Welcome to the tail end o’ the week as we move inexorably towards the holidays. It’s Friday, December 12, 2025, and Gingerbread House Day. The Guinness Book of World records gives us the biggest one:
The largest gingerbread house had an internal volume of 1,110.1 m³ (39,201.8 ft³) and was created by Traditions Club (USA) at Traditions Club, Bryan, Texas, USA on 30 November 2013. The house was 18.28 m (60 ft) long, 12.8 m (42 ft) wide and 3.07 m (10.1 ft) tall at its highest point. Visitors to the house were able to meet Santa Claus, in exchange for a donation to St Joseph’s Hospital in order to raise monies to build a new trauma center.
Here’s a video of the giant edible house, made 12 years ago. I wonder if anybody ate it.
It’s also National Ambrosia Day, celebrating the concoction of “pineapple, oranges, miniature marshmallows, and coconut” (yes, my Mom made it), as well as National Poinsettia Day, honoring the red holiday flower that’s native to Mexico and Central America. The scientific name is Euphorbia pulcherrima, and the common name is now being criticized but unlikely to be replaced by a harder-to-pronounce substitute. As Wikipedia reports:
It derives its common English name from Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first United States minister to Mexico, who is credited with introducing the plant to the US in the 1820s; however, there have been recent efforts to rename the flower to its Nahuatl name, “cuetlaxōchitl“, due to Poinsett’s involvement in slavery and the Trail of Tears. [You can read about this issue here.]
Here it is growing in the “wild”:
Da Nooz:
*Trump has started issuing “gold card” visas in which you can buy U.S. residency for a million dollars. (Article archived here.)
The Trump administration debuted a website on Wednesday that opens up applications for a “gold card,” an expedited visa that the federal government plans to provide to people who pay at least $1 million.
To apply for the card, people have to pay a nonrefundable $15,000 processing fee, according to the site. After applicants are vetted and approved by the Department of Homeland Security, they will then have to pay $1 million to “receive U.S. residency in record time” and become lawful permanent residents.
“A $1 million gift upon completion of the individual’s vetting is evidence that the individual will substantially benefit the United States,” the website says. “An individual may also need to pay small, additional fees to the U.S. Department of State depending on his or her circumstances.”
The website also provided a depiction of the card, which features a portrait of President Trump against the backdrop of an American flag and his signature under the words “TRUMP GOLD CARD.”
Businesses can also apply for a “corporate gold card” to sponsor their employees. Firms will owe a $15,000 processing fee and $2 million for each employee approved for the card, according to the site.
The new program has been in the works for months. After previewing the gold card earlier this year, Mr. Trump signed an executive order in September that officially created the program. He has framed it as a way for the government to raise billions of dollars and prioritize the admission of immigrants who would “affirmatively benefit the nation, including successful entrepreneurs, investors, and businessmen and women.”
Some Democrats and immigrant advocates have denounced the program, saying it would unfairly prioritize the admission of wealthy individuals. Some have also questioned the legality of the president’s creation of the program.
Yes, that’s true, but there are some data I’ve found showing that to become a resident of New Zealand without a job, you need at least $5 million NZ, which is about $3. Still, there has to be other ways, otherwise we wouldn’t get other people we want. Do you think Einstein had 3 million bucks when he moved here? Of course, they were clamoring for him and he had a job, so there are indeed other ways. And I haven’t heard that the regular ways—entering the country legally for fear of prosecution, having a useful skill or offer of employment—are gone. There’s just something about Trump and a “gold card” that rubs me the wrong way. On the other hand, I don’t hear people beefing about New Zealand.
*New research claims to have pushed back the origin of humans using fire by seven-fold: from 50,000 years to 400,000 years! But some scientists say the evidence isn’t strong as it’s circumstantial.
The nebulous question of how far back human ancestors conjured fire is deeply intertwined with some of the biggest outstanding mysteries about human evolution. The ability to reliably set fires would have allowed humans to cook food, expanding the range of what they could eat and making meals more digestible. That, in turn, could have supported bigger brains that consumed more energy, catalyzing new social behaviors as humans gathered around campfires.
. . . . The study could spark more debate.
“The authors did an excellent job with their analysis of the Barnham data, but they seem to be stretching the evidence with their claim that this constitutes the ‘earliest evidence of fire making,’” Wil Roebroeks, an archaeologist at Leiden University, said in an email, calling the evidence “circumstantial.”
Ségolène Vandevelde, an archaeologist and adjunct professor at the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi, praised the multidisciplinary approaches the authors used and said the finding was “solid.”
So what’s the evidence? They don’t present it until late in the article:
Despite the fleetingnature of fire, it can leave traces under the right conditions. At the site in Barnham, where artifacts such as heat-shattered flint hand axes were also found, researchers were intrigued by a layer of reddish sediment — a result of iron-rich sediments being heated to produce a mineral called hematite. For four years, they studied it, trying to determine whether it was the result of a wildfire or deliberate human activity.
One of the first questions they asked was whether this was a one-time blaze or something closer to a fireplace that was lit and relit many times.
To deconstruct this question, scientists studied the magnetism of the sediment, which is altered by heating. They conducted modern experiments, to see if they could come up with an estimate of how many heating events might have resulted in the magnetic profile of the sediment — and found that after about a dozen heating events, each one four hours long, their modern samples mimicked the archaeological one.
Then they examined the chemistry of the site — scrutinizing particular chemical compounds left behind. The patterns they found suggested humans had been using these fires.
The last element was small pieces of cracked flint scattered about the site — as well as two bits of pyrite, which can create a spark when struck together. A geological study of the area showed that pyrite was scarce in the local landscape, leading the authors to argue that the inhabitants had carried it there for the specific purpose of making fire.
. . . The oldest accepted evidence of fires purposefullyset are from a Neanderthal site dated to 50,000 years ago in France. That evidence is considered convincing in part because there are chunks of flint showing “microwear traces of having been struck” to create sparks, Roebroeks said. But at Barnham, there are no microwear traces, leaving room for disagreement.
Well, the evidence sounds a bit thin to me, but certainly suggestive and worth publishing. But I’ll have to read the paper, and I will, even though I’m not enough of an expert to vet it properly. But here, read it for yourself:
Click screenshot to read for free:
*Australia has begun its publicized ban on kids under 16 using social media, and they’re serious about it:
A world-first ban on major social media platforms for children under the age of 16 goes into effect in Australia on [last] Wednesday. And regulators, parents and teenagers around the globe are watching closely to see how it plays out.
The law comes after years of concerns that social media platforms can cause addiction, body image issues, depression and other mental health issues for teens, as well as potentially exposing them to bullying or sexual exploitation.
Two Australian teens have already sued to block the law, claiming it violates their rights to political expression. And other critics have raised free speech and privacy concerns.
Still, Denmark and Malaysia are similarly planning to ban young teens from social media. In the United States, some lawmakers and political leaders have also advocated for more restrictive policies. Which begs the question: Could a social media ban for young teens happen here?
“This is a hugely important test case,” said Michael Posner, director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. “If it succeeds … then I think a number of states, a number of governments are going to say, ‘Wow, look what they did in Australia.’”
The Australia law directs a group of popular social media apps, designated as “age-restricted social media platforms,” to verify users’ ages and take steps to remove and block children under 16 starting on December 10. If they don’t, they could face millions of dollars in fines.
The list of affected apps includes Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X and YouTube. Other platforms, such as Roblox and Discord, are not currently subject to the law, although they could be added.
Many of the designated platforms have pushed back, saying they already have steps in place to protect young users. But most say they’ll take steps to block children under 16. Teens who use these platforms won’t face consequences if they flout the ban — for example, by using a VPN to make it appear that they’re accessing the apps from another country.’
I don’t have a dog in this fight not being a teenager and not having grown up with social media. But I suppose as an adult I could survive without it, though I use Facebook more than any other app to connect with people, and I don’t use it much.
Jon Haidt’s explanation and approbation is here. A quote:
Australia has just taken one of the most important steps yet in the global effort to protect children online. Beginning today, children must be at least 16 years old to create a social media account and, in doing so, enter into a contract that hands over their data and exposes them to products designed to maximize engagement. This reform finally corrects two major mistakes made in the early days of the internet: the United States (and then much of the world) set the age of “internet adulthood” to 13, and companies were given no responsibility to verify age at all. As long as a child could type “13,” companies could treat them like adults.
Australia is the first country to correct those mistakes. Under the new policy, children under age 16 can still watch videos, read posts, and look things up online. What changes is that some of the largest companies on earth can no longer form business relationships with young children or use their personal data to keep them hooked on feeds, likes, and alerts. The policy will reduce the social pressure on kids, give parents back their authority, and help restore a healthier childhood. It may feel like a challenge at first, but it will quickly become the new normal. Other countries are already watching. Some have already taken action (including countries as diverse as Malaysia, Canada, Brazil, and Norway).
I still don’t think kids should be allowed to have phones in school, as it distracts from one’s education. It also, as I’ve learned, makes it very easy to cheat using AI.
*The latest Nobel Peace Prize winner, Maria Corina Machado, had to escape from Venezuela, where, as an opposition leader, she’d been hiding, to get to Oslo to receive her prize, She made it, but it wasn’t easy. The WSJ tells the story, and it’s harrowing. It also appears that the Trump Administration helped her in several ways.
Wearing a wig and a disguise, María Corina Machado began her escape from Venezuela on Monday afternoon.
The Venezuelan opposition leader was trying to get to Norway by Wednesday in time to receive the Nobel Peace Prize that she won for challenging Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro. First she had to get from the Caracas suburb where she had been in hiding for a year to a coastal fishing village, where a skiff awaited her.
Over the course of 10 nerve-racking hours, Machado and two people helping her escape hit 10 military checkpoints, avoiding capture each time, before she reached the coast by midnight, said a person close to the operation.
She rested for a few hours, the person said, before the next leg of her journey: a perilous trip across the open Caribbean Sea to Curaçao. She and her two companions set out on a typical wooden fishing skiff at 5 a.m., the person said, with strong winds and choppy seas slowing them down.
She had almost completed an escape that had been in the works for about two months and was carried out by a Venezuelan network that has helped other people flee the country, the person close to the operation said. The group said it made an important call to the U.S. military before they set out to sea, warning American forces in the region of the vessel’s occupants to avoid the kind of airstrike that has hit more than 20 similar vessels in the past three months, killing more than 80 people.
“We coordinated that she was going to leave by a specific area so that they would not blow up the boat,” said the person close to the operation.
The Trump administration was aware of the operation, said people familiar with the matter, but the extent of its involvement was unclear.
The U.S. Navy and the Pentagon declined to comment. Administration officials denied the accuracy of the military contact.
Around the same time of their crossing, a pair of U.S. Navy F-18s flew into the Gulf of Venezuela and spent roughly 40 minutes flying in tight circles near the route that would lead from the coast to Curaçao, according to flight-tracking data. It was the closest incursion of U.S. aircraft into Venezuelan airspace since the U.S. military buildup began in September.
Machado arrived in Curaçao around 3 p.m. Tuesday. She was met by a private contractor who specialized in extractions and was supplied by the Trump administration, the person said. Exhausted by the long trip, Machado checked into a hotel and stayed overnight, the person said.
As the sun rose in Curaçao and as guests began to gather in Oslo, an executive jet provided by a Miami associate took off from the island and headed for the Norwegian capital, after making a stop in Bangor, Maine, the person said. Before boarding the aircraft, Machado recorded a short audio message thanking “so many people…[who] risked their lives” so she could leave Venezuela.
She touched down in Oslo on Wednesday evening.
. . .Her escape was kept so closely held that the Nobel Institute told Norwegian media it didn’t know where she was as the prize ceremony in Oslo began. Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee, told the award ceremony that she had been through “a journey in a situation of extreme danger.”
Machado’s daughter accepted the award on her behalf. “She will be back in Venezuela very soon,” she told the audience, which included U.S. lawmakers, international supporters and foreign leaders.
Below is a 5-minute speech Machado gave in Oslo (at last!). But she’s going back, and that means huge danger for her. (If you want to see part of her daughter’s formal acceptance speech before her mother’s arrival, go here, or hear the full speech, with much applause, here.)
*Finally, illicit contraband, but of a bizarre nature, was dropped by drones into a South Carolina prison yard. Sadly, guards got to it first:
’Twas three weeks before Christmas, and in the prison yard, a drone-dropped package was found by a guard.
With steak, weed and crab legs, and cigarettes for days. And to season it all, a tin of Old Bay.
The illicit meal was dropped into the Lee Correctional Institution prison yard by a drone, the South Carolina Department of Corrections said on the social platform X with the hashtag #ContrabandChristmas.
A photo from the Bishopville prison showed a raw steak still in the grocery store packing, crab legs and Old Bay with side plastic baggies of marijuana and a couple of cartons of cigarettes. The drone was also seized Sunday morning, authorities said.
Prison officials said they are investigating and no arrests have been made.
“I’m guessing the inmates who were expecting the package are crabby,” prisons spokeswoman Chrysti Shain said.
Keeping contraband out of state prisons is a constant battle. People would toss or use a catapult to get packages of cellphones, drugs or other illegal items over the perimeter fence until officials raised the fences and added netting at the top.
People trying to smuggle things behind bars moved on to drones, leaving corrections officials to constantly patrol the prison yard and just outside for the tiny aircraft trying to drop packages.
Just flying a drone near a prison in South Carolina is a misdemeanor crime that carries up to 30 days in jail. Dropping contraband into the prison is a felony that can land someone behind bars for 10 years.
Oh, for crying out loud. It’s the holiday season! Can’t they at least let the prisoners have the steak? Here’s the SC Department of corrections post with a bit of what they consider humor:
🦀 Seems some folks were planning an early holiday Old Bay crab boil and steak dinner along with their marijuana and cigarettes — all dropped by a drone at Lee CI. #ContrabandChristmas #WeAreCorrections pic.twitter.com/abiQzJgN1r
— S.C. Department of Corrections (@SCDCNews) December 8, 2025
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Szaron are keeping a close watch on Andrzej:
Hili: What happened?
Szaron: He went to the kitchen and is sharpening a knife.
In Polish:
Hili: Co się stało?
Szaron: On poszedł do kuchni i ostrzy nóż.
*******************
From Stacy:
From The Language Nerds:
From Cinemma:
Masih and Maria; two brave women:
Yes, we are badass women, and our greatest weapon against dictatorships is our unity.
To our friends: Maduro’s regime is watching you. Put your political differences aside stand with Venezuelan people fighting brutality and demanding dignity + freedom.@MariaCorinaYA https://t.co/9qXLushP2Y
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) December 11, 2025
From Larry the Cat:
On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree. Ate it.
— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) December 1, 2025
From Luana. Yes, they are anecdotes, but it’s a thread and they add up (there are four tweets not shown):
Israeli students @Columbia were called out in class by faculty as occupiers and murderers.
Jewish students were personally degraded as faculty turned the classroom into a kangaroo court, putting Israeli students in particular on trial for their identity in front of their peers.… pic.twitter.com/9ipmHMknPw— Columbia Jewish Alumni Assoc. (@CU_JewishAlumni) December 10, 2025
From Bryan, who added this: “Fhe DIY astronomer below shows a photo comparison with a supernova … that was apparently unexpected … that’s all I know for now – I was hoping I could see it, but it might be too weak… apparently it was observed by others too…” If readers want to explain (the thread is confusing), please weigh in below:
I was in the middle of shooting my narrowband data on this galaxy when the supernova happened so I was probably one of the first people to photograph it! https://t.co/XxcHSdzaCQ pic.twitter.com/QiriuKYiae
— Andrew McCarthy (@AJamesMcCarthy) December 10, 2025
From Malcolm, a beautiful black panther:
Cats move so effortlessly and quietly, just amazing! A masterpiece from nature. pic.twitter.com/4CS2ghPhTC
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) November 18, 2025
One I retweeted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
This French Jewish boy was gassed as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz. He was three years old, and would have been 87 today had he survived. https://t.co/xGL1lCBtk2
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) December 12, 2025
Two from Dr. Cobb. Patterned dinosaurs inferred from fossilized scales.
Excited to announce that my second manuscript, “Fossilised Melanosomes Reveal Colour Patterning in A Sauropod Dinosaur” has been published in @royalsociety.org !! Diplodocus scales are complex and diverse, and it turns out their color patterning was even more so. A 🧵🦕 1/26
— Tess Gallagher (@tessasaurus.bsky.social) 2025-12-10T15:14:24.308Z
For this study, we investigated 4 small patches of Diplodocus skin, originating from the very same Mother's Day Quarry. Our goal was to see if the skin preserved melanosomes, the cellular organelles responsible for creating melanin-based color patterning. 4/26
— Tess Gallagher (@tessasaurus.bsky.social) 2025-12-10T15:17:00.848Z
Click on this screenshot below to read the original paper:
There are additional tweets, too. Go see!
Regarding the supernova: the short video alternates between two photos a week apart of the same galaxy with the same equipment. The supernova is clearly visible in one photo, but not in the one from a week earlier. (This sort of “blink” comparison is a common technique for spotting differences in astronomical images, this is a neat example.)
Thank you – BTW it was from 2023. Seems legit.
I thought it was NOW so I could go LOOK!
.. well, I might – it’s in Ursa Major – but still, I think it requires a telescope…
The galaxy itself you could see as a smudge with decent binoculars on a dark site, but the supernova would have required a telescope. A supernova like this one is visible for a couple of weeks before it has faded too much, so, as you say, since this is from 2023 it is too late to see it.
Thanks Coel. Readers might look up the wikipedia article on this summer of 2023 event ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_2023ixf ), particularly the short paragraph on Discovery and History giving its visual magnitude, which peaked at +10 which is not very bright, certainly not naked eye even in dark, rural skies. And, yes, I agree, that even the entire Pinwheel Galaxy, in which this supernova appeared, (Messier Classification or simply M101) would be visible in a small (4-inch) telescope or large binoculars as a slight fog-like smudge. Backyard astronomy is exciting to me as I think and learn about the science of what I view/discover in the night sky….the images I see are always visually more attractive and exciting in photographs!
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
He who allows oppression, shares the crime. -Erasmus Darwin, physician, scientist, reformer, and poet; grandfather of Charles Darwin (12 Dec 1731-1802)
I wonder whether I would find the Trump Gold Card as distasteful if I could dissociate it from what I disliked about him in the ’80s and ’90s.
Maybe the next venture will be the pre-paid Trump Get Out of Jail Free card.
My understanding is the $5M NZD is the size of investment a wealthy person needs to make in NZ, it doesn’t go to the government. It used to be higher and still is for some types of investment. So, unlike the new Trump card, it’s money directly into the economy, not money to any administration (to go towards paying of the national debt?). Much more acceptable.
I read about the earliest use of fire story and found it interesting. I didn’t read the original article. More interesting than the data, which need more confirmation, it got me thinking that perhaps Homo neanderthalensis used fire before so-called anatomically modern Homo sapiens.
And, it’s amazing how María Corina Machado got out of Venezuela. And she’s going back? I suppose she needs to if she hopes to seize power. But her life is surely at risk. I don’t know if the Trump administration can protect her.
I personally considered emigrating to New Zealand about 25 years ago, and at that time, if you did not have relatives already resident, and if you didn’t have a job qualification that NZ required, then the only other way in was to have sufficient funds to support yourself. At that time I think the requirement was $3m NZ, but the point then was that you were to invest the money in NZ approved stocks and bonds, not hand it over as a payment. The money remained yours, and you would be able to live off the income generated. Trump’s Gold Card seems to be quite different, and I guess is predicated on the assumption that if you can afford to pay the USA $1m, then you probably have enough left over to support yourself.
I think their scheme in NZ is newer. Copied from the Aussies from memory. Which is a problem b/c there’s a big brain drain from NZ to Australia (citizens have basically EU type rights in the other).
NZ’s bar is a bit lower so many (esp Pacific Islanders) would move to NZ, get citizenship 3 years later and then move to Australia.
As an “immigrant sorting device” and revenue generator the money/biz investment route it isn’t a bad one.
I guess you didn’t emigrate Mr. McLachlan. Any regrets?
D.A.
NYC
(former resident of Aust and NZ, now proud American)
David, I fell in love with NZ during a visit 25 years ago, but soon realised that I didn’t qualify on any count. More recently, I’ve been spending about a month every two years on holiday there. I would still emigrate like a shot, but at 78 now I’ll never have the qualifications or the money. Next visit should be February 2027, and I can hardly wait. To me, New Zealand is like Scotland, with better weather!
Cheers,
Colin.
Good luck with that.
No chitl.
I, too, think that teens should be keep off social media and not have smart phones in school. The only way I can see to enforce the social media provision, though, is to make it illegal for teens to own smart phones, which would have to involve penalties. Frankly, the whole thing reeks of Big Brother. It should be the parents’ choice, not the government’s.
Haidt has posted lists of “dumbphones” to get. They basically are throttled in the time-wasting dimensions …😁…. but vary.
The lists might be found via his eXtwitter account or elsewhere…
Parents CAN of course forbid their kids to use smart phones. But in any setting where most other kids are on social media, any effort to stop or prevent your own kid from using smart phones comes at the cost of excluding him from the social life of the peer group. And it also comes at a cost to the parent’s relationship with the kid, since the kid will inevitably be resentful of restrictions that other kids don’t have. Yet another cost is that, in order to ensure the kid doesn’t ‘cheat’ – which is easy – the parent has to adopt an adversarial stance toward the kid, by engaging in surveillance and meting out punishment when cheating is detected… All of this can put a damaging strain on both parents and teens and is at least one reason why many parents who would very like to restrict their kids’ use of phones don’t – the cost is too great.
The upshot is that the only way a parent can prevent their kid from using social media without either the parent or the teen paying any of the above costs is if every OTHER parent in the kid’s greater peer group prevents their kids from using social media, too. And that will only happen if an external authority mandates it.
This is basically a classic collective action problem, which governments are invaluable for solving.
When my son was young, I didn’t give him a cell phone until he could learn to not drop it in the water or smash the screen horsing around. Once he showed me I wouldn’t need to replace it on a weekly basis, he got one. It had the advantage, from my perspective, that I felt I was protecting him from the malign influence of the intertubes.
But before that time came, it was clear I wasn’t protecting him from anything. He didn’t miss a thing. Any kid within sighting distance who had a phone became his friend. Other parents trying the same thing with their kids (not always for the same reasons) found they weren’t protecting their kids either.
This is a tough one. Good arguments all around. In the end, I think it has to fall on the parents’ shoulders. We musr help our kids cope with the world as it is. We brought the kids into this world, and it’s our responsibility to guide them until grown. It’s right there in the contract. Or ought to be.
YMMV
Re banning phones in schools, I don’t see why plausible non-invasive local technical solutions aren’t being tried (AFAIK). Maybe very-sort-range RF jammers.
Did anyone see this John Stossel video about Wikipedia : https://x.com/johnstossel/status/1998429180292452659?s=46
FYI
Fascinating! Thanks for bringing it to our attention.
Wikipedia purports to be neutral. It is not, if the subject is even mildly controversial.
The Trump administration (and others) can probably protect her (María Corina Machado) in Europe and the USA. In Venezuela, I doubt it.
I assume that black panther’s a pet?
Yes, its name is Luna and tons of YouTube content.
😻🐾🐾
The Trump gold card is kinda a scam in that an investment visa category ($5m from memory) has existed for… decades. Many OECD nations have similar schemes.
If my (former) compatriot kangaroos in Australia can make the social media ban work… my hat off to them. Not sure it’ll work but you go, mate!
For Coyennza I’ll send in a picture of my….. ummm.. “cat” (he identifies as a cat at least). Wonder if the editor will buy that one. A mini Australian shepherd, “Aussie” doesn’t pass well as a cat but….
You can find him here: https://x.com/DavidandersonJd
🙂
D.A.
NYC
Trans cats are cats!
“Woof!”
Thank you, WEIT, for the article on the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize which included links to Maria Machado’s daughter reading her mom’s full acceptance speech in the first person and the short presser with Maria Machado the next day hosted by Norway’s prime minister. Mrs. Machado’s history of her country and its recent descent into the current kleptocracy as recounted in her daughter’s presentation seemed eerily prescient for some reason. I urge readers to watch the full speech.
It’s good that all U.S. forces in the area sufficiently “got the word” and did not attack Machado’s boat. (Re: the incredibly easily-identified Iranian passenger Airbus shot down in broad daylight upon take-off by the USS Vincennes in 1988.)
Has she stated a definite position on the U.S. boat attacks/killings, especially the 9/2/25 “double-tap” and on the prospect of a U.S. invasion and its effect on Venezuelan youngsters? (Or is she of the “a few broken eggs” mindset?) It would seem reasonable that any specifics she utters would prudently need to pass Trump’s scrutiny in order to warrant his saintly approbation into the indefinite future. At the same time she surely would not want to say anything at odds with the decision-making reasoning of the Nobel peace prize committee.
(I contemplate the thoughts of the citizens of nearby Grenada, especially those who were around October 1983. Maybe the U.S. media would like to mine a few “human interest” stories there.)
When I was in Granada shortly after the kerfuffle there, many of the ladies in the market were selling “thank you USA” t-shirts.
I fully agree that even true heroes have feet of clay, and that most so-called heroes have not much else. But, the few true ones are beyond price, as examples we each might, on a good day, aspire to become a little bit more like. So far it appears to me that Maria Machado is one of these, despite her generally-despised occupation with its frequent embrace of the lesser evil.
(I expect I have enough realist / cynic cred here to not have this opinion immediately dismissed as just sloppy sentimentality.)
Grenada was a success. They are a stable middle-income country with an elected civilian government ever since the invasion mopped up the Marxists who had mostly killed each other off leading to chaos. I don’t know why you would hold Grenada against the U.S. Methinks you are just grumpy about the Monroe Doctrine.
Since we should try to keep this light-hearted, I offer this Occasional Notes article that appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine two years later:
Cost Containment by a Naval Armada
Authors: James V. Maloney, Jr., M.D., and Keith Reemtsma, M.D.
Published June 27, 1985
N Engl J Med 1985;312:1713-1714
Only a fragment of the Abstract is available free:
So of course closing the med school meant its students would never graduate and practise, because they wouldn’t be able to get into a US medical school to continue their studies. The lifetime healthcare spending they would never drive was worked out in the article as being sufficient to pay for the invasion. (I don’t know if they used a realistic discount rate….)
Also just for (more) fun, here is what AI hallucinated when I Googled a prompt rather than first searching the NEJM Archives:
I love total bullshit!
O brave new world, that has artificial people in it!