Now I know what they do at faculty meetings on the humanities/social sciences side of campus » « They never learn

Infinite Thread XXXIX

It’s almost spring-like outside — the skies are clear, we’ve got cool breezes on a comfortable day, the plants are coming back… I know it can’t last but I’ll make the most of it. I’ve opened windows to let birdsong in and to drive the cat crazy.

Let the pleasant conversations flow!

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Now I know what they do at faculty meetings on the humanities/social sciences side of campus » « They never learn

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  1. says

    Energy secretary says Trump was speaking ‘casually’ with claim about taking out oil. [WTF?]

    During an Oval Office event on Wednesday afternoon, a reporter asked Donald Trump for his reaction to the news that inflation has reached a three-year high. The president responded that the new data was “great,” adding, “I love the inflation.”

    And while that was strange, it quickly got worse. As part of his explanation for why he professed his “love” of inflation, Trump went on to say, “You know, I can say it now, something you didn’t know. You know we’ve been taking out millions of barrels of oil. Nobody knows it. You know who doesn’t know about it? Iran — until right now.” [WTF?]

    He said this operation involved 22 ships that traveled “with no lights” [JFC. Delusional, dementia afflicted Trump?] and went undetected because Iranians “don’t have any radar because we blasted the crap out of it.”

    Even at face value, this was difficult to understand. The president loves inflation because the United States is taking oil out of the Middle East?

    Complicating matters, there was also uncertainty about the nature and accuracy of Trump’s claims, even within his own White House Cabinet. MS NOW reported as part of the network’s liveblog coverage:

    Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who was simultaneously testifying before the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, told lawmakers that he did not know of any such operation.

    Wright said he was not aware of “millions” of barrels of oil having been extracted from Iran, but he said earlier in the hearing that the U.S. military ‌had ⁠helped get some oil out of the Strait of Hormuz.

    As a rule, Wright can be counted on to toe the party line on pretty much anything Trump says, but when pressed by Democratic Rep. Emilia Sykes of Ohio on the president’s public comments, Wright said Trump was merely “talking casually.” [social media post, with video]

    When Sykes followed up by asking about the propriety of a president speaking “casually” about a war, the energy secretary was reduced to saying, “I think you talk to all different audiences, and you talk in all different styles.”

    What did that mean in this context? Your guess is as good as mine. It’s similarly unclear whether Wright’s use of the word “casually” was meant to convey the idea that sometimes Trump just says stuff without any meaningful regard for accuracy.

    That said, it’s certainly possible that 22 ships moved through the Strait of Hormuz. The New York Times noted, however, “He did not say what time period he meant. Ordinarily, dozens of oil tankers would pass through the strait each day, and thousands would have done so since the war began, if not for Iran’s blockade.”

  2. says

    For the convenience of readers, here are a few links back to the previous set of 500 comments on The Infinite Thread.

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/03/30/infinite-thread-xxxix/comment-page-5/#comment-2303192
    OB-GYNs release their own vaccine schedule, rejecting RFK Jr.’s meddling

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/03/30/infinite-thread-xxxix/comment-page-5/#comment-2303187
    Elon Musk stirs up more racist rage in Europe

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/03/30/infinite-thread-xxxix/comment-page-5/#comment-2303186
    ‘A Crock of Shit’: Amid Misconduct Allegations, Broadview Six Transcripts Offer Rare Window into Grand Jury

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/03/30/infinite-thread-xxxix/comment-page-5/#comment-2303182
    “Inflation heats up to highest pace in three years”

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/03/30/infinite-thread-xxxix/comment-page-5/#comment-2303180
    Trump peddles more mixed messages after accusing Iran of downing a U.S. helicopter

  3. says

    Trumps find tacky new way to profit from White House cage fight

    […] This time, the grift is centered around the Ultimate Fighting Championship cage fight on the White House lawn scheduled for President Donald Trump’s birthday on June 14.
    The “Trump Coins” website is currently selling UFC- and Trump-themed silver and gold coins. The site claims—without evidence—that the coins were “designed by President Trump.”

    The coins, which range in price from $250 to an eye-popping $11,999.99, also feature Trump’s signature and photos of him and UFC chief Dana White, a longtime Trump ally.

    CNN reported that, while the coins are not directly made by a Trump company, the Trump Organization is licensing the president’s name and image.

    […] By tying this new coin to the White House event, the Trump family is using public property to generate personal profits.

    […] Using the White House to supercharge sales of overpriced silver and gold coins falls right in line with his history of grifting […]

  4. says

    Given how these undeniable circumstances have all piled up on us –
    » The lies, murder and destruction of the tRUMP admin. and repugnantcant politicians
      (aided and abetted by the corruption of the DNC)
    » The incomplete, biased and inaccurate reporting by the mainslime news
    » The millions of ignorant people unquestioningly sucking down the toxic magat koolaid
    » Billionaires destroying the environment and peoples’ communities everywhere
    I can only reasonably conclude that a magat apocalypse must already be here
    Can anyone else hear Martha and the Vandellas singing: ‘nowhere to run to, baby, nowhere to hide’?

    In spite of that grim reality, here are two sparks of light in the darkness enveloping us.
    John Oliver is a wonderful breath of sarcastic fresh air. Here is his report on florida destroying new college:


    and here is Jamie Raskin listing some of the tRUMP abuses of law and the nation:
    https://crooksandliars.com/cltv/2026/06/raskin-ticks-through-trump

  5. Reginald Selkirk says

    Squirrel poop dating back to last ice age is full of mammoth, horse DNA

    Scientists have reconstructed genomes of woolly mammoths, horses, steppe bison and ground squirrels that roamed the grasslands of the Canadian Arctic during the last ice age using DNA found in frozen squirrel poop from the Yukon.

    In fact, the fossil (though not turned to stone) feces or coprolites were full of DNA from animals, including wolves, predatory cats, mammoths, horses, birds, bats, grasshoppers and parasitic worms and 200 kinds of plants ranging from sages to sedges, reports the new study published Tuesday in Nature Communications. ..

    For hundreds of thousands of years, ground squirrels in the Arctic have dug burrows that include a toilet chamber.

    These poop-filled pockets have been eroding out of the valley walls along rivers. Murchie’s colleagues and co-authors in the Yukon have been collecting and preserving these burrows, which have other chambers full of fragments of snacks, ranging from plants to bones to insects, that the squirrels collected between 30,000 and 700,000 years ago.
    …
    At first, he was surprised by the amount of mammoth and horse DNA in the squirrel poop, but little research revealed that even modern squirrels will eat just about anything, from nuts to roadkill to smaller rodents, and clearly their prehistoric cousins weren’t picky.

    “If there happened to be nuts and seeds and their favorite plants, that was great. If there happened to be a dead mammoth over there or a dead horse or whatever else, they ate that. Or if there happened to be some poop of a horse over there, they ate that.” …

  6. Reginald Selkirk says

    ‘Always wash your fruits’: Calgary family finds black widow spider in grapes

    Grapes will never look the same to Sean Cardiff.

    The Calgarian had been eating out of a bag of red seedless grapes from a Calgary grocery store for two days before finding a highly venomous black widow spider in the bunch…

    Olds College entomologist Ken Fry says finding spiders in imported produce is “becoming more common” due to reduced pesticide use in grape production.

    “As growers and producers adopt more environmentally sensitive means of growing their food, that results in safer food for us, but then it also means that natural enemies like spiders and other predators will move into the crop,” he said…

  7. Reginald Selkirk says

    Southern Baptists vote to advance a formal ban on churches with women pastors

    Thousands of Southern Baptists overwhelmingly voted Wednesday to advance a formal ban on women pastors in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, sending a clear message that men alone should preach to these conservative evangelical congregations.

    The amendment would tighten existing restrictions in the Southern Baptist Convention, which already has a faith statement opposing women pastors.

    The vote at the annual meeting was 6,028 to 2,026 — a 3-to-1 margin — which easily exceeded the required two-thirds majority. It will require a similar two-thirds vote at next year’s meeting to become part of the constitution…

    “The Southern Baptist Church. Come for the slavery, stay for the misogyny”

  8. Reginald Selkirk says

    Claude Fable won’t answer basic biology questions

    Anthropic just released Claude Fable 5, calling it the most powerful AI model it has ever made widely available and praising its skills in biology, among others. But the model won’t answer basic biology questions — the kind you’d expect a high schooler to handle. Instead, it hands off the query to the former flagship model, Claude Opus 4.8.

    It isn’t because Fable doesn’t know the answers. It’s because Anthropic won’t let it, by design…

  9. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Reginald Selkirk @5:

    he was surprised by the amount of mammoth and horse DNA in the squirrel poop […] If there happened to be a dead mammoth over there or a dead horse or whatever else, they ate that.

    Dead, oorrr… crazed fluffy piranhas were taking down mammoths.
     
    Wikipedia – Kea

    The kea is a large parrot measuring 46 to 50 cm (18 to 20 in) in length […] at least some kea will attack and feed on healthy sheep. The video confirmed […] the kea uses its powerful, curved beak and claws to rip through the layer of wool and eat the fat from the back of the animal. Though the bird does not directly kill the sheep, death can result from infections or accidents […] There are also anecdotal reports of kea attacking rabbits, dogs, and even horses.

  11. StevoR says

    A Chinese rocket has lit up the skies across Queensland and northern New South Wales overnight, as it passed over north-eastern Australia.

    University of Southern Queensland astrophysicist Jonti Horner said the Zhuque-2E rocket was launched about 6:20pm from a Chinese satellite launch centre and was visible over Queensland about 20 minutes later last night.

    “We got a spectacular light show,” Professor Horner said. Professor Horner said the rocket’s height meant it was lit by the sun, even though night had fallen on the ground.

    “The rocket was above the atmosphere, and it did what I’ve seen described by some people as passivation,” he said.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-10/rocket-sighting-lights-australian-skies/106779074

  12. Reginald Selkirk says

    Angry bug hunter with Microsoft beef drops new Windows 0-day

    They are angry at Redmond and will have their revenge. Nightmare Eclipse, the prolific bug hunter and possibly disgruntled ex-Microsoft employee, disclosed another zero-day vulnerability just hours after Redmond issued a record-breaking number of CVEs and fixes for June Patch Tuesday.

    The latest zero-day, RoguePlanet, targets Microsoft Defender and works against fully patched Windows 10 and Windows 11 systems, according to the researcher, who also released proof-of-concept exploit code for the security flaw. Assuming the attacker can win a race condition, this bug allows local privilege escalation and leads to SYSTEM-level control over an affected machine…

  14. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    DailyBeast – Trump’s birthday cage fight is remarkably effective at repelling celebrities

    UFC President Dana White’s celebrity guest list, which he revealed included Adam Sandler, filmmaker Guy Ritchie, Tom Brady, Oscar winner Jared Leto, action star Jason Statham, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and TV host Mario Lopez, will come up empty for many—if not all—of those names.

    A source close to Johnson told the publication that the wrestler-turned-actor will not attend. Neither will Sandler, Leto, or even Lopez, who has publicly identified as a conservative. […] the remaining invitees had not responded to multiple requests for comment.
    […]
    On Friday, Trump announced that he would host a rally […] after most of the concert’s lineup backed out of the performance. Several of the artists—including Milli Vanilli, Bret Michaels, and Martina McBride—said they were told the show would be a nonpartisan event before pulling out. Others, like Vanilla Ice, were blindsided after they declined to leave with the mass exodus when Trump insulted all the performers and canceled the concert altogether.
    […]
    Trump’s presumably hand-picked artists include Lee Greenwood, the 83-year-old country singer whose signature hit, “God Bless the U.S.A.” was released in 1984 [and] Christopher Macchio, a 47-year-old opera singer who has just 571 monthly listeners on Spotify.

    Rando: “A-Lister, Mario Lopez.”

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