I am just back, and after a few hours of restive sleep have dragged myself to the office to produce a Hili.  So don’t expect much today as I am, as the Brits say, “knackered.”

Welcome to Friday, June 27, 2025, and National Indian Pudding Day, the finest indigenous American dessert, especially when served warm with vanilla ice cream. Good luck getting, it, though, as you have to make it yourself (laborious, see recipe here) or get it at the Union Oyster House in Boston. (I used to get it at Boston’s finest restaurant, Durgin-Park, but that closed (and broke my heart.)  Here’s a nice dish, though the portion seems small to me:

It’s also National Food Truck Day, National Ice Cream Cake Day, Helen Keller Day (she was born on this date in 1880) and National Cream Tea Day.  Here’s a short video of Helen Keller taken in 1954 (she died in 1968), with the caption, “Helen Keller explains That her Greatest Disappointment in life is that she can not speak normally.”

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 27 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The Washington Post tells us that the Supreme Court is going to rule on several important cases this morning (article archived here):

1.) LOUISIANA VOTING MAP

What to know: In response to a lawsuit from civil rights groups, the Louisiana legislature redrew its congressional map to create a second majority-Black district out of six districts inthe state. The Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether the map violates the Constitution. The ruling could affect the balance of power in Congress, the landmark Voting Rights Act and how states consider race in drawing electoral maps.

Key takeaways: At oral argument March 24, several conservative justices expressed skepticism that the Voting Rights Act’s attempts to redress past discrimination can coexist with the Equal Protection Clause. . .

2.) NATIONWIDE INJUNCTIONS FOR BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP

What to know: The Supreme Court added a special session late in the term to review a case involving President Donald Trump’s effort to ban automatic U.S. citizenship for children born to undocumented immigrants and foreign visitors. Trump has asked the justices to lift or narrow three nationwide injunctions that have blocked his policy from taking effect while its legality is tested in court.

Key takeaways: At oral argument May 15, the justices expressed concern about the proliferation of nationwide injunctions in general, but several appeared sympathetic to states challenging Trump’s executive order and open to a middle ground that would permit judges to issue universal orders in limited circumstances.

3.) AGE VERIFICATION FOR ONLINE PORN

What to know: The case tests the constitutionality of a Texas law requiring people to prove they are over 18 to access online pornography.

Key takeaways: A majority of the justices seemed open to allowing age verification for these sites during oral argument on April 15.

4.) OPTING OUT OF BOOKS ON GENDER, SEXUALITY

What to know: The justices heard a challenge by a group of parents in Montgomery County, Maryland, who objected to rules barring them from taking their children out of lessons that used storybooks with LGBTQ+ characters and themes. The parents said the themes of the stories conflicted with their religious beliefs.

Key takeaways: At oral argument April 22, the justices appeared poised to side with the religiousparents in what would be a significant expansion of the long-standing practice of allowing opt-outs for reproductive-health classes.

5.) PREVENTIVE HEALTHCARE COVERAGE

What to know: A Christian-owned business and others are challenging a provision of the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, that requires health plans to provide no-cost preventive care, such as cancer screenings, immunizations and contraception, to millions of Americans. The challengers say having to cover pre-exposure medications intended to prevent the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, encourages risky homosexual behavior thatconflicts with their religious beliefs.

Key takeaways: At oral argument April 21, the justices seemed skeptical that members of the expert committee that set the preventive-care mandates were not properly appointed.

*The AP discusses the bunker-buster bombs dropped by US B-2 bombers on Iranian uranium-enrichment sites. It turns out that they were designed to attack such sites.

The deep penetrating bombs that the U.S. dropped into two Iranian nuclear facilities were designed specifically for those sites and were the result of more than 15 years of intelligence and weapons design work, the Pentagon’s top leaders said Thursday.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a press briefing that they are confident the weapons struck exactly as planned.

. . .The bombs, called the GBU-57 A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator, have their roots in a decades-old classified briefing “of what looked like a major construction project in the mountains of Iran,” Caine said.

That turned out to be the Fordo fuel enrichment plant, with construction believed to have started around 2006. It became operational in 2009, the same year Tehran publicly acknowledged its existence.

The classified briefing was shown in 2009 to a Defense Threat Reduction Agency officer, who with a colleague “lived and breathed” Fordo for the next 15 years, studying the geology, construction dig, the earth moved and “every piece of equipment going in and every piece of equipment going out,” Caine said.

. . . The 30,000-pound bomb is comprised of steel, explosive and a fuse programmed to a specific detonation time. The longer the fuse, the deeper the weapon will penetrate before exploding.

Over the years, the military tested and retested it hundreds of times on mock facilities, Caine said. Crews fine-tuned the bombs to detonate in the mock enrichment rooms, delaying detonation until they had reached a position to send a pressure blast through open tunnels to destroy equipment underground.

What they concluded: The U.S. didn’t have a bomb that could destroy those sites. So the Pentagon got to work, Caine said.

“We had so many Ph.D.s working on the mock program — doing modeling and simulation — that we were quietly and in a secret way the biggest users of supercomputer hours within the United States of America,” he said.

And some tactics:

Fordo had two main ventilation routes into the underground facility — and officials carefully eyed these entry points as a way to target the site.

Each route had three shafts — a main shaft and a smaller shaft on either side, which looked almost like a pitchfork in graphics provided by the Pentagon. In the days preceding the U.S. attack, Iran placed large concrete slabs on top of both ventilation routes to try to protect them, Caine said.

In response, the U.S. crafted an attack plan where six bunker-buster bombs would be used against each ventilation route, using the main shaft as a way down into the enrichment facility.

Seven B-2 stealth bombers were used, carrying two of the massive munitions apiece. The first bomb was used to eliminate the concrete slab, Caine said.

AD

The next four bombs were dropped down the main shaft and into the complex at a speed of more than 1,000 feet per second before exploding, he said. A sixth bomb was dropped as a backup, in case anything went wrong.

Well, we still don’t know the extent of the damage, but pictures of the holes created by the bombs show an amazingly accurate targeting. Do see the photos at the site given by DrBrydon in the second comment.

We’ll know (I hope) within a couple of months.  And there are rumors that Iran had removed its already-enriched uranium (not yet to bomb grade) from the site.

*Today’s TGIF at the Free Press is not by Nellie (she keeps going on vacaion! An infant is no excuse!), but by Will Rahm. But I will take a few items for your delectation. The column is called, “TGIF: The People’s Republic of Manhattan.” Here’s what Rahm says about himself:

My name is Will Rahn, and I’m a senior editor at The Free Press by benefit of my gilded journalistic lineage. Nellie Bowles is on vacation this week. So is her blood boy and TGIF workhorse Sean Fischer. So I have the unenviable task of writing this damn thing after a bunker busting week of a shock mayoral race and more movement in the Mideast than we’ve seen in decades. Thankfully, I have Suzy Weiss and Sascha Seinfeld here to save my bacon. Let’s do the news! 

→ Comrade Mayor: We’ll get to Iran in a moment, but we’re talking about New York City first because I live here and not Tehran. And it appears we New Yorkers are on the brink of electing a socialist in Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old state legislator who just became the presumptive Democratic nominee for mayor. His signature piece of legislation thus far in politics—there have been exactly three that he’s gotten passed—was an amendment to state liquor license laws that allow visitors to the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria to have a drink on the premises.

Zohran—he has just one name now, like Madonna or Trump or Beyoncé—ran a brilliant campaign on a totally crackpot platform that includes arresting Bibi Netanyahu if he comes to New York. And free buses and rent freezes, which will be made possible because of reasons and plans. But if you put his ideas aside for a moment, you can see the campaign itself was pretty darn Trumpy.

Remember when Trump went on all those podcasts and got the Joe Rogan crowd to vote for him? Zohran did that at the local level. He was all over Instagram and TikTok, appearing with local microinfluencers. He was funny, smiling, optimistic. And the implicit promise of his campaign was that he’d drop a bunker buster on the political status quo. Remind you of anyone?

The Trump/Mamdani comparisons are unavoidable. . .

. . . . Moderate Democrats in the New York suburbs already are distancing themselves from Zohran, in large part because of his nutty anti-Israel stuff—read his message from October 8 and shudder—but he’s the only member of his party this decade who has shown the fingertip feel for politics we associate with the president. He’s running to Make New York Great Again,

Here’s Mamdani’s tweet from October 8.  It’s not reassuring; I think I should have called the title “TGIF: The Caliphate of Manhattan”:

My statement on the last 36 hours across Israel and Palestine: pic.twitter.com/ulF8D4UHOV

— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) October 8, 2023

→ Real impeachment has never been tried: You may remember that Trump has already been impeached twice: once for January 6, and once for some convoluted Ukraine thing. And you may also recall that these impeachments didn’t stop Trump from winning the White House again in 2024, and with substantially more support than he had in 2016. I wouldn’t say he’s unimpeachable, but the man is certainly peach-proof.

And yet some House Democrats, to the immense chagrin of their more sober-minded colleagues, tried to impeach him again this week over the strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities that he ordered. The ringleader for the move was Texas Rep. Al Green, and it’s important to note here that he’s not the Reveremd Al Green, who wrote “Let’s Stay Together.” Rather, he’s the guy who was escorted out of Trump’s address to Congress earlier this year after he stood up and shook his cane at the president, which is an awesome old guy move that we don’t see enough of. It’s very “get off my lawn / why I oughta” energy.

Green’s impeachment resolution was swiftly defeated on Tuesday, with 128 House Democrats voting with Republicans to squash it. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries voted no. So did former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who I guess still works there.

→ Robots versus drunken frat boys: Grubhub is testing food delivery robots on dozens of college campuses, and so far the results appear underwhelming. The company is unleashing them on college campuses because they’re in a sense the perfect place to try these things out: not that many cars, massive clusters of hungover people willing to refinance their cars if it means they can get a breakfast burrito without having to put on pants. But the delivery companies didn’t anticipate the most fearsome foe of all: a drunk frat guy doing something on a dare.

“At Notre Dame, some complain that the robots clog the sidewalks,” TheWall Street Journal reports. “Students trip over them, especially when they’re drunk, and mischief makers sometimes sit on them.” In defense of Notre Dame undergraduates: It is very tempting to kick a robot. They are not our friends. They are coming for our jobs. Their little beeps and lights and the fact that they’re always scooting around give the impression of a teacher’s pet. . .

Rahn’s pieces are too long, and he’s not nearly as snarky nor as funny as Nellie.  There is simply no substitute for Nellie at writing the TGIFs.

*Bhutan, a place I’d dearly like to visit (but you can’t do so without paying a hefty daily fee and using a tour operator, is now getting rich on—wait for it—bitcoins.

The tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan is best known for its stunning landscapes and national happiness index. Lately it has earned a new reputation: crypto pioneer.

Bhutan now boasts a stash of bitcoins worth $1.3 billion, or roughly 40% of the country’s gross domestic product, according to cryptocurrency platform Arkham. It is the third-largest such stockpile held by governments, according to Arkham.

I don’t trust bitcoin and would never invest in it as it’s arcane and, I think, risky. But Bhutan doesn’t think so, and so far it’s been right.

*Finally, RFK Jr.’s panel on vaccines has decided not to recommend flu vaccines containing the mercury-based preservative thimoseral, touted as causing autism (arcticle is archived here).. THERE IS NO EVIDENCE FOR THAT, and the amount of thimoseral in flu vaccines is tiny (one source says the amount of thimoseral in a flu shot “is less than the amount of mercury in a 6-ounce can of chunk white albacore tuna; see http://www.pbs.org/now/science/mercuryinfish.html for details.” But you can ask for a flu shot without it, and kids less than 6 years old are given thimoseral-free flu shots as a precaution. But RFK Jr. has always touted the bogus connection with autism:

On Thursday, the new members of the C.D.C.’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, hand-selected by Mr. Kennedy after he fired all 17 members of the previous panel, decided it would no longer recommend annual flu shots that contain it. Thimerosal’s appearance on the committee’s agenda in the first place shocked public health leaders, who have long considered the matter settled.

But it was not a surprise to people who have followed Mr. Kennedy closely. Thimerosal started Mr. Kennedy down a path of questioning vaccine safety, and Thursday’s vote was the culmination of a long personal journey. It offers a window into how, as secretary, he is pursuing his own passions and installing old allies in positions of influence.

“He’s got a big passion for this subject, and he knows this probably better than anybody,” said Eric Gladen, who featured Mr. Kennedy in his 2014 film, “Trace Amounts,” which espoused a link between thimerosal and autism.

Critics say that in resurrecting an old controversy, Mr. Kennedy could brew mistrust rather than ease it. Numerous studies, including a 2004 report by the Institute of Medicine and a 2010 review of the medical literature, have rejected a link between the preservative and autism. Dr. Oz, who now runs the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, noted on his 2014 show that any link had been “ultimately discredited.”

. . . But the panel on Thursday did not hear from the C.D.C. The agency posted a document on the advisory committee’s website on Tuesday that concluded “the evidence does not support an association” between the preservative and autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders.

But the document was taken down the next day. A spokesman for Mr. Kennedy, Andrew Nixon, said that it had not gone through the proper vetting, but that committee members had been given copies of the document.

The panel voted 5 to 1 on Thursday to stop recommending flu vaccines that contain the preservative. It was unclear how manufacturers would respond, and how the recommendation might affect access to flu vaccines. Some flu vaccines are already available without thimerosal.

I’ve asked my doctor, but I suspect he’s with the CDC.  After all, I have an occasional can of tuna and don’t seem to have autism.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, we have a lovely picture of The Princess, who is once again musing:

Hili: The past lives in the present, and the present turns into the past.
Andrzej: And our thoughts are rarely original.

In Polish:

Hili Przeszłość jest w teraźniejszości, teraźniejszość zmienia się w przeszłość.
Ja: A nasze myśli rzadko są odkrywcze.

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

From Wholesome Memes:

From Jesus of the Day. Is this true?

From Now That’s Wild:

Masih shows a video of an Iranian woman who masks her identity (a wise move) to publicly criticize the theocracy:

“End this war now, a wounded Islamic republic will take revenge on us unarmed people in Iran ”
I’ve received this video from a woman inside Iran risking imprisonment or worse to tell the world who the people of fear the most.
Ask anyone in touch with Iran. The warning is clear. pic.twitter.com/rHfuPLTXZw

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) June 24, 2025

From Malcolm: the real size of the world’s countries after removing the Mercator distortion:

Actual size of countries on the world map, without the Mercator projection distortion. pic.twitter.com/VkeWAgyw9r

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 19, 2025

There are more tweets about earthquakes in this thread (from my feed), but this one is chilling:

The worst catastrophes on earth.

A thread 🧵

1. 23 year old petrified woman who was caught in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Pompeii in 79 A.D. pic.twitter.com/Zhq3pIhnPW

— Today In History (@historigins) June 26, 2025

One I posted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

A Dutch Jewish girl was gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz, probably dead within two hours of the selection. She was ten.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-06-27T12:55:15.313Z

And one tweet from Matthew showing an important letter from Francis Crick:

A letter to Crick from his pal Georg Kreisel, on hearing about the existence of introns in eukaryotic genes, which Crick described in a Science article "Split genes and RNA splicing".

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-06-27T10:33:48.819Z

Today may be a truncated Hili dialogue as I’m leaving Brooklyn for Chicago. I will do what I can. Bear with me: I do my best.

Welcome to Thursday, June 26, 2025, and National Onion Day. Someone (perhaps it was Nora Ephron) once said that onions and Coca-Cola are similar in that they are really tasty and we’d pay any price to get them, but fortunately they are common and cheap.

Here’s how they grow the big onions they use in restaurants, including the famous “Blooming Onion” at Outback Steakhouse. I’ve never been there, but I would love such a battered and fried onion:

Here’s a blooming onion: Wikipedia has an article on it!

It’s also Forgiveness Day, National Chocolate Pudding Day, and National Coconut Day. (Don’t forget to put the lime in the coconut.)

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 20 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*After yesterday’s U.S. assessment that the strike on Fordo and other strikes didn’t set back Iran’s nuclear program by that much, the government has changed its tune. Damage was more severe than first thought.

Classified intelligence about the damage to Iran’s nuclear program from U.S. strikes was at the center of a political tempest on Wednesday as spy chiefs pushed out new assessments and President Trump continued to defend his assertion that Iran’s key facilities had been “obliterated.”

The C.I.A. director, John Ratcliffe, said the strikes had “severely damaged” Iran’s nuclear program, and the administration suggested that the initial report, by the Defense Intelligence Agency, was based on preliminary assessments and was already outdated.

The damage was also being assessed by other U.S. spy agencies. No information that has become public from those assessments has supported Mr. Trump’s description of the level of destruction from the U.S. attack, though they all confirmed that the damage had been substantial.

The D.I.A. report was based on information from little more than 24 hours after the American attacks on three of Iran’s nuclear sites.

It described the level of damage as ranging from moderate to severe, according to people briefed on or familiar with its contents.

The report said that if the D.I.A.’s assumption that Fordo, the deepest underground of the sites, sustained a moderate level of damage is correct, then the facility would be inoperable and Iran would not try to rebuild its enrichment capabilities there, one of those people said. If the assumption proved incorrect, the report said, Iran could build a quick version of a nuclear weapon in months.

. . .The National Security Agency, which focuses on intercepted phone and internet communications, has been examining what Iranians have been saying about the strikes and the fate of their uranium stockpiles. And officials said the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which studies satellite imagery, has been looking at movements around the nuclear sites in the days before the American strikes.

Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, posted on social media about new intelligence that showed that it would take years if Iran chose to rebuild the three sites the American attack hit.

Officials said her comment was also based on new U.S. intelligence collected since the D.I.A. report was written Sunday. The new intelligence relates to the existing facilities hit by the U.S. strikes, not whether Iran could use other secret facilities to advance its work on nuclear weapon capability.

Gabbard, who didn’t want to attack Iran, appears to have changed her tune. Pressure from Trump?

New intelligence confirms what @POTUS has stated numerous times: Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed. If the Iranians chose to rebuild, they would have to rebuild all three facilities (Natanz, Fordow, Esfahan) entirely, which would likely take years to do.

The…

— DNI Tulsi Gabbard (@DNIGabbard) June 25, 2025

Stay tuned; things will change again!

*From the Wall Street Journal on the same topic:

The head of the U.N. atomic energy agency said U.S. and Israeli strikes caused “enormous damage” to Iran’s nuclear sites and warned of a new crisis if Iran refused to allow his agency to inspect the facilities.

The extent of the damage done to Tehran’s nuclear capabilities has been at issue since the U.S. joined Israel in attacking them. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is due to hold a briefing at the Pentagon Thursday morning to address a U.S. intelligence report that said the strikes had merely delayed Iran’s nuclear efforts by a few months, President Trump said.

Trump said he doesn’t think a nuclear deal with Iran is necessary after the strikes and said he believed the cease-fire between Israel and Iran would hold. Of new nuclear talks, he said the U.S. would be asking the Iranians for the same thing before Israel launched its attack. “We want no nuclear,” the president said, adding: “We destroyed the nuclear.”

The president has pushed back on the leaked report on the extent of the damage, saying Iran’s nuclear sites were “obliterated.” Hegseth said Wednesday the FBI has started a probe into how the preliminary assessment became public.

What else to know:

The Defense Intelligence Agency, which produced the classified report, said it was “a preliminary, low-confidence assessment—not a final conclusion.”

. . . The U.S. is making a fresh push to negotiate an end to the fighting in Gaza, hoping to build on the momentum of a cease-fire between Israel and Iran.

“We want no nuclear. We destroyed the nuclear.” Oy! At least he didn’t say “Nuc-u-lar”!

*Speaking of Tulsi, she was ignored again by the administration as it’s sending a delegation to Congress, with Trump concerned about the “leaks” in assessing the damage to Iran (my bolding):

The White House plans to limit classified intelligence sharing with Congress after leaks to the press of an early assessment undermined President Donald Trump’s claim that U.S. airstrikes obliterated Iranian nuclear facilities, a senior Trump administration official said, setting the stage for a contentious classified briefing before senators Thursday.

Amid a political battle over what the intelligence shows, the White House is expected to send four of its top national security officials to brief lawmakers: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, administration officials said.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who testified in March that U.S. intelligence agencies assessed that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon, will be notably absent.

“Ratcliffe will represent the intelligence community,” the senior Trump administration official said of Gabbard’s absence, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss plans not yet made public. “The media is turning this into something it’s not.”

Poor Tulsi. She’s the Director of National Intelligence but doesn’t even get to go to Congress! What’s worse is the administration’s decision to limit what it tells Congress about sensitive issues that are, after all, things that Congress has a right to know.

*This is a nice gesture, but I have no idea how it could be implemented. According to the Times of Israel, Israel has offered medical care to Iranians injured in the recent attacks on the country by Israel and the U.S. Note the sentence I’ve put in bold:

Here’s the post if you can read Farsi:

مردم عزیز ایران،
آتش بس به اجرا گذاشته شده است. اکنون ابعاد خسارت آشکار می شود. در این لحظه، رژیم بر درصات ارشد خود متمرکز است، نه بر مراقبت از شهروندانشان.
ما در کنار شما هستیم و تیمی از پزشکان متخصص، از جمله متخصصان قلب، دیابت، بیماری های ریوی، بیماری های عفونی، انکولوژی و… pic.twitter.com/Wkg5VoB6St

— Mossad Farsi (@MossadSpokesman) June 26, 2025

How in hell is Mossad going to give medical aid to Iranians? Is Mossad going to come to Israel? That won’t work. Nor can Iranians go to Israel for treatment? This seems like a performative offer on the part of Mossad.

*Invoking Title IX, the government says that California cannot allow trans-identified men to compete in women’s sports. But California is ignoring that, despite the governor’s agreement with the administration on this issue.

The Trump administration said Wednesday that California must change its policies allowing transgender girls to compete on sports teams consistent with their gender identity.

The U.S. Department of Education said it determined California’s education department and governing body for high school sports are violating Title IX, a federal law banning sex discrimination in education. The federal government said California must agree to change its policies in 10 days or “risk imminent enforcement action.” The administration could otherwise refer the state to the U.S. Justice Department, the Education Department said.

California, though, said it has no plans to change its policies.

“The California Department of Education believes all students should have the opportunity to learn and play at school, and we have consistently applied existing law in support of students’ rights to do so,” agency spokesperson Liz Sanders said in a statement.

. . . The announcement comes weeks after a trans student athlete garnered national attention over her participation in the California high school state track and field championship. The student, AB Hernandez, placed first in the girls high jump and triple jump, and second in the long jump. The California Interscholastic Federation, which ran the meet, awarded gold and silver medals to both Hernandez and other competitors who would have placed had she not participated. It was the first time the federation made such a rule change.

. . . U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon invoked Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s remarks on his podcast in March questioning the fairness of trans girls competing in girls sports.

In this case the government is right and California, supporting a policy unfair to women, is wrong.  Saying that does not make one either transphobic or pro-Trump.  But fairness is fairness.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Szaron pretend they are in in postwar Poland:

Andrzej: what are you waiting for here?

Hili: We are queuing for meat..

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

From Apollo Kitty Kat:

From Lynne:

From The Language Nerds:

From Masih; some Iranian propaganda:

This is how Iran’s regime claims ‘Victory’!

State TV and city billboards show Trump on his knees before Khamenei. The Islamic Republic calls it a triumph.

Reality check:

– Top IRGC commanders eliminated.
– Nuclear sites turned to dust.
– @khamenei_ir hid underground for 12… pic.twitter.com/iLh02MDPxr

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) June 25, 2025

From Luana; a message for “progressives” from Van Jones:

Van Jones is an interesting figure in progressivism. He has a knack for saying things that are unpopular to other progressives at just the right moment. Here he talks about Israel’s military campaign and the danger posed by a nuclear Iran.pic.twitter.com/TOEjeGnU84

— i/o (@avidseries) June 21, 2025

From Malcolm: a cat ready for holiday:

Ready for vacation pic.twitter.com/6SVjuo6f0f

— No Context Cats (@nocontextscats) June 1, 2025

One I found.  Jew haters pretend that “Zionist” is not the same thing as Jew, but it has in effect become a euphemism for “Jew” This thread by a Canadian physician (i give only the first post) explains why:

Many activists and academics have been trying to separate Judaism from Zionism.

Let’s take a moment to understand why they want to do this, and why it’s an intellectually dishonest position to take.

A long 🧵…

/1 pic.twitter.com/KYgj4kHCWh

— David Jacobs (@DrJacobsRad) June 8, 2025

Two from my feed. The first one is very sweet:

This man brushes a crow and stopped, but the bird gives the brush back as it wanted more. pic.twitter.com/GQlC0exX0O

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) June 25, 2025

The Democrats refuse to call out some odious views of the new Democratic candidate for Mayor of NYC.  Dems are just so happy to win that they ignore his anti-Semitism:

Zohran Mamdani wants to globalize Intifada. I lived through it, here’s what that means. @OutnumberedFNC @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/eT5ZZUQPew

— Noa Tishby (@noatishby) June 25, 2025

One I retweeted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

A French Jewish girl was gassed to death upon arriving at Auschwitz. She was three years old. And she would be 85 today if they hadn't murdered her.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-06-26T11:49:30.842Z

One from Dr. Cobb:

Stahl died, but Meselson is still alive at 95. And their 1958 experiment showing how DNA replicates is indeed “the most beautiful experiment in biology,” as Horace Judson put it.

Just learned that Frank Stahl (of the Meselson and Stahl DNA replication experiment ("the most beautiful experiment in biology") died at the beginning of April, to no fanfare. Here's a lovely video of them reminiscing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-tn…

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-06-26T10:01:55.570Z

Welcome to a Hump Day (“こぶの日” in Japanese): Wednesday, June 25, 2025;  and the month (with its brutal heat) is slipping by.

It’s Color TV Day, celebrating the first “official” color broadcast:

On today’s date in 1951, at 4:35 p.m. Eastern Time, CBS made what is regarded as the first color television broadcast. It was an hour-long variety show called Premiere, which featured Arthur Godfrey, Ed Sullivan, Garry Moore, Robert Alda, and Faye Emerson. The chairman of the FCC and both the president and board chairman of CBS also appeared on it. The program was transmitted from CBS’s New York City studio to the city, as well as to Boston, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Philadelphia. Only televisions built for color could pick up the transmission, so most people—those with black-and-white sets—who were tuned to CBS just saw a blank screen. Most of those who were able to view the program saw it at a hotel, in department stores, or in an auditorium. Because of this groundbreaking broadcast, today is known as Color TV Day.

It is also National Strawberry Parfait Day, National Catfish Day, Global Beatles Day (celebrating the first satellite broadcast of the Fab Four, which took place on this day in 1967), and, finally, Bourdain Day, honoring the birthday in 1956 of the famous chef, writer, and television documentarian. I was a huge fan, and was distraught when he killed himself at 61.

Here are some of Bourdain’s fellow chefs celebrating his birthday:

IMPORTANT! JUNE 25th #BOURDAINDAY Celebrating the Life, Legacy & Birthday of our Dear Friend Anthony! Wherever U are & whoever UR with, join @chefjoseandres I & share your tributes & memories using #BourdainDay & wish Anthony Peace & Happy Birthday! RT/Spread the word! CHEERS! 🙏🏼 pic.twitter.com/Sw28hDupfw

— Eric Ripert (@ericripert) May 30, 2019

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 25 Wikipedia page.

Posting will be light today as I have the HxA meetings and my panel this afternoon. Tomorrow evening I’ll be back in Chicago and will be glad to see my ducks. (There’s a lovely phot-and-video duck post in the offing.)

Da Nooz:

*Yesterday the Heterodox Academy gave out its annual awards for courage and speaking out. Here are the winners, with the presenters (in parenthesis) all having won in that category in previous years,  You can read about the winners’ accomplishments here.

Courage:  Joseph Yi (Alice Dreger)

Leadership: Anna Krylov (Alexandra Lydia)

Community excellence: Western Michigan University (Craig Gibson)

Teaching:Abigail C. Saguy (Matt Burgess)

Exceptional scholarship: Musa al-Gharbi   (Keith Whittington)

Special kudos to my friend Anna, who works tirelessly to enforce academic freedom and freedom of speech, and to point out the infestation of science with ideology.

*In a stunning upset, Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, beat the predicted winner, former state governor Andrew Cuomo, to win the Democratic primary for NYC Mayor.  Here’s the vote as of 7 a.m. in NYC:

From the NYT:

. . . . “This is the biggest upset in modern New York City history,” said Trip Yang, a Democratic strategist.

From The Free Press:

[Mamdani’s] proposals include government-run grocery stores, a rent freeze for more than two million New Yorkers, and free bus rides. Mamdani’s housing plan alone would cost $100 billion—only slightly less than the entire size of this year’s city budget.

“Everyone who can tell you about basic economics can tell you that a rent freeze just doesn’t work,” said one strategist at a firm employed by the Cuomo campaign.

It is rare to find a single area of agreement between the editorial boards of the New York Post and The New York Times. But both urged readers, before the primary, not to vote for Mamdani.

. . . In much of this, Mamdani’s campaign reminded many people of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who endorsed him. Seven years ago, she defeated 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley in a Democratic primary race for a House seat in Queens and the Bronx.

. . . and from The Free Press‘s morning newsletter:

Then there are Mamdani’s views on the police (“We don’t need an investigation to know that the NYPD is racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety. What we need is to #DefundTheNYPD,” he posted on X in 2020); Israel (“apartheid”); Benjamin Netanyahu (“As Mayor I would have Netanyahu arrested if he came to New York”); and Islamist radicalism (he refuses to condemn the phrase globalize the intifada).

I don’t know much about this candidate, but we’ll see, as he still has to beat a Republican in November (not much of a task, I’d think). Still the victory of a Democratic Socialist with these views, celebrated by many Democrats as the way we should go, may be a bellwether for more Democratic defeats come the midterms or 2028. I was no fan of Cuomo, but I’m wary of a candidate who wants to defund the NYC police and refuses to condemn a phrase whose mening we all know: “Globalize the intifada.”  In NYC?

*According to the Washington Post, the U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear program set that program back only by months and not longer.

An initial U.S. intelligence report assesses that airstrikes ordered by President Donald Trump against Iran’s nuclear facilities set Tehran’s program back by months but did not eliminate it, contradicting claims by Trump and his top aides about the mission’s success, according to three people familiar with the report.

The classified report by the Defense Intelligence Agency is based on the Pentagon’s early bomb damage assessment of the strikes on nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan using earth-penetrating munitions carried by B-2 bombers and submarine-launched Tomahawk missiles.

It assesses that the strikes did not destroy the core components of Iran’s nuclear program and probably set it back by several months, not years, one of the people said.

U.S. intelligence reports also indicate that Iran moved multiple batches of its highly enriched uranium out of the nuclear sites before the strikes occurred and that the uranium stockpiles were unaffected, said the person, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters.

According to the Times of Israel, the IDF disagrees:

Israel’s military thinks the recent war with Iran has set the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program back by years, but the assessment is preliminary, and it is too early to know for sure, Israel Defense Forces spokesman Brig. Gen. Effi Defrin said Wednesday.

“We met all the objectives of the operation as defined for us, and even did so better than we had optimally expected,” Defrin said, but he cautioned: “I say this with humility, because it’s still too early to determine.”

“We are investigating and reviewing the results of our strikes on every part of this puzzle, as I’ve previously called it, the various components of the nuclear program and more,” he said.

“Now, I trust our intelligence analysts in the Intelligence Directorate and in the Air Force. I believe they have proven themselves to be accurate in recent weeks, and I can say here that the assessment is that we significantly damaged the nuclear program, and I can also say that we set it back by years, I repeat, years.”

Defrin’s comments echoed those of IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir on Tuesday night that, “We have set Iran’s nuclear project back by years, and the same goes for its missile program.”

Well, all we can do is wait and see, and even then we may not know the answer. I suspect that if the IDF finds that the damage was not that substantial, they will continue their bombing campaign, probably without American bunker-busters and B-2s. But. . .

*Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is peeved that the U.S. damage-assessment report was leaked.

The Trump administration pushed back on a leaked intelligence report that said the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities only set back Tehran’s nuclear ambitions by a few months, while the cease-fire brokered by President Trump appeared to hold for another day.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking at the NATO summit Wednesday, said the Federal Bureau of Investigation has started a probe into how the preliminary assessment became public. President Trump, also at the summit in The Hague, said reports minimizing the impact of the operation were disrespectful. “This was an unbelievable success,” Trump said.

Meanwhile, Israel said its military and intelligence services are still investigating the extent of the damage. Trump, also speaking at the summit, said Iran shouldn’t try to rebuild its nuclear program, suggesting the U.S. would strike Iran again it did.

President Trump reiterated his view that U.S. strikes on Iran caused a massive blow to Tehran’s nuclear program, downplaying a preliminary intelligence report that indicated the strikes merely set the country back by a few months.

“This was an unbelievable success,” Trump said. Reports minimizing the impact of the operation, he said, are disrespectful. “The thing that hurts me is it’s really demeaning to the pilots and the people that put that whole thing together, the generals—that was a perfect operation.”

If the IDF and U.S. reports coincide in lowering the assessment of damage, then I’ll believe that the operation was not as big a success as we were led to believe. But what upsets me as much is that there is not sign of any impending regime change in Iran, a false hope that I had entertained. And I am tired of Trump using the word “perfect.”

*The AP tallies up the number of Israeli and other hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.

Here are details on the hostages:

Total hostages captured on Oct. 7, 2023: 251

Hostages taken before the Oct. 7 attack: 4, including 2 who entered Gaza in 2014 and 2015 and the bodies of 2 soldiers killed in the 2014 war

Hostages released in exchanges or other deals: 148, of whom 8 were dead

Bodies of hostages retrieved by Israeli forces: 49

Hostages rescued alive: 8

Hostages still in captivity: 50, of whom Israel believes 27 are dead. Netanyahu has said there are “doubts” about the fate of several more.

The hostages in captivity include four non-Israelis: 2 Thais and 1 Tanzanian who have been confirmed dead, and a Nepalese captive.

They don’t mention the hundreds of Palestinian terrorists and prisoners released in exchange for the 140 live hostages, and, as usual, and AP quotes the number of dead Gazans according to Hamas:

Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages in the Oct. 7 attack. More than 55,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, have been killed in the ensuing conflict, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.

I’m betting that the “mostly women and children” claim is bogus.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Szaron have a chinwag:

Hili: Where are you going?
Szaron: To hunt.
Hili: Happy hunting.

In Polish:

Hili: Gdzie się wybierasz?
Szaron: Na polowanie.
Hili: Szczęśliwych łowów.

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

From Cats That Have Had Enough of Your Shit:

From America’s Cultural Decline Into Idiocy:

From Things With Faces, taken at a health facility:

From Mash: Iran is ramping up its execution of opponents of the regime:

The world says “ceasefire.”
Anti-war activists pack up.
But in Iran, the real war just started.

The Islamic Republic is executing civilians to crush dissent.

First: Mohammad-Amin Mahdavi Shayesteh, 27.
Accused of spying. No lawyer. No fair trial. Dead.

Meanwhile, even regime… pic.twitter.com/T4wTbNxD5K

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) June 25, 2025

From Luana; this makes me ineffably sad and bodes ill for academia:

The UCLA grad publicly bragging at his graduation ceremony that he ChatGPCheated his way through his degree has gotten a lot of attention.

Some people are suggesting that the deans should have torn up his diploma on the spot, but of course they didn’t, and the reason they… pic.twitter.com/ujNcRH8rkY

— John Carter (@martianwyrdlord) June 20, 2025

From Malcolm a pissed off cat mom:

Fed up cat mom finally finds her kitten.. 😅 pic.twitter.com/nYP7UN2fQ6

— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) April 30, 2025

From my feed; two cases of one animal helping another (one case is conspecific):

Horse asks for help removing his muzzle so he can eat grass pic.twitter.com/BjYF666XQF

— BladudX (@BladudX) June 24, 2025

One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

This Dutch Jewish girl died at Auschwitz. She was fifteen.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-06-25T11:47:57.474Z

Two posts from Matthew. His comment on the first one: “Duck! Mongoose!”

A 2,000 year old ‘face-off’ between a mean-eyed mongoose and a rearing cobra!My money’s on the mongoose! Detail from a Roman mosaic from the House of the Faun in Pompeii. Now on display at the National Archaeological Museum, Naples. 📷 by me#MosaicMonday#Archaeology

— Alison Fisk (@alisonfisk.bsky.social) 2025-06-23T09:22:53.072Z

. . . and a wondering duck:

4am…

— Moose Allain (@mooseallain.bsky.social) 2025-06-24T14:11:51.779Z

The Hili dialogue will be truncated today, and posting will be light, for the Heterodox Academy Meeting is going on all day, leaving me little time to write. Bear with me; I do my best. Please excuse any infelicities of writing (or typos) as I’m banging this out fast, like a journalist on deadline.

Welcome to The Cruelest Day: Tuesday, June 24, 2025, and National Pralines Day, celebrating one candy that is almost too sweet for me. But I’ll eat ’em!

Here are some from Wikipedia captioned, “American pralines cooling on a marble slab. Unlike European pralines, American pralines are made with cream.”

It’s also World UFO Day, explained this way:

June 24 marks the anniversary of one of the first UFO sightings in the United States, when Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine high-speed crescent-shaped objects near Mt. Rainier in Washington, in 1947. July 2 marks the anniversary of the Roswell UFO incident, which also happened in 1947.

You can see a copyrighted photo of “Eight objects similar to those reported by Arnold photographed over Tulsa, Oklahoma, July 12, 1947 (from Tulsa Daily World)” at this site. Skeptics believe that Arnold saw either jet planes or a mirage.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 25 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

A quick scan of the news reveals a few items of interest:

*The U.S.+ Israel apparently arrived at a truce and ceasefire with Iran, but one that was quickly broken (Israel accuses Iran of breaking it).

The fate of a truce announced by President Trump that went into effect early Tuesday hung in the balance, as the Israeli military said Iran had fired another missile barrage and vowed to retaliate.

The claim from Israel’s military came just hours after the country had joined Iran in agreeing to the truce, spurring cautious hopes for an end to 12 days of unprecedented warfare between the adversaries, and as both sides seemingly claimed victory in the conflict. Iran’s military denied firing missiles after the cease-fire went into effect, according to Iranian state news outlets — adding to the uncertainty.

Mr. Trump’s announcement, on the eve of the NATO summit, could give the president a chance to take a victory lap at the gathering — if the truce holds. The timing of it had caught some of his own officials by surprise, and both sides continued to trade fire in the last moments before confirming a truce was in effect.

The Israeli military said it had struck missile launchers in western Iran that were poised to fire at Israel. Iran launched at least four barrages of ballistic missiles at Israel, setting off sirens that sent millions of Israelis rushing in and out of shelters. At least four people were killed when a missile hit an apartment building in the southern city of Beersheba.

But by around 7.30 a.m. in Israel, a tentative calm appeared to have taken hold as the military issued an all-clear, allowing people to exit bomb shelters. Soon after, President Trump announced the truce was in force. “PLEASE DO NOT VIOLATE IT!” he added.

There was initially silence from the Israeli government, which has in the past often waited in the first, delicate hours to see whether quiet is being answered with quiet before declaring conflicts over. Just after 9 a.m. local time, Israel’s government issued a statement saying it had agreed to a mutual cease-fire, having achieved its goals in its campaign in Iran, “and in full coordination with President Trump.” Iran, similarly, cast the truce as a sign its military had prevailed.

But underscoring the fragility of the situation, more sirens wailed in northern Israel nearly two hours later, warning of missiles launched from Iran. The Israeli military accused Iran of breaking the cease-fire — saying in a statement that it would “respond with force.”

This kind of back and forth will, I predict, keep happening in the next few weeks as these countries sort out how they are supposed to act in the face of world opinion (which favors a truce). And Trump is mad at both sides:

President Trump lashed out at Israel and Iran on Tuesday over concerns that both sides had violated an hours-old cease-fire, intensifying the uncertainty over the fragile deal that he had helped broker to end the deadly conflict.

In expletive-laced remarks to reporters, Mr. Trump accused both sides of launching attacks, pledging to “see if I can stop it.” In a Truth Social post, the president warned Israel not to “drop those bombs” and demanded the country “bring your pilots home now.”

*The Free Press claims “The Democrats go AWOL on Iran,” remaining remarkably silent on the war. Well, I know that the “Squad,” including Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib, have spoken out in opposition, so let’s see what the FP says:

By last weekend, Israel’s Operation Rising Lion had already changed the Middle East profoundly. And America’s oldest political party was AWOL. Normally, Democrats would stake out a position on such a consequential issue. Instead, in the lead-up to Operation Midnight Hammer, they were more interested in ICE raids and performative civil disobedience than in the future of nonproliferation. They had plenty to say about Medicaid work requirements and Juneteenth celebrations. On Iran? Silence.

Naturally, press coverage dwelled on supposed rifts within the MAGA coalition, not only because prominent Trump supporters opposed American involvement, but because Democrats had rendered themselves irrelevant. Hence an anti-war Democrat, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, received notice only when she agreed with anti-war Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

. . . As the GOP consolidated, the Democrats went from bystanders to hecklers. They called for votes on congressional war powers. They fumed, threatened, and demanded consequences—not against Iran, but against President Trump. The Democrats became louder, for sure. But no more effective.

The Iran crisis doesn’t just reveal the Democrats’ irrelevance. It exposes a fundamental unseriousness that makes their other problems worse. The DNC is a mess. Their party has no leader. It’s deeply unpopular and on the wrong side of illegal immigration, trans activism, and the Green New Deal.

Just when the Democrats need to return to the center, they’re in danger of being captured by antisemitic socialists. Ilhan Omar calls her adopted land one of the worst countries in the world. AOC greets pro-Hamas activist Mahmoud Khalil upon his release from ICE detention. Thirty-three-year-old Zohran Mamdani, who wants the government to run grocery stores, surges ahead in the New York City mayoral primary.

The Democrats have had plenty of time to prepare for this moment. For over 20 years, four presidents of both parties declared they wouldn’t allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. America tried diplomacy, negotiations, and sanctions. The centrifuges kept spinning.

. . .Jeffries and Schumer may not be for impeachment—yet. But they stand closer to Ocasio-Cortez than to the few Democrats who dared applaud Trump’s command. No surprise that Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman was the most adulatory in his praise. Reps. Ritchie Torres and Josh Gottheimer offered more measured support. And Rep. Steny Hoyer, who once held Jeffries’ job, wrote that Operation Midnight Hammer was “in keeping with our stated position against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”

These exceptions only prove the rule, however. Single-mindedly devoted to diplomacy and paper treaties, obsessed with Donald Trump, and fearful of crossing a radicalized base, Democrats have cut themselves out of serious foreign-policy discourse at a historic hinge point. By attacking Trump for doing what they once promised, Democrats have marginalized themselves precisely when their voices might matter most.

*I have been struck by the Democrats’ lack of statements about foreign policy (are we supposed to start negotiating with Iran again?) and especially with the lack of leadership of our party. The NYT had an op-ed yesterday by Galen Druke called “Why Democrats need their own Trump,” calling for Democrats to adopt these Trumplike tactics:

What’s especially striking about about this op-ed is that Druke doesn’t name one likely Democratic candidate—someone who could fulfill this mission.  Why not? Was his a purely theoretical exercise, or do we simply lack candidates who can do this? I’m guessing the latter, and we need credible candidates who can face off in 2028 with the likely candidate Vance.  Who can it be? For sure not AOC or any progressive; America rejected that viewpoint when Harris moved farther left in 2024 (she was also incoherent on many issues).  Mayor Pete? Not well enough known, and he’s keeping a low profile. Don’t ask me; I’m not a pundit.

Meanwhile, the WaPo weighs in with Karen Tumulty’s op-ed, “There’s turmoil at the DNC—which isn’t a bad thing.” She offers some good news, but no candidate:

And then there was the massive turnout this month at the rallies in more than 2,000 cities that were dubbed the “No Kings Nationwide Day of Defiance.” It was unmistakable evidence of how much energy there is to be tapped by Democrats as they prepare for the midterm elections.

Who are the candidates? Can you name some potentially good ones?  I can’t.

*More bad news from the WSJ for progressive leftists: “Supreme Court allows Trump administration to swiftly deport migrants to third countries.” As expected, the vote was 6-3:

The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for the Trump administration to swiftly deport certain migrants to countries they aren’t from.

The court’s conservative majority stayed a lower-court order that said individuals set to be deported to third countries must be given meaningful notice of their intended destination, allowing them time to raise objections.

The Trump administration, which asked the Supreme Court to intervene, argued a trial judge had improperly interfered with the president’s authority over foreign affairs.

As is typical in emergency orders from the high court, the majority didn’t explain its reasoning. The court’s three liberals dissented and accused the majority of ignoring due-process requirements for migrants who may be sent to unfamiliar countries.

“Apparently, the Court finds the idea that thousands will suffer violence in far-flung locales more palatable than the remote possibility that a District Court exceeded its remedial powers when it ordered the Government to provide notice and process to which the plaintiffs are constitutionally and statutorily entitled,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The case involved a class of migrants who were facing final orders that allowed them to be removed from the U.S. The Supreme Court’s order doesn’t resolve questions about the Trump administration’s legal obligations to the migrants, which continues to be litigated in the lower courts. But practically speaking, it could have an immediate impact, with the administration signaling it plans to move quickly.

This does not allow proper time for adjudication of migrants’ claims by immigration courts. I can only imagine what someone feels about to be deported a country that they didn’t come from. What do you do? Where do yu go? The Trump administration has shown a notable lack of empathy about these issues; they merely want to get rid of immigrants, and it doesn’t much matter where they go.

*Finally, a federal judge indefinitely blocked Trump’s order banning Harvard’s ability to accept foreign students.

A federal judge on Friday indefinitely blocked the Trump administration from revoking Harvard University’s ability to host international students and scholars while legal challenges continue.

The preliminary injunction issued by US District Judge Allison Burroughs extends a temporary block the judge had issued last month against the administration after it revoked the school’s certification in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, which allows it to host foreign students and scholars. International students make up roughly a quarter of the school’s student body.

Harvard’s legal battle against the administration took a turn in recent weeks after President Donald Trump issued a proclamation that suspends international visas for new students. The judge similarly stepped in on an emergency basis to halt that order in early June, and she heard arguments on Monday over whether she should also indefinitely block the edict. She has not yet issued a ruling on Trump’s proclamation.

Friday’s ruling represents a key win for the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university, which Trump targeted earlier this year over allegations that it hadn’t adequately addressed antisemitism on campus. Administration officials also demanded that the private school eliminate what it calls “racist ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ practices.”

Again, this is a temporary order, and in the end Trump may prevail. That would be bad, as Harvard—and other schools—need to consider foreign applicants. Some of our finest students, including many who stay in the U.S. to enrich our culture and bolster America’s reputation for excellence, come from outside America. This is part of Trump’s continuing reprisals against Harvard.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Andrzej were out on a walk when Hili wants to return home:

Hili: Let’s return home.

A: Why? It was you who wanted to go out.

Hili: Yes, but now I have to check whether somebody has eaten from my bowl.

Hili: Wracamy do domu.
Ja: Dlaczego, przecież to ty chciałaś wyjść?
Hili: Tak, ale teraz muszę sprawdzić, czy ktoś nie wyjadł karmy z mojej miseczki.

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

From The Dodo Pet:

From Stacy:

From Things With Faces: A quesadilla that looks like either a pony or a hedgehog.

From Masih. I worried about Israel’s bombing of Evin Prison, where political prisoners are sequestered, tortured, and killed. Wouldn’t the bombs kill the people Israel wanted to release. I can guess only that the strike was targeted, designed to allow prisoners to escape. That apparently failed.

The Islamic Republic’s notorious prison, Evin was bombed by Israel. The regime responded by surrounding the prison with security forces to make sure none of the political prisoners could escape. This is the reality in Iran. At a time of war, political prisoners must be released… pic.twitter.com/xCkBexTZEO

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) June 23, 2025

From Luana; a tweet relevant to some of the news above:

The Democratic Party is committing suicide. I no longer recognize it. It won’t defend our borders. It won’t protect our cities from crime. And now it appears to oppose efforts to deny nuclear weapons to a murderous death cult. https://t.co/9TXxLMvKrF

— Christina Hoff Sommers (@CHSommers) June 22, 2025

From Michael, two of our favorite animals: cats and capybaras:

Oyen, the cat who was accepted by a herd of capybaras. 🐈

Oyen the capybara cat is believed to have been orphaned as a young kitten, but he’s not without family now. The capybaras happily accepted him, and they’re not the only ones. pic.twitter.com/rxcyLPIvW4

— Wholesome Side of 𝕏 (@itsme_urstruly) June 22, 2025

From Malcolm: Cat (at bottom) introduces her kitten to a friendly d*g:

Cat introduces her kitten to her dog friend.. 😊 pic.twitter.com/t2GRrItiRB

— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) May 4, 2025

From my feed; one that will make you tear up. The thread has other lovely tweets:

Content we want to see everyday 🧵❤️

1. The bride’s father died years ago.
He had promised to come to her wedding,
and his presence was in the form of a butterfly …pic.twitter.com/GGcc8XzErv

— Awesome Videos ❤️ (@Awesomevideos07) June 23, 2025

One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

A French Jewish boy was gassed upon arriving at Auschwitz. He was fifteen.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-06-24T11:09:42.769Z

Two posts from Matthew. First, superstar Mary Pickford and her moggy:

#OnThisDay, 24 June 1916, Mary Pickford becomes the first Hollywood star to sign a million-dollar contract.#ReclaimTheFrame #HollywoodHistory #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory 🗃️1/2

— Carve Her Name (@carvehername.bsky.social) 2025-06-24T08:00:03.000Z

. . . and the Vera Rubin Observatory is online in Chile. Here’s a great image (note the spiral nebulas):

We're celebrating today with the release of the first images from @vrubinobs.bsky.social. (Image credit: NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory). This one, of part of the Virgo cluster, is my favourite.

— Chris Lintott (@chrislintott.bsky.social) 2025-06-23T06:16:00.939Z

Welcome to what may well be a truncated version of the Hili dialogue, as I’m starting this on Sunday night and have no idea when I’ll get up tomorrow. (Note: I got up at 4 am local time, but got 7 hours of sleep, and have written most of it this morning.)

So good morning on Monday, June 23, 2025, and National Detroit-Style Pizza Day.

What in tarnation is that? Outside of Italy, there is is only Chicago pizza and New York pizza (and white clam pizza in New Haven(, and Chicago wins. Well, Wikipedia tells us this about Detroit-style “pizza”: it’s. . .

. . .a rectangular pan pizza with a thick, crisp, chewy crust. It is traditionally topped to the edges with mozzarella or Wisconsin brick cheese, which caramelizes against the high-sided heavyweight rectangular pan. Detroit-style pizza was originally baked in rectangular steel trays designed for use as automotive drip pans or to hold small industrial parts in factories. It was developed during the mid-20th century in Detroit, Michigan, before spreading to other parts of the United States in the 2010s. It is one of Detroit’s most famous local foods.

Here is is, and for crying out loud it’s just a rectangular pizza with local cheese. Give me a stuffed pizza over this any day:

It’s also National Pecan Sandies Day (a cookie), Pink Flamingo Day, and National Hydration Day.

It’s gonna be a hot one in the next few days, with a predicted high temperature in NYC of 96° today and 98° tomorrow, and that’s leaving out the humidity, which will make it feel several degrees above 100°F.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 23 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The war between Israel and Iran continues, with the U.S. stepping aside after its bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities while Israel continues to attack:

Israel fired a new round of strikes at Tehran and other Iranian cities early on Monday, and the Israeli military said it had identified missiles launched from Iran, hours after President Trump raised the prospect of regime change in the Islamic Republic.

. . . The new attacks came a day after U.S. bombers and submarines unleashed heavy strikes on a trio of Iranian nuclear facilities, and as the state of Tehran’s nuclear program remained unclear. Top U.S. officials said it was too soon to say whether Iran still retained the ability to make a nuclear weapon and the location of its existing stockpile of enriched uranium was unknown, even as Mr. Trump doubled down on his claim that Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities had been “obliterated.”

, , , Israel’s Air Force is attacking “military infrastructure sites” in the Iranian province of Kermanshah, the Israeli military said in a statement. The province, in western Iran, borders Iraq and lies hundreds of miles from Tehran and the three nuclear sites that the U.S. attacked on Sunday.

Israeli fighter jets attacked surface-to-surface missile launchers and storage sites in Kermanshah, the military later said, calling it part of Israel’s broader aim of degrading Iran’s military capabilities.

The Times of Israel reports Iranian missile attacks on Israel, but they were limited:

Just six or seven missiles were launched from Iran in four waves in the attack a short while ago, according to updated IDF assessments.

The missiles were fired over a 40-minute period.

There are no reports of injuries. Several impacts were reported in open areas.

One impact next to a power station in southern Israel has caused outages in nearby towns, according to the Israel Electric Corporation.

The NYT published a map of where the U.S. attacked Iran; I’ve reproduced the NYT’s caption (click to enlarge):

What impresses me is how close to each other the six bomb entry points are at Fordo: there are two groups of three. The U.S. appears to have been targeting the ventilation shafts at the enrichment plant, which, if true, is a clever move since the already-dug shafts would obviate the need for the bunker busters to penetrate hundreds of feet of rock. This video shows some of the entry points:

*Meanwhile, the NYT reports that Trump’s waffling about whether he’d take two weeks before deciding to strike Iran appears to have been an elaborate ruse.  The decision had already been made when Carolin Leavitt, the White House Press Secretary, announced the “two week decision period” bit (article archived here):

The “head fake” was that the U.S. had, as part of the deception, sent a strike force of B-2 bombers from another direction, across the Pacific (the bombers that actually struck Fordo came from Missouri and traveled west):

These public pronouncements [Trump’s public waffling] generated angst at the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command, where military planners began to worry that Mr. Trump was giving Iran too much warning about an impending strike.

They built their own deception into the attack plan: a second group of B-2 bombers that would leave Missouri and head west over the Pacific Ocean in a way that flight trackers would be able to monitor on Saturday. That left a misimpression, for many observers and presumably Iran, about the timing and path of the attack, which would come from another direction entirely.

Now it’s not clear whether Trump was resolved to give the order to bomb when he made the “two weeks” statement, but what is certain is that the military, under his orders, had already prepared an elaborate attack plan,  The extent of the damage is unknown, and there are some reports (see photos here) that a fleet of trucks had removed enriched uranium from Fordo before the bombing:

There was also evidence, according to two Israeli officials with knowledge of the intelligence, that Iran had moved equipment and uranium from the site in recent days. And there was growing evidence that the Iranians, attuned to Mr. Trump’s repeated threats to take military action, had removed 400 kilograms, or roughly 880 pounds, of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity. That is just below the 90 percent that is usually used in nuclear weapons.

Finally, there have been protests in America against by bombings, but according to the NYT they are more limited than I predicted:

Protesters in more than a dozen U.S. cities demonstrated on Sunday against the Trump administration’s airstrikes on Iran.

Some rallies attracted hundreds, while others drew dozens. The overall turnout was far less than last weekend’s “No Kings” protests against the president that were held in all 50 states. Many of Sunday’s demonstrations, held in cities including New York, Boston, Chicago, Washington and Los Angeles, were arranged late Saturday and had been described by organizers as “emergency mobilizations.”

*The international opprobrium against the U.S. for striking Iran has been widespread, with UK PM Kier Starmer being an exception, but still calling for restraint. I found three op-ed pieces that were pretty praiseworthy, and one (by Tom “I am Dumb” Friedman) being deeply confused.

At the NYT Bret Stephens, whose writing on the war I admire, had an op-ed called “Trump’s courageous and correct decision” (archived here). A short excerpt:

For decades, a succession of American presidents pledged that they were willing to use force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. But it was President Trump who, by bombing three of Iran’s key nuclear sites on Sunday morning, was willing to demonstrate that those pledges were not hollow and that Tehran could not simply tunnel its way to a bomb because no country other than Israel dared confront it.

That’s a courageous and correct decision that deserves respect, no matter how one feels about this president and the rest of his policies. Politically, the easier course would have been to delay a strike to appease his party’s isolationist voices, whose views about the Middle East (and antipathies toward the Jewish state) increasingly resemble those of the progressive left. In the meantime, Trump could have continued to outsource the dirty work of hitting Iran’s nuclear capabilities to Israel, hoping that it could at least buy the West some diplomatic leverage and breathing room.

. . .one set of risks must be weighed against another, and there are few greater risks to American security than a nuclear Iran.

The regime is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. It is ideologically committed to the annihilation of Israel and is currently attacking it with indiscriminate missile fire on civilian targets. It is an ally of North Korea, China and Russia — and supplies many of the drones Russia uses to attack Ukraine. It is developing and fielding thousands of ballistic missiles of increasingly greater reach. Its acquisition of a bomb would set off an arms race in the Middle East. And it has sought to assassinate American citizens on American soil. If all this is not intolerable, what is?

Apparently it is tolerable to those who, determined to criticize everything that Trump does, cannot force themselves to admit that the U.S. strike was timely, clever, and well executed. This mindset does not allow Trump to do anything positive, even if it’s by accident.

The second positive op-ed is in by the editorial board of the Free Press: “Trump keeps his promise on Iran. The world is safer for it” (archived here).

In a moment of political decisiveness and courage, Trump deployed those bombs, despite strenuous objections from the “restrainers” in his administration and parts of the MAGA coalition.

“There’s no military that could’ve done what we did,” Trump said during a brief speech to the nation Saturday night. He is correct. As Niall Ferguson and former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant recently noted in these pages, Fordow was essentially impervious to assault. There was one bomb that could cut through its defenses: America’s GBU 57A/B Massive Ordinance Penetrator (MOP). And there was only one plane built to deliver that bomb: the American B-2 Spirit.

“With a single exertion of its unmatched military strength,” Ferguson and Gallant wrote, “the United States can shorten the war, prevent wider escalation, and end the principal threat to Middle Eastern stability. It can also send a signal to those other authoritarian powers who have been Iran’s enablers that American deterrence is back.”

That is exactly what this White House has done.

Well, the Free Press‘s enthusiasm may be premature, but I share their approbation. And that does not make me an unalloyed fan of Trump, which of course I am not.

Finally, Sam Harris has a piece called “The right war,” which I can’t access though I have a subscription. Here’s part of what’s visible:

For all his faults, President Trump is now the first U.S. president to take decisive action against the terror state of Iran. Of course, there is a risk that he could exploit this war to justify further authoritarian measures at home, but I believe that the decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear infrastructure was both necessary and courageous.

No doubt, the President drew most of his courage from the success of Israel’s recent military operations—both within Iran and against its proxies throughout the region. Without these astonishing achievements, it is hard to imagine him choosing to attack Iran on his own. Unsurprisingly, President Trump declared our attempt to eliminate Iran’s nuclear capability a complete success, long before anyone could know the actual result. Still, bombing these sites seemed like the right thing to do.

*Finally, Tom Friedman, who has been lame throughout this crisis, proposes his “solution”, which is, as usual, untenable (op-ed archived here).

The real knockout blow to Iran and all the resisters — and the keystone that would make it easy as pie for Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq to normalize relations with Israel and consolidate the victory for the forces of inclusion — is for Trump to tell Netanyahu: “Get out of Gaza in return for a cease-fire from Hamas and the return of all Israeli hostages. Let an Arab peacekeeping force move in there, blessed by a reformed Palestinian Authority, and then begin what will have to be a long process of Palestinians building a credible governing structure in return for a halt to all Israeli settlement building in the West Bank. That would create the best conditions to birth a Palestinian state there.”

I don’t think Israel wants to permanently occupy Gaza, but the idea that there could be an immediate cease-fire, with Hamas relinquishing power and returning all the hostages, is totally stupid and ignorant. Hamas does not want to give up either power or hostages, and Israel will not stop fighting in Gaza until Hamas does (the hostages might of course have been killed).

And Friedman unaccountably still trusts the Palestinian Authority—another pro-terror organization sworn to destroy Israel—to be part of a joint peacekeeping force with other Arab states, who themselves want no part of policing Gaza.

Friedman simply mouths pious words but seems to have no idea of the passions that inflame both Hamas and Israel (the latter wants no part of a “two state” solution right now). The man is delusional, and should not be writing for the NYT.

*The pro-Isael Elder of Ziyon has a nice memorial for Malgorzata, who translated the site’s articles into Polish:

I am sorry to say that Małgorzata Koraszewska passed away suddenly last week.

Malgorzata was a prolific translator of works into Polish, and she had translated hundreds of my articles, posters and videos over the years. But she translated from many others, as well as books and… pic.twitter.com/msaEWMWFcg

— Elder of Ziyon 🇮🇱 (@elderofziyon) June 22, 2025

Here is the Polish Rationalist Society’s obituary for Malgorzata, which Google can translate into English (click to read):

An excerpt:

   It was Małgorzata Koraszewska who translated and searched for texts showing us all the situation of atheists and freethinkers in the world. It was mainly thanks to her that many of us had a chance to move from the provincial world of anticlericals criticizing the local church to the real world full of dangerous secular and religious ideologies. It was Małgorzata who was one of the main builders of a truly rational and humanistic awareness of what is really happening in the world understood as a global village in which we live, and not distant fairy-tale lands that are indifferent to us.

Andrzej and Małgorzata Koraszewski were awarded the title of Rationalists of the Year by PSR, due to their enormous contribution to rational thought, to the fight against dogmas that build various ideologies in defenseless human minds. You have probably noticed that we have not been awarding this prize for some time. This is no coincidence. It is currently difficult to find people in Poland who would match the scale of their activities and achievements of Małgorzata and Andrzej Koraszewski.

Małgorzata was and is my heroine! If you want to honor her, follow in her footsteps! Be distrustful and skeptical of media and political witch hunts. When learning about difficult topics, look for sources and think independently. Be like investigative journalists, without this you will drown in a sea of ​​propaganda. Finding the truth, or a more true picture of a given event or phenomenon, is a very exhausting challenge. And when you possess this truth, you will often be stigmatized, like Małgorzata and Andrzej defending a cause as “unfashionable” as the case of Israel. So you will face hardship and there will most likely be no reward from the circles you associate with. On the contrary, there will be criticism, often stupid and unfair. However, deep inside, in your hearts, you will be winners. You will have a chance to become wiser, just as the repeaters of propaganda and dogmas do not become better. So if you want sometimes painful wisdom, instead of blissful stagnation that drowns in indolence, do not forget about Małgorzata. Reach for the texts she translated and go further, to the sources, to the truth, to justice.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is puzzled:

Hili: What did I come here for?
A: And where have you been?
Hili: By the well.
A: Go back there, you may remember.

In Polish:

Hili: Po co ja tu przyszłam?
Ja: A gdzie byłaś?
Hili: Koło studni.
Ja: Wróć tam, może sobie przypomnisz.

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

From Stacy; Day-O!

From Now That’s Wild:

From CinEmma:

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

Yes, Americans are already extolling the wonderfulness of the Iranian regime, like the woman on the right below. Masih has a message for them:

That woman in your poster?
Your “hero”?
She says women like you and me deserve to be raped, because we don’t cover our hair or hide our bodies “properly.”

On Iran’s state TV,
She said #MahsaAmini deserved to die, because she broke the law by showing her hair. Remember?

But… pic.twitter.com/gYO9dS16bB

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) June 22, 2025

From Barry. I have no idea what it’s about, but it’s funny:

From Luana. These are the people like the woman on the right in the first tweet above:

“9/11 was kinda justified.”

American students have been indoctrinated beyond belief. pic.twitter.com/bcitZva9yn

— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) June 20, 2025

I found two tweets, but the one I want to emphasize, and which I used to post about, is the second one:

Iran before and after the Islamic Revolution.

The difference is undeniable! pic.twitter.com/455cKeKXbN

— The Immortal (@TheImmortal007) June 21, 2025

From Malcolm: a polite d*g:

When the dog was drinking water, he noticed that the cat wouldn’t drink. So, he stepped aside and let the cat drink.. 😊 pic.twitter.com/7ZwY4fw8DN

— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) May 18, 2025

One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

This German Jewish boy was sent to the gas chambers immediately upon arriving at Auschwitz. He was nine.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-06-23T08:23:53.599Z

Two posts from Matthew. First, an ancient cat:

I love this photo from my collection that was correctly framed to cut off the dude's head but catch the photobombing cat.

— Cats of Yore (@catsofyore.bsky.social) 2025-06-22T17:44:36.496Z

And birds who know what they want:

Hace mucha calor.Definición gráfica.Besitos

— Carla B™ (@carlab.bsky.social) 2025-06-21T15:57:48.946Z

Welcome to Sunday, June 22, and the sabbath for goyische cats. It’s also National Chocolate Eclair Day, celebrating a great pastry (when made properly). Below are some chocolate-cream-filled ones from La Maison du Chocolat, a chain of French stores:

Some useful info from Wikipedia:

The word comes from the French éclair, meaning ‘flash of lightning‘, so named because it is eaten quickly (in a flash); however some believe that the name is due to the glistening of the frosting resembling lightning.

It’s also National Onion Rings Day (better than fries!) and World Rainforest Day.  I can’t resist showing this photo of one rainforest denizen, Atelopus coynei, with the photo taken in the forest of the EcoMinga foundation, snapped by Juan Pablo Reyes and Jordy Salazar, and sent in by Lou Jost:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 22 Wikipedia page.

I will be flying to New York early today for the Heterodox Academy Meetings, so there may be only Hili in the Hili dialogues and posting will be light. Bear with me; I do my best.

Da Nooz:

*As I wrote yesterday, the U.S. bombed nuclear facilities in Iran. Here is the NYT headline.  Click to read, or find it archived here.

An excerpt:

American warplanes and submarines attacked three key nuclear sites in Iran early Sunday, bringing the U.S. military directly into Israel’s war and prompting fears that the strikes could lead to more dangerous escalations across the Middle East.

President Trump said the objective was the “destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity. He claimed success, saying in a televised address from the White House that the nuclear facilities had been “completely and totally obliterated.”

*The war continues between Israel and Iran, with Israel targeting the Isfahan nuclear facility, Some countries, especially in Europe, are deeply scared that a wider war will erupt, especially if the U.S. joins Israel. The country’s head, Ayatollah Khamenei, 86, has also picked a slate of three potential replacements in case he’s killed. And we’re now into the two weeks that Trump has given Iran to satisfy his demands (which are unclear) before the U.S. bombs the country. Some excerpts:

From the NYT:

Adding to many people’s fears is the possibility that President Trump will grant Israel’s request that the United States intervene by dropping 30,000-pound bombs on an Iranian nuclear enrichment facility buried deep underground.

Such a move, experts say, could push Iran to retaliate against American military bases or allies across the Middle East, or to activate proxy forces, like the Houthis in Yemen, to snarl trade routes or damage oil infrastructure, harming the global economy.

. . . “We’re opening a Pandora’s box,” said Narges Bajoghli, an associate professor of Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University. “Iran is not going to raise the white flag of surrender.”

From the WaPo:

The advice — some solicited, others not — from prominent donors, right-wing media figures and elected officials played on Trump’s own conflicting impulses on Iran. On the one side, Trump resolutely has stuck to his long-held belief that Iran must be stopped from developing a nuclear weapon. On the other, he has tried to avoid war — an approach that is a major element of his political movement.

On Thursday, Trump responded as he often has when faced with difficult options: He bought himself time, declaring that he would wait up to two weeks to make a decision.

From another NYT article:

Wary of assassination, Iran’s supreme leader mostly speaks with his commanders through a trusted aide now, suspending electronic communications to make it harder to find him, three Iranian officials familiar with his emergency war plans say.

Ensconced in a bunker, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has picked an array of replacements down his chain of miliary command in case more of his valued lieutenants are killed.

And in a remarkable move, the officials add, Ayatollah Khamenei has even named three senior clerics as candidates to succeed him should he be killed, as well — perhaps the most telling illustration of the precarious moment he and his three-decade rule are facing.

I still don’t agree that Trump should decide to keep the U.S. out of the fray. If he does, at least he could give or sell some B2 bombers and seven or eight bunker-buster bombs to Israel so they can destroy the underground facilities. Think about this: what will “negotiations” accomplish? For one thing, they’d leave the theocracy in power, and thus the vibrant people of Iran will remain oppressed by medieval laws and morals. For another thing, unless there is the most thorough inspection scheme ever devised to sniff out uranium and missiles, Iran will continue to  cheat until it gets the bomb, and I have no doubt that it would use it against Israel.  Trump may want a reputation as a peacekeeper, but some day we may be saying, “If only the U.S. had toppled the regime.” (Of course, that cannot be done without the help of the Iranian people.)

*A judge ordered that Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia grad student detained for purported pro-Palestinian protests, must be released, and now he’s free.  Throughout the U.S., judges are deciding that people cannot be detained for simply uttering free speech, but nevertheless Trump’s detentions have had a chilling effect.

. . . . with Mahmoud Khalil’s release on bail from federal detention on Friday, the early phase of the Trump administration’s high-profile crackdown on international students who have spoken out in favor of Palestinian rights appears to have ended for now.

As a detention campaign — an attempt to confine the students while their deportation cases play out — Mr. Trump’s efforts appear to have been unsuccessful. In addition to Mr. Khalil, many of the other administration’s most prominent targets have been freed, while immigration agents have been barred from even trying to detain others.

Judges in those cases have sent an unequivocal message: The administration cannot detain people solely because of their speech.

“The unanimity of federal court decisions on this issue should send a clear message to the executive branch that it cannot snatch people off the streets for peacefully protesting and put them in prison indefinitely,” said Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School. “The federal courts have unequivocally protected the First Amendment rights of the noncitizen protesters in these cases, literally across the country.”

Mr. Trump’s second term has been rife with similar efforts to suppress disfavored speech, as the administration bars news outlets from the Oval Office and cancels federal grants on the basis of words that its officials dislike. And while many of those efforts have been legally unsuccessful, it is difficult to measure their broader political effect.

In the case of the high-profile student protesters, if one of the president’s goals was to stifle the pro-Palestinian movement on college campuses, his administration has succeeded in some ways. The abrupt detention of foreign students may have had a profoundly chilling effect on international students, who could see Mr. Khalil’s monthslong detention as a warning.

“I am now regularly advising noncitizens to consider whether they want to engage in political speech,” Ms. Mukherjee said. “Of course, they should have a right to do so under the First Amendment, but there are potentially life-altering, devastating consequences for doing so.”

I fully agree with Mukherjee: these people are being deprived of their rights for speaking out. You may argue that noncitizens don’t have free speech, but the Constitution just says “the people”. And even if noncitizens don’t have free speech, they should, and the courts should, as they have done, act accordingly.  There should be no detention without formal charges, and only when the detained person poses a flight risk.  Every detained person should have their cases adjudicated by the courts, even if the case is open and shut, and detaining Khalil was wrong.

*Reader Divy Figueroa sent me this article from the Independent and told me that Stephen Fry had broken her heart. Click to read:

An excerpt (remember that Fry is gay):

Stephen Fry has claimed that JK Rowling’s “cruel” and “mocking” views on transgender people is a result of being “radicalised”.

The QI star, who narrated the Harry Potter audiobooks, is the latest to speak out against Rowling’s comments on gender ideology, which has seen her repeatedly come under fire.

Many, including stars of the Harry Potter adaptations, have accused her of transphobia – and now Fry, 66, has shared his own damning view on the author.\

Fry, who is an advocate for LGBT+ rights, suggested that the “vitriol” her critics send is “unhelpful” as it “only hardens her”.

“She has been radicalised, I fear – perhaps by TERFs [Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist] but also by the vitriol that is thrown at her,” he said to The Show People podcast, adding: “I’m afraid she seems to be a lost cause for us.”

Fry continued: “She started to make these peculiar statements and had very strong, difficult views. She seemed to kick a hornet’s nest of transphobia that has been entirely destructive.”

The presenter and actor was previously criticised by the LGBT+ community in 2022 when he said he would not “abandon” Rowling, who was once his friend, but he is speaking out now as he “disagrees profoundly with her on this subject”.

, , ,“She says things that are inflammatory, contemptuous and mocking,” he said. “They add to a terribly distressing time for trans people.”

Fry went on: “When it comes to the transphobia issue, it is right to remind people that trans people are here and that they are hurting. They are being abominably treated. There’s a great deal of bullying, violence, suicide and genuine agony in the trans community.”

Rowling has become ostracised from former Harry Potter child stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint due to the controversy – and the author has said she would not forgive the actors for criticising her opinions, telling them to “save their apologies”. She has denied being transphobic.

Divy added, “I never imagined that Stephen Fry would succumb to the trans zealotry, but that he would see straight through it and call it out for what it is. Standing up for women’s rights and stating basic scientific facts is not transphobic!

I agree completely. Rowling is not transphobic; what Fry calls “transphobia” is simply her insistence that there should be some spaces reserved for biological women, combined with her sharp and often funny retorts to those people who see Rowling’s stand as “transphobic”.  As far as I can see, she does not denigrate or wish to erase trans people. 

*Chase Strangio is the ACLU’s head lawyer for LGBTQ+ issues, and is also a trans-identified woman. I have found his views reprehensible, and a step backward for the ACLU, for he is not neutral but a somewhat unhinged activist for trans rights, some of which (like sports participation) are dubious. But I most dislike him for his call for banning of Abigail Shrier’s first book, Irreversible Damage, in which Shrier’s thesis turned out to be right.

Strangio argued before the Supreme Court against Tennessee’s ban on affirmative care for minors, but lost, 6-3.  In his latest column, “Strangio things,” Andrew Sullivan sees this loss as a watershed moment, saying, “The campaign to trans children just lost an election, SCOTUS, and the NYT.” I highly recommend that you read the NYT article linked below (archived here).  Note also the WSJ’s article, “The Trump-Era rollback of transgender rights is gaining steam,” which includes the slippery word “rights.”

An excerpt from Sullivan:

I think this could be the beginning of the end.

I’m referring to the attempt to capture the remnants of the gay and lesbian rights movement in order to promote the abolition of the sex binary in law, society, and culture. The Supreme Court just brutalized it with facts in the Skrmetti case. And Nick Confessore’s deeply-reported piece in the NYT Magazine is the knockout punch. The NYT shift is the most surprising — no one thought the queers would win Skrmetti after the oral arguments — and it’s worth a review.

An impressive piece of narrative writing, the Confessore piece wrestles many of the complexities and plot twists to the ground, but it’s particularly helpful in informing liberal readers in a source they may trust that this is no longer the gay and lesbian rights movement they thought they knew.

It is, instead, a Gender Revolution, led by a figure Confessore paints vividly: Chase Strangio, the transman who has headed up the ACLU campaign to abolish the sex binary, and who argued and just lost Skrmetti 6-3. In his own words, he is

“a constitutional lawyer who fundamentally doesn’t believe in the Constitution,” an L.G.B.T.Q. activist who felt his movement was overly devoted to gay white men with “social power and capital and political power”

(Never mind that rich gay white men always had the resources to protect their relationships in law — that’s what fancy lawyers are for. It was working-class lesbian and gay couples who benefited the most from marriage rights and employment protection.)

Strangio’s disdain for gay white men is of a woke piece with his view that the Supreme Court is “a vile institution”; that “the law is not a dignified system”; and that gay marriage (which he did some begrudging legal work for) was a mistake. As the Respect For Marriage Act passed in 2022, entrenching gay marriage rights in congressional law, Strangio wrote:

I feel an inexplicable amount of rage witnessing the Senate likely … vote to codify marriage rights for same-sex couples … I find it disappointing how much time and resources went into fighting for inclusion in the deeply flawed and fundamentally violent institution of civil marriage.

I believe in many ways, the mainstream LGBTQ legal movement caused significant harm in further entrenching the institution of marriage as an organizing structure of civil society … and the political capital that went into passing this means capital lost somewhere else — for voting, abortion, trans people, student loans.

How far the ACLU has sunk! And of course gender-nonconforming people and gays should be afforded the rights and dignity of everyone else. But what may be ending is the kind of unhinged gender activism that demands more rights for gender-nonconforming people than for other people, including gay people. That’s what gets Sullivan’s hackles up:

Strangio and his fellow nutters have also pushed the gay and lesbian rights movement onto thin political ice — and it’s now cracking beneath our feet. The queer radicals have lost an election, debates in 27 state legislatures, the Biden DOJ, public opinion, the Supreme Court, and now — with this definitive piece and a solid podcast series, The Protocol — the New York Times. And next month, the most famous clinic in the US transing kids, run by Johanna Olson-Kennedy, will shutter. She was a key promoter of the suicide lie. The lawsuits are going to be brutal.

Does that mean we can finally actually have a debate about this in the gay and lesbian world? Or that the Democrats will begin to realize just how bamboozled they have been — and right the ship? Ezra Klein’s new interview with Sarah McBride is the first admission from a leading trans figure that they have fucked up badly, and need to regroup. It’s a welcome change of tone and direction.

Maybe there’s a chance for what’s left of the former gay groups to recover their liberal principles, support free speech, engage opponents, respect religious dissent, use plain English, and trust rigorous, evidence-based science again. If we can do that, and help kids in gender distress without irreversibly and prematurely medicalizing them, we can begin to regain the broader public trust we have recently lost. Know hope.

Here’s a graph from the Pew poll linked to the “public opinion” phrase above, showing how Americans’ view of policies and laws involving trans people have changed in just three years (click to enlarge):

*Famous bassist Carol Kaye, 90, a studio musician who contributed to some of rock’s greatest hits, has declined her election to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, though her reasons seem bizarreand she will be inducted anyway, despite her objections. First, a bit from her Wikipedia bio:

Kaye has achieved critical acclaim as one of the best session bassists of all time. Michael Molenda, writing in Bass Player magazine, said that Kaye could listen to other musicians and instantly work out a memorable bass line that would fit with the song, such as her additions to Sonny & Cher’s “The Beat Goes On”. Paul McCartney has said that his bass playing on the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was inspired by her work on Pet Sounds.^[1] Alison Richter, writing in Bass Guitar magazine, has called Kaye the “First Lady” of bass playing, adding “her style and influence are in your musical DNA.”

Kaye’s solo bass line in Spector’s production of “River Deep, Mountain High”, was a key part to the song’s “Wall of Sound” production. The recording is now in the Grammy Hall of Fame.  Quincy Jones said in his 2001 autobiography Q that “… women like… Fender bass player Carol Kaye… could do anything and leave men in the dust.” Brian Wilson has said that Kaye’s playing on the “Good Vibrations” sessions was a key part of the arrangement he wanted. “Carol played bass with a pick that clicked real good. It worked out really well. It gave it a hard sound.”^[30] Dr. John has said that Kaye “is a sweetheart as well as a kick-ass bass player”.

About her refusal of the honor:

Carol Kaye, a prolific and revered bassist who played on thousands of songs in the 1960s including hits by the Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel and Barbra Streisand, told The Associated Press on Friday that she wants no part of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

“I’ve declined the rrhof. Permanently,” the 90-year-old Kaye said in an email to the AP. She said she has sent a letter to the Hall saying the same thing.

Her remarks come two days after a Facebook post — since deleted — in which she said “NO I won’t be there. I am declining the RRHOF awards show.”

Kaye was set to be inducted in November in a class that also includes Joe Cocker, Chubby Checker and Cyndi Lauper.

She said in her deleted post that she was “turning it down because it wasn’t something that reflects the work that Studio Musicians do and did in the golden era of the 1960s Recording Hits.”

Kaye’s credits include the bass lines on Simon & Garfunkel’s “Homeward Bound,” the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” and the Monkees’ “I’m a Believer.”

Along with drummer Hal Blaine and guitarist Tommy Tedesco, she was part of a core of heavily used studio musicians that Blaine later dubbed “The Wrecking Crew.”

Kaye hated the name, and suggested in her Facebook post that her association with it was part of the reason for declining induction.

“I was never a ‘wrecker’ at all,” she wrote, “that’s a terrible insulting name.”

Kaye’s inductee page on the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame website makes no mention of the moniker.

. . .Many artists have been inducted in their absence or after their death, and in 2006 the Sex Pistols became Hall of Famers despite rejecting their induction.

In 2022, Dolly Parton initially declined her induction, saying someone more associated with rock ‘n’ roll should get the honor. But she was convinced to change her mind and embrace the honor.

Since she has an “inductee page,” she’s clearly going to be inducted, and boy, does she deserve it. See the videos below if you don’t believe me. As for her view of the monicker “The Wrecking Crew” (which also included Leon Russell and Glenn Campbell), it seems trivial, for the “Crew” was much admired and sought after. Here’s the putative source of the name:

The name was in common use by April 1981 when Hal Blaine used it in an interview with Modern Drummer. The name became more widely known when Blaine used it in his 1990 memoir, attributing it to older musicians who felt that the group’s embrace of rock and roll was going to “wreck” the music industry.

Here’s a video summarizing Kaye’s career:

And another video showing and explaining Kaye’s bass lines (there were two: a high and a low one) on “Good Vibrations”:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili explains how cats argue:

Hili: In a serious discussion, only three types of arguments  count.
A: What types?

Hili: Meowing, hissing and clawing.

Hili: W poważnej dyskusji liczą się tylko trzy rodzaje argumentów.
Ja: Jakie?
Hili: Miauczenie, syczenie i drapanie.

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

From The Language Nerds. Always use the Oxford comma (comma before the last item in a series):

From Jack Corbo:

From Jesus of the Day:

From Masih, a grim anniversary. Neda Agha-Soltan, who was shot in 2009, is identified by Wikipedia this way:

. . . an Iranian student of philosophy, who was participating in the 2009 presidential election protests with her music teacher, and was walking back to her car when she was fatally shot in the upper chest.

Eyewitnesses are reported by Western sources as saying Agha-Soltan was shot by a militiaman belonging to Basij paramilitary organization  Her death was captured on video by bystanders and broadcast over the Internet, and the video became a rallying point for the opposition. Agha-Soltan’s death sparked renewed protests against the disputed election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

I can’t embed the post, which has a video on it (content warning: death), but if you click on the screenshot below you can see the whole thing. Her eyes are open at the beginning.

Luana sent me this tweet asking if it were true. Sadly, it is. But at the U of C we do not punish people for free speech, as odious as it may be. But I can emit counter speech, and I’ll say that this man seems like a horrible, hateful person who supports terrorism and real genocide. Click to go to the original tweet:

Simon sent two Trump phone jokes:

— Meacham ✌🏼 (@meachamdr.bsky.social) 2025-06-20T14:56:40.456Z

— @Peg33 (@peg33.bsky.social) 2025-06-20T12:19:44.098Z

From Malcolm; a d*g trying to be a cat:

You see, I’m a cat too.. 😂 pic.twitter.com/sLnP0RgjrK

— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) May 8, 2025

One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

This French Jewish girl was gassed to death as soon as she arrived at Auschwitz. She was thirteen.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-06-22T07:20:52.602Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, a rare blood type is found (I didn’t know there were 48 blood groups; she’s the carrier of a rare variant in one of those groups:

A French woman from the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe has been identified as the only known carrier of a new blood type, dubbed "Gwada negative," France's blood supply agency has announced. u.afp.com/Sx36

— AFP News Agency (@en.afp.com) 2025-06-21T12:41:14.353Z

Matthew says, “Here’s a silly tweet,” though I don’t know exactly what prog-rock is:

We went to the rehung National Gallery. This painting, from around 1460, could easily have been painted for the cover of a 70s British prog-rock album.

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-06-20T16:15:27.849Z

Welcome to CaturSaturday, June 21, 2025: the first full day of summer and shabbos for Jewish cats. It’s also World Giraffe Day. Here’s a photo of three crossing the road (to get to the other side); I took these photos last August in at the Manyeleti Game Reserve in South Africa:

. . . and a giraffe at sunset:

.It’s also National Smoothie Day, National Peaches and Cream Day, International Day of Yoga, World Lambrusco Day, National Wagyu Day (a form of fatty and expensive beef) and Atheist Solidarity Day.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 21 Wikipedia page.

As I am leaving for NYC tomorrow early and not returning until Thursday, posting will be very light for that period. I will, however, put up Hili dialogues with a photo (Andrzej says he has four more ready to go.)

Da Nooz:

*The war of missiles and words continues between Iran and Israel, while Trump ponders whether the U.S. will get involved in bombing Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities.

From the NYT:

Iran sent a barrage of missiles into Israel on Friday that struck in several places, according to Israeli broadcasters and the country’s main emergency service. Two people were severely injured in the northern city of Haifa, the service’s director said in a television interview, and broadcast footage showed debris near one of the impact sites in central Haifa.

Both sides traded fire even as European ministers were meeting with Iran’s top diplomat in Switzerland to try to cool the week-old conflict. Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, said Tehran was not interested in negotiating an end to the war until Israel stopped its attacks.

A day after President Trump said he would put off a decision on whether to join Israel’s attacks for two weeks to give diplomacy a chance, Mr. Araghchi said in an interview with the Iranian state broadcaster IRIB that “we have clearly said that there is no room for talking until this aggression stops.”

Earlier, Israel announced overnight strikes on missile factories and a research center linked to Iran’s nuclear program. The country’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said he had ordered the Israeli military to increase its attacks on Iranian government targets to “destabilize the regime,” deter it from firing at Israel and displace the population of Tehran.

The Iranian missile barrage on Friday wounded at least 17 people, three of them seriously, according to Magen David Adom, Israel’s main emergency service. The Israeli fire and rescue service said it had dispatched teams to seven places in southern Israel where it had received reports that missiles or missile fragments had fallen.

From the Times of Israel:

US President Donald Trump will decide whether or not to join Israel’s air campaign against Iran’s nuclear facilities within the next two weeks as he awaits the outcome of diplomatic efforts between Tehran and Washington, the White House said Thursday.

The announcement, read aloud by Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, appeared to signal the administration’s latest U-turn over the question of whether to commit American forces believed vital to destroying Iran’s most hardened nuclear sites, after a week that saw him vacillate sharply between support for a peaceful solution and a threat to kill Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

On Wednesday, he said nobody knew what he would do.

“Based on the fact that there is a chance for substantial negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future — I will make my decision on whether or not to go within the next two weeks,” Leavitt said at a White House press briefing.

She confirmed that negotiations were continuing to take place between the US and Iran on the nuclear issue despite Israel’s offensive, after a Reuters report revealed that Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff had held a number of phone calls with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

I should add that Iran has a near-complete internet blackout and hence people have no way of knowing what’s going on in the rest of the world, much how their friends and relatives are doing.

Nobody knows what Trump is going to decide, for he’s notoriously mercurial.  Israel probably won’t wait two weeks to see if he decides to send B2 bombers and bunker-busters to Israel, but will likely keep chipping away at the nuclear sites. But I don’t believe for a minute that any negotiated settlement will end the problem of Iran’s developing nukes, nor keep it from urging its proxies to attack Israel. As Gideon Saaar, Israel’s foreign minister said, “I don’t trust their intentions. I don’t trust their honesty.”

*The WSJ analyzes Israel’s new strategy: can it win a war with air power alone? (Article archived here.)

Since last week, wave upon wave of Israeli warplanes has hit targets across Iran—testing the limits of what air power alone can achieve in conflict.

Conventional wisdom among military thinkers has long been that missiles and bombs, while essential to modern warfare, are seldom enough to achieve victory on their own, especially if the strategic aims of the warring states are expansive.

In this case, Israel has said its goal is to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, by physically destroying its ability to do so or by coercing Iran to give up its atomic ambitions in some kind of negotiated settlement. Israeli politicians have also called for the ouster of Tehran’s theocratic regime.

. . .Israeli policymakers appear to be counting on the ability of air power to win the day without ground operations, perhaps aside from small deployments of special-forces soldiers and intelligence officers assisting airstrikes.

For Israel, there is little choice. It lacks the wherewithal to mount large-scale ground operations far from its borders and against a vastly bigger adversary. The U.S. has the capacity, but the Trump administration has signaled great reluctance to put boots on the ground in any foreign war.

If Israel succeeds, with or without U.S. help, it could prompt a serious reassessment of the capabilities of modern air power, its effectiveness augmented by unmanned aircraft and more sophisticated surveillance and intelligence-gathering technologies. But skeptics abound.

There are few if any precedents for a large-scale armed conflict in which two states exchanged blows via air power alone.

This approach, with no ground forces, “certainly changes the course of any war—you cannot physically seize things, you can only physically destroy,” said Phillips O’Brien, a military historian who teaches war studies at St. Andrews University in Scotland.

Both sides have to look at the enemy country as a functioning machine and identify components, such as military production or command and control, whose destruction can lead to a win. “That’s never easy—which is why there are so few” purely aerial wars, O’Brien said.

All I can say is “We shall see. . . we shall see.”  If the U.S. gets involved with its big bombers and bunker busters, the chances of Israel winning are of course raised. But what does “winning” mean? Does the theocracy topple—something that many of us wish? Or does Iran just agree to stop its nuclear-weapons program with verification and inspection? I would not count that as a victory, not only because of the lack of regime change, but because Iran would still be fomenting its proxies to attack Israel.

*A federal appeals court, overruling a lower court, has said that Trump can, for the time being, keep the National Guard In Los Angeles (story archived here).

A federal appeals court in San Francisco said Thursday that President Donald Trump can keep the California National Guard in Los Angeles for now, delivering a win for the president as he aims to use the military to police protests against his deportation efforts.

The unanimous decision from the three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit — two of whom were appointed by Trump in his first term and the third appointed by President Joe Biden — said that Trump appears to have lawfully deployed the National Guard in the city, even though he did not consult California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D).

On social media, Trump hailed the decision as a “BIG WIN” and suggested that it would open the door for similar deployments across the United States if he determines that local law enforcement is “unable, for whatever reason, to get the job done.”

In Thursday’s decision, the appeals court judges disagreed with the federal government’s stance that Trump’s authority to deploy the National Guard could not be scrutinized by the courts.

But the judges also rejected California’s legal argument that a federal statute clearly requires a governor to be consulted before the deployment — rather than just having the president route the deployment command through the governor.

In the end, the court ruled that the president showed that he had at least some reason to believe that protesters interfered with federal law enforcement’s ability to carry out their deportation-related duties and that deploying the National Guard was necessary.

I have no dog in this fight and I don’t have any strong feelings about this decision. The law is the law, and if California doesn’t like this decision they can appeal it to the Supreme Court. I have no idea whether the presence of the National Guard in L.A. (where the rioting seems to be diminishing) is salutary.

*As usual, I’ll steal a few items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news/snark column at the Free Press (Nellie is back!). This week’s column is called “TGIF: Monitoring the situation” (archived here).

→ Obsessed with J.D. Vance trolling Bluesky and immediately getting suspended: Vice President J.D. Vance joined Bluesky, the alternative to X/Twitter that took off as a leftist hub after Musk arrived. Bluesky has become a holding pen for all the most obnoxious voices of the 2010s, “a containment dome,” and they’re really all in there still yelling at each other, day in and day out. I check in sometimes, because I appreciate seeing onetime media stars in there (all my former colleagues) biting each others’ ankles. J.D. posted a trolling message, saying: “I’ve been told this app has become the place to go for common sense political discussion and analysis. So I’m thrilled to be here to engage with all of you,” and promptly delved into a discussion about gender-affirming care for minors, as I do at every dinner party I attend. Within 12 minutes, his account was suspended. Remember when these people ran all of public discourse? I’m not saying the new regime that blasts me snuff films and racist memes is better, per se. I’m just saying, it was well played. Embarrassed by doing exactly what we all expected them to do, the hall monitors of Bluesky reinstated J.D.’s account.

Also on Bluesky, Harvard Law instructor Alejandra Caraballo posted a nice rant about her belief in the American project: “I honestly don’t care anymore if this country destroys itself and burns down to the ground. The current form of the United States is incompatible with democracy or human rights. It no longer has any a [sic] legitimacy to govern and I’ll dance on its grave. Let something better rise from the ashes.” That tuition is $82,560 a year, baby! The privilege of being told death to America over and over is not cheap.

→ The male brain: A new study out of France shows that while girls outperform boys in most school subjects, they lag in math, as if we needed a study to prove this. Please. Observe any women trying to calculate a tip. We know who is better at math. And this is a problem! We will be happy only when boys perform worse than girls in all subjects. Equality is when one group (the boy group) is doing worse on every metric.

→ Stop beating up Caitlin Clark: During a game against the Connecticut Sun, WNBA star Caitlin Clark was struck in the face, then shoved to the ground. It was pretty brutal. I actually don’t think the racial dynamics are what’s at play with the Caitlin Clark hazing, as many have suggested. I think it’s female dynamics. Women do not like vast differences between each other (women want “status equity,” as the social scientists say). So because Caitlin Clark is single-handedly boosting ratings and interest in women’s basketball, she is a threat. We are like crabs pulling ourselves back into the pot of crappy WNBA ratings. Which is why I have to tell you: Do not read Suzy’s culture column. Don’t do it. She’s too funny, too adorable, too redheaded, and it makes me uncomfortable. People ask me what I’m most afraid of. The answer is Suzy’s column. And if it comes to it, I will shove her.

*And some biology news from the AP: moths (well, at least one species of moth) navigates by using the stars!

An Australian moth follows the stars during its yearly migration, using the night sky as a guiding compass, according to a new study.

When temperatures heat up, nocturnal Bogong moths fly about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) to cool down in caves by the Australian Alps. They later return home to breed and die.

Birds routinely navigate by starlight, but the moths are the first known invertebrates, or creatures without a backbone, to find their way across such long distances using the stars.

Scientists have long wondered how the moths travel to a place they’ve never been. A previous study hinted that Earth’s magnetic field might help steer them in the right direction, along with some kind of visual landmark as a guide.

Since stars appear in predictable patterns each night, scientists suspected they might help lead the way. They placed moths in a flight simulator that mimicked the night sky above them and blocked out the Earth’s magnetic field, noting where they flew. Then they scrambled the stars and saw how the moths reacted.

When the stars were as they should be, the moths flapped in the right direction. But when the stars were in random places, the moths were disoriented. Their brain cells also got excited in response to specific orientations of the night sky.

The findings were published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

I found the paper; click on the title to read it for free. Note that these moths have an annual migration of up to 1,000 km to the north to escape the heat—and then they migrate back again. They have never made either leg of the migration before, so the directions must somehow be coded in their neurons.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is wondering if she’d thrive on Noah’s Ark:

Hili: Was there only one pair of mice on Noah’s Ark?
Andrzej: It’s just a theory.

Hili: Czy na Arce Noego była tylko jedna para myszy?
Ja: To tylko teoria.

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

From Meanwhile in Canada:

From The Dodo Pet:

From Wholesome Memes:

From Masih: the brave women of Iran, all of whom want the theocracy gone:

To all anti-war activists in the West:

There is only one path to end this war:
End the war-mongering Islamic regime in Iran.

This is a regime that:

– Blinds women for protesting like Kosar, Mersedeh, and countless others.

– Rapes young women like 16-year-old Nika Shakarami,… pic.twitter.com/ZDVI0VhxcY

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) June 19, 2025

A good video from Zach Elliott on how to protect women in sports (7.3 minutes, worth watching!). It’s a simple PCR test for the SRY gene, and is almost 100% accurate. Note that it uses a DNA sequence, not just the presence or absence of a Y chromosome.

.@Simone_Biles needs to watch our animated video on how sex screening in sports would work to protect female competition.

This is how you ensure safe and fair competition for female athletes.@BrowngaGreg, @FondOfBeetles, @runthinkwrite, @Scienceofsport pic.twitter.com/o7Xvg6jljf

— Zachary Elliott (@zaelefty) June 11, 2025

Simon says he’s never seen one of these before; neither have I. It’s also known as the red avadavat (Amandava amandava),

If you’ve never seen one before, this is a strawberry finch.

— Windy101 (@windy101.bsky.social) 2025-06-20T14:03:27.204Z

From Malcolm, a tweet that seems WRONG!:

A cat adopt a puppy pic.twitter.com/pECEJoKy4Z

— Gabriele Corno (@Gabriele_Corno) June 5, 2025

One from my feed: a fake cat diving competition, but I love it anyway:

Michi Olimpiadas🐈🐈‍⬛ pic.twitter.com/GDpf6HU8JP

— We don’t deserve cats 😺 (@catsareblessing) June 20, 2025

One that I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

This Hungarian Jewish girl was gassed to death upon arriving at Auschwitz. She was only 12 years old.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-06-21T09:45:05.367Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. I might have posted this cryptic creature before, but if I have, well, here it is again:

A game I get to play often in Ecuador… One of these things is not like the other. Do you see him? Imagine looking in an entire forest.

— Nathan Harness (@nathanharness.bsky.social) 2025-05-27T14:35:31.579Z

Matthew reposted this very cryptic octopus:

An Octopus cyanea – when you are at your most beautiful when you are barely visible at all

— Keishu Asada (@cephwarden.bsky.social) 2025-06-19T22:51:54.620Z