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Happy Tuesday; it’s December 10, 2024, and Coynezaa is just around the corner. There’s another holiday, too, but it celebrates a myth, whereas I am real.

It has been a hectic three days, but also fun: giving two talks (I fell off the stage during the first one), touring around Katowice, and eating large quantities of hearty Silesian food. I have a gazillion photos, but, as I’m cooling my heels in the airport in Frankfurt, I have no time to post them—save one. And that is the picture below, showing yours truly eating a classic German comestible in the airport.

If I look a wreck, I am. My plane left Katowice for Frankfurt at 6 a.m., which meant boarding at 5:30, which meant getting up at 2:00 a.m. and leaving my hotel, some distance from the planes, at 3 a.m.

I went to bed at 9, hoping for five hours of sleep, but woke up at 12:15, soon after midnight, and what with the excitement of impending travel it was clear that I wasn’t going back to sleep. So I watched CNN instead (the only English t.v. channel) to discover, via Anderson Cooper, that the police had actually caught the man accused of shooting health executive Brian Thompson. When the law caught up to him, the suspect, one Luigi Mangioni of New Jersey, was chowing down at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania.  And it doesn’t look good for him:

The Altoona officers who took Mr. Mangione into custody found that he had several telltale items that might tie him to Mr. Thompson’s killing, a crime that has riveted the nation while exposing Americans’ deep-seated anger toward the U.S. health insurance industry.

Mr. Mangione, officials said, had a gun and a silencer similar to the ones used in the Dec. 4 shooting, and a fake driver’s license that matched one used by the man suspected in the killing.

He also carried with him a three-page handwritten manifesto condemning the health care industry for putting profits over patients.

“These parasites had it coming,” it said, according to a senior law enforcement official who saw the document. It added: “I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done.”

The document specifically mentioned UnitedHealthcare, the insurance giant where Mr. Thompson was chief executive, noting its size and the amount of revenue it takes in, the official said.

Yes, he’s presumed innocent until found guilty, but I’m here to tell you that the probability of any other verdict seems nil. He’s 26 and will surely, if convicted, spend the rest of his natural life behind bars.

Read more about the pinch at the archived link here. It was a nifty bit of police work, made easier by Mangione pulling his mask down just one time, when he was flirting with a woman at a hostel.  But once was enough: look at the hostel picture and compare it to the many circulating pictures of Mangione. I’m glad he’s caught, for nobody deserves vigilante execution, which is capital punishment without a trial. In fact, I don’t believe anybody deserves execution at all. Life without parole is more than enough, and remember that some people can reform.

But they’re very sad about the arrest over at P********a, where the fulminating miscreants are not only delighted, but have been egged on in their hatred by the Chief Miscreant himself, who urges his baying hounds before pulling the trigger to first find out who heads healthcare corporations that deny claims.  Then, as the capo says, “After you’ve followed the chain of decisions, then you can consider terminating some rich a-hole. It’s the polite thing to do.”

Indeed, nothing makes you look better to “progressives” than urging your readers to murder rich people, preferably CEOs of healthcare corporations.

In other news, where is Bashar al-Assad? Is he dead, as some suspect? Or has he fled to his pals in Russia?

Paul Krugman has written his last column for the NYT, and, over in France, the right-wing Marine Le Pen is plotting to topple the French government and replace it with one far more to the right. Sound familiar?

There are reports of continuing peace talks between Israel and Hamas, but I don’t think they’ll amount to much. If they result in releasing thousands of convicted Palestinian terrorists from jail, while not letting all the hostages go—indeed, if a settlement leaves anything of Hamas to govern Gaza, Israel will have lost.

And that’s the nooz till I get home and take a day to recover.

Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili raises an old question: can animals think of the future?

Hili: I do not see the future.
A: It’s around the corner.

Hili: Nie widzę przyszłości.
Ja: Jest za rogiem.

Eventually I will post all the talks, pro and con, at the Oxford Union’s debate on November 28, whose topic was this:

“This House Believes Israel Is an Apartheid State Responsible for Genocide.”

Speaking against the motion here is Jonathan Sacerdoti, identified by Wikipedia as

“a British broadcaster, journalist, and TV producer. He covers stories relating to the United Kingdom and Europe, as well as terrorism and extremism stories, race relations, Middle East analysis and the British royal family.  He is also a campaigner against antisemitism.”

His father was a survivor of the Holocaust.

I wanted to put this speech up now because it is uncensored, showing the abuse to which the pro-Israel speakers were subject, an abuse not evident in what was apparently a censored clip of Natasha Hausdorff’s speech the other day. I think it likely that this clip will be taken down, for it makes the Oxford Union look really really bad. 

This video, complete with unceasing shouts and attacks on the speaker, shows how shameful the audience really was, a shame that also devolves upon the Union’s moderators, who were clearly on the side of the proposition although they are supposed to be neutral. They do very little to quell the audience’s despicable treatment of the speakers.  Should not repeated abusers be ejected?

As you know, the proposition passed by a large proportion, with the audience packed with those who hate Israel, and with Jewish students apparently afraid to attend.

Sacerdoti’s arguments are good, and similar to Hausdorff’s, but of course he didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell with an audience like that.

Have a listen, even if you don’t care much about the arguments, for this is, after all, supposed to be one of the most well-run and respected groups at Oxford University.

msn quotes Hausdorff on the abuse dished out in Arabic:

She detailed how Arab speakers on her team were subjected to abuse in Arabic, which she only learned about after the event.

“They were called ‘traitors’ and ‘collaborators’,” she said. “One of the speakers confided in me that the nature of that abuse and the threats have him flashbacks to a time he was targeted for being a collaborator in the West Bank.”

Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili is on the alert:

Hili: The Chinese are coming!
A: You must be confused.
Hili: So maybe it’s somebody else.

Hili: Chińczycy idą!
Ja: Chyba ci się coś pomyliło.
Hili: To może jacyś inni.

On BlueSky, Jack Ashby is continuing his observations of the duckbilled platypus:

Perfect #platypus – you can see how they change from swimming to waddling to slithering depending on how deep the water is.#MonotremeMonday #fieldwork #Tasmania #MammalWatching #platypuses #WildOz

— Jack Ashby (@jackdashby.bsky.social) 2024-12-09T08:22:33.461Z

And Ze Frank is exploring how species are named:

Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili is coming to terms with the inevitable.

Hili: I’m thinking whether to go for a walk.
A: And what is your conclusion?
Hili: It’s not the right season.

Hili: Zastanawiam się, czy iść na spacer.
Ja: I jaki wniosek?
Hili: Niewłaściwa pora roku.

It’s a mere 18 days until Christmas and, of course, the First Day of Coynezaa.  Both festivities are marked by an overconsumption of food, and Coynezaa enjoys the advantage of having no religious overtones save encomiums for Professor Ceiling Cat (Emeritus).

Here in Katowice, in southern Poland, the Christmas Market is already in full swing in the town square, and I happened upon it walking back from the Silesian Science Festival (today I registered, tomorrow and Monday I speak). It was exactly what I’d expect a Polish Christmas market to be: full of fun, food, and just a bit of religion in the form of singing angels (not shown). Here are a few holiday snaps I took while crossing the town square.

Yep, here’s where we are:

Katowice has an ancient history, but lacks the charm of other Polish cities for two reasons: it was an industrial hub for mining coal and steel, and, under German occupation, many of its landmarks were wrecked, including the Great Synagogue, shown below next to the City Baths. It was completed in 1900 and razed by the Germans in 1939.  And of course most of the Jews were killed or sent away to be murdered.

Photo from public domain, Wikipedia.

An old building that remains in the city square:

Here is a monument that I take to be in honor of the local miners. Note the flowers and miner’s lamp at the base:

And everywhere people were having fun and laughing, expecially the kids. This one got a big soap bubble:

But the adults were also having a great time. There are various plastic status behind which you can stick your face to get a photograph. Like these people:

A penguin:

And a train chugging the kids through the market:

But of course people were there to get stuff, too: mostly food. Like these roasted chestnuts:

And look at this inventive and mouth-watering display of lollipops:

And, of curse, gingerbread, a Polish speciality for the holidays:

Very fancy gingerbread. These say “Happy Christmas” in Polish:

Various candies (caramels?), some of them flavored with booze (“piwo” is beer):

And what is a Polish market without sausages?

There were stalls selling non-comestibles, too. This one carried a variety of soaps, including these cat soaps in lavender and lily-of-the-valley (“kot” is “cat” in Polish):

Walking back to my hotel on the shopping street, I saw a big line in front of one shop. It was selling a variety of soft pretzels, and I would have joined the line had it been shorter:

There was a variety, including non-twisted pretzels filled with Nutella. The cinnamon pretzels were nearly sold out:

But below is a store selling the quintessence of Polish baked treats: pączki.  Wikipedia describes them:

A pączek is a deep-fried piece of dough shaped into a flattened ball and filled with confiture or other sweet filling. Pączki are usually covered with powdered sugar, icing, glaze, or bits of dried orange zest. A small amount of grain alcohol (traditionally rectified spirit) is added to the dough before cooking; as it evaporates, it prevents the absorption of oil deep into the dough.  Pączki are commonly thought of as fluffy but somewhat collapsed, with a bright stripe around them; these features are seen as evidence that the dough was fried in fresh oil.

Although they look like German berliners (bismarcks in North America) or jelly doughnuts, pączki are made from especially rich dough containing eggs, fats, sugar, yeast, and sometimes milk.

(Note that when JFK proclaimed himself “Ich bin ein Berliner” in Germany in June, 1963, his attempt to forge solidarity with the divided people of that city actually meant, in German, “I am a jelly donut.”  He should have said “Ich bin Berliner.”)

Believe me; these pastries are superb! The only thing preventing me from trying one or three was that I was full from the ample spread of goodies in the Science Festival’s VIP room, to which I have access as a speaker. But have a look at these puppies! There are four zloty to the dollar, so each large filled pastry is about two bucks.

Happy Christmas from Poland!

Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili is facing an unpalatable truth

Hili: This is not the right world.
A: We do not have any other.

Hili: To nie jest właściwy świat.
Ja: Nie mamy innego.

The most recent Oxford Union debate was both odious and raucous, and you can read about it in a piece by Niall Ferguson at The Free Press (archived here).  An excerpt:

Something is rotten in the state of Britain. It was epitomized by a recent [Nov. 28] event at the Oxford Union, the 201-year-old debating society that is such a distinctive and admirable part of Oxford life. It was at the Union that, 40 years ago, I spoke as freely (and indeed as irresponsibly) as I ever have, discovering in the process that I was not cut out for politics. It was there that I saw great debaters of the past, present, and future.

But I never saw anything like the events of November 28.

The motion for debate was in itself a provocation: “This House Believes Israel Is an Apartheid State Responsible for Genocide.” But what was truly shocking was the conduct of the president of the Union, an Egyptian student named Ebrahim Osman-Mowafy, who appears to have abused his position by openly siding with those proposing the motion and treating the opposing speakers with contempt.

According to the broadcaster, Jonathan Sacerdoti, who was arguing for Israel’s side, Osman-Mowafy canceled the traditional pre-debate group photographs, but posed alone for private photos with the anti-Israel team. During the debate, the pro-Israel speakers were repeatedly heckled by the crowd. At one point, a young woman stood up and screamed at Sacerdoti: “Liar! Fuck you, the genocidal motherfucker!”

Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of a senior Hamas leader who defected to Israel, who was arguing alongside Sacerdoti, was met with jeering derision and cries of “traitor” and “prostitute” (in Arabic). Yousef asked the audience to indicate by a show of hands how many of them would have reported prior knowledge of the October 7, 2023, atrocities to Israel. Not even a quarter of the crowd raised their hands.

For the other side, Miko Peled, an Israeli general’s son turned radical anti-Zionist, described the murders, rapes, and kidnappings of October 7 as “acts of heroism.” The Palestinian poet Mohammed El-Kurd, who has equated Zionism with genocide, began his speech by announcing that there was “no room for debate” and ended it by walking out of the chamber. The motion passed by 278 in favor to 59 against.

I have been looking for videos of this debate online, but the bad news is that so far only one short segment has appeared. The good news, though, is that it features the eloquent, brave, and whip-smart Natasha Hausdorff, lawyer and legal director of the UK Lawyers for Israel.

Reader “Bat” sent me the link, but also his take on the video below, which you should watch. His words:

The future Mrs PCC(E) really gave them what for at that shameful Oxford Union debate last week. Here is a video of her full 21-minute speech during which she shows no intimidation and, with a light wave of the hand in several instances, ignores the catcalls of the heavily anti-Israel audience. Though originally scheduled for 15 minutes, she makes it explicitly clear that she will take an extra five minutes as the anti-Israel speakers did when also ignoring the house rules earlier. She ignores the gavel of the Union debate judge several times and speaks for a full 21 minutes. A lovely performance in very hostile territory. 

It is clear that Hausdorff is passionate and terribly angry at the views of her opponents, but her anger is manifested only in her manner of speech, for she keeps decorum throughout. Pity that the same can’t be said of the audience or the judge.

I will add one personal comment, directed at those who on these shores also accuse Israel of “genocide”.  If Israel wanted to kill off all the Gazans—and there are two million of them—it would already be a fait accompli. All it would take would be a series of massive airstrikes and heavy-handed urban warfare directly targeting civilians.  But that is not happening

Instead, Israel has taken care, as far as possible, to avoid killing noncombatants. It warns civilians of airstrikes in advance, sets up humanitarian zones, sends in thousands of tons of food, and, at risk to IDF soldiers’ own lives, tries to target only members of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.  Is this the act of people bent on genocide?

Since the terrorists use civilians as human shields (Hamas boasts of this!), a large toll of noncombatants is the sad but inevitable result of the terrorists’ cynical tactics.  What about those tunnels under hospitals and schools? Nobody can deny this—except for those who want the state of Israel gone, and its Jews with it.

Those miscreants who accuse Israel of genocide also, and inevitably, fail to mention the explicit genocide of Palestinian terrorists. The first Hamas charter, the teaching of martyrdom and Jew-killing to Palestinian children, and, of course, the endless terrorism enacted against Israeli citizens since 1948—all of these speak of the terrorists’ desire to make the Middle East Judenrein.

No, the real genocide is never mentioned, for it is seen in both the words and actions of Palestinian terrorists and their sympathizers. Instead, the accusation of genocide gets turned against its very victims: the Israelis and now the Jews of other countries (the latest incident was in Australia). I have nothing but contempt for those who ignore these facts.

But I fear I am just repeating what Ms. Hausdorff said above. Listen for yourself.

I have arrived in Katowice (population 287,000), where it’s snowing, after a comfortable 5-hour train ride south from Wroclawek. I finished the novel I brought (A Gesture Life, by Change-rae Lee, highly recommended) and then reread the highlights of a book I’m reviewing for another site.

Although Polish trains have internet, I avoided using it, as for some reason I use long-distance transportation as a way to avoid being online.

Here is a map of Poland from Worldometers. The northern arrow is the approximate location of Dobrzyn, and the southern one shows Katowice:

Tomorrow I’ll have a look at the festival, and then I give my talks on Sunday and Monday mornings, flying home early Tuesday (6 A.M.!) from Katowice via Frankfurt.

My week in Dobrzyn is, sadly, at an end, and it was great to see Andrzej and Malgorzata again, and to experience their patented brand of hospitality, including political conversation, a soft couch to work on (I finished my essay), four meals a day featuring great pies and cakes, and three—count them, three—moggies.  Dobrzyn is paradise enow. I will return, but I know not when.

In the meantime, here are photos of the cats. Hili was often scarce, trying to stay outside as long as possible before the weather becomes intolerably cold, or sleeping in the basement. But sometimes she’d favor me by lying on my bed, in which case I would join her with my book. She likes to burrow under the covers.

Below: Szaron and Baby Kulka on the windowsill, each on their own blanket. You will NEVER find Kulka and Hili together in this position, as they hate each other. For readers who have asked me why, I have no answer.

Apparently when Szaron came into the house as a rescued stray (Kulka formally lives upstairs with the lodgers but is often downstairs), Hili also hated him, but she got over that. Now Hili and Szaron are friendly, though not so friendly that they cuddle together. But Hili’s hatred for Kulka is implacable, and they avoid each other completely.

Two photos of Kulka. I have trouble telling her apart from Hili in photos, but Andrzej and Malgorzata have no problem. Kulka has more white on her face:

And Szaron, the world’s most affectionate cat. I had some good lap time with him yesterday. All it takes is one pat on the back and he begins purring like a motorboat, and will not stop, nor cease soliciting further petting, until you have to do something else:

Finally, my spiffy Katowice hotel room across the street from the train station. I had to take a panoramic picture to get it all in (click to enlarge).

Tomorrow I head to the conference to register and see what’s about, and perhaps have a look around the area, hoping to find some pierogi and potato pancakes.

by Matthew Cobb

PCC(E) is travelling, so posting will be light.

Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili and Jerry have been chatting:

Jerry: I’m going to Katowice.
Hili: What for?
Jerry: I’m going to give two lectures there.
Hili: Tell them that I approved the texts.

Jerry: Jadę teraz do Katowic.
Hili: Po co?
Jerry: Będę tam miał dwa wykłady.
Hili: Powiedz im, że je zatwierdziłam.

Two bits of BlueSky news. Firstly, the precise genetic mechanism of the peppered moth story (and many other Lepidopteran coloration examples) has been identified. It is a short piece of RNA called a microRNA. The article just appeared in Science.

Our miRNA story is now in @science.org ! We found a microRNA, not a protein, that finally solved a long-standing evolutionary mystery of wing coloration in butterflies and moths. (1/n)www.science.org/doi/10.1126/…

— Shen Tian 田申 (@tianshenbio.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T21:35:54.747Z

Secondly, if I may be immodest for a moment:

Giving what will probably be my last ever lectures at @officialuom.bsky.social today (I “retired” in September but have given 20 lectures this semester…) One on the history of genetic information, the other, at *5pm on a Friday* on mammals. Both to first year students. Then, that will be that.

— (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2024-12-06T08:59:34.106Z

 

As I reported on November 22, I was shocked to find that, on a list of 18 U.S. Senators who voted to move forward with Bernie Sanders’s bill to block a $20 billion sale of weapons to Israel, was one of my own Senators, Democrat Dick Durbin. Here’s the whole list:

The measure failed miserably on the Senate floor, with none of its three provisions garnering more than 19 votes. But of course I wrote to Senator Durbin, expressing my dissatisfaction as a constituent, and chastising him for giving succor to Israel’s enemies and impeding the self-defense of Jewish state in its attempt to root out Hamas.

Yesterday I got this weaselly response from Durbin:

December 4, 2024
MY ADDRESS REDACTED

Dear Dr. Coyne:

Thank you for contacting me about measures to block weapons shipments to Israel.  I appreciate hearing from you.

On September 25, 2024, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont introduced six measures that would block a proposed $20 billion in arms sales to Israel.  These sales include joint direct attack munitions and launchers, mortar and tank cartridges, F-15s, and other defense articles.  Under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (P.L. 87-195) and the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 (P.L. 94-329), the president must notify Congress of a pending arms sale.  These statutes also give Congress the authority to suspend such a sale by passing a joint resolution of disapproval through both the House of Representatives and the Senate.  All six of these measures were referred to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

On November 20, 2024, the Senate considered whether to discharge three of Senator Sanders’ joint resolutions of disapproval, S.J. Res. 111, S.J. Res. 113, and S.J. Res. 115, from the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.  While I voted in favor of discharging these three measures from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, all three of these measures were rejected by the Senate.  S.J. Res. 111 was rejected by a vote of 18-79, S.J. Res. 113 was rejected by a vote of 19-78, and S.J. Res. 115 was rejected by a vote of 17-80.

My reason for supporting these measures is straightforward.  More than 43,000 Palestinians have died in the conflict in Gaza since October 7, 2023, and 60 percent of them have been women, children, and elderly.  The denial of humanitarian aid to Gaza threatens the lives of so many more.

I believe that Israel has not only the right to exist, but the right to defend itself in the face of threats such as from Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran.  I consistently have voted for security assistance to Israel throughout my career to protect it from these threats.  But this war must end.  I will stand by Israel, but I will not support the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of thousands of innocent Palestinians.

For too long, this protracted conflict has inflicted untold suffering on innocent Israelis and Palestinians alike.  I hope out of the ashes and pain of this current crisis that there can be a renewed focus on a two-state solution.

Thank you again for contacting me.  Please feel free to keep in touch.

Sincerely,
Richard J. Durbin
United States Senator

I sent this response to Malgorzata, and when I woke up this morning she had written a response, one that I reproduce here with permission. Durbin is apparently as dumb and uninformed about the Gaza conflict as many Americans.

Malgorzata’s response is indented.

Durbin’s figures are taken directly from Hamas, figures that have been debunked many times.

Hamas doesn’t count combatants and civilians separately. In this fictitious number of dead are the non-existent 500 people allegedly killed in a strike on the hospital Al-Ahli. As was discovered and confirmed by independent authorities (and admitted by the real perpetrator: Palestinian Islamic Jihad), it was a misfired PIJ rocket that fell short, creating the strike. Instead of killing Israeli civilians, the rocket fell on the hospital’s parking lot (NOT THE HOSPITAL). It killed several people, but far less than 100—not to mention 500.

How many other Palestinian civilians killed by rockets from PIJ and Hamas rockets have been counted by Hamas’s Ministry of Health as having been killed by Israel? After previous wars between Gaza and Israel, when there was really time to count the dead and ascertain their identities, it always turned out that Hamas had counted everybody (including combatants killed in war as well as people who died in Gaza of natural causes) in their earlier communicates about people “killed by Israel”.

The percentages of women, children, and elderly given by Durbin (and Hamas) are also false. According to the IDF, up to 19,000 Hamas combatants were killed. Moreover, both Hamas and PIJ use teenagers as fighters. Everybody killed when he/she is under 18 is counted as a child. A 17-year-old fighter killed when shooting a rocket at Israelis is counted as a child. Even if you accept the false numbers given by Hamas, the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths is the lowest ever achieved in urban warfare by any army.

Further, not one person in Gaza would have been killed by the IDF if Hamas and PIJ didn’t invade Israel on October 7, 2023, didn’t kill, rape, torture, and burn 1200 Israeli women, men, children and the elderly, and didn’t take 252 hostages, including women, children and the elderly. There are still 101 hostages somewhere in the dungeons of Hamas, among them baby Kfir (9 months old at the moment of kidnapping) and his older brother Ariel (4 years at the moment of kidnapping).

From Jerry. I would add this.  Besides credulously adopting Hamas’s misleading figures that count dead combatants as “innocent Palestinians”, Durbin implicitly calls for a cease-fire and explicitly for a “two-state solution,” something that, if implemented now, would be a disaster for Israel.

We already know that the ratio of civilians killed to combatants killed is far lower than seen in other conflicts in which the U.S. has engaged, including World War II and the more recent battles in the Middle East. Durbin of course ignores that, just as he ignores what happened on October 7 of last year.  In his attempt to look evenhanded, Durbin has proven himself a useful asset for Hamas. And I will communicate this to the misguided Senator.

Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “cursed,: came with the note, “It’s Tahir Ali MP.” The link goes to Mr. Ali calling for blasphemy laws protecting all religious texts, including of course the Qur’an.

Jesus’s logic gets Mo all balled up, and in the end Mo gets to the real point of Ali’s proposal

The weather here is atrocious: a constant cold drizzle from leaden skies, keeping us inside. Fortunately, the house is warm and there’s often a fire. Yesterday afternoon we went to see the progress on Elzbieta and Andrzej the Second’s new house a few kilometers near Dobrzyn. It is coming along wonderfully (see below):

First, though, our cats. Here is the hyperaffectionate Szaron, who has slept with me for three nights. (You may have seen this photo earlier today!)

I have never met such an affectionate cat. I swear, if you start petting him you have to stop of your own accord, for he will continue to demand pets forever!

Yawning.

Kulka, who can be distinguished from Hili because she has more white on her body:

More Kulka. Just this minute she had a violent altercation with Hili, screaming and lashing out at The Princess. They hate each other, and I can’t understand why. Cats!

Kulka at the window:

Kulka looking wary:

Hili in Andrzej’s chair, which she owns. Very often when Andrzej is working on the computer, Hili lies behind him as a kind of feline backrest:

Dinner: A delicious pork roast served the other night with potatoes and a Zubr:

When the cherry cheesecake was gone, Malgorzata made an apple cake, but a cake with a crust made of almonds, butter, eggs and sugar (Splenda):

The inside:

The leftover pork roast was made into a delicious stew, with the meat chopped up and served with stir-fried chopped peppers, leeks, Chinese cabbage, garlic, and soy sauce, along with different spices. It was terrific, and I had the leftovers for breakfast today.

Et voilà: Below is Elzbieta and Andrzej’s new house, which I suspect will be ready to move in by summer. You may remember that this house was eight years in the making, with one contractor or another refusing to take on the job. Finally someone offered to build it using old bricks from a demolished barn and some ancient wood from a house in southern Poland.

When I was here 1.5 years ago, the place was mostly a shell without a roof or second floor. It’s now a nearly completed house with the finishing touches being put on. It came with two stray dogs and a cat, all adopted by these animal lovers. I hope that Leon and Mietek—who remain in the Wroclawek apartment—get along with their new companions.

There is a huge garden outside where Elzbieta and Andrzej the Second are even now growing vegetables, flowers, and fruits.

The resident cat, named Hela:

And here’s Sofia, one of the resident d*gs:

The future dining room. It is all wood inside with exposed beams.  Because there are thieves about, either Andrzej the Second or Elzbieta must sleep in the basement at night, with their partner spending sleeping in the Wroclawek apartment. This will continue until the house is done.

There are at least three bedrooms.

Here is a heating stove, but a regular stove will also be installed nearby when the kitchen is finished. In the background is an inside wall made from the old barn bricks:

Two windows and views outside:

A view outside down toward the stream. Some miscreant destroyed the beaver dam that was there, but the beavers have returned and built a home by the bank:

The upstairs has a large master bedroom, and here’s its attached bathroom (everything is still under construction):

Here are two of the bricks taken from the 100-year-old barn and used inside the house. The first has the footprint of a d*g in it (Andrzej the second likes to display the bricks with impressions on them):

This one records the number of bricks made at the factory on a given day:

One cannot visit the house without being served snacks and tea. There were two kinds of cake (apple and bean) and a herbal tea concocted by Andrzej the Second. He also went into the garden and returned with a kind of pearlike fruit that we ate (it was good, though full of seeds). Does anybody know what this dark fruit is?

Welcome to a Hump Day (“Jornu di gobba” in Sicilian), December 4, 2024, and National Cookie Day. Here are my favorite commercial cookies (of course they’re called “biscuits” in the UK):

It’s also International Cabernet Franc Day, Wildlife Conservation Day, National Sock Day, Wear Brown Shoes Day, and International Cheetah Day. Here’s a wild cheetah I photographed in South Africa this year:

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

Da Nooz:

*This seems to have some on so suddenly that I didn’t become aware of it until last night (Polish time).  South Korea appears to be in substantial political and social turmoil because its president, Yoon Suk Yeol, declared martial law in the country—for a time. When he declared the speech, nearly 300 South Korean troops stormed the Parliament.  After the country’s Parliament voted against the move, he rescinded martial law, but the damage had been done. (Article archived here.)

Yoon Suk Yeol won South Korea’s highest office in 2022 by a threadbare margin, the closest since his country abandoned military rule in the 1980s and began holding free presidential elections.

Just over two years later, Mr. Yoon’s brief declaration of martial law on Tuesday shocked South Koreans who had hoped that tumultuous era of military intervention was behind them. Thousands of protesters gathered in Seoul to call for his arrest. Their country, regarded as a model of cultural soft power and an Asian democratic stalwart, had suddenly taken a sharp turn in another direction.

But the events that led to Mr. Yoon’s stunning declaration on Tuesday — and his decision six hours later to lift the decree after Parliament voted to block it — were set in motion well before his razor-thin victory. They were a dramatic illustration of South Korea’s bitterly polarized politics and the deep societal discontent beneath the surface of its rising global might.

. . . . .Mr. Yoon, a conservative leader, has never been popular in South Korea. He won election by a margin of only 0.8 percentage points. The vote, analysts said, was more a referendum on his liberal predecessor’s failures than an endorsement of Mr. Yoon.

. . .From the start, however, Mr. Yoon faced two obstacles.

The opposition Democratic Party held on to its majority in the National Assembly and then expanded it in parliamentary elections in April, making him the first South Korean leader in decades to never have a majority in Parliament. And then there were his own dismal approval ratings.

Mr. Yoon’s toxic relationship with opposition lawmakers — and their vehement efforts to oppose him at every turn — paralyzed his pro-business agenda for two years, hindering his efforts to cut corporate taxes, overhaul the national pension system and address housing prices.

The article also describes social problems in South Korea, including skyrocketing real-estate prices and a lack of jobs that has made young people discontented, less likely to marry and have children.

. . . . by Tuesday night, Mr. Yoon had turned startlingly defiant. He declared that “the National Assembly, which should have been the foundation of free democracy, has become a monster that destroys it.”

Not long after, as protesters rushed to the gates of the National Assembly, lawmakers voted to lift the president’s measure. Mr. Lee, the opposition leader, who survived a stabbing attack in January and later staged a hunger strike against the Yoon government, said Mr. Yoon had “betrayed the people.”

Hours later, Mr. Yoon said he would comply with the legislature’s order. But even then, with his political future now thrown into profound uncertainty, he added a plea.

“I call on the National Assembly,” he said, “to immediately stop the outrageous behavior that is paralyzing the functioning of the country with impeachments, legislative manipulation and budget manipulation.”

Yoon has apparently even accused his opponents of being in league with North Korea, and said this: “The martial law is aimed at eradicating pro-North Korean forces and to protect the constitutional order of freedom,” he said.”  Well, the turmoil in government and the prospect of military rule has abated for the moment, but the opposition is calling for Yoon’s resignation, and threatening to impeach him if he doesn’t step down. North Korea, of course, is watching this with delight, and probably trying to figure out how to use it to the DPRK’s advantage.

*Another one of Trump’s cabinet picks, Pete Hegseth, the nominee for Secretary of Defense, had of course gotten in trouble for accusations of sexual misconduct, excessive drinking, and lack of relevant experience. Now Trump is pondering replacing him.  Guess who might be the candidate? (Article archived here.)

President-elect Donald Trump is considering Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as a possible replacement for Pete Hegseth, his pick to run the Pentagon, according to people familiar with the discussions, amid Republican senators’ concerns over mounting allegations about the former Fox News host’s personal life.

Picking DeSantis, a 2024 GOP primary rival for the presidency, would amount to a stunning turn for Trump. But he would also find in the governor a well-known conservative with a service record who shares Trump’s—and Hegseth’s—view on culling what they see as “woke” policies in the military.

Trump allies increasingly think Hegseth may not survive further scrutiny, according to people close to the president-elect’s team, which considers the next 48 hours to be crucial to his fate.

DeSantis, who served as a Navy lawyer in Iraq and the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, was on an earlier list of potential defense secretary candidates that transition officials presented to the president. Trump ultimately went with Hegseth. But as Hegseth’s nomination has faltered, that list has been revived and DeSantis is again among the choices Trump is considering, the people said.

The discussions are in their early stages, one of the people said, adding that Trump has floated DeSantis’s name in casual conversations with guests at Mar-a-Lago, his private Florida club.

DeSantis is tasked with replacing Florida senator Marco Rubio, who is Trump’s choice for Secretary of State. And guess who is plumping for Rubio’s job should he be successfully confirmed?: do

Already, DeSantis has been preparing to name an interim replacement for Sen. Marco Rubio, whom Trump has nominated as his secretary of state. Allies of Trump have been pushing for that person to be Lara Trump, the president-elect’s daughter-in law, who in March was elected co-chair of the Republican National Committee.

My guess: DeSantis, who does have service experience, won’t get the job given his paucity of leadership experience in the Navy. But what do I know? The only certainty is that Trump is going to have one wonky Cabinet.

*I have taken to reading Bret Stephens’s op-ed columns in the NYT as he usually has a sensible take on things. His latest, which intrigued me because of the Chicago connection, is called “Can Rahm Emanuel flip the script again?” (You may remember that Emanuel was Obama’s chief of staff, a Representative from Illinois, mayor of Chicago (not a popular one), and now is Ambassador to Japan. Stephen’s thesis is that Rahm, who is politically savvy, could turn around the abysmal performance and prospects of the Democratic Party (column archived here).

There’s a buzz around Rahm Emanuel — the former Bill Clinton adviser, former Illinois congressman, former chief of staff to President Barack Obama, former mayor of Chicago — possibly becoming the next head of the Democratic National Committee. The progressive left despises his pragmatism and liberal centrism. He has a reputation for abrasiveness. And his current job, as ambassador to Japan, has traditionally served as a posting for high-level political has-beens like Walter Mondale and Howard Baker.

But he also has a gift for constructing winning coalitions with difficult, unexpected partners.

. . . . Emanuel’s tenure as ambassador was distinguished by his role in engineering two historic rapprochements — last year between Japan and South Korea and this year between Japan and the Philippines — that, along with the AUKUS defense pact with Britain and Australia, form part of a broad diplomatic effort by the Biden administration to contain China.

. . . . So how do Democrats reclaim their old advantages?

“From ’68 to ’88, a 20-year run, you had ‘law and order,’ ‘welfare queens,’ Willie Horton — that was the Republican message,” Emanuel recalls. “Bill Clinton comes around and takes the equation of crime, immigration, drugs, welfare, the whole basket of cultural issues, and gets them off the table.” All of these required Clinton to pick at least as many fights with his party’s left as he picked against Republicans, and even now there are parts of the Democratic Party that are still sore about it.

“As I always say to the left, what part of the peace and prosperity were you most upset with?” he asks. “Which part did you hate? Was it the income growth, the employment growth, the drop in welfare rolls, the drop in crime, the fact that America was respected around the world, peace in the Middle East? Which part did you hate most?”

Emanuel doesn’t think it’s impossible for Democrats to repeat Clinton’s feat, though whether it will take one bad election or more remains to be seen. As in his views about the geopolitics of Asia, where Chinese blundering and bullying should play to America’s advantage, so too in domestic politics. Trump “is going to turn the Oval Office into eBay,” he predicts. It will be the Democrats’ challenge to illuminate the fact. The trick in both cases is not to undermine your own side as you try to defeat the other.

“I think Democrats prefer losing and being morally right to winning,” he says. “Me, I’m not into moral victory speeches. I’m into winning.”

Given his abrasiveness and straight talking that made him an unpopular mayor of Chicago, this strategy may not play well with progressives on the Left, who, in the end, did undermine their own side.

*The Editorial Board of the Washington Post has come out strongly against Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter. The op-ed is “Hunter Biden pardon undermines Democrats’ defense of justice system” (archived here).

President-elect Donald Trump is selecting radical MAGA loyalists for top national security positions, signaling his intention to upend the professionalism and independence of institutions that wield some of the federal government’s most awesome powers. Political opponents, journalists and others could be victims. And President Joe Biden just gave him cover.

To be clear: Mr. Biden had an unquestionable legal right to pardon his son Hunter. But in so doing on Sunday, he maligned the Justice Department and invited Mr. Trump to draw equivalence between the Hunter Biden pardon and any future moves Mr. Trump might take against the impartial administration of justice. He risks deepening many Americans’ suspicion that the justice system is two-tiered, justifying Mr. Trump’s drive to reshape it — or, because turnabout is fair play, to use it to benefit his own side.

Mr. Biden, of course, argues that pardoning his son strikes a blow for fairness in law enforcement. His statement on the pardon — in which he uses the words, “I believe in the justice system, but …” — claims that “no reasonable person” could “reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son.” Yet such considerations were apparently not so compelling when he pledged previously not to pardon Hunter. And his son clearly broke the law. A federal jury of Hunter Biden’s peers found him guilty of three firearm-related felonies in Delaware. Hunter also pleaded guilty to tax evasion charges that carry a penalty of up to 17 years in prison. The gun charges, essentially that the younger Mr. Biden lied on a purchase application form when he denied using drugs, are particularly hard to ignore. Such laws, however rarely enforced, are on the books to help keep firearms out of the hands of those who might pose a danger to themselves or others.

. . . Any Democrat who refuses this week to condemn Mr. Biden’s pardon will have less credibility to criticize Mr. Trump, his meddling at the Justice Department and his choices for key positions in that agency. No one should be surprised if Mr. Trump invokes the Hunter Biden pardon to justify clemency for many more of his allies, potentially including Jan. 6 insurrectionists. With this one intemperate, selfish act, the president has undermined, in hindsight, the lofty rationales he offered for seeking the presidency four years ago and indelibly marred the final chapter of his political career.

I can hear it now when Trump pardons the insurrectionists, “If crooked Joe Biden can pardon his own son, I have every right to pardon those who were simply standing up for democracy.” The last sentence is correct: Biden will go down in history as at best a mediocre President, and at worst a self-serving one.

*The journal Science reports a study by Kevin Hatala, Louise Leakey and their colleagues, also published in the journal, that two species of hominims coexisted at the same time and place (what is now Kenya, and 1.5 million years ago).  Here’s the original paper (click to read):

. . . and the editor’s summary:

It is now well accepted that hominin evolution is a story of many lineages existing contemporaneously. Evidence for this pattern has mostly come from fossils being dated to similar time periods. Hatala et al. describe hominid footprints from 1.5 million years ago in the Turkana Basin in Kenya that were made by two different species within hours or days of each other (see the Perspective by Harcourt-Smith). Analyses showed that the footprints were made by individuals with different gaits and stances, and the authors hypothesize these to be Homo erectus and Paranthropus boilei. Although fossils of both species occur in the area, these footprints show that they coexisted and likely interacted. —Sacha Vignieri

And from the Science news piece, which gives a photo:

One day 1.5 million years ago, two or three individuals of our genus Homo walked along a muddy lakeshore. Hours before or after they passed, another member of the human family, likely the smaller brained, big-jawed Paranthropus, hurried along the same shoreline. These early hominins would have seen giant cranes, ancient horses and antelopes—and, possibly, each other, according to a new study of their intermingled footprints published today in Science.

Fossils had hinted that different types of early hominins were contemporaries in Africa at about this time, but the tracks provide the strongest evidence yet that these two species, each with their own distinct upright stride, were in the same place on the same day.

“It’s very exciting—we are getting two very clear, distinctive gait patterns from different species of hominins in a matter of hours or even minutes,” says Charles Musiba, a paleoanthropologist at Duke University who was not part of the study. “They may actually have come across each other.”

These ancient footprints trample the old view, proposed in the 1950s by the evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr, that no two hominin species overlapped in time and space, says William Harcourt-Smith, a paleoanthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History who wrote a commentary accompanying the new paper.

To occur in the very same layer, the two prints were likely made within days of each other, as fossilizing footprints require special conditions: usually humans making impressions in mud that are very quickly filled up with volcanic ash or other quick-depositing sediments.

Fossils of both species, one in our genus Homo and the other one of a “robust” hominim that went extinct without leaving descendants, are also found in the same layer of sediments, supporting the authors’ claims.  Hatala et al. discuss the different gaits of these individuals; individuals in Homo, for example, walked more flat-footed than we do now. Here’s a photo of one Homo footprint taken by the paper’s first author:

(From Science news piece): An early member of our genus Homo left a single deep footprint as it slid its toes in the mud near where another type of hominin walked on the same day.Kevin G. Hatala

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Andrzej have a difference of opinion about what weather is worse:

Hili: It’s cold and wet outside. A: I prefer frost and snow. Hili: I totally don’t understand it.

In Polish:

Hili: Na dworze jest zimno i mokro.
Ja: Wolę mróz i śnieg.
Hili: Tego zupełnie nie rozumiem.

And a photo of Szaron:

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

From Jesus of the Day. I’m usually bad at these things, but surprisingly, I saw what it was almost immediately. Don’t let on in the comments lest you spoil it for others:

From Cat Memes:

. . . and I couldn’t resist this from Meow (it’s got eyebrows, too):

From Masih. I can’t embed this tweet with a horrific video, but if you click below you can see it on X. As Masih says, “This video, sent to me by a woman from Tehran, shows her scars from being lashed for not wearing hijab.”  Note: if you are repelled by the effects of severe lashing by isogynists, do not click!

This is what happens to you in Iran if you don’t cover your hair.

Found while perusing X:

From the “you couldn’t make this stuff up” file:

A “misinformation expert” at Stanford, @jeffhancock, billed the state of Minnesota $600/hour to prepare an expert declaration on the dangers of AI-generated content. He swore under penalty of perjury that everything stated in the… pic.twitter.com/UIWfMfRMm1

— Laura Powell (@LauraPowellEsq) December 3, 2024

From Free Black Thought via Luana: our conference at USC next month!

Register to attend the Censorship in the Sciences conference at USC and hear @mdcbowen and @omni_american explain why they started FBT.

As a bonus, you’ll hear keynotes from @jon_rauch, @JMchangama, @wil_da_beast630, and @glukianoff, as well as talks by @Musa_alGharbi,… pic.twitter.com/oEnsMtNY6K

— Free Black Thought (@FreeBlckThought) December 3, 2024

Another book I don’t have to read. . .

It's hard to describe just how dull the Merkel memoirs are.

— Stanley Pignal (@spignal.bsky.social) 2024-12-04T06:43:17.052Z

From my Twitter (X) home feed, which so far is much more interesting than my Bluesky home feed (I don’t follow anyone on either platform):

That’s the most human looking face I’ve ever seen on a monkey. pic.twitter.com/QCi69qL20M

— Nature is Amazing (@AMAZlNGNATURE) December 3, 2024

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one I reposted:

He lived at most four days after this photo was taken. https://t.co/wkZHjJ6iz5

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) December 4, 2024

Two posts by Dr. Cobb, First, a Korean opposition member desperate to overturn the martial law described above. Matthew says, “N.b.,  the coup is over, the President is a fool, but this guy is smart!

Lee Jae-myung, Leader of South Korea's Democratic Party, live-streamed himself scaling the walls of the National Assembly to bypass military barricades so that he could vote to overturn the President's martial law.

— Adam Schwarz (@adamjschwarz.bsky.social) 2024-12-03T16:55:41.973Z

It is a truth universally acknowledged that this tweet is unfair to the American novel:

Goal of the protagonist in:French novel: "to fall in love"British novel: "to get married"Russian novel: "to become a great man"American novel: "to kill that fuckin' whale, man. I want that GOD DAMN whale to die. FUCK, I hate whales so much!!"

— Existential Comics (@existentialcomics.com) 2024-12-03T18:49:34.818Z

This paper in the Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics (click title below to read, or find the pdf here) is a strong contender for Bonkers Paper of the Year. The author, Ewelina Jarosz, is a Polish professor from Kraków—not a scientist, but an assistant professor of Media and Cultural Studies (of course).

Ewelina Jarosz

• University of the National Education Commission, Krakow; Department of Media and Cultural Reseach, Kraków, małopolskie, Poland

Below is the abstract, which promotes “hydrosexuality” and denigrates “settler science”. If you had a shot of tequila for every buzzword in this abstract, you’d be stinking drunk at the end:

The article aims to transform narratives surrounding Utah’s Great Salt Lake, often referred to as “America’s Dead Sea,” by reimagining how brine shrimp (Artemia franciscana) are perceived in science, culture, and art. It introduces the concept of hydrosexuality to bridge these realms, thereby enriching feminist blue posthumanities and feminist biology through art-based practices and queer advocacy. By navigating the environmental narrative of the GSL, the hydrosexual perspective challenges settler science by exploring the connections between the reproductive system of brine shrimp and the economy, ecology and culture. The article provides a framework for integrative cultural analysis that bolsters arguments about the multilayered exploitation of the lake and amplifies voices that recognize the brine shrimp as vital to the survival of multiple species and to the GSL as a unique ecosystem. Furthermore, this cultural analysis draws inspiration from low trophic theory and Queer Death Studies. This multifaceted approach is exemplified by two case studies in the arts, which gradually alter white humans’ perceptions and understandings of the brine shrimp, helping to reimagine the GSL in the context of rapid climate change.

If you want an analysis of what the paper actually says, read and give credit to Colin Wright, who read it and analyzed it on his site Reality’s Last Stand (click below to read):

Colin’s introduction (I can’t believe he read the entire paper, apparently without gastric distress, but he did):

In the annals of academic absurdity, there are moments that make even seasoned critics pause in awe. “Loving the Brine Shrimp: Exploring Queer Feminist Blue Posthumanities to Reimagine the ‘America’s Dead Sea’” is one such moment. This is not a parody—though it reads like one—but a “serious” paper, or so the author insists. In what is best described as a surrealist love letter to brine shrimp, the author, Ewelina Jarosz (she/they), wades through a soup of critical theory, environmental activism, and performance art, asking the reader to reconsider their relationship with brine shrimp—not as mere crustaceans but as symbols of queer resilience, ecological ethics, and, somehow, hydrosexual love.

This paper is part of a growing tradition of postmodern scholarship that prioritizes ideological signaling over intellectual rigor. Following in the footsteps of infamous works like the 2016 “Feminist Glaciology” paper—which posited that glaciers are gendered—“Loving the Brine Shrimp” sets a new standard for academic ridiculousness. Its culmination in a cyber wedding to augmented reality brine shrimp makes feminist glaciers seem like a grounded scientific pursuit by comparison. But before we arrive at the nuptial climax, let’s examine how this spectacle unfolds.

There was performance art involved: a marriage of two Polish academics to brine shrimp at the Great Salt Lake of Utah:

The paper reached peak woke in a section titled “Loving the Brine Shrimp,” which recounts a performance art piece called Cyber Wedding to the Brine Shrimp. This event, staged on the receding shores of the Great Salt Lake, involved artists, scientists, and augmented reality brine shrimp. Participants made vows to the crustaceans, marched in a procession, and capped it off with a communal bath in the lake. The author describes this as “making love to the lake,” a phrase that may haunt frequent swimmers of the Great Salt Lake for the rest of their lives.

Here’s a photo and article found by Malgorzata at the right-wing website David Horowitz’s The Front Page. Just read it for the lolz:

On September 14, 2021, two Polish female professors headed to the Great Salt Lake in Utah to marry some brine shrimp in an ecosexual wedding.

Presided over by Bonnie Baxter PhD, a biology professor at Westminster University in nearby Salt Lake City, the two Polish professor brides in clinging wedding dresses approached holding hands and together with the rest of the wedding party which included a sexologist and Elizabeth Stephens, the chair of UC Santa Cruz’s Art Department, who helped create the ‘Ecosexual’ movement, went into the lake to marry the shrimp through an exchange of psychic vows.

The 12-minute video of the wedding vows and the postnuptial swim in the lake, “Cyber Wedding to the Brine Shrimp”, can (and must) be seen at Colin’s website.  

One thing is clear: Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics lacks even a scintilla of academic rigor. In fact, when the journal publishes a paper, replete with buzzwords, that’s indistinguishable from the “hoax papers” of Alan Sokal or of Boghossian, Pluckrose, and Lindsay, you know that something has gone badly wrong with scholarship. Is there any contribution to knowledge here? I can’t detect any.

Yes, it’s all hilarious, but only in the sense that academics become lunatics in their effort to promulgate social justice, or, in this case, “environmental justice.” As Colin says at the end of his herculean reading of the paper:

In an era where intellectual rigor often takes a backseat to performative absurdity, it’s important to keep a sense of humor about the bizarre trajectory of academic publishing. After all, what else can we do when purportedly serious scholars convene weddings for brine shrimp or ascribe nonbinary identities to water?

Alas, these are the times we live in.

h/t: Ann

Yes, this analysis and report are from Texas’s Republican Senator Ted Cruz, but let’s not use that to dismiss his press release and report from the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation. If you won’t read something simply because it’s from Ted Cruz’s office, you are at the wrong site.

At any rate, the press release”reveals how Biden-Harris diverted billions from science to DEI activists.”  I have no reason to doubt this claim given the increasing tendency of federal funding agencies (the NSF in this case) to divert money from real science into ideological project furthering the “progressive” agenda. But if you want to undercut this claim, simply look at the projects that are classified as “DEI activism”. Only a few are offered, and they support the claim, which is not surprising.

Although I finished my last grant about eight years ago, I am told by active researchers, scientists I know personally, that the entire system has changed in the last decade, exactly in the way this report describes. And the pressure to change from pure science to Social Justice must have come from the top. I don’t know who applied it, but the buck stops at the President’s desk, and it was clearly the Biden Administration that approved the change in direction.

Click the headline below to read, and you can find the committee’s 43-page report here.

The upshot is that over the four years that Biden was President, over two billion dollars were allocated to projects that Cruz’s committee classified as “DEI grants”. Over 3,400 such grants were given.  Disturbingly, such grants used up only 0.29% of the funding in 2021, but their number swelled each year until, in 2024, they used up over 27% of NSF funding.

The three paragraphs below are taken from the press release. Yes, the language is from the Right (i.e., “neo-Marxist” and “radical perspectives”), but who can deny that the DEI agenda has damaged universities, making them more divisive and imposing an orthodoxy on thought and research that’s inimical to free thinking and academic freedom?

In its first week, the Biden-Harris administration mandated that all taxpayer-funded scientific research and development (R&D) must incorporate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) values. Sen. Cruz’s investigation found that in response to this directive, NSF allocated over $2.05 billion to thousands of research projects that promoted neo-Marxist perspectives or DEI tenets. Taxpayer dollars supported projects of questionable scientific merit, often led by researchers who used federal R&D dollars to drive divisive, extremist ideologies in their classrooms and on their campuses.

The Committee’s analysis identified 3,483 grants—over 10% of all NSF grants awarded during the Biden-Harris administration—totaling more than $2.05 billion went to questionable projects that promoted DEI or pushed neo-Marxist perspectives about enduring class struggle. The Committee grouped these grants into five categories: Status, Social Justice, Gender, Race, and Environmental Justice.

The report reveals, through examples across categories, that many of the most extreme research proposals were led by principal investigators who are also promoting radical perspectives through on-campus activism and in their classrooms.

Here are two figures from the report itself (click pictures to enlarge) showing the number of grants and total funding in each of five “DEI” categories:

And the NSF obeyed the Biden administration’s directive. This shows the total NSF funding per year, and the amount and proportion of funding directed towards what are classified as DEI initiatives:

The report also gives examples of grants that sound ludicrous. These of course are cherry-picked and remind me of Senator William Proxmire’s old “Golden Fleece Awards,” (Proxmire was a Democrat), given to agencies who squandered public money. Below are two examples cited, and I urge those who want to examine the Cruz Committee’s contentions to examine them further. Others are given in the report. Bolding is from the press release:

• Shirin Vossoughi is an associate professor of learning sciences at Northwestern University and the co-principal investigator for a $1,034,751 NSF grant awarded in 2023 for a project titled, “Reimagining Educator Learning Pathways Through Storywork for Racial Equity in STEM.” Vossoughi credits Marxist traditions for her decision to teach children “the meaning of ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid’” after Hamas’s attack against Israel.

 

• In 2023, NSF awarded Georgia Institute of Technology’s (Georgia Tech) Kelly Cross $99,791 to “disrupt[] racialized privilege in the STEM classroom” by acknowledging “Whiteness and White Supremacy” are “deeply ingrained in the past, present and future of U.S. Higher education.” Cross sought to “subvert[] these toxic systems… to creat[e] a more equitable educational system” and “initiate a national conversation about addressing racial inequity and White Supremacy in the STEM profession and classroom” with the support of the grant.

There are further examples given in the report, but you can look at them yourself. Here are the conclusions taken from the paper, not the press release:

The Biden-Harris administration has methodically weaponized federal agencies to drive a partisan, divisive agenda. President Biden and Vice President Harris tasked federal science agencies to restructure scientific investigation into an exercise in categorizing individuals by their background, not by their talent and capabilities.

This year, almost 30 percent of NSF grant projects will seek to promote these divisions. Already, billions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted. These grants both crowd out other kinds of research that could advance understanding of the physical world and advance a deeply divisive philosophy antithetical to the tenets of empirical scientific research. The NSF must return to a merit-based focus on legitimate science of the kind that resulted in landing Americans on the moon and making the U.S. technology industry the engine of the global economy.

If this analysis is correct, then I have no quarrel with the last paragraph, particularly the insistence that the NSF go back to “a merit-based focus on legitimate science”. America has long been a Mecca for scientists from foreign countries, many coming here to study, do research, or take faculty positions. This kind of funding, if continued, would seriously erode the nation’s scientific reputation. It’s already happened to New Zealand, but the “social justice” there involves incorporating “indigenous knowledge”, like Polynesian navigational astronomy, into modern science.

It is too late to stop the awokening of New Zealand’s science, but I’m pretty sure that the new Trump administration—if it doesn’t cut real science—will ameliorate the current trend. (Note: this is NOT an endorsement of Trump as President, but a hope that his admiinistration will fix the wrongly skewed direction of science funding.)

As I’ve mentioned several times, Matthew Cobb has written what will likely prove the definitive biography of Francis Crick (1916-2004), co-discoverer of the structure of DNA and a general polymath. While writing it, Matthew came across some Crick material showing that biologists and historians have misunderstood Crick’s “Central Dogma” of molecular biology.

Matthew has corrected the record in the piece below from the Asimov Press. Click the headline, as it’s free to read:

You may have learned this dogma as “DNA makes RNA makes protein,” along with the caveat that it’s a one-way path. But Matthew shows that this was not Crick’s contention. I’ve indented Mathew’s words below:

The Central Dogma is a linchpin for understanding how cells work, and yet it is one of the most widely misunderstood concepts in molecular biology.

Many students are taught that the Central Dogma is simply “DNA → RNA → protein.” This version was first put forward in Jim Watson’s pioneering 1965 textbook, The Molecular Biology of the Gene, as a way of summarizing how protein synthesis takes place. However, Watson’s explanation, which he adapted from his colleague, Francis Crick, is profoundly misleading.

In 1956, Crick was working on a lecture that would bring together what was then known about the “flow of information” between DNA, RNA, and protein in cells. Crick formalized his ideas in what he called the Central Dogma, and his original conception of information flow within cells was both richer and more complex than Watson’s reductive and erroneous presentation.

Crick was aware of at least four kinds of information transfers, all of which had been observed in biochemical studies by researchers at that time. These were: DNA → DNA (DNA replication), DNA → RNA (called transcription), RNA → protein (called translation) and RNA → RNA (a mechanism by which some viruses copy themselves). To summarize his thinking, Crick sketched out these information flows in a little figure that was never published.

Crick’s figure is below. Note that the dogma is simply the first sentence typed in the diagram, implying that information from either DNA or RNA, translated into a protein, cannot get back into the DNA or RNA code again. Thus changes in protein structure cannot go back and change the genetic code (see the bottom part of the diagram).

As you see, the DNA—>RNA—>protein “dogma” is an extreme oversimplification of Crick’s views. And he meant the word “dogma” to mean not an inviolable rule of nature, but a hypothesis. Nevertheless, Crick was widely criticized for using the word “dogma”.

But getting back to the diagram:

The direct synthesis of proteins using only DNA might be possible, Crick thought, because the sequence of bases in DNA ultimately determines the order of amino acids in a protein chain. If this were true, however, it would mean that RNA was not always involved in protein synthesis, even though every study at that time suggested it was. Crick therefore concluded that this kind of information flow was highly unlikely, though not impossible.

Crick also theorized that RNA → DNA was chemically possible, simply because it was the reverse of transcription and both types of molecules were chemically similar to each other. Still, Crick could not imagine any biological function for this so-called “reverse transcription,” so he portrayed this information flow as a dotted line in his diagram.

We now know, though that the enzyme “reverse transcriptase” is used by some RNA viruses to make DNA to insert into their hosts’ genomes.

Here’s what Crick said he meant by the “Central Dogma,” and, in fact, this schema has not yet been violated in nature:

In other words, in Crick’s schema, information within the cell only flows from nucleic acids to proteins, and never the other way around. Crick’s “Central Dogma” could therefore be described in a single line: “Once information has got into a protein it can’t get out again.” This negative statement — that some transfers of information seem to be impossible — was the essential part of Crick’s idea.

Crick’s hypothesis also carried an unstated evolutionary implication; namely, that whatever might happen to an organism’s proteins during its lifetime, those changes cannot alter its DNA sequence. In other words, organisms cannot use proteins to transmit characteristics they have acquired during their lifetime to their offspring.

In other words, there can be no Lamarckian inheritance, in which environmental change affecting an organism’s proteins cannot become ingrained into the organism’s genome and thus become permanently heritable.

Matthew discusses several suggested modifications of Crick’s version of the Central Dogma. Prions, misfolded proteins that cause several known diseases, were thought by some to have replicated themselves by somehow changing the DNA that codes for them, but it’s now known that prions are either produced by mutations in the DNA, or can transmit their pathological shape by directly interacting with other proteins. Prion proteins do not change the DNA sequence.

Some readers here might also be thinking that “epigenetic inheritance”, in which DNA is modified by chemical tags affixed to its bases, might refute the central dogma, as those modifications are mediated by enzymes, which of course are proteins. But as Matthew notes, those modifications are temporary, while the DNA sequence of nucleotides (sans modifications) is forever:

In other cases, researchers have pointed to epigenetics as a possible exception to Crick’s Central Dogma, arguing that changes in gene expression are transmitted across the generations and thus provide an additional, non-nucleic source of information. But still, epigenetics does not violate Crick’s Central Dogma.

During an organism’s life, environmental conditions cause certain genes to get switched on or off. This often occurs through a process known as methylation, in which the cell adds a methyl group to a cytosine base in a DNA sequence. As a result, the cell no longer transcribes the gene.

These effects occur most frequently in somatic cells — the cells that make up the body of the organism. If epigenetic marks occur in sex cells, they are wiped clean prior to egg and sperm formation. Then, once the sperm and eggs have fully formed, methylation patterns are re-established in each type of cell, meaning that the acquired genetic regulation is reset to baseline in the offspring.

Sometimes, these regulatory effects are transmitted to the next generation through the activity of small RNA molecules, which can interact with messenger RNAs or proteins to control gene expression. This occurs frequently in plants but is much rarer in animals, which have separate lineages for their somatic and reproductive cells. A widely-studied exception to this is the nematode C. elegans, where RNAs and other molecules can alter inheritance patterns.

No matter how striking, though, none of these examples violate Crick’s Central Dogma; the genetic information remains intact and the epigenetic tags are always temporary, disappearing after at most a few generations.

That should squelch the brouhaha over epigenetics as a form of Lamarckian evolutionary change, as some have suggested that epigenetic (environmental) modifications of the DNA could be permanent, ergo the environment itself can cause permanent heritable change. (That is Lamarckian inheriance.) But we know of no epigenetic modifications that last more than a couple of generations, so don’t believe the hype about “permanently inherited trauma” or other such nonsense.

And there’s this, which again is not a violation of Crick’s “Dogma”:

. . . enzymes can modify proteins in the cell after they have been synthesized, so not every amino acid in a protein is specified in the genome. DNA does not contain all the information in a cell, but Crick’s original hypothesis remains true: “Once information has got into a protein it can’t get out again.”

Now Matthew does suggest a rather complicated way that the Dogma could be violated, but it’s not known to occur, though perhaps humans might use genetic engineering to effect it. But you can read about it in his piece.

It’s remarkable that Crick’s supposition that information in a protein can’t get back to the DNA or RNA code—made only three years after the structure of DNA was published—has stood up without exception for nearly seventy years. This is a testament to Crick’s smarts and prescience.

And if you remember anything about the Central Dogma, just remember this:

“Once information has got into a protein it can’t get out again.”

I didn’t bring any wildlife photos with me, but Greg Mayer volunteered the following contribution.

by Greg Mayer

While we’re likely to get to enjoy even more photos of Hili, Szaron, and Kulka while Jerry’s in Poland, there might be more need for wildlife photos, so I prevailed upon my correspondent in Miami, Christopher Hudspeth, to send some photos of crocodiles from “The 305“.

American Crocodile, Palmetto Bay, Florida, November 27, 2024.

Christopher easily spotted four at a brackish lagoon in Palmetto Bay, Florida, right next to Biscayne Bay. They were all adults, but not maximum-sized: in South Florida, crocodiles are known to get up to about 16 feet in length.

American Crocodile, Palmetto Bay, Florida, November 27, 2024, with human for scale.

Everyone is familiar with the American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis), the broad-headed, black-when-full-grown denizen of swamps and marshes throughout the American South. As its name (derived from the Spanish el lagarto = ‘the lizard’) indicates, it’s been known since the Spanish discovery of Florida in the 16th century. That there’s a second native crocodilian in Florida was not made known till the 19th century. The American Crocodile (Crocodylus acutus), unlike the alligator, is restricted to coastal areas of southernmost Florida. The crocodile’s preference for salt and brackish water keeps the two species of crocodilians largely ecologically segregated by habitat.

Two American Crocodiles, Palmetto Bay, Florida, November 29, 2024. The crocodiles liked this pile of debris, being seen hanging out on it on the 27th and 29th.

Hunted for their skins, by the late 1970s the American Crocodile was endangered in Florida, with the range much restricted, the population down to the low hundreds, and only 20 breeding females. State and Federal protection has led to the population bouncing back, with there now being a few thousand adults and over 100 nests per year. They have also returned to vacated parts of their range, such as Coral Gables and Palmetto Bay along northern Biscayne Bay, areas which are quite developed.

Palmetto Bay, Florida, Google Earth.

In the above Google Earth view, note the man-made lagoon in the center, next to office buildings, at the edge of an extensive conurbation– this is where Christopher found the crocs!

American Crocodile, Palmetto Bay, Florida, November 27, 2024, with human for scale.

In 1971, Wilfred Neill published a photo of a croc on the beach at Key West taken in 1935, describing it as a “sight that can no longer be seen”; but the crocs are back there, too: another Florida correspondent sent me a photo of a croc on the beach there taken last December.

Crocodile at NAS Key West, December 4, 2023.

Behler, J.L. 1978. Feasibility of the Establishment of a Captive-Breeding Population of the
American Crocodile. Everglades National Park South Florid Research Center, Homestead, FL. pdf

Moler, P.E. 2019. American Crocodile. pp. 308-312 in K.L. Krysko, K.M. Enge, and P.E.Moler, Amphibians and Reptiles of Florida. University of Florida Press, Gainesville. publisher

Neill, W.T. 1971. Last of the Ruling Reptiles: Alligators, Crocodiles and Their Kin. Columbia University Press, New York. Abebooks

The Conversation, which seems a reputable and often interesting site,  now has some dire results of a survey of non-Māori New Zealand scientists. The new survey shows that many (but thank goodness not all) of these have been captured by the drive to sacralize the indigenous Māori “ways of knowing, or Mātauranga Māori (MM).

MM does contain some empirical knowledge, mostly of the practical sort like how to catch fish or when to harvest berries, but also includes religion, morality, the supernatural (the ubiquitous vitalism called mauri), guides to behavior, legends and word of mouth, and other non-scientific concepts that many see as “ways of knowing.”

Have a gander at this article (click to read). Note the “gender divide” mentioned in the headline, and guess how it shakes out:

Some indented excerpts (the article summarizes a research paper you can read or download here; I have not read it but assume the authors’ summary is correct. I could find no indication that the paper has been published or even accepted (I may have overlooked that), but if it is only submitted for publication and not peer-reviewed and accepted, it’s not really kosher to discuss preliminary results in a place like The Conversation.

While the New Zealand government plans to review 28 pieces of legislation with a view to changing or repealing references to the Treaty of Waitangi, the science sector is embracing engagement with Māori and leading the way in linking science and Indigenous knowledge at a national scale.

We surveyed 316 researchers from research organisations across New Zealand on their engagement with Māori and their attitudes towards mātauranga Māori (Indigenous knowledge system). We found the majority agree engagement is important and mātauranga Māori is relevant to their research.

Our preliminary findings show most of the surveyed researchers engaged with Māori to some degree in the past and expect to keep doing so in the future. A majority agreed mātauranga Māori should be valued on par with Western science.

. . . We examined the responses of the 295 non-Māori scientists in our survey and found 56% agreed mātauranga Māori should be valued on par with Western science. Only 25% disagreed. Moreover, 83% agreed scientists had a duty to consult with Māori if the research had impacts on them.

What? Valued on par with Western science? That is the result of the researchers having been ideologically captured by the widespread drive to make MM coequal with modern science. (An alternative hypothesis, which should not be ignored, is that many of these non-Māori scientists are hiding their real feelings, knowing that they could get fired or exorcised if they don’t go along with the ideological program.)

That said, of course if a project has impacts on Māori, they should certainly be consulted. That is only fair. But consultation does not mean that researchers must do what the Māori say, especially if it involves nonscientific things like incorporating the supernatural, as with the story of the kauri trees and the whales (see below)

If you study MM and know anything about modern science— mistakenly called “Western science” by MM advocates—you’ll know that this belief in coequality is simply fatuous.

More:

. . .New Zealand has been at the forefront of developing a nationwide approach through the 2007 Vision Mātauranga policy. This science-mātauranga connection has given New Zealand a global lead in how to meaningfully and practically mobilise science and Indigenous knowledge at a national scale.

In contrast, the US only recently developed its national Indigenous science policy.

The merging of Indigenous and Western knowledge is particularly important in the high-tech innovation field. Here, New Zealand’s approach is starting to have real impacts, including supporting innovations and capabilities that would not have happened otherwise.

Through years of engagement with the research and innovation sector, Māori are increasingly expecting the sector to work differently. This means both engaging beyond the laboratory and being open to the possibility that science and mātauranga Māori together can create bold innovation. Examples include supporting Māori businesses to create research and development opportunities in high-value nutrition, or using mātauranga to halt the decline of green-lipped mussels in the Eastern Bay of Plenty.

If you look at the “bold innovation” link, you will find a dearth of examples in which MM has actually enhanced the acquisition of scientific knowledge; rather, it’s largely a program for incorporating Māori researchers into projects actually driven by modern science. But would you expect anything else given that the empirical aspects of MM are all practical, aimed at helping people survive off the land? Given that, the “merging” of the two “ways of knowing”, much less promulgating the idea they are coequal, is a foolish endeavor.

The green-lipped mussel project, involving an important source of food, comes up again and again in these studies, and involves the use of traditional fiber materials to facilitate the settling of mussel spats. And it did indeed increase the number of spats.

But I see this project mentioned over and over again as an example of the fruitful combining of MM and modern science. If their merging is so successful, why do we find the same example used repeatedly?

And why is there no mention of ludicrous examples of merging, such as the useless attempt to revive the dieback of kauri trees by smearing their trunks with whale oil and whale bones, and playing whale songs to the trees (see here and here). The MM basis for this “science” is a Māori legend that the kauri trees and whales were created as brothers, but the whale-trees went roaming into the ocean, and the kauri dieback, really caused by soil-borne oomycetes (thanks modern science for that), is said by MM to reflect the trees’ longing to be with their whale brothers. Such is the kind of research that is also taken seriously by advocates of merging MM and modern science.

One more thing: the gender difference. I guessed, based on the greater empathy of women as well as their greater religiosity, would involve female researchers being be more sympathetic to incorporating indigenous ways of knowing into science. I was right:

However, there was a significant gender difference: 75% of women compared to 44% of men agreed mātauranga Māori should be valued on par with science. Only 8% of women disagreed with that statement compared to 34% of men.

That is a substantial difference!

The study reached two conclusions. The second was the observed difference between male and female non-Māori researchers in their desire to value MM as coequal with science. The authors say this needs more work, but I think it can already be explained by the difference between the sexes in empathy, “people” orientation, and religiosity.

The first conclusion was this:

First, it seems that exposing researchers to engagement with Māori communities may create a more open attitude to mātauranga Māori. A key aspect of the past few years has been to broaden the science sector’s engagement with various communities, including Māori.

The Vision Mātauranga policy has been explicit about this in the innovation sector and research and development areas. It appears likely this approach has, at least for some non-Māori researchers, created an openness to consider mātauranga Māori as an equivalent, although different, knowledge framework.

Again, I am not dismissing MM as without any value. What I am seriously questioning is the idea that MM is “an equivalent, although different, knowledge framework.” I don’t even know what that means, since I don’t see MM as even coming close to the methods of modern science in acquiring knowledge, or “justified true belief.” MM lacks nearly all the tools of modern science, like hypothesis testing, pervasive doubt and questioning, replication, peer review, the use of statistics, and so on. How can it possibly be coequal with modern science?

But the burgeoning drive to sacralize indigenous “knowledge” shows that wokeness, of which this drive is one example, is not on the way out.  By all means incorporate indigenous knowledge into science if it is shown to be empircally true. But to do that the indigenous knowledge has to be verified using modern science. Otherwise it remains in the hinterlands of Aunt Jobiska’s Theorem: “a fact that the whole world knows.”

Life goes on apace in this tiny town, with all of us working. Andrzej and Malgorzata are busy putting Listy together (supervised by Hili), and I am writing a piece for an online site, but more about that later.  It is too cold to go outside except for trips to buy groceries.

Here are a few photos from yesterday.

Andrzej at work. Note Editor-in-Chief Hili behind him in the chair:

Baby Kulka at work at her bowl (her real name is Kulka, but I always append “Baby” since I saw her first as a kitten):

Julia, the new baby (6 months old) from upstairs. Her father Mariusz is holding her:

Working on “my” couch with Szaron:

The cherry cheesecake baked by Malgorzata is half gone after one day (I have two pieces a day: one for breakfast and the other for third breakfast):

And me again with Szaron, working from the supine position. Szaron is the world’s most affectionate cat.

I got a short haircut before i traveled, but I can’t keep it from sticking up

Andrzej giving Hili a rare treat of cream. Part I: The Look. Treat impending!

Part II: Hili sniffs the cream:

Part III:  Hili laps up the cream. Szaron, rear, doesn’t get any:

And there’s now a stock of my favorite beer, Zubr (“Bison”) for dinner. Note the omnipresent Szaron:

And that’s a working day in Dobrzyn.