Sunrise — 6:58, 7:21, 7:35, 7:51, 8:03.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

Rand Paul on the Joe Rogan podcast.

Transcript here, at Podscribe.

"Live Updates: Transgender Athletes Ask Supreme Court to Overturn State Bans."

Here's a gift link to the New York Times, which has been providing a lot of clips and quotes and summaries.

I listened to a big segment of the oral argument, which has already been going on for more than 2 hours, but it's not over yet, so drop in over here if you want to get a sense of how it is going.

I'll just make one observation, about something I was hearing for the first time, which is the idea that male-bodied persons who take puberty blockers might be disadvantaged in sports because they have larger bones but these bones are not powered by the strength and drive that the testosterone of puberty would have provided. By taking puberty blockers, they are choosing to go forward with underpowered bodies. That is, in this way, these children not only don't have an advantage if they play in girls' sports, they have a disadvantage!

ADDED: An interesting comment by Adam Liptak over in the NYT live updates: "The question before the court is whether states may exclude transgender athletes from women’s sports. Questions from Justices Kavanaugh and Kagan raise an issue not directly before the court: must states exclude them?"

AND: You can listen to the entire argument here, at YouTube.

"Many of my Christian friends have asked me to find Jesus before I go. I’m not a believer, but I have to admit the risk-reward calculation..."

"... for doing so looks so attractive to me. So here I go. I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and look forward to spending an eternity with Him. The part about me not being a believer should be quite quickly resolved; if I wake up in heaven, I won’t need any more convincing than that. I hope I’m still qualified for entry."

Wrote Scott Adams, just before dying.

It's an impressive mix of intelligence, respect, humor, and honesty. He implicitly concedes that he doesn't really believe, but anticipates instant arrival in a state of true belief if he finds himself waking up in Heaven. He acknowledges that that form of belief might not count as sufficient, but he expresses hope. And he did have that part where he incanted the key phrase: "I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior." That might be what it takes, and it's worth the risk — no risk. It will make some of his friends feel better, and if there are others who don't like it, they can take comfort in his assurance that he's not a believer. 

ADDED: In the preceding post, Paul Zrimsek said: "His support for Trump probably means he's been darned to Heck, and that Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light, is poking him with that big spoon now." That nudged me to find this:

Goodbye to Scott Adams.

He shared his dying with us right up to the end. We knew he was going, and now, suddenly he's gone.

I received the news through my son John, who's put up this post at Facebook that provides a gift link to the Washington Post obituary, which has a headline that I don't like, "Scott Adams, ‘Dilbert’ creator who poked fun at bad bosses, dies at 68/His three-panel comic strip was once published in more than 2,000 newspapers. Publishers cut ties with Mr. Adams after he made racist comments on a YouTube live stream."

From the obituary: "His former wife Shelly Miles announced his death in a live stream Tuesday morning, reading a statement she said Mr. Adams had prepared before his death. 'I had an amazing life,' the statement said in part. 'I gave it everything I had.'"

Coffee with Scott Adams moves to The Scott Adams School 01/13/24 https://t.co/RsXWMvV6yA

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) January 13, 2026

"Philosophy professor Martin Peterson was ordered to remove excerpts from Plato’s 'Symposium' that seemed to violate the new guidelines..."

"... passages about Diotima’s Ladder of Love and Aristophanes’ speech regarding split humans. Peterson was told the course would be reassigned to someone else if he didn’t delete the readings from his introductory philosophy syllabus. Peterson says his course does not 'advocate' for any ideology but teaches students how to structure and evaluate moral arguments."

From "Plato falls victim to campus culture wars/Jettisoning the Greek philosopher hurts students who yearn to learn how to reason, argue and think" by the Editorial Board of The Washington Post.

What's really going on here? Wasn't this some sort of "malicious compliance" move by opponents of restrictions on left-wing gender ideology?

"The Quest to ‘Make America Fertile Again’ Stalls Under Trump."

The NYT reports.

[O]ne year into President Trump’s second term, his administration has enacted few policies to reduce the rising cost of having children — frustrating some conservatives who expected Mr. Trump to prioritize their plans to boost the U.S. birthrate as it continues to drop.... 

Conservative advocates in touch with the White House said family policy issues were not a current priority for Mr. Trump’s domestic policy team, which has been hyper-focused on immigration.

"The thing that has made doctors raise an eyebrow and reach for the defibrillator... is... 'We are ending the war on protein.'"

"Red meat, in particular, is fine. Steak, meatloaf and cream are back on the table of God-fearing Americans. Plus, they need to aim for three servings of full-fat dairy a day.... To see whether these dietary guidelines are going to make me live for ever or are a recipe for cardiac arrest, I tried out RFK’s butter and steak diet for a few days...."

I'm reading:

He looks skeptical, but skip past all the details of what Harry Wallop ate, here's where he ends up: "Curiously, over the four days on the Maha diet I have lost 3lb and gained some strength — I manage 72 push-ups on day 5. The weight loss is almost certainly because I cut out most carbohydrates and I studiously avoided any added sugar...."

"My implicit equation of attention is: Curiosity plus conflict equals attention."

Says Ezra Klein, in his podcast, which is titled "Can James Talarico Reclaim Christianity for the Left?" (NYT).

Talarico is on the podcast because, as Klein puts it, he "was breaking through on TikTok, Instagram and viral videos" and "ended up on Joe Rogan’s podcast — the first significant Democrat that Rogan seemed interested in, in a very long time."

And now "Talarico is running for Senate in Texas. He’s running in a primary with Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett...." There's no other mention of Crockett in the article. Why not? Talarico was never invited to speak against her, but this podcast is clearly boosting him, which is inherently against her. I presume hardcore Democrats, focused on winning the Texas Senate seat, don't want Crockett to win the primary.

The question isn't really Can James Talarico Reclaim Christianity for the Left? It's Can James Talarico Seize the Nomination from Crockett?

Ezra Klein says: "The biggest concern I hear about you in Texas is that you’re sort of a liberal’s idea of what a Christian politician should be."

Sunrise — 6:58, 7:08, 7:16, 7:28.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

A short tower of Reddit shavings.

1. "Babe wake up, they gerrymandered reincarnation."

2. "I live on my own right now and she saw my room and said it is an instant red flag."

3. It's mildly infuriating when the delivery guy takes that photo of the delivered package and includes your bare legs in the picture. Presumably, you were wearing shorts.

4. "Decorative tower in South Korean plastic surgery clinic made from the jawbones of patients who received plastic surgery for jawline reduction."

Bob Weir's "Bobby shorts" were NOT hot pants.

All respect to Bob Weir. My blog tribute to him is here. But now I need to talk about a NYT article that talks about his pants, his shorts. Here: "Bob Weir, a Virtuoso of Hot Pants/The Grateful Dead guitarist wore short shorts like no other" (NYT).

Okay, I am an expert on this subject... and not because I've been talking about the issue of men in shorts for 20 years. I was there, at ground zero, in the summer of 1971, when the "hot pants" fashion trend peaked. It was the summer after my sophomore year of college, I was 20 years old, and I worked — for what was probably less than $2 an hour — in the juniors department of Lit Brothers department store in Camden county, New Jersey. New hot pants outfits came in every week and we positioned them on the racks near the store entryway so they'd, presumably, mesmerize the passersby. I saw and handled this merchandise in real time. It was not made of denim. It was polyester. It was certainly not cut off and frayed. It had neatly finished edges. And most important, it had a 2-INCH INSEAM.

Now let's look at what that NYT is calling hot pants:

The article leans heavily into the idea that these shorts are really really shorty short. Key language: "chopped-to-the-heavens jean shorts," "Mr. Weir’s shorts were short," "snipped high enough that fans quite a distance from the stage could make out Mr. Weir’s upper thighs," "not Daisy Dukes, they were 'Bobby Shorts,'" "The Bob Weir Inseam... five inches max."

5 inches! 5 inches, you say?! Hot pants had a 2-INCH INSEAM! A woman in shorts with a 5-inch inseam would — in the era of hot pants — have been seen as frumpy and ultra-modest. 

Don't fight with me. I am a 1970s hot-pants purist. I was there. I didn't measure the inseam at the time, but I handled the merchandise, and I've researched the measurement, and the number is 2 inches. You may marvel — I'm marveling now — at how these pants could adequately enclose a woman's crotch, let alone a man's.

I am not taking one more step 'til I know where I'm going.

Ricky Gervais "would like to thank God and the trans community."

Says Wanda Sykes accepting the Golden Globe for the absent Ricky:

Wanda Sykes calls out Ricky Gervais' transphobia while accepting the Golden Globe for Best Stand-Up Comedy Performance on his behalf: "He would like to thank God and the trans community."
byu/voguediaries inFauxmoi

ADDED: I did not interpret Sykes's statement as "call[ing] out Ricky Gervais' transphobia" any more than I thought she was calling out his atheism. I didn't notice the text when I chose the Reddit clip. Reading it now, I just think it's wrong. It doesn't match what I thought when I first read it. I was just looking for a clip to embed and that Reddit presentation popped up. My immediate interpretation: I thought she was tweaking the over-eager defenders of trans people for going after her fellow comedian. 

Sunrise — 7:25, 7:50.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments.

"We've seen it since the 1960s.... Police violence lands on this country in a tinderbox fashion."

"And so what is so important for leaders to do in that circumstance is: to obviously lament the lives lost, pledge an independent transparent investigation, and pledge to... seek justice no matter where it leads.... It strikes me that the exact opposite of that is what has occurred. And  immediately after [Renee Good] was killed, she was called a domestic terrorist, very publicly. There are people who then accuse the cop of murder, very publicly, right off the bat. That is pouring gasoline on this situation, and it's horrific.... This incredible rush to judgment results in fixed positions about complicated matters.... And then... there's this assertion, well, this is completely your fault because... when a federal officer gives you instructions, you abide by them and then you get to keep your life. No, no, no, no. That is not what a free society says. We should respect officers... but it is simply not the case that... your right to your life depends on compliance with federal officials.... It's dangerous to drive away from the police. You should not drive away from the police. But under no circumstances is America a country where the command should be obey the men and women in uniform or your life is forfeit. That's not the standard of the United States of America."

Says David French on the new episode of the Advisory Opinions podcast (transcript and audio at Podscribe).

ADDED: If you are questioning the usage in the phrase "or your life is forfeit," know that C.S. Lewis used in in "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" (full text at Gutenberg):

Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I contemplated whether I was named after Ann Arbor.

My mother grew up in Ann Arbor, I heard about Ann Arbor throughout my childhood, and I went to college in Ann Arbor, but it had never occurred to me that I might have been named after Ann Arbor. The story my mother told me about my name is that they wanted a name that began with the letter A — so I ended up with the initials AAA, straight As — and they wanted something as simple as possible. The second-choice name was Amy, which is also only 3 letters, but it's 2 syllables, so Amy it wasn't. 

I'm also only just now looking into the question whether Ann Arbor was named after someone named Ann. Wikipedia says: