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

Welcome to Friday, June 20, 2025 and National Kougin Amann Day, celebrating a cake that isn’t Middle Eastern but French.  Wikipedia describes it as

. . . . a sweet, round Breton laminated dough pastry, originally made with bread dough (nowadays sometimes viennoiserie dough), containing layers of butter and incorporated sugar, similar in fashion to puff pastry albeit with fewer layers. It is slowly baked until the sugar caramelizes and the butter (in fact the steam from the water in the butter) expands the dough, resulting in its layered structure.

And it’s also THE FIRST DAY OF SUMMER, which officially begins at 10:42 p.m. tonight EDT (I’ll be asleep).  You will get more daylight today than any other day of the year. Celebrate! Celebrate! Dance to the music!

Here’s a photo of an individual kougin amann. I’ve never had this pastry but it sounds excellent:

I am off early Sunday to the Heterodox Academy Meetings in NYC (Brooklyn), and so posting will be light until I am back in harness on Friday (though just for a short while as I leave about a week later for a three-week trip to the Arctic). Bear with me; I’ll do my best, and of course will do Hili dialogues if Andrzej is able to send some.

It’s also American Eagle Day, National Ice Cream Soda Day, Plain Yogurt Day, Anne and Samantha Day (look it up), National Vanilla Milkshake Day, World Refugee Day, National Smoothie Day, World Humanist Day, and Ugliest Dog Day.

Here’s “Wild Thang,” winner of ther 2024 Petaluma’s World’s Ugliest Dog Contest. He’s not that ugly!

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

Da Nooz:

^There are two NYT articles on the war: “Europe pushes for de-escalation after nearly 1 week of war” and “An Islamic Republic with its back against the wall” (archived here and here, respectively). From the first one:

European officials are making a diplomatic push to de-escalate the conflict between Israel and Iran after nearly a week of deadly fighting, even as Israel’s defense minister warned on Thursday that the country’s military would intensify its strikes on “strategic targets” in Iran.

After days of back-channel discussions, the Europeans, who have been effectively sidelined since the war started, are now trying to exert what limited leverage they have as weapons suppliers or potential peacemakers to try to end the war.

*As the “progressive” MSM continues to criticize Israel for attacking Iran, Bret Stephens, always sensible on Middle Eastern Wars, proposes in the NYT “An Iranian Strategy for Trump” (archived here).

If the U.S. does attack, the most obvious target will be the Fordo nuclear site, a deeply buried facility where Iran enriches uranium and which, by most reports, can be knocked out only by a 15-ton bomb known as a Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP. Less well known but surely on the U.S. target list is a new, still unfinished subterranean facility south of Iran’s main (and now largely destroyed) enrichment plant at Natanz. American pilots would also almost certainly join their Israeli counterparts in attacking Iranian ballistic missile launchers and bases.

And then what? Nobody doubts the U.S. can do a lot of damage to Iran’s nuclear capabilities, at least in the short term. What comes afterward is harder to predict.

. . . I’m with the proponents. A nuclear-armed Iran, fielding missiles of ever-growing reach, is both an unacceptable threat to U.S. security and a consequential failure of U.S. deterrence. After years of Iran’s prevarications, which led even the Biden administration to give up on diplomacy, to say nothing of Iran’s cheating on its legal commitments — detailed last month in a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency — the world had run out of plausible nonmilitary options to prevent the regime from going nuclear.

But that might not happen. Here’s Stephens’s solution:

Here, then, is what Trump should do: First, drop bunker busters on Fordo and other hardened nuclear sites to ensure that Iran has no fast route to a bomb. That would need to be followed up by dropping a diplomatic bunker buster on Tehran — the proverbial offer Iran can’t refuse.

It would look like this. As an inducement, the United States could offer immediate relief from most economic sanctions, along with a pledge that neither the United States nor Israel would attack Iran’s critical energy infrastructure and other economic assets. The United States could also persuade Israel to end its bombing campaign.

*The WSJ reports that Trump privately approved plans to attack Iran, but is waiting to see if Iran “surrenders unconditionally.” 

In the Middle East, Israel and Iran continued to exchange fire as the conflict entered a seventh day. An Israeli hospital was hit by an Iranian missile, while Israel said it struck 100 targets in Iran, including the heavy-water reactor in Arak and a site in Natanz that it said was being used for nuclear-weapons development.

Meanwhile, European foreign ministers are slated to meet with Iranian officials in Geneva on Friday to press them to de-escalate and to offer a rollback of Iran’s nuclear activities.

President Trump told senior aides late Tuesday that he approved of attack plans for Iran, but was holding off to see if Tehran would abandon its nuclear program, people familiar with the deliberations said.

Asked if he had decided whether to strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities, Trump said, “I may do it, I may not do it.” And he repeated his insistence on Iran’s unconditional surrender: “The next week is going to be very big, maybe less than a week.”

The U.S. has built up military forces in the region in recent days. A third U.S. Navy destroyer entered the eastern Mediterranean Sea and a second U.S. carrier strike group is heading toward the Arabian Sea. While the Pentagon said the buildup is defensive, it better positions the U.S. should Trump decide to join Israeli attacks on Iran. It could also be a tactic to pressure Iran to capitulate or make concessions.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said his country wouldn’t surrender and warned any U.S. military intervention would bring irreparable consequences.

He should just do it, but under a modified version of Stephens’s plans, which, to me, would require Khameni give up power and the country abandons theocracy. That won’t happen. Trump says he’ll decide whether the U.S. will help Israel attack Iran within two weeks.

*At the Free Press, Niall Ferguson and Yoav Gallant (the latter Israel’s Defense Minister between 2022 and 2024), don’t pull any punches with their Free Press piece, “Israel has done most of the job. Only Trump can finish it.”

Opponents of U.S. military action tell a simplified story of past interventions—in Vietnam, most obviously, but some also cite Iraq and Afghanistan—that led to “forever wars.” But isolationists have trouble arguing that the United States should never intervene abroad. Would the Cold War have gone better if Harry Truman had abandoned South Korea to Stalin’s proxies in 1950? Would the Middle East have benefited if Kuwait had been left in Saddam Hussein’s hands in 1991? Would the Balkans be stabler today if Bill Clinton had not belatedly acted to save Bosnia and then Kosovo from Slobodan Milošević’s aggression?

None of these analogies is really applicable anyway, because the United States today is not being asked to send soldiers to invade or occupy Iran. The action President Trump must decide upon is clearly defined and limited in its duration and scale, since much of the work of defeating Iran has already been done by Israel.

The past six days have marked a strategic inflection point. After decades of preparation, Israel has acted: striking critical nuclear sites, dismantling missile production lines, and eliminating senior figures in Iran’s military and Revolutionary Guard Corps. These operations have already set Iran’s program back by years.

. . . . Only one air force has the power to finish off [the nuclear enrichment facility of] Fordow. The United States designed and built the GBU 57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) precisely for such a task. The MOP is a 30,000-pound, 20-foot-long weapon. Its warhead contains 5,300 pounds of explosives. Cased in a hard steel alloy, the weapon is dropped from high altitude, accelerates to Mach 2 or 3, punches into the target, and rips through layers of protection before detonating. Three to eight MOPs would suffice to render Fordow defunct.

The MOP is designed for American B-2 Spirits, all of which are based at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. Each B-2 can carry two MOPs, meaning a strike wave of two to six B-2s delivering four to 12 MOPs would get the job done.

Fordow is 6,800 miles away from Missouri, so the B-2s would need to refuel at least twice and potentially five times. The United States has moved exactly the requisite number of tankers from North American bases to Europe.

You already know what Ferguson and Gallant want:

A nuclear-armed Iran would pose more than a threat to the Israeli people and their state. Its missiles could reach Gulf capitals and Europe. Those missiles could allow Iran to sponsor terror and wage conventional war with impunity. The result would be a nuclear arms race in the Gulf. By destroying Fordow, President Trump would create a new equilibrium in the Middle East and reestablish American leadership. The strike would focus solely on eliminating Iran’s nuclear arms program, but it should be accompanied by a clear message: If Iran attempts to target the United States or its Gulf allies, it will risk the elimination of its regime.

. . . . Israel has moved and continues to move with determination and dispatch. The support of allies, first and foremost the United States, has been crucial. Now, with a single exertion of its unmatched military strength, 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.

This is a rare moment when strategic alignment and operational momentum converge. It must not be missed.

I tend to agree, but there should be no theocracy remaining.

*More signs that even if the ideology of DEI is still with us, and even pervasive, names are being changed to protect the guilty, as with the American Mathematical Society. This is the full post:

The American Mathematical Society (AMS) Committee on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (CoEDI) has changed its name to the AMS Committee on Engagement, Participation, and Advancement (CEPA).

“To better represent the voices and experiences and the evolving needs of our community, we are renaming our committee efforts to more clearly reflect our goals,” the committee said. “This new name underscores the outcomes we seek: to engage broadly, promote full participation, and support the success of all mathematicians.”

“While change often brings challenges, our commitment remains strong: to cultivate a culture where everyone feels seen, valued, and empowered,” the committee said.

“We believe that Engagement, Participation, and Advancement are not isolated initiatives, but shared responsibilities at the core of all we do.”

What seems bogus is the explanation. I’m betting that the DEI stuff that the committee does will remain the same, and that they’ve just gussied up its name to avoid Trumpian blackmail.  I’m wondering if anything has really changed.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, today’s dialogue is very sad:

Andrzej: We are left alone Hili.
Hili: I understand this already and I’m trying to accept the fact that cannot be accepted.

In Polish:

A: Zostaliśmy sami Hili.
Hili: Rozumiem to już i próbuję zaakceptować fakt, którego nie da się zaakceptować.

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

From Now That’s Wild:

From Jesus of the Day:

From Things With Faces: A dog’s ear resembling a gnome:

Masih agrees:

Force Ali Khamenei and his regime to give up entirely.
It’s time for democratic nations to act with pressure.
Stand with the people or stand with their oppressors.
There is only one solution to end this war.
Please, listen to my message in this video.https://t.co/Ul4grfDAns pic.twitter.com/VgEkBNWHaY

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) June 17, 2025

Here is the 5½-minute video:

From Pinkah: I didn’t know about this food-and-philosophy show, but it sounds great. Has anyone seen it? I’ve put the trailer below the tweet.

Last Meal (Season 1): Tom Nash asks various thinkers to identify what they would want as their last meal, and cooks it for them while exploring life and mortality. https://t.co/hmbGZxYm9P via @YouTube

— Steven Pinker (@sapinker) June 19, 2025

From Malcolm: duck vs. cat. Duck wins! Duck wins!

Fighting duck vs cat 😂 pic.twitter.com/Rx9a1z07rU

— Beauty Of Nature 🌳 (@ShouldHaveAnima) June 4, 2025

From Barry; a lioness united with her former staff:

A 7-year-old lioness reunites with the man who raised her after she was abandoned as a cub 🦁❤️ He slept beside her outside so she'd grow up as naturally as possible. Now she tackles him with love-hugs, face rubs, pure joy-until they collapse in a pile of trust. 🫶 #WildBond #HeartmeltingNature

— (@gaspingenemyofgod.bsky.social) 2025-06-18T21:18:57.177Z

One I posted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

This Polish man lived but 16 days after arriving at Auschwitz.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-06-20T09:35:44.508Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. He says of this one, “The loons have their finger on The Bomb!”:

Trump just shared this alarming text from Israeli Ambassador Mike Huckabee, effusively praising him while telling him that no president has been in his position "since Truman in 1945" (when the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Japan) & that he "will hear a voice from heaven" telling him what to do.

— Ashton Pittman (@ashtonpittman.bsky.social) 2025-06-17T14:34:28.012Z

I’m not sure whether the work on toes was a revolution, and the “guinea pig eraser” story is, to the best of my knowledge, apocryphal.  But everybody studying evolution needs to know about Wright’s work. I have to say, though, that what he considered his greatest feat: his “shifting balance theory of evolution”, is in my view deeply misguided. Some colleagues and I criticized it severely, and I don’t think it has much traction these days.

Anyone who has taken population genetics knows Sewall Wright, the Gregor Mendel of animal genetics.This article tells the story of how his studies on guinea pig toes led to the conceptual framework for modern evolutionary theory.(also the time he tried to erase a chalkboard with a guinea pig)

— c0nc0rdance (@c0nc0rdance.bsky.social) 2025-06-17T12:41:24.898Z

We are back with a new Hili dialogue sent by Andrzej!

Welcome to Thursday, June 19, 2026 and World Albatross Day. In honor of these amazing birds, here’s a short video about Wisdom, a Laysan Albatross who is a record holder. She is at at least 70 years old:

Wisdom (officially designated #Z333) is a wild female Laysan albatross, the oldest confirmed wild bird in the world and the oldest banded bird in the world.  First tagged in 1956 at Midway Atoll by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), she was still incubating eggs as late as 2024 and has received international media coverage in her lifetime. She was spotted alive and apparently healthy as recently as February 2025.

. . . The USGS has tracked Wisdom since she was first tagged and estimated that Wisdom has flown over 3,000,000 miles (4,800,000 km) since 1956 (approximately 120 times the circumference of the Earth). To accommodate her longevity, the USGS has replaced her tag a total of six times

. . .  Albatrosses lay one egg per year, and usually have monogamous mates for life. Smithsonian speculated that, due to Wisdom’s unusual longevity, she has had to find several successive mates in order to continue breeding.  Biologists estimated that Wisdom has laid some 30–40 eggs in her lifetime and that she has at least 30–36 chicks.

Here is her latest chick from February 2 of this year. Isn’t it cute? That is Wisdom’s mate looking after it.

Here is Wisdom and a chick from 2011. She sure doesn’t look old, does she?

It’s also Corpus Christi, National Eat an Oreo Day, National Martini Day, World Tapas Day, and the federal U.S. holiday of Juneteenth, marking the day in 1865 when “Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas at the end of the American Civil War”.  Slavery and the war had of course ended by then (the war was over on April 9 of that year), but the news got to Texas last. There’s a Google Doodle on the holiday today; click picture below to see where it goes:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 19 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The Times of Israel reports that Iran will mount a strong response if the U.S. joins Israel’s strikes, while the IDF says that it’s hit 1,100 Iranian targets since bombing started on Friday.  Meanwhile, the odious President of Turkey is defending Iran and saying that Netanyahu is worse than Hitler. Turkey should be booted out of NATO:

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Iran has the “legitimate” right to defend itself in the face of Israel’s ongoing bombing campaign against military and nuclear targets, now in its sixth day.

“It is a very natural, legitimate and legal right for Iran to defend itself against Israel’s thuggery and state terrorism,” the Turkish leader says, a day after he referred to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “the biggest threat to the security of the region.”

He also says Netanyahu had surpassed Adolf Hitler in committing crimes of “genocide” in Gaza. It is not the first time Erdogan has compared Netanyahu to the Nazi leader.

More war news:

The Israeli Air Force bombed five Iranian AH-1 helicopters at an airbase in Kermanshah this morning, IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin says in a press conference.

“Their mission was to try and harm our aircraft,” Defrin says.

The IDF releases footage showing the strikes. pic.twitter.com/96ATknr0RT

— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) June 18, 2025

Apparently many centrifuges used to enrich uranium have been knocked out of action, but the big underground facilities have not yet been touched (Israel may want to just seal the entrance tunnels, but that would be a temporary measure:

Israel hit two centrifuge production sites in Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency confirms.

The IAEA identifies the facilities as the TESA complex in Karaj and the Tehran Research Center.

“At the Tehran site, one building was hit where advanced centrifuge rotors were manufactured and tested,” says the IAEA on X. “At Karaj, two buildings were destroyed where different centrifuge components were manufactured.”

Both sites had been under IAEA monitoring as part of the 2015 JCPOA agreement.

The TESA complex, near the capital Tehran, hosted a workshop to build components for centrifuges, the machines used to enrich uranium. In 2021, Iran said cameras at the site were damaged during what it called an Israeli “sabotage” operation.

• The U.N. atomic agency said an Israeli strike directly hit the underground halls at Iran’s largest enrichment facility, Natanz.
• The Israeli military said its air force struck a plant that manufactures centrifuges in Tehran.
• Israel is running low on defensive Arrow interceptors, according to a U.S. official, raising concern about its ability to counter long-range ballistic missiles if the conflict isn’t resolved soon.
• Germany’s chancellor said Israel was doing the “dirty work” for other countries by striking Iran’s nuclear sites.

Germany’s chancellor said what many countries are thinking, but of course French President Macron would never say anything like that. The difference in sentiments of Germany vs. France towards Israel is striking

*From the WaPo: more internecine squabbling among Democrats is outlined in a piece called “Democrats want to fight Trump, but they can’t stop fighting each other” (article archived here):

Many Democratic leaders and activists have grown frustrated with the state of their national party operation, worrying that a spate of internal divisions and unflattering feuds threatens to hinder their fight against President Donald Trump’s Republican Party.

The Democratic National Committee, typically the domain of nuts and bolts political activity, has been rocked by clashes that reflect broader generational and ideological strains in the party. Now, some prominent Democrats are openly questioning the direction of the DNC under the leadership of Chair Ken Martin, with some suggesting it is stifling input from dissenting voices and refusing to change in a way that is risky for future elections. Others are blaming rival factions for adding to the party’s challenges by intervening in primaries and embracing personal vendettas. And many are simply fed up with all the rancor.

The criticism is still flying.

The DNC has “got to do a better of job of communicating with members and Democratic electeds and other members of our coalition,” Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Michigan) said Tuesday. She added that the problem is “contributing to significant tension right now” and that Martin “needs to be pulling people together.”

. . . . . While the task of rebuilding for 2026 and 2028 will fall to many entities and leaders beyond the DNC, which tends to have a narrower mission, the committee’s challenges highlight a party struggling to find its way after a crushing political defeat shut them out of power in Washington. Widespread anger with Trump’s agenda has presented Democrats with an opportunity to regain lost ground, but they disagree on the best ways to accomplish that.

The two choices are a) become more centrist become aware of what issues most concern voters, and try to cater to Trump voters who aren’t fond of Trump, or b) go Full Progressive and lose the elections for sure.

For other Democrats, the timing of the latest party drama was especially infuriating. They were eager to seize momentum coming out of a weekend of nationwide anti-Trump protests — and focused on grieving a tragedy in Martin’s home state of Minnesota. As news of the labor union departures broke this weekend, Martin — the former chair of the Minnesota Democratic—Farmer—Labor Party — was mourning the murder of his close friend Melissa Hortman, a Minnesota lawmaker, and her husband, Mark Hortman. Authorities said the attack was politically motivated.

. . . . “Every minute we’re not talking about Donald Trump overstepping his authority, and we’re having to talk about David Hogg and the DNC, we’re losing,” said Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha. “This is just fodder to show people that the poor Democratic Party can’t even govern itself.”

I am not a pundit, but I would suggest that Democrats take a view of Trump in which they call him out for the bad things he does (most of them), but be a bit more bipartisan and admit it when he does something decent (like helping Israel). But of course that’s not the way that politics works: one must totally demonize the opponent. I understand that.

*Jonathan Haidt, Will Johnson, and Zach Raush have a joint op-ed in the NYT called “There is a way to bring back childhood“, with the subtitle, “The smartphones haven’t defeated us. Yet” (archived here). It involves cellphones, something that Haidt has criticized for years as a thief of childhood. A few excerpts from a long piece:

Since the dawn of the television age, parents have struggled to limit or guide their children’s screen time.

But with the arrival of smartphones that can — and do — go everywhere and with social media apps that teenagers now use for an average of five hours every day, many parents feel a sense of resignation. The struggle has been lost. Parents who try to delay giving a smartphone until high school or social media until 16 know that they’ll face the plaintive cry from their children: “But I’m the only one!”

To better understand the tensions over technology playing out in American families, we worked with the Harris Poll to conduct two surveys. As we reported last year, our survey of 1,006 members of Gen Z found that many young people feel trapped — tethered to digital products like TikTok and Snapchat. Nearly half of all participants expressed regret about having access to many of the most popular social media platforms.

Here we present the second part of our investigation: a nationally representative survey of 1,013 parents who have children under 18. The overall picture isn’t any better. We find widespread feelings of entrapment and regret. Many parents gave their children smartphones and social media access early in their lives — yet many wish that social media had never been invented, and overwhelmingly they support new social norms and policies that would protect kids from online harms.

. . .Almost a third of parents whose children have social media believe they gave their child access to social media too young, and 22 percent feel similarly for smartphones. Notably, for both technologies, only 1 percent of parents thought they had waited too long to introduce them. In other words, parents regret the technologies they gave, not the technologies they withheld.

Why did so many parents make decisions that they regret? One major reason is that in the brief period when flip phones and other basic phones were replaced by smartphones, roughly from 2010 to 2015, there was a pervasive sense of techno-optimism. Most people were amazed by the new technology and its beneficial applications — from the mundane like hailing a car service to the profound like bringing down a dictatorship.

Here’s a figure from the article:

And the solution, which Haidt has proposed before, is to ban the use of smartphones in schools, comme ça:

Every school in Brazil has gone phone-free bell-to-bell. Australia has raised the age for opening social media accounts to 16; other countries are quite likely to follow suit. The president of France, Emmanuel Macron, recently announced his intention to enact a minimum age of 15 for social media use in France if the European Union does not enact a similar restriction first.

With tech companies eagerly filling our children’s lives — and their classrooms — with more new and untested technologies (A.I. “friends,” tutors and other forms of virtual reality), it is becoming that much more urgent for parents to speak up and for legislators to act.

The goal of these reforms isn’t just to limit screens. It’s much bigger than that. The goal is to restore childhood.

All I can say is that I agree.  Not only do smartphones they steal childhood, but they steal education and they shorten people’s attention spans. Articles are getting shorter, and it’s not uncommon to see a “reading time” appended to an article, the object being to allow you to reject those articles which are too long.

*The WaPo discusses why many people who were in favor of Trump’s anti-immigration policies are now alarmed by how they’re being enforced.

“They said only criminals, and now they’re saying, ‘Well, they did come in illegally, so they are criminals,’” [Jesus Martinez] added. “Hispanics or Latinos that voted for Trump, they didn’t think he was going to go after kids.”

Trump’s promises to crack down on illegal immigration helped him win back the White House in 2024 and increase his voting share among young voters, working-class people and Latinos. But interviews with more than four dozen people in the Antelope Valley, a closely divided region of the state about an hour north of Los Angeles, show that tactics very much matter.

In this working-class and heavily Latino area known for its wildflower blooms, a region that moved toward Trump in the 2024 election, voters from both parties voiced support for Trump’s promises to deport immigrants who are here illegally, especially those with criminal records.But they drew lines — some over the scope of those deportations and, to a lesser extent, over his decision to crack down on immigration protesters with the military.

. . .The interviews reflect what public polls increasingly show: that many Americans are uncomfortable with Trump’s recent moves. Nearly half of American adults, 49 percent, said Trump went too far with arrests of immigrants, while 40 percent said he had not, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted last week. Eleven percent said they were unsure

That gives Democrats a potential opening on an issue that helped propel Trump to victory in 2024, when many voters blamed President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for a surge of crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has tried in recent days to highlight immigration raids at worksites that have separated children from their parents. That has drawn attention on social media.

But Democrats have yet to coalesce around a message amid debates over whether past attempts to counter Trump have pushed the party too far left.

Yes, this gives Democrats an opening, but they do need their own policy, and one that does NOT appear to party’s stand favoring open borders. That has been people’s impression of Democrats for too long. And yes, criminal undocumented immigrants should be dealt with first, before we decide to do anything about the rest. But undocumented or not, every immigrant facing deportation needs a court hearing, even if the case is open and shut.  A Democratic call for anything that looks like open borders will be the kiss of death in future elections.

*The AP reports something very cool: a pair of precisely aligned satellites can create for the satellite nearest to Earth a total solar eclipse, which can be photographed, allowing us to look at the Sun’s corona for hours at a time rather than just very briefly during a normal solar eclipse. Of course we can’t see this eclipse on Earth, but the observation of the corona in space is important, and the methodology is precise and amazing:

A pair of European satellites have created the first artificial solar eclipses by flying in precise and fancy formation, providing hours of on-demand totality for scientists.

The European Space Agency released the eclipse pictures at the Paris Air Show on Monday. Launched late last year, the orbiting duo have churned out simulated solar eclipses since March while zooming tens of thousands of miles (kilometers) above Earth.

Flying 492 feet (150 meters) apart, one satellite blocks the sun like the moon does during a natural total solar eclipse as the other aims its telescope at the corona, the sun’s outer atmosphere that forms a crown or halo of light.

It’s an intricate, prolonged dance requiring extreme precision by the cube-shaped spacecraft, less than 5 feet (1.5 meters) in size. Their flying accuracy needs to be within a mere millimeter, the thickness of a fingernail. This meticulous positioning is achieved autonomously through GPS navigation, star trackers, lasers and radio links.

Dubbed Proba-3, the $210 million mission has generated 10 successful solar eclipses so far during the ongoing checkout phase. The longest eclipse lasted five hours, said the Royal Observatory of Belgium’s Andrei Zhukov, the lead scientist for the orbiting corona-observing telescope. He and his team are aiming for a wondrous six hours of totality per eclipse once scientific observations begin in July.

Scientists already are thrilled by the preliminary results that show the corona without the need for any special image processing, said Zhukov.

“We almost couldn’t believe our eyes,” Zhukov said in an email. “This was the first try, and it worked. It was so incredible.”

. . . . While previous satellites have generated imitation solar eclipses — including the European Space Agency and NASA’s Solar Orbiter and Soho observatory — the sun-blocking disk was always on the same spacecraft as the corona-observing telescope. What makes this mission unique, Zhukov said, is that the sun-shrouding disk and telescope are on two different satellites and therefore far apart.

The distance between these two satellites will give scientists a better look at the part of the corona closest to the limb of the sun.

And of course you want to see a video:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej gives a political answer to Hili’s question:

Hili: So many yellow flowers.
Andrzej: Don’t worry, we will mow them and people against mowing the grass will shout.

In Polish:

Hili: Strasznie dużo tych żółtych kwiatków.
Ja: Nic się nie martw, skosimy i znów przeciwnicy koszenia trawy będą krzyczeć.

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

From Jesus of the Day:

From CinEmma:

From the 2025 Darwin Awards!!!/Epic Fails!!! But this is a good optical illusion:

Masih rebukes the Israeli government for evacuation warnings that were not issued at an appropriate time:

To @netanyahu ,

You issued an evacuation warning at 2 a.m. hours before a strike, expecting civilians under near-total internet blackout to see it?

Even in daylight, most Iranians can’t access uncensored information. Expecting midnight missile alerts to reach them is…

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) June 18, 2025

From Luana: Woke Pecksniffery:

And this is increasingly why ppl do not give two shits what “academics” have to say about anything pic.twitter.com/vjL9OTmW8m

— The Heretical Liberal 🇨🇦 (@Rob_ThaBuilder) June 15, 2025

From Simon: Our Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth, who lost both of her legs serving as an Army helicopter pilot in Iraq> She knows whereof she speaks!

damn — Duckworth to Hegseth: "If you want to be the DHS secretary, maybe you can apply for that job when you're fired from this one due to your incompetence."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-06-18T15:47:40.707Z

From Malcolm, a dog “Learning to drive”. No, they can’t drive on public roads, but they do a pretty good job!

Porter, the world’s first driving dog learned how to drive in just 47 days.

He was trained by a driving school in New Zealand that specializes in teaching dogs to drive.pic.twitter.com/udTxDgxZ3N

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) May 28, 2025

From my feed; the players apparently beat up on Caitlin Clark because she’s so damn good. That’s reprehensible:

this league treats her like a punching bag pic.twitter.com/c76w3qAjLY

— chris (@chrisclxrk) June 18, 2025

One that I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

A German Jewish girl was gassed to death upon arriving at Auschwitz. She was eight years old.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-06-19T09:04:02.622Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. The first one was a good idea in principle, but the history of the red handprints made it a very bad idea:

Thank you to my son and his day care for this terrifying Father’s Day gift.

— Dan McQuade (@dhm.bsky.social) 2025-06-15T12:58:11.656Z

We now have a skull from a new hominin find (we only had finger bones and mandibles before), and it’s clearly a Denisovan. I’m glad that Matthew agrees that Denisovans were members of Homo sapiens rather than some other species; after all, they interbred with H. sapiens in nature and produced fertile hybrids).

Look upon a Denisovan! “Dragon man”, as most suspected, is indeed a Denisovan. But I hope we don’t adopt the Homo longi name that was given to the skull. These ppl, like Neanderthals, were clearly the same biological species as us, irrespective of their lumps and bumps!

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-06-18T17:00:15.859Z

There will be no Hili dialogue today, as those required the collaboration of Andrzej, who took the pictures and made up the dialogues, and Malgorzata, who translated Andrzej’s Polish into English. In honor of Malgorzata, who passed away yesterday, I will continue to call the morning posts “Hili dialogues.”  I do not know if we’ll have any more.

Welcome to a Hump Day (“Горб көнө” in Bashkir), Wednesday, June 18, 2025, and International Picnic Day. (Picnics on a weekday?)  Here’s a picnic-themed Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson:

Posting will be light for a week or so as I’m preparing for the Heterodox Academy conference in NYC, where I’m on a panel, and Malgorzata’s death has hit me pretty hard.

It’s also International Sushi Day, and (blessed be the) National Cheesemakers Day.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 18 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The Iran/Israel war is continuing, with Israel controlling the skies over Iran and gaining the upper hand in the war. They just killed the replacement for the commander of the Iranian military, a man who had been killed four days ago. Meanwhile, Iran continues to fire missiles into Israel, though most are shot down. Several Israelis were injured yesterday:

Israel claimed it killed another senior Iranian military official on Tuesday, as President Trump returned to Washington to deal with the war between Iran and Israel.

Since Israel began striking Iran on Friday, it has dealt a major blow to Iran’s military chain of command, killing at least 11 senior generals. On Tuesday morning, the Israeli military said it had killed Maj. Gen. Ali Shadmani, describing him as the most senior military commander in Iran. He had been appointed to his post just four days ago, replacing a general who was killed by Israel on the first day of hostilities.

Iran did not immediately comment on Israel’s claim about General Shadmani. If confirmed, the killing could further destabilize what remains of Iran’s besieged military leadership.

As the two sides continued to exchange deadly fire, and Israeli officials pressed the United States to join its military campaign against Tehran, Mr. Trump departed early from a meeting of the leaders of the Group of 7 nations in Alberta, Canada. On the flight home, he told reporters that he was looking for something “better than a cease-fire” between Israel and Iran.

“A real end, not a cease-fire,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Air Force 1, saying he wanted Iran to give up while insisting that Tehran abandon any effort to develop nuclear weapons. “I’m not too much in the mood to negotiate,” he added.

I wonder if he’s thinking about bunker-buster bombs (see below). Meanwhile, Iranian missiles struck several places in central Israel, injuring five, Israel continues to bomb oil refineries, Tehran is subject to continual Israeli attacks on strategic targets, And although Trump had vetoed Israel’s plans to take out Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Israel is still contemplating that anyway, for Khamenei is dictating Iranian military strategy:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday did not rule out plans to target Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Instead, he suggested that it would be a surefire way to “end the conflict” with the Islamic Republic.

Asked during an ABC News interview about reports that US President Donald Trump vetoed an Israeli plan to kill the Iranian supreme leader out of concern that it would escalate the fighting between the two countries further, Netanyahu was dismissive.

“It’s not going to escalate the conflict, it’s going to end the conflict,” he said.

“We’ve had half a century of conflict spread by this regime that terrorizes everyone in the Middle East,” said the premier. “The ‘forever war’ is what Iran wants, and they’re bringing us to the brink of nuclear war.”

“In fact, what Israel is doing is preventing this, bringing an end to this aggression, and we can only do so by standing up to the forces of evil,” he added.

Netanyahu did not reveal whether or not Israel would target Khamenei, saying only: “We’re doing what we need to do.”

Finally, an ambiguous statement by Trump:

US President Donald Trump said late Monday that the US is “not looking for a ceasefire,” but rather a “real end” to the conflict over Iran’s nuclear program, and that, after two months of talks in which Iran refused to dismantle its program, he is “not in the mood to negotiate.”

“We’re looking for better than a ceasefire,” he told reporters on Air Force One during his overnight flight back to Washington. Asked what would entail, he said, “An end. A real end. Not a ceasefire. An end… Or giving up entirely. That’s okay too.”

“Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, it’s very simple,” Trump said.

If there was one thing that Israel could do to bring on an Iranian revolution with an overthrow of the regime by the people (who by and large detest the theocracy), it would be taking out Khameni. Iran is full of lovely and ambitious people whose ambitions and ideas have been ruthlessly suppressed, and it has a great potential as a country. But not as a medieval theocracy in which women have no opportunities. Trump’s statement makes me believe he’s thinking of taking further U.S. action beyond brokering a phony “cease fire”.

*Now the U.S., or rather Trump as Commander-in-Chief, faces a hard choice, “Last-chance diplomacy or a bunker-busting bomb” (article archived here).

President Trump is weighing a critical decision in the four-day-old war between Israel and Iran: whether to enter the fray by helping Israel destroy the deeply buried nuclear enrichment facility at Fordo, which only America’s biggest “bunker buster,” dropped by American B-2 bombers, can reach.

If he decides to go ahead, the United States will become a direct participant in a new conflict in the Middle East, taking on Iran in exactly the kind of war Mr. Trump has sworn, in two campaigns, he would avoid. Iranian officials have already warned that U.S. participation in an attack on its facilities will imperil any remaining chance of the nuclear disarmament deal that Mr. Trump insists he is still interested in pursuing.

Mr. Trump had at one point encouraged his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, and possibly Vice President JD Vance, to offer to meet the Iranians, according to a U.S. official. But on Monday Mr. Trump posted on social media that “everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran,” hardly a sign of diplomatic progress.

Mr. Trump also said on Monday that “I think Iran basically is at the negotiating table, they want to make a deal.”

The urgency appeared to be rising. The White House announced late on Monday that Mr. Trump was leaving the Group of 7 summit early because of the situation in the Middle East.

“As soon as I leave here, we’re going to be doing something,” Mr. Trump said. “But I have to leave here.”

What he intended to do remained unclear.

And this morning, “Trump suggests that U.S. is open to action against Iran.”:

Fears of a wider war were growing on Tuesday after President Trump called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender,” cited the possibility of killing its supreme leader and referred to Israel’s war efforts with the word “we” — all apparent suggestions that the United States could enter the conflict against Iran.

As the Trump administration contemplates next steps, in Israel and Iran, the conflict continues unabated into its sixth day. Past midnight, on Wednesday, sirens sounded in areas of Israel and the Israeli military said it had detected Iranian missile launches, on two occasions in short succession.

I think it that Trump’s “doing something” refers to Iran. This is the way I see it: if we and the West are serious in the determination to not letting Iran build nuclear weapons, then there is no kind of “deal” to be struck that will prevent that. Iran has always lied and cheated about its ambitions, and it has just been caught again. The only thing to prevent that will be to destroy its nuclear capabilities.  An overthrow of the government would also ensure that, because the Iranian people don’t want the endless warring that comes with their country threatening the Middle East with nukes. My guess

*It looks as if the news will be mostly about Iran/Israel today. The WSJ just reported that “Trump calls for unconditional surrender as he loses patience with Iran.”

President Trump warned he is losing patience with Iran, calling for unconditional surrender and saying he wouldn’t target the country’s leader “for now,” as he escalated his rhetoric toward Tehran.

Trump, in a series of social-media posts on Tuesday afternoon, said the U.S. knows where Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is hiding. “He is an easy target, but is safe there—We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding, “Our patience is wearing thin.”

“UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” he wrote in a separate post.

Trump also said Tehran had lost control of Iran’s airspace. “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran,” Trump wrote. “Iran had good sky trackers and other defensive equipment, and plenty of it, but it doesn’t compare to American made, conceived, and manufactured ‘stuff.’ Nobody does it better than the good ol’ USA.”

In his posts, Trump used the word “we,” but it wasn’t immediately clear if that meant that the U.S. is taking a more active role in Israel’s unfolding attacks on Iran. The U.S. has said it hasn’t joined Israel’s strikes.

Trump returned to Washington early Tuesday morning, leaving a Group of Seven leaders summit in Canada a day early to focus on the crisis in the Middle East. Aboard Air Force One, Trump told reporters he was looking for a “real end” to the conflict, not a cease-fire.

Yes, that “we” is ambiguous, but I doubt that the U.S. is going to engage is discussions about nukes in the near future.  Yes, even Trump has to know that Iran can’t be trusted, though Biden, Obama, and other Democratic Presidents didn’t seem to realize it.

*The Hill reports that a federal judge has walked back Trump’s orders to halt grants with a DEI or gender-ideology slant.

A federal judge on Monday ruled that the Trump administration’s canceling of federal health grants over their connections to “gender ideology” and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” was unlawful and void.

U.S. District Court Judge William Young, a Reagan appointee, ruled on Monday that targeting research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) based on certain topics was unlawful and arbitrary. The federal government has been directed to immediately make the funds available to grant recipients again.

In February, the NIH issued directives terminating grants relating to LGBTQ issues; gender identity; and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

In response, several organizations including the American Public Health Association (APHA), the American Civil Liberties Union, Ibis Reproductive Health and others sued to reverse the directives.

“The ideologically motivated directives to terminate grants alleged to constitute DEI, ‘gender ideology,’ or other forbidden topics were, in fact, arbitrary and capricious, and have now been ruled unlawful,” said Peter G. Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest and a plaintiff in the case.

“We’re certainly very pleased with the judge’s decision, and actually the way he portrayed it as, you know, discrimination. I think that’s pure and simple, that the administration was trying to undermine the health and well-being of these populations,” Georges Benjamin, executive director of the APHA, told The Hill.

The federal government plans to appeal or halt Young’s ruling.

“HHS stands by its decision to end funding for research that prioritized ideological agendas over scientific rigor and meaningful outcomes for the American people,” Health and Human Services (HHS) spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement.

“Under the leadership of Secretary Kennedy and the Trump administration, HHS is committed to ensuring that taxpayer dollars support programs rooted in evidence-based practices and gold standard science— not driven by divisive DEI mandates or gender ideology,” he added.

I have mixed feelings about what the government did. On one hand we shouldn’t be spending taxpayer money on ideologically motivated projects whose outcomes are all but predetermined. On the other hand, these grants were apparently sussed out by the government simply by looking at keyword searches in grant titles. That’s not a fair way to judge the value of a proposal, for some of these could have indeed have had a salubrious effect on public health. And it should be scientists who judge the grants, not the government. But of course the grants were already awarded, so they had been vetted and approved by panels of scientists. If there are indeed garbage grants being funded by the NIH, then scientists need to clean up their act. But I have no ideas about how to do that.

*The male boxer Imane Khelif, raised as a female, won a gold medal in the Paris Olympics in the women’s welterweight boxing competition, causing considerable controversy.  Doubt has swirled around his biological sex, as there was evidence he had an XY chromosome constitution, but he refused further testing, Now Khelif has withdrawn from a women’s boxing tournament in the Netherlands after it implemented a new sex testing policy (h/t Ginger K.)

The Algerian boxer who has caused significant controversy after taking home an Olympic gold medal in the women’s category last summer has now decided to exit a women’s tournament following the implementation of a new sex testing policy. Imane Khelif had previously been disqualified by the International Boxing Association (IBA) from competing against women, when, in 2023, a genetic test revealed that Khelif has a male karyotype.

In May, Khelif had been announced as a participant in the upcoming Eindhoven Box Cup in the Netherlands, set to take place between June 5 – 10. According to a celebratory announcement from the Eindhoven event officials, now deleted from the organization’s social media, Khelif intended to defend his previous win at the 2024 iteration of the event.

However, on May 30 the sport authority World Boxing announced a new policy that would require mandatory sex testing for all boxers, in order to “ensure the safety of all participants and deliver a competitive level playing field for men and women.”

World Boxing clarified in their statement that the new regulation was implemented in direct response to Khelif’s highly controversial bouts at the Paris Olympics – which saw multiple female athletes protest against his participation and generated international outcry.

“In light of plans to introduce this policy and the particular circumstances surrounding some boxers that competed at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, World Boxing has written to the Algerian Boxing Federation to inform it that Imane Khelif will not be allowed to participate in the female category at the Eindhoven Box Cup or any World Boxing event until Imane Khelif undergoes sex testing,” read the authority’s statement.

. . .Multiple international news outlets report that Khelif has failed to complete the registration process by the deadline for the Eindhoven Cup, effectively unofficially withdrawing from the match due to a refusal to undergo the sex test, which would have been conducted via a simple cheek swab. Despite the fact that he will not enter the tournament, social media for the Eindhoven Box Cup has been posting articles supportive of Khelif as the news of his absence there breaks.

Spokesperson for the Box Cup in Eindhoven, Dirk Renders, announced Khelif’s withdrawal to Dutch media while referring to him with feminine pronouns and emphasizing that this was not the decision of the organization. “She officially missed the deadline for registration for the tournament. Imane’s decision not to participate was not made by us. We are very sorry.”

But the mayor of the town apoparently wants biological males to box against women:

The Mayor of Eindhoven, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, expressed his opposition to the new sex screening policy by way of a letter to the World Boxing association. “All athletes are welcome in Eindhoven. Exclusion of athletes based on controversial ‘gender tests’ certainly does not fit in. We let our disapproval of this decision today and call on the organization to allow Imane Khelif to be admitted,” Dijsselbloem said.

Not likely!  Over at Reality’s Last Stand, Colin Wright explains that Khelif almost surely has a disorder (or “difference”) of sex determination that, while producing ambiguous genitalia at birth, also allowed him to go through male puberty, androgenizing his body and giving him the physique and musculature that got him the gold in Paris. In terms of the biological (gametic) definition of sex, Khelif was a male. While Khelif may have thought he was a female back then, since he was raised as one, he now has no excuse to refuse sex testing. And given World Boxing’s new policy, Khelif will likely have to box in male leagues or not at all.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is silent. This is a picture I took on a visit to Dobrzyn last November:

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

A flower I photographed on the way home yesterday:

From Cat Lovers:

From The Dodo Pet:

Like the U.S., Masih is telling Iran to surrender unconditionally. Do watch her video:

Force Ali Khamenei and his regime to give up entirely.
It’s time for democratic nations to act with pressure.
Stand with the people or stand with their oppressors.
There is only one solution to end this war.
Please, listen to my message in this video.https://t.co/Ul4grfDAns pic.twitter.com/VgEkBNWHaY

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) June 17, 2025

From a University of Chicago professor (one whom I can’t bear to call a “colleague”), Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and the Anthropology of Religion. It appears that his family shares an ideology, at least judging by the conviction of his brother. From the Department of Jutice in 2020:

Ahmadreza Mohammadi-Doostdar, 39, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, and Majid Ghorbani, 60, an Iranian citizen and resident of California, have been sentenced to prison terms of 38 months and 30 months, respectively, for their criminal convictions relating to their conduct conducting surveillance of and collecting identifying information about American citizens and U.S. nationals who are members of the group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).

On Jan. 15, 2020, the Honorable Paul L. Friedman sentenced Doostdar to a prison term of 38 months, 36 months of supervised release, and a fine of $14,153. Ghorbani was sentenced to a prison term of 30 months and 36 months of supervised release.

On Oct. 8, 2019, Doostdar entered guilty pleas to one count of acting as an agent of the government of Iran without notifying the Attorney General, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 951, and one count of conspiring to violate that statute, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371.  On Nov. 4, 2019, Ghorbani entered a guilty plea to one count of willfully violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), 50 U.S.C. § 1705, and the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations 31 C.F.R. Parts 560.204 and 560.206.

“This case illustrates Iran’s targeting of Americans in the United States in order to silence those who oppose the Iranian regime or otherwise further its goals,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers.  “The defendants, working for Iran, gathered information on Americans that could then be used by the Iranian intelligence services to intimidate or harm them or their families.  These prosecutions should serve as a reminder to anyone here working covertly for Iran that the American law enforcement will pursue you to protect this country, its citizens and the First Amendment principles upon which it was founded.”

It’s Monday & I have some fucks:

Fuck Israel for genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank

Fuck Israel for apartheid

Fuck Israel for bombing Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen

Fuck Israel for murdering children

Fuck Israel for murdering scientists#fuckisrael

— Alireza Doostdar علیرضا دوستدار (@docstobar) June 16, 2025

More “anti-Zio” hatred:

The criminal Israeli settler colony has lost hope that Iranians will rise up against their government (an insane thought to begin with) so now is taking its mask off and directly threatening that it will murder civilians.

— Alireza Doostdar علیرضا دوستدار (@docstobar) June 16, 2025

From Bryan; a bizarre post about Ozzy Ozbourne:

. @OzzyOsbourne is 1 of 1. But @LiquidDeath is selling his actual DNA so you can recycle him forever.

Yes, Liquid Death really got the Prince of Darkness to drink from 10 cans of their low-calorie Iced Tea. And yes, he actually crushed each can himself. In the process, he left… pic.twitter.com/FSb98hdWh3

— Ozzy Osbourne (@OzzyOsbourne) June 17, 2025

From Malcolm, there’s finally a good use of AI:

Children’s drawings brought to life by AIpic.twitter.com/NHPNa4kzLi

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 2, 2025

One from my feed: a food-thieving moggy:

bro has cheated the system 😁 pic.twitter.com/kZuAJcP1EA

— Why you should have a cat (@ShouldHaveCat) June 17, 2025

One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

A Belgian Jewish girl was gassed to death upon arriving at Auschwitz. She was twelve. Had she lived, she'd be 95 today.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-06-18T09:02:01.434Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, Nature red in claw and mandible:

I did not enjoy learning this!

— depths of wikipedia (@depthsofwikipedia.bsky.social) 2025-06-17T05:30:39.686Z

Crabs eating together and then heading for their burrows. What scared them?

— (@sunnygate.bsky.social) 2025-06-16T00:13:07.238Z

Welcome to the Cruelest Day: Tuesday, June 17, 2025, and National Apple Strudel Day.  Here is an apple strudel and an Einspänner (coffee) I consumed at one of the great coffee shops in Vienna, the pink-themed Aida chain, Home of Strudel (photo taken in October, 2012). From Wikipedia:

Einspänner Coffee: A Viennese specialty. It is a strong black coffee served in a glass topped with whipped cream. It comes with powder sugar served separately.

It’s also World Croc Day (the reptile, not the shoe), National Cherry Tart Day, and National Eat Your Vegetables Day.  Here’s a famous bridge in western Costa Rica under which lurk dozens of American crocodiles, Crocodylus acutus (I think the tourists feed them):

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 17 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The war between Iran and Israel goes on, with some Iranian missiles getting through Israeli defenses, with a total of 24 Israelis killed and over 600 injured. On the other side, the toll of Iranians has been 224 killed and over 1400 injured.  On Monday, Israel claims to have struck the headquarters of Iran’s Quds Force, an elite branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, now decapitated. (According to several sources, though, Trump nixed Israel’s plain to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.  Here are some excerpts:

Israel expanded its attacks on Iran on Monday, striking the headquarters of state television after ordering residents to leave part of Tehran, as the fiercest and deadliest confrontation in the history of the Israeli-Iranian conflict entered its fourth day.

With civilian casualties climbing on both sides, the war, in its fourth day, now seems likely to last for more than a week. Israel appears to be acting with increasing confidence as it tries to destroy Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure, while attacking a broader range of targets including energy installations and command centers.

Broadcasting stations are legal targets in wartime as they are organs of propaganda. Here’s some live broadcasting during the missile strike:

. . . The aircraft carrier U.S.S. Nimitz is leaving Southeast Asia for the Middle East as part of a planned deployment, a Defense Department official said. The Nimitz sailed west through the Singapore Strait on Monday. It had been operating in the South China Sea last week, the official said.

The war shows no sign of ending, and in parts of Tehran the IDF has warned Iranians to evacuate. (Note: has Iran warned any citizens of Tel Aviv to evacuate?)  And Iran, now knowing it can’t come out of this in one piece, is literally begging for peace talks:

Iran is signaling through Arab intermediaries that it seeks an end to hostilities and resumption of talks over its nuclear programs, sending oil prices down.

President Trump nixed Israel’s plan to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to a U.S. official. Calling Iran’s leadership weak, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested in a Fox News interview on Sunday that the conflict could prompt a regime change.

From the AP:

The Israeli military has warned residents in part of Iran’s capital to evacuate ahead of Israeli strikes.

The latest salvo comes after a weekend of escalating tit-for-tat attacks between Israel and Iran that raised fears of a wider, more dangerous regional war. Israel launched the attacks on Iran amid simmering tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program.

*Like me, you may be wondering how Israel managed to set up both drone bases and vehicles carrying rocket interceptors—over 1000 km from the Jewish state. It’s Mossad, Jake, and it’s explained in two articles, one in the Wall Street Journal (archived here) and the other in the Times of Israel.

From the WSJ:

Israel had spent months smuggling in parts for hundreds of quadcopter drones rigged with explosives—in suitcases, trucks and shipping containers—as well as munitions that could be fired from unmanned platforms, people familiar with the operation said.

Small teams armed with the equipment set up near Iran’s air-defense emplacements and missile launch sites, the people said. When Israel’s attack began, some of the teams took out air defenses, while others hit missile launchers as they rolled out of their shelters and set up to fire, one of the people said.

The operation helps explain the limited nature of Iran’s response thus far to Israel’s attacks. It also offers further evidence of how off-the-shelf technology is changing the battlefield and creating dangerous new security challenges for governments.

. . .The spy agency began preparing for the current drone operation years ago, the people said. It knew where Iran kept missiles to be ready for launch but needed to be in a position to attack them given the country’s size and distance from Israel.

Mossad brought the quadcopters in through commercial channels using often unwitting business partners. Agents on the ground would collect the munitions and distribute them to the teams. Israel trained the team leaders in third countries, and they in turn trained the teams.

The teams watched as Iran rolled out missiles, then hit them before they could be erected for launch, the person said. Mossad knew the trucks that move the missiles from storage to the launch site were a bottleneck for Iran, which had four times as many missiles as trucks.

The teams took out dozens of trucks

And from the ToI:, which pretty much reprises the above:

It was previously reported that Israel spent years preparing for the operation against Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, including building a drone base inside Iran and smuggling precision weapons systems and commandos into the country.

Unnamed sources revealed more details in the Journal report, saying Israel spent months smuggling bomb-laden quadcopter drone parts into Iran via suitcases, trucks, and shipping containers. In some cases, business transactions were made with partners who were unaware of the cargo being shipped. Mossad agents inside Iran then gathered the equipment and handed it out to teams who prepared the drones for use. Team leaders were trained outside Iran and then returned to pass on the skills to the teams on the ground.

When the airstrikes began, the teams used the weapons to take out air defense systems while also hitting surface-to-surface missile launchers as they emerged from shelters and were being set up to fire in retaliation at Israel, the sources said.

You have to be pretty brave to be a Mossad agent spending any time at all in Iran, for if you’re caught it’s instant death. Israel screwed up on October 7, but the performance of Mossad, killing Iranian nuclear scientists, diabling Hezbollah fighters with beepers and walkie-talkies, and now the operation in Iran, well, that’s pretty amazing.

*Most of Canada has resoundingly rejected Trump’s argument that the country should become the U.S.’s 51st state, but there’s one area that shares more of that sentiment. (article archived here). No, it’s not Quebec, which tried to secede in 1980, but Alberta!

As President Donald Trump visits western Canada for this week’s Group of Seven economic summit, a passionate minority is thrilled by his talk of making them part of a 51st state.

Across most of Canada, Trump’s annexation talk has caused outrage. His antagonism has stirred displays of flag-waving patriotism that are unusual here. In downtown Calgary, shops that sell maple syrup and other Canadian souvenirs have seen a surge in purchases of Canadian-flag lapel pins. Abookstore says “Proudly Canadian” in its window.

But the U.S. president’s expansionist designs have also galvanized a “Make Alberta Great Again” movement, which has gained traction among some in western Canada long frustrated by a Liberal government that they say stifles the oil and gas industry that drives their economy.For them, Trump’s 51st-state talk is not a provocation, but a chance for lower taxes, Second Amendment gun rights and a shot at the American Dream.

At the Red Deer Curling Center, about 90 miles north of Calgary, hundreds of Albertans gathered Saturday to discuss their frustrations with Ottawa at an event hosted by the right-wing media company Rebel News. Several in the crowd wore black or red Make Alberta Great Again caps, and provincial flags flew from their trucks in the packed parking lot. Most cheered as a speaker standing in front of a black curtain that partially covered the rink’s scoreboard made the case for forming a 51st state.

Jacob Fraser, selling bags of Resistance Coffee at the event, said he was “excited” when Trump began talking about annexing all or part of Canada. The 37-year-old sees joining the United States as an opportunity to gain more freedom of speech, more gun rights and more opportunities to pursue his own businesses.

“We’re very much intertwined with the States, and as Albertans, especially, we’re very much more compatible with the American perspectives than the current Canadian perspective,” he said. “For me and a lot of my social groups, it’s a hopeful moment and an exciting time in history.”

Nationwide, that’s clearly a minority view. Backlash to Trump, who was set to arrive here Sunday night, helped fuel Prime Minister Mark Carney’s victory in late April — a stunning comeback by his Liberal Party over the Conservatives, who had a healthy lead before Trump’s taunts.

About 15 percent of all Canadians supported joining the United States as of a January poll by YouGov. That percentage was slightly larger in the prairie provinces, including Alberta — “Canada’s Texas” — where some say they have more in common with Republicans in the U.S. than with their compatriots in the rest of the country.

Albertans who support joining the U.S. are a faction of a broader group of western Canadians who are alienated by Canada’s government. They have made their presence visible with billboards and blue-rubber bracelets that say “AB USA.”

Well, despite Trump’s blustering, this ain’t gonna happen. Nor would I want it to happen. Canadians are proud, friendly, and do not want to be part of the U.S. Why would they.  But if they did join uis, the politeness quotient of America would shoot up drastically.

*Yesterday I noted how the residents of Barcelona are fighting back against overtourism, even squirting visitors with water guns. Now kvetching about overtourism has spread to France, as in this AP story, “The world’s most-visited museum shuts down, sounding the alarm on overtourism.” Yep, workers on the Louvre, who can’t handle the crowds, are on strike.

*Joon Lee, who previously covered sports for ESPN, beefs in the NYT that it’s getting costly to be a sports fan: “$4.785. That’s how much it costs to be a sports fan now.” (The article is archived here.)

For most of my life, sports was one of the most accessible forms of entertainment in America. You turned on the TV, flipped to the game and cheered or booed — with your family, your neighborhood, your city. Being a fan was simple. It was community.

This community is dying, because some of its shared moments are disappearing. Take the N.B.A. playoffs. Wanted to watch the Denver Nuggets? You needed to shell out at least $8.99 a month for NBA TV — unless you happened to live in Denver, in which case you had to spend an additional $20 a month for a regional basketball streaming subscription.

It’s not just basketball. I subscribe to nearly every service there is with live sports — YouTube TV, MLB.TV, NBA League Pass, NFL Sunday Ticket, Peacock, Apple TV+, Max, Amazon Prime, Paramount — for $2,634 a year. But to watch the Boston Red Sox play the New York Yankees earlier this month, I would have had to fork over an additional $19.99 a month for some obscure baseball-focused service that has that slice of one of the most iconic rivalries in America’s national pastime.

For decades, our national sports leagues — the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League — operated more like civic institutions. These organizations may have always chased the mighty dollar, but they also wanted their sports to last. And as such, they cared about strengthening such powerful intangibles as local pride, generational fandom and public ritual. Tradition was good business. Community built loyalty. Loyalty built value.

Then came the streaming wars. Starting in the early 2010s, live sports events were one of the last types of programming that guaranteed hundreds of thousands if not millions of real-time viewers, and the leagues began to be flooded with requests from streamers, such as Amazon Prime, Peacock and Max, begging for a piece of the pie. At the same time, the leagues were looking for a way to raise the cash required to invest in the lucrative opportunities offered by overseas expansion. And that’s when the business of sustaining sports in America took a back seat, and our country’s sports leagues stopped acting like caretakers and started thinking like asset managers.

The result is that dozens if not hundreds of games that make up America’s national pastimes are being sliced and diced and sold off to the highest bidder — be that a cable giant, or a streaming upstart, or a regional sports network or a subscription app. Games jump from one service to another with so little notice or apparent logic that even some of the biggest superfans struggle to track what’s available where.

Going to a game is similarly growing out of reach: From 1999 to 2020, the average price of a seat across all sports rose roughly twice as fast as overall consumer prices. It increased 19.5 percent between May 2023 and May 2025 alone, one of the biggest jumps of any category tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Some solutions:

For our national games, it’s time for Congress to amend the antitrust exemption with a ban on blackouts, a cap on what streaming services can charge fans and a requirement that media companies offer affordable bundles. For local games, state legislators can force teams vying for taxpayer dollars to help pay for their gleaming new stadiums to offer affordable local streams, guaranteed public simulcasts and, similarly, no blackouts. Some teams already do this. The Dallas Stars of the N.H.L. stream their regional games free with ads — proving that it’s possible.

Congress could also take inspiration from Britain’s “Crown Jewel” rule and designate key sporting events — perhaps the World Series, the Super Bowl, the N.B.A. Finals — as nationally significant and require that they air on free, widely accessible platforms.

Crikey, I remember when you could watch all sports on the major t.v. stations: CBS, NBC, and ABC, and all FOR FREE.  Hell, I was sick at home, staying out of school, when in 1960 the Pirates’s Bill Mazeroski hit the home run in the bottom of the ninth that gave the Pirates the world championship. I can still remember that: lying in bed but cheering (I was a Pirates fan after I was a Cardinals fan). I couldn’t have done that if we had to pay! I’m gonna put that video up to jog my memory:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is peeved! When I asked Malgorzata what Hili was made about, the reply was “I don’t know. She is just a cat.”

Hili: I’m so outraged I can’t find words.

A: Look for synonyms in a dictionary.

Hili: Nie znajduję słów oburzenia.

Ja: Poszukaj w słowniku synonimów.

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

From Jesus of the Day:

From Now That’s Wild:

From CinEmma:

And meet a reader’s cat, Sparkle, who is staffed by reader Tom. Here’s Sparkle in an apple tree making a blep:

Here Masih excoriates the Iranian regime, which is doing bupkes to protect its citizens:

My heart breaks for the innocent civilians, the children, the families, under attack in Iran. No one is helping them.
And this is my message to @khamenei_ir the coward, the spineless so-called leader, hiding in a bunker while using Iranian people as human shields. Disgusting.… pic.twitter.com/fyQiFepvVM

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) June 16, 2025

Retweeted by JKR, these burqa-clad women are, of course, forbidden to sing. But they do it anyway, and make a video. At least they can’t be identified.

Though their voices tremble, they sing with unyielding strength — Afghan women continue to defy the Taliban’s oppressive “vice and virtue” laws that ban them from speaking in public or showing their faces.
Their courage speaks louder than any restriction.
با آن‌که صدای‌شان می… pic.twitter.com/auPFnExMOg

— WDI.Afghanistan (@WDIAfghanistan) June 14, 2025

While Greta Thunberg and her “Freedom Flotilla” were getting turned back from Gaza, a bunch of activists were approaching Gaza from the Egyptian side, heading to Palestine in buses.  I figured the Egyptians would turn them back, and they did. Luana sent this tweet of a tearful, thwarted pro-Palestinian activist:

Activists of pro Gaza were stranded in the desert and forced into buses by Egyptians to send them back where they came from!

Some of them started crying and calling for help to be allowed to march to Gaza!pic.twitter.com/JlPDglwFQ1

— Azat (@AzatAlsalim) June 14, 2025

From Malgorzata; the AP, along with other MSM organizations, has gone easy on Hamas for years. Here a former AP reporter gives some details:

This video exposes how the legacy media lies to you about Gaza.

“We were told delete something by Hamas, and we complied.” pic.twitter.com/GgKEtBJ2im

— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) June 14, 2025

From Malcolm: a deaf taxi driver picks up a deaf passenger.

Rare moment when a deaf taxi driver picks up a deaf passenger.pic.twitter.com/Admf1dB2oL

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 2, 2025

One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

Gassed to death immediately upon arriving at Auschwitz, this Jewish girl was only thirteen.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-06-17T09:55:51.913Z

Two posts from Professor Cobb, almost completely over his illness. First, an optical illusion that many people (including me) cannot see. I won’t tell you what it is, but see if you can make it out. Scroll it up or down quickly for the best results.

Scroll slowly and then think about where the image you will recognise is contained in this apparently uniform set of stripes, and the amazing processing that goes on, instantaneously, in your brain.

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-06-16T06:17:36.479Z

Look at the size of this instrument!

Here’s the massive, magnificent but very rare Octobasse, invented in 1850. To play it, the musician must stand on a platform. You can hear its rather alarming deep bass tone, and see it being played, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12X-…

— Journal of Art in Society (@artinsociety.bsky.social) 2025-06-16T06:05:31.869Z

Welcome to the top o’ the week again: Monday, June 16, 2025, and National Fudge Day, a confection good in nearly all its forms.  Here’s how it’s made at the Jersey shore, and it’s a bit tricky:

It’s also Bloomsday, celebrating the Dublin wanderings of Leopold Bloom on this day in 1906, related in Ulysses, Fresh Veggies Day, World Sea Turtle Day, National Vinegar Day, National Tortilla Day, National Take Your Cat to Work Day (good luck!), and National Cannoli Day, which reminds me of this scene from The Godfather:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 16 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The suspect in the murder of two Minnesota lawmakers and wounding of two other people has been apprehended:

A man suspected of assassinating a Minnesota state lawmaker and shooting another was arrested on Sunday, officials said, ending a two-day manhunt that rattled the state.

Investigators had pursued the suspect, identified as Vance Boelter, 57, throughout the weekend, as Minnesotans reeled from the killings of Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman. In a separate attack, the gunman also wounded State Senator John A. Hoffman and his wife, Yvette Hoffman, at their home in the Minneapolis suburbs.

“One man’s unthinkable actions have altered the state of Minnesota,” Gov. Tim Walz said at a news conference on Sunday night.

The suspect was charged with two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of attempted second-degree murder, according to a criminal complaint obtained by The New York Times.

*I hadn’t heard this, but a gaffe by a Republican Senator has now become a rallying cry: “We are all going to die.” (Sounds like Country Joe and the Fish). I’ve put her gaffe in bold:

A one-sentence gaffe from Iowa’s junior senator has become a line of attack against Republicans nationally, with Democratic fundraising solicitations, political ads, social media and T-shirts now highlighting her words heading into the midterm elections.

Sen. Joni Ernst’s response of “we all are going to die” to a constituent who was complaining about proposed Medicaid cuts in President Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” has also helped produce a 2026 GOP primary challenger for her and prompted several Iowa Democrats to announce bids for her seat.

The incident has shone a fresh spotlight on the Republican Party’s political vulnerabilities as well as Ernst’s uncertain political future, with some Iowa watchers wondering whether she will stand for re-election. She angered Trump’s MAGA allies last year, delayed her trademark summer motorcycle ride until the fall, and now has become the face of what Democrats paint as Republican cruelty toward poor people.

. . . Democrats accuse Republicans of cutting Medicaid spending to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) playfully calling the GOP bill the “Well, We’re All Going to Die Act.” ‘

. . . .Ernst’s utterance at a May 30 town hall was prompted by a Democrat in the audience who was yelling that people would die if the Medicaid cuts become law.

The senator doubled down on her original comment a day after she made it with a sarcastic apology video that appeared to be filmed in a cemetery. She said she assumed everyone knows “we are all going to perish from this Earth” and added that she was glad she didn’t have to bring up “the tooth fairy as well.”

Well, it’s as good a rallying cry as any, and Medicaid cuts will certainly lead to some people dying, but not all of us.  In my view, “No Kings” is far better. (The anti-Trump protest rallies on Saturday, by the way, far exceeded the size of groups who voluntarily came out to cheer Trump.)

*While Nicholas Kristof and Tom “I am dumb” Friedman are wringing their hands over the new war between Israel and Iran, Bret Stephens, always the most sensible NYT op-ed writer on the war, has a piece called “Israel had the courage to do what needed to be done.”

In plain English, Iran has been deceiving the world for years while gathering the means to build multiple nuclear weapons. In a better world, diplomacy would have forestalled and perhaps eliminated the need for Israeli military action.

But President Trump, who tried to dissuade Israel from striking, failed to get a deal after five rounds of negotiations and noted this week that Tehran had become “much more aggressive” in the talks. Make of his testimony what you will, but it’s worth recalling that a much more pliant and patient Biden administration spent years trying to reach an agreement, and also gave up in frustration with Iran’s repeated prevarications.

As for other alternatives, the clandestine means of sabotage and targeted assassinations that Israel had long used, and which probably delayed Iran’s nuclear breakout moment by years, had plainly run their course — otherwise, Israel would have continued to use them rather than risk Iranian retaliatory strikes using drones and missiles that could overwhelm Israel’s defenses.

Those strikes have begun. But they underscore, from an Israeli point of view, how crucial it is that Iran be prevented from being able to mount any of those missiles with a nuclear warhead. Academic theorists in, say, Chicago may be convinced that an Iran armed with nuclear weapons would merely help create a stable balance against a nuclear-armed Israel.

Yet that fails to take into account the millenarian mind-set of some of Iran’s theocratic leaders, for whom the ideological objective of destroying Israel may be worth the price of mass martyrdom in a nuclear exchange. It also ignores the prospect that an Iranian nuclear bomb would lead Saudi Arabia, and perhaps Turkey and Egypt, to seek nukes of their own. How stable is a balance of terror if there are three, four or five nuclear powers in the world’s most volatile region, operating in uncertain diplomatic combinations, each at daggers drawn with the others?

. . . Also worth noting is that Hezbollah has been quiet since Israel’s attack. That could always change, but it’s a result of its swift decimation at Israeli hands last September. That, too, was denounced by Israel’s critics as dangerously escalatory. But now it’s paying dividends in the form of constricted Iranian retaliatory options, the end of the pro-Iranian regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and the first possibility in two generations for the Lebanese people finally to govern themselves.

. . .It also matters that Iran’s leadership has again been bested on its home turf, not by the “Great Satan” of the United States but, much more humiliatingly, by the “Little Satan” of Israel. The weaker and more uncertain the regime looks in the eyes of ordinary Iranians, the likelier it will spark the kinds of mass protests that nearly brought it down in 2022. An end to the regime that has inflicted so much misery on so many people for so many years offers the only sure route to ending the nuclear crisis for good.

I’m writing in the first hours of a conflict that surely still has many surprises in store. It’s far too soon to say how it will end. But for those who worry about a future in which one of the world’s most awful regimes takes advantage of international irresolution to gain possession of the most dangerous weapons, Israel’s strike is a display of clarity and courage for which we may all one day be grateful.

*And the Times of Israel tells us “How an Israeli-American deception campaign lulled Iran into a false sense of security.”

Israel and the US carried out a multi-faceted misinformation campaign in recent days to convince Iran that a strike on its nuclear facilities was not imminent, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel on Friday.

The official asserted that US President Donald Trump was an active participant in the ruse, and knew about the military operation since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to move forward with the strike on Monday.

Some parts of the ruse:

Netanyahu and Trump spoke by phone for 40 minutes that same day. At the time, unnamed officials leaked to Israel’s Channel 12 that Trump had told Netanyahu in a “dramatic” conversation to remove an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites from the agenda as negotiations continue. According to the TV report, Trump stressed that there would be no discussions on a military strike until the president concluded that nuclear talks with Iran had failed.

This, the Israeli official argued on Friday, had all been untrue.

. . .At the same time, Israel had to sell Iran a believable story, and not ignore the nuclear issue. Instead, Israel wanted Tehran to think it was still debating the matter of a potential strike with the White House.

It thus announced that Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and Mossad Chief David Barnea would take off for talks with US special envoy Steve Witkoff ahead of the next round of talks between Tehran and Washington, set for Sunday, claiming the trip was meant to “clarify Israel’s position.”

The Prime Minister’s Office wouldn’t even answer a direct question from The Times of Israel as to where the purported meeting was to take place. It is now clear that the meeting was never on the schedule.

. . .Israel clearly hoped the Iranians would believe there was no way it would attack before the Sunday talks.

On all fronts, Israel sought to put forth an air of business as usual. Netanyahu’s office put out a statement on Thursday stressing that despite some media reports to the contrary amid the rising regional tensions, he would not be canceling his weekend vacation in the north.

. . . Trump contributed to the effort. “He played the game together with Israel,” said the Israeli official. “It was a whole coordination.”

Trump said Thursday that an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites “could very well happen” but advised against it, saying the possibility of a deal was “fairly close” if Tehran compromised on its atomic ambitions in ongoing talks with the US.

There is more, but the important parts are that the Trump administration was part of the ruse, and is collaborating with Israel, and Israel, after the security disaster of October 7, is back on the beam, taking out Hezbollah (with Beepergate!), much of Hamas, and now this surprise attack on Iran. I’m not quite as pessimistic about Israel’s future as I used to be.

BTW, Iran is committing war crimes by attacking civilians in Israeli, while the IDF warns Iranian citizens before an attack.  Will there be publicity about Iran’s crimes? Of course not!

Here are two headlines from yesterday’s NYT:

and….

*You may note that I put up relatively few posts from Bluesky as opposed to Twitter, as the former is a “nice” site that avoids political discussion and, above all, heterodox opinions. This “bubble” is described by Josh Barro on his Very Serious site; the post is called, “Bluesky isn’t a bubble. It’s a containment dome.”

My friend Megan McArdle warns in a column that the social media platform Bluesky is a harmful bubble for liberals. By decamping together for Bluesky, she writes, liberals have cloistered themselves in a place where their views won’t be challenged. And because the conversational norms on Bluesky are so hostile and obnoxious — do you ever use AI? Former “Reply All” host Alex Goldman wants you to know you should be thrown into a volcano — the platform fails to appeal beyond its niche political audience, is losing users, and is unlikely to become a place where posting is a good way to influence public opinion.

Megan correctly describes these dynamics, but she’s wrong about them being harmful. In fact, these dynamics are why Bluesky is an important harm reduction tool for liberals. Twitter used to be a place where the most neurotic and censorious liberal influencers were highly effective at influencing events within media organizations and the Democratic Party. But was that actually ever good for liberal causes?

. . . A lot of the blame for the self-inflicted wounds of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary should go to The Groups: it was the ACLU that got Kamala Harris to commit to taxpayer-funded sex changes for criminals and detained migrants. But one of the reasons Democrats didn’t realize it was a big mistake to make promises and statements that made them sound wacky was that they were constantly being yelled at on Twitter by people whose unpopular viewpoints they mistook for broad public opinion.1 The screamers won the battle but they lost the war: they pressured their own candidates into manufacturing attack ad fodder for Republicans, and as a result, Donald Trump is president again.

The “screamers” are presumably loud “progressive” liberals.

. . . There is much to regret about the ways Elon Musk has changed Twitter. But there’s been one obvious change for the better: By rupturing the Twitter user base, he (accidentally?) created a firewall between the most maladjusted liberal posters on the internet and the reporters, Democratic politicians and operatives who used to pay an excessive amount of attention to their harangues. (Media reporter Max Tani wrote about this for Semafor last month: “I spoke with a few congressional staffers who said that they had tried using Bluesky as an alternative to Twitter after Twitter was purchased by Elon Musk, but they gave up after their bosses kept getting yelled at by Democratic users angry at their impotence.”) I believe the emergence of this firewall is one reason for the renaissance that we were seeing at WelcomeFest last week: Democrats are becoming more cognizant of public opinion and less fearful of breaking with the activist base because they are no longer receiving so much activist messaging in the form of aggrieved Twitter push alerts on their phones.

. . . The problem with a “bubble” is that it prevents the people inside from accessing the information on the outside. But the core functionality of Bluesky is not that it keeps information out; it’s that it keeps information in. Like the containment dome over a nuclear reactor, Bluesky serves the important safety purpose of ensuring that whatever meltdowns occur within produce minimal fallout. So while I’m not on Bluesky, I value the platform, and I encourage its users to continue screaming at each other about how much the rest of us all suck. Please do not leave.

So his thesis is that liberals on Bluesky are insulated from the progressive Left and thus will confect a moderate Democratic party. Would it were so! I find Bluesky curiously anodyne as well as censorious: very critical of “heterodox” people like Jesse Singal. But the Bluesky dictum is to protect moderate liberals from hearing anything outside their bubble, but there’s a lot going on outside that bubble, including AOC and Bernie Sanders’s propaganda tour. And some of that stuff is going to hurt Democrats in general.  Does Bluesky really think its liberal base needs to be protected from free speech?

*You’ve surely heard that residents of Barcelona are really peeved at the number of tourists in their beautiful city, a number that’s causing severe problems. And now some of those residents are packing guns to attack the tourists—water guns.

Protesters used water pistols against unsuspecting tourists in Barcelona on Sunday as demonstrators marched to demand a re-think of an economic model they believe is fueling a housing crunch and erasing the character of the Spanish city.

“The squirt guns are to bother the tourists a bit,” Andreu Martínez said with a chuckle after spritzing a couple seated at an outdoor cafe. “Barcelona has been handed to the tourists. This is a fight to give Barcelona back to its residents.”

Martínez, a 42-year-old administrative assistant, is one of a growing number of residents who are convinced that tourism has gone too far in the city of 1.7 people. Barcelona hosted 15.5 visitors last year eager to see Antoni Gaudi’s La Sagrada Familia basilica and the Las Ramblas promenade.

That’s 9.1 tourists to every resident!

Martínez says his rent has risen over 30% as more apartments in his neighborhood are rented to tourists for short-term stays. He said there is a knock-on effect of traditional stores being replaced by businesses catering to tourists, like souvenir shops, burger joints and “bubble tea” spots.

“Our lives, as lifelong residents of Barcelona, is coming to an end,” he said. “We are being pushed out systematically.”

Similar demonstrations against tourism are slated in several other Spanish cities on Sunday, including on the Balearic islands of Mallorca and Ibiza, as well as in the Italian postcard city of Venice, Portugal’s capital Lisbon and other cities across southern Europe — marking the first time a protest against tourism has been coordinated across the region.

In Barcelona, protesters blew whistles and chanted, “Everywhere you look, all you see are tourists.” They held up homemade signs saying “One more tourist, one less resident” and “Your Airbnb was my home.” They stuck stickers saying “Citizen Self-Defense,” in Catalan, and “Tourist Go Home,” in English, with a drawing of a water pistol on the doors of hotels and hostels.

. . . There was tension when the march stopped in front of a large hostel, where a group emptied their water guns at two workers positioned in the entrance. They also set off firecrackers next to the hostel and opened a can of pink smoke. One worker spat at the protestors as he slammed the hostel’s doors.

. . .Cities across the world are struggling with how to cope with overtourism and a boom in short-term rental platforms, like Airbnb, but perhaps nowhere has surging discontent been so evident as in Barcelona, where protesters first took to firing squirt guns at tourists during a protest last summer.

Spaniards have also staged several large protests in Barcelona, Madrid and other cities in recent years to demand lower rents. There has also been a confluence of the pro-housing and anti-tourism struggles: When thousands marched through the streets of Spain’s capital in April, some held homemade signs saying “Get Airbnb out of our neighborhoods.”

Can you blame the residents? (Overall in Spain last year, there were two tourists for every resident.) For sure Barcelona is one of the world’s loveliest cities, but when I walked down the Ramblas some years ago, it was already mostly tourists and way too crowded. Still, I would urge people to visit it for its beauties, which include some of the world’s finest architecture, including Gaudi’s now-completed cathedral of the Sagrada Familia, which I found stunning despite the Guardia Civil having detained me in the church strip-searching me. (I was falsely accused by two British tourists of having pickpocketed their money and passports, a story I’ve already told.)  But don’t stay long, and there are less crowded parts of Spain that have their own allure (try Galicia).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili’s question is answered with a double response. When I asked Malgorzata what it meant, she said, “Anything you want:  Viruses are mico. human bodies are macro. Viruses can destroy human bodies. Israel is micro, Iran is macro. It seems that Israel is destroying Iran.

Hili: What is the difference between micro and macro?

Andrzej: Huge, but micro often destroys macro.

Hili: Jaka jest różnica między mikro i makro?

Ja: Ogromna, ale mikro często niszczy makro.=

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

From Now That’s Wild:

From Cats that Have Had Enough of Your Shit:

From Richard:

The Coyne building from Amy, who writes: “Never noticed this before. The Coyne building at Pico and Crenshaw blvd. In Los Angeles. ( was on my way to a lecture at center for inquiry in LA).”

Now that a war with Israel is on, the Iranian Masih is back tweeting—and rooting for Israel, which threatens to bring down the theocracy that she hates.

Here’s the Google translation of the tweet below:

The Islamic Republic’s insistence on continuing confrontation with Israel is based on illusions, ideological slogans, and unrealistic calculations, and it has no result other than the destruction of our Iran. A disaster whose costs will not only be political, but also human and security. And what’s even more bitter is that these costs will be paid with the lives of people who have no role or authority in these decision-making. How long will the Iranian people have to pay the price for a war that was neither their choice nor their benefit?

اصرار جمهوری اسلامی بر تداوم تقابل‌جویانه با اسرائیل، بر اساس توهمات و‌ شعارهای ایدئولوژیک و محاسبات غیرواقع‌بینانه است و بس و هیچ نتیجه‌ای ندارد جز ویرانی ایران ما.

فاجعه‌ای که هزینه‌های آن نه صرفاً سیاسی، بلکه انسانی و امنیتی خواهد بود. و نکته‌ی تلخ‌تر آن‌که، این هزینه‌ها از… pic.twitter.com/6EmVZz84pn

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) June 15, 2025

From Barry; geese don’t want no stinking kings, either!

Even Mother Nature is done with Felon47’s bullshit.

— Jason (@gizmosspace.bsky.social) 2025-06-15T15:11:45.451Z

From Simon: Trump trolled by Russians in a spoof video:

the video:

— George Conway 👊🇺🇸🔥 (@gtconway.bsky.social) 2025-06-15T16:05:36.644Z

I can’t remember who sent me the first one below, but the second one that I saw below it is the one I really love:

As if you were in the flock pic.twitter.com/CxxBulY7a6

— 🌐NorthnileRiser|Curious Explorer (@NorthnileRiser) June 14, 2025

From Malcolm, a human transformer:

Impressive transformation by a street artist.pic.twitter.com/b4RHlBCbZB

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) May 28, 2025

One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

A 58-year-old Dutch Jewish woman was gassed to death immediately up arriving at Auschwitz.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-06-16T09:30:29.080Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb, who’s nearly recovered form his respiratory ills. First, a live cowrie, a mollusc whose shells are often collected. They’re much nicer alive

Hello ₍₍⁽⁽🐚₎₎⁾⁾ Hello

— でんか (@k-hermit.com) 2025-06-14T03:47:58.910Z

And Matthew calls this siphonophore video “Amazing”:

Stunning #siphonophore video by @mbarinews.bsky.social ! youtu.be/lp4UNEvxoWo?…

— Chris Mah (@echinoblog.bsky.social) 2025-06-15T15:01:35.321Z