Welcome to the top o’ the week: it’s Monday, May 19, 2025, and National Devil’s Food Cake Day (remember, there’s also Angel Food Cake). The origin of the name is obscure, for this is simply a chocolate cake, usually darker than a normal one and frosted with chocolate, comme ça:

Wikipedia says this:

The name probably had several sources of inspiration, including the culinary term deviled to describe flavorful foods like deviled eggs and the contrast of this dark, dense, flavorful cake with the light and airy angel food cake. The name has inspired humorous comments; one of the first printed recipes declares it to be “Fit for Angels”, and another early recipe recommends topping it with divinity frosting.

But if you look up the culinary term deviled, you get “grilled with a piquant sauce”!

It’s also World Family Doctor Day, but not much else.

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

Da Nooz:

*Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer, and it’s metastasized to his bones. As they said on the news last night, “It’s not curable, but it’s treatable.”

The diagnosis came after Mr. Biden reported urinary symptoms, which led doctors to find a “small nodule” on his prostate. Mr. Biden’s cancer is “characterized by a Gleason score of 9” with “metastasis to the bone,” the statement said.

The Gleason score is used to describe how prostate cancers look under a microscope; 9 and 10 are the most aggressive. The cancer is Stage 4, which means it has spread.

“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management,” according to the statement from Mr. Biden’s office, which was unsigned. “The president and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.”

This is very sad to hear, especially given that two of his children also died, one of brain cancer and the other in an accident that also killed Biden’s first wife. He’s also had two dangerous brain aneurysms.  The guy has been through a lot.

*Boss vs. Boss: Trump is trying to get Bruce Springsteen to shut up. It isn’t working (article archived here).

President Trump warned Bruce Springsteen to “keep his mouth shut” until he gets back to the U.S. The rock icon is showing no signs of backing down, delivering a fiery performance from a stage in this city Saturday that reflected the stark political divide in America.

Springsteen echoed earlier criticism of the Trump administration Saturday, saying a “rogue” government was rolling over U.S. lawmakers and institutions designed to keep authoritarianism in check.

“Things are happening right now that are altering the very nature of our country’s democracy,” Springsteen told the audience. To drive the point home, he dedicated one of his songs to our “Dear Leader,” an allusion to the honorific set aside for former North Korean ruler Kim Jong Il.

A similar broadside last week prompted Trump to take aim at Springsteen in a social-media post: “I see that Highly Overrated Bruce Springsteen goes to a Foreign Country to speak badly about the President of the United States. Never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he’s not a talented guy.”

The escalating confrontation between the president and Springsteen is part of a broader clash between Trump and some pop-culture icons that goes back to the president’s first term. Trump has repeatedly assailed Taylor Swift, who endorsed Kamala Harris in last year’s election but hasn’t engaged in the sort of sharp-tongued criticism delivered by Springsteen.

Trump lashed out at Swift in a separate post Friday: “Has anyone noticed that, since I said ‘I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,’ she’s no longer ‘HOT?’”

. . . . few artists have been as blunt as Springsteen, who for decades has cast himself as a champion of the working class and, in recent decades, has regularly campaigned with Democratic Party presidential candidates.

Still, Springsteen has generally been able to straddle the partisan divide in America. His 1984 anthem “Born in the U.S.A.” was widely embraced by Republicans including Ronald Reagan, despite its lyrics’ searing criticism of U.S. foreign and domestic policy. Springsteen also counts New Jersey’s former Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican and longtime presidential aspirant from Springsteen’s home state, among his biggest fans.

Still, despite Springsteen’s support, the Democratic Party has seen its longtime strength among blue-collar workers eroded by the rise of Trump. The president has transcended his own gilded upbringing to become a hero to many voters across the Rust Belt states that Springsteen has made a career of singing about—including Youngstown, a working-class city in Ohio that was the eponymous subject of one of the songs Springsteen played on Saturday.

Keep on speaking your mind, Bruce!  Trump can’t do anything to you, because you have freedom of speech. It’s clear that Trump has no ability to ignore criticism, but always answers it with juvenile name-calling.

*From the NYT: “Hollywood couldn’t imagine a star like this one” (archived here). Who is the star? Why, it’s Desi Arnaz from “I Love Lucy”, a show I regularly watched as a kid.

*On his Substack site, the well-known physician and writer Eric Topol discusses the first human to be treated for genetic disease with in vivo “CRISPR 2.0 personalized genome editing.” (h/t reader Gingerbaker).  The genetic disease was “severe carbamoyl-phosphate synthetase 1 deficiency, a disease with an estimated 50% mortality in early infancy.”  After determining the infant’s defects, they developed an infusion that was targeted at the prcise base pair that was defective, and then gave it repeatedly to the one-year old. From Topol’s report:

This was unique in many respects. KJ Muldoon was born in August 2024 with lethargy, rigid muscles and other worrisome symptoms. Genome sequencing revealed this was due to a severe urea-cycle disorder that leads to accumulation of ammonia and death in about half of infants affected, and short of death, the high levels of ammonia cause lethargy, seizures, coma, and brain damage. The disease-causing gene was CPS1 (carbamoyl-phosphate synthetase 1 deficiency), a 1 in a 1.3 million births genetic (ultra-rare) disease. KJ was hospitalized and awaited a liver transplant, listed at 5 month of age, if a donor organ became available. In the meantime, therapy consisted of a low protein diet and ammonia lowering (“nitrogen scavenger”) medications.

To get to the basis of KJ’s genomic defect and attempt a cure, the team at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and Penn Medicine (led by Drs. Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas and Kiran Musunuru) sequenced KJ and his parents. The father had a truncating CSP1 variant (Q335X) and the mother a different variant, E714X). They developed an adenosine base editor (called K-abe, schematic below) to specifically correct KJ’s defective CPS1 gene. The approach taken was particularly rigorous and comprehensive. Within 6 months they tested the editor in cells with the genomic variants, in mice (bred to specifically have KJ’s CPS1 mutation), in non-human primates, and got FDA approval to give it. It was administered intravenously using delivery via mRNA + nanoparticles beginning in February 2025 and then with 2 subsequent doses. The base editor used was directed against the paternal mutation (a G→A stop variant) at the Q335X site of the CSP1 gene.

What is missing to date is a liver biopsy, due to risk to the infant, to prove the targeted CSP1 editing. There is also lacking evidence of a cure—”just” a reduced need for medications and the restrictive diet. But also encouraging is that KJ is now reaching developmental milestones and although he sustained two viral infections, both were without an ammonia crisis. Further doses of the base editor can be administered with the mRNA approach (rather than a virus vector that can induce an immune response). Regarding uncertainties, we also don’t know about the durability of the editing, any mosaicism impact (only some liver cells edited), and the potential of any off-target effects (rigorously assessed in the 6-months sprint of lab experiments but not yet in KJ).

It seemed to work, though of course fixing a genetic disease by changing some of the cells isn’t guaranteed to be a permanent fix, as there are other, unfixed cells that keep replicating. I’m not sure whether the infant will require lifelong infusions, or whether the disease has bad effects only in infancy, but it’s remarkable that you can target liver cells and change a single base pair in the DNA (out of 3 billion bases) in an attempt to cure a genetic disease. Topol adds this:

This case of KJ represents a human first—-personalized, N-of-1 genomic intervention with base editing (CRISPR 2.0), in the body (in vivo), to directly fix a pathogenic (disease-causing) gene mutation. This bespoke intervention was accomplished in a remarkably compressed timeline that included rigorous assessment in cell and animal models, along with regulatory approval to proceed. It embodies something in medicine we have not and could not have done previously. It involved a dedicated team at CHOP and Penn and collaborators spread out around the world.

There are many specific aspects of the case that deserve attention. The fact that this work culminated from many years of NIH supported research, including the current report, at a time when we’re seeing profound and indiscriminate cutting of such funds

Here’s the paper from NEJM:

There is a lot more of this to come, and it’s amazing that we’re living in an age in which gene editing (which arose as a fortuitous byproduct of pure scientific curiosity about hot-spring bacteria) can be used to ameliorate or cure genetic diseases.

*The Times of Israel reports that the body of Hamas leader Muhammad Sinwar, the target of an attack about a week ago, has (according to a Saudi report) been found in a tunnel in Gaza. The third Sinwar brother, Zakaria, was killed by an airstrike on Sunday night. (Some time ago Yahyta Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, was also killed by the IDF).  The IDF reported the strike, but they don’t take a kill for granted unless they’re sure, and I’m accepting this Saudi version.

A series of Israeli airstrikes last week killed Muhammad Sinwar, the de facto commander of Hamas in Gaza, according to reports on Sunday that said his body was found in a Khan Younis tunnel.

Muhammad Sinwar was the younger brother of the former Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by the IDF in southern Gaza last October.

According to a separate report, Zakaria Sinwar, another brother, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Saturday night. [JAC: I’ve heard rumors that Zakaria was in the morgue, showed signs of life, and has been taken to the hospital. Stay tuned.]

A series of Israeli airstrikes last week killed Muhammad Sinwar, the de facto commander of Hamas in Gaza, according to reports on Sunday that said his body was found in a Khan Younis tunnel.

The strikes that reportedly killed Muhammad Sinwar on Tuesday targeted an underground command compound below the European Hospital where he was believed to have been sheltering.

The IDF later bombed the area several more times, in an apparent attempt to prevent anyone from approaching the tunnel.

According to the Saudi channel Al-Hadath, his body was recently recovered along with the remains of 10 of his aides.

The report said that there was evidence that the commander of the Rafah Brigade in Hamas’s military wing, Mohammad Shabana, was also killed in the strike.

What effect, if any, these strikes will have on Hamas remains to be seen. After all, some predicted that Hamas would give up after Yahya Sinwar was killed. It did not. But it’s clear that Israel’s big push now is designed to finish the job, and may have led to the proposal in the next item.

*In addition, Israel and the Qataris (and, “indirectly,” Hamas) are pondering one war-ending plan that would return all the hostages (dead or alive) and get Hamas to give up:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office says Israel’s hostage negotiation team in Doha is exhausting “every possibility” for a deal, including a potential agreement that would see the end of fighting, in an apparent shift in approach.

The PMO says that the team is working toward the possibility of either US special envoy Steve Witkoff’s proposal for a short-term ceasefire and limited hostage exchange, or an agreement to end the war through a comprehensive release of all hostages in Gaza and the complete surrender and exile of Hamas.

“Under the prime minister’s direction, even at this hour, the negotiating team in Doha is working to exhaust every possibility for a deal — whether according to the Witkoff outline or within the framework of ending the war, which would include the release of all hostages, the exile of Hamas terrorists, and the disarmament of the Gaza Strip,” writes the PMO in a statement.

. . . . Israel has consistently said that the war will not end without the destruction of Hamas as a military and governing power. Netanyahu has previously insisted on only agreeing to a temporary ceasefire of roughly 45 days, which would begin with Hamas releasing about 10 hostages.

Will Hamas give up and go into exile? This doesn’t seem likely, as they always say they value death more than the IDF values life, and many truly believe that if they die while “resisting,” they will go to heaven and get those virgins. But surely some members of Hamas don’t want to die. See also this archived article about the IDF’s “excpanded ground operations” in the NYT.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is impatient:

Hili: I’m sitting here and waiting.

A: What for?

Hili: For somebody to come and fill the water bowl.

Hili: Siedzę tu i czekam.

Ja: Na co?

Hili: Aż ktoś przyjdzie i uzupełni wodę w tej misce.

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

From the 2025 Darwin Awards!!/Epic Fails!!:

From Annie:

From Cats:

Masih is posting again, though they’re mostly reposts since she’s recovering from surgery. Here’s an old one but of course still relevant to the patriarchal Iranian regime:

#چهارشنبه_های_بدون_اجبار #چهارشنبه_های_سفيد
second week of #WhiteWednesdays one day, instead of feeling scared of the morality police… pic.twitter.com/8j6b6QYVlf

— My Stealthy Freedom (@mystealthyorg) May 31, 2017

Another instance of deplatforming tweeted by Nicholas Christakis at Yale. Salman Rushdie was scheduled to give the commencement speech at Claremont-McKenna College. From the link in the tweet:

The cancellation came as student and local Muslim advocacy groups called the author’s presence “disrespectful” after he said pro-Palestinian protests across college campuses were akin to supporting “a fascist terrorist group,” The Guardian reported last year.

“I’m surprised, relieved and happy,” Claremont Colleges Muslim Students Association president Kumail Afshar said about Rushdie’s decision.

Rushdie, an Indian-born British and American atheist, was forced into hiding by the outrage over his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, in which he suggests Islam’s Prophet Muhammad may have entertained polytheism.

The College supported Rushdie, but I suspect he was scared of being attacked again:

When you are happy that you have cancelled the incredible Sir @SalmanRushdie from giving a talk at your college, you really have lost the plot. https://t.co/MBqFpcPVjH

— Nicholas A. Christakis (@NAChristakis) May 17, 2025

Talking about losing the plot, look what Naomi Wolf said (“Tim Onion” is Ben Collins, owner of The Onion):

“Since I’ve rearranged my whole identity to call most people unclean and filled with vampire blood, their hugs seem less sincere. Separately, I have discovered the vampire-blooded have a new disease called Soft Hug Disease.”

— Tim Onion (@bencollins.bsky.social) 2025-05-17T17:56:07.455Z

From Simon:

When you post the same thing on X and Bluesky

— Oded Rechavi (@odedrechavi.bsky.social) 2024-11-12T19:52:01.542Z

From my feed; I hope this cured the mantis and it was let go. But crikey, look at that thing!

Lowering a Praying Mantis in water to entice the parasite living within to come outside. pic.twitter.com/Ld2QsdglaL

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) May 17, 2025

From the Auschwitz Memorial; one that I reposted:

A Dutch Jewish girl was gassed to death upon arriving at Auschwitz. She was 11, and woiuld be 94 today had she lived.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-05-19T09:39:28.249Z

From Matthew via Phil Plait; a bad joke. My own personal version, which is mine, is opening a fusion Caribbean-Jewish restaurant called “Bermuda Schwartz.”

I'm gonna open a fusion Italian-Peruvian-Jewish restaurant called Matzah Pizzu

— Phil Plait (@philplait.bsky.social) 2025-01-07T15:25:53.020Z

And a relatively newly discovered jellyfish:

The pink meanie jellyfish was only described in the year 2000 (they even got their own new family!) and we’re totally here for it. The pink meanie hunts the moon jellyfish and helps keep their blooms in check! #coralcitycamera

— Coral City Camera (@coralcitycamera.bsky.social) 2024-11-12T14:37:17.997Z

Save for John Avise’s collection of dragonfly photos for tomorrow, we’re out of readers’ wildlife. This is sad, as the feature has been going since this site started in 2009 (I can’t believe it’s been that long!).  If you have wildlife photos and don’t want the feature to disappear, please send ’em in. There will be no photos today.

Welcome to Jewish cat shabbos: CaturSaturday, May 17, 2025, and National Walnut Day. Here’s a short video about how commercial walnuts are harvested: They shake ’em off the trees!

It’s also Armed Force Day, World Whisky Day, National Mushroom Hunting Day, National Cherry Cobbler Day, National Pinot Grigio Day, and they’re running the second race of the Triple Crown today: the Preakness.

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

Da Nooz:

*To become an American citizen, applicants have to answer questions about America’s history and laws, which is okay (I hear that most native Americans can’t answer them). But now, in this Age of Trump, they’re thinking of turning this vetting into, yes, a reality television show. It’s not a done deal yet, but it’s tacky, and of course the pressure of being on t.v. could throw some people:

The Department of Homeland Security is considering taking part in a television program that would have immigrants go through a series of challenges to get American citizenship, officials said on Friday.

The challenges would be based on various American traditions and customs, said Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the agency. She said the department was still reviewing the idea, which she spoke about several weeks ago with a producer named Rob Worsoff.

“The pitch generally was a celebration of being an American and what a privilege it is to be able to be a citizen of the United States of America,” she said. “It’s important to revive civic duty.”

She said the agency was happy to review “out-of-the-box pitches,” particularly those that celebrate “what it means to be an American.”

The project was reported earlier by The Daily Mail.

Mr. Worsoff told The Wall Street Journal that the show was not intended to be punitive.

“This isn’t ‘The Hunger Games’ for immigrants,” Mr. Worsoff said, adding, “This is not, ‘Hey, if you lose, we are shipping you out on a boat out of the country.’”

Ms. McLaughlin said the pitch had not yet reached the level of Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary. She said on social media on Thursday that the department “receives hundreds of television show pitches a year,” including for documentaries about border operations and white-collar investigations. “Each proposal undergoes a thorough vetting process prior to denial or approval,” Ms. McLaughlin said. “This pitch has not received approval or denial by staff.”

The department has worked with filmmakers in the past on programming.

In 2017, during the first Trump administration, the agency allowed documentary filmmakers extensive access to operations conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials for a program called “Immigration Nation.”

I cannot imagine the American public being intensely interested in such a show. Granted, they would learn some history and law, but people would find it boring. I find it embarrassing and schlocky, and imagine answering those questions on t.v. I am betting they won’t go through with it.  “I’ll take Canceled Amendments for $200.”

*Israel previously announced that it would launch a large offensive against Hamas after Trump finished his trip to the Middle East. But the IDF couldn’t wait, and a big offensive has just begun. (h/t Malgorzata)

Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip on Friday killed at least 74 people, Hamas-run authorities said, as US President Donald Trump wrapped up a Middle East visit that skipped Israel and offered little prospect for a ceasefire and hostage deal.

Vowing to take care of Gaza, Trump said “a lot of people are starving in Gaza… There’s a lot of bad things going on.”

Strikes overnight into Friday morning hit the outskirts of Deir al-Balah and the city of Khan Younis, and sent people fleeing from the Jabaliya refugee camp and the town of Beit Lahiya.

The death toll figure, which is not independently verified, does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas, including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.

The Saudi Al-Hadath news channel reported that Israeli tanks advanced in the area of Beit Lahiya.

The IDF said Friday afternoon that it had carried out airstrikes on over 150 “terror targets” in the Gaza Strip over the past day.

The targets included anti-tank missile launch posts, cells of operatives, and buildings used by terror groups to carry out attacks on forces, the army said.

The WaPo adds this:

The strikes in Gaza on Friday were preparatory actions leading to a larger operation and were meant to send a message to Hamas that the campaign will begin soon if there is not an agreement to release hostages, the Associated Press reported, citing an unnamed Israeli official.

The problem with the food, which I do worry about, it that yes, Gaza has enough food for all its people for some time, but Hamas is guarding it in warehouses.  True, no food is coming in, but Israel has offered to distribute food to people so it could ensure that the food goes to civilians, not to Hamas, but the UN won’t let Israel do that for reasons that are completely unclear to me.  But, at any rate, it’s not true that Israel refuses to distribute food, and remember that there is no obligation to distribute food to an enemy country (we didn’t in WWII), so Israel is going beyond the call of duty by offering to do so.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/dozens-said-killed-in-heavy-israeli-strikes-across-gaza-trump-people-are-starving/?utm_source=The+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=daily-edition-2025-05-16&utm_medium=email

*As always, I’ll steal a few items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly and snarky news column in the Free Press, called this week, “TGIF: The emir of America.”

→ Biden and Kamala continue their bickering: A top adviser to Kamala’s presidential run told authors of a forthcoming book that Biden screwed the campaign over, and that if he had only dropped out earlier, Kamala would have soared. Which makes no sense, because she became slightly less popular as she campaigned. It seems like if Biden would’ve quit just a couple months earlier, Doug Emhoff might have been in the East Wing today switching out the drapes and getting ready for SoulCycle in Georgetown. The new book details Biden’s aging, and the lengths people went to cover it up includes that his team planned for Biden to be in a wheelchair soon after the election. I need everyone involved in this to step away from public life. But they refuse. Last week, Joe and Dr. Jill Biden went on The View. The ladies asked him about the criticisms of his age, and he went on for a few minutes until Dr. Jill, our villain, swooped in to say how very hard he worked.

The people who wrote those books were not in the White House with us, and they didn’t see how hard Joe worked every single day. I mean, he’d get up, he put in a full day, and then at night he would, I’d be in bed, you know, reading my book, and he was still on the phone, reading his briefings, working with staff. I mean, it was nonstop.

He put in a full day like a grown-up, she says, as Joe stares ahead, confused. Why is Joe all dressed up there at The View table anyway? Dr. Jill, just let him rest, good Lord.

→ The new Statue of Liberty: Donald Trump is being gifted a jumbo jet by the Qataris. The administration says it’s being given to the Defense Department and then will go to Trump’s “presidential library foundation,” which I’m sure will be very real and very full of big books. Facing criticism, Trump reposted someone on Truth Social saying the plane is a gift from a foreign government, like the Statue of Liberty was a gift from France. Just like that. But does the Statue of Liberty have a minibar full of Diet Coke?

My favorite exchange on this whole thing was on Fox News, between Brian Kilmeade and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

Kilmeade: “Do you worry that if [the Qataris] give us something like this, they want something in return?”

Leavitt: “Absolutely not, because they know President Trump, and they know he only works with the interests of the American public in mind.”

To be clear, I only work with the interests of TGIF in mind. So if someone wants to gift a briefcase of diamonds or a big private plane, TGIF might be interested in promoting your concrete company. Incentives: aligned! You’re welcome, TG readers.

Attesting to the legality of the gift from Qatar was United States attorney general and top blonde Pam Bondi, whose former job was working as a lobbyist for Qatar.

→ UC Berkeley votes against Hindu Heritage Month: The UC Berkeley student senate voted against Hindu Heritage Month, citing “Hindu nationalism,” despite the university’s observing several other heritage months. Hindus are not allowed heritage time! Stop asking for heritage awareness, Hindus. You must sit in shame next to the Irish Pride group and the campus Israel club (it is an awkward combo in there, I gotta warn you). Certain heritages’ self-awareness needs to be suppressed, and UC Berkeley is adding Hindu to that list. The failed resolution had recognized contributions to the Berkeley community by people of Hindu heritage, and called on students to “support their Hindu peers on campus.” No. Stop asking. As your debutante arbiter of who is white, and what to do with edge cases, I’ll be clear: Greeks and Italians are ethnic and may celebrate, though not for a whole month, just a heritage week. Basically a food festival and that’s it. But Hindus are white. I can’t explain why but it’s true.

*A new paper in Science once again shows the value of genetic differences between human populations in reconstructing the history of human migration. Who says population differences are of no biological significance?. Click below to read it, or find the pdf here (h/t Matthew):

The upshot is really summarized in the abstract, and the four lineages giving rise to modern South American populations is shown in the figure below. The size of the circle in each area is an index of the inhabitants’ genetic diversity, which itself is an index of population size (bigger circles = more people in the past).

Here’s the summary:

From our origins in Africa, humans have migrated and settled across the world. Perhaps none of these migrations has been the subject of as much debate as the expansion into and throughout the Americas. Gusareva et al. used 1537 whole-genome sequenced samples from 139 populations in South America and Northeast Eurasia to shed light on the population history of Native Americans. Collected as a part of the GenomeAsia 100K consortium, analysis of these data showed that there are four main ancestral lineages that contributed to modern South Americans. These lineages diverged from each other between 10,000 and 14,000 years ago, and this analysis reveals more details of the population history dynamics in these groups.

Note how, in general, the South American circles are smaller, reflecting the fact that only a limited number of individuals went on each southward foray, reducing the genetic diversity.  Note that they used over 1500 whole genome sequences to get these data, and that the lineages diverged over 10,000 years ago. What I always find amazing is that humans crossed the Bering land bridge about 17,000 years ago, and only a few thousand years later they’d already crossed North America, Central America, and made it to South America. That’s some fast traveling, and one wonders why. (I presume competition, but we don’t know.)

They also were unable to find the part of NE Asia where the immigrants originated, but they surely had to pass through Siberia.

Click picture to enlarge:

*The man who tried to stab Salman Rushdie to death has been sentenced, and although it was the maximum sentence under the charges, it seems light to me:

 The man convicted of stabbing Salman Rushdie on a New York lecture stage in 2022, leaving the prizewinning author blind in one eye, was sentenced Friday to serve 25 years in prison.

A jury found Hadi Matar, 27, guilty of attempted murder and assault in February.

Rushdie did not return to court to the western New York courtroom for his assailant’s sentencing but submitted a victim impact statement. During the trial, the 77-year-old author was the key witness, describing how he believed he was dying when a masked attacker plunged a knife into his head and body more than a dozen times as he was being introduced at the Chautauqua Institution to speak about writer safety.

Before being sentenced, Matar stood and made a statement about freedom of speech in which he called Rushdie a hypocrite.

“Salman Rushdie wants to disrespect other people,” said Matar, clad in white-striped jail clothing and wearing handcuffs. “He wants to be a bully, he wants to bully other people. I don’t agree with that.”

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Matar received the maximum 25-year sentence for the attempted murder of Rushdie and seven years for wounding a man who was on stage with him. The sentences must run concurrently because both victims were injured in the same event, Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt said.

Rushdie, stabbed 15 times, lost one of his eyes and the use of one hand, and if you want to read his ruminations about the attack, I highly recommend Rushdie’s account Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, which I’ve mentioned before. Since Rushdie never met the guy who stabbed him, it’s not just his thoughts about the murder, which are quite eloquent, but the gruesome details of his long healing. At the end he confects a dialogue between himself and Matar in an attempt to  suss out Matar’s motivations.  It’s all because Rusdie wrote a book that offended some Muslims; I bet Matar didn’t even read it.

Here’s an 8.5-minute BBC video giving details of the trial; it includes a short interview with Rushdie:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili’s looking for books in all the wrong places.

Hili: What are you looking for?

Andrzej: A good book.

Hili: You are not going to find it here.

And a picture of Szaron stalking:

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

Masih must be feeling better, as she’s reposting old posts. Here’s one about hijabs. There are English subtitles

درست میگفت آن زمان عادی نبود…#چهارشنبه_های_سفید#آزادی_های_یواشکی https://t.co/clLyszlBwF

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

From Luana. Seriously, a headline this straight (and indicting Palestinian terrorism) is very rare in the NYT!

I mean this entirely sincerely: kudos to the NYT for a straight headline like this pic.twitter.com/oZ3IY8WbNk

— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) May 15, 2025

From Simon:

Unpopular Pete Hegseth Forced To Drink Lunch Alone

— The Onion (@theonion.com) 2025-04-22T16:00:02.314Z

From Malcolm.  I may have posted this before (I can’t recall), but I love it.

Every 10 steps she takes, she looks back to check her little one pic.twitter.com/RxP770PRsW

— Posts Of Cats (@PostsOfCats) April 30, 2025

From my feed; these are pretty amazing and, I’m sure, expensive:

Hyper realistic silicone mask visuals
pic.twitter.com/wrJ1llU7zq

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) May 16, 2025

One from the Auschwitz Memorial that I reposted”

This Czech Jewish girl was gassed to death upon arriving at Auschwitz. She was 13.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-05-17T09:39:30.280Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb, who’s recovering rapidly. The first one he captions, “More nightmarish visions from the good old US of A. It’s heinous:

The state of Georgia is using the body of a brain-dead woman as an incubator. Because she was 9 weeks pregnant when she died, and their abortion ban is from about 6 weeks, they are sustaining her on life support, without input from her family, until 32 weeks of gestation. A true dystopian nightmare.

— Arghavan Salles, MD, PhD (@arghavansallesmd.medsky.social) 2025-05-15T18:46:36.731Z

Here’s natural (well, really artificial) selection for antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Note that the environment gets more challenging towards the center.

A fabulous video – I used to show this to my first year students as am example of natural selection in action.

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-04-13T15:24:22.352Z

Welcome to Thursday, May 15, 2025, and International Conscientious Objectors Day. I was one of these, and applied for I-O status in 1970. My draft number in 1971 was 3!. I vowed to go to jail rather than fight in Vietnam, which I saw as a useless and unjust war in which the U.S. was not defending itself.  Fortunately, I got a 2-S (CO) status without evan an examination (I had a history of antiwar work). So, I did my CO work in a NYC hospital for 13 months until I found I had been “drafted” illegally (they drafted COs from the class of 1971 but no soldiers, which violated the draft law). With the help of the ACLU, I initiated a class action suit (Coyne et al. v Nixon et al,) and we won in NY federal court. We were released (the class was, as I recall, about 2500 COs all told), but of course not compensated, as we were allowed to earn no more than a GI ( about $6000 per year) but had to pay for our own food and housing.  Then I was free to go to graduate school, but that is another story, and a long one. . . .

It’s also Bring Flowers to Someone Day, National Apértif Day (always a dry sherry), National Chocolate Chip Day, and Peace Officers Memorial Day.

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

Da Nooz:

*Republicans are getting antsy about Trump accepting an expensive plane from the terrorist-supporting state of Qatar to use as Air Force One for the next four years.

Republican lawmakers on Tuesday expressed national-security concerns over the proposed $400 million plane that the Qatari royal family wants to give to the U.S. for use as Air Force One, offering rare GOP resistance to a venture backed by President Trump.

Many of the Republicans who expressed doubts serve on congressional committees that oversee the nation’s armed services and intelligence agencies. They said that the White House would be subject to a battery of questions regarding security if the transfer goes forward. They noted that scrubbing the plane for foreign surveillance technology would be a costly and laborious process and questioned whether the Qatari plane would have necessary capabilities—like being able to refuel midair—or carry the advanced technology needed for an airborne command center.

Several suggested that President Trump and the White House might rethink the offer.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) stressed Tuesday afternoon that nothing was official yet and predicted there would be “plenty of scrutiny” around the arrangement should it move forward. “There are lots of issues around that that I think will attract very serious questions if and when it happens,” Thune said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) stressed Tuesday afternoon that nothing was official yet and predicted there would be “plenty of scrutiny” around the arrangement should it move forward. “There are lots of issues around that that I think will attract very serious questions if and when it happens,” Thune said.

Trump also has faced some criticism over the deal from conservative commentators: Ben Shapiro characterized the idea as “skeezy,” and influencer Laura Loomer took aim at Qatar via social media saying “we cannot accept a $400 million ‘gift’ from jihadists in suits.”

The objections voiced by GOP lawmakers also are noteworthy given that Trump is currently on an overseas trip to the Middle East. He is set to be in Qatar for a state visit on Wednesday, and the blowback at home about the gift threatens to overshadow the trip.

And it looks as if the plane will sort of belong to Trump after his term is over, as it reverts to the Trump Presidential Library. What will happen then? Will it no longer fly? Will it be used to ferry documents and books back and forth? No, this is very bad optics, and you know it’s bad when even Republicans criticize it. And to prevent eavesdropping, they’d have to take the whole damn plane apart to see if the Qataris have put listening devices in it. It’s not like they’re even a friendly state, though they pretend to be.

*Here’s Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Pretty clear, no?

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

That looks like Trump’s “birthright ban” for children of immigrants is palpably unconstitutional. But yet. . . . .

*Finally, Matthew brought my attention to a Guardian article about a duck being caught by a Swiss speed camera, and it was likely a repeat offender. Yes, ducks can fly quickly, and this was a mallard drake.

A radar image of a speed offender caught in central Switzerland last month has revealed that the culprit was not only a duck but probably a repeat offender, local authorities have said.

Police in the town of Köniz, near Bern, were astounded when they went through radar images snapped on 13 April to discover that a mallard was among those caught in the speed trap, the municipality said on its Facebook page at the weekend.

The duck was caught going 52km/h (32mph) in a 30-km/h zone, the post said.

That’s reckless flying!

The story, first reported by the Berner Zeitung newspaper on Monday, got even stranger.

It turned out that a similar-looking duck was captured flying in the same spot at exactly the same speed, on exactly the same date seven years earlier, the Facebook post said.

The municipality said it had considered whether the whole thing might not be a belated April Fool’s joke or a “fake” picture.

But the police inspectorate said it was impossible to doctor images or manipulate the radar system.

The computers are calibrated and tested each year by Switzerland’s federal institute of metrology, and the photos taken are sealed, the municipality said.

Lock him up!  Here’s the photo, credited to: Gemeinde Köniz/Facebook:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the boys have a botanical exchange:

Hili: The grass grows quickly after rain.

A: I don’t blame it.

Hili: Trawa po deszczu szybko rośnie.

Ja: Ja jej się nie dziwię.

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

From Now That’s Wild:

From Meow:

From Jesus of the Day:

Masih is still recovering from her operation, but here’s a tweet retweeted by JKR. I can’t embed it but you can go to it by clicking on the screenshot, and you can read the letter here. The BBC is accused of being homophobic!

Simon says this is “hilarious if true”, but I simply can’t believe it.  Readers–help!

You can’t make this up

— Adam Parkhomenko (@adamparkhomenko.bsky.social) 2025-05-13T16:18:26.272Z

From Malcolm: I can’t embed this but you can see the original by clicking on the screenshot. (Note that “only” should be before “once”.)

Shermer gives all the excuses why this is okay:

Not happening
One-off event
Not that common
Biased reporting
Moral panic
It’s okay because he identifies as a she https://t.co/q9ET5OgYRu

— Michael Shermer (@michaelshermer) May 14, 2025

From my feed.  Turkey loves its cats, and this vending machine apparently dispenses cat food when it hears a meow. Now seagulls are trying to game the system.

There is a food vending machine for cats in Turkey, the seagulls meow pretending to be cats
pic.twitter.com/F0mhnqY2Pg

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) May 14, 2025

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

A Polish dressmaker died in the camps barely a month after arriving. She was 22.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-05-15T09:56:14.034Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb, who is recovering from both a chest infection and respiratory virus. But he’s getting better! First, a little crab stole some food from the big one. Sound up to hear the Spanish:

Libidoclaea granaria 🦀 from @schmidtocean.bsky.social dive 741 #ChileMargin2024 #MarineLife

— Lisa (@tuexplorer1.bsky.social) 2025-05-14T03:12:03.111Z

Matthew says this about the tweet, which starts a thread: “I briefly felt well enough last night to pen this Wodehousian thread (inspired by listening to a lot of BBC Jeeves dramatisations, which is only vaguely droll if you know the Jeeves books and also UK WW2 literature 

What did Bertie Wooster get up to in WW2? He was 24 when he employed Jeeves (20 years older?) who later said he had “dabbled to a certain extent” in WW1. That must have been in 1920ish. In 1939 he would have been in his early 40s, slightly liverish, but still a game old bird. 1/n

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-05-13T20:46:14.308Z

Welcome to shabbos for goyische cats:  Sunday, May 4, 2025, and Bird Day.  In honor of the day, here are Mordecai and Esther (they are doing fine, but I will post about them when the ducklings come, which should be within ten days. He is watching over her protectively. Note that they are both in great shape! We all love ducks, don’t we?

It’s also World Laughter Day, International Respect for Chickens Day, National Orange Juice Day, Lemonade Day, and National Candied Orange Peel Day (I love the stuff!)

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

Da Nooz:

*Trump really, really hates Harvard, probably because it’s America’s most elite school. And it’s not enough that he wants to remove billions of dollars of federal grant money from the school (mostly from scientists who haven’t had anything to do with the anti-Semitic climate supposedly reigning on campus). No, now he wants to take away Harvard’s tax-exempt status. And, like Trump’s other blackmail, Harvard is fighting back against this thuggery (article also archived here).

Harvard University signaled Friday that it would resist President Trump’s renewed threat to revoke the school’s tax-exempt status, a move for which it said there was “no legal basis” as the president escalated his bitter dispute with the nation’s oldest university.

Harvard stopped short of explicitly pledging a legal challenge to a revocation of its tax status, a change that would upend the university’s finances. But a spokesperson for the university said in a statement that there was “no legal basis to rescind Harvard’s tax-exempt status.”

“Such an unprecedented action would endanger our ability to carry out our educational mission,” the statement said. “It would result in diminished financial aid for students, abandonment of critical medical research programs and lost opportunities for innovation. The unlawful use of this instrument more broadly would have grave consequences for the future of higher education in America.”

Mr. Trump declared Friday morning on social media that the government would be “taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status.” Mr. Trump added, “It’s what they deserve.”

Despite Mr. Trump’s assertion online and Harvard’s sharp response, it was not immediately clear Friday whether the I.R.S. was in fact moving forward with revoking Harvard’s tax-exempt status, a change that could typically occur only after a lengthy process. Federal law prohibits the president from directing the I.R.S. to conduct tax investigations, and I.R.S. employees who receive such a command are required to report it to an internal government watchdog.

. . , With its tax-exempt status, Harvard not only does not have to pay most taxes, but donors can write off gifts to the school on their own tax returns. Losing the status would not only force Harvard to start paying tax to the federal government on its income but could cause donations to dry up. Philanthropy accounts for about 45 percent of Harvard’s annual operating revenues; most of that sum comes from a payout from the university’s $53 billion endowment.

Colleges and universities in America don’t pay taxes because of their special mission to educate students, and it does seem unfair to tax stuff like tuition, which should rightfully go for the mission of these schools. And why Harvard? Because of Trump’s claim that the school’s antisemitism must be penalized? What about all the other schools that are even worse? I say let Harvard clean up its own messes, and don’t penalize the school’s mission because of a desire for revenge. (I don’t think for a minute that Trump really does love the Jewish people or Israel, even though he’s treated them better than did his predecessor.)

*The administration has announced deep cuts to NASA’s scienc budget—by nearly half.

The White House released its 2026 “skinny budget” on Friday (May 2), a blueprint that outlines how the administration anticipates allocating government funds for the upcoming fiscal year. According to this proposal, NASA will see a 24% cut to its top-line funding, which experts say could be devastating for the agency.

“The White House has proposed the largest single-year cut to NASA in American history,” The Planetary Society, an independent nonprofit organization widely supported by scientists and space enthusiasts, said in a statement. “It would recklessly slash NASA’s science budget by 47%, forcing widespread terminations of functional missions worth billions of dollars.”

For instance, NASA says the skinny budget, which suggests removing about $6 billion in funding for the agency compared to enacted 2025 levels, would end efforts dedicated to Mars Sample Return. This program aims to bring samples of the Red Planet back to Earth — samples the Perseverance rover has been collecting over the last few years that experts say require lab-based analysis to reach their true scientific potential.

The budget would also eliminate climate-focused “green aviation” spending, directed at producing aircraft that are better for the environment. The latter also reflects the skinny budget’s major reductions to Earth science.

Furthermore, the skinny budget calls for the cancellation of Lunar Gateway, a space station meant to be built around the moon that has already notched some important construction milestones here on Earth. And on the topic of the moon, if this budget actually goes through (meaning it’s approved by Congress), it would retire NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule after their third flight to the lunar neighborhood via the Artemis program. SLS and Orion have flown once together so far, in 2022, meaning there’d be two more opportunities left for this duo.

“If enacted, the 56% cut to the National Science Foundation, the 47% cut to NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, and the 14% cut to the Department of Energy’s Office of Science would result in an historic decline of American investment in basic scientific research,” the American Astronomical Society said about the proposed cuts in a statement released Friday.

I’m not keen on projects to get people to Mars, but I don’t think NASA is involved in that. The other cuts mentioned seem inimical to science. They are not DEI projects, they are are not “woke.” They are projects that will increase our knowledge about the universe. No, that’s not going to make us healthier or wealthier, but it will make us richer—in knowledge.

*Whatever you do, DO NOT FLY INTO OR OUT OF NEWARK AIRPORT.  I’ve been there once, and although my flight to Africa was only half an hour late, the airport was soulless. Now due to staffing shortages that include air traffic controllers and various breakdowns, it’s the worst airport in America.

. . . Newark has long been a punchline among travelers in the tri-state area, a launchpad to be avoided at all costs. It routinely tops rankings of large airports in flight delays and cancellations. It is hard to get to and harder to get around.

“The American people are reasonable, but if we have to spend the night sleeping on a bench in the Newark airport we will grab a flag and join the revolution like an extra in Les Miz,” late-night television host Stephen Colbert joked during a government shutdown in 2019.

But over the past few days, Newark achieved the unthinkable: It got worse.

Newark’s week started badly with an air-traffic technology outage that disrupted flights. Runway construction and air-traffic control staffing issues extended the pain, prompting hundreds of flight delays and cancellations this week alone, according to travel analytics company FlightAware.

For travelers, there’s no end in clear sight, especially as the summer months and their inclement weather add to the airport’s troubles.

There follows the expected litany of horrors. Then this:

Some of the criticism of Newark can be chalked up to snobbery. New Yorkers of a certain ilk see crossing the Hudson into New Jersey to board a plane as a bridge too far, even if parts of Manhattan are geographically closer to Newark than they are to John F. Kennedy International Airport.

New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia once refused to get off a plane at Newark, complaining that his TWA ticket from Chicago listed New York as the destination, not New Jersey.

But Newark’s operational problems are very real. In the last Wall Street Journal rankings of best large airports, Newark came in last based on scores for reliability, convenience and value.

. . .United CEO Scott Kirby, who joined United after that, has urged people to give Newark a shot. Still, he has long said the move to leave JFK was a mistake. Some corporate customers preferred JFK and switched airlines.

On Friday after the latest problems, Kirby wrote in a message posted on United’s website that the airline will cancel 35 daily round trip flights at Newark starting this weekend after a group of air-traffic controllers took leave following equipment outages:

“Newark airport cannot handle the number of planes that are scheduled to operate there in the weeks and months ahead.”

When United Airlines cancels 35 round trips per day from one of its hubs, you know there’s trouble. Please do anything to avoid flying to, from, or through Newark.

*Sovereignty  won the Kentucky Derby yesterday (7-1 odds), but the AP has an article about why, according to SCIENCE, these thoroughbreds are so fast:

What makes horses so powerful?

A horse’s heart and lungs are the source of its extraordinary power.

The heart averages 10 to 12 pounds (4.5-5.4 kg), or about 1% of the animal’s body weight, compared with half a percent for the typical human heart. Secretariat, the storied horse that won the Triple Crown in 1973, was found after his death to have a heart weighing more than 20 pounds (9.1 kg).

20 pounds!!!!!

Horse hearts are built for exertion. The average horse can go from a resting heart rate of about 34 beats per minute to 220 or 240 while racing – faster than a human heart during maximum exertion.

“One thing that’s really unique about horses is that they have an incredible capacity to move blood around their bodies — their heart rate can go really high and still be safe,” said University of Connecticut researcher Sarah Reed, editor in chief of the journal Animal Frontiers.

They also have a lung capacity of 60 liters – 10 times that of humans.

“That massive lung field allows for oxygen to transfer from the air into their blood, which is vitally important for sustaining aerobic energy,” Farmer said.

Recent research in the journal Science found that a genetic mutation enables horses to avoid negative side effects of super high energy production.

“Horses are great athletes because they can deliver a lot of oxygen to their muscles – way more than an elite human can —and by elite human, I mean Olympic athlete,” said Gianni Castiglione, the study’s co-author. “They have a bigger tank of gas and they have a more efficient engine … and this mutation is contributing to both of those things.”

. . .Other aspects of a horse’s biology enhance its abilities.

Horses store extra red blood cells in their spleens. These cells are released to carry even more oxygen around the body during intense exertion.

“Adrenaline when exercising causes the spleen to release extra red blood cells into circulation,” veterinarian Hilary Clayton said. “What horses are doing is essentially ‘blood doping’ themselves.”

Meanwhile, horses’ brains allow them to process sensory information and react quickly. That’s despite having frontal lobes, parts of the brain used for thought and planning that are proportionally smaller than those in humans.

“Brainwise, they’re designed with a real desire to play and run independent of any fear,” said Dr. Scott Bailey, a veterinarian at Claiborne Farm in Paris, Kentucky, a thoroughbred breeding farm where Secretariat is buried. Horses are also able to focus intently, which “is really important for an athlete.”

Bone structure and musculature also help. The ligaments and tendons in their hind legs act like springs, Farmer said, helping propel them forward. Like other large prey animals, he added, they have “long, thin legs that are meant to run.”

Here’s the two-minute race. Journalism was the favorite but finished second. Every one of the 19 horses in this race had the great Secretariat in its lineage (his track record still holds after over 50 years).

And those long, thin legs are prone to injury. Once, when I gave a lecture at the University of Kentucky, they took me as a treat to a racetrack to watch the thoroughbreds run. I got to sit in the rich people’s box and dine in their dining room, and watched the races with fascination—until a horse fell on the track.  It had clearly broken its leg, and within minutes a large truck rolled onto the track and the view of the recumbent horse was blocked by men holding a big cloth. They euthanized it–right there in front of everyone (though we couldn’t see it.) That killed all my enthusiasm for thoroughbred racing.

*Israel appears to be planning a Big Push in Gaza, at least according to the Jerusalem Post. ‘

The IDF says it is sending out tens of thousands of call-up orders to reservists this evening, as the military is set to significantly expand its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

On Friday, during a security consultation, the military presented Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with its planned offensive in Gaza, which will require substantial mobilization.

Israel’s security cabinet is slated to convene tomorrow so ministers can vote to approve the military plans authorized by Netanyahu.

Currently, three IDF divisions are operating in Gaza, in an offensive that the military has said is aimed at pressuring Hamas back into a hostage deal, and not destroying the terror group.

Israeli officials have repeatedly warned that if no hostage deal is reached soon, the military would launch a major offensive aimed at defeating Hamas. The intensified offensive will see the IDF operating in new areas of the Strip.

The tens of thousands of reservists being called up tonight will begin to show up in the military this coming week, according to the IDF. The reservists have likely been called up multiple times already during the war.

The IDF has said that it sees the return of the 59 hostages still held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip as the most important goal of the war, with defeating the terror group in second place.

It’s not at all certain that ratcheting up the fighting will lead to the release of the hostages, for Hamas would never do that unless there was a deal to allow the terror group to keep running Gaza. And I dont think Israel will make such a deal.  Without any hostages, Hamas has no leverage to get any kind of deal. It’s a great shame that the world doesn’t recognize that the hostages are not the equivalent of prisoners of war: they were kidnapped in a supreme act of immorality and then used to solidify the position of a terrorist group sworn to commit genocide.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili misses a mouse so SHE can do something bad to it!

Hili: W zeszłym roku tu była mysz.

Ja: Może gdzieś poszła?

Hili: Boję się, że przytrafiło jej się coś złego.

And a picture of the loving Szaron:

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

From The Monday Morning Memo;  I hope this is true!

From Cat Memes:

From Jesus of the Day: Natural selection!

Masih is still quiet, so here’s a bit about the new DHHS report on transsexualism.  I really must read it, but it’s so LONG!

A 409-page report, produced by the Department of Health and Human Services, reviews 17 international studies. Among its findings:

— No evidence that medical transition reduces suicide risk
— Risks include infertility, sexual dysfunction, cardiovascular disease
— U.S. studies on… pic.twitter.com/dnoE8Vf2Um

— The Free Press (@TheFP) May 2, 2025

Just in case you don’t know the downside of scientific journals taking political stands:

In 2020, Nature magazine endorsed Joe Biden for U.S. president. A pre-registered, large-sample experiment found that the endorsement didn’t change people’s view of the candidates – but it did cause them to lose trust in Nature and in scientists in general.

[Link below.] pic.twitter.com/U8iQ38QhAo

— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) April 27, 2025

From Michael. I’m not sure I’d go this far. . .

If I won the lottery, I wouldn’t tell anyone but there would be signs. pic.twitter.com/xRBYebPSfb

— Paul Bronks (@SlenderSherbet) May 3, 2025

From Barry, who considers this a “fair warning”:

I mean, the warning wasn't wrong. #proofOfCat

— John Bull (@garius.bsky.social) 2025-05-03T08:08:59.458Z

From Simon:

Going to print this out and frame it on my wall

— Aaron Fritschner (@fritschner.bsky.social) 2025-05-01T15:12:32.867Z

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

A Hungarian Jewish girl was gassed to death upon arriving at Auschwitz. She was eleven.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-05-04T10:04:02.622Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, postmortem revenge:

19th Century customer reviews:

— Mark Wallace (@wallaceme.bsky.social) 2025-05-03T08:22:08.470Z

Robber flies! It’s a video, so play it.

From Wikipedia:

The Asilidae are the robber fly family, also called assassin flies. They are powerfully built, bristly flies with a short, stout proboscis enclosing the sharp, sucking hypopharynx. The name “robber flies” reflects their expert predatory habits; they feed mainly or exclusively on other insects and, as a rule, they wait in ambush and catch their prey in flight.

For #WorldRobberFlyDay here's an edit I made showcasing how cool these flies are 😎

— Teagan Mulford (@teaganmulford.bsky.social) 2025-04-30T16:12:19.723Z

We’ve reached the first weekend in May; it’s Friday, May 2, 2025 and National Truffle Day (the chocolate kind, not the fungus). Here are some chocolate truffles filled with peanut butter: the upscale version of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups:

It’s also International Space Day, International Tuba Day, International Sauvignon Blanc Day, No Pants Day, International Scurvy Awareness Day, and National Play Your Ukelele Day.  In honor of the last holiday, here’s a great video (I’ve shown it before) of Paul McCartney and a number of other notable musicians playing George Harrison’s “Something” (from Abbey Road), played at a concert in his honor.  McCartney begins by playing the ukelele, and I’m told that the instrument belonged to Harrison. How many musicians do you recognize (surely you’ll know Clapton).

You will want to listen to this:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 2 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive public-policy think tank, calls to our attention what looks like yet another illegal tactic the administration is using deal with illegal immigrants (h/t Patricia).

President Donald Trump has turned a 60-foot-wide strip of federal land that spans three states on the southern border into a “military installation” to “address the emergency” he previously declared over unlawful immigration and drug trafficking. Trump’s memo authorizing this action seems designed to sidestep the Posse Comitatus Act, which normally bars federal armed forces from conducting domestic law enforcement. The apparent plan is to let the military act as a de facto border police force, with soldiers apprehending, searching, and detaining people who cross the border unlawfully.

This move could have alarming implications for democratic freedoms. Moreover, it continues a pattern of the president stretching his emergency powers past their limits to usurp the role of Congress and bypass legal rights. He has misused a law meant to address economic emergencies to set tariffs on every country in the world. He declared a fake “energy emergency” to promote fossil fuel production. And he dusted off a centuries-old wartime authority to deport Venezuelan immigrants, without due process, to a Salvadoran prison notorious for human rights violations.

. . .Last week, the military announced that soldiers deployed on the New Mexico–Mexico border will have “enhanced authorities” because they are on land that has now been designated part of Fort Huachuca, Arizona — a military installation located more than 100 miles away. The new authorities include the power to “temporarily detain trespassers” on the “military installation” and “conduct cursory searches of trespassers . . . to ensure the safety of U.S. service members and Department of Defense (DoD) property.”

Searching and apprehending migrants would ordinarily run afoul of the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits federal armed forces from directly participating in civilian law enforcement activities unless doing so is expressly authorized by Congress or the Constitution. The law stems from an Anglo-American tradition, centuries older than the Constitution, of restraining military interference in civilian affairs. It serves as a critical check on presidential power and a vital safeguard for both personal liberty and democracy.

Nonetheless, several exceptions exist. The most significant is the Insurrection Act — a law that Trump floated using to address unlawful migration (although for now, his secretaries of defense and homeland security are reportedly recommending against such a move). In authorizing soldiers to conduct apprehensions and detentions on lands that have been newly designated as a “military installation,” the president is relying on a lesser-known loophole in the Posse Comitatus Act known as the “military purpose doctrine.”

The doctrine, conceived by the executive branch and endorsed by the courts, holds that an action taken primarily to further a military purpose does not violate the Posse Comitatus Act even if it provides an incidental benefit to civilian law enforcement.

. . . Having turned much of the southern border into a “military installation,” the administration now takes the position that anyone crossing the border without authorization in those areas is not just violating immigration law but also trespassing on a military installation. Federal troops thus have a legitimate military reason, the argument goes, to apprehend, search, and detain migrants without violating the Posse Comitatus Act and without the president needing to invoke the Insurrection Act at all.

The article notes that the military can be used for logistical support, but NOT “core law enforcement duties.” Soldiers are not trained to be policeman, and Ceiling Cat help us all of Trump starts using them that way. Can you imagine what would be down the road?

*Speaking of Trump (not that I like this!), note that he’s just given the boot to Michael Walz, his national security advisor. The reason: Walz was in charge of the group chat in which national security information was overhead by the editor of The Atlantic:

President Trump is ousting his national security adviser, Michael Waltz, and another senior member of the White House’s foreign policy team, the first significant personnel overhaul of top aides in his second term, according to people familiar with the situation.

Mr. Waltz had been on thin ice since he organized a group chat on the commercial messaging app Signal to discuss a sensitive military operation in Yemen and accidentally included a journalist in the conversation.

But most of Mr. Trump’s advisers had already viewed him as too hawkish to work for a president who campaigned as a skeptic of American intervention and eager to reach a nuclear deal with Iran and normalize relations with Russia.

Mr. Waltz’s deputy, Alex Wong, who worked on North Korea issues in Mr. Trump’s first term and who is considered a moderate Republican with substantial national security experience, is also being removed, according to a senior administration official with knowledge of the situation. The official and others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the internal discussions.

There was no immediate announcement of a replacement for Mr. Waltz. But the selection of the next national security adviser may prove a critical one, at a moment Mr. Trump is encountering difficultly defining what “America First” means in his second term, and when his top national security and foreign policy aides have differed sharply on how to handle three of America’s most potent adversaries: China, Russia and Iran.

Well, I’m not keen on reaching a “deal” with Iran over nukes, as I don’t think they’d adhere to it, but there’s no doubt that Trump’s appointments, and the foreign policy that’s flowed from them, is what Bill Maher called a “shitshow” in the Free Press.

*Elon Musk is, thankfully, reducing his role in DOGE, but now it looks as if he may lose (or give up) his position as CEO of Tesla, what we think of as his “Big Job”:

About a month ago, with Tesla’s TSLA 0.93%increase; green up pointing triangle stock sinking and some investors irritated about Elon Musk’s White House focus, Tesla’s board got serious about looking for Musk’s successor.

Board members reached out to several executive search firms to work on a formal process for finding Tesla’s next chief executive, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Tensions had been mounting at the company. Sales and profits were deteriorating rapidly. Musk was spending much of his time in Washington.

Around that time, Tesla’s board met with Musk for an update. Board members told him he needed to spend more time on Tesla, according to people familiar with the meeting. And he needed to say so publicly.

Musk didn’t push back.

Tesla has been on a losing streak in the months since Musk, its visionary chief executive, began spending much of his time helping President Trump slash federal spending. Last week, after the company said its first-quarter profit had plunged 71%, Musk told investors he would soon pivot back to his job at Tesla.

“Starting next month,” he said on a conference call about earnings, “I’ll be allocating far more of my time to Tesla.”

The board narrowed its focus to a major search firm, according to the people familiar with the discussions. The current status of the succession planning couldn’t be determined. It is also unclear if Musk, himself a Tesla board member, was aware of the effort, or if his pledge to spend more time at Tesla has affected succession planning. Musk didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Tesla didn’t provide a statement before publication. Hours after this article was published, Tesla issued a denial on X. Musk also criticized the article in a post on X.

“The CEO of Tesla is Elon Musk and the Board is highly confident in his ability to continue executing on the exciting growth plan ahead,” Tesla Chair Robyn Denholm said in the statement posted on X.

So, we don’t know what’s going on. But now that Tesla purchases as well as its stock price are down, I wouldn’t be surprised if Musk, who didn’t start the company, would be too bored to run it. He’s also got SpaceX, which he did found, and that could well occupy him. But once you’ve had Big Power, as he had with DOGE, perhaps everything else is a comedown.  Whatever he does not, it won’t be playing golf, even if he is the richest man in the world.

*Trump, Trump, Trump: it looks like 60% of today’s Nooz will be about the odious man. But we’ve never had such a dangerous and erratic President before. The NYT has a very long editorial by its Editorial Board telling us what to do: “There is a way forward: How to defeat Trump’s power grab” (archived here under a different title). After detailing some of his legal violations (“due process”, “equal justice”), they offer a solution,  partly one I have recommended: admit when he says something right, but fight him like hell in the courts when he does something illegal.

The leaders of Harvard University have offered a model of principled opposition that maximizes the chances of success. When Mr. Trump began threatening the university with canceled funds this spring, many Harvard professors and students urged administrators to head straight to the ramparts and denounce him. Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, took a wiser approach. He acknowledged that some of Mr. Trump’s criticisms had merit. Harvard, like much of elite higher education, has, in fact, been blasé about antisemitism, and it has too often prioritized progressive ideology over an independent search for truth.

By admitting as much, Mr. Garber strengthened Harvard’s political position. He said what many Americans believed. But when the administration issued a list of ludicrous demands, Harvard fought back hard. It filed a lawsuit, with help from a legal team that included conservative litigators, and became a national symbol of resistance to his lawlessness. Mr. Garber made Harvard look reasonable and Mr. Trump unreasonable.

Many federal judges, including most Supreme Court justices, have also responded sensibly. They have not picked fights with him or overreached. They have issued narrow, firm rulings directing him to obey the law. Only after he has ignored those rulings have they escalated. The one-paragraph emergency order that seven Supreme Court justices (all but Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas) issued in the middle of the night two weeks ago was particularly important. It blocked the Trump administration from deporting a group of detained men under the Alien Enemies Act. The order’s speed and breadth were signs that Chief Justice John Roberts and most of his colleagues seem to recognize the threat that Mr. Trump’s bad faith poses.

The order put Mr. Trump in a bind. It left him without any evident ways to violate the ruling’s spirit while adhering to its text. If he is going to defy the judiciary now, he will need to do so in an obvious way that will probably further damage his standing with the American public. Every attempt to defend American democracy should be similarly thoughtful.

The past 100 days have wounded this country, and there is no guarantee that we will fully recover. But nobody should give up. American democracy retreated before, during the post-Reconstruction era, Jim Crow, the Red Scare, Watergate and other times. It recovered from those periods not because its survival was inevitable but because Americans — including many who disagreed with one another on other subjects — fought bravely and smartly for this country’s ideals. That is our duty today.

It is the Supreme Court that can ultimately stop him. Granted, they are conservative and may do bad stuff (e.g., make us pay to fund religious charter schools), but I do trust in Roberts to not let Trump get away with palpably illegal stuff that violates the Constitution.  We shall see.

*The AP’s reliable oddities section has an article misleadingly called, “Scientists once thought that only humans could bob to music. Ronan the sea lion helped prove them wrong.” Now wait a tic. We’ve long known that Snowball the cockatoo can not only bob, but stomp his feet (they do admit that in the article). In fact, I’ve seen Snowball doing this in person.  But now we find that a sea lion can keep a beat, too. As the article notes, the ability may be far more phylogenetically widespread than we know; it’s just hard to test:

Ronan the sea lion can still keep a beat after all these years.

She can groove to rock and electronica. But the 15-year-old California sea lion’s talent shines most in bobbing to disco hits like “Boogie Wonderland.”

“She just nails that one,” swaying her head in time to the tempo changes, said Peter Cook, a behavioral neuroscientist at New College of Florida who has spent a decade studying Ronan’s rhythmic abilities.

Not many animals show a clear ability to identify and move to a beat aside from humans, parrots and some primates. But then there’s Ronan, a bright-eyed sea lion that has scientists rethinking the meaning of music.

A former rescue sea lion, she burst to fame around a decade ago after scientists reported her musical skills. From age 3, she has been a resident at the University of California, Santa Cruz’s Long Marine Laboratory, where researchers including Cook have tested and honed her ability to recognize rhythms.

What is particularly notable about Ronan is that she can learn to dance to a beat without learning to sing or talk musically.

“Scientists once believed that only animals who were vocal learners — like humans and parrots — could learn to find a beat,” said Hugo Merchant, a researcher at Mexico’s Institute of Neurobiology, who was not involved in the Ronan research.

But in the years since since Ronan came into the spotlight, questions emerged about whether she still had it. Was her past dancing a fluke? Was Ronan better than people at keeping a beat?

To answer the challenge, Cook and colleagues devised a new study, published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports.

. . . . This time the researchers focused not on studio music but on percussion beats in a laboratory. They filmed Ronan bobbing her head as the drummer played three different tempos — 112, 120, and 128 beats per minute. Two of those beats Ronan had never been exposed to, allowing scientists to test her flexibility in recognizing new rhythms.

And the researchers asked 10 college students to do the same, waving their forearm to changing beats.

Ronan was the top diva.

“No human was better than Ronan at all the different ways we test quality of beat-keeping,” said Cook, adding that “she’s much better than when she was a kid,” indicating lifetime learning.

They are going to test more sea lions to see if Ronan is a one-off. Now of course you want to see her keeping time, so here’s a video:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn,  Hili looks for RESPONSIBILITY. (Isn’t this a nice photo of her?)

Hili: Who is responsible for all these disasters?

Andrzej: The Big Bang; before it there was peace and quiet.

Hili: Kto jest odpowiedzialny za te wszystkie nieszczęścia?

Ja: Wielki Wybuch, wcześniej był święty spokój.

And a photo of the loving Szaron:

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

From Stacey.  That guy wasn’t worth going out with!

From Reese:

From Wholesome Memes:

Masih is quiet today so we get some commentary from JKR. You can read the article she mentions here.

‘Sweetie was a spoiled, badly trained pooch… Every outburst was met with a treat and a coo, because Sweetie had learnt early on that if he made enough noise, the world would bend to his will.’
On trans activism and obnoxious poodles, by @jo_bartosch.https://t.co/aYMeth3MEh

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 30, 2025

From Malcolm, a beautiful shark cake:

pic.twitter.com/EAIUtaWXlA

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973c) April 21, 2025

From Simon:

— George Conway 👊🇺🇸🔥 (@gtconway.bsky.social) 2025-04-30T22:41:04.257Z

A commie tweet from Barry:

Happy #MayDay from Fidel Catstro and Frida Katlo! They won’t come if you call their names, but they’ll always come running when they hear The Internationale.

— Sanho Tree (@sanho.bsky.social) 2025-05-01T12:49:14.782Z

From my feed:

When my wife asks me why I need night vision goggles I send her this video: pic.twitter.com/RVXSY0RRcZ

— Giga Based Dad (@GigaBasedDad) April 30, 2025

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

A Jewish girl from Yugoslavia was gassed to death upon arriving at Auschwitz. She was three.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-05-02T10:16:49.280Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, kitteh rescues during WWII:

“Miss Iris Davis… spends a great deal of time recovering cats with the aid of a 'lassoo' from the debris of bombed house. So far she has rescued six hundred of these feline strays, 8 November 1940.“ http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/…

— Cats of Yore (@catsofyore.bsky.social) 2025-05-01T17:22:35.288Z

And an excellent pun: