I had my MRI that identified a torn meniscus last week, and now at last I have an appointment where, I presume, I’ll find out what can be done. I have low expectations. I am a little worried that my appointment is with an orthopedic surgeon — I’d rather do PT than get surgery. I’ll find out shortly.
Never mind, the appointment is tomorrow, and I’m a doddering old fool so anxious to end my misery that I put the wrong date in my calendar.
This new Superman movie has triggered the same hysterical over-reaction that Barbie did: accuse it of being “woke”, be outraged that Superman was portrayed as an immigrant (like he’s always been portrayed), centering the story on kindness and opposition to war (ditto). The spectacle here isn’t the movie — it’s just a movie — but the way right-wing pundits have exploded with over-the-top hatred of the themes of the movie. It’s bizarre and stupid. Amanda Marcotte has an explanation for why they’re doing this.
The reasons right-wing pundits engage in this are transparent. The biggest is simple attention economics. Glomming onto popular topics is a good way to attract new audiences, especially those who may not be that political, and lure them into engaging with reactionary content. It also helps feed the paranoia that fuels the right, by propping up the narrative that all of pop culture is out to destroy them and their way of life. The ultimate goal is to persuade people to reject movies, music, TV and other cultural artifacts as “woke” or “Satanic,” and turn exclusively to MAGA influencers for their entertainment needs. Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire even has a movie studio where they turn out subpar content that only has an audience because they’ve convinced right-wingers to eschew quality films as too “liberal.”
My initial reaction when I saw right-wing media conduct its all-too-predictable tantrum over the new “Superman” movie was that it’s just more of the same: Claim it’s “woke” propaganda, work the audience into a tizzy of boycott threats and reap the reward of alienating their base further from the rest of society so that the MAGA cult is all they have left. Which, to be fair, is bad enough. But the actual content of the complaints made this whole exercise even more sinister. The attacks on “Superman” are part of a larger effort by the right to completely rewrite history, so they can pretend that being a patriotic American means embracing authoritarian values.
A positive story about an immigrant treating people with kindness defies the current Republican program. They need to demonize “wokeness” before people realize that mass deportations and concentration camps and giving a con artist a free run over the resources of the country is a bad idea.
This is part of a larger and far more serious effort by Trump and the MAGA movement to rewrite history, and therefore, to rewrite what the story of America even is. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been hyperfocused on erasing all acknowledgement that women, people of color and queer people have long served in the military, all to prop up his childish fantasy that the only real heroes are white men. Under the guise of stopping “DEI,” shorthand for “diversity, equity and inclusion,” Republicans are waging war on libraries and museums, censoring books and displays that reflect the basic truth that the U.S. has always been a multi-ethnic society. Republicans are getting increasingly aggressive about spreading Christian nationalist lies that the U.S. was founded as a functional theocracy, when it was intended to be a secular nation.
The Superman gambit is the pop culture version of this. In one sense, it’s not as big of a deal as the Trump administration systematically removing Black historical figures from the public record. But it’s still deeply troubling, precisely because it’s an attack on a story that’s so fundamental to American culture. The right understands how crucial storytelling is to the way a society views itself. Superman’s origin story is as much a part of the American identity as Betsy Ross and Abraham Lincoln. Before most of us grow up and learn the more complex story of how the United States was built by waves of immigrants who often endured plenty of racist resistance, we were warmed up to the idea by learning that the Man of Steel is an immigrant who hid his true nature until he realized he needed to unveil it to be a force for good.
It is just a movie, but it’s also a story to instill values that still, despite all attempts to erase them, are part of the American myth, and myths matter.
I tried to be fair and compare this “woke” movie to a right-wing counterpart, and there have been several examples in recent years. I’ve actually seen Run Hide Fight, an example of conservative myth-building. This one reinforces those tales of “rugged individualism” with the story of a school taken over by a group of psychopathic students who are ultimately by a girl who has had gun training and isn’t afraid to gun down the bad guys. It’s…fine? Professionally made, but ultimately boring and about as realistic as Superman, and I don’t feel like shrieking that it’s heralding the downfall of America. It’s just a predictable power-fantasy, which to the right-wing means using that power to kill the bad people.
Another movie that I haven’t seen, but have seen enough clips and reviews that I think I can judge it, was Lady Ballers, a movie about male athletes triumphing by pretending to be trans so they compete against women’s teams. It’s another power fantasy, where they pretend that all men are physically superior to women so they can humiliate those women who play basketball.
Neither of those movies had the appeal of Superman. Maybe the right-wingers need to stop and assess and focus on whatever positive values they want to promote, rather than imagining their enemies, fellow Americans, caricatured and crushed. It’s going to be hard since they’ve already crossed out truth, justice, equality, fairness, and empathy from their list of goals, which makes any story they come up with un-compelling.
This cartoon summary of spider evolution is titled “The Insane Evolution of Spiders.” It’s cute, but I haven’t figured out what’s insane about.
It all looks perfectly normal to me.
This is Brian Hooker, Ph.D., an anti-vaxxer who traveled to Texas during a measles outbreak to spread some anti-science propaganda. He’s best known as a promoter of the idea that vaccines cause autism. He was making a video with Ben Edwards, an anti-vax doctor working in the center of the Texas outbreak that killed three, who also contracted measles.
Brian Hooker, chief scientific officer of Children’s Health Defense, filmed an interview in west Texas in March with the parents of the six-year-old child who died from measles – the first measles death in the US in a decade.
The video promoted several dangerous myths about the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Two doses of the vaccine are 97% effective at preventing measles, a virus that can be deadly and can cause lifelong harm.
Now for the non-ironic ironic part:
Hooker and Polly Tommey, an anti-vaccine film-maker with Children’s Health Defense, also interviewed other Mennonite families in west Texas. And they visited the medical office of Ben Edwards while patients and Edwards himself had symptomatic measles, they said.
Hooker then traveled home to Redding, California, and developed measles symptoms, he said.
Full disclosure, 18 days after visiting Seminole, Texas, sitting in a measles clinic and being exposed to Doctor Ben with the measles, I got the measles. So cool,Hooker said.
So he exposed himself to the measles in Texas, then, while he was maximally contagious, he flew across the country to California, exposing everyone he encountered to the disease.
But don’t worry, Ben Edwards also gave him the cure.
Edwards has become quite popular in the severely undervaccinated community in Gaines County, Texas, the epicenter of the explosive outbreak that began in late January and continues to grow steadily. Edwards set up a makeshift measles clinic in Gaines and provides unproven treatments, such as cod liver oil, the antibiotic clarithromycin, and the glucocorticoid budesonide, which is used to treat asthma and Crohn’s disease.
It would be very nice if these two quacks would drop dead of a preventable disease.
Oklahoma is deep in the heart of Tornado Alley — this is where weather forecasting is a matter of life or death. It’s also a place infested with militias and right-wing “patriots” who have fully embraced a belief in mysterious government-controlled weather control machines. You can imagine the conflicts that emerge when the state builds weather prediction gear, and you have groups of people who are convinced the gubmint is intentionally targeting civilians with deadly tornadoes. Those groups are trying to destroy weather radars and cell phone towers.
A man who, years ago, became convinced a child sex-trafficking ring was operating at an abandoned cement plant in Tucson has moved to Oklahoma and found a new target: radar systems he believes the military and media use to control the weather.
Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer, who leads the anti-government group Veterans On Patrol, claimed credit for the July 6 sabotage of the weather radar system of KWTV-TV, Channel 9, in Oklahoma City. Meyer did not vandalize the station’s radar system himself, but had posted pleas on his group’s Telegram channel asking for others to join his cause.
Security footage posted by the television station showed a man tossing a bag over a chain-link fence, climbing it and damaging a power supply. The video then showed the man spray painting over the lens of a security camera.
You can see this idiot vandalizing the power supply for a weather radar.
The ringleader for this gang of vandals, Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer, has his own justification for the destruction.
“Eliminating directed energy weapons that are embedded in our infrastructure is not going to harm a single American,” he said. “It will take away a loaded weapon pointed at the American people.”
And of course he is a raving Christian Nationalist looney.
Last year, Meyer was part of an effort in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene for posing as an aid worker to encourage locals to tear down cell towers and attack the military.
“When the military plays God with the weather, they’re mocking our Heavenly Father by calling one of his most favorite instruments a ‘weather weapon,'” Meyer added.
Veterans on Patrol has their own page on the Southern Poverty Law Center. It’s not just weather forecasting that they hate!
Not only do we continue permitting the slaughter of our own Children in Abortion Sacrificial Centers…
Not only do we permit altering our Children’s DNA with Globalist Vaccinations that kill and sterilize…
Not only do we permit Government Agencies like CPS to abduct Children from their Parents…
Not only do we permit the Captivity, Rape, and Abuse of Migrant Children being trafficked by Catholic Charity Services…
We now permit Afghan Pedophiles to bring their Child Rape Victims for further Abuse on our own Soil…
Americans will reap horrible consequences for continuing to allow God’s Children to be defiled and abused.
I ask everyone to Pray for the Children… and I ask my Father to destroy this Nation for perpetuating evil equal to Sodom and Gomorrah.
Americans will not fight for these Children… May our Father in Heaven bring His Righteous Judgement upon this Satanic Nation claiming to be under Him
PREPARE YOUR FAMILIES.
Read that whole page. He has a long history of insane conspiracy theories and active destruction.
Here’s one odd thing: google Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer. There are lots of news stories about the guy being arrested, not showing up at court hearings, just generally running about sowing chaos. None of the arrests seem to have stuck! I found news of his arrest back in 2018, right up to 2025, yet journalists today are just calling him up and getting these insane comments. Meyer said his group was monitoring Oklahoma radars closely and claimed that there were no laws that could prevent them from destroying the radars.
This is an open, vocal right-wing terrorist who is allowed to continue his rampage with no significant impairment of his ability to blow shit up. All I can think is that he’s very clever about getting idiotic dupes to do his dirty work for him, like the goober in that video.
Just in case you spot this sanctimonious nutcase in your neighborhood, here’s a photo.
Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer
Lock him up!
Seahorses are weird animals. They depart from the typical streamlined torpedo shape of your average fish to construct this unusual twisted shape with dermal armor, toothless jaws, and a dependence on fins for propulsion — they’re just weirdos all around. How did they get to be this way?
One suggestion is that it is an extreme example of paedomorphosis, as presented in this paper: An embryonic arrest shapes the Syngnathid body plan: Insights from Seahorses, Pipefishes, and their Relatives.
The Syngnathidae (seahorses, seadragons, pipefish, pipehorses) exhibit a remarkable, enigmatic body plan, challenging conventional explanations for their fused jaws, toothlessness, cartilaginous skeleton, fin loss, male pregnancy, and their distinctive morphology, which includes the acute head-trunk angle of seahorses and the family’s unique curling, often prehensile, tail. We propose a unifying, parsimonious hypothesis, termed “pharyngulation,” that the entire lineage originated from a profound paedomorphic arrest (retention of juvenile traits) during a specific embryonic pharyngula stage. This arrest, likely driven by ancestral Hox gene cluster disintegration, fundamentally halted morphological progression in a common teleost ancestor. This single event explains their entire suite of primary characteristics–including universal low body mass and volume and unique A-P locomotion. It also establishes a framework to differentiate these foundational family-defining traits from ancestral features shared with the broader Syngnathiformes order (such as the elongated snout, as exemplified by Trumpetfish) and from later adaptive refinements, such as the leaf-like appendages in seadragons. Our “pharyngulation” hypothesis offers a novel, testable model for macroevolutionary innovation, demonstrating how a singular, profound alteration to a conserved developmental program can rapidly forge a new, viable body plan. This concept, synthesizing evidence from genomics, the fossil record, and developmental biology, is of broad interest to evolutionary biologists and developmental biologists alike.
Unfortunately, this paper only presents a hypothesis — no methods, no experiments, no substantial comparative data. I’ll forgive that since it does introduce the term “pharyngulation” into the scientific literature.
I was provoked to dig a little deeper, and found this paper: A comparative analysis of the ontogeny of syngnathids (pipefishes and seahorses) reveals how heterochrony contributed to their diversification. It supports some of the ideas of the first paper — heterochrony is right there in the title — and also includes some beautiful photos of syngnathid embryos.
Segmentation and early organogenesis development in examined syngnathids. Nerophis ophidion (A-F), Syngnathus typhle (G-K), and Hippocampus erectus (L-Q), respectively. In this period, species-specific characteristics develop more clearly. Arrowheads: blue = hind brain vesicle, green = pigmentation, rufous = mandibular arch, orange = dorsal fin condensations, white = hypertrophic hindgut, black = fin fold. Scale is 500 μm; dpm = days post mating
That’s a stage close to what we’d call the pharyngula stage (which doesn’t have a single discrete marker), and they look familiar — they look like longer, skinnier, more slowly developing zebrafish embryos, where the 19 day syngnathid looks like a 19 hour zebrafish. We have to wait a week or more to see an embryo that is comparable to, but very different from, a 24-48 hour old zebrafish embryo.
Organogenesis to release development in examined syngnathids. Nerophis ophidion (A-D), Syngnathus typhle (E-I), and Hippocampus erectus (J-O), respectively. The last prerelease period is characterized by snout elongation, continued pigmentation and the conclusion of allometric fin outgrowth. Arrowheads: black = fin fold. Scale is 500 μm; dpm = days post mating
And that’s where I see the problem with the paedomorphosis explanation. This is not simply a case of developmental arrest. There are clear differences in growth prior to the pharyngula stage, and the pharyngula stage is, at best, a point of divergence in development, and so much of what is happening at that point and thereafter is the appearance of evolutionary novelties. It’s not so much that the pattern stops, as that there are a whole host of additions to the organization of the syngnathid body plan in embryogenesis.
Also, data is always pretty.
I just learned that Jimmy Swaggart died earlier this month. He was a terrible human being, a televangelist, an occupation that is an automatic red flag for a sleazy parasite, without question. I dare you to name a single televangelist who isn’t a con artist, and Swaggart was one of the early members of that ilk who did a marvelous job of representing the poison of organized religion. He’s best known for this performance:
He was weeping crocodile tears because he’d been exposed. He’d defamed a fellow Assemblies of God minister, Marvin Gorman, who was a competitor for the leadership of the denomination, and in revenge, Gorman staked out a motel that everyone knew was where Swaggart met with prostitutes, and caught him in the act. It was a sordid and surprisingly typical episode in the life of this slimeball. A few years later he was caught with another prostitute, but it didn’t matter because he’d founded his own independent ministry.
He died, a still popular televangelist, and was even inducted into the Southern Gospel Music Hall of Fame. The wicked always win in Christianity.
It may not seem related, but it is — this morning I watched the latest video from Mikey Neumann, about the movie The Kingdom of Heaven. I’ve never seen it, because I knew enough of the history of the Crusades to know it was an even more wicked series of examples of Christian hypocrisy, exploitation, and murder that resonates today with all the horror going on in Gaza, Iran, Syria, and Israel. This kind of behavior is characteristic of organized religion, do I really need to watch a whole long movie that illustrates it?
Maybe I should. Neumann brings a humanist/agnostic perspective to his review that makes me think I might just like the movie very much. It seems to affirm my negative opinion of religion, and emphasizes the value of human life — against the background of some of the most bloody, venal, and pointless historical events of the Middle Ages.
Have any of my readers seen the movie? This is your chance to chastise me for not seeing it, or congratulate me on avoiding a 3 hour slog. I’m tempted to correct my ignorance by streaming the movie.
Do I need to make the connection between a horrible series of wars and the petty life of Jimmy Swaggart more explicit? This is a Christian fantasy still thriving, that we need to encourage more death and destruction in the Middle East for the glory of God.
Not this kind of car, though. It just won’t do.
I’m going mad here. I’ve got limited mobility — I’m supposed to take it easy, but I can limp around, and I’m able to drive, but I have limited access to a car (my wife needs it to go to work), and I’m only good for short walks. That means I’m more or less confined to my house. I get out twice a week to go to the lab because I need to take care of the animals, but otherwise I’m bouncing off the walls.
This weekend that got translated into sitting in my home office and reorganizing. My computers have benefitted, with all the cables getting tidied and accumulated gadgets getting purged and stored away. I am much more efficient at sitting quietly and staying out of mischief, which I am finding frustrating. So I’m fantasizing about escape.
Before getting laid up, I was planning a day trip to Granite Falls, about an hour drive away from me. The route would follow the Minnesota River, and there are parks and wildlife management areas all along the way, that are probably full of spiders. At the end of the drive there’s something called the Fagen Fighters WWII Museum, which looks interesting. The plan was to make frequent stops and hike around, maybe a picnic, that sort of thing…which is off limits right now. I’ve lived here for 25 years and never even knew about this museum! But table that for now.
Another thing I was looking into was our regional creationist group, the Twin Cities Creation Science Association, a dreary, tedious group of Christian weirdos who have found a home in Minnesota. I should probably spend some time dismantling the local nonsense. I did see that the Christian twit, Brian Lauer, is doing a YouTube debate next week — I can spectate that! And maybe add some commentary. Unfortunately, it’s organized by the odious Donny Budinsky, so it’s not going to be particularly informative.
More interestingly, they’re planning a creationist trip to Como Zoo. I love Como Zoo! I could see joining their little group, documenting (not disrupting) their absurdities, and spending a lovely afternoon strolling through a very pretty park. That’s on 19 August, about a month away, so I can hope to be a little more mobile by then. I’m meeting with my orthopedist on Tuesday, so we’ll see what she says about expanding my activities a bit more.
I have high hopes for my doctor’s appointment this week. If she tells me I have to stay off my feet longer, well…my office is going to be incredibly tidy and shiny.
He was repulsive and vile and creepy. His clientele, likewise. Apparently, though, this guy is the topic du jour, along with his best buddy, Donald Trump. The Wall Street Journal published a description (but not a photo) of the birthday card Trump sent Epstein in 2003, which was sleazily suggestive. It had some kind of crude sketch of a naked woman with references to “secrets”, which just sounds cheesy.
I hated Trump long before this revelation, and knew he was creepy and dishonest all along. I don’t need this crap to know he’s unfit for office and polite company. I’m mainly disappointed with humanity for being so incapable of recognizing a patent truth for so long.
I’ll let Voidzilla tell the story and where it stands now.
If this is Trump’s downfall, I’m going to be simultaneously relieved and pissed off. He should have been discredited with the grab ’em by the pussy
remark or earlier. And now we have to live with the consequences of his wrecking ball approach to governing.
Here’s some news to give you the heebie-jeebies. There is a vulnerability in trains where someone can remotely lock the brakes with a radio link. The railroad companies have known about this since at least 2012, but have done nothing about it.
Well, at first I wasn’t concerned — the rail network in the US is so complex and poorly run that it’s unlikely that I’d ever ride a train. But I thought that just as I heard one of the multiple trains that cruise through Morris, about a half-mile from my home, rumble through. That could be bad. Train technology is one of those things we can often ignore until something goes wrong.
For real scary, we have to look at the emerging drone technology. It’s bloody great stuff in Ukraine, where we see a Ukrainian/Russian arms race to make ever more deadly little robots.
Russia is using the self-piloting abilities of AI in its new MS001 drone that is currently being field-tested. Ukrainian Major General Vladyslav Klochkov wrote in a LinkedIn post that MS001 is able to see, analyze, decide, and strike without external commands. It also boasts thermal vision, real-time telemetry, and can operate as part of a swarm.
…
The MS001 doesn’t need coordinates; it is able to take independent actions as if someone was controlling the UAV. The drone is able to identify targets, select the highest priorities, and adjust its trajectories. Even GPS jamming and target maneuvers can prove ineffective. “It is a digital predator,” Klochkov warned.
Isn’t science wonderful? The American defense industry is also building these things, which are also sexy and dramatic, as demonstrated in this promotional video.
Any idiot can fly one of these things, which is exactly the qualifications the military demands.
While FPV operators need sharp reflexes and weeks of training and practice, Bolt-M removes the need for a skilled operator with a point-and-click interface to select the target. An AI pilot does all the work. (You could argue whether it even counts as FPV). Once locked on, Bolt-M will continue automatically to the target even if communications are lost, giving it a high degree of immunity to electronic warfare.
Just tell the little machine what you want to destroy, click the button, and off it goes to deliver 3 pounds of high explosive to whatever you want. It makes remotely triggering a train’s brakes look mild.
I suppose it is a war of the machines, but I think it’s going to involve a lot of dead people.
