The Dilemma

It was always going to be difficult making an agreement with Iran The IRGC and the national government have different goals. 

Iran's government loves the nation - their home - and knows it to be beaten. They want to make a deal to save what's left of it for their friends, relatives, and countrymen.

"Iran" isn't even a part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' name. The IRGC is a cause or crusade, not a nation. Has Iran been a useful and convenient host? Yes. Is Iran essential to IRGC goals going forward? Maybe not.

Try this analogy - Catholicism and Italy. If something awful happened to Rome, or to all of Italy, Catholicism would continue. Would Catholics give up their faith to save Italy? No one would expect them to do so. Why expect the IRGC to give up their cause to save Iran? 

The IRGC commitment is to Shia Islam's political goals, which it views as essential precursors to its religious goals. Without nuclear weapons they cannot win, giving up the progress made toward nukes is giving up their cause, and without their cause, Iran has little value to them.

Convincing patriotic Iranians their country should give up fighting everyone and, as Trump has asked, become a normal nation is doable. Trump likely has done that. 

Convincing IRGC zealots to give up their cause is orders of magnitude harder. I remain unconvinced that has been done, and wonder if it can be done.

Mark Nailed It

Apropos of the public spat between our elected President and the Roman Church's pastor-in-chief, I am thinking of a line from Mark 12:17.

Jesus said unto them, Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's.

The role of Caesar is currently occupied by Donald J. Trump, and will be so until Jan. 20, 2029. I am unaware that Trump has made any significant Christian doctrinal pronouncements. Leo intruded into Don's sandbox, and Don 'invited' him to leave.

Friday Memes

Images courtesy of Politico's

The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

Polls: Trump Up Among GOP

John Nolte writes at Breitbart about phony claims Trump’s popularity is falling among Republicans (links in original).

Between March and April in the far-left Quinnipiac poll, support for Trump among Republicans increased from 72 percent to 81 percent.

Similarly, a poll from the Economist/YouGov shows an increase in Republican support for the president. What had been an 82 percent approve, 14 percent disapproval rating in March has risen by four net points to 84 percent approve, 12 percent disapprove.

Translation: Our MAGA guy is doing what we elected him to do and we like it. How else could you read those numbers? If someone with an audience disses him - for instance the Pope - he disses them right back.

Impediments to Academic Reform

As a retired professor, I have a continuing interest in the health and well-being of academia. In recent years it has experienced ill health and less-than-well-being; bluntly, academia jumped the shark.

Higher Ed has become - to a repulsive degree - a hotbed of leftist indoctrination, an enthused practitioner of DEI, and entirely too expensive. Doing so has squandered the high levels of public goodwill and trust it formerly enjoyed.

Recently some of those who value the academy have taken note and are trying to rein in its excesses. They are finding it a very difficult task.

Instapundit links to a James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal column providing advice to campus leaders, Its subtitle: “Why it’s so tough to reform colleges … and tips that might help.” 

The column can help outsiders understand unique features of academia that make it change-resistant. Candidly, the column does a better job on the “tough” part than it does on the “tips,” but it makes a start.

Weeding Out Bad Commentary

There has been a sh*t ton of bad commentary on the war in Iran, and some that isn't bad at all. One of the latter is this Substack column by an Australian writing as Lorenzo from Oz. Among other things, he's apparently something of a historian. Hat tip to Sarah Hoyt posting at Instapundit for the link.

I particularly call your attention to Lorenzo's notion of strategy being a decision tree. Implicit in the idea is that much as you might deplore it, the enemy has some independence of action. You have to be prepared to deal with whatever tactics and strategy he comes up with. And to take advantage of any unexpected opportunities which occur.

Happy Tax Day

A quick note to wish all COTTonLINE readers a Happy Tax Day. I hope yours are filed, ours may not be quite yet.

I had our CPA file for an extension as I was having difficulty getting a 2025 tax statement from my broker. That problem is finally resolved.

I will get the result someday soon, and we'll find out how much excess withholding we're getting back. It is normally a fair amount. I wish the same for y'all.

Democracy Is a Process, Not a Platform

A Rod Dreher quote I really like, offered in the context of Viktor Orbán losing his reelection bid.

It’s hard for globalists to understand, but it’s still democracy when people vote in ways you don’t like.

In a long life, this has happened to me entirely too often. Obama and Biden being recent examples I didn't find pleasing, your list may vary.

The Oil Must Flow

A closeup headshot of Princess Irulan (above), who solemnly intones the following.

In this time the most precious substance on the planet is oil. Oil powers our world, oil is a part of most products, oil is vital to civilized life. The airlines use oil, which gives them the ability to fly, that is, travel to any part of the world in a day.

Oh yes, I forgot to tell you, much of the oil exists in only one part of the entire planet, a desolate, dry region, with vast deserts. Hidden away within the rocks of these deserts are a people known as the Shia, who have long held a prophecy that a man would come - the twelfth imam - who would lead them to true freedom.

The region is plagued with eternal turmoil and yet  . . .  the oil must flow. 

Hat tips to Frank Herbert, David Lynch and, more recently, to Stephen Green for the inspiration.

Another Option

Thinking about the Firefly renewal discussed yesterday. Animation is mentioned as the intended medium. I have another idea. 

How about feeding the 2002 images of the cast into an AI plus the scripts of the new episodes and have it create the imagery, with human oversight to catch and eliminate things like too many fingers or extra hands? Obviously pay the cast members for the use of their images, maybe even give them limited say-so (if desired) on what their characters are shown doing.

I have the feeling AI has reached the point where the above is doable, and production costs should be much less. The product should resemble the first season, not like a detailed set of drawings. 

The Orbán Loss

Writing for Brussels Signal, Henry Olsen dissects why Fidesz and Viktor Orbán lost the Hungarian presidency. Here is a key insight.

Fidesz wasn’t entrusted with government to enrich its friends and protect them from justice. It was elected to make Hungarians richer materially and spiritually.

Any Western European government that had experienced scandal and a stagnant economy would expect to be tossed on its rear come election time. That’s what happened to Britain’s Conservatives in 1997 and 2024, and that’s what happened to Viktor Orbán.

Indeed. 

Firefly Reincarnated

Screen Rant reports Firefly may have found new life as an animated series, set in the period between the TV series and the film Serenity. It supposedly will feature the same characters as the TV series. Perhaps the original cast will do the voices, SR isn't clear about this.

SR indicates the new project was first broached a couple of months ago. Joss Whedon will not be involved in the new effort, although he is said to be supportive.

I agree with the commenters that animation is less good than live action, but 'tis better than nothing.

Iran Update

Various sources report Vice President JD Vance went to Islamabad, Pakistan, to negotiate with Iran. He spent 21 hours doing so, and discovered they would not agree to stop pursuing nuclear weapons. He then left, saying Iran was not ready to meet US minimum demands.

Now President Trump reports the Navy will blockade all traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off a main source of revenue for Iran. The supposed two week ceasefire is either off or sort-of-on, if the bombing of power generation and desalination plants begins, we know the answer is “off.” 

Twelve hours later ... Correction ... We are blockading all Iranian ports, not the Strait of Hormuz. So oil can flow, just not from Iran. Iran's facilities to ship oil remain undamaged, but unusable while we block their ports. Inability to raise foreign exchange may bring the government to heel and cause regime change. 

Can the Worm Turn?

New Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has floated an intriguing way to disincentivize blue cities' sanctuary policies which make the work of his immigration enforcement folk much more difficult. 

His idea: pull the immigration officials out of blue cities' international airports. The result of which would be airlines would have to quit international flights to those airports. Imagine how well this would go down with NYC, Chicago, Atlanta, or Los Angeles. These 'sanctuary cities' are "at war" with Homeland Security and he may be able to fight back. 

I'm imagining a few airports where international flights would be able to terminate and then those bound to sanctuary cities would have to take a connecting domestic flight to reach home. The resultant turmoil would be amazing, the howling unbelievable.

A series of court challenges would ensue, can cities which refuse to cooperate with federal law enforcement demand immigrations services in spite of their rebellion? I know there are judges who will answer "yes." How about the Supremes?

Trump's problem is you can't fight everyone at once, although he is active on many fronts. Is this a battle he is willing to prioritize? If the idea goes nowhere, we'll know the answer is no.

Later … Another version of this would see reduced staffing at sanctuary city airports such that congestion and wait times to inprocess international pax become very tiresome. Harder to counter than a refusal of service. If resources reassigned to airports of cooperative cities such that passing thru is streamlined … thus rewarding cooperation … perhaps easier to pull off.

Saturday Snark

Trump Farside

So true.

My spirit animal.

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

Friday Snark

⬆ An infant Elon, dreaming of the stars.

Images courtesy of Politico's

The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

Images courtesy of RealClearPolitics'

Cartoons of the Week.

Suggesting a New Path for Alzheimer’s Research

I’ve been thinking about the post below, and I’ll share those thought with you. First, what do we know? We know that older people who get flu shots are less likely to demonstrate Alzheimer’s. And we now know that those who get the stronger dosage are even less likely to get Alzheimer’s.

From this I reason as follows. What does a flu immunization do in your body? It stimulates antibodies to fight the viral influenza infection. More generally, it ‘gooses’ the immune system, wakes it up and gives it work to do. If the stronger vaccine does more of this, and if less Alzheimer’s is the result, then somehow the immune system also fights Alzheimer’s. I don’t believe we already knew this for sure.

Reasoning further, I speculate perhaps some infectious agent - at present unknown or causatively unrecognized - is involved in causing Alzheimer’s. And this “agent” - be it virus, microbe, or ?? - shares some aspects of its nature with the influenza virus such that antibodies against the one also are somewhat active against the other.

File the following speculation under “wild guess.” My hunch is that the culprit is some long-lingering virus similar to the chicken pox (varicella-zoster) virus that, in ways unsuspected, causes or accelerates Alzheimer’s years or decades after first infecting the host. It may be no coincidence that most Alzheimer’s cases manifest after the immune system becomes less active around age 65.

Weird Immunological Science

Strong relationship found between stronger flu vaccine and lower Alzheimer’s risk in seniors, SciTechDaily.com has the story. Hat tip to Instapundit for the link.

Older adults who receive a higher dose of the influenza vaccine may have a significantly lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease compared to those who receive the standard dose.

Compared to the standard-dose flu vaccine, which was associated with a 40% reduction in Alzheimer’s risk, the high-dose vaccine was linked to nearly a 55% reduction in risk among adults age 65 and older.

At this point nobody knows why this finding occurs. It could be that seniors who are still “with it” are even more likely to demand the higher dose, and that those who don’t get any flu shots are already “losing it.” 

Be clear, I don’t posit that as explaining the correlational findings. I merely point out the two things occur together and we have no explanation as to why. It is too soon to be claiming one thing causes the other, perhaps some third thing influences both.

On the other hand, if getting the stronger shot improves your chances of dodging Alzheimer’s why not do it? There is little downside.

Evolution at Work

RealClearScience brings us an interesting article with this intriguing title: “The Human Body Isn’t a Masterpiece of Design.” What follows is a the description of various bodily systems which are far from optimal but rather reflect adaptations that merely “get the job done,” more or less. Here is the key idea.

Evolution does not design structures from scratch. Rather, it modifies what already exists. As a result, many aspects of human anatomy are just “good enough” solutions – functional, but far from perfect. Some of the most familiar medical problems and ailments arise directly from these inherited constraints.

Problems so identified include the spine, the neck, our eyes, teeth and pelvis. and the adaptations continue. I am among the minority who develop no wisdom teeth. A further evolution? It amuses me to think so.

Happily Well-Adjusted

Writing for American Affairs Journal, sociologist Musa al-Gharbi does a very deep dive in the social science literature. He is looking at the persistent finding that liberals are more likely to be unhappy and less well-adjusted than conservatives. Hat tip to RealClearPolicy for the link.

He documents that this finding occurs across many nations, cultures, and eras. We conservatives think liberals have mental difficulties, and in fact they do. Liberals think we conservatives are evil, but that conclusion is a result of their latent paranoia. See his conclusion.

The general pattern is clear: conservatives report significantly higher levels of happiness, meaning, and satisfaction in their lives as compared to liberals. Meanwhile, liberals are much more likely to exhibit anxiety, depression, and other forms of psychic distress.