All went well, I’m on hydrocodone for a couple of days, but the doctor did minimal hacking and my knee can bear my weight even now. We’ll have to see how I feel once the drugs wear off, but I anticipate a rapid recovery.

Wow, it’s hard to type while on narcotics…

An article profiles a mathematician Sergiu Klainerman who is convinced that it is discovered.

The equations that govern black holes were true before there were black holes. That claim is hotly contested, and cuts through one of the deepest fault lines in the philosophy of mathematics. On one side are those who hold that mathematical structures, including well-established principles and basic geometric shapes like the tetrahedron, exist independently of human thought – not as a language we invented to describe reality, but rather as the substrate of reality itself. On the other side of the debate are those who argue that mathematics is the product of human labours, imposed on a world that would be wholly indifferent to it were we not here.

He started down this road after reading an essay by Eugene Wigner.

Early in graduate school, Klainerman came across an essay by the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Eugene Wigner – ‘The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences’ (1960) – that would stay with him for the rest of his career. Wigner’s subject was the uncanny way that mathematical concepts developed for one purpose keep turning up, unbidden, in other settings that seem to be wholly unrelated. As an example, Wigner told the story of two former high-school classmates who were discussing their professions years later. One, a statistician, showed his friend an expression for a term related to population density that depended on pi, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter.

‘Surely the population has nothing to do with the circumference of the circle,’ the friend replied. And yet it did. The mathematical formulations devised to elucidate specific aspects of the physical world reappeared with surprising frequency as accurate descriptions of phenomena they were never intended to address.
…

What he wanted to write about, above all, was the mystery that had haunted him since he first read Wigner as a graduate student: why does mathematics work so unreasonably well and keep rearing its head, time and again, in the unlikeliest of places? Klainerman agrees with Wigner that this qualifies as a genuine mystery – deep, unresolved and woven into fabric that connects abstract thought, mathematical principles and physical reality.
…

Klainerman had long been inspired by Wigner’s essay. But as his thinking evolved over the years, he came to disagree with the eminent physicist on one essential point – the definition of mathematics itself. Wigner described mathematics as ‘the science of skillful operations, with concepts and rules invented just for this purpose. The principal emphasis is on the invention of concepts.’ Klainerman takes issue with the word ‘invented’.

Tools and methods can be invented, but the principal ideas are discovered. No one can claim to have invented pi – it is a fact of nature that the circumference of any circle divided by its diameter yields the same irrational number, starting with 3.14159 and continuing forever. Pi was discovered, not invented, though someone did have to invent long division to compute it. Similarly, Klainerman noted, ‘five plus five was 10, long before we were born.’

I find this point of view interesting and suggestive but not conclusive, partly because I think a strong case can be made that scientific theories are invented and not discovered and argue so in my book The Great Paradox of Science. But what is true for physical theories may not be true for mathematics and I do not know mathematics history well enough to arrive at any definite conclusion.

But we cannot ignore these local horrors and ProPublica reports on how one group of abused immigrants are fighting back, suing the government for damages. In the suit, we learn of the terrible abuses they suffered at the hands of these government thugs, who seem to act like they are members of the military attacking an enemy.

On the night of the military-style raid at a Chicago apartment complex, a loud boom woke the Nigerian man who lived in Unit 215. Tolulope Akinsulie stood up from his bed and saw heavily armed federal agents rushing into his apartment. He then felt the jaws of a large dog biting into his right ankle, knocking him to the floor. Akinsulie screamed as the dog tore the flesh from his ankle, thighs, hip and wrist. 

Down the hall, agents took a Venezuelan mother and her 16-year-old son from their apartment at gunpoint to another unit. There, they saw agents hit a man with what looked like the butt of a  rifle and kick another who was lying on the floor. As he watched, her son began to hyperventilate.
…

While much has been documented about the Sept. 30 raid by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, new accounts from 17 men, women and children detained that night paint a violent and terrifying portrait of how the federal agents conducted the operation.

Their descriptions form the basis of administrative claims filed on their behalf Tuesday against DHS and several other federal agencies that took part in the midnight raid in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood.
…

The claims allege that federal agents caused physical injuries, emotional trauma, “brutal detention” and financial loss. Each of the claimants — 15 are immigrants, and two are U.S. citizens —  is seeking about $5 million, an amount the attorneys believe is comparable to similar court judgments in Chicago.
…

During the South Shore raid, some 300 heavily armed agents stormed the dilapidated, five-story building; some descended from a Black Hawk helicopter. They hurled flash grenades, broke down apartment doors and zip-tied dozens of immigrants and U.S. citizens who lived in the building. The drama was captured by a television crew that accompanied agents.

Since it the government that is doing these abuses, people have little recourse other than going to court.

The Federal Tort Claims Act provides one of the only avenues for people who believe they were harmed by federal employees acting unlawfully and allows for compensation for emotional distress, property damage, injury or death. If the agency does not respond or settle a claim within six months, or if it denies a claim, individuals can then file a lawsuit. 
…

The tort claims detail what families, including those with young children, allegedly experienced during the raid. A Venezuelan mother and father huddled together in their apartment with their four children, the youngest a 1-year-old U.S. citizen, who “screamed and cried in terror” while agents pointed guns at them. Agents marched them outside in their pajamas and separated the father. One of the boys, now 9, had a panic attack, according to the claim.
…

While the tenants were detained, the records allege, many of their possessions were stolen or lost: shoes, Playstations, smartphones, jewelry, mattresses, a backpack with $1,300 in cash and toys. Several reported losing their vehicles, too.

Other groups across the country are filing similar suits. The article goes on to say that the violent way that the victims were arrested was just the beginning of their nightmare, as they were later shuttled between various detention facilities before some were deported without any due process.

I hope that these people win their cases and receive damages since the financial price may be the only deterrent to government abuses.

First Dog on the Moon

I’ve been to New York several times, and found it wonderful. Has Mamdami made it even better?

The message that hits hardest is the conclusion.

Mayor Mamdani is proof that if your political representatives don’t fix stuff, strengthen your community and make people’s lives better it is simply and only because
THEY DO NOT WANT TO

Look at Mamdami. Look at Trump. Look at Mamdami. Look at Trump again. You ought to wonder what the President is doing.

We went over my post-op exercises. I practiced using crutches. I got coached on the warning signs — if I see yellow pus leaking out of the incision, or red streaks emanating from the knee, go to the emergency room immediately. Uh, duh. I also got instructed on the pre-op routine for today, which mainly involves not eating or drinking tonight, and washing the surgical area with a special soap.

I was also getting prepared for the worst. Best case: I get a simple debridement, and face about two weeks of recovery. Worst case: if there is a lot of repair work done, I’m looking at 6 to 12 weeks of recovery. There is no option to look forward to.

After that depressing experience, I went to the lab and fed all the spiders to cheer myself up. Then I grabbed my laptop and set it up near my bed, since I’ll be spending at least the next couple of days there. I may be glued to the computer for a while.

In slowly building an archive of my old blog poasts (insurance against the anarchy of FtB finally doing it in), I’ve also been noting the personalities of commenters, and thinking of you.  Who are you people?  Would any of you consent to an interview?

To test the waters, I’m paging John Morales.  I’d like to do an interview about who you are, in the vein of what some newly minted celebrity might receive, but hopefully less fake.  I’d publish the results here, not unlike the times I interviewed The Beast from Seattle.

If you’re not a lurker – if you’re a person that’s willing to make public comments – I expect you’ve got enough ego to want to be known.  The aging writers and readers of blogs are heading toward oblivion, might be cool to graffiti something of your life into the internet before you go.  Something that will at least last until it gets painted over.  I expect my own blog archive to outlive FtB, so it could be for a while.

I would also love to interview at least one lurker, but I don’t have high hopes you’ll be willing.  I may name people who commented once in the past and mentioned that they lurk; we’ll see.

Aside from John, not naming specific invitees yet, but I may in the future, depending on how it goes.  Nonetheless, if you want to nominate yourself, go ahead.

–

Trump took along with him a whole slew of business leaders and oligarchs from the US, but that did not seem to have produced any tangible benefit. It is not clear how they could personally contribute to such talks anyway. It seems like they were taken along because of Trump’s belief that having wealthy people along with him might somehow sway the Chinese to give concessions on technology and trade. That did not happen, as far as we know, and indeed despite the Boeing CEO being there, the deal on planes that was announced was for just 200 planes, a big drop from the 500 that had been expected before the summit.

Trump likes to play power games with foreign leaders such as with handshakes but this time it was Xi who came out on top. His mention of the ‘Thucydides trap’ seemed like a twofer. One was to show his intellectual superiority since it is certain that he knew that Trump would have no clue as to who Thucydides was, let alone what the trap was about. But his use of that trap also implies that it is China that is the rising power and the US the one in decline, and that the US should tread warily, especially on the issue of Taiwan.

In his opening remarks on Thursday, Xi made reference to the Peloponnesian War in ancient Greece, a decades long conflict that erupted between Athens and Sparta in 431BC.

In a shot across the bow of hegemonic rivalry, Xi asked:

“Can China and the United States transcend the so-called ‘Thucydides Trap’ and forge a new paradigm for major-power relations?”
…

The Chinese leader later warned Trump that any missteps on Taiwan could push their two countries into “conflict”.

“The Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-US relations,” Xi said, of the self governing island that China claims as its own.

“If mishandled, the two nations could collide or even come into conflict, pushing the entire China-US relationship into a highly perilous situation,” he added.

A $14 billion arms package is in the works for Taiwan that China is not happy about. Trump has not yet committed to the arms shipment and observers are watching to see what he does.

Taiwan is clearly concerned about Trump’s ambiguous remarks.

Taiwan asserted its sovereignty Saturday after U.S. President Donald Trump warned against Taiwanese self-determination following the American leader’s two-day summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing.

Taiwan “is a sovereign and independent democratic nation, and is not subordinate to the People’s Republic of China,” Taiwan’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

The ministry’s remarks come as a swift rebuke against Trump, who said Friday that he was “not looking to have somebody go independent” when asked about whether the U.S. would come to Taiwan’s rescue in the event of an invasion by China.

If Trump was expecting to persuade Xi to us China’s muscle to persuade Iran to capitulate to the US, that did not happen.

China’s foreign ministry on Friday again called for a ceasefire in Iran and said the strait of Hormuz should be opened “as soon as possible”.

About half of China’s crude oil passes through the waterway, but the bigger threat for the Chinese economy is if the conflict in the Middle East causes a global recession that dents demand for its exports.

But many in Beijing feel that the crisis in Iran is not China’s responsibility.

Zhou Bo, a retired senior army colonel and a senior fellow in the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University, said: “On Iran, China definitely wants to help but I read what Rubio said: he actually seems to shift the burden to the Chinese side. In China, we have a saying: it is like, ‘Why should I clean your shit?’”

These commentators probably summed up best the outcome of the summit.

“Xi Jinping has been working for years to be ready for this moment, to bring an American president to Beijing as a peer, widely acknowledged as such around the world. And now it is happening,” [Julina] Gerwirtz said.

Wu Xinbo, a professor of international studies at Fudan University and a Chinese government adviser, said the balance of power between the US and China was “shifting towards greater parity”.

“In the past, it always seemed as though the United States held the upper hand, constantly exerting pressure on China and taking the offensive. Now, however, it’s fair to say that the two countries have reached a new point of equilibrium,” Wu said.

So it looks like the summit was a stalemate on substance with an edge to China on optics.

Public Health professor’s ‘Coverage Denied’ book dives into health insurance quagmire

Unlike most of us who stress out over and decry the ever-escalating cost and complexities of health insurance coverage, Pitt’s Miranda Yaver did something about it. She wrote a book.

Rather than a hollow rant on over-familiar complaints, however, “Coverage Denied: How Health Insurers Drive Inequality in the United States,” points to possible paths forward. Published by Cambridge University Press and released on April 23, “Coverage Denied” — loaded with data as well as patient and physician narratives culled from 111 interviews — lays out a number of coverage-reform proposals.

US health care and health coverage is unfortunately still an incredibly important subject. The steep increase in health care costs for many Americans certainly hasn’t made the subject any less relevant.

The Age of No Innocence

What if all you knew was extremist politics? Welcome to being young in America.

Fascinating article about how the young people in USA has never known a time without extremist politics. Those of us, who are older, can remember a time before regular school shootings, Trump and far-right talking points being pushed by main-stream right-winged media, but this has been part of the whole life of young people – the first president they remember is Trump.

Why you should keep getting mRNA vaccines

The COVID pandemic ushered mRNA vaccines into the spotlight, and the technology has even greater potential. Here’s what to know about the way that they work, their safety, and more.

The article is very US-centric, focusing on US politics and US numbers (the cite a study showing that mRNA covid vaccines prevented 8 million infection in the first six months, without mentioned that this was in the US alone – worldwide numbers were much higher). Even so, the fundamental message is still worth spreading – mRNA is a safe type of vaccines, and we should use this technology in the future.

Selma Rejects Jim Crow 2.0

Half of the population in Dallas County, Alabama, where Selma is located, was African American in 1965. But less than 2% of the county’s registered voters were Black. That wasn’t for lack of trying. They were excluded by systematic racism. Leaders like John Lewis and Martin Luther King Jr. understood that being denied rights was intolerable, and that nothing would change until Black Americans had the same ability to exercise the right to vote that white citizens did.

Alabama newspapers largely ignored events leading up to Bloody Sunday in Montgomery. As marchers approached the state capitol, the local press spilled more ink over what Governor Wallace was eating for lunch as the marchers approached the city (“Roast beef, green beans, corn muffins, sliced peaches, plastic-wrapped chocolate cakes, buttermilk and iced tea,”) than they did on the march itself.

It was national media coverage that drew the public’s attention to what was happening. On March 7, 1965, when a then-25-year-old John Lewis led over 600 peaceful marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma and was met with brutality from state troopers, it was the footage shown on network news that night that shocked the nation’s conscience into finally doing something. By Sunday, March 21, 1965, with the country’s attention focused on them and joined by Dr. King, the original 600 protesters swelled to close to 8,000 people and the march from Selma to Montgomery began. A federal judge, Frank Johnson, ordered the troopers who had attacked them previously to protect them. By the end of the year, the Voting Rights Act was passed and signed into law.

Protest is brewing again in Selma. In the wake of Callais, and the overt gerrymandering and dilution of the Black vote that the Supreme Court now says is legal, protestors marched today.

Once again Selma is at the front of the fight for civil rights, and once again they are largely ignored by national newspapers and other media.

Turkeys Circling A Dead Cat Are Probably Wary, Not Working Dark Magic

I think I will let the headline speak for itself, except that I will link a bluesky post that includes a gif of the video that the article mentions, since it is no longer on twitter – and since you shouldn’t give twitter traffic

[image or embed]

— grooveholmes.bsky.social (@grooveholmes.bsky.social) 15. maj 2026 kl. 04.08

If the embedded post doesn’t show, you can go to it here.

You Can’t Build Useful Alliances With Fascists, Dumbass

I hope we all now understand that forging strategic policy partnerships with fascists is like trying to develop an intimate relationship with a running chainsaw.

Great piece by Karl Bode

USAID shutdown has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths

The dismantling of USAID, according to models from Boston University epidemiologist Brooke Nichols, “has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children,” Gawande wrote. He noted that the toll will continue to grow and may go unseen because it can take months or years for people to die from lack of treatments or vaccine-preventable illnesses—and because deaths are scattered.

“We are now witnessing what the historian Richard Rhodes termed ‘public man-made death,’” Gawande wrote.

This was back in November. Think of how many hundred of thousands of deaths the decision has caused since then.

Looking at the same model as the article is referring to, the impact after a year is 262,915 adult deaths and 518,428 child deaths, so 781,343 total deaths.

For some reason the impactcounter has been retired, but we can assume that the impact after the first year will be similar to the impact afterwards. This means that Trump, Musk and the Doge team have the blood of millions on their hands.

Commenter Ted Lawry pointed me at this Discovery Institute article, in which they accuse scientists of smugness. Their authoritative source is Andrew Klavan.

Klavan noticed something interesting about the speakers: the scientific atheist “spokesmen” share, almost to a man, what Meyer calls an “element of smugness in the way they communicate.” Klavan mentions Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan. Oh, there’s Lawrence Krauss, and many others. Dr. Meyer recounts a memorable debate he had with Krauss that illustrates the point.

It occurred me as I was watching this conversation… I bet you could turn the sound off on a video of any of the well-known scientific atheists and they would likely be identifiable by the smugness that radiates from them, by the manner of speaking not by the words. Again, this is without any sound. You could try the experiment yourself sometime. Meanwhile, watch and enjoy Klavan and Meyer:

First, in case you’ve never heard of Klavan, he’s an obscure conservative babbler on the dying Daily Wire The only time I’ve heard of him was on a video where a bunch of these Daily Wire writers were huddled up smoking cigars and bragging about how they never do the dishes or laundry because their wives do them for them. Inspiring.

Secondly, his accusation is more appropriately directed at the creationists. The scientists he is complaining about are confident, because they come equipped with a battery of evidence. The creationists are the cocky, arrogant ones: they’re the people making extravagant claims without an iota of evidence. So sure, watch one of the videos from our side, and you’ll notice that we’re all forthright and bold where it is warranted; the creationists are even more arrogant, and their sole source is their interpretation of the Bible.

I do wonder why anyone should give a damn about Klavan’s opinion of science, since he has no qualifications other than being a pompous loudmouth.