A Bad Lie

The King of Stupid strikes again.

Donald Trump plays golf. He also cheats at it. He is, famously, The Commander in Cheat. Sometimes, he’ll do what is called “improving a bad lie,” which is when you furtively nudge a ball that has landed in an awkward place into a better, more hittable position.

Donald Trump also lies. He is a compulsive, impulsive liar. Lying without consequence is his metier — we let him get away with it because it is so characteristic of his lack of character that we just roll our eyes and move on to something that comes as actual news.

I really want to see him try to improve the lie he made on Monday. It might be fun to watch. To further belabor the sports metaphor, Trump made an unforced error.

Facing the hurricane-level blowback over his disastrous from-the-hip decision to decapitate Iran and, y’know, see what happens, Trump said something blitheringly stupid. During a meeting of the board of the Kennedy Center, which Trump has closed down for two years (and lying about his reasons), Trump defensively farted: He volunteered, unprompted, that one of his predecessors, a former president, has privately told him — presumably awed by Trump’s steely courage and resolve — that he wished he had bombed Iran first.

Which former president? Trump declined to specify.

Later, in front of reporters, he was asked about this, and doubled down. Yep, it happened, he said. He teased that it was a guy he likes, whoever it was, and that the guy likes him back.

Which former president? There are only four!

“Was it George W. Bush?”, a reporter asked.

“No,” Trump said.

“Was it Obama?” Another reporter asked …

At this point, Trump’s eyes seemed to narrow. It had just occurred to him, I bet, in a slap-to-the-forehead moment, that he might be backing himself into a corner.

Had he been thinking that, say, Jerry Ford might still be alive? Carter? Truman? No one’s heard from Truman in a while, but maybe he’s just lying low…

Of course reporters from different news organizations instantly contacted aides to Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, and Bush, all of whom denied that their guy had in any way praised Trump’s misbegotten Iran adventure. Most volunteered that their guy had not even spoken to Trump recently.

Your move, Donald.

Let’s all get the popcorn out.

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So, yesterday I stumbled on an excellent cute-dog video I wanted to share with you, but I executed due diligence first. We are in deceptive times, where fakes abound. (I was on high alert. Yesterday, every person in my email address book got invitations ostensibly from me to attend an Easter brunch I was hosting.) And also just yesterday, Benjamin Netanyahu was forced to circulate a “proof of life” video to show that he was, indeed, still standing, after the Internet had decided that a previous video of him had been faked. People thought they saw a sixth finger on one of his hands. They were wrong, but you see the point: We are living in deceitful times.

So I was, indeed, on high alert. But how to check my dog video out? Ingeniously, I asked Tom the Butcher, who is vastly more adept at this than I am, to ask AI if the video was a fake. Tom did. AI, as always, responded in two seconds. The response:

Based on the video and its history, it is highly unlikely to be AI-generated. There are a few key reasons for this:

• Longevity: This specific video has been circulating on the internet for several years. It predates the current era of high-fidelity, generative AI video tools (like Sora or Kling) that would be capable of rendering such realistic physics, lighting, and complex animal movements.

• Physical Consistency: AI-generated videos often struggle with “object permanence” and consistent physics—for example, a dog’s legs might merge with the chair, or the number of toes might change. In this video, the interaction between the dog’s paws, the friction of the chair on the floor, and the weight distribution as the dog climbs are all physically consistent.

• Digital Artifacts: The video lacks the typical “shimmering” or warping of textures often seen in AI-generated backgrounds. The reflections on the floor and the shadows cast by the dog and the chair move naturally.

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Okay! So here you go:

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Great.

Today’s first Gene Pool Gene Poll:

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Splendid. We are done.

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