There is no evidence for extraterrestrial visitation of Earth, no pickled bodies of extraterrestrials, and no UFOs held by American companies

January 5, 2026 • 9:30 am

A person I know has, for the past year or more, been trying to convince me that Earth has been visited by UFOs, and that, indeed, some of those spacecraft have been captured along with the bodies of the piloting extraterrestrials. Her claim is that the bodies and the spaceships (presumably crashed) have been given to private companies by the government, and the craft are being reverse-engineered to suss out the technology behind the “UFOs”.  Further, the bodies of the pilots (bipedal like us, I’m told) are being examined to see what kind of life they represent.  As to why this is all being kept secret, I’m informed that there are important security considerations. But I’m not told which considerations are important enough to keep this  huge story secret.

I have read a lot of the information sent to me supposedly supporting this claim, and ultimately it all comes down to the assertions of one David Grusch, who relies on documents he can’t show people and hearsay that he can’t reveal given by others who supposedly have seen the extraterrestrials and their craft. It’s instructive to look up Grusch on Wikipedia, where you read stuff like this:

David Grusch is a former United States Air Force (USAF) officer and intelligence official who has claimed that the U.S. federal government, in collaboration with private aerospace companies, has highly secretive special access programs involved in the recovery and reverse engineering of “non-human” spacecraft and their dead pilots, and that people have been threatened and killed in order to conceal these programs. Grusch further claims to have viewed documents reporting a spacecraft of alien origin had been recovered by Benito Mussolini’s government in 1933 and procured by the U.S. in 1944 or 1945 with the assistance of the Vatican and the Five Eyes alliance.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) have both denied Grusch’s claims, stating there are no such programs and that extraterrestrial life has yet to be discovered. No evidence supporting Grusch’s UFO claims has been presented and they have been dismissed by multiple, independent experts.

Grusch also appears in an infamous 2½-hour hearing by the House Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs on “Unidentified and Anomalous Phenomena, or UAPs”. I’ve put it below. The hearing starts at 18:00, several True Believers gives testimony, and Grusch first appears at 46:45 and also later (I have not listened to the whole thing today). Note that AOC is on the subcommittee.

More from Wikipedia, including about this hearing:

On June 5, 2023, independent journalists Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal provided a story detailing Grusch’s claims of a UFO coverup by the government to The Debrief, a website that describes itself as “self-funded” and specializing in “frontier science”.  The New York Times and Politico declined to publish the story, while The Washington Post was taking more time to conduct fact-checking than Kean and Blumenthal felt could be afforded because, according to Kean, “people on the internet were spreading stories, Dave was getting harassing phone calls, and we felt the only way to protect him was to get the story out”.According to Kean, she vetted Grusch by interviewing Karl Nell, a retired Army colonel who was also on the UFO task force, and “Jonathan Grey” (a pseudonym) whom Kean described as “a current U.S. intelligence official at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC)”. Kean wrote that Nell called Grusch “beyond reproach” and that both Nell and “Grey” supported Grusch’s claim about a secret UFO retrieval and reverse engineering program.

Grusch claims that the U.S. federal government maintains a highly secretive UFO retrieval program and possesses multiple spacecraft of what he calls “non-human” origin as well as corpses of deceased pilots. He also claims there is “substantive evidence that white-collar crime” took place to conceal UFO programs and that he had interviewed officials who said that people had been killed to conceal the programs.

Grusch elaborated on his claims in a subsequent interview with the French newspaper Le Parisien on June 7. He said that UFOs could be coming from extra dimensions; that he had spoken with intelligence officials whom the U.S. military had briefed on “football-field” sized crafts; that the U.S. government transferred some crashed UFOs to a defense contractor; and that there was “malevolent activity” by UFOs.

During a July 26, 2023, Congressional hearing, Grusch said that he “was informed in the course of my official duties of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program to which I was denied access”and that he believed that the U.S. government was in possession of UAP based on his interviews with 40 witnesses over four years. He claimed in response to Congressional questions that the U.S. has retrieved what he terms “non-human ‘biologics'” from the crafts and that this “was the assessment of people with direct knowledge on the [UAP] program I talked to, that are currently still on the program”.  When Representative Tim Burchett asked him if he had “personal knowledge of people who’ve been harmed or injured in efforts to cover up or conceal” the government’s possession of “extraterrestrial technology”, Grusch said yes, but that he was not able to provide details except within a SCIF (Sensitive compartmented information facility).

So it’s not just the government that knows this stuff, but private companies, who apparently retain for study the craft and jars of pickled aliens, or “biologics.” (It may be relevant that Grusch has a history of mental disorders, for which he’s been committed twice to institutions.)  At any rate, you can see above that not just Grusch, but also two other people who have had respectable military or government jobs, testify to the credibility of extraterrestrial craft.

The hearing itself, with all three witnesses swearing to tell the truth, has been presented to me as giving credibility of the witnesses’ stories. To me all that means is that three people believe in UFOs and extraterrestrials, and yet fail to present convincing evidence. I have no objections to a hearing, because if there were credible evidence of this stuff, the government would like to know about it. So would the rest of us, especially biologists and physicists.

Both the government and other experts who aren’t True Believers have heard the verbal evidence, but for some reason material evidence never surfaces. I’ll revert to Wikipedia for the last time:

Grusch’s assertions are primarily based on alleged documents and his claimed conversations, rather than testable evidence. Claims that the government is engaged in a conspiratorial effort to conceal evidence of extraterrestrial visitation to Earth are broadly considered untrue by the majority of the scientific community, because such claims oppose the best currently available expert information.

Joshua Semeter of NASA’s UAP independent study team and professor of electrical and computer engineering with Boston University’s College of Engineering concludes that “without data or material evidence, we are at an impasse on evaluating these claims” and that, “in the long history of claims of extraterrestrial visitors, it is this level of specificity that always seems to be missing”.  Adam Frank, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester, published a critique of the Grusch claims on June 22 with Big Think. Frank writes that he does “not find these claims exciting at all” because they are all “just hearsay” where “a guy says he knows a guy who knows another guy who heard from a guy that the government has alien spaceships”.   [JAC: that’s an apt critique of the claims.] Frank also said of the Grusch account that “it’s an extraordinary claim, and it requires extraordinary evidence, none of which we’re getting”, adding “show me the spaceship”.

Where is the damn spaceship? Where are the bodies of the extraterrestrial pilots?

You can go down the rabbit hole of these claims for days, but all I’ll say is I will remain skeptical until genuine evidence comes to light—and by that I mean production of the “biologics” and their craft.  The failure of proponents to provide such evidence, which is always “kept elsewhere” and is “a secret matter of national security importance”, make me think that what we have here is true conspiracy theory. Again, reporters and skeptics should look at this evidence, but they’ve always come up with bupkes.

When I asked my friend why the greatest news story in the history of humanity has not been broken by mainstream news, I get answers involving extreme secrecy. But give me a break: there existed pickled aliens and spacecraft remains, and none of it has been verified by mainstream news outlets, not in decades? Smells like Pizzagate to me!

Finally, when I’m told that the very testimony of people with decent credentials proves that they’re correct, I respond with this: “Well, there are lots of people with decent credentials who said they have had a personal encounter with Jesus Christ.” Plenty of Americans believe in the literal truth of the divine-Jesus story and have had Jesus Encounter Experiences, despite the lack of evidence—even historical, extra-Biblical evidence for a divine, crucified-and-resurrected Son of God.  These people far outnumber True Believers in UFOs. Should we then take their testimony about Jesus seriously?

I haven’t followed this controversy closely, and perhaps readers, or people like Michael Shermer, have something to say about it. But until I see those pickled aliens, I think it’s more parsimonious to think that their existence is about as likely as that of the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot.

I believe they’re supposed to look something like the picture below. If so, it would be a remarkable example of convergent evolution following two independent origins of life on two different planets.

Peacefyre, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 5, 2026 • 8:15 am

Ec0logist Susan Harrison from UC Davis answered my plea for photos, and her submission today, which is the last in the tank, happens to be her 100th contribution to this site.  Kudos to Dr. Harrison, though she still has a ways to go to match the site record of John Avise.

At any rate, please follow Susan and send in your good wildlife photos. Her text and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Black Rails on a King Tide

“…The size of a sparrow and nearly impossible to see without tremendous effort… Beware confusion… Typically rare even in proper habitat. Incredibly difficult to locate even when vocalizing within mere feet of an observer; stealthily dashes around at the base of dense grass like a ninja.”  — eBird

“One of the most elusive birds in an elusive family… infamously difficult to see…. In some places, bird clubs organize field trips that search specifically for them… during particularly high tides when water levels force these small birds to the edges of marshes.”     —  All About Birds  

“Epic flooding from king tides leaves Marin County roads under water, businesses damaged”  — ABC7 News, Jan. 2, 2026

The new year began for me with the self-imposed challenge of seeing a Black Rail, Laterallus jamaicensis.  Like many other birders, I’d only ever heard one, and even that had not been easy (it entailed kayaking to a delta island where one had been heard by a boat-borne birder). Two factors were in my favor in early 2026:  the near-record high tides of Jan. 2, and the company of conservation biologist Steve Beissinger, who knows all about Black Rails in California.

We spent the morning in China Camp State Park in Marin County, across the Golden Gate from San Francisco, where shallow marshes of pickleweed (Salicornia pacifica) line the western edge of the Bay.  While Steve hadn’t studied Black Rails here, it’s a well-known place to seek them.

Over the course of 90 minutes, we watched as meandering streams and ponds swelled, water puddled on the road and then cascaded over it, and entire marshes disappeared as the shore migrated inland.   Joggers, cyclists, and drivers paused in confusion along the inundated pavement. We later learned this was the region’s highest tide since 1998.

Flooded main road of China Camp State Park:

After some exploring, Steve paused where a low, shrub-lined embankment beside the road offered rails a covered exit ramp from the water:

While we watched the waters rise, Snowy Egrets (Egretta thula) and Great Egrets (Ardea alba) avidly hunted for flood-displaced prey.  We hoped NOT to see a Black Rail in the beak of an egret!

Egrets, mainly Snowy:

Raptors including White-Tailed Kites (Elanus leucurus) took advantage of the hunting opportunity as well (although this particular rat-murderer was seen on my drive home).

White-tailed Kite:

Finally, we saw a rail fly in and dive under the Coyote Bushes (Baccharus pilularis) just in front of us.  It turned out to be a Virginia Rail (Rallus limicola), robin-sized and with a longer and more colorful beak than a Black Rail.

Virginia Rail:

But with further searching under these bushes, we found two tiny, dainty Black Rails, as well as a second Virginia Rail!   All four were foraging within the dense tangle of branches, undisturbed by their human admirers a few feet away. We were very fortunate indeed to get these closeup views.

Black Rails:

One Sora (Porzana carolina), a larger and more swimming-prone rail, circled nearby.

Sora:

Steve and the magic Coyote Bushes:

Monday: Hili dialogue

January 5, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to the first Back To Work Day of the year: it’s  January 5, 2026, and National Bird Day. So here’s a beautiful Crimson Rosella (Platycercus elegans) from reader Scott Ritchie of Cairns Australia:

It’s also George Washington Carver Day (he died on this day in 1943), National Keto Day, and, better, National Whipped Cream Day.

You may remember Carver’s work developing new uses for peanuts and sweet potatoes, which made him famous. But he did much more than that, including furthering agricultural education and popularizing science . Here he is in the lab, though he shouldn’t be using his mouth with chemicals!

Apparently readers’ cats don’t conform to the new scientific report showing that cats generally sleep on their left sides. The poll (with disappointingly small participation):

I have heard from other readers as well, and so far the anecdotal evidence i have for cats sleeping mostly on their left sides (2/3 of them, according to the paper) is nil.  I should do my own study!

Speaking of cats, Matthew just sent me this video of a man (apparently a soldier who’s been assigned elsewhere) greeting his cat upon coming home. WARNING: Loud screeching!

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the January 5 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*If wishes were horses, I would ride a horse into Venezuela and conduct monitored democratic elections as soon as possible. Trump saying the we’re going to take over and run Venezuela is a statement that distresses me. We got rid of Maduro, now let the Venezuelans enact their own democracy. Sadly, Trump seems to be courting dubious characters in the Maduro regime, notably Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, who was part of that corrupt regime.  Venezuela already has a good candidate, Nobel Peace Laureate María Corina Machado, who was forbidden to run because she would have won. But Trump doesn’t like her, and so we won’t back her.  Alternatively, Edmundo Gonzalez, allied with Machado, may have actually won the last election. But who gives a rat’s patootie about who Trump likes: Venezuela’s future should be in the hands of Venezuela, with perhaps the exception that new elections should be monitored by international observers.

Yesterday’s NYT singles out the problem with the U.S. “running” Venezuela:

President Trump’s declaration on Saturday that the United States planned to “run” Venezuela for an unspecified period, issuing orders to its government and exploiting its vast oil reserves, plunged the United States into a risky new era in which it will seek economic and political dominance over a nation of roughly 30 million people.

Speaking at his Mar-a-Lago private club just hours after Nicolás Maduro, the leader of Venezuela, and his wife were seized from their bedroom by U.S. forces, Mr. Trump told reporters that Delcy Rodríguez, who served as Mr. Maduro’s vice president, would hold power in Venezuela as long as she “does what we want.”

Ms. Rodríguez, however, showed little public interest in doing the Americans’ bidding. In a national address, she accused Washington of invading her country under false pretenses and asserted that Mr. Maduro was still Venezuela’s head of state. “What is being done to Venezuela is a barbarity,” she said.

Mr. Trump and his top national security advisers carefully avoided describing their plans for Venezuela as an occupation, akin to what the United States did after defeating Japan, or toppling Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Instead, they vaguely sketched out an arrangement similar to a guardianship: The United States will provide a vision for how Venezuela should be run and will expect the interim government to carry that out in a transition period, under the threat of further military intervention.

Even after Ms. Rodríguez contradicted Mr. Trump, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and national security adviser, said he was withholding judgment.

“We’re going to make decisions based on their actions and their deeds in the days and weeks to come,” he said in an interview with The New York Times. “We think they’re going to have some unique and historic opportunities to do a great service for the country, and we hope that they’ll accept that opportunity.”

Mr. Trump suggested on Saturday that while there were no American troops on the ground now, there would be a “second wave” of military action if the United States ran into resistance, either on the ground or from Venezuelan government officials.

It’s time to plan elections, allowing a reasonable time period for campaigning, and then get the hell out of Venezuela. Rodriguez is a bad actor and I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t win, but if, in a fair and monitored election, she did, well, that would be the doing of the Venezuelan people. But who runs the railroad in the meantime? Good question, but I”d prefer Machado or Gonzalez over Rodriguez.

*The WSJ emphasizes this too, in a piece called “Venezuela’s new leader is a hardline socialist like Maduro.”

Venezuela’s new leader is a socialist true believer who helped Nicolás Maduro maintain his grip on power for more than a decade as the country’s economy crumbled.

Now, President Trump is counting on leftist Delcy Rodríguez—Maduro’s vice president who became the country’s de facto leader on Saturday—to work with the U.S. as it, in Trump’s words, begins to run Venezuela.

In doing so, he is leaving Maduro’s regime intact and choosing one of the deposed leader’s confidants over Maria Corina Machado, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning opposition leader and right-wing supporter of Trump.

At his news conference Saturday, Trump said that Rodríguez had a long conversation with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Trump said that as Venezuela’s new de facto leader, she agreed to do whatever the U.S. needed done.

“She, I think, was quite gracious, but she really doesn’t have a choice,” Trump said. “She is essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again. Very simple.”

Hours after Trump’s news conference, Rodríguez took a radically different tone, slamming the U.S. for its attack on Venezuelan military facilities as special forces soldiers snatched Maduro and swept him off to the U.S. She demanded the U.S. return Maduro, calling him Venezuela’s rightful president.

“Never again will we be slaves, never again will we be a colony of any empire,” she said, flanked by senior officials from Maduro’s government. “We’re ready to defend Venezuela.”

The fate of the Maduro regime’s remnants now lies in which path Rodríguez takes—the way of defiance against Trump, or working with his administration to stay in power.

Rodríguez, a 56-year-old lawyer by training, has been described by former colleagues and U.S. officials as a ruthlessly ambitious and Machiavellian political operative. For the last decade, she has held a number of key positions as she climbed her way to the top of Maduro’s authoritarian regime.

She worked hand-in-glove with her brother, Jorge Rodríguez, a trained psychiatrist who now presides over Venezuela’s Congress. Both are considered to be among Maduro’s most loyal lieutenants.

“They are very, very manipulative,” said Andrés Izarra, a former minister under Maduro who now lives in exile after breaking with the regime. “I think they will maneuver to stay in power as long as they can.”

It is bad news for Venezuela’s opposition leader, Machado, who has been a strong supporter of the Trump administration’s campaign against Maduro. Machado had hoped that Maduro’s downfall would usher the opposition into power. But on Saturday, Trump said that while Machado is a “very nice woman,” she doesn’t have the support or respect inside Venezuela to govern.

Trump, slowly but surely, is replacing one dictator with another, and marginalizing Machado. Trump is an idiot.  Former security advisor Eliott Abrams has an article in the Free Press called, “Mr. President: Let the Venezuelan people run Venezuela“, and I’ll give on excerpt:

But now what? Again, the answer should be easy: The United States should be backing Venezuela’s democratic parties. They united last year under María Corina Machado as their candidate for president, and she would have won the election. When Maduro barred her from running, they united under retired career diplomat Edmundo González as a substitute candidate. Though he was almost unknown in Venezuela, he won a huge landslide because Machado backed him, and because he represented a return to democracy. The unity and effectiveness of the opposition last year were remarkable as it fought an election under the worst circumstances—with the danger of arrest, exile, or worse constantly present, with rallies broken up violently, with no access to state media. Its victory is both a tribute to the opposition leadership and a measure of what Venezuelans want.

But President Trump seems much more concerned with Venezuelan oil than Venezuelan democracy. In his press conference he went out of his way to belittle Machado, stating that she lacked the necessary “respect” from Venezuelans to govern. There is simply no basis for that judgment (or prejudice) given the election results, her courage in remaining in hiding in Venezuela month after month, and now her receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Sounds good to me.  In the meantime, I read in this morning’s news that Trump is making noises about invading GREENLAND. I thought he had given up on that stupid idea. That would be an invasion of Europe, and it could not stand.

*Over at the Free Press, writer Charles Lane is hard on Zohran Mamdani in an essay called “Things worth remembering: Orwell saw this coming“. I’m a sucker for all things Orwell, so here are some excerpts. He’s discussing Orwell’s book The Road to Wigan Pier, in which Orwell lived among impoverished British coal miners and gave a horrifying view of their lives:

This humbling encounter with the actual working class, as opposed to the abstract one of socialist theory, inspired Orwell to reflect on the cultural gap between workers and the progressives who claim to speak for them. Though a committed socialist, he was compelled to train his formidable polemical powers on fellow leftists. This section of The Road to Wigan Pier makes the book unforgettable—and uncannily relevant to the era of Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani:

We have reached a stage when the very word Socialism calls up, on the one hand, a picture of aeroplanes, tractors, and huge glittering factories of glass and concrete; on the other, a picture of vegetarians with wilting beards, of Bolshevik commissars (half gangster, half gramophone), of earnest ladies in sandals, shock-headed Marxists chewing polysyllables, escaped Quakers, birth-control fanatics, and Labour Party backstairs-crawlers. Socialism, at least in this island, does not smell any longer of revolution and the overthrow of tyrants; it smells of crankishness, machine-worship, and the stupid cult of Russia. Unless you can remove that smell, and very rapidly, Fascism may win.

There’s no precise analogy between the British socialists of Orwell’s day and contemporary U.S. woke progressives. Yet it’s close: If you substitute “electric cars” for “aeroplanes,” “trans kids” for “birth control,” and “Free Palestine” for “the stupid cult of Russia,” Orwell could be writing about academics in the Bay Area or Mamdani’s fan base in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Substitute “MAGA” for “fascism” and the parallels are even clearer.

Writing in the era of the Popular Front—the no-enemies-on-the-left anti-fascist alliance of Stalinists and Democratic Socialists—Orwell was that rare progressive intellectual willing to admit that his own side’s cultural cluelessness was driving workers into the far right’s arms.

. . .What workers really want, Orwell argued, is “present society with the worst abuses left out, and with interest centering round the same things as at present—family life, the pub, football, and local politics.” Meanwhile, a typical socialist is “a prim little man with a white-collar job, and, above all . . . a social position which he has no intention of forfeiting.”

It’s fair to say that George Orwell would have despised Zohran Mamdani. During the campaign, when he was not out stumping for a rent freeze, free bus rides, or decriminalizing “sex work,” New York’s new mayor could be found dining at Manhattan’s pricey Omen Azen. His 2025 wedding celebrations included a three-day bash at his family’s secure compound in Uganda. Yet today, many Democratic progressives have happily, eagerly anointed him as their new leader.

In hindsight, it seems, The Road to Wigan Pier’s plea for self-awareness on the left was destined to become a literary classic—but politically futile.

Mamdani is what one of my friends used to call his wife: a “Nieman-Marxist,” saying that she thinks to the left but shops to the right.

*While we’re bashing Mamdani (you may like him, and so be it), have a read at this peach at The Dispatch written by editor Jonah Goldberg: “Collectivism warmed over” (article archived here):

Dear Reader (including those of you still hung over from celebrating Public Domain Day),

“We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism,” declared Zohran Mamdani in his inaugural address as mayor of New York City on Thursday.

To paraphrase Theodore White’s quip about Barry Goldwater, it was a real “My God, he’s going to govern as Zohran Mamdani!” moment.

For young people who barely know who Goldwater (never mind Theodore White) was, the reference is probably lost. The same historical ignorance probably explains why some were surprised by all the fuss over the word “collectivism.”

“Collectivism” and its sibling, “collectivization,” are trigger words for, well, people like me. In the academic and philosophical literature, “collectivism” is the blanket analytical term for certainly most and arguably all forms of totalitarian ideology.

. . .When I first heard Mamdani refer to the “warmth of collectivism,” I immediately thought of Anne Applebaum’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag: A History. In one scene, she describes how a slave-laborer fell in the snow from exhaustion. The other slaves—and they were slaves, owned by the state, as Chamberlin would put it—rushed to strip the fallen man’s clothes and belongings. The dying man’s last words were, “It’s so cold.”

Collectivization under Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” led to millions more Chinese famine deaths from 1959 to 1961—from a lowball estimate of 20 million to a high of 45 million.

Now, I don’t for a moment think Mamdani has anything like that in mind. Moreover, even if he did, nothing like that can be orchestrated from New York’s City Hall.

But here is what I do think is interesting and worrisome about his use of the term “collectivism.” I can only think of three possibilities for it: 1) Mamdani is ignorant of the term’s historically grounded connotation, 2) he knows it and doesn’t care, or 3) he knows it and does care.

Under the second and third options, he could be trying to reclaim the positive connotation of collectivism—a connotation it has not had for at least a century. Or he could be trying to troll people—like me—into attacking him and overreacting to a word his fans have no problem with.

I suppose there’s a fourth possibility. He has a bad speechwriter—or is one—and just made a stupid, lazy mistake. After all, he could have used “community,” “communal,” “solidarity,” “cooperation,” “shared sacrifice,” or some such treacle.

But this mistake is essentially no different than ignorance. That it didn’t stand out to him is a form of ignorance. After all, if the draft referred to the warmth of “Stalinism” or “National Socialism,” Mamdani would certainly have said, “Whoa, we can’t say that. Let’s talk about the ‘warmth of community’ instead.”

I don’t like the “collectivism” quote for precisely the same reasons as Goldberg, and it’s clear I’m not a fan of Mamdani, who, if he were a native-born American, would be moving upwards towards the Presidency, with the help of “progressive” Democrats who found “great joy” in Kamala Harris.  The Democrats, it seems, have become unable to recognize a good candidate if it was put in front of them.

*I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the unrest in Iran is growing, and the regime may well be in danger. The bad news is that Trump is threatening to intervene if Iran attacks protestors, which it’s already doing. Again, we have an internal matter but with Trump is trying to Police the World. Ceiling Cat knows that I am firmly on the side of the Iranian protestors, but we can’t get involved in every country’s problems (Iran’s building nuclear weapons, however, is a different matter.) From NBC News:

Widespread protests have rocked Iran for nearly a week and led to increasing violent clashes with security forces, prompting President Donald Trump to threaten intervention if a crackdown continues.

The protests, which started with economic grievances by shopkeepers in Tehran and quickly spread to remote cities in provinces like Fars and Lorestan, where protesters chanted slogans against the ruling clerics, have raised pointed questions for the country’s leaders about how much support they really enjoy.

Ali Larijani, who serves as the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, alleged Friday without providing evidence that Israel and the U.S. were stoking the escalating demonstrations. And Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said in a post on X that Trump’s threat of intervention makes U.S. bases in the region “legitimate targets.”

Indeed; Trump’s loose lips could lead to the unnecessary deaths of American soldiers.  More:

In a post on Truth Social, Trump had said that if Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue.” He did not specify what this would mean.

Iranian officials attempted to project a united front with ordinary citizens in June, when the Israeli military battered the country in a 12-day war, partly joined by the U.S. military. The war killed more than 1,000 people including top military leaders and nuclear scientists, according to state media, and wreaked havoc on its nuclear facilities.

On Monday, after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump issued a fresh threat to “knock the hell out of” Iran if the Islamic Republic attempts to rebuild its nuclear program or expand its ballistic missile program.

. . .It remains to be seen whether Trump’s threats of intervention will encourage the protesters or lead security forces to hold their fire.

“People could feel slightly more confident and emboldened thinking that the United States might actually be more than rhetorically supportive,” said Vakil of Chatham House. “But I worry that they might be disappointed, not understanding that the United States is very much focused on outcomes and interests that benefit the United States and not really benevolent towards the Iranian people.”

Still, whether the protests expand and continue or are crushed by force like similar protests in 2022 and 2023 — when approximately 500 people were killed and thousands were arrested — will largely depend on the will of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the highest authority in the Islamic Republic, analysts say. He has not spoken publicly about the protests in the past week.

Somebody has to tell Trump to stop talking about kicking the butts of other countries. The problem is that the “President” has peopled his staff with toadies and sycophants who dare not say stuff like that.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej wisely answers a tough question from Hili:

Hili: What’s the way to the future?
Andrzej: Through the realm of random happenings.
Hili: And the signs?
Andrzej: Hunger, yearning, curiosity.

In Polish:

Hili: Którędy prowadzi droga do przyszłości?
Ja: Przez krainę przypadkowych zdarzeń.
Hili: A drogowskazy?
Ja: Głód, pożądanie, ciekawość.

 

*******************

From Give Me a Sign:

From Cats Doing Cat Stuff:

From The Language Nerds:

Masih’s back in action trying to help overthrow the Iranian government from afar:

From Luana (translated from the Portuguese):

From Larry, the Number Ten Cat; a rescue of Ceiling Cat!

From Malcolm; a lot of work for about two seconds of art. Still, it’s way cool:

One from my feed. Watch the whole 22 seconds (I reposted it):

One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

Two from Dr. Cobb. First a lovely music/animation video; click on the screenshot to see it:

 

Why did they anonymize the sheep??? (See enlargement below.)

Ok. So. They anonymised the sheep.

— Angry People in Local Newspapers (@apiln.bsky.social) 2026-01-04T13:10:12.423Z

Da sheep:

Neanderthals are Homo sapiens

January 4, 2026 • 12:15 pm

UPDATE:  I can still see the viewable-by-all post of David Hillis; perhaps you have to be on Facebook yourself to read it. Here is the full text:

“Joao Zilhão, an archaeologist at the University of Lisbon, noted, with a trace of sarcasm, that the push to classify Neanderthals as a separate species frequently arises from a reluctance, especially among geneticists, to fully accept them as a geographically distinct, but interbreeding, branch of humanity.”
Exactly. Neanderthals were a geographically distinct population of Homo sapiens, rather than a distinct species. The two populations interbred extensively, and many modern people (including me) have both as ancestors.
If pure Neanderthals were around today, no one would call them a different species, which would be considered highly insulting and racist. Why does the fact that we interbred them to extinction (actually intergradation) change that? Given that much of modern humanity carries Neanderthal genes in their genomes, it is time to stop making this misleading distinction.
Neanderthals are Homo sapiens, too.
***********************************************

For a long time I’ve maintained that Neanderthals, which most anthropologists seem to think are a species different from Homo sapiens, in fact constituted a population that was H. sapiens. That, at least, is a reasonable conclusion if you use the Biological Species Concept, which defines populations as members of the same species if, when they meet under natural conditions in nature, can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. And we know that’s true of  Neanderthals and “modern” H. sapiens, because we carry some Neanderthal genes (I have some), and that means the two groups hybridized and that the hybrids backcrossed to our ancestors—and were fertile.

The bogus “species” is known to some as Homo neanderthalensis, which I reject. I have no objections, however, to Neanderthals being called a “subspecies,” or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, as a subspecies is just a genetically differentiated population that lacks reproductive barriers from other populations.

The four or five “species” of giraffes that have recently been “recognized” are in fact just like Neanderthals and modern humans: bogus entities said to be “real species”; but in the case of the giraffes they don’t meet in nature so we can’t test their ability to interbreed in the wild. But they can do in zoos (and produce fertile offspring). There is likely only one species of giraffe. You cannot rationally separate species that live in different places by their DNA divergence alone. Those who love to divide up species for any reason whatsoever are known as “splitters.”

I’m glad to see that David Hillis, a widely-respected evolutionary systematist at UT Austin, agrees with me. Here’s his post on Facebook about the topic, prompted by an article in the NYT.

Law professor argues that universities can’t be institutionally neutral

January 4, 2026 • 10:15 am

As we all know by now, American universities are starting to follow the University of Chicago’s Kalven Report, which declares that our school is to be “institutionally neutral.” This means that no moiety of the University—no department, no center, and no official unit—can make an official ideological, moral, or political pronouncement unless it has to do with the mission of our University.  (In reality, such statements, as I note below, are really the purview of  only the University President, not subunits.)

But what is our mission? It’s pretty much outlined in the page on the foundational principles of the University of Chicago.  In short, it combines the usual goals of a university—the promotion, promulgation, and preservation of knowledge, as well as teaching it—with a fierce dedication to preserving free expression.

And it’s the latter, free expression, that institutional neutrality is meant to preserve.  If there were some departmental or university presidential statement, for instance, endorsing Governor Pritzker as a better Presidential candidate than J. D. Vance (I’m looking ahead), that would chill the speech of those favoring Vance. Because the statement is official, it could inhibit the speech of pro-Vance untenured faculty (or even tenured ones) as well as students, who would fear punishment or other sanctions for bucking what’s is an official stand.  The Kalven Report, of course, emphasizes that any member of the University community can speak privately on any issue (we have First-Amendment-ish free speech). And we’re encouraged to speak our minds as individuals. But in fact, the only person who can decide what the University can say publicly about such issues is the University President. (This has been violated in the past, but we try to police it. Because of some violations, President Bob Zimmer issued a clarification of Kalven in 2020, affirming that it applied to all official units of the University.)

One example of a political issue on which the University of Chicago spoke publicly was to favor DACA, as the University believed that its mission would be enhanced by allowing all students to compete for admission (or, if admitted, remain here) regardless of their immigration status. (The “Dreamers” came to America as children and grew up here.) And we have a policy that we do not reveal anything about the immigration status of students, for losing them would make our student body depauperate of diversity. (Yes, “diversity” is a principle of the U of C, too: see our Foundational Principles of Diversity and their codification here), but we are seeking viewpoint and experiential diversity, not ethnic diversity.

The University of Chicago was the first school to officially codify institutional neutrality, but now, according to FIRE, 41 universities have adopted neutrality. That’s still pathetically few: only 1% of the 4,000-odd degree-granting institutions in America.  In contrast, 115 have adopted the Chicago Principles of Free Expression. But the list of Kalven-adopting schools is growing fast, for we’ve seen what happens when universities take gratuitous political stands.

However, Brian Soucek, a law professor at UC Davis, disagrees, claiming that it’s impossible for universities to be neutral.  In his misguided and poorly-written piece at the Wall Street Journal‘s “Education News section”, Soucek  says that “the neutrality so many are touting and pledging is an illusion.” That’s wrong, which becomes clear when you read his argument. Further, he says that “by one estimate, over 150 universities” have adopted the principles of the Kalven report.  He gives no link, and I don’t believe it, because FIRE is punctilious in keeping the list linked above and, as I said, it lists but 41 schools.

I argue that, with the exception of schools like Brigham Young and Catholic University, in which promulgating faith is part of their mission, and schools like West Point and Annapolis, which produce future military officers, all universities should adopt institutional neutrality, for neutrality promotes free speech and free speech promotes learning, teaching, and academic freedom. (I may have missed a few exceptions, but I can’t think of any.)

Click the headline below to read:

So why is it impossible for universities to be truly neutral? Why is neutrality “largely an illusion”?  It may be hard to maintain, and be violated in some schools, but the reason Soucek gives for the “illusory” nature of neutrality (which should apply to many companies, too!) are unconvincing.  I’ll summarize his two main reasons in bold, but indented statements are from the article.

1). Universities sometimes have buildings named after people, expressing admiration for them. And sometimes those names are taken down. Both acts are, says Soucek, political. 

More common are the choices around the names that universities give to their schools, buildings, scholarships and chairs. Schools express something with each of these choices.

At UC Davis, I am lucky to work at King Hall, named after Martin Luther King, Jr., but some neighboring law schools haven’t been so fortunate. UC Berkeley no longer refers to its law school as Boalt Hall, having discovered how grossly anti-Chinese its namesake was. And the first law school in California, once known as UC Hastings, is now UC Law SF—less catchy but no longer associated with the massacre of Native Americans. Renaming efforts may strike some as hopelessly woke, but choosing to keep a name for the sake of tradition, or branding, is no less value laden.

Even the University of Chicago has dealt with this. A few years ago, the university renamed what was formerly its Oriental Institute, partly to avoid the “pejorative connotations” of the word “oriental.” Chicago also quietly gave its Robert A. Millikan chair a new title after other schools had removed Millikan’s name because of his ties to eugenics. In each of these decisions, Chicago, like other universities, did exactly what its former provost, Geoffrey Stone, said universities shouldn’t do: “make a statement about what is morally, politically and socially ‘right’”—and wrong.

Well, sometimes buildings are named after donors, and it may be in the donation papers that the donors’ names must stay on the building.  Renaming the “Oriental Institute,” is not chilling speech, but expressing the faculty’s feeling that the word “Oriental” had bad connotations (thanks, Edward Said). And renaming a chaired professorship in the rush to purge people who had views we considered reprehensible may be something to argue about, but one thing it does not do is chill speech.  There was no official statement about the badness of eugenics (actually, some eugenics is still practiced today, but not in the way it was once conceived). This was simply a renaming. Further, will not see any official statement of our University about eugenics or about prenatal screening for genetic diseases, or aborting genetically defective fetuses. In fact, you will find no official statement in our University about abortion at all.  (I was told that OB-GYN had a big argument about this when the Supreme Court issued its Dobbs decision, and the upshot was that this medical department could not make any official statement about Dobbs.) That was the right decision. I myself opposed Dobbs, but I would not want universities saying so officially.

This stuff about renaming, while you might be able to squeeze a drop of juice out of it, misses the main point, which is not about names but official statements. The latter chill speech; the former almost never do.

2). Universities have different missions, and so even if they adopt neutrality, they will make different exceptions to neutrality. 

Soucek shows that he misunderstands Kalven when he says stuff like this:

The University of Chicago itself has spoken out on any number of politically fraught issues in recent years, from abortion to DACA to Trump’s Muslim ban, which Chicago filed a legal brief to oppose. Some see this as hypocrisy. I see these choices as evidence of what Chicago considers integral to its mission. In its brief, Chicago claimed it “has a global mission,” which is what justified its stance on immigration law. Not every university shares that global mission; some exist to serve their states, their local community or people who share their faith. We’re not all Chicago, and that is OK. We can be pluralists about universities’ distinctive missions.

First, the University of Chicago has not spoken out officially on abortion. If it has, let Soucek give a reference.There are no official statements I know of.  As far as DACA and banning Muslims, those are both conceived of as limiting the pool of students we could have, and that violates the University’s mission.  This is well known, and doesn’t violate Kalven.  Ergo, “having a global mission” was not the justification for our stands on immigration. Those came from seeing our mission to allow qualified faculty and students to form a diverse community regardless of immigration status.

Second, I am baffled by Soucek’s statements that “some universities exist to serve their states and their local community” (serving faith is okay for religious schools and allows Kalven violations, but faith-based universities are inimical to free thought and as an atheist I don’t approve of them). Even a community college or a state school should maintain institutional neutrality as a way to promote free speech.  “Serving your community” can be one mission of a school, but it’s not one that should allow a school to make official pronouncements on morality, ideology, or politics.

Soucek goes on to explain that he taught a “great books” curriculum at three different schools (Chicago, Columbia, and Boston College, with the latter a Jesuit school, but one that encourages free expression).  Again, with the exception of religious and military schools, most universities should share a similar mission, one that I outlined above. And insofar as they do that, they should have institutional neutrality. Because Columbia and Chicago taught great books courses for different missions (they used to, but no longer!) does not mean they should differ in what political/moral/ideological statements they make officially. It is the commonality of missions that lead to a commonality of reasons for neutrality.

In fact, Soucek himself seems to realize that secular schools shouldn’t make Kalven-violating statements, and in a weird paragraph, he endorses neutrality (bolding is mine).

The real question universities need to be asking, then, isn’t whether some statement, policy or investment strategy counts as “political,” especially in a world where nearly every aspect of higher education has become politicized. Instead, I would replace all of the recent committee reports and neutrality pledges with something like this: “The university or its departments should make official statements only when doing so advances their mission.”

The last paragraph is in fact what institutional neutrality is for.

One more confusing paragraph.  What is the sweating professor trying to say here?

Some issues, for some schools, so thoroughly implicate their mission that they need to be addressed no matter how controversial. Catholic University and the University of California were both right to talk about Dobbs, the Supreme Court’s abortion decision, though in opposite ways, and for different reasons.

Maybe Catholic University was okay to talk about Dobbs, as its stated mission is cultivation of Christianity (read Catholicism) for CU says this in its “aims and goals” statement:

As a Catholic university, it desires to cultivate and impart an understanding of the Christian faith within the context of all forms of human inquiry and values. It seeks to ensure, in an institutional manner, the proper intellectual and academic witness to Christian inspiration in individuals and in the community, and to provide a place for continuing reflection, in the light of Christian faith, upon the growing treasure of human knowledge.

But no, it was not okay for the University of California to talk about Dobbs. I don’t know what they said, but if they officially attacked the dismantling of Roe v. Wade, which is what Dobbs did, they would chill speech of those who are opposed to abortion, and members of the University community should have the right to say that without fear of retribution. Again, Soucek seems to misunderstand why Kalven is there, and gives no reason why the University of California should be okay with violating it.

Soucek also seems to think that maintaining silence in the face of a controversy means that you are taking sides–and defining your “mission”. He’s wrong. Have a gander at this:

More recently, when the Trump administration has denied the existence of transgender people and demanded that universities do so as well, so-called neutrality pledges give them nowhere to hide. If universities must speak out about threats to their mission but can’t speak otherwise, every choice about when to speak ends up defining what their mission is. Staying quiet when trans students, faculty and staff are under attack isn’t silence in that case. It is a loud expression that trans rights, and trans people, aren’t relevant to that school’s mission. There is nothing neutral about that.

In the end, Kalven’s loophole ensures that universities will always be saying something—about their mission, if nothing else—even when they maintain the institutional silence the Kalven Report has become so famous for recommending.

The University is not “hiding” about various transgender controversies. Au contraire, it is encouraging discussion about them by refusing to take any official position, which would squelch debate.  A school not saying anything about Trump’s views on trans people does not mean that the University endorses those views. Rather, each person is free to say what they want without fear of retribution from the school.  I, for example, think that Trump is wrong to ban transgender people from the military. Others may feel differently, and that difference leads to the kind of debate that college is about.  Soucek’s big error is to think that by NOT issuing statements, the University is making statements,  That’s the old ‘silence = violence” trope and again shows the authors’s ignorance of Kalven, an ignorance surprising coming from a professor of constitutional law. Soucek seems a bit short on logic.

As one of my colleagues said:

[Soucek] complains that if the university does not speak up against Trump’s statements about trans people, then trans people are not part of the university’s mission.  Well, that seems reasonable to me.  I don’t see that any particular group or identity is the “university’s mission”, no matter how topical.  Individual faculty, students, and staff who research, treat, and advocate for trans people have that mission. But that’s not the university’s mission.

Is that so hard to understand?

Just when I finished this post, Luana sent me this tweet, saying “I hope he means it.” So do I.

Readers’ wildlife video

January 4, 2026 • 8:15 am

Except for a few singletons and small contributions, this is the last readers’ animal contribution I have. Do you want to start the first work week in 2026 without animal photos? I hope not, so please send in your GOOD animal/wildlife photos.  Contributions seem to have slowed to a trickle: a bad portent for 2026.

BUT, Athayde Tonhasca Júnior sent in a YouTube video taken by his wife (Fiona Thackeray), and he adds some text (mostly not his) below.

We have met the enemy and he is us (Pogo the possum) 

A pied wagtail (Motacilla alba) confronts its doppelganger in Perth, UK. Footage by Fiona Thackeray:

For residents of Withycombe (an English village in Somerset), mirror-pecking can be a nuisance:

Love-sick birds have been plaguing a village by pecking and cracking car wing mirrors in the mistaken belief that their reflection is a potential mate. The situation has become so bad that motorists in Withycombe’s main street have taken to making special mittens to protect their mirrors from the onslaughts.

The culprits have been identified as a flock of grey wagtails that live beside the local stream in the West Somerset village. “It all started about two years ago,” said villager Marion Badcock. “We’ve all had to make the special covers in this part of the village near the ford.“If there’s two they don’t seem to bother but the single birds go mad pecking at themselves in the mirror.” She said the wagtails are obsessed by their self-image all year round, but it is “particularly bad now”. “It’s actually very funny to watch them,” she said. “They’ll look at themselves in your wing mirror, then do their business all over it, then fly on to the window ledge of the house to have a go at the glass. It’s as if they are saying ‘look what we’ve done’.”

Peter Exley, of the RSPB in the South West, explained: “Birds in general will do this at this time of year. “It’s all down to hormones. They get very territorial – if they see a reflection in a mirror they see it as an adversary. “The bird says ‘I’m going to see off that intruder in my area’ and then they get very agitated – so much so they can make an unfortunate mess.” He added that mirror attacks are not good for the birds’ stress levels: “Most of these birds don’t pair for life and there’s a whole load of strategies for finding a mate. “And if you’ve got cars parked near a river where grey wagtails are nesting – there’s only going to be one result.” National Biodiversity Network, March 2009.

Sunday: Hili dialogue

January 4, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to the first Sunday of 2026, and Sabbath for goyische cats. It’s January 4, 2025, and National Trivia Day.  Here’s a trivia question: what is the name of my sister’s teddy bear? (Photo below.) Winners get a warm congratulations.

Jerry holding the bear in question.

It’s also Dimpled Chad Day (remember those?), National Spaghetti Day, and World Braille Day. Wikipedia says this about Braille:

It can be read either on embossed paper or by using refreshable braille displays that connect to computers and smartphone devices.

Here’s how it works on a computer:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the January 4 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Another big headline from the NYT (click to read, article archived here):

The “we got him and his oil, too” bit:

President Trump said on Saturday that the United States had captured the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, and was taking him to New York to face criminal charges, the stunning culmination of a monthslong campaign by his administration to oust the authoritarian leader. The United States would “run” the country until a proper transition of power could be arranged, the president said hours later, raising the prospect of an open-ended commitment.

Mr. Trump offered few details about how the United States would oversee Venezuela, saying only that an unspecified “group” would do so. It was not clear whether that would involve an occupying military force, although Mr. Trump said he was not afraid of “boots on the ground.”

Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, had spoken to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and told him she was “essentially willing to do what we think is necessary,” Mr. Trump told reporters during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Florida. But Ms. Rodríguez earlier denounced the U.S. operation on state television, calling it a “brutal attack.”

While Mr. Trump said little about how the United States would be “running” Venezuela, he insisted it “won’t cost us anything” because American oil companies would rebuild the energy infrastructure in Venezuela, which holds vast reserves of oil.

Hours after Mr. Trump announced the military assault that captured Mr. Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, Attorney General Pam Bondi said on social media that they had been indicted on drug and weapons charges and “will soon face the full wrath of American justice.” The charges were similar to those contained in a 2020 indictment that the Trump administration has repeatedly cited in calling Mr. Maduro the head of a “narco-terrorist” state.

American special operations forces captured Mr. Maduro with the help of a C.I.A. source within the Venezuelan government who had monitored his location in recent days, according to people briefed on the operation. Mr. Trump posted an image of Mr. Maduro in custody aboard the U.S.S. Iwo Jima, one of the American warships that have been prowling the Caribbean, and said he and his wife would be taken to New York.

And the method, which includes that big reward:

A C.I.A. source within the Venezuelan government monitored the location of Nicolás Maduro in both the days and moments before his capture by American special operation forces, according to people briefed on the operation.

The American spy agency, the people said, produced the intelligence that led to the capture of Mr. Maduro, monitoring his position and movements with a fleet of stealth drones that provided near constant monitoring over Venezuela, in addition to the information provided by its Venezuelan sources.

The C.I.A. had a group of officers on the ground in Venezuela working clandestinely beginning in August, according to a person familiar with the agency’s work. The officers gathered information about Mr. Maduro’s “pattern of life” and movements.

It is not clear how the C.I.A. recruited the Venezuelan source who informed the Americans of Mr. Maduro’s location. But former officials said the agency was clearly aided by the $50 million reward the U.S. government offered for information leading to Mr. Maduro’s capture.

Well, Maduro is going to die in jail (the chance he’ll be found innocent is about zero, and he’s 63.  How the U.S. is going to “run” Venezuela intrigues me greatly, and we should perhaps just hold elections and leave the rest to the Venezuelans. Maybe they’ll put Maria Corina Machado in charge (she was previously banned from running for office). She’s got to be a happy woman today!

*More details from another NYT report. Like the attack on the Bin Laden compound, the President watched the capture in real time:

President Trump said that he and key members of his administration watched in real time from Mar-a-Lago, his Florida club, the Delta Force raid that captured Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan president.

In a lengthy telephone interview Saturday morning on “Fox & Friends,” Mr. Trump offered some details of the monthslong planning that went into the operation, including the construction of a replica of Mr. Maduro’s safe house, where special operations forces could practice the raid.

Mr. Trump said that the military repeatedly rehearsed the operation and was able to execute flawlessly, breaking through steel doors protecting Mr. Maduro in “a matter of seconds.”

“I watched it literally like I was watching a television show,” the president said, adding, that “it was an amazing thing.”

The capture operation was the product of months of meetings between Mr. Trump; Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also serves as the national security adviser; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth; John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director; and Stephen Miller, one of Mr. Trump’s top aides. The men sometimes gathered as a group but also met or spoke with Mr. Trump one-on-one.

While Mr. Trump did not identify the military team that conducted the raid, other U.S. officials said it was the Army’s Delta Force. “They are the most highly trained soldiers in the world,” the president said.

The Washington Post adds that they got not just Maduro, but his wife as well, who apparently is also facing charges. I wonder what they have on her:

The operation involved more than 150 aircraft, including strike and intelligence assets, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said after Trump’s remarks. “On arrival into the target area, the helicopters came under fire and they replied with that fire with overwhelming force,” Caine added. “One of our aircraft was hit but remained flyable.”

Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, “gave up and were taken into custody” by U.S. forces, Caine said. The couple was removed from the country by helicopter, taken aboard the USS Iwo Jima and will be brought to New York, where both are facing federal charges.

Here is a video of Trump’s announcement, which I’ve started when he enters the room:

And here’s an image Trump published on Truth Social (via the Hindustan Times) of the captured Maduro You can only imagine what’s going through the mind of this blindfolded and handcuffed dictator, who’s now being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

*Reader Jez reports, via the BBC itself, that the Beeb filmed inside an attacked Israeli home without permission, and soon after the October 7 attacks.

The BBC has reached an agreement with an Israeli family who survived the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks, after a team of journalists entered their badly-damaged home without permission.

A BBC News crew, including International Editor Jeremy Bowen, entered the home of an Israeli family on the Gaza border and filmed inside the property in the days after the deadly attacks.

They filmed personal photographs of the family’s children at a time when many of their friends and relatives still didn’t know whether they had survived, the Jewish News reported.

A BBC spokesperson said that while they did not generally comment on specific legal issues they were pleased to have reached an agreement in the case.

Tzeela Horenstein said gunmen threw a grenade at her husband Simon during Hamas’ attack on the village of Netiv HaAsara early in the morning of 7 October.

The couple and their two young children only survived because their home’s door twisted and jammed when the attackers tried to blow it out with explosives, she told the Jewish News, who first reported the story.

She said: “Not only did terrorists break into our home and try to murder us, but then the BBC crew entered again, this time with a camera as a weapon, without permission or consent.

“It was another intrusion into our lives. We felt that everything that was still under our control had been taken from us.”

The Jewish News reported that the corporation paid a financial settlement of £28,000 to the family.

A measly £28,000???? They should have taken the Beeb to court; that’s not nearly enough money to deter this hamhanded organization from its bad behavior.  Jez says this is ” absolutely disgraceful,” and it certainly is.

*NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani revoked all of his predecessor Eric Adams’s executive orders stemming from the time that Adams was indicted for corruption. Those orders included two protections for Jews, but rather than keep them, or reinstate them, Mamdani revoked them tout court, and several Jewish organizations have objected.

Leading Jewish groups, including the two main community organizations in New York, on Friday blasted some of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s first steps in the job, marking a rocky start to the relationship between Mamdani and the Jewish community since he took office a day earlier.

The statement was signed by the UJA-Federation of New York, the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, the Anti-Defamation League’s office covering New York and New Jersey, the American Jewish Committee’s New York office, the New York Board of Rabbis, Agudath Israel of America and the Orthodox Union.

The statement marked an unusually broad front from a swath of prominent Jewish organizations.

“Mayor Mamdani pledged to build an inclusive New York and combat all forms of hate, including antisemitism,” the Jewish groups said in a statement. “But when the new administration hit reset on many of Mayor Adams’ executive orders, it reversed two significant protections against antisemitism: the city’s adoption of IHRA and critical protections against the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against the State of Israel.”

The bit in bold below especially disturbs me. At least Mamdani doesn’t have any power to wipe out Israel, but believe me, he would if he could.  First the IHRA definition of antisemitism that Mamdani deep-sixed:

“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

The IHRA adds that “Manifestations [of antisemitism] might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity.”  In other words, anti-Zionism is a part of antisemitism. That, as you see below, makes Mamdani an antisemite.

Back to the article on Mmdani from the Times of Israel:

. . . . Upon taking office, a New York City mayor must decide to continue or revoke their predecessor’s executive orders.

Adams was a staunch supporter of Israel with deep ties to Jewish communities, while Mamdani is a far-left anti-Zionist who has alarmed many Jews, who fear that his anti-Israel rhetoric and policies will foment hostility against the Jewish community.

The IHRA definition has been adopted by a broad range of national and local governments worldwide as well as other institutions. It has also drawn opposition from those who say its inclusion of some forms of criticism of Israel chills legitimate political speech.

The IHRA definition could have posed a problem for Mamdani because the definition says that denying the Jewish people the right to self-determination is discriminatory. Mamdani has repeatedly refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

Well, Hizzoner the Mayor isn’t an antisemite by New York’s new definition, since he revoked the old one that did make his views antisemitic. What bothers me is that these views reflect the tenor of the “progressive” left, which is so “progressive” that it holds Hamas as morally higher than Israel. As far as I’m concerned, anti-Zionism is antisemitism (for an explanation, see here).

*A kind reader gave me a year’s subscription to The Dispatch, characterized as a center-right but anti-Trump publication that strives for objective news, so I’ll be reprising some pieces from there. The first one is implicitly anti-Administration, as it reports on the return of measles in the U.S., something that you can plausibly attribute to RFK Jr. and his antivax stance.

The holidays are approaching and case counts are surging, but quarantine orders are in full effect, and public health officials warn the spread of disease is ongoing. That’s how many Americans experienced December 2020 during the COVID pandemic, and it’s also how hundreds of people under quarantine—including more than 100 elementary school students—in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, have spent recent weeks as a measles outbreak has continued to grow.

The county is the latest measles hotspot in a year that saw a large outbreak in West Texas—762 cases that included the deaths of two children—and ongoing outbreaks in southern Utah and northern Arizona. The United States has already had its worst year of measles cases in more than three decades. There have been 1,958 confirmed cases as of December 16. The last time case counts reached 2,000 was in 1992. Annual infections have exceeded 1,000 only once in the 33 years between 1992 and 2025—when infections reached 1,274 in 2019.

Measles researchers and epidemiologists predict the virus will continue to spread in transmission chains possibly linked to the West Texas outbreak that began in January. If that occurs, the country could lose measles elimination status—an achievement secured 25 years ago marking the end of uninterrupted measles spread. The status is mainly a technical designation, but its loss would reflect backsliding in the public health fight against one of the most infectious diseases on earth and comes at a time when Trump administration officials are casting doubt on the safety of vaccines and pursuing an overhaul of the childhood immunization schedule.

. . . .Dr. William Moss, an infectious disease epidemiologist and pediatrician at Johns Hopkins University, told The Dispatch that it’s challenging to predict the trajectory of measles cases, but if large outbreaks continue into next year, he said it would look a lot like what we have seen in 2025. He likened the spread to an initial forest fire casting off sparks. “Those sparks are infectious individuals, and they travel to other communities,” he said. “If one of those sparks lands in another community where there’s a larger proportion of unvaccinated or non-immune individuals, then we tend to get this larger outbreak.”

“It’s connectivity between communities and then the relative susceptibility within those communities,” he added.

It’s possible that 2025’s flames could simply burn themselves out, but the greater the size and quantity of the fires, the more likely the country could experience a sustained spread of the disease and spikes among vulnerable clusters of people. While there have only been a handful of large outbreaks in 2025, 43 states have had one or more measles cases, and there have been 49 outbreaks of three or more related cases. Last year, there were only 16 outbreaks, and only 30 states had cases.

. . . . Epidemiologists and researchers warn that endemic spread of measles could possibly return in the coming decades. A modeling study published in the medical journal JAMA earlier this year estimated that the U.S. could experience more than 800,000 measles cases over the next 25 years if current vaccination rates in each state hold constant. Significantly, the study projected that if vaccination rates increased by just 5 percent, there would be fewer than 6,000 cases over the next quarter century.

“Our 2025 JAMA study and recent measles outbreaks have all suggested that the U.S. is on a tipping point for measles returning to becoming commonplace,” Dr. Nathan Lo, a Stanford researcher who co-authored the study, told The Dispatch.

But in the near term, Moss said that widespread transmission throughout the country is unlikely to emerge given the high level of population immunity. “We’re not going to go back yet to where we were in the prevaccine era or in the ’60s and ’70s,” he noted, “but we will probably have more frequent and larger outbreaks.”

One death from measles is one too many, and unless we get all the infants vaccinated, we’re going to have those deaths.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili proves to be a determinist, but Andrzej’s environmental influence could fix this pickle!

Hili: I stepped on my own tail.
Andrzej: Then lift your left paw.
Hili: I can’t, I don’t have free will.

In Polish:

Hili: Przydepnęłam sobie ogonek.
Ja: To podnieś lewą łapkę.
Hili: Nie mogę, nie mam wolnej woli.

*******************

From Now That’s Wild:

From CinEmma:

From The Dodo Pet:

From Masih, keeping her eye on the unrest in Iran:

Translation from Farsi:

Chant of “#Death_to_the_Dictator” From Narrmak, Tehran,

From the proud people of Iran,
From awakened throats
“and fearless hearts. Nights of the Revolution,
Narrmak is in uproar.
 January 3, 2026. #Nationwide_Protests

From Luana (CAIR is neafarious):

Also from Luana. I tell you, Mamdani is a bad actor.

The Number Ten Cat keeps a weather eye on American politics:

From Simon. I wasn’t aware that the soccer organization FIFA had given Trump a peace prize. Now that we’re “at war” with Venezuela, that prize—a WTF moment—has no credibility:

I'm seriously starting to question the credibility of the FIFA Peace Prize.

— Tony Martin (@tonymartin.bsky.social) 2026-01-03T07:51:21.423Z

From Malcolm: a speedy six-legged robot:

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. He says that this first one has some good replies, too:

pound for pound this might be the funniest thing ever written

— dillo (wiglet tuttle) (@dillo.media) 2025-12-31T18:15:37.546Z

. . . and be careful with your “n”s in Spanish:

Just like every year, a friendly PSA: “Feliz ano nuevo” means “happy new anus.”“Feliz año nuevo” means “happy new year.”Wishing folks either one is nice, but make sure you’re using the one you mean.

— Gabino Iglesias (@gabino.bsky.social) 2025-12-31T16:08:27.561Z