Welcome to Thursday, December 4, 2025, and International Cheetah Day, celebrating the only big cat with non-retractable claws. Here are two pictures of a cheetah I took in South Africa in August of 2024:
It’s also Cabernet Franc Day, National Dice Day, National Cookie Day, and Wildlife Conservation Day. Here I’ll show off by giving some more photos of wildlife from my Africa trip:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the December 4 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*The NYT has an full-editorial-board op-ed that’s titled “Don’t trust the Epstein files” on the front page, but then when you click on the headline it becomes “Trump has made the Epstein files a case study in manipulation” (maybe the second title was too long for the front page). The article is archived here.
Given all of the conspiratorial noise about the Jeffrey Epstein story, we understand why some Americans are tempted to look away at this point. Still, it deserves attention because it has become a case study in the ways that President Trump and his aides manipulate the public and abuse power. Even if the Epstein files that the Justice Department must release by Dec. 19 contain no significant revelations about Mr. Trump, the president is already guilty of acting with contempt for the public at nearly every turn in this saga.
If Mr. Trump were any other American president, his personal relationship with Mr. Epstein would be a major scandal on its own. The two were once friends and enjoyed joking about their reputations for chasing women. “He’s a lot of fun to be with,” Mr. Trump said about Mr. Epstein in a 2002 magazine profile. “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
In a crude birthday note to Mr. Epstein in 2003, Mr. Trump apparently signed his name in the place of pubic hair inside a sketch of a naked woman’s body. The note includes the line “may every day be another wonderful secret.”
. . .Once Mr. Trump returned to the presidency, he had the power to do as he had indicated he would and order a broad release of the files. He did not. Instead, his subordinates tried to make it seem as though they were champions of transparency while avoiding the release of new information.
The timeline is damning. In late February, administration officials invited right-wing influencers to the White House and gave them binders of Epstein documents, although some attendees were disappointed that they contained little new information. Two days later, Attorney General Pam Bondi proclaimed that Americans would “get the full Epstein files” with redactions to “protect grand jury information and confidential witnesses.” In March, she spoke publicly about a “truckload” of new evidence that her department had recently received. “Everything’s going to come out to the public,” Ms. Bondi said.
So Trump has gone back and forth on the release of the files, though his hand was forced by Congress, particularly the Republicans. The point of the editorial is that Trump’s waffling is unconscionable, and I agree. But it ends this way:
Now that the same department will be in charge of redacting the documents to protect innocent people, national security and ongoing investigations, Americans should view the product of this review with skepticism. There is every reason to believe that the Trump administration will exploit the process to protect any of its allies named in the files (starting with the president himself) and to embarrass Democrats and other perceived Trump enemies. Congress should be ready to defy Mr. Trump on this subject again and investigate the Justice Department’s handling of the release.
Regardless of how often Mr. Trump himself appears in the files, Americans should not define deviancy down. They should expect more from their presidents, even this one.
The redactors should be independent people, but would be hard to find given that there are security considerations, which means people with a security clearance, which means people affiliated with the administration. But everything the government has in those files, save for redaction to avoid naming names victims or to protect national security (if there is any, and if so why is it there?)—should be released..
*More Trump (we’ll have several items today): he recently had an MRI scan, which is not normal as part of a physical, and indicates that the doctors were concerned about something. However, Trump has kept his health a deep secret since his first election. Now, however, we have some reasons, if not results:
President Trump underwent “advanced imaging” of his abdomen and cardiovascular system for “preventative” reasons, the White House said Monday, one day after the president told reporters that he had “no idea” what body parts his MRI covered during his October physical at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
The president said Sunday that the MRI conducted in October wasn’t for his brain and the results were “perfect,” although he didn’t know what they covered.
“No idea, it was just an MRI,” Mr. Trump said Sunday when asked about what part of the body the test covered. “What part of the body? It wasn’t the brain, because I took a cognitive test and I aced it.”
He also said Sunday he would release the results from his MRI.
“As part of President Donald Jr. Trump’s comprehensive executive physical, advanced imaging was performed because men in his age group benefit from a thorough evaluation of cardiovascular and abdominal health,” reads a letter dated Dec. 1 from Sean Barbabella, physician to the president. “The purpose of this imaging is preventative: to identify issues early, confirm overall health, and ensure he maintains long-term vitality and function.”
Barbabella said the president’s cardiovascular imaging “is perfectly normal,” and his abdominal imaging “is also perfectly normal.”
Here’s Barbabella’s letter (click to enlarge):
But the Daily Beast takes issue with the exam:
Dr. Jonathan Reiner thinks there’s something fishy about President Donald Trump’s medical testing.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday that the president had a “preventative MRI” last month to examine his heart and abdomen.
“There really is no preventative cardiac MRI,” Reiner said during Monday’s episode of CNN News Central. “This is not a standard test for an 80-year-old man to undergo advanced imaging.”
. . . “If you look at his first administration, the president, like most presidents, only underwent one comprehensive physical exam every year, so this comes completely off-cycle,” Reiner said. “Dr. Barbabella, the president’s physician, states that he underwent advanced imaging. Well, what specific advanced imaging did the president have?”
“Was it an MRI, as the president said? Was it a CT? Did he have both? Why not just spell it out?” Reiner continued. “It’s as if a patient came in for a chest X-ray, and then I only told people that the patient underwent simple radiologic imaging.”
The medical analyst pointed out that “preventative” imaging of the abdomen was especially peculiar.
. . . . “This obviously was performed in response to some clinical concern, which is fine. Things happen to people as we all get older, and the president is almost 80,” Reiner said. “So, instead of this kind of evasive, almost laughable kind of note, just spell out what happened.
“I hope the imaging is normal and great; that would be excellent news,” he added. “But this kind of piece-by-piece, drip-by-drip release of information is just concerning.”
Despite his skepticism, Reiner said that the reasoning behind the president’s “lack of candor” over his health is “probably not so nefarious.”
“It’s just best to have the president’s doctor come out, answer a few questions and put the whole mystery to bed, and then we can all move on,” Reiner concluded.
I wouldn’t want anybody to be diagnosed with something serious, and that includes Trump. Still, it’s worrisome how secretive he is about his health. Didn’t he say he’d release his full physical results, incliuding bloodwork, several times? People’s health should be their own private concern–except when it’s someone like the President of the U.S.
*Last night I heard Pete Hegseth excuse the killing of Venezuelans who survived an attack on their boat as being due to “the fog of war”, which confused me. There was no literal fog (there may have been smoke) but that is no excuse since “the fog of war” does not apply to literal fog, either natural or man-made. The NYT points this out, too (article archived here):
As Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spoke on Tuesday about a deadly U.S. military attack on a boat in the Caribbean, he referred to “the fog of war,” a phrase that has been used in war planning for centuries.
“I did not personally see survivors,” he said at a cabinet meeting in the White House, referring to people who were clinging to the boat’s wreckage between two U.S. strikes on Sept. 2. “The thing was on fire. It exploded, there’s fire, there’s smoke.”
“This is called the fog of war,” he added.
Here’s what the term means and why Mr. Hegseth’s remarks matter.
The term has been attributed to Carl von Clausewitz, a Prussian general who wrote an unfinished book called “On War” after fighting wars against Napoleon. The book, published posthumously in 1832, described war as a “realm of uncertainty.”
Although Clausewitz never used the exact term, “fog of war” has come to be used by military experts to describe the often imperfect information that officers and troops must process in the thick of battle.
A commander’s judgment could be clouded by faulty communications or an incorrect weather forecast. A decision made by one side could set off an unpredictable range of reactions by an adversary.
What do military experts make of Hegseth’s comments?
In interviews on Wednesday, experts on defense and military operations said that Mr. Hegseth’s use of the term “fog of war” raised additional questions about the strikes.
“If you say you did not have good visibility of the target, the question would be how did you know it presented a threat and why did you engage it?” said Maj. Gen. Mick Ryan, a retired officer in the Australian Army.
Ethics and laws are supposed to guide decisions made in uncertain conditions, said Ankit Panda, an expert on nuclear proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington research institute. A professional military would also have tools to reduce the metaphorical fog as much as possible, he added.
“It’s not the kind of excuse you would use to absolve a military decision maker from responsibility,” he said.
This really doesn’t add much to the facts we already know: this whole matter stinks. We haven’t been given evidence that the boats are carrying drugs, and there is no need or reason to kill survivors. The boats should be given a chance to surrender before they are incinerated. Although previous administrations have used this kind of obfuscating language, it’s ubiquitous among Trump and his cronies.
*The Times of Israel reports that Israel is now allowing the opening of the Rafah border crossing (between Egypt and southern Gaza) to allow Gazans to go to Egypt if they wish. It had been closed before.
Israel announced on Wednesday that it will reopen the Rafah Border Crossing in the coming days for the exit of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Egypt, though Cairo denied it was coordinating with Jerusalem on renewing operations at the facility.
Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, the Defense Ministry body that oversees the flow of people and goods to and from Gaza, said the move is “in accordance with the ceasefire agreement and the directives of the political leadership.”
COGAT said that Palestinians will be able to leave Gaza via the Rafah Crossing in coordination with Egypt, after Israeli security approval, and under the supervision of a European Union delegation — a mechanism similar to one activated in January.
An Israeli official, who spoke anonymously to the Associated Press to discuss operational plans, said that all Palestinians who want to exit Gaza will be able to exit through Rafah as long as Egypt agrees to receive them, but the crossing won’t be open for people wishing to return to Gaza. The official said the EU still had to make some adjustments to logistics before the crossing could open.
There were no details on when Palestinians who leave Gaza would be able to return to the Strip via the crossing.
An Egyptian official cited by al-Qahera said that any agreement to open the Rafah Crossing will see it open to traffic in both directions, in accordance with US President Donald Trump’s Gaza ceasefire plan.
The first phase of a US-brokered hostage-release ceasefire deal that came into effect in October called for the crossing to be opened for medical evacuations and for travel to and from the Strip.
Israel previously said the crossing would remain shuttered until Hamas fulfills its part in the deal. Hamas has yet to return the bodies of two hostages held in Gaza since October 7, 2023: police Master Sgt. Ran Gvili and Thai national Sudthisak Rinthalak.
Egypt closed the crossing in May of last year but, as the paper said, “was briefly reopened in early 2025 during a short-lived ceasefire.” What is puzzling is that the agreement called for travel to be allowed in both directions from Gaza or from Egypt, but Israel is opening it only from Gaza to Egypt. This may be to prevent the return of terrorists, but Gazans who want to live in their own territory should be able to return, so long as they aren’t terrorist combatants. The good news is that Gazans who need medical treatment in Egypt will be able to do so.
*From the AP’s reliable “oddities section, we hear of a New Zealand man who ate a valuable Fabergé pendant. Now the cops are waiting for it to emerge. Someone’s going to have a nasty job!
Police in New Zealand are waiting for nature to take its course after a man allegedly tried to smuggle a 33,000 New Zealand dollar ($19,000) pendant out of a jewelry store by swallowing it.
The 32-year-old man, who has not been publicly named, is accused of eating an ornate Fabergé octopus pendant at Partridge Jewelers in Auckland on Nov. 28.
Evidence of the alleged theft has yet to emerge, police said Wednesday.
“At the time of his arrest he underwent a medical assessment, and an officer is assigned to constantly monitor the man,” Inspector Grae Anderson said in a statement. “At this stage the pendant has not been recovered.”
The man was arrested inside the store minutes after the alleged theft. He appeared in the Auckland District Court on Nov. 29, where he did not enter a plea on a charge of theft.
The alleged loot was a limited-edition, Fabergé egg pendant inspired by the 1983 James Bond film Octopussy. Central to the film’s plot is a jewel-smuggling operation that involves a fake Fabergé egg.
The store’s website says the egg, only 50 of which have been made, is crafted from gold, painted with green enamel and encrusted with 183 diamonds and two sapphires. The pendant is 8.4 centimeters (3.3 inches) tall and is mounted on a stand.
Ouch! That’s gonna hurt (if it’s in there).
“The egg opens to reveal an 18ct yellow gold octopus nestled inside, adorned with white diamond suckers and black diamond eyes,” an item description said. “The octopus surprise pays homage to the eponymous antagonist at the centre of the Octopussy film.”
Time and digestion will tell if another octopus surprise is forthcoming.
“Given this man is in Police custody, we have a duty of care to continue monitoring him given the circumstances of what has occurred,” Anderson said.
Here’s a video which shows the egg. Will it be recovered? And, if so, who is gonna buy it if it passes out? One thing’s for sure: the guy will have a bucket rather than a toilet in his cell.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili shows she can count!
Hili: You had three walnuts today.
Andrzej: I ate only two.
Hili: Then Szaron must have knocked one onto the floor.
In Polish:
Hili: Zjadłeś dziś trzy włoskie orzechy.
Ja: Nie, zjadłem dwa.
Hili: To znaczy, że Szaron zrzucił jeden orzech na podłogę.
*******************
From Stacy via Obvious Plant:
From Now That’s Wild:
From The English Language Police II: you can find the song here.
From Masih: Iranian women punished for making music or dancing. First, the Google translation:
And here it is for the record: A campaign that perhaps these days fewer men will embrace, but do not doubt that in the future many will say that you women were right… Just like the #آزادىهاى_يواشكى campaign, #چهارشنبههاى_سفيد and #دوربين_ما_اسلحه_ما which many did not take seriously in the early years until the day one of us was killed for the crime of four strands of loose hair… #اتحاد_علیه_آپارتاید_جنسیتی #بدون_زنان_هرگز
And here it is for the record: A campaign that perhaps these days fewer men will embrace, but do not doubt that in the future many will say that you women were right… Just like the #آزادىهاى_يواشكى campaign, #چهارشنبههاى_سفيد and #دوربين_ما_اسلحه_ما which many did not take seriously in the early years until the day one of us was killed for the crime of four strands of loose hair… #اتحاد_علیه_آپارتاید_جنسیتی #بدون_زنان_هرگز
.
درست مثل كارزار #آزادىهاى_يواشكى،#چهارشنبههاى_سفيد و #دوربين_ما_اسلحه_ما كه
خيلى ها در سالهاى نخست جدى نگرفتند تا روزى كه يكى… pic.twitter.com/5n1Ml5dv00— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) December 3, 2025
From Luana, a bizarre article. Colin issued a correction that this isn’t the famous Nature journal itself, but “Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, a journal in the Springer Nature portfolio.”
🚨BREAKING: @Nature has just published one of the most insane papers imaginable. In woke studies, “feminist queer crip theory” leads the pack in terms of derangement.
But Nature has now embraced it, publishing an autoethnographic paper about “crip guts,” “queer stoma pride,” the… pic.twitter.com/MdprVLEMzR
— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) December 1, 2025
From Malcolm; kitty got kissed too much!
— The Cats 𝕏 (@TheCatsX) November 20, 2025
From Luana: family income is of huge importance in getting into an Ivy League colleges, but even if you get in, SATs still predict success more than high-school grades (and should be required for all admissions applications)
Interesting data: conditional on attending Ivy+ colleges, SAT scores still predict elite grad school + employer and getting to top 1%; high school grades basically don’t. pic.twitter.com/UX2cNWlhoR
— Alexander Berger (@albrgr) November 23, 2025
One from my feed; a cheating parrot:
When winning matters more than rules of the gamepic.twitter.com/SycTEB0zH1
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) December 3, 2025
One I posted (Matthew called my attention to the story). There’s a video:
Raccoon invades Virginia liquor store, drinks his fill, and passes out in the bathroom. (It's sobered up and okay now.)www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO2J…Story: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025…
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-12-03T14:06:36.086Z
One I posted from the Auschwitz Memorial:
This French Jewish boy was gassed to death as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz. He was six years old and woiuld be 88 today had he lived.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-12-04T11:50:23.275Z
And another from Matthew. I’d throw an insectivore like a hedgehog in there as a far outgroup to really screw things up.
New post by me on #MITPressReader @mitpress.bsky.social On the 100th anniversary of the #ScopesMonkeyTrialthe ways we depict #evolution can still give an erroneous progressive view (that evolution leads to humans or ‘increased complexity’).thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/is-our-pictu…
— Prosanta Chakrabarty (@prosanta.bsky.social) 2025-12-01T17:56:03.077Z
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Is there any religion whose followers can be pointed to as distinctly more amiable and trustworthy than those of any other? If so, this should be enough. I find the nicest and best people generally profess no religion at all, but are ready to like the best men of all religions. -Samuel Butler, writer (4 Dec 1835-1902)
Also, in Erewhon he has the “Musical Bank” jibe at Christianity. Well worth a read, IMO.
Wonder why the gpa abscissa ends at 4.0. I think that top high school grads have had greater than 4.0 for the past couple of decades as more and more kids take courses classified as advanced, AP, and IB for which they receive a gpa bump of 4.5 or 5.0 for an A.
And of course a nationally normed score is a better predictor across a large population than a locally (isolated) determined one. Dropping sat requirement has always been mishigass.
I will conjecture, based on four decades interacting with admissions personnel at a variety of competitive schools, that they are normalized, as secondary schools scale in a variety of interesting and misleading ways.
I am likely wrong for American context. Having studied in Poland, we had 5 down to 2 official grades in primary and secondary schools, corresponding to A B C D and F. Universities always graded one point lower, that is 4 down to 1. I thought this was an internationally recognized scale for calculating GPA.
So we’ve passed “Trump won’t release the Epstein files, they must be bad for him” and gotten to “We can’t trust Trump to redact the files, he’ll cover his ass.” Frankly, I think the NYT is conspiracy-mongering.
As for Trump’s health, yeah, wouldn’t it be an outrage if he left office and announced that he suddenly had stage four cancer?
Isn’t that the normal way political cover ups go? Fight tooth and nail to keep things hidden and if forced to publish, redact to hell and back.
Of course you cannot trust Trump not to redact information that’s bad for him. You would go through the same stages if the Biden administration had processed Hunter’s laptop “for reasons of national security”.
So when the Epstein files are finished nally released we can just insert Donald J. Trump for all the redacted names. ‘Cause that’s what’s going to happen.
Guess then he shouldn’t redact as much….
I tell you what, dangling but not releasing the MRI is useful to the administration as it distracts from the Epstein files. Epstein is passe’, here is a new scandal!
Epstein: What exactly was preventing the Biden Administration from releasing the files?
Hegseth: Everyone in the press needs to chill with all the speculation stemming from anonymous reports. Admiral Bradley will soon testify to Congress. There will have been many witnesses to the process and much will have been recorded. (If they have signal intelligence that the survivors were communicating with others, if they climbed back in the boat and tried to salvage the drugs, then Bradley will likely say that they were “still in the fight” rather than being helpless and shipwrecked.) Congress could also bring in the outgoing commander of US Southern Command; given that he is leaving his post unexpectedly early, that is reason enough to chat with him. As it stands, people on both sides of the aisle are jumping to conclusions because of their prior disdain (or embrace) of the principals.
I’ll toss out this cliché: initial reports from the battlefield are always wrong.
Investigate and respond to facts.
Dammit, Doug! You keep making sense. And I gotta say, there’s a lot of THAT going on around here at WEIT. Makes me suspicious, it does.
Busted. Yes, it is an organised conspiracy¹ — to force uncomfortable notions of “evidence” and “facts” and “truth” on an unsuspecting public.
. . . . .
¹ But not yet sufficiently vast.
Epstein: What exactly was preventing the Biden Administration from releasing the files?
The simplest answer is it was an open investigation during the Biden administration, and following protocol, files aren’t released to the public while an investigation is ongoing. And even when the verdict came down during the Biden admin., it went to appeal, so the same protocol holds. It’s not a protocol that the Trump administration and his personal lawyer Bondi are apt to follow, but Biden wasn’t running a corrupt DOJ, didn’t tell the DOJ what and what not to investigate, and kept a professional distance from his DOJ as is appropriate.
Maybe I am misremembering, but weren’t there video recordings with the report? If there is video footage where you can see survivors clinging to the wreckage – as I believe the reporting said – then the whole fog of war talk is just smoke and mirrors.
Nacht und Nebel.
There was video, but I prefer to draw conclusions after seeing the whole of the evidence rather than a curated part. There will be available far more video, audio recordings, and other electronic documentation to contextualize that short clip from an hours-long operation. I dropped a late-night comment on the matter the other day, so I’ll link it below and won’t regurgitate it all here. (I haven’t yet digested the outcome of Bradley’s Congressional visit today, but I’m certain to ignore the selective partisan leaks to the press from each side.)
As to the fog of war, I assume you are alluding to Hegseth’s comment since I never raised the issue here. I wouldn’t have spouted it if in Hegseth’s shoes, and I have no desire to excuse him. But as you raised it, I will point out that the “fog of war” involves—in addition to many battlefield-unique elements—the propensity for people to jump to conclusions, make poor decisions, and take inappropriate actions when wrestling with incomplete, inaccurate, or contradictory information. Suffice it to say I have little patience with the “fog” caused by partisanship and media speculation.
The WP did its job bringing the matter to public attention. Congress should investigate in full and resist the urge to prejudge in either direction. At the end of the day, I suspect it will boil down to a judgment call—not the cold-blooded and ruthless illegality of partisan fever dreams. And a reasonable doubt should always accrue to the benefit of the accused. The military will tighten its rules of engagement if they think they found themselves in a gray area that they prefer not to revisit. And Congress should exercise its authority by addressing the larger issue of the entire campaign against alleged drug-running boats.
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2025/12/02/tuesday-hili-dialogue-556/#comment-2168049
The parrot video is great. He won’t tolerate cheating from the other one.
There are examples of previous presidents of the US who were not entirely forthcoming about their ill health.
But have there been presidents who voluntarily left office citing health reasons?
No, but the comparison isn’t good, Chetiya, due to the differential between the pre-internet vs today’s internet environment. Impossible to keep secrets now. In the 60s, 80s, etc — easy.
Except for the dude who died in office…
D.A.
NYC
Four presidents have died (of natural causes) in office. They were William Henry Harrison (1841), Zachary Taylor (1850), Warren Harding (1923) and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1945). FDR was famously replaced by H. Truman who actually won WWII, dropped the atomic bomb (twice), sent American troops to Korea, joined NATO, etc.
I would say Truman ended WWII, he didn’t “win” it. If any leader “won” WWII, that would be Stalin. We in the West are very lucky Hitler was pathologically obsessed with Russia and his desire for Lebensraum.
The fall of Germany is well recognized. The US (under Truman) was part of the winning side (as were the UK, the USSR, and others). In the Pacific theater, it was basically the US vs Japan. Of course, in the Pacific, China (and others) were very opposed to Japan. However, the final victory over Japan was ‘made is the USA’. H. Truman should get the credit.
I know that all of the other news—the Epstein files*, Hegseth’s prevarications, Trump’s health, the Faberge octopus crawling around in that guy’s gut, the non-retractable Cheetah claws—is far more important, but what really captured my attention this morning is this: “queer stoma pride.”
Are you kidding me? At least this nut has enough of her mind left to recognize that she’s a nut and that she needs psychological treatment. If she’s still obsessing over the Irish potato famine—which was very long ago and which she didn’t even experience—it will be a very long road to her recovery.
Good to see that Nature is pushing the boundaries of knowledge forward.
*Perfect name for a TV series.
Hey. I just dug deeper into the article and read her abstract carefully. She is also proposing a new way of knowing called “crip gut knowing.” Good news. A new way of knowing!
Colin Wright and Brad Polumbo do a joint youtube show on the horrors of academic publishing these days. It is pretty funny. Every “paper” crazier than the last.
Best to you Norman,
D.A.
NYC
It’s sort of hopeless Norman. I sent this article in The Atlantic to a senior administrator at my university who is charged with broadening our acceptance and accommodation of students with disabilities.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/01/elite-university-student-accommodation/684946
The article is innocuous. It’s full of the “lived experiences” of administrators at elite universities (not at my university) who can’t deal with the flood of made-up disability identities among their wealthy privileged students (most of whom had no disability in high school).
My correspondent replied that some people who don’t want to accommodate all disabilities are the same people who view universities as “a training and vetting mechanism for the capitalist and corporatist marketplace [where we should] reproduce the (unforgiving?) conditions in the working world.”
At the level of deans and above, more or less everyone seems to think in these terms. Life is a struggle between good and evil (cf. “Coddling…”), capitalism and markets are evil, and the society owes public university administrators as much money as needed to do what they think best (costs be damned). There seems to be little reflection on the source of that public money given to the university (ahem, markets, capitalism, etc.).
Had to look up what a stoma was … had a chat with Copilot about the concept of QSP.
I took a deterministic/indeterministic look at the concept of QSP … and in general, believing that actions are worthy of pride seems a little perverse to me. Having a sense of pride, to me, is succumbing to naive realism. Copilot finished with:
The most insane part was the last line… using imagined stigmatized futures as basis for discourse and of course the gut remembers colonials past.
I hope it is just a pun on the colon-ial past, since the colon was partially removed. Maybe this paper actually contributes to human knowledge as it clarifies what it means to decolonize!
Featuring FBI Special Agents Mouldy and Scummy?
Regarding evolutionary trees….I really like Richard Dawkins’ use of “rivers and tributaries of DNA” to describe speciation (he did this in his book River Out of Eden). The banks of each river or stream represent barriers between species, and one can easily visualize an original river then branching out a different junctures into separate rivers and streams.
Yes, I agree Jeff.
If only we had somebody at WEIT who knew anything about…. say… speciation. 😉
D.A.
NYC
I agree it’s a nice visual. The problem is that in a river system water flows from upper tributaries into lower rivers, and the streams merge with each other. Most of the action is water coming together (not separating).
But in a phylogeny time flows from the past to the present, and genetic lineages diverge from each other. Most of the action is genomes becoming separate from each other (not coming together).
I’ve never liked these evolutionary trees drawn with straight diagonal lines. It always makes it look like the species at either end are more directly linked to the common ancestor, as they have a straight connection, without obvious branches. I much prefer a family tree diagram with horizontal bifurcations, so that all extant species have the same number and pattern of branches from the common ancestor.
Some folks thought that Russiagate would result in Trump 1.0 resigning. Mueller blew up Russiagate. Now we have Epsteingate and Trump 2.0 and similar hopes.
I think the comments of Bradley Edwards (lawyer for Epstein’s victims). Brad Edwards said Trump: “Was very helpful in the information he gave and gave no indication whatsoever that he was involved in anything untoward whatsoever but had good information that checked out and that helped us and that we didn’t have to take a deposition of him.”
We also have a quote from the late Virginia Giuffre via NBC. ‘According to the book, Trump asked Giuffre, who was 16 or 17 at the time, if she babysat. Giuffre said Trump “couldn’t have been friendlier.”‘
In breaking news the egg has been “recovered”.
The college admissions racket should be ended. I am hardly innocent. Basically, the ‘system’ gives the well-connected many advantages. For example, my wife and I hired an admissions consultant (neither we nor the consultant did anything illegal or close to it). In my youth, I saw my boss (who was quite bright) use his very smart staff (not including me) to ‘fix’ his kids college admission essays. I wrote a college admission essay for one kid (she is now a doctor). I helped a different kid get into the US Air Force Academy (she is now a doctor).