“NO MEN PLAYING WOMEN’S SPORTS”

For culture warriors, transgenders in sports have been a hot-button issue. 180 schoolgirls murdered in Iran? Yawn! Child-rapist President? Bo-ring! But a transgender in women’s sports makes their blood boil.

They have a point. Do you want your girls’ basketball team playing against a 110 kg (240 lb.) hulk like Luka Doncic, if he somehow declares he’s female? (He doesn’t, by the way.)

Basketball star Luka Doncic

The culture warriors are quick to ask ‘gotcha’ questions in debates or Congressional hearings, like “can you define ‘woman?’” Most people cannot give a clear answer. Genitalia? Can be changed. Hormones? Can be replaced. Is there one defining criterion?

Actually, there is: the presence of an SRY gene. You inherit your genes at birth, and they cannot be changed. The Olympic Committee has decreed that if you have the SRY gene, you cannot qualify as a female athlete. Case closed; end of story.

But wait, the culture warriors have more tricks up their sleeve. They point to the Mozambican/South African female runner Caster Semenya, who won gold medals and other championships. Here is her photo.

The culture warriors shout, “Anyone can plainly see that’s a man.” In fact, she’s a woman, without an SRY gene and with female genitalia. Her difference is in an overproduction of the male hormone testosterone, which gives her many male characteristics. Culture warriors have attempted to force her to lower her testosterone, to no avail. She is, by definition, female, and must be allowed to compete.

Some females have more testosterone than others, just by their genetic nature, just as some basketball players are well over 2 meters tall. You can’t ban Luka Doncic from competing just because his genes caused him to be too tall. Similarly, you can’t ban Semenya just because her genes caused her to have too much testosterone.

Now what about all those sports that don’t require physical prowess? Ping-pong? Snooker? Why even bother having separate male and female ping-pong competitions? Even chess. There are significant mental changes when a person undergoes hormone replacement therpy. Could those changes give a transgender an advantage in playing chess? It’s all quite complicated, but at least, the SRY gene criterion is simple and applicable.

IS TRUMP SCHIZOPHRENIC?

Most Americans will recognize this photo. Trump had claimed that the hurricane would strike Alabama, but the weather service showed him the map with the projected path missing Alabama. Trump promptly took a sharpie and drew an altered black path that included Alabama. He thought that proved him correct.

Was Trump lying? No, in his mind the storm was headed towards Alabama, and his sharpie alteration was just proving he was right.

To tell a lie is to make a false statement in the full knowledge that it is false. Trump doesn’t do that. He invents a reality in his mind and believes it to be true. Every day he comes up with outrageous statements, even with detailed numbers and statistics that anyone can check as false, but fact-checking doesn’t matter to him. He has invented his own reality.

Another silly example is his oft-repeated statement that he is going to bring prescription drug prices down by 500, 600, or even 1000%. The fact-checkers can point out that such reductions are mathematically impossible and are limited at 100%. No matter to him; he just continues to spout this branch of imaginary mathematics, which we might call ‘Trumpometrics’.

Of course, the granddaddy of his ‘lies’ is the rigging of the 2020 election. I’m convinced he truly believes his own falsehood, and disregards mountains of facts and judicial decisions to the contrary. That is his own fantasy.

And now we come to the Iran war, or ‘little excursion’, as he calls it. He makes up these fantasies, like ‘We won in the first hour’, but then reality and cognitive dissonance set in, and he has to correct his fantasy by stating that he is sending troops to his already-won war. As we have seen, his stories change by the day or even by the hour, but he appears to believe even the most contradictory versions.

Living in a fantasy reality is a sign of schizophrenia. I’m afraid Trump may be schizophrenic, as he has lost touch with reality.

The media have shied away from the word ‘schizophrenia’, but I fear we may be hearing it more and more, as Trump goes off the deep end with his flights from reality.

That is why he is so dangerous. He may have a vision of an easy takeover of Kharg Island, and will parachute in troops. But then what will he do when those troops start to be killed en masse? He’ll invent some other fantasy, such as, “We have won a magnificent victory on Kharg Island.”

A worst-case scenario is that he might actually get the idea to nuke Teheran. His sycophants might even egg him on: “Mr. President. What a brilliant idea! You are a true genius.” When I see his schizophrenic fantasies, I am actually becoming frightened that he might just do it. After all, attacking Iran for no apparent reason other than “I felt like it” was pretty off-the-wall. There’s no telling how far this madman will go. We’re in scary territory.

IRAN PEACE TALKS — TACO?

What to make of Trump’s announcement that the Iranians have called him and asked for talks?

If Iran was throwing in the towel, they wouldn’t want these talks to be known. They would want to appear strong publicly while acting weak in private. This would explain why Iran is denying that any dialogues are taking place.

On the other hand, why is Trump so openly bragging about these talks? Is there any other evidence or corroboration that the talks are happening? Knowing Trump’s past history, I’m guessing that it’s all lies.

Trump must have realized that he could not possibly bomb all of Iran’s hundreds or even thousands of power plants.

Wait! These are just Iran’s SOLAR plants.

The world was coming to understand that his 48-hour threat was all a bluff, so he had to climb down somehow, while saving face. The announcement of peace talks was a way out of the trap he had set for himself.

Dana Stroul, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, stated, “It is surely no coincidence that the announcement of a five-day pause and talks came right before markets opened in the United States on Monday morning.”

In other words, classic TACO.

At first, I wondered why financial markets reacted so positively to the announcement. The Dow Jones rose nearly 1000 from its lows, and oil prices declined about 10%. Did financial analysts around the world believe that peace talks were happening? No, I think they figured out that this was yet another Trump TACO, just like his tariffs, and that Trump was not going to bomb the power plants. [Recall that it was actually the stock market analysts who coined the phrase TACO after Trump threatened tariffs but then backed down.]

Why five days, I wonder? A comprehensive cease-fire or peace plan certainly can’t be hammered out in 5 days.

What will happen in five days, if there are no talks? Trump can probably string this out by claiming that the talks are going well, but that more time is needed. He could prolong his threatened bombings indefinitely.

Or else, maybe 5 days is the time needed for the Marines to be ready to invade Iran, or at least Kharg Island or the shore along the Hormuz Strait.

Meanwhile, the war goes on and the Straits remain closed. Nothing has changed.

CAMBODIA’S COMING DEBT CRASH

The rise in energy costs is going to hit Cambodia harder than other countries. This is because the country is already struggling with mountains of debt.

My sister used to work for an American bankruptcy court, and she would tell me story after story of families who played by the rules, paid their debts, and were responsible enough to manage to keep afloat amid huge debts. But one day a ‘black swan’ event occurs, such as a gigantic medical bill. That completely destroys the family, and they must declare bankruptcy.

I fear that the same phenomenon may happen to Cambodian families. Consider the following descriptions of Cambodian debt, as described in an article in Deutsche Welle:

More families in Southeast Asia sinking into debt

Across Southeast Asia, households are taking on debt just to cover basic needs. Analysts warn that the region’s growing dependence on borrowing risks triggering wider financial stress and long-term economic harm.

From Phnom Penh to Bangkok, a growing share of mainland Southeast Asia’s economic story is no longer about exports, investment or factory growth, but about households borrowing simply to get by.

Cambodia is at the center of the crisis. The country’s credit boom lifted the private debt-to-GDP ratio from 24.2% in 2010 to 134.5% in 2023, one of the region’s sharpest expansions. [Thailand, itself considered highly indebted, has a ratio of only 87%].

According to Cambodia’s Credit Bureau, as of December 2025, the average outstanding personal loan per borrower was around $6,500 (€5,665). The garment-sector minimum wage is $208 per month.

I have observed the Cambodian economy over the past several years. I know that salaries are only a few hundred dollars a month, but I see these same hard-working people driving conspicuous-consumption vehicles, for which they must have borrowed thousands of dollars at high interest rates. However, as in the stories my sister tells me, they have managed to make ends meet and keep afloat, that is, until the recent energy crisis.

This rise in energy costs comes amid a perfect storm of economic hardships, based on at least two other ‘black swans’.

First, the property market has crashed. Go to the outskirts of any Cambodian city, and you will see rows and rows of empty ‘boreys’. In the past decade, investors (largely Chinese, possibly interested in money laundering), have built thousands of these housing units, which no one wants to buy. If you have a house that you want to sell, lotsa luck!

Typical Borey. These are mostly empty.

Secondly, Trump foisted his tariffs on Cambodia. At first, it was 49%, but in order to pacify both Cambodia and Thailand at the beginning of their border war, he graciously lowered it to only 19%. The Cambodians were so grateful! I see it like this: Trump threatens to cut off your arm, but then he cuts off only your hand, and you are eternally grateful.

The tariffs are hurting Cambodia’s lifeline – the garment industry. If garment exports to the US are heavily taxed, demand will go down, and many factories will be forced to close, sending young girls back to their villages into poverty and most likely prostitution or other degrading activities.

I fear that the recent energy price increases may be the straw that breaks the back of working Cambodians. What are the implications of that? For one thing, banks may fail, due to an avalanche of nonperforming loans. For another, the conspicuous consumption in cars and houses may come to an end, as families are forced into much more modest lifestyles. One positive point: Cambodia produces a lot of its own food and other products. Cambodia may prove to be remarkably self-sufficient.

WHY ARE MORE AMERICANS IN FAVOR OF THE IRAN WAR?

Americans, at the start of the Iran war, were largely negative. On March 1, CNN reported 41% in favor, and 59% opposed (-18%).  More recently, however, the war has increased in popularity. RealClearPolitics lists recent polls, and finds that the average is 44.3% in favor, 47.7% opposed  (-3.4%). That’s still negative overall, but just barely, and in fact less than 50% are actually opposed to the war. The Washington Post, in its most recent poll of March 9, even gives 42% for and 40% against (+2%). The usually pro-Trump Rasmussen poll gives 52% for and 42% against (+10%).

I was flabbergasted by this increase in popularity. Most of the articles I read consider the war an unmitigated disaster, which is looking more and more like a ‘forever war’ with global energy shortages and high prices, leading to possible economic collapse. How on earth could more and more Americans think this outrageous war is a good thing? This question has really puzzled me.

I have two or three possible explanations, but there may be others.

  1. 13 American soldiers have been killed. Americans are angry and howling for vengeance. No matter that we murdered 170 schoolgirls, those 13 Americans demand retribution. The greater the US destruction and death in Iran, the more that vengeance will be satisfied.
  2. Trump has bragged about US successes, claiming victory. The Trump-controlled media are saying that the war is a great success militarily. This makes Americans feel good. “Let’s continue to kick more ass!” may be the attitude of many Americans.
  3. At first, Trump thought that Iran would roll over and die, and that the grateful Iranian people would welcome US intervention and overthrow the régime. That didn’t happen. Angry Americans may feel “How dare they refuse to submit and continue to defy American might. Let’s teach those ingrates a lesson.”

Images like this enrage many Americans.

One other point: this change in attitude is not just a change in Trump’s approval. RealClear has his average approval spread at a fairly constant -11%. Compared to the war approval spread of -3.4%, that means that 7.6% still disapprove of Trump but support the war. This constant -11% also indicates that Trump has not lost support because of the war.

THERE WERE TWO STRIKES ON THE GIRLS’ SCHOOL

Graves of schoolgirls killed by US Tomahawk missiles

I have been reading many accounts of the bombing of the girls’ school in Iran. They all refer to the ‘strike’. None of them mention the second strike, some 40 minutes later, which killed many of the survivors of the first strike and those trying to rescue them.

This second strike is important, because it gives the lie to the explanation that the bombing was a mistake. Even if the first strike was a mistake, the bombers would quickly realize it, and would not repeat the same mistake.

One account claims that they were aiming at a nearby installation; while another account claims that an outdated map showed a military installation on the site; a third account claims that the destruction of the school was just collateral damage from a bomb strike nearby. The picture below shows that this was no collateral damage.

Ruins of the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab

None of these explanations satisfy me, especially after Trump tried to lie his way out of it by saying that the Iranians bombed their own school, and when shown evidence that it was an American missile, he claimed that he knew nothing about it. Suuuurre! Of course he knew. The alleged evidence of an outdated map sounds like the product of some backroom sessions trying to come up with an excuse that sounded credible.

The US media have been boasting about how accurate American strikes have been, as evidenced by the precise targeting of the Ayatollah. I somehow believe these boasts, after I saw how precise their calculations had been in Venezuela. The New York Times noted that “a single errant missile wouldn’t have caused such precise and targeted damage to several buildings “. No, the US military didn’t make a mistake.

The only other explanation is that the US knew that they were bombing the school – twice. Why would they do that? They haven’t told us, so there must be some secret. One theory, which I haven’t heard anywhere and just invented myself, is that there was actually some important person hiding in (or under?) the school. That person must have been so important that, even now, the US military refuses to mention any high-ranking figure in connection with the school. Has anyone asked whether there were tunnels beneath the school?

Whatever the true explanation (which Trump is hiding), this massacre will go down as one of the most despicable acts of savagery in American history, and history will hold Trump accountable for this evil murder.

OCCAM’S RAZOR APPLIED TO IRAN

Trump has been flailing – and failing – to provide a plausible rationale or objective for attacking Iran. He changes his unconvincing explanations on a daily basis. Meanwhile, media pundits are scratching their heads trying to figure out what Trump is trying to achieve. Everyone is guessing how long it will last, but how can you even guess when you don’t even know what victory looks like?

The Trump-controlled media outlets like CBS and now CNN are spending hours and hours discussing this complex situation. Apparently, Trump is not allowing them even to utter one simple 3-letter word. That would be Occam’s Razor.

Let’s back up to Venezuela. Trump offered all sorts of reasons for attacking. For a while it was fentanyl, until everyone figured out that no fentanyl was being shipped from Venezuela. Then it was Maduro’s drug trafficking and oppressive régime. But when it was all over, the régime – sans Maduro – was still in place, while Trump was given control over Venezuela’s oil, with profits flowing to a Trump-controlled (NOT American) offshore account in Qatar. Trump’s ‘deal’ was to allow the trafficking, criminal, oppressive régime to remain in place as long as he controlled the oil.

Now, back to Iran, where the media are not allowed even to suggest that O-I-L has anything to do with this war. I suggest that oil has everything to do with it. In short, Trump wants to control Iran’s oil in the same way that he controls Venezuela’s. As in the case of Venezuela, his ‘deal’ is “I will totally destroy you if you don’t give me your oil. I will leave the current corrupt, oppressive régime in place as long as I control the oil and its profits.”

All of Trump’s ‘deals’ are like this, including the tariff ‘deals’: “I will destroy you if you don’t give me what I want.”

A word about the 185 murdered schoolgirls. The Trump-controlled media outlets gloss over this massacre as though it was just an accident. Trump fires pinpoint precision missiles and hits other targets exactly. The school bombing was not a mistake; it was precisely planned. Now why would Trump plan to murder 185 schoolgirls? If my assessment above is correct, the murder of schoolgirls sends the message: “I will stop at nothing until you give me your oil.”

(aside: has Trump destroyed any of Iran’s oil installations? I think I can guess why not.)

Here’s a corollary to my thesis. In order for Trump to profit from Iran and Venezuela’s oil, their governments must be absolutely stable. They must brook no dissent that might interrupt the flow of oil. Therefore, Trump will covertly assist those governments in suppressing dissent, even if it means massacring thousands of protesters (the very act he condemned in Iran last month).

FOREIGN PRODUCERS REALLY DO PAY THE TARIFFS

Conventional wisdom is that foreign countries do not pay the tariffs; importers pay them, and then pass them on to consumers. Various estimates claim that 95-99% of Trump’s tariffs are paid by consumers.

So now that the tariffs have been declared illegal, import companies are lining up to claim refunds on the tariffs they were forced to pay illegally. However, various websites are crying foul, saying, “Hey, it was really the consumers who paid those tariffs, so why pay refunds to the importers? In fact, the American taxpayer, who paid the higher price, is now asked to bail out the importers, who levied the higher prices on consumers in the first place. The taxpayers are being hit twice for the same price rise.”

But it’s a whole lot more complicated than that. The real losers are the foreign producers, because the tax on their products makes them lose sales. Too high a protective tariff may force the foreign producer to lose their entire US market. That could be a huge loss.

I live in Cambodia, where garment factories form a large part of the country’s GDP, mostly through sales to the US. I have seen garment factories forced to close, because Americans can no longer afford tariff-taxed Cambodian products. The garment industry in Cambodia has lost millions of dollars to Trump’s tariffs.

The winners are the American producers of competing products (just as Trump wanted). Consumers find American products more attractive than the (taxed) foreign imports. Not only do American sales rise, but the producers, without foreign competition, can now raise their prices.

What about tariffs on products that cannot be produced in the US, like coffee or bananas? If the price of coffee goes up, Americans will buy less coffee, or may switch to tea. At least they can switch to coffee from lower tariff countries, since Trump levied the tariffs unequally. The real losers are the high-tariff countries who must now sell less coffee.

Importers, who have simply passed the tariffs on to consumers, cannot claim injury from the federal government, so they should not be allowed to sue. Only the foreign producers should sue for damages. Of course, consumers, who have lost big time, will have trouble individually suing the federal government.

For those of you who like Econ 101 graphs, here is the situation:

Originally, the supply graph S meets the demand graph D in equilibrium point A. With the tariff applied, the supply graph moves up to S’. The new equilibrium point B shows a higher price than point A, but with a lower quantity of sales, Q2. It is that lower sales figure of Q2 that makes the producing country lose money.

MAGA’S NEW EPSTEIN TUNE

Ever since the Epstein files became prominent, MAGA’s response, echoing Trump’s, has been “It’s all a hoax.  Fake news.” That wall is starting to crack.

With the release of 3 million out of a total of 6 million pages of documents, MAGA cultists must be realizing that the hoaxsters wouldn’t print 6 million fake pages. Furthermore, why would they then go and redact most of the fake stories they had invented? Seeing the redacted pages on TV forces the MAGA cultists to admit that maybe they are real.

Moreover, more and more CEOs, royalty, celebrities, and politicians around the world are resigning because their names have been linked to Epstein. They wouldn’t be resigning if it was all a hoax, would they?

I have seen a few recent Facebook posts from MAGA cultists, who are now saying, “Yes, the files are real and some famous people were doing some really bad things. But our hero Trump would never do anything like that.” Pam Bondi declared, under oath, that there is no credible evidence that Trump committed any crimes.

At her infamous hearing, she was shown dozens of testimonies from victims implicating Trump himself. The DOJ response to these horrific accusations is that the FBI (Patel) or the DOJ (Bondi herself) had received the complaints and judged that they were of no merit. Therefore, they do not constitute credible evidence against Trump.

Every article I read on this subject contains an obligatory disclaimer about Trump, something hilarious like “Jane Doe reported to the FBI that Trump had raped her three times, but this does not constitute any suggestion that Trump did anything wrong.” Without that ridiculous disclaimer, Trump would sue the writers of the article.

That seems to be MAGA’s fall-back position: that Trump was friends with a lot of those evil people, including Epstein, but never did anything wrong himself. Those flight manifests from Epstein’s private plane may be real, but they don’t prove that Trump did anything wrong.

MAGA cultists may admit that Epstein and Trump threw parties,

but Trump did nothing illegal there.

I think it was clever of DOJ to release 38,000 mentions of Trump in the files – the least damaging ones they could find. They couldn’t possibly be believed if they redacted ALL mentions of Trump. MAGA can now say, “Nothing to see here.” However, it’s now widely accepted that his name appears over a million times, so that the other 962,000 have been redacted. Those must be the really juicy ones.

It will be hard to dislodge the MAGA cultists from their latest fall-back position. What could force them to change their minds?

The next big step may be the release of unredacted files by European governments. Not only will Trump’s most horrible misdeeds come to light, but there will be corroborating testimonies supporting these stories that will cross-check. How will MAGA react to that?

Another development will be that some of the guilty villains will be perhaps arrested, or if not, at least forced to testify. These important people will carry far more credibility than the women victims, especially if their testimony supports that of the victims. They may be important people whom MAGA can believe.

For example, the former Prince Andrew has already been identified and has lost heavily. What more would he have to lose by testifying against Trump or others? And how about Howard Lutnick, whose story about just visiting Epstein’s island for lunch with his family has absolutely no credibility? If he becomes too much of a laughingstock or liability, he may be forced out and might then testify against Trump and other cabinet members.

I think that the final position of the MAGA cultists will be, “Well, maybe Trump did some bad things when he was younger, but he’s straightened out after realizing that America is broken, and he is doing his best to fix the country, as only he can.”

HOORAY FOR BAD BUNNY!

Prior to the Superbowl halftime show, MAGA critics were shouting that a Hispanic performer was a divisive influence. “Why didn’t the NFL choose someone who spoke English?” An article in the Atlantic states that MAGA voices attacked the “crazy” decision by the “woke” NFL to book someone who’s not “a unifying entertainer.” 

It turned out that Bad Bunny staged an exuberant, positive show, full of joy and happiness, as he emphasized not only the unity of the United States, but the unity of all ‘American’ nations in the two Americas. The 127 million viewers came away feeling pumped up.

On the other hand, the opposition halftime show, with only 5 million viewers, was a bit of a bore. Its featured artist, Kid Rock, did not inspire unity.

Kid Rock (not even from the USA) is not a unifying figure.

We knew Trump would write something nasty about the show. The real reason for his angry response was that, for once, Trump wasn’t the center of attention. Trump has to make everything about HIMSELF.

Bad Bunny’s positive show was a rare island of feel-goodism in a sea of American gloom. Everything in the news these days is negative, from ICE murders to record job losses, from Trump’s constant anger to the horrific Epstein files.

A recent Economist/Yougov poll about the direction of the country showed a negative-to-positive result of 33-61, a spread of -28.

Studies reported in Fortune show that the long-term gloom is even worse. The most recent measures show that while current life satisfaction has declined over the last decade, future optimism has dropped even more.

“While current life is eroding, it’s that optimism for the future that has eroded almost twice as much over the course of about that last 10 years or so.”

That’s why Bad Bunny’s show was such a light in the darkness for millions of Americans. Give him credit for not dwelling on the negatives. He could have badmouthed Trump, bemoaned the economy, or brought up Trump’s misadventures in Venezuela, Greenland, etc. That’s what many people expected, but he didn’t take the bait.

Maybe this show will be a first step towards a more positive attitude, not just about the future of the US, but about the unity of all the diverse peoples in the Americas.