings, since these days you never know how a court will decide something!
E. Slotkin (one of the people in the video) is a representative in my state, and she is pretty awesome! I am proud of her.
I am thankful for this bluegrass group I stumbled on last night, the Brandenberger Family, beautiful to listen to and beautiful to look at. We don’t see many performers today who aren’t all tarted up with bleached blonde hair and glittery eyeshadow and grotesque lips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjBVFwpjEvM&list=RDQjBVFwpjEvM&start_radio=1
Professor Dave Explains whit Seth Andrews mentions the FFRF and Jerry Coyne:
Dave goes on to say that the gamete definition of sex means that a pre-pubescent boy is not male because he is not producing sperm, which is not what the gamete definition of sex says. I’m not sure if he is ignorant or lying.
He also says that the right position on Israel is to be against it from 1948 to the present.
P. Dave is just butt-hurt that a person with a penis, whether pre- or post- pubescent, will with absolute certainty have the Wolffian and non-Mullerian differentiation internally (“body plan” under the definition of sex) that is geared to produce small motile gametes and can’t produce large immobile ones, whether that individual does can or will produce those gametes himself. For their queering ideology to hold together they need for all people’s genitalia to be ambiguous and unpredictive of what’s invisible inside, and of sexedness itself. Since this is common-sense nonsense, they need to fall back on saying, falsely, that we argue that actual gametes are the criterion and we are therefore (falsely!) falsified by contradiction.
This error is useful for them to cultivate. Out of the other side of his mouth the activist will smirk and roll his eyes and say we are much more than just our gametes, and “Have you ever even seen your own gametes to know what kinds you make?” To a woman he will challenge her, “How do you know you make ova? [Which shows he knows she is a woman, by his question!] How do you know I don’t?” Even body plan doesn’t help so much because he will ask, “Well, how do you know I don’t have an egg-making body plan? You haven’t seen my genitalia.” (Although that wouldn’t be such a bad screening criterion for women’s sport and women’s prisons, come to think of it.)
The refutation is that because the derived characteristics of maleness are so binary, we can distinguish clothed adult men from adult women by integrating many characteristics in a single glance, and with that predict with high accuracy what the internal body plans of each will be, and use that information to exclude men from women’s spaces such as all-female short-lists*. The efforts men have to make to pass through even superficial examination are testament to that.
You do have to question why a person makes false arguments with incorrect statements. Merely correcting him won’t suffice. When P. Dave advances gamete views like that and denies the right of Israel to exist as a state, I know both arguments are coming from bad faith.
(* If men want to advance arguments against all-female shortlists on their own demerits I’m all ears.)
I watched about half of it – trying to remember why Dave had ground my gears in the past… but gave him the time of day again…. – in part b/c I respect a Different Mike (still do).
I’m not sure Peter Thiel (weirdo that he is) or the “wealthy class” are the cause of all our problems, however.
On Eric Weinstein – I’ve never understood some of his ideas. He’s clearly quite bright (and smarter than his stupid brother Brett!).
But he is … eccentric.
I mean – isn’t peer review a GOOD thing?
Be these as they are… when Dave mentioned “Palestine” and “genocide” together I was disheartened….
B/c that particular line is the last refuge of people who obviously won’t or can’t listen to the actual evidence.
Wasn’t a waste of time – Dave is no idiot – but not my favorite, for sure.
Best to Leslie and Different Mike,
D.A.
NYC
There are many dogs like him but this one is mine! 🙂
What/why am I happy about Thanksgiving?
Despite being alone… (with aforementioned non-jumping dog)……..which isn’t ideal..
LOTS: To live in the absolutely best time to be a human, to have at least some health, Money, friends and the opportunity to live in these great United States!
Looking down on the Avenue here, as depopulated as always on public holidays.. the weather is nice so I’ll take “Aussie” out in his stroller to the park. And get a McDonalds which we both love!
AND… importantly…I’m happy I have WEIT to read every day!
I am thankful that I am still vertical, that the Dodgers won the World Series, and for dogs. Dogs make everything better. I like ducks and cats, but dogs help the blind, enjoy going on a walk with you, are totally happy when you return home, and always make me smile.
I wish I had that comic book! I also wish that my parents had kept my thousands of baseball cards from the 1960’s. My mother’s sister worked at Topps Chewing Gum in New York City at the time, and when she came to visit—always a treat because she brought freshly-baked New York bagels with her—she also brought me boxes of baseball cards. Boxes of cards. Not boxes of packaged (hard and terrible) flat sticks of powdery gum with a couple of baseball cards inside. No, but literal boxes of raw baseball cards—in packages of 500—that were delivered to Topps before they went into the machines that packaged the cards with the gum. Boxes and boxes and boxes of cards! That’s what my parents discarded when they moved out of my natal home for warmer climes. I would be rich today if I still had those cards!
I am most thankful for my wife of 43 years, and to the remaining family members of my generation, whom I’ve known for even longer than that. My mother is also still kicking at 89–and walking 1.5 miles per day—for which I am also thankful.
Finally, I am thankful for the bunnies that live in our yard—Fluffy, Stripey, and Big—and for the squirrel that lives there as well. The squirrel doesn’t have a name.
David and Norman, I am thankful for your regular and insightful(and sometimes inciteful!) contributions to this site all year. And I am particularly thankful, Norman, that you still have mom and that she is still walking 1.5 miles at 89. Gives me hope.
I am thankful to my wife’s publisher for sending her the latest book proofs two days before Thanksgiving vacation. I am also thankful to the one a few years ago who returned the proofs the week of Christmas. Bless their hearts!
A Happy Thanksgiving to Jerry and all the American WEIT commenters!
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. -Jimi Hendrix, musician, singer, and songwriter (27 Nov 1942-1970)
I was lucky enough to see Hendrix (albeit through an altered state of mind) at the Isle of Wight festival less than 3 weeks before he passed away.
Hey, a Happy Thanksgiving all ’round! I think here, I’m thankful I can express and write some unpalatable stuff but the crowd here are generally Voltaire and Orwell fans, as am I, so it’s good!
PCC(E), I’ll make a point next year to send some comestibles your way for the day. Meanwhile, the Coynezaa plan proceeds unabated 😁
Oh cool, I found some Hendrix in Stockholm on the Bold As Love recording (goes with our quote of the day!) as offered on a certain music subscription out of Cupertino
🎼🎶🎸
PS : theres a typo “Thurday”
I think that the joint statement of the former military and national security congressional men and women was important and showed their selflessness, given the trumpasian attacks on other Members who have stood strong for the Constitution in the past. It is very important for these senior people to remind their relatively junior 18-25 year old current service men and women of the actual rules for a professional fighting force in light of the current administration’s apparent disregard for convention BEFORE they are put in a bad position.
In particular, I look at a genuine hero and public servant, Mark Kelly, a self-made naval aviator, combat vet, test pilot, four-times over an astronaut (as we are reminded flew into orbit on a rocket built by the lowest bidder on a government contract), whose wife lives everyday with the results of real political violence, and now continues to serve the nation as a congressman and am thankful, particularly on this day that our nation has people of his heart, mind, and backbone.
Comment by Greg Mayer
Jim- hear, hear!
In addition to the generalized fear that the administration may try to further break precedent, and likely the law, in its deployment of military force, the specific unlawful subtext for the former military and intelligence officers is the campaign of air attacks on boats alleged to be carrying drugs in the southern Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
The Trump administration has prepared a legal justification for these attacks, but has refused to share it. Essentially no one outside the administration believes they are legal under either American or international law.
David French, a former U.S. Army lawyer who served in Iraq, details the obligations and duties of military personnel in a recent piece in the NY Times, which I commend to all as required reading on the subject.
GCM
This is why there is a “Constitution Corner” at West Point:
https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=59186
Plaque 7 is the “Loyalty to the Constitution” plaque:
https://www.hmdb.org/PhotoFullSize.asp?PhotoID=218661
“The United States boldly broke with the ancient military custom of swearing loyalty to a leader. Article VI required that American Officers thereafter swear loyalty to our basic law, the Constitution”
Thanks Different Mike: a very nice album of Constitution Corner; don’t let this administration know – it is liable to be bulldozed and turned into a ballroom. I recall a predecessor secDef named Rumsfield referring to the Geneva Convention as “quaint”. There is no level of depravity too outrageous for bullies like we currently have in charge.
Thanks Greg, You are surely correct, but I did not try to justify with things already done for two reasons: 1. There is always a Jack Soo in the house to write a rationalizing memo; and 2. I thought there be no need to because the principle simply stands on its own.
Jim,
First off, I agree that the video is protected free speech—for all except Mark Kelly. Retired officers never truly again become civilians; we remain subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice and, while it doesn’t happen frequently, can be recalled to active duty to face trial by court-martial for certain offenses. Free speech as practiced by civilians is not allowed by military officers—active or retired. UCMJ Article 88, for instance, might surprise some; contemptuous words about the President, Congress, and basically any senior political leader—federal or state—can land you in a court-martial. But that is not the issue here. Mark Kelly, in invoking his rank and service, has opened himself to legal peril under Article 134, a catch-all article which covers “all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces, all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces . . .”. (Ignore the chatter about sedition.) I think Kelly’s language in the video, while deeply irresponsible, was lawyerly enough to evade conviction but close enough to the line to justify investigation. An otherwise good man and great officer acted foolishly; he let politics distort his judgment.
Regarding the “we’re just reminding young kids to follow the law.” All service members know that “I was just obeying orders” is no defense if the order was not lawful. A young troop knows that he cannot knowingly follow orders to stand guard while the sergeant rapes a villager; a sergeant knows he cannot burn down the village simply because the lieutenant demanded it. An ensign cannot forward classified information to a clearly unauthorized recipient under orders of his ship’s commander. At these ranks, that is the type of judgment regarding legality that servicemembers are expected to show.
Servicemembers are not constitutional scholars. If a presidential order is in question, the leaders in the Pentagon E-Ring and at the applicable combatant command headquarters will address it. The military’s first line of defense is with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. While he lacks operational command authority, as the President’s top military advisor, he is generally in the loop and would intervene with the President.
But let’s assume the Secretary of War is complicit with the President and bypasses the Chairman in transmitting orders to the field, which would then arrive with the appropriate combatant commander. Our eleven combatant commanders—four-star generals and admirals who exercise operational control over all U.S. military activities—have their own legal staffs to vet any orders. Should legality be in question, each combatant commander has recourse to the President, Secretary of War, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, each other, and—importantly—to Congressional leaders who oversee the Armed Services. No order in question would ever make it down to Johnny Airman, Sergeant Jones, or Lieutenant Smith. By the time an order has made it to those in the field, it has gone through at least two four-stars, their legal staffs, their subordinate three-, two-, and one-stars, and down to a colonel (or Navy equivalent captain, as Mark Kelly is) who has direct responsibility for the weapons and other equipment.
So, sure, go ahead and encourage young troops to doubt that the extensive review process functions properly, to believe that his chain of command is derelict, and that the 18-25-year-old in the field is the nation’s last line of defense against what some claim is, or could be, a tyrannical and unlawful president. If you succeed, you can visit the young troop in long-term confinement, which is where he or she would likely soon be.
“On the other hand, it was unwise for the lawmakers to produce such a video, as no specific unlawful orders are specified. It thus comes off as a swipe against Trump with no substance behind it, and that can’t be good for these Democrats or for their party.”
Well, how about the murder of civilians at sea by the US armed forces? I think that counts as an illegal order, which the trump administration have not rationally defended.
I think the reason why the video does not specify any particular illegal action is because if they did so, then a future prosecution against the lawmakers would hinge on judicial interpretations of whether the bombings were illegal or legal. It was prudent of the lawmakers to not bring up the bombings, since these days you never know how a court will decide something!
E. Slotkin (one of the people in the video) is a representative in my state, and she is pretty awesome! I am proud of her.
“lawmakers”
Which laws did they make?
I am thankful for this bluegrass group I stumbled on last night, the Brandenberger Family, beautiful to listen to and beautiful to look at. We don’t see many performers today who aren’t all tarted up with bleached blonde hair and glittery eyeshadow and grotesque lips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjBVFwpjEvM&list=RDQjBVFwpjEvM&start_radio=1
Need a sedition trial, recall, and try General Flynn!
Professor Dave Explains whit Seth Andrews mentions the FFRF and Jerry Coyne:
Dave goes on to say that the gamete definition of sex means that a pre-pubescent boy is not male because he is not producing sperm, which is not what the gamete definition of sex says. I’m not sure if he is ignorant or lying.
He also says that the right position on Israel is to be against it from 1948 to the present.
P. Dave is just butt-hurt that a person with a penis, whether pre- or post- pubescent, will with absolute certainty have the Wolffian and non-Mullerian differentiation internally (“body plan” under the definition of sex) that is geared to produce small motile gametes and can’t produce large immobile ones, whether that individual does can or will produce those gametes himself. For their queering ideology to hold together they need for all people’s genitalia to be ambiguous and unpredictive of what’s invisible inside, and of sexedness itself. Since this is common-sense nonsense, they need to fall back on saying, falsely, that we argue that actual gametes are the criterion and we are therefore (falsely!) falsified by contradiction.
This error is useful for them to cultivate. Out of the other side of his mouth the activist will smirk and roll his eyes and say we are much more than just our gametes, and “Have you ever even seen your own gametes to know what kinds you make?” To a woman he will challenge her, “How do you know you make ova? [Which shows he knows she is a woman, by his question!] How do you know I don’t?” Even body plan doesn’t help so much because he will ask, “Well, how do you know I don’t have an egg-making body plan? You haven’t seen my genitalia.” (Although that wouldn’t be such a bad screening criterion for women’s sport and women’s prisons, come to think of it.)
The refutation is that because the derived characteristics of maleness are so binary, we can distinguish clothed adult men from adult women by integrating many characteristics in a single glance, and with that predict with high accuracy what the internal body plans of each will be, and use that information to exclude men from women’s spaces such as all-female short-lists*. The efforts men have to make to pass through even superficial examination are testament to that.
You do have to question why a person makes false arguments with incorrect statements. Merely correcting him won’t suffice. When P. Dave advances gamete views like that and denies the right of Israel to exist as a state, I know both arguments are coming from bad faith.
(* If men want to advance arguments against all-female shortlists on their own demerits I’m all ears.)
I watched about half of it – trying to remember why Dave had ground my gears in the past… but gave him the time of day again…. – in part b/c I respect a Different Mike (still do).
I’m not sure Peter Thiel (weirdo that he is) or the “wealthy class” are the cause of all our problems, however.
On Eric Weinstein – I’ve never understood some of his ideas. He’s clearly quite bright (and smarter than his stupid brother Brett!).
But he is … eccentric.
I mean – isn’t peer review a GOOD thing?
Be these as they are… when Dave mentioned “Palestine” and “genocide” together I was disheartened….
B/c that particular line is the last refuge of people who obviously won’t or can’t listen to the actual evidence.
Wasn’t a waste of time – Dave is no idiot – but not my favorite, for sure.
Best to Leslie and Different Mike,
D.A.
NYC
Love the “decoy keyboard” kitten meme. hehehe
Dogs, I’ve found, are easier about the house than cats because dogs can’t jump!
Witness a classic non-jumper here:
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2020/06/10/photos-of-readers-93/
There are many dogs like him but this one is mine! 🙂
What/why am I happy about Thanksgiving?
Despite being alone… (with aforementioned non-jumping dog)……..which isn’t ideal..
LOTS: To live in the absolutely best time to be a human, to have at least some health, Money, friends and the opportunity to live in these great United States!
Looking down on the Avenue here, as depopulated as always on public holidays.. the weather is nice so I’ll take “Aussie” out in his stroller to the park. And get a McDonalds which we both love!
AND… importantly…I’m happy I have WEIT to read every day!
best,
D.A.
NYC
Me, too, about WEIT!
I am thankful that I am still vertical, that the Dodgers won the World Series, and for dogs. Dogs make everything better. I like ducks and cats, but dogs help the blind, enjoy going on a walk with you, are totally happy when you return home, and always make me smile.
I wish I had that comic book! I also wish that my parents had kept my thousands of baseball cards from the 1960’s. My mother’s sister worked at Topps Chewing Gum in New York City at the time, and when she came to visit—always a treat because she brought freshly-baked New York bagels with her—she also brought me boxes of baseball cards. Boxes of cards. Not boxes of packaged (hard and terrible) flat sticks of powdery gum with a couple of baseball cards inside. No, but literal boxes of raw baseball cards—in packages of 500—that were delivered to Topps before they went into the machines that packaged the cards with the gum. Boxes and boxes and boxes of cards! That’s what my parents discarded when they moved out of my natal home for warmer climes. I would be rich today if I still had those cards!
I am most thankful for my wife of 43 years, and to the remaining family members of my generation, whom I’ve known for even longer than that. My mother is also still kicking at 89–and walking 1.5 miles per day—for which I am also thankful.
Finally, I am thankful for the bunnies that live in our yard—Fluffy, Stripey, and Big—and for the squirrel that lives there as well. The squirrel doesn’t have a name.
Happy Thanksgiving to all!
As always, great contribution Norman. Funny how all you boomer guys all have “the baseball card that got away…” stories. 🙂
All the best – if I had a proper Thanksgiving you, your wife…. and the bunnies even would be most welcome here in NYC!
D.A.
David and Norman, I am thankful for your regular and insightful(and sometimes inciteful!) contributions to this site all year. And I am particularly thankful, Norman, that you still have mom and that she is still walking 1.5 miles at 89. Gives me hope.
Happy Thanksgiving to all from Canada (we celebrate Thanksgiving in October).
I am thankful to my wife’s publisher for sending her the latest book proofs two days before Thanksgiving vacation. I am also thankful to the one a few years ago who returned the proofs the week of Christmas. Bless their hearts!
A Happy Thanksgiving to Jerry and all the American WEIT commenters!
Publishers always have a sixth sense about dropping the proofs at the most inconvenient time. And they want them back NOW!
I’m grateful for books and poetry and potatoes, for cats in general and my two in particular, and for WEIT. Among many other things.
Cat fans – North Africa not Egypt…
https://www.cell.com/cell-genomics/fulltext/S2666-979X(25)00355-6
also on the front cover of Science
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aec9283