Exams and Fish Tacos and John Wick

I have just posted the final midterm (it’s an online exam) of my genetics class. The semester is almost over!

I will still have to put together two finals for my two classes, but that’s next week. I can shut off my brain for a little while.

Now also I’m a free-spirited bachelor for a week, as my wife gets to go spend time with our granddaughter. I don’t get to go, because there’s still a week of classes left. I’m going to drown my sorrows and celebrate the completion of this exam by walking downtown to the Mexican restaurant for fish tacos, and then I’m strolling over to the theater to see John Wick 4. I like Keanu Reeves, but he’s pushing my patience with this 2 hour and 49 minute movie. Good thing I got my work done.

Tomorrow I’m going out again — a student gave me a free ticket to the UM Morris Concert Choir and Vocal Jazz concert. I’m going to strive mightily to make Mary regret leaving me for a week!

Another judge caught with his snout in the trough

Here we go again. Justice John Roberts has been profiting from his position via his wife’s lucrative headhunting.

Jane Roberts was paid more than $10 million by a host of elite law firms, a whistleblower alleges.
At least one of those firms argued a case before Chief Justice Roberts after paying his wife hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Details of Jane Roberts’ work come as Congress struggles to reform the Court’s self-policed ethics.

Here, let’s slather a little more juicy slop into the trough. He refuses to testify about Supreme Court ethics because it might compromise “separation of powers concerns” and “judicial independence.”

Chief Justice John Roberts has notified Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin that he won’t testify at an upcoming hearing on Supreme Court ethics, instead releasing a new statement signed by all nine justices that is meant to provide “clarity” to the public about the high court’s ethics practices.

When will congress learn that you don’t ask the crooks to dictate what the law should be? You tell them.

Men behaving badly

Yesterday, I mentioned that horrible right-wing “comedian” Steven Crowder was getting divorced, and several of you replied, “Who?” Oh, how I envy you. More ugly details have emerged, specifically, videos of Steven and Hilary Crowder’s normal daily interactions. Hilary is trying to get stuff done and is incredibly conciliatory while Steven lounges with a cigar telling her what she can and can’t do, while being verbally abusive.

In the Ring camera video, which was captured on June 26, 2021, Steven Crowder is angry as he sits on the patio smoking, and Hilary Crowder is in a state of motion as she prepares to leave the house.

Steven Crowder insists that Hilary not take their one car to run errands as it would keep him housebound and that she, at nearly eight months pregnant, should take an UBER.

He also berates her for not doing her “wifely duties,” like grocery shopping, in a way that pleases him.

Tensions rise as Steven Crowder gets more agitated.

“Feeling some constraint?” Crowder said to his wife.

Crowder gets irritated and says that if Hilary, his very pregnant wife, takes the car, he can’t go to the gym, see his parents, or see his friends.

“The only way out of it is discipline and respect,” Crowder said to his wife.

Hilary Crowder, in an attempt to leave, tells her husband that she loves him and that she’s committed to the marriage.

Steven Crowder gets angrier and suggests that if she is committed to their marriage, she should put on gloves to give his dogs the medicine that his wife was concerned was toxic for pregnant women and walk their dogs.

As they headed inside, Crowder got angrier and angrier and was, by his admission (via audio I reviewed) yelling angrily and said, “I will fuck you up.” According to both Crowders, Steven immediately pulled back and realized what he said. But by that point, Hilary was frightened and left the house.

Hilary Crowder has since left his childlike ass, and has issued a statement that reads, in part:

“Hilary is currently living alone in Dallas, apart from her family and support system in Michigan, and is focused on taking care of her young children. She is not prepared at this time to speak about her divorce becoming public or the misleading statements made by Steven about their relationship.

The truth is that Hilary spent years hiding Steven’s mentally and emotionally abusive behavior from her friends and family while she attempted to save their marriage. She was the one who was asking to work on their relationship to keep the marriage intact for their unborn children.”

The video supports her claim that she was in a “mentally and emotionally abusive” relationship, and then some. Steven Crowder might not want to contest any legal decisions about alimony in their divorce, because she has his balls nailed to the wall right now.

That’s Steven Crowder, he’s done. I also mentioned the rape trial of Donald Trump. E. Jean Carroll was cross-examined yesterday. Trump’s lawyer, Joe Tacopina, settled on a familiar strategy: abusing the victim of the crime to discredit her. For instance, the fact that she did not scream was used to imply that she wasn’t actually raped.

Tacopina later attacked Carroll’s trustworthiness based upon her testimony that she laughed, but did not scream, when Donald Trump started to rape her. It did not go well for him.

Q: In fact, in response to this supposedly serious situation that you viewed as a fight, where you got physically hurt, it’s your story that you not only didn’t scream out, but you started laughing?

A: I did not scream. I started laughing. That is right. I don’t think I started laughing. I think I was laughing going into the dressing room, and I think I laughed pretty consistently after the kiss to absolutely throw cold water on anything he thought was about to happen. Laughing is a very good—I use the word weapon—to calm a man down if he has any erotic intention.

Undeterred, Tacopina doubled down on his attack.

Q: When you’re fighting and being sexually assaulted and raped, because you are not a screamer, as you describe it, you wouldn’t scream?

A: I’m not a screamer. You can’t beat up on me for not screaming.

It’s hideous what that lawyer is trying to do to the victim of a crime. Other lawyers aren’t impressed, either.

As I wrote yesterday, I do not know whether the jurors believed Carroll’s direct testimony that she was raped by Trump. Based on my 25+ years as a trial attorney, including service as an Assistant United States Attorney who focused on sex crimes, I am confident that any juror who did not already believe that Ms. Carroll lied in her direct testimony would not have been persuaded by any of the cross-examination that she was a liar.

In fact, it appeared that Tacopina—who is a very capable trial attorney—had an agenda that valued being mean to Ms. Carroll over undercutting her credibility. I would not be surprised if that was a direct order from Donald Trump.

Joe Tacopina can go home and lounge on his patio with a cigar now. I am deeply repulsed by what some men consider acceptable behavior. I’m just hoping that these are two women who will emerge triumphant.

A good and lively conversation about bad, tired AI

Adam Conover talks with Emily Bender and Timnit Gebru about stochastic parrots (an excellent label for the surge of interest in “AI,” which really isn’t intelligent).

What I found most interesting was the discussion of TESCREAL, the blanket term for “transhumanism, extropy, singularitarianism, cosmism, rationalism, effective altruism, and longtermism” — and what a muddled, vague, pretentious mess all those topics are. Skip ahead to the 53 minute mark for some horrifying revelations: they talk about the recent letter from the gung-ho Open AI people suggesting a “pause” in development, and an opinion piece that starts out by discussing a definition for “intelligence”. Bender & Gebru looked at the footnotes and what they cited for that — it’s an op-ed defending The Bell Curve! It’s written (or signed) by a bunch of researchers at Microsoft who are using this information as the foundation of their understanding of what intelligence is. They cite a paper that says,

IQ is real, the measures of it are good, they are not racist, and yes, there are group level differences in IQ where Jews and Asians are the smartest but we don’t know exactly how much, and then you’ve got the white people centered around 100, and then they say but the black people are centered around 85.

Jesus. The bad ideas of eugenics and scientific racism have sunk very deep roots. Nineteenth century biology/natural history has significantly tainted all of the sciences with their ugly colonialist/imperialist beliefs, and it’s going to take a long time to dig them out.

How can anyone find this to be a bad idea?

When I’m feeling cynical, I’d say that Mattel has figured out another way to extract money from people…but honestly, this is also wonderfully nice. They’re making a Down Syndrome Barbie. Every kid deserves a little happiness and recognition of their existence.

Unfortunately, and predictably, right-wing a-holes are mocking the idea. Here’s Steven Crowder and his crew sniggering at the retards over this toy.

Crowder recently announced that he was getting divorced (he’s also pissed that no-fault divorce means his wife has the right to leave him). His reaction here might explain why his ex-wife got fed up with him.

The rapist who would be president

I guess this must not be an important story, because both the NY Times and the Washington Post have buried it in small articles far down on their pages…but it seems like it ought to be a big deal. Donald Trump is being tried for the rape of E. Jean Carroll. The leading Republican candidate for the presidency has been credibly accused of rape. Maybe we ought to care a lot more about that? Everything in the account is consistent, and fits with what we know about the man. Carroll has testified:

In a heart-wrenching testimony, Carroll told her story once again: She hung out with Trump on a whim. They bantered. Then he raped her. She was so scarred by the experience, she said, that she was “unable to ever have a romantic life again.” This, too, is consistent with her first public recounting of this story, published in her book and in New York magazine in 2019: “I have never had sex with anybody ever again.”

Donald Trump is the cure for desire. I believe it.

While Carroll has been present and bravely telling a story that clearly hurts her deeply, Trump is not present in the courtroom. His lawyers (who are scum-sucking creeps, whose only defense is to slander the victim) have wisely chosen to keep him away.

Of course, there’s a pragmatic reason to keep Trump away, which is that he’s too undisciplined. He can’t keep his story straight regarding sexual abuse, and whether he’s for it or against it. During the deposition, for instance, Trump tried to stick to his story that no encounter happened. But, being the sexist pig he is, he kept veering very close to contradicting himself in order to invoke another sexist myth about rape, which is that victims are asking for it.

“She actually indicated that she loved it,” he grumbled during the October 19, 2022 testimony, referring to a CNN interview he watched with Carroll. “In fact, I think she said it was sexy, didn’t she? She said it was very sexy to be raped.”

Carroll’s attorney almost caught him, by replying, “So, sir, I just want to confirm:· It’s your testimony that E. Jean Carroll said that she loved being sexually assaulted by you?” Seemingly realizing his screw-up, Trump back-tracked and started dithering about how he was merely speculating about her mental acuity based on a cable news program. But one can see from this, and from Trump’s social media posts, why his lawyers are so worried he will let some damning detail slip if he’s under the pressure of cross-examination.

He’s a corrupt fool and a rapist, but he’s still running for the highest office in the land. The Supreme Court has been packed with corrupt and untrustworthy lickspittles to the rich. There is no justice in America.

Whoa, it’s been an awful long time since I had a french fry. Must be why I’m depressed.

Articles about nutrition are among the least interesting science articles I read. I’d like to care more, nutrition is important and affects our lives significantly, but so many of them look like this:

A research team in Hangzhou, China, found that frequent consumption of fried foods, especially fried potatoes, was linked with a 12% higher risk of anxiety and 7% higher risk of depression than in people who didn’t eat fried foods.

They fit into a simple template. We fished up a small statistical correlation of simple cause A to complex behavioral/physiological phenomenon B. It’s annoying because they don’t have a mechanistic explanation, only a correlation, and their result is the product of a huge amount of work.

The study evaluated 140,728 people over 11.3 years. After excluding participants diagnosed with depression within the first two years, a total of 8,294 cases of anxiety and 12,735 cases of depression were found in those that consumed fried food, while specifically fried potatoes were found to have a 2% increase in risk of depression over fried white meat.

The study had also found that the participants consuming more than one serving of fried food regularly were more likely to be younger men.

One hundred forty thousand subjects over 11 years! And all they have to show for it is that feeble increase in likelihood that young men who eat fried foods are somewhat more depressed and anxious. Oh, how surprising. Have they considered that cheap fried fast food might be what people who are depressed and anxious might choose to eat? Or worse, might have limited choices in what they can eat?

Instead, let’s look to animal models, specifically zebrafish. These researchers do some impressively detailed, thorough analyses of zebrafish behavior after they add up to 0.5mM acrylamide to their tanks. The fish didn’t like it.

In the new study, the researchers suggest that acrylamide, a chemical formed during the frying process, especially in fried potatoes, is to blame for the higher risk of anxiety and depression.

In a separate paper referenced in the new study, the researchers exposed zebrafish to the chemical, finding that long-term exposure had caused the fish to dwell in dark zones within the tank, a common sign of a higher anxiety level in the fish.

The zebrafish had also displayed a reduced ability to explore their tanks and socialize, as they did not swim closely with other zebrafish, even though zebrafish are known to form schools with their species.

I worked with zebrafish for many years and am familiar with their behavior. They are flighty and sensitive; it’s easy to provoke changes in behavior. They’re like people in that regard. Throwing software at detailed video analyses of their behavior might generate tons of numbers and lots of graphs, but I fail to see what we learn from it, beyond that short summary: they didn’t like acrylamide.


Behavioral profiles of zebrafish by the long-term exposure to acrylamide in the novel object exploration test and the social preference test. (A) Representative swimming trajectories of zebrafish in the control group and three acrylamide exposure groups (0 mM wide type, 0.125 mM, 0.25 mM, and 0.5 mM). A novel object for zebrafish was placed in the left part (Zone 1) and the right part was Zone 2. (B) Heatmap visualization of zebrafish trajectories in the novel object exploration test. (C) Duration time spent in Zone 1 or Zone 2 of total time (%). (D) Distance traveled in Zone 1 or Zone 2 of total distance (%). (E) Representative swimming trajectories of zebrafish in different groups (0 mM wide type, 0.125 mM, 0.25 mM, and 0.5 mM). (F) Radar chart of 12 behavioral parameters of zebrafish in different groups (0 mM wide type, 0.125 mM, 0.25 mM, and 0.5 mM). a, duration; b, distance; c, average velocity (cm/s); d, accelerated speed; e, average entry time duration (s); f, turning angle (°); g, turning angle (°)/time; h, activity; i, rapid move ratio; j, normal move ratio; k, freezing time ratio (s); l, freezing time duration (s). (G) Heatmap visualization of zebrafish trajectories in the social preference test. (H) Duration time spent in the left or right chamber of total time (%). (I) Distance traveled in the left or right chamber of total distance (%). (J) Traversing times between the left and right chambers. (K) Numbers of crossing the middle line. (L) Hierarchical clustering of zebrafish in the social preference test. All the histograms were present with mean ± SEM, while all behavioral parameter data were analyzed by the two-way ANOVA followed by multiple comparisons or the one-way ANOVA followed by the Turkey post hoc test. The level of significance was defined as *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, ****P < 0.0001; #P < 0.05, ##P < 0.01, ###P < 0.001, ####P < 0.0001 (* indicates significance between different groups and # indicates significance between different regions within the same group).


Yep, I believe it. Stress zebrafish by dosing their tank with a strange small molecule, and stressed zebrafish are stressed. They proved it, I’m satisfied. I am more than satisfied, I must concur: they have quantified to a remarkable degree that zebrafish are stressed by the presence of one component of french fried potatoes in their tanks. That’s total overkill.

I would just ask, do you think fast food workers are stressed by the omnipresent smell of fried foods in their clothes, their hair, the air they breathe? Does that suggest that you have identified the specific biological agent that causes anxiety and depression? No, it does not.

I respect the amount of work that went into the analysis, and think that every bit of knowledge we gain from research is worthwhile. But is it “run to CNN and let the world know that french fries cause depression” level of worthwhile? Is it even “publish in PNAS” worthwhile? OMG, is it “16 authors!” worthwhile?


Anli Wang, Xuzhi Wan, Pan Zhuang, Wei Jia, Yang Ao, Xiaohui Liu, Yimei Tian, Li Zhu, Yingyu Huang, Jianxin Yao, Binjie Wang, Yuanzhao Wu, Zhongshi Xu, Jiye Wang, Weixuan Yao, Jingjing Jiao, and Yu Zhang (2023) High fried food consumption impacts anxiety and depression due to lipid metabolism disturbance and neuroinflammation. PNAS 120(18) e2221097120.

Two losers having a perfectly normal conversation

Tucker Carlson has been fired, Elon Musk has been exposed as an incompetent twit, so let’s look back at those heady, long-ago (a bit more than a week) times when the two of them would sit down as equals and solemnly discuss the important stuff — like how birth control is destroying civilization.

CARLSON: I mean, the urge to have sex and to procreate is – after breathing and eating – the most basic urge. How has it been subverted?

MUSK: Well, it’s just, in the past we could rely upon, you know, simple limbic system rewards in order to procreate. But once you have birth control and abortions and whatnot, now you can still satisfy limbic instinct, but not procreate.

So we haven’t yet evolved to deal with that because this is all fairly recent, the last 50 years or so for birth control. I’m sort of worried that hey, civilization, if we don’t make enough people to at least sustain our numbers, perhaps increase a little bit, then civilization’s going to crumble. The old question of like, will civilization end with a bang or a whimper? Well, it’s currently trying to end with a whimper in adult diapers, which is depressing as hell.

CARLSON: The most depressing.

MUSK: I mean, seriously, yeah.

CARLSON: War is less depressing.

MUSK: Yeah, I’d rather go out with a bang.

CARLSON: With your shoes on, not with your diaper on.

I’m really curious to know how he thinks we would “evolve” to deal with birth control. We seem to be reproducing just fine, population numbers are generally going up, and voluntarily reducing child birth seems to be a good way to deal with the other “problem,” the radical reduction in infant mortality rates, thanks to modern medicine and hygiene. I would think environmental stressors, gross economic inequities, and the assault on successful institutions, like education and democracy, are going to be a far bigger problem for civilization than the fact that the growth curve is flattening. Maybe what he’s worrying about is more that capitalism is crumbling, not civilization. Those aren’t synonyms for each other, you know.

Also really revolting is the idea that war is less depressing than reproductive freedom. Please, Elon, if you find it so horrible, do “go out with a bang.” The sooner the better.

Hey, maybe Carlson getting fired is how “evolution” is dealing with it, and Musk’s rapid erosion of reputation and wealth is simply Darwin’s invisible hand.