Welcome to another damn week: it’s Monday, June 15, 2025—the Ides of June and also National Megalodon Day, celebrating the largest shark that ever lived. We can only estimate their sixe, but here’s s0me info from Wikipedia:

While regarded as one of the largest and most powerful predators to have ever lived, megalodon is only known from fragmentary remains, and its appearance and maximum size are uncertain. Scientists have argued whether its body form was more stocky or elongated than the modern lamniform sharks. Maximum body length estimates between 16.1 and 24.3 metres (53 and 80 ft) based on various analyses have been proposed, though the modal lengths for individuals of all ontogenetic stages from juveniles to adults are estimated at 10.5 meters (34 ft). Their teeth were thick and robust, built for grabbing prey and breaking bone, and their large jaws could exert a bite force of up to 108,500 to 182,200 newtons (24,390 to 40,960 lbf).

Here from the article is a diagram of “Lateral view of an Otodus megalodon restoration based on Cretalamna and modern lamnids”

And here’s a fossil Megalodon tooth compared to two teeth from Great White Sharks. Look at the size of that thing! It’s a foot long!

It’s also Global Wind Day, Magna Carta Day (the document was signed by King John on this day in 2015), National Electricity Day, National Lobster Day (see “split lobster” tweet below), Nature Photography Day (send me some photos!), and Worldwide Day of giving.

Below is a photo of what Wikipedia says is “The Magna Carta (originally known as the Charter of Liberties) of 1215, written in iron gall ink on parchment in medieval Latin, using standard abbreviations of the period, authenticated with the Great Seal of King John. The original wax seal was lost over the centuries. This document is held at the British Library and is identified as “British Library Cotton MS Augustus II.106“. It’s also ” one of four surviving exemplifications of the 1215 text”.  I’ve seen it!

The reproduction is in the public domain. 

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 15 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Breaking news, ripped from the headlines. There is a cease-fire and peace deal “framework for peace” between the US and Iran. The gist: Trump surrendered to Iran.

The United States and Iran reached an agreement on Sunday that paved the way for further talks to ultimately end a monthslong war that has killed thousands of people, roiled the Middle East and rattled the global economy.

The announcement led to relief in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East. It also sent oil prices tumbling, in part because the deal is expected to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for the world’s energy supplies.

But critical issues — including the fate of Iran’s nuclear program, the linchpin of the U.S.-Israeli attacks that started the war — have been pushed back to a later round of negotiations. And the economic shock waves of a war that has crippled supply chains and sent inflation soaring will keep rippling through the global economy for months.

The text of the agreement, which is scheduled to be signed by leaders from the two countries on Friday in Geneva, was not immediately released.

American and Iranian officials previously said that the deal would include a 60-day cease-fire to give the two sides more time to discuss Iran’s nuclear program — which neither side has shown much willingness to compromise on — and the lifting of U.S. sanctions on Tehran.

My comments: if the Strait of Hormuz is reopened, then we’ve achieved only the situation that pertained before the war, i.e., no accomplishments. If Israel must stop attacking Hezbollah, then nothing has been achieved there, either, and terrorism persists. Iran will not agree to give up its aim of having nukes or, if it does, it will be lying, as always. And the Iranian people will still be oppressed by a hard-line theocratic government. In other words, the U.S. and Israel (and the world) are no better off than before the war started. This is just my guess of how things will play out, of course. But others have predicted the same outcome (see below).

*Japan tied the Netherlands 2-2 at the World Cup yesterday. Here are the highlights, with Japan tying it up at minute 88.  Excellent goals.

*Is the war nearly over? According to the WSJ, Israeli strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon yesterday threaten to derail the cease-fire.

President Trump rebuked Israel on Sunday after Israel struck Beirut in response to Hezbollah drone attacks, calling it a disproportionate response that threatened to scuttle a deal with Iran.

“This morning’s attack on Beirut should not have happened, particularly on a special day when we are so close to a Peace Deal with Iran,” Trump said in a post on social media. “Israel has the right to defend itself against threats, but the attack it was responding to was very small and meaningless, nobody was hurt, injured, or killed, and should not disrupt this important process.”

The Israeli military attacked what it said was a Hezbollah command center in the suburbs of Beirut after Hezbollah fired drones at Israeli territory. No injuries were reported as a result of the drone attacks. Three people were killed and 15 others were injured in the Beirut strike, according to Lebanese state media.

Iran threatened to walk out of talks with the U.S. and retaliate militarily after the Israeli strike, imperiling a deal that Trump had said he was close to signing with Tehran.

Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, responded by threatening to pull out of the negotiations. The strike “once again showed that America either has no will to fulfill its obligations or the ability to do so,” he said. “If you do not have the will and ability to fulfill your commitments, it is not possible to talk about continuing the path.”

The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah militants, backed by Iran, has become a persistent hurdle to ending the Iran war. Similar Israeli strikes have led to tense calls between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent weeks.

Israeli strikes on the militants in Beirut earlier this month led Iran to fire missiles at Israel for the first time since a ceasefire was struck in April. Trump had announced a new ceasefire in Lebanon last week.

“Israel won’t tolerate attacks on its territory,” Netanyahu said on Sunday. Israel has said it would respond to any Hezbollah attacks on its territory with strikes on Beirut.

A senior Iranian commander said Tehran would retaliate for the Israeli attack. The strike “will not be left unanswered,” said Mohammad Jafar Asadi, deputy head of Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, which oversees all military forces in the country. The Israeli military said on Sunday that it was preparing for strikes aimed at Israel.

No, Israel is not allowed to retaliate after Hezbollah fired drones at the country. This is what I mean when I say that “Israel is not allowed to win the war.” And here it’s not allowed to retaliate, because that might scupper the bad cease-fire that’s in the offing. In my view, the peace deal should not be connected to what Israel and Lebanon are doing. Iran is not Lebanon, though it clearly thinks that Lebanon is part of Iran. And it is, for it’s a terror proxy.  Any deal that ties Lebanon in is an explicit recognition that Hezbollah and its terrorism should be allowed to continue.

*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal assesses what Israel has accomplished since bombing Iran one year and two days ago.

It’s Sunday, June 14, and exactly one year and a day ago, more than 200 Israeli fighter jets tore through Iranian skies, striking over 100 military and nuclear sites and eliminating more than 20 of the regime’s most senior commanders in the first hour. What followed was twelve days of relentless, largely lopsided war, with Israeli air power systematically dismantling the Iranian nuclear apparatus. Yet all eyes stayed fixed on a single target: the deeply buried Fordow enrichment facility, beyond the reach of any Israeli bomb. Then came the Hollywood finish—seven American B-2 stealth bombers, “Flight of the Valkyries” all but playing in the background, dropped fourteen 30,000-pound GBU-57 bunker-busters from 50,000 feet, collapsing the underground fortress and ending the war in a single dramatic blow. Benjamin Netanyahu declared it a “historic victory, which will stand for generations.”

. . . . Now, on the first anniversary of that first campaign, and as we confront a deal that threatens to undo much of what was achieved, we must ask: are we in a better place than we were on June 13, 2025?

On the nuclear front, the answer is a definitive yes. Before the June 2025 strikes, Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for 11 nuclear weapons within a month—and enough for another 11 over the following four. Following the operation, CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the strikes had set Iran back “by years,” while Israeli estimates placed the timeline at two to three. While Operation Roaring Lion focused largely on regime and missile targets, it is estimated to have delayed the nuclear program by a further few months. While the complete annihilation or surrender of the nuclear program would have been the best outcome, without the operations, we would be counting month 11 of a nuclear regime.

. . On ballistic missiles, the picture is similar. Across the 2025–2026 coalition campaigns, Iran’s missile program suffered unprecedented tactical destruction. Before the conflict, intelligence projected that Iran’s arsenal would swell to 8,000 missiles within four years—rendering its nuclear program untouchable behind a shield of air-defense-overwhelming firepower. The June 2025 strikes destroyed more than 70 percent of deployed launchers and cut the stockpile to roughly 1,500.

Before turning to the negatives, it is worth noting that, unlike the tangible gains, almost none of these liabilities emerge from material facts on the ground. The damage the region absorbed was relatively minor beside what was inflicted on Iran. The only thing that could make the negatives as concrete as the gains is a bad deal.

The same holds for the Strait of Hormuz. As its nuclear leverage collapsed, Iran’s ability to threaten a fifth of the world’s oil became its trump card—but the campaign degraded the naval and air assets that gave the threat teeth. The United States could restore freedom of navigation to a significant degree simply by escorting shipping, as it briefly did under Project Freedom. What keeps the strait contested is therefore not Iranian capability but American choice, compounded by the possibility of an agreement that formalizes Tehran’s hold. Here too, the outcome turns on the deal: a good one constrains and enforces, neutralizing the threat; a bad one ratifies Iran’s de facto control, returning a weapon already proven to be devastating against U.S. operations.

. . . That brings us to the underlying question: What is in the deal?

That remains unclear—seemingly even to the agreement’s parties themselves.

What both sides actually agree on amounts to little: a 60-day ceasefire and a commitment to negotiate over the nuclear file. Why they believe 60 days is sufficient, after 67 days of diplomatic stalemate yielding zero progress is beyond me. But other than the timeframe, it is hard to find a single point of genuine alignment. Washington expects the Strait of Hormuz to reopen immediately and toll-free—Trump insisting that “the strait must be open with no fees or Iranian management”—while Tehran has entirely different plans. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi rejected the term “tolls” but defended charging “service fees” for passage. The framework for the 60 days is just as discordant. Against the U.S. demand for the complete removal of Iran’s nuclear material and a 20-year enrichment ban, Iran is countering with a mere five-year pause. In fact, Iranian state media is openly casting the agreement as a “tactical pause in the war rather than a final settlement”—and Tehran is maneuvering to unlock at least some of its frozen assets early in the MOU process, easing U.S. leverage and securing vital economic relief before the core nuclear negotiations even begin.

And Segal always has a pessimistic ending (I’ve skipped a lot more), but what he says rings true:

What we are witnessing may become Trump’s version of withdrawing from Afghanistan. Afraid of domestic backlash, fixated on the agreement and visibly allergic to reentering combat, the U.S. has made itself a lame duck, handing its adversaries free rein. I suspect that if Trump goes through with this deal, the result will be the same: any progress achieved at the cost of American blood and treasure will be reversed, American prestige in the region will be weakened, and the president’s image will never recover.

Of course Trump’s image is already eroded by the war, though I think that if he makes a really bad deal, it will be even more eroded, and I’m hoping he senses that.

*The reviews of Steven Spielberg’s new UFO-ish movie, “Disclosure Day” are mixed: Rotten Tomatoes gives it a critic’s score of 80% and an audience score of 73%, while the NYT gave it a fairly enthusiastic review.(archived here). But Will Rahn at the Free Press thinks that “Steven Spielberg’s ‘Disclosure Day’ is a dud.”

The problem with Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day? It just isn’t very good. Now, it is a Spielberg movie, and there are things to like about it: the lighting, the special effects, the action set pieces. The technical elements, in other words. Because Spielberg has always been a great technical filmmaker.

That’s not to knock the action-movie elements. Those work fine. What doesn’t work is that this is one of those movies where Spielberg is indulging his intellectual pretensions. Or, rather, the intellectual pretensions he believes a man of his stature ought to have. And it could be, as some have theorized over the decades, that Spielberg is a certain sort of idiot savant: that he lives entirely in his own head, without much of what lies beyond his head ever making its way in.

Disclosure Day lends fresh support to this hypothesis. The story of a committed team of whistleblowers who finally reveal that the U.S. government has been hiding encounters with intelligent life beyond the stars, it’s being billed as a spiritual successor to Spielberg’s 1977 classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind. And it arrives in your local metroplex with exquisite timing: just as members of Congress are talking about alien bodies and secret UFO retrieval programs and the Trump administration is releasing gossipy documents and blurry videos. We can’t say definitively that any of this footage shows anything extraterrestrial, but some of it’s been interesting nonetheless.

One would think then that Disclosure Day could become a true phenomenon, an encapsulation of the spirit of the age. But while it will probably make a boatload of money, it’s a limp, bloodless, going-through-the-motions film. Its big, heady idea is that humans, to paraphrase some of the movie’s trudging dialogue, have forgotten that empathy is our superpower—so much so that the aliens are arriving to force us to rediscover it. That’s as deep as it ever gets.

. . . Otherwise, it’s a dud. Even in its best moments, it comes nowhere near the magic of E.T.’s departure from Earth or the fighter pilots’ homecoming at the climax of Close Encounters, those big, mesmerizing, Spielbergian spectacles. If you manage to forget these classic comparisons and turn off your brain to let its visuals wash over you, you’ll still be disappointed. It’s not even particularly fun to look at. And the message about empathy and faith, such as it is, is silly and pretentious. (If you want a popcorn movie that looks at both aliens and faith in a way that’s at least visually lively, you’re much better off with M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs. It’s also a good deal more tense than Disclosure Day. As are numerous X-Files episodes.)

I doubt that I’ll watch this movie. Though reviews are generally good, there is limited time and money to watch movies.  I’m not a big sci-fi movie fan anyway, but I tell you—I recently watched the movie Project Hail Mary and enjoyed the hell out of it–except for the lame ending. Otherwise I recommend it highly, especially to see the alien they’ve concocted. Here are the Rotten Tomato ratings for that movie, and they are very high. See it! You’ll love the alien!

*Jew Haters Corner: The NY Post and the Cornell Daily Sun reports that a Cornell student turned down a job interview at a startup because it was founded by Jews and he “wasn’t interested in working for a Jew.”

Here’s an excerpt from the Cornell paper:

The University reported Austin Franco ’28 to the Office of Civil Rights for a bias incident in which he responded to a job offer with “Not interested in working for a jew. Thanks.” on Handshake, according to a June 8 X post from Gabe Einhorn, co-founder and CEO of the company which Franco was accepted to. The Sun spoke to Franco and Einhorn following the incident.

Franco initially applied to a growth/sales role at Einhorn’s real estate startup, VrfyID, on May 26 through Handshake, a digital hiring platform, according to Einhorn. He was accepted in the first round and Gabe’s brother Aiden, who co-founded VrfyID, asked to set up a time for a meeting on May 29. Franco responded the same day with times he was available. Gabe told The Sun that both him and Aiden then offered two dates for students to attend, neither of which Franco went to. When Aiden followed up on June 8 to ask Franco about his attendance, Franco responded with “Not interested in working for a jew. Thanks.”

. . . Gabe, who describes himself as a “proud Jew” who always wears a kippah, and Aiden were both “taken aback” when they initially read the message and did not know how to react, Gabe told The Sun.

Franco found out Gabe and Aiden were Jewish based on their “first and last name, LinkedIn, and physiognomy,” according to a statement Franco wrote to The Sun.

Physiognomy is an 18th and 19th century practice of studying facial features to determine character and temperament. The practice is now regarded as pseudoscience.

Gabe’s post was shared on X on June 8 and amassed over two million views in less than a week. In the post, he attached a screenshot of his exchange with Franco and described the hiring process, ending his caption with “Sad world.”

Gabe had previously posted about facing antisemitism while attempting to film street interview content and faced many comments denying that antisemitism existed, he told The Sun.

Gabe posted the screenshot with Franco’s name crossed out, hoping to “prove a point to people that antisemitism exists” without causing personal damage to Franco, he said.

“He’s just a student, he might not know any better — it could be people in his environment, or on social media he saw something about Jewish people and he is just following the wave,” Gabe said.

However, comments on the post revealed Franco’s crossed out last name through a photo editing software, leading to his identity being revealed to the public.

Figure from Cornell Sun with attribution at bottom:

Since this is all public, and Franco has admitted it in am embarrassing X response, I don’t mind giving his name:

I was stating why I was not interested after you had asked to interview 3 times. I found out you were Jewish after the fact. My experiences with Jews have not been pleasant, both in person and online. This is not to say I havent had positive experiences, but on the aggregate that…

— Austin Franco (@AustinFranco123) June 9, 2026

The main point here is not to demonize this guy (he did that to himself, and others have outed him), but to say that this is true antisemitism, having nothing to do with settlers, Israel, or Netanyahu.  I wonder whether he’s always just met the “wrong kind of Jew”. There are a lot of us out there, and I can’t believe that the guy’s experience with Jews have been nearly uniformly unpleasant.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili asks the Biggest Questiion, and Andrzej answers it well:

Hili: What is life?
Andrzej: A conscious piece of eternity.

In Polish:

Hili: Czym jest życie?
Ja: Świadomym fragmentem wieczności.

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

From Another Science Humor Group (h/t Merilee):

Another great description of medieval illumination from TherionArms:

From Things With Faces, a grumpy plant (a palm?):

Masih shows a number of Iranian women who have been partly or fully blinded by the Iranian security, and for protesting. What kind of monster would deliberately aim for the eyes?

If your someone behind you simply for showing your hair or wanting freedom, what would you do?

These women were blinded under
Islamic States in Afghanistan and Iran, where all the laws are against the women.

I am calling on every woman in the world. Watch this. This is a real… pic.twitter.com/wSbOulKbjn

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) June 14, 2026

From the Number Ten Cat, who shows that FIFA taped over the condiments!

FIFA has given condiments the Epstein files treatment https://t.co/QLCleWe3R8

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) June 13, 2026

Luana sent this as a post that is quite clearly completely written by AI:

USA. A Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything, and the food was already arriving.

Chips. Salsa. Unrequested. Free.

I stopped the waiter. “We have not earned these.”

“They just come with the table, man.”

They come with the TABLE. In my land, hospitality is a debt.… pic.twitter.com/18eq2Z4Gp9

— NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 (@japan_nobunaga) June 12, 2026

Two from my feed. First a very brave dog and a wuss of a bear:

A bear broke into a house to steal food, but ended up getting completely humbled by a 3-pound Pomeranian. He was seriously out of touch with reality pic.twitter.com/ZRiNgvJaJY

— Nature Unedited (@NatureUnedited) June 14, 2026

I love this one:

The famous Russian “Berezka” dance, performed with tiny, almost invisible steps that create the illusion of floating across the stage. Truly amazing… 💃✨❤️ pic.twitter.com/TqtHdxbhXx

— Love Music (@khnh80044) June 14, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

15 June 1919 | A Polish Jewish woman, Chaya Bluma Hauszwalb, was born in Puławy. She lived in Paris.

In November 1942 she was deported to #Auschwitz from Drancy. She did not survive. pic.twitter.com/QsmBvhWLoX

— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) June 15, 2026

Two from Matthew, a rare “split lobster” for National Lobster Day. Click on arrow to go to video:

Blue lobsters are very rare: 1 in 2 million by some estimates.But SPLIT COLOR LOBSTERS are 1 in *50* million.This lobster is a chimera of two fertilized eggs that fused together, with two distinct genomes: male on one side, female on the other.(📷: Woods Hole Science Aquarium/NOAA Fisheries)

— c0nc0rdance (@c0nc0rdance.bsky.social) 2026-06-12T02:29:42.480Z

And Matthew in Zermatt. He’s having entirely too much fun!

Train that brought us to Gornergrat – the most expensive £/km train journey I have ever made but worth every penny!

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-06-13T09:38:58.095Z