The Artful Dilettante is a native of Pittsburgh, PA, and a graduate of Penn State University. He is a lover of liberty and a lifelong and passionate student of the same. He is voracious reader of books on the Enlightenment and the American colonial and revolutionary periods. He is a student of libertarian and Objectivist philosophies. He collects revolutionary war and period currency, books, and newspapers. He is married and the father of one teenage son. He is kind, witty, generous to a fault, and unjustifiably proud of himself. He is the life of the party and an unparalleled raconteur.
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is donating a sizable figure to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s mayoral campaign in hopes the city’s voters don’t elect a full-on socialist.
On Friday, Bloomberg donated $5 million to the super PAC supporting Cuomo’s campaign, according to Politico. It is the largest figure yet from a single donor and illustrates the concern mainstream Democrats have over the rising poll numbers for socialist challenger and Queens Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani. With the Democratic primary only days away, the tightening race has seen New York’s wealthiest forced to choose a side.
A Wednesday poll by Public Policy Polling showed Mamdani with a 4-percentage point lead over Cuomo, 35% to 31%. Mamdani’s stock has risen substantially since receiving an endorsement from progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The Cuomo campaign has pushed back on the poll numbers saying it is from a biased service paid by the Mamdani campaign.
Although Bloomberg and Cuomo were rivals and did not see eye-to-eye during their overlapping years as both mayor and governor respectively, their mutual concern over the leftward drift of the Democratic Party has them now on a united front. Mamdani’s hard push to raise taxes on the richest New Yorker’s and his open antipathy toward Israel have given the two senior Democrats a common foe.
Current New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who will be running as an independent in November, has parted ways with the Democrats over his positive relationship with President Donald Trump. If Cuomo does not capture the Democrat nod, he will appear as an independent as well.
Speaking with Bloomberg Surveillance earlier in the week, Cuomo lamented that some in his party feel they lost to Trump because they weren’t “left enough,” calling out Mamdani’s policies of “dismantle the police, everything free, and tax the rich.”
“It can’t matter who gives you money. People who have institutional interests are supporting me because institutional interests need a city that works. They want a city with a future. What they’re afraid of, if you elect a socialist, is double the taxes on the wealthy. And the wealthy say, that’s it, we’re gone,” he said.
The Arab condemnation for attack in Iran is an automatic response that hides the truth: the Gulf and Jordan states want to see the Iranian nuclear project is destroyed, but cannot admit it publicly for fear of their image in the Arab world and the local street • Israel should not worry about it – if you complete the task • and: Iran’s weakness can lead to a change. Prof. Eli Podeh | N12 | Posted 14.06.25 |
Russian researcher, Ivan Pavlov, wrote about the tendency of people and animals to respond automatically to external stimuli. This phenomenon, which has become a familiar concept in psychology – “Pavlovian response” – is suitable for describing the Arab response to the Iranian nuclear facility attack by Israel.
Almost all Arab states who are signed by peace or normalization with Israel, or those who have behind the scenes, have published condemnation, almost uniformity, against the attack; Again, the phenomenon is back, that there is no coordinator between their auction and the secret…. Therefore, although it is still too early to determine the exact scope of Arab aid to Israel, there are indications that Israel operated over the airspace of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria – the latter apparently without its knowledge or consent; Jordanian aircraft intercepted Iranian drones over Jordanian territory. It can also be assumed that the regional air defense system established after the signing of the Abraham Accords anarabd the inclusion of Israel in the American “Central Command” – the so-called Middle East Air Defense – operated to intercept Iranian drones, similar to its activity in Iran’s two previous attacks.
White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security advisor Stephen Miller has warned that the United States’ Alien Registration Act will now be enforced, and “illegals who fail to register with the government, as required by law, will be criminally prosecuted.”
Under the Alien Registration Act, which had not been enforced for 75 years, all non-citizens are required to register with the government, submit their fingerprints, and provide the address where they are residing.
Miller confirmed that the law will now be enforced in a post to X, responding to a Politico article titled, “Federal prosecutors now charging immigrants who don’t submit fingerprints under dormant 1940s law.”
…
Since April, law enforcement in Louisiana, Arizona, Montana, Alabama, Texas and Washington, D.C., have charged people with willful “failure to register” under the Alien Registration Act, an offense most career federal public defenders have never encountered before. Many of those charged were already in jail and in ongoing deportation proceedings when prosecutors presented judges with the new charges against them.
The registration provision in the law, which was passed in 1940 amid widespread public fear about immigrants’ loyalty to the U.S., had been dormant for 75 years, but it is still on the books. Failure to register is considered a “petty offense” — a misdemeanor with maximum penalties of six months imprisonment or a $1,000 fine.
In reviving the law, the Trump administration may put undocumented immigrants in a catch-22. If they register, they must hand over detailed, incriminating information to the federal government — including how and when they entered the country. But knowingly refusing to register is also a crime, punishable by arrest or prosecution, on top of the ever-present threat of deportation.
There is a third option, the report noted, which is to incentivize illegal aliens to self-deport.
The Department of Homeland Security announced the law would begin being enforced back in February.
“An alien’s failure to depart the U.S. is a crime that could result in significant financial penalty. An alien’s failure to register is a crime that could result in a fine, imprisonment, or both. For decades, this law has been ignored—not anymore,” DHS said in a press release. “Compelling mass self-deportation is a safer path for aliens and law enforcement, and saves U.S. taxpayer dollars, in addition to conserving valuable Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) resources needed to keep Americans safe.”
DHS Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said of the changes, “President Trump and Secretary Noem have a clear message for those in our country illegally: leave now. If you leave now, you may have the opportunity to return and enjoy our freedom and live the American dream.”
“The Trump administration will enforce all our immigration laws—we will not pick and choose which laws we will enforce. We must know who is in our country for the safety and security of our homeland and all Americans.”
I live near this event (The April 19th Reenactment of the encounter between Colonials and the British at the Old North Bridge) but had only gone to it once before many years ago, and it was rainy with no visibility of the event due to crowd size. I determined it wasn’t worth going to again until this anniversary. I thought this would be something I should go to.
In 1976, the 200 Year Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, I had no opportunity to see any of it because I was an E2 Airman Apprentice doing Scullery Duty in the Chiefs Mess aboard the USS JFK tied up at Pier 12 in Norfolk, VA. Wasn’t even able to go ashore on liberty.
So, I thought I should not miss this opportunity, as I likely won’t be alive for any future celebration of this kind.
I got out of my car at around 4 AM, parking about four miles away and walking over because I wanted to be at the Old North Bridge for some 05:45 AM event, and the shuttle busses didn’t start running until 6 AM. I arrived at the Old North Bridge around 05:15 or so. There were a lot of people setting up and preparing, but only a few spectators like me, so this was as good as I could expect.
I think these people are total statist morons, the kinds who would wave around Little Red Books in Mao’s Communist China. But those men stood their ground on that bridge 250 years ago to give even these ideologic statists the RIGHT to stand out there with their filthy signs. So, I have to accept the bad with the good. It has been my observation, from much experience, that Conservatives almost always have a similar opinion as my own.
However, long experience has also told me that this mindset is not in any way reciprocated by Leftists.
Around 06:30 AM, they began to move spectators out of the way, and they came into the area I was in. I saw an amusing sight (to me at least) of a man in British Army garb with his electric bike…it occurred to me that the British Regulars might have appreciated those back in 1775.
As the crowd in the spectator area began to increase, a woman asked me if I would be willing to move to allow her and her friends to stand together, and I politely refused, saying I had picked out this spot hours ago because it gave me the best view of both ends of the bridge for the soon to be non-existent reenactment. She seemed to accept that.
Then, I realized as the crowd of people directly around me increased, that her “friends” were all these douchebags affiliated with an organization called “Indivisible” who I know are the most radical and vocal a-hole Leftists out there. Worse than Code Pink or MoveOn.org type. Over the years, I have had to see their scumbag signs on a daily basis, and have had the tiresome opportunity of crossing their paths politically at some standouts or other demonstrations. I immediately recognized their jackass “Dear Leader” from having seen and heard him before. I estimate there were ten or 15 of them with their signs though it was hard to tell the way they milled around.
At that point, a media person came over to interview them. They all lined up dutifully with their signs, and he began interviewing them.
One of these people being interviewed was so vacuous, that I realized there was value in transcribing what she said as her fellow Leftists all nodded dutifully in approval at what she was saying. I began recording it, not secretly, but holding my phone up to record the voice (not video).
A man behind me said “Are you from New England?” and as I said “Yes I am!” and turned, I saw it was one of the Leftists wearing a mask, apparently the husband of the woman who had asked if I would move to give her group more room. I said politely “I’m not interested in talking with your group.” and the guy said “There’s nothing wrong with talking, I think we have to talk.” and I said politely in a level tone “No. I’d rather not interact with you. Let’s leave it at that.”
While he was endeavoring to engage me, his wife was trying to dissuade him from bothering me, which he stopped trying to do, and I had no further issue with them. As a matter of fact, she went out of her way to thank me (after my next encounter with the stupid one who got in my face) for serving in the military, which my ball cap made evident, and said that her father had served in WWII. I politely and genuinely thanked her but was not interested in pursuing the conversation. I appreciated that she did that. It made me wonder why she was there with those other people. I guess she had her reasons.
The “reporter” asked them: “Why do you feel like you have to come out here?”
As I heard this one person speak (all dressed in black with the American flag face diaper) I was glad I had turned on my recorder:
Umm…this is one of they many issues I have with this administration. Well, I believe that I have my choice over my own body. I believe that Black Lives Matter. I believe that science is real. I believe that we should protect our water. I believe…uhh…what are some other things we believe? (asking her “comrades”)
The stupid one jumps right in:
“I believe that healthcare is a right. I believe we should take care of our seniors and our disabled people. That cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will lead to unnecessary deaths. I believe that this administration is literally killing us by cutting out our science and we won’t have any response for bird flu or whatever the next pandemic is. My family is a family of scientists, and shutting down their experiments now will set back drug development for a decade or more, and that is because this fascist government does not care about the people. They don’t care if you live or die. In fact, it is more convenient for them if you die. So, the fascist government is only for the rich oligarchs at the top. Not the people.
The “reporter” asked her: “Why do you feel like Concord was the right place to come for this protest?” the dumb one answered:
“You know, eight years ago I would have come here for the historical spectacle, because I love history. I have costumes of every period. I love America. But now, I am fighting. I am fighting. Every hour I am fighting fascism, to try to save America, because I don’t think we have another 250 years if we don’t…hold the line…now.”
The “reporter” thanked them and asked if he could take their picture with their signs, and the Asian guy (who I think is their “Dear Leader”) suddenly interjected: “Wait-I would like to say a few words too!” The reporter agreed, and this guy started speaking:
“We are with the “Indivisible” organization. Uhh, we truly believe we are losing our democracy in a big way. The oligarchy and fascists are taking over with the administration. The four signs of that are very straightforward. They took over the press and journalism, you guys are very careful not to say anything bad about them, otherwise you lose all your rights. We are losing the uh, the uh, universities, they are basically doing the ‘divide and conquer”, threatening all the universities, so that people are afraid to say anything or they will lose their funding. We are uh, losing the law firms, one after another, oppress them so that they won’t say anything against this administration and it’s working. And lastly, they totally own the business. All the big business owners, the corporate owners, already cater down to this administration, any deals at all, they wouldn’t touch the administration and they want all the government contracts. All those four solutions are signs of how countries lose their democracy, and it is happening in a big way. So, we believe that, uh, the only way we can uh, save our country, is for the ‘grass roots’ like ‘Indivisible” to rise up and get a big uprising to payback, we cannot take this, no King, nothing, hands off, all these things are very important, otherwise, we will lose our democracy and our country. Today, here, it is very simple: we are the most patriotic people in this country. We believe in saving our country, getting our country back, otherwise we will become another Putin, or a CCP country. So, that is why I am here today. Concord, very important. 1776 we said ‘No Kings” and we are having a king. Today is the day to say that. We do not want a King in this country. And if you notice, I am dressing all flags because I would claim to the MAGA folks, I am the most patriotic people not only to think about what is great again, we are the people that’s going to rise up and say America is great because of people like us.
And the dumb one says: “Huzzah!” The “reporter” asked if they were all from Concord, and the Dear Leader said “Concord” and the Dumb One said “We are from various places, all with “Indivisible”.
Near the end of this screed above, someone asked if I had permission to record, and I said “Nope. Public forum.” Then the reporter asked for their names, and the Dumb One, who I had not spoken a word to since they arrived there, put her hand on my phone (grabbing on top of the camera lens) and said “Stop filming while he is saying his name. HE’S SAYING HIS NAME!” and I said evenly “Take your hand off my camera.” which she did. She repeated “HE’S SAYING HIS NAME!” and I said “Nope. This is in the public record. It is in public.”
Then she said to the “reporter”: “I don’t want to say it while he is filming…” then she turned and put her face in my camera field as shown below and said:
“…BECAUSE THIS MAN IS VERY RUDE!”
She backed off for a split second, and then shoved her mouth back towards the camera:
“IT IS VERY RUDE TO BE FILMING RIGHT NOW!”
As I looked at the screen of this Leftard putting her face into my camera inches away from it where all I see is that…mouth…I can be heard to exclaim “Priceless!” So she writes her name on the “reporter’s” pad, turns back to my camera putting her mouth right up to the lens and says venomously:
“I’LL PRAY FOR YOU, DEAR!”
I admit that it instantly crossed my mind that the prayers offered on my behalf (coming from someone who supports the murder of unborn children and eventually, the likely elimination of those who disagree with her) might not be prayers to my God. I am comfortable with that…
So, things went on. The woman was deliberately pressing in on my space (even putting her ass in front of my camera) so I saw a kid who was in the crowd behind me who couldn’t see, so I invited him and his parents to move up between me and the Dumb One. They gratefully let their kid up so he could see directly through the crowd control fencing, and they stood right behind them.
That worked well to provide a buffer between me and the Dumb One, and when I saw another young couple in their mid-twenties, I invited them up as well, further distancing the Dumb One who was trying to crowd in on me.
I enjoyed some wonderful conversation with this young couple from New Jersey. He was a history buff, and we talked about the abundance of Revolutionary War history both in Massachusetts and in New Jersey.
There turned out to be no reenactment, just a volley of muskets:
All in all, it was a disappointing event, having to listen to the blather of the execrable Massachusetts governor who talked about herself on that day, how she was a groundbreaker, how we had to fight tyranny in our country today, blah blah blah.
Typical Leftist drivel. And when she laid the wreath at the monument, the General saluted the wreath, and she did too.
It struck me that watching that Leftist POS Governor salute that wreath had the same impact on me as hearing that stupid, irreligious Leftist say she would “pray for me”.
Israel’s first round of airstrikes, in what the Israeli government is describing as an extended campaign to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program, killed several top Iranian military officers and nuclear scientists.
Several others’ statuses remain unclear as of Friday, variously reportedly as killed, injured, or potentially defecting.
Targets confirmed as of Friday morning included:
Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Salami was the most important target eliminated by Israel’s attack. Iranian state media reported he was “martyred in the Israeli regime’s attack on the IRGC headquarters” in Tehran.
An Israeli security official told Fox News on Friday that Israel used its extensive knowledge of the top IRGC commanders to lure them into a meeting and “keep them there” until an airstrike wiped them out. Israel used similar tactics to destroy the leadership of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
It is possible Iranian media accounts of Salami’s death are either confused or deliberately misleading, as some other reports say he was killed at his home in Tehran.
Sixty-five years old at the time of his death, Salami was one of the most powerful men in Iran. He joined the IRGC during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s and was appointed its commander in 2019 by “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in 2019.
The IRGC is the theocratically-controlled wing of the Iranian military and is also a designated terrorist organization, responsible for recruiting and arming Iranian proxy forces across the Middle East.
Salami was noted for constantly threatening attacks against the United States and Israel. He ordered Iran’s two failed missile strikes against Israel during the Gaza war, which provoked Israel to wipe out much of Iran’s air defense network, which paved the way for the swift elimination of the IRGC commander on Thursday night.
The day before Israel took him out, Salami claimed Iran’s military was “fully ready for any scenarios, situations, and circumstances.”
“The enemy thinks it can fight Iran the same way it fights defenseless Palestinians who are under an Israeli siege. We are war-tested and experienced,” he boasted.
On Friday, Khamenei decreed that Salami’s replacement would be Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, former IRGC leader and interior minister under President Ebrahim Raisi. Vahidi was the first commander of the IRGC’s foreign terrorism squad, the Quds Force. The most famous of his successors was Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was eliminated by order of President Donald Trump in January 2020 after plotting attacks on Americans in Iraq.
Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces. Somewhere between 65 and 68 years old according to various sources, Bagheri became the highest-ranking officer in the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 2016. Before that, he was an intelligence officer in the IRGC, ultimately joining an “elite force” that carried out the most “sensitive missions.”
Bagheri was under heavy sanctions by the United States, Canada, UK, and European Union for his role in violently suppressing the Mahsa Amini uprising in 2022, and for implementing other “destabilizing” policies of Supreme Leader Khamenei. The European Union sanctioned him in 2022 for supplying drones to Russia for use against Ukraine.
Maj. Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid, head of IRGC Khatam-al Anbiya Central Headquarters and deputy chief of staff for the armed forces.
Rashid was born in 1953 and was regarded as a heroic activist during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. He was among the first intelligence directors of the newly-formed IRGC. Like Salami, he was a military commander during the brutal war between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s.
The Khatam-al Anbiya Central Headquarters is a joint operations center for the IRGC and the regular Iranian army. It is considered the primary engineering department of the IRGC, playing a key role in the development of Iran’s ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. According to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), Khatam-al Anbiya was “heavily involved” in building the Fordow nuclear enrichment plant, a heavily fortified underground facility.
Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of IRGC aerospace forces. According to Israeli officials, Hajizadeh was killed along with other top leaders of the IRGC air force while meeting in an underground command center to plan attacks on Israel.
“Hajizadeh publicly pledged allegiance to the idea of destroying Israel on multiple occasions in recent years and played a central role in formulating the plan to destroy Israel,” the Israeli military said.
Hajizadeh, reportedly in his early 60s, was a sniper and artillery officer during the Iran-Iraq War. He was instrumental in building Iran’s arsenal of ballistic missiles with acquisitions from North Korea and Libya. He also played a role in establishing the underground nuclear facility at Parchin in 2002.
In a 2020 interview, Hajizadeh said he was hand-picked by Supreme Leader Khamenei to provide Iran’s terrorist proxies across the Middle East with ballistic missiles.
Like other top Iranian military officials, Hajizadeh constantly boasted that his forces were more than a match for Israel. In 2009, he declared that “in case of any aggression, the Zionists’ F15 and F16 aircraft will be trapped by our aircraft and destroyed, and if one of their aircraft manages to escape Iran’s air defense, before it can land, the bases from which these aircraft have taken off will be struck by our destructive ground-to-ground missiles.”
None of that happened on the night Israel killed Hajizadeh with astounding speed and precision, after dismantling his vaunted air defenses and neutralizing his ballistic missiles. Several of his top officers died alongside him, including the leaders of the IRGC’s air defense and drone commands.
Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, key Iranian nuclear scientist and politician. Abbasi is a former IRGC officer who joined its research center for missiles and nuclear weapons in 1984. He was the vice president of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization from 2011 to 2013.
Abbasi was the most prominent of the six Iranian nuclear scientists eliminated by Israel’s airstrikes. He has been cited as one of the most important players in concealing Iran’s illicit research from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). He was sanctioned by the United Nations in 2007 for participating in Iran’s illegal development of nuclear weapons.
Abbasi became head of the Atomic Energy Organization a few months after he narrowly survived an assassination attempt on the streets of Tehran. His appointment was seen as a gesture of symbolic defiance by the regime toward the U.S. and Israel, both of whom Iran blamed for trying to kill him with a bomb planted on the door of his car. By all accounts, Abbasi was not very good at his job – he was notoriously poor at dealing with the media – so he was soon replaced.
A hardline Islamist, Abbasi was elected to the Iranian parliament in 2020 and held his seat until 2024. He has said he would be happy to build a nuclear bomb if the Ayatollah commanded it and believed it was impossible for Iran’s nuclear program to be neutralized by military action or assassination, including his own death.
Mohamed Mehdi Tehranchi, physicist and president of Islamic Azad University. Tehranchi was the other big name among the six nuclear scientists killed on Thursday. Islamic Azad University is Iran’s largest institution of higher learning. Tehranchi was also a professor of laser and plasma research at another school, Shahid Beheshti University.
Tehranchi supervised Iran’s first effort to build a nuclear weapon in 2004, the so-called “Amad Plan.”
He was sanctioned by the U.S. Commerce Department in 2020, after President Trump pulled out of former president Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran due to the regime’s “unacceptable nuclear escalations.”
Notably, not even the infamously Iran-friendly Obama administration was willing to lift the sanctions against Shahid Beheshti University, where Tehranchi’s work on lasers was seen as important to Iran’s uranium enrichment program.
Ali Shamkhani, former IRGC commander and adviser to Ayatollah Khamenei. Shamkhani was either killed or critically injured in Thursday night’s attack, according to various Iranian sources. His residence atop an apartment building in Tehran was apparently destroyed by an Israeli missile.
Shamkhani was one of the lead negotiators involved in indirect talks with the United States. In May, he floated a suggestion that Iran might be willing to sign a deal that eliminated its stockpiles of near-weapons-grade uranium in exchange for the U.S. lifting sanctions. Iranian officials said on Friday that if he is dead, nuclear diplomacy died with him.
Shamkhani was among Iran’s top strategists, and has long been the top-ranking ethnic Arab in the Islamic Republic.
Esmail Qaani, head of the IRGC Quds Force, successor to the late Qassem Soleimani. Qaani’s fate was one of the most intriguing question marks hanging over the first stage of the Israeli operation as of Friday morning. He was the deputy commander of the Quds Force until Soleimani was eliminated, after which he was named the new chief of the terrorist unit by Ayatollah Khamenei.
Qaani would seem to have solid credentials for the job, having served in the Iran-Iraq War and developed a close personal friendship with Soleimani. He was also on good personal terms with Khamenei.
Nevertheless, rumors have persisted over the past few years that he was actually an asset for Israeli intelligence who provided information crucial to eliminating the leaders of Hamas and Hezobollah. On Friday, there were unconfirmed reports he was exfiltrated to Israel after the airstrikes. Other rumors said Qaani was killed in the strikes. His true fate was not a matter of public knowledge as of early Friday afternoon.
A senior Iranian official said Friday that the Tehran regime will target the regional bases of any country that assists Israel.
“Iran reserves the right – under international law – to respond decisively to this regime,” the official told CNN. “Any country that attempts to defend the regime against Iran’s operations will, in turn, see its regional bases and positions become new targets.”
Iran accused the U.S. of being complicit in the attacks, which the Trump administration denied, telling Tehran on Friday at the U.N. Security Council on Friday that it would “be wise” to negotiate over its nuclear program, The Jerusalem Post reported.
After Israel began Operation Rising Lion on Thursday night, targeting Iranian nuclear and military sites, Secreta Istaelry of State Marco Rubio said Israel acted unilaterally and that the U.S. was not involved.
“Tonight, Israel took unilateral action against Iran,” Rubio said in a statement released by the White House. “We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region.
“Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary for its self-defense. President Trump and the Administration have taken all necessary steps to protect our regional partners. Let me be clear: Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel.”
President Donald Trump reportedly said Friday that Israel used “great American equipment” in its attack.
U.S. and Israeli sources told CNN the U.S. military helped to intercept Iranian missiles launched against Israel. One Israeli source told CNN other countries in the region also supported Israeli air defenses.
The Titanic, one of history’s most infamous maritime disasters, has captivated people for over a century. While the tragic sinking of the “unsinkable” ship resulted in over 1,500 lives lost, the wreck itself has been the subject of extensive exploration. Despite the numerous expeditions using state-of-the-art submersibles and underwater filming technology, a striking detail has never been discovered: there are no human remains, no skeletons, on board.
The absence of these remains has raised significant questions, with one of the most perplexing being why such evidence hasn’t surfaced, even after years of searching.
Life Jackets and Ocean Currents
James Cameron, the director behind the iconic 1997 film Titanic, has visited the wreck site over 30 times. In a 2012 interview with The New York Times, he confirmed, “I’ve seen zero human remains. We’ve seen clothing. We’ve seen pairs of shoes, which would strongly suggest there was a body there at one point. But we’ve never seen any human remains.”
One possible explanation lies in the life jackets worn by many passengers and crew members. Though the Titanic was famously under-equipped with lifeboats, many managed to don life jackets before succumbing to the freezing Atlantic waters. These life jackets provided buoyancy, keeping victims afloat long after they passed away. As a result, their bodies were likely carried away by the ocean’s currents.
Over the years, storms and drifting currents would have swept these bodies further from the wreck site, making it unlikely that any remains would remain near the ship’s resting place.
Depth and the Dissolution of Bones
Another crucial factor in the absence of skeletons lies in the depth of the wreck. The Titanic rests approximately 12,500 feet (3,800 meters) below the surface of the ocean, well beyond the reach of typical scavengers. While bones have been discovered on other shipwrecks, they have not survived at such depths. Deep-sea conditions, particularly the calcium carbonate compensation depth, play a significant role in the dissolution of bones.
As deep-sea explorer Robert Ballard explained in a 2009 interview with NPR, “The issue you have to deal with is, at depths below about 3,000 feet (around 914 meters), you pass below what’s called the calcium carbonate compensation depth.” This specific layer of the ocean is undersaturated with calcium carbonate, a key element that makes up bones. As a result, the bones that are exposed to deep-sea organisms, such as scavenging fish, quickly dissolve.
Even after scavengers have fed on flesh, the bones themselves slowly disappear due to the corrosive conditions at such depths. The combination of these conditions makes the preservation of human remains extremely unlikely at the Titanic site.
The Potential for Preserved Remains in Sealed Areas
Some experts speculate that there could still be preserved human remains in areas of the ship that remain sealed off. Locations such as the engine room, where fresh, oxygen-rich water may not have been able to penetrate, might offer a more sheltered environment where remains could potentially be intact. However, more than a century has passed since the Titanic sank, and the likelihood of finding any remains in these areas seems remote. While the wreck site itself continues to be a focus of exploration, the search for human remains in such locations is largely seen as fruitless at this point.
At this stage, the wreck site has become a solemn reminder of the tragedy that occurred, and many believe it is best to let the victims rest in peace, preserving their memory rather than continuing to search for physical remains.
THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE 