It’s all cringe

I occasionally look in on our local racist cult — but not very often, because dear god, they are boring. We have an Asatru chapter near us, in Murdock, Minnesota, which was initially controversial when they bought an old church and announced that they were establishing a whites-only congregation. Since then, though, they’ve been quiet, festering in their small town enclave. That’s a danger, so I check in on their website now and then, because I half-expect to erupt and collapse at some time, which can be either hilarious or horrifying.

Asatru is a very silly religion…although, to be fair, all religions are absurd and fundamentally stupid. New religions just look particularly goofy because the older faiths benefit from familiarity. Mormonism, for instance, is crazy and unbelievable because we know it’s relatively recent and its con man founder, while Catholicism’s origins are buried in the murk of ancient history, and its founder is walled off behind thick layers of myth. Asatru was conjured up in 1972 by a couple of old guys meeting in a cafe in Reykjavik, built on a framework of myths and historical practices from the Edda, a book (the Prose Edda, at least, the Poetic Edda has older roots) written by a Christian in the 13th century. The old Norse religion has been dead for centuries. The Asatru folk are trying to resurrect a faith that has long been dead and buried in its grave.

I live in a state full of the descendants of Scandinavian immigrants, and they all came here steeped in the dogma of the Lutheran church (with a scattering of Catholics), and there was no heritage of Old Norse pagan religion among them.

The local Asatru chapter, called the Baldrshof, seems to be largely struggling to invent a mythological foundation in scraps of lore. A couple of their leaders meet once a week to record a video of their godawful boring conversations about Asatru; their channel is called Victory Never Sleeps, a title that is pretentious and nonsensical. These videos are painful to watch.

They’re 2 or 3 hours long, and they talk fantasy. I can’t watch them. They could be imbedding secret codes and nefarious plots in short messages deep in the long-winded drone and the FBI and I wouldn’t notice. They have been putting out short videos, too, that are more digestible but equally dull and silly. Here’s Matthew Flavel, the head of the local church, babbling.

When people see pictures of us, and see that those guys are Asatru, does that elevate the Aesir and our ancestors, or is it a cause for them to be ashamed?…Does that interaction bring glory to the Aesir and our ancestors, or does it make them cringe?

I have some good news for him: they aren’t cringing, because the Aesir don’t exist and his ancestors are all dead. The bad news for the rest of us is that tales of Norse folklore is a smokescreen. The rest of the world around them are doing the cringing. And we know that they have a different motivation. It’s racism.

The myth cycle, our powerful truths, they’re not literal truths, they’re pathways to truth. They show us truth in ways that our mind and our soul is uniquely capable of understanding the divine. And you find that because that’s developed through thousands of years of the experiences of our people. That’s why I think it is uniquely suited to each of as people of Northern European descent, as people who trace their roots back to that font of Aryan consciousness to embrace that spirituality. And you see that expressed throughout Europe and in little corners of the rest of the world that have since been diluted by white genocide. – Excerpt from “Asatru: A White Man’s Religion,” a speech current AFA leader Matt Flavel delivered at the Northwest Forum, a conference organized by white nationalist Greg Johnson of Counter-Currents Publishing

If the Ethnic European Folk cease to exist Asatru would likewise no longer exist. Let us be clear: by Ethnic European Folk we mean white people. It is our collective will that we not only survive, but thrive, and continue our evolution in the direction of the Infinite. All native religions spring from the unique collective soul of a particular race. Religions are not arbitrary or accidental; body, mind and spirit are all shaped by the evolutionary history of the group and are thus interrelated. Asatru is not just what we believe, it is what we are. Therefore, the survival and welfare of the Ethnic European Folk as a cultural and biological group is a religious imperative for the AFA. – Second point in the Asatru Folk Assembly’s current “Declaration of Purpose,” featured on the organization’s website

So I keep an eye on the local Asatru, boring as they are. I’m hoping they’re just going to continue to wallow in made-up folklore and fade into irrelevance, but you never know — the Mormons and the Catholic Church were also once a small cult of people with silly beliefs, too.

Does anyone object to invading Hitler’s privacy?

I don’t.

When Hitler blew his brains out in the bunker, he splattered the upholstery with blood. An American soldier cut out a swatch of bloody cloth and kept it as a morbid souvenir, eventually donating it to a museum, and recently, geneticists sequenced the sample. Guess what they found?

Most of the interpretations were ambiguous, but they did find one specific abnormality in his genome.

The research is due to be published in a scientific journal, but the key finding is this: Hitler had Kallmann syndrome, a genetic disorder that hinders the normal progression of puberty and the development of sexual organs. Derogatory songs from the war about Hitler’s anatomy may have been meant in jest but, it transpires, they were not just accurate but probably did not go far enough.

A 1923 medical examination of Hitler, which was uncovered in 2015, showed that the Nazi leader did indeed have an undescended testicle but, while we do not know exactly how it manifested, Hitler’s newly discovered genetic condition would have also affected his testosterone levels. It means he had a one in ten chance of having a micropenis. This is suggested by stories from the First World War, where Hitler was bullied over the size of his genitalia.

The genetic finding, while definitive, can only allow for speculation in terms of its impact on Hitler. However, it seems likely that he would have struggled to form sexual relationships, and one historian believes this could prove critical in our understanding of Hitler’s rise to power.

Speculation. That’s an important word. There’s only a limited set of conclusions one can draw from the genetics…but hey, some people are going to go wild with it.

Alex J Kay, a historian at the University of Potsdam, who specialises in Nazi Germany and is a key authority in the documentary, said: “This would help to explain Hitler’s highly unusual and almost complete devotion to politics in his life to the almost complete exclusion of any kind of private life.

“Other senior Nazis had wives, children, even extramarital affairs. Hitler is the one person among the whole Nazi leadership who doesn’t. Therefore, I think that only under Hitler could the Nazi movement have come to power.”

Ugh. No. Those are some sweeping conclusions to draw from a genetic sequence. The geneticists seem to be well aware of the limitations of their analysis, but fortunately for their sensational documentary, they managed to find an irresponsible historian to draw excessive conclusions.

Exotic berries

After a long morning cleaning up after so many spiders, I had to pick up a few things from the grocery store, and fixed a light lunch of rice cakes with strawberry yogurt and berries on top, which is simple and quick and good for me and my wife.

This teeny-tiny package of blackberries cost $4.

I remember standing in front of a big blackberry bush and stripping off more blackberries than that in one handful and stuffing them into my mouth. Wouldn’t even have to move, just pulling them off a single branch.

I went ahead and bought them out of a sense of nostalgia. They were good, but I’m not going to be able to afford to do that very often.

She was asking for it

A professor in Indiana has been removed from her class after a student complained.

A lecturer in the Indiana University School of Social Work has been removed from teaching one of her classes — “Diversity, Human Rights, and Social Justice” — while the university investigates a complaint by a student against material she presented.

Whoa. The class was titled “Diversity, Human Rights, and Social Justice”? That’s just asking for it. MAGA hates all three of those things. They want uniformity, not diversity. Human rights are a thing to be trampled. Social injustice is what they favor.

Jessica Adams joined the school as a lecturer last year. She spoke at a press conference with campus activist groups Friday against what she sees as an unfair process and accusation.

“I as an instructor should have the ability to bring those ideas into my class,” Adams said.

She said a student submitted the complaint to the office of U.S. Senator Jim Banks over a graphic she used in her class. Adams said Banks’ office then contacted her dean.

I’m trying to see this event from the perspective of the student. They signed up for a course titled “Diversity, Human Rights, and Social Justice” — they had to know what they were in for. Did they think it was going to be a course bashing all those things? No. They were looking for something to complain about.

And they complained to their senator? Jesus. And then the senator tried to dictate what should be taught? Absolutely nuts.

Here’s the graphic that annoyed the student and senator.

What’s the objection? What would offend a MAGA? Be specific. Explain why you would disagree that one of those phrases is fundamentally racist, or supporting white supremacy. That’s the kind of question I would ask of the class, if I were teaching a sociology course (I’m not, fortunately, since I don’t have the expertise).

I am preparing a unit on the misuse of genetics by racists for my spring genetics course. I hope my students don’t report me to Amy Klobuchar or Tina Smith.

What’s up with 3I/ATLAS now?

There’s nothing new. It’s a big space rock passing through empty space, not even coming close to us or interacting in any significant way with anything in the solar system.

That’s all the 3I/ATLAS news. Bye!

Oh, but wait, we can rely on Avi Loeb to invent news. Apparently, some “experts” are alarmed!

3I/ATLAS Alarms Experts—NASA, Avi Loeb, Nostradamus and Baba Vanga Clash Over Earth’s Fate

I am amused that the A-team for studying an astronomical body is Avi Loeb, Nostradamus, and Baba Vanga (a Bulgarian psychic). Do not downplay the importance of AI in interpreting images of the body. Here’s a rather speculative reconstruction of 3I/ATLAS.

Yeah, right.

Loeb restrained himself and did not post that image. Instead, he posted an picture of an antimatter-propelled spaceship.

For a little sanity, let’s see what real scientists think of that idea.

Mainstream scientists [Loeb is not one] have met the claim with skepticism. Dr. Samantha Lawler, an astrophysicist at the University of Regina, told EarthSky: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the evidence presented is absolutely not extraordinary.” NASA officials, cited by The Guardian, said 3I/ATLAS “behaves like a natural comet in all observable ways.” Astronomers emphasize that non-gravitational acceleration is typical in icy bodies when sublimating gases create jets that push them slightly off course.

Cosmologists have also dismissed the antimatter theory as inconsistent with known cosmic distributions. Studies published on arXiv indicate that if antimatter concentrations of that scale existed, they would produce gamma-ray backgrounds already detectable by instruments such as Fermi. Loeb himself acknowledged the contradiction, writing that large antimatter bodies “should have been destroyed soon after the Big Bang.”

Loeb is a crackpot, and a high-ranking member of the Harvard faculty. What does that say about Harvard?

I love a good NYT takedown

Zohran Mamdani graduated from a small (but wealthy) liberal arts school, Bowdoin College, with a degree in Africana Studies. It’s a good and reputable degree from a reputable college, so that’s nothing to complain about, but the NY Times sent a reporter to talk to professors at Bowdoin, transparently with the intent to find dirt on Mamdani’s education.

The article has been published, and as expected, it’s an exercise in slimy innuendo that tries to indict the whole educational system as leftist political propaganda. You can expect nothing else from the NY Times. Here’s the summary of what the article said.

Mr. Mamdani graduated in 2014 from Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Maine, with a bachelor’s degree in Africana studies. And his experience there—readings of critical race theorists in the classroom and activism for left-wing causes on campus—is emblematic of the highly charged debate over what is taught in American universities.

Critics say the growth of these programs, which aim to teach about historical events from the perspective of marginalized and oppressed groups, has turned colleges into feckless workshops for leftist political orthodoxy.

Bleh. I’m not linking to the NYT, because, as I’ve been saying for over 20 years on this blog, they’re a disgrace, a he-said-she-said crapshow that advances the conservative cause with weasely evasiveness. Somehow this is the most prestigious news source in the country, probably because billionaires back it.

Far more interesting is this delightful essay in which one of Mamdani’s former professors comments on the NYT hatchet job.

“Critics say” is the tell, and does it ever go on telling. First, note that this criticism (“Majors like Africana studies, or any of its siblings such as women’s studies, these critics charge, promote a worldview that sees little to admire in American history. Some disparagingly call the entire field ‘grievance studies’”) gives to the article the whole of its contrapuntal structure of argument: these scholars and teachers say Mr. Mamdani’s education is substantial, yet critics say something else. But then note as well that this counter-position is substantiated, in its length and breadth, by: J. D. Vance and the National Association of Scholars (NAS), the former a man whose fervid anti-intellectualism needs no introduction, the latter a conservative 501(c)3 flush with money from the Olin, Bradly, and Castle Rock Foundations, and more lately affiliated with the Heritage Foundation and its delirious “Project 2025” document. The author refers to the group as “conservative-leaning,” which, ok. I guess you could say Latvia was a little antisemitic-leaning during the war.

Oh man, that “critics say” phrase is infuriating. What critics? Name them. Explain why these anonymous critics are making these accusations. It ought to be standard journalistic practice that you back up claims with details, rather than vaguely waving in the direction of the opposition while leaving them unscrutinized.

When writing to a journalist friend, I just said that it’s a bit unravelling, right now, to be on the receiving end of this kind of belated real-time education in elite metabolization. Like so many other bits of Times coverage, the whole of the piece is structured as an orchestrated encounter. Some people say this; however, others say this. It’s so offhand you can think you’re gazing through a pane of glass. Only when you stand a little closer, or when circumstances make you a little less blinkered, do you notice the fact which then becomes blinding and finally crazymaking, which is just that there is zero, less than zero, stress put on the relation between those two “sides,” or their histories, or their sponsors, or their relative evidentiary authority, or any of it. Instead, what you get is a piece making the various more or less bovine noises of studious grey-lady impartiality, with the labor of anything resembling “appraisal” surgically excised.

That’s a perfect description of the NYT’s MO.

And nothing was accomplished

We’ve been dealing with this ridiculous government shutdown, which was initiated because the Republican budget was promoting major cuts in health care support, among other billionaire favorites. If done properly, the purpose of such a shutdown would be to get concessions from the opposing party. Now the Democrats are talking about caving to the opposition.

The Senate on Sunday made significant progress towards ending the longest US government shutdown in history, narrowly advancing a compromise bill to reauthorize funding and undo the layoffs of some employees.

But the measure, which resulted from days of talks between a handful of Democratic and Republican senators, leaves out the healthcare subsidies that Democrats had demanded for weeks. Most Democratic senators rejected it, as did many of the party’s lawmakers in the House of Representatives, which will have to vote to approve it before the government can reopen.

“This healthcare crisis is so severe, so urgent, so devastating for families back home, that I cannot in good faith support this [resolution] that fails to address the healthcare crisis,” said Democratic Senator majority leader Chuck Schumer.

I hate having to agree with Chuck Schumer, but he’s right: this is just a surrender.

It wasn’t the whole Democratic party that gave up, but eight chickenshit Democrats who joined forces with the Republicans to try to endorse a “compromise” bill. These are the people who must be voted against in the future.

From top left: Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin, Jacky Rosen, John Fetterman and Catherine Cortez Masto. From bottom left: Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, Maggie Hassan and Tim Kaine, with independent Sen. Angus King.

I am not surprised to see Fetterman in there — he disappointed me long ago. But hey, Tim Kaine was a Democratic vice-presidential candidate once upon a time, with Hillary Clinton. Maybe I should have mistrusted him even more.

If this compromise bill goes through, brace yourself for a big jump in the cost of health care.

The compromise does not resolved the issue of the Affordable Care Act premiums, which one study forecast would jump by an average of 26% if the tax credits were allowed to expire.

Keep in mind that that 26% goes straight from your pocket into the coffers of insurance companies, because of the fucked up way health care is managed in this country, with unnecessary middlemen inserted into the process.

Please improve the biology of “Predator” movies

My favorite alien organism in Predator Badlands was the brachiating carnivore with trilateral symmetry. That was neat.

I also like the novel communal (?) branch like thing that would strike like an army of snakes. Cool.

There was a grazer with a weird set of mouthparts that I didn’t get a good look at, unfortunately, but it had to be good because they were adapted to feed on razor-sharp fields of leaves. Show more next time.

I was mildly disappointed with the main big bad monster, which was just kind of ape-like, and had unrealistic powers of regeneration. I want to see the energetic breakdown of the metabolic costs of rebuilding whole body parts in seconds — that’s pure fantasy. Not going to happen.

Also, and this was a problem with the Avatar movies, too, if you’re going to get creative with strange background animals, do think in evolutionary terms. There should be some shared continuity of structure in various clades, not just random odd beasties with no visible relationships between them.

I was deeply disappointed with the main “alien,” the Yautja, who was just a man — a perfectly ordinary, familiar human being — wearing a mask with funny flexible fangs on it. Pathetic. Unbelievable. Cheap and cheesy. Drop that transparently fake alien from future episodes (you know they’re going to keep making these “predator” movies, and the weakest prop in the whole franchise is the predator.)

I’m also a bit tired of the “warrior alien” trope. Advanced alien cultures are going to be more diverse and complex than the “everyone fights for honor” nonsense that’s affected the genre since at least the Klingons, and it’s boring and makes those aliens into one dimensional characters. Stop it.

I guess there was a plot that I didn’t pay much attention to — it was something about big fights with an evil corporation trying to exploit alien monsters, don’t care, been there, done that. Elle Fanning stood out as a good actor who was playing two synthetic humanoids, but I never understood why, if you have mastery of building artificial organisms with intelligence that you’d put them in a limited human form. Get funky with it next time, and let the synth engineers imagination run wild. If I could do that, you know I’d have giant spider-squid hybrids with vaguely human minds running rampant over the cosmos.