Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
In yesterday’s “Real Time” comedy-and-politics bit, Bill Maher calls attention to the fact that much of the real work in Congress isn’t done by the older Senators and Representatives, but rather by their staff, who may be “too young.”
In other words, the 20-somethings are writing the bills, and, as Maher said, “the kids are not all right.” In Maher’s view, these kids , whatever their politics, grew up on social media, and on the Left they’re too woke and on the Right they’re too conservative and racist (40% of Republican staffers are fans of Nick Fuentes!). Neither side, he maintains, understands the art of compromise and of rational analysis aimed at producing solution. The Democrats, though, seem to get most of Maher’s flak. At the end he says, “The problem isn’t just the old farts; maybe it’s also the new little shits.”
Maher’s guests on this segment include Byron Donalds, a Republican Congressman from Florida, and Molly Jong-Fast, author and host of the Fast Politics podcast (as well as the daughter of Erica Jong).
Well, I have some cat stuff for you. The first is a doozy: the world’s most polydactylous cat: a Maine Coon with 29—count them—29 toes. That’s 11 more than the normal number of 18, with 5 toes on each front paw (including the dewclaw) and four on each rear foot. Click the screenshot to read the article from Parade Pets:
An excerpt:
This ridiculously fluffy gray Maine Coon kitten has so many extra toes that his family literally started counting them because they suspected they might have a Guinness World Record holder living in their house. They were right. Erebus officially holds the Guinness World Record for the most toes on a cat, and I don’t even want to imagine how long it takes to trim all those tiny claws.
The adorable video was shared by TikTok user @kendraschultz81 and features Erebus proudly showing off his impressively oversized paws.
According to WFRV Local 5, Erebus was born with 29 toes. His family, Kendra and Hunter of Blue Northern Maine Coons, realized almost immediately that they might have something extraordinary on their hands and carefully counted every single toe. After completing Guinness World Records’ verification process, Erebus officially became the new world record holder for the most toes on a cat.
Polydactyly is a naturally occurring genetic trait that causes cats to be born with extra toes. While it can occur in many breeds, it’s especially common in Maine Coons, where the extra toes are thought to have helped their ancestors walk more easily through snow and rough terrain.
The condition isn’t usually painful, and many polydactyl cats live completely normal, healthy lives. In fact, many pet parents think the oversized paws make them even more adorable.
. . . aaaand, here’s a video report on Erebus. Look at the size of these feet! At first he had lung problems, and wasn’t expect to survive, but the feisty moggy survived.
Here’s the Tik Tok video that brought Erebus fame:
Guinness hasn’t yet updated its record, as it still reports, at the link below, two cats who tied with a 28-toe count, but Erebus has one more:
A quote:
An adorable 10-month-old kitten named Toby Henderson (USA) has tied a longstanding Guinness World Records title for the most toes on a cat, after equalling Jake the Polydactyl Cat’s (Canada) 2002 total of 28 claw-some digits.
Toby, who belongs to Delaney Henderson, recently found his forever home in Lansing, Michigan, and was made Officially Amazing on 12 May 2025. He lives alongside his loving parents and sister Connie, another polydactyl cat who has two extra toes on her front paws.
Here are two photos of Toby’s feet, but remember that Erebus beat him by a toe:
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Now here’s a clickbait headline from the Washington Post that will lure cat-lovers (click to read, or see it archived here). A tuxedo kitten was first stolen from a pet store, and then somehow used in a bank robbery:
An excerpt:
A man wearing a black beanie walked into a Maryland pet store last month, approached a kitten up for adoption and ran out moments later carrying the cat.
Stephanie Stullich, whose nonprofit organization rescued the tuxedo cat the month before, received a frantic call about the theft.
“We’d never had a kitten stolen before,” Stullich said. “So we had no idea why or how — or if we would ever see her again.”
Stullich hurried to the scene, where she wondered why six police cars were there for a stolen cat. She soon learned the kitten’s morning was more harrowingthan she had feared.
After grabbing the kitten, the thief walked into a PNC Bank near the pet store, approached a teller window while still holding the cat and passed anote that read, “This is a Robbery,” according to court documents.
Prince George’s County police said they arrived on the scene and arrested the man.
A few minutes after getting there, Stullich said she was relieved when a police officer told her the cat was safe inside the bank.
“You can’t make this stuff up,” Stullich said. “Who would believe it?”
Stullich found the cat, named Magnolia, safe in a manager’s office. The kitten, now 5 months old, was unfazed, Stullich said.
. . .Stullich brought Magnolia back to the Pet Supplies Plus in Beltsville, where the kitten attracted a lot of attention — welcomed, this time — after her unwitting participation in a crime.
More than 20 people applied to adopt her. Most cats rescued by Beltsville Community Cats receive three applications if they’re lucky, Stullich said.
The rescue group decided the person who applied before the kitten’s brush with the law — Kaylei Roldan, 28 — should adopt Magnolia. For the past month, Magnolia has been enjoying a quiet life — with cuddles, chicken-flavored treats and a cat tree — at Roldan’s apartment in Laurel, Maryland.
The perp:
Court records identify the suspect as Jacob Loethen, 19, of Beltsville. He was charged with robbery, second-degree assault and theft of at least $100 but less than $1,500, according to court documents.
Court records show Loethen is represented by the Maryland Office of the Public Defender, which declined to comment. Police did not disclose a possible motive.
And a good outcome (besides the rescue of Magnolia):
PNC Bank said it donated $150 to Beltsville Community Cats, the equivalent of the fee to adopt a kitten from the rescue group.
“The safety and security of our employees and customers — two and four-legged — is at the forefront of everything we do,” Christina Stowers, a spokeswoman for the bank, said in an email to The Washington Post. “We’re pleased that this tale has a happy ending.”
That should be “tail”. I wonder how the kitten was “used”. Did the suspect thrust Magnolia at the teller and say, “Give me all your money. I have a kitten.”? And they didn’t even charge him with catnapping. . .
Here’s a short video showing photos of the lovely Magnolia.
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From “good.good.good.co,” we learn that Nebraskans had an unofficial State Cat named Cameron, who until recently haunted the grounds of the state Capitol Building in Lincoln. Now ailurophiles are capaigning to put a statue of Cameron on the Capitol grounds. Click below to read:
An excerpt:
The Nebraska State Capitol’s unofficial feline mascot could soon become a permanent fixture outside the historic building he brought warmth and love to for a decade.
Until this spring, Cameron the “Capitol Cat” made a home away from home at the Capitol near his downtown Lincoln residence with his owner, Dianna McGinnis. After long legislative days, staffers and lawmakers alike would greet Cameron, even on nights after heated filibusters or those that stretched toward midnight. Many found relief as he awaited their attention.
Cameron retired in May as the unofficial Capitol greeter when McGinnis moved to assisted living. But his pawprint on lawmakers, staff, and community members well beyond Nebraska could soon live on with a statue on the south side of the Capitol off Goodhue Boulevard.
The life-size bronze statue of Cameron would be about 18-20 inches tall and sit atop a pedestal made from Indiana limestone, about 28-32 inches in height. The limestone is proposed to mirror the stone facing and architectural trim of the historic Nebraska State Capitol.
This is adorable:
“I mean, let’s be real, it would be so freaking cute and everybody would get their picture by it, and his little head would be petted, and it’d be shiny gold because everybody would rub his little head coming in,” state Sen. Jana Hughes of Seward, who is helping the project, said Friday.
No state or taxpayer funds would go toward the statue.
Hughes, who joined the Legislature in 2023, and former state Sen. Anna Wishart of Lincoln, who served between 2017 and 2025, will pitch the privately funded project to the Nebraska Capitol Environs Commission on Friday. The meeting is for feedback initially, and the supporters would need final approval before the statue could be affixed near the Capitol.
More:
Hughes said she first heard of the statue idea around the time lawmakers adjourned in April from one of her constituents, Scott Shafer, who works for the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs. Using artificial intelligence, she created a rendering of how the statue could look. However, the final design would fall to the storied sculptor supporters hope to hire.
Benjamin Victor of Boise, Idaho, the artist behind the Ponca Chief Standing Bear and Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte statues on Lincoln Mall north of the Nebraska Capitol has agreed to sculpt the bronze Cameron.
. . .As of Tuesday afternoon, the fundraising campaign had raised almost $3,500 toward its $37,500 goal just a few days after launching. Shaw has also agreed to donate profits from his photo book about Cameron to the project through October.
The cost includes Victor’s estimate and ongoing maintenance. Meeting materials indicate minimal upkeep with materials “designed to withstand Nebraska seasonal cycles without degradation.”
While Shaw was not necessarily an animal photographer, he said he always enjoyed photographing Cameron. He has two adopted cats of his own — littermates, which his daughters named Toby, after “The Office” character, and Peanut, for a marking on his nose.
The article was published this week, and, sadly, the project appears to be in limbo, as this headling from Nebraska Public Media appeared yesterday. Click to read:
An excerpt from that:
Plans to memorialize Cameron the Capitol Cat’s years of service in the Nebraska Legislature are in limbo after the Nebraska Capitol Environs Commission expressed doubts about his ability to withstand the test of time.
Blockheads! Here’s their unconvincing explanation:
Landis said the statues included both in and around the Capitol building are placed there because of the significance of their lives and accomplishments. While many of the real people the statues commemorate and those who knew them have passed beyond living memory, Landis said they deserve to be remembered. The statues are placed on the environs to instruct the public about their lives.
“This is a well-loved cat,” Landis said. “But when the time runs out and those of you who loved this cat have passed by, what is the historical significance of the cat?”
Commission members one after the other voiced their agreement with Landis, saying that the cat cannot be seen as comparable to statues of important historical figures like Ponca tribal chief Standing Bear, who advocated for his tribe’s right to live on their own land and won against the U.S. Government.
Courtney Wittstruck, a public commenter, said Cameron’s significance was more than the love visiting fourth grade classes had for him. While intense debates were going on within the Capitol, Cameron greeted everyone, regardless of party or political view, the same, Wittstruck said.
“He became a small but meaningful symbol of the best of Nebraska: kindness, friendliness and compassion,” Wittstruck said, adding that a plaque should go with the statue to emphasize the symbolism. “It’s a reminder that we are all Nebraskans and that, at the end of the day, we have more in common than we have differences.”
See? Cameron exemplifies Nebraska’s kindness and friendliness. What more do these legislators need than that? Well, I hope they put the statue up somewhere near the Capitol building if it isn’t approved. In the meantime, here’s a video:
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Lagniappe:
Komatsu rescued! Fitted with a hard hat and put to work.
Click headline to read (from the UPI’s Odd News:
An excerpt:
A kitten rescued from inside an excavator has become the newest member of an Ohio construction crew, complete with her own vest and hard hat.
Chase Guello, operating supervisor with RiverReach Construction, was examining an excavator at a Leavittsburg job site when he found the tiny orange kitten inside the engine bay.
The crew was unable to locate the kitten’s mother or any siblings in the area.
The construction company named the cat Komatsu in honor of the brand of excavator, or Sue for short.
Sue spent two weeks in foster care before being placed with RiverReach’s shop mechanic, Jared, and his family.
“Once she’s of age, she’ll be traveling to and from work with him, and she’ll eventually become a shop cat under his supervision,” Guello told WJW-TV.
Meanwhile, video of Sue’s rescue went viral online, and came to the attention of officials at Komatsu.
The company sent RiverReach a tiny safety vest and hard hat for Sue.
Click on the screenshot below (and put the sound up) to see the Instagram post of Sue’s rescue:
Welcome to CaturSaturday, August 29, 2026, shabbos for Jewish cats, and the last Saturday in August. It’s also International Day Against Nuclear Tests. Here is a video of five nuclear tests caught on camera, and there are some far more powerful than the A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima. We’d all prefer a world without nukes, but given that they’re here, how can we be sure that the deterrent effect of nukes is effective if the enemy doesn’t know that they work? And that means testing.
First, from the NYT’s morning newsletter, a like cause:
As emergency workers flew helicopters up steep Himalayan river valleys yesterday to find survivors of a flood that killed more than 500 people and left more than 1,000 missing, scientists began to investigate its cause. They’ve been looking at satellite imagery and seismological data.
The likely culprit: A gigantic landslide high in the mountains led to a glacial collapse that sent millions of tons of ice and rock into the valleys below it, pulverizing them into mud and water. The slurry burst dams and turned rivers into hydraulic rams. “The rock that the glacier was sitting on collapsed,” one scientist said.
The scale of the disaster is staggering. It’s as if 1,000 Empire State Buildings exploded at the same time and the debris coursed down a canyon. The path of destruction ran for more than 40 miles. It washed away roads, cut bridges in half, overcame buildings and swallowed people whole.
After three days of searching for survivors of a massive flash flood that swept through Nepal and Tibet on Wednesday, killing more than 600 people, the disaster’s full extent and human toll were still being revealed in recovered bodies, battered survivors and growing lists of the missing.
The tally of missing people in Nepal rose above 2,400 on Saturday. The number has climbed dramatically since Friday, with Nepali officials saying hydropower producers had only recently shared a count of unaccounted-for workers at projects in the devastated river valleys. China said more than 500 people were missing in Tibet on its side of the border and at least five had died.
Exclusive videos verified by The New York Times show the clearest view yet of the avalanche that sent the wall of water and mud coursing downriver.
The first 48 to 72 hours after natural disasters are typically a critical window for finding survivors. But the devastation left many miles of roads unusable and damaged communications, making it harder for rescuers and aid organizations to locate people and deliver food, medicine and temporary shelters.
Search efforts along the 50-mile stretch of destruction were also complicated on Friday by fears of more flooding, as the authorities in Nepal warned that more water from new lakes created by the landslide that set off Wednesday’s flood could overflow and send more water rushing into the valleys.
About 30,000 Nepali security forces have been deployed for the relief mission, according to the United Nations. On Friday, Nepal Army personnel took many rescued people to a barracks on the banks of the Trishuli River, where many could be seen jostling to see if they recognized names on printed lists of survivors.
The Nepali authorities said that more than 3,700 people had been rescued so far, and released footage showing uniformed personnel pulling people by hand through a river of mud. Officials said they had been trapped in a tunnel that was part of a hydroelectric project that had been under construction.
Given that this is Nepal, where census data might be thin, and the fact that many people are buried under mud, I’d guess that the number of dead will eventually exceeed 3,000. It’s a horrible tragedy.
*In his week’s Tuesday NYT column, Bret Stephens ponders a prediction he made earlier, “Has World War III already started?” The answer seems to be “pretty much.” (Article is archived here.)
Shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, I wrote a column under the headline “This Is How World War III Begins.” More than four years on, I wonder how much I got right.
My argument was based on the origins of World War II, which did not simply start with Germany’s invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939. Instead, the war was an accumulation of regional wars and crises, beginning with Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931, which gradually gathered into a single global conflict.
That gathering, abetted by the converging ambitions of the totalitarian states and the divisions and vacillations of the democracies, led to catastrophe. Added to this was a revolution in military technology and tactics that gave the dictatorships an early advantage in offensive combat. Also an advantage: their willingness to inflict — and endure — a level of brutality and suffering their adversaries were initially reluctant to match.
In 2022, I saw a similar pattern unfolding. . . .
And here’s his evidence:
First, as in the 1930s and ’40s, the spheres of conflict have multiplied and are merging.
Russia’s battlefield reversals seem to have done nothing to diminish Putin’s appetite for risk as he expands his campaign, in barely concealed attacks and threats, against Moldova, Poland and Germany, among other states, while his political allies repeatedly call for direct strikes on Europe and the use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine. Hamas’s assault on Israel in 2023 became, in stages, a war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran; then a war between Iran, the United States and the Gulf states. . .
. . . Second, the Axis of Authoritarians has become a fully operational military alliance.
Russia is providing North Korea with help to modernize its armed forces, while the North has returned the favor by sending millions of artillery rounds and is now reportedly prepared to send thousands of additional troops to fight for Russia in Ukraine. China supplies Russia with most of the electronic components used in its drones and other military hardware. . .
. . .Third, the West is a mess.
President Trump complains of our allies’ weakness. The allies complain of Trump’s bullying, capriciousness, callowness, mendacity and incompetence. Both sides are right. The latest U.S. tariff salvo on Canada is a case in point: politically ill advised, economically self-defeating, strategically enervating. . .
The war against Iran revealed not just the munitions shortages, which helped bring the war to a premature close, but also America’s acute sensitivity to military fatalities and economic pain, which gave Iran’s leaders an asymmetric advantage given their own tolerance for human suffering.
. . . Fifth, we may be near the economic brink.
One great difference between the 1930s and the present is that, unlike then, we are not in the midst of a worldwide depression. But the warning signs of a sharp and abrupt downturn are everywhere. What happens if or when the A.I. boom starts to run out of steam, much as the dot-com boom did at the beginning of the century? Or if the currency crisis in Japan causes it to start selling off its U.S. Treasury bonds?
Stephens ends this way:
A deep U.S. recession, or a global financial panic, will inevitably worsen every trend mentioned above. In periods of economic distress, democracies almost always become more risk-averse, while dictatorships become risk-prone. That’s a pattern of history worth recalling as we continue to drift, only dimly aware, toward the gathering storm.
Perhaps this is just a warning rather than a prediction, but WWIII will involve nukes, and I still can’t believe that any major country is going to use them. And of course many of us will be dead if Stephens is making a prediction that will come true in decades.
→ Lake America: Our new foreign and trade policy is basically to rename things America, as punishment. That’s what Donald J. Trump is threatening to do to Canada if they don’t agree to our trade terms. You like your little Lake Ontario? You think that’s nice? Too bad!
The president announced on Truth Social: “The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to be doing much business with Ontario any longer.” We punish other nations by calling their waters America. It’s like schoolyard bully colonialism. In late-breaking news, he went and did it:
I think we just bring back old-fashioned colonialism and take Canada, a failed state, and keep the name Ontario, or Muskoka, or whatever funny words they use up there as a courtesy. It’s not enough to call it America and overlay funny text when you can make it America. But Trump is too busy posting a ranking of past presidents with himself at the top as The Greatest.
I can’t believe the post right above. But let’s move on:
→ Jason Arday fallout continues: America’s most prestigious medical journal, The New England Journal of Medicine, has opened its pages to a Jason Arday take. Here it is:
Yes, it’s a medical journal, and yes, Arday was a doctor of. . . education, but no matter. The piece begins: “They are trying to kill us.” It ends: “They are trying to kill us. They always have been. And yet, we are still here.” This is in the most prestigious medical journal in America. Or you can listen to this NPR podcast about Arday. And there was a huge vigil for him in Trafalgar Square in London. Arday, truly a fabulist who seems to have faked his past jobs and much else, has become the folk hero of 2026. A strange choice but a clear one. We must accept him as the year’s hero. Soon we will be told that, in fact, Jason Arday threw the first brick at Stonewall. Woke 1 might have been crazy, but I promise you Woke 2 will be crazier.
→ The left wants war:
The Green Party of England and Wales is holding its big conference and any British terrorist who’s anyone is invited, but you know who’s apparently not invited? The Jewish-Palestinian peace group Standing Together. Standing Together accuses Israel of genocide and apartheid. They say they want “peace and independence for Israelis and Palestinians” and “full equality for everyone in this land.” And they’re still not invited because, according to The Jewish Chronicle, that would violate the Green Party’s policies on boycotting Israel. News flash about the Green Party: They don’t want peace! They want war.
Which is increasingly what Americans want.
No, Cenk, say it! Say it loud, say it proud. Is it globalists? The Epstein class? Zionist monies? GQ communist Hasan Piker said on a Twitch stream, “If Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone’s going to come around and take action—not against the state of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews.”
One more thing here: The majority of Democrats in Virginia want not just the end of support but the imposition of sanctions on Israel. A whopping 61 percent of Virginia Dems want sanctions, with only 12 percent against them, and 27 percent unsure.
Within a few years, we’ve moved from allies with Israel to neutral on Israel to the majority of Dems wanting active aggression against Israel—and the most popular left-wing influencer saying that American Jews better watch out. Or else someone’s going to come around and take action.
There are many outrageous things about this hierarchy, but as usual, it is almost certainly the case that Trump put no more thought into this than seeing a meme that praised him and sharing it without a second thought for where anybody else ranked on the list. This serves both as self-flattery and trolling of his enemies.
If you spend more than an instant looking at the chart, aside from the bad rankings and some of the terrible pictures (Millard Fillmore did not have a big, brown moptop when he was president), what ought to leap off the page is that there are only 34 presidents pictured, while 45 men have held the office (two of them, Trump and Grover Cleveland, having done so twice). Conspicuously omitted are Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush — every Republican president since 1932 except for Trump.
There’s a reason for that. Sharp-eyed internet sleuths noticed that the chart largely reproduces a “survey” of 55 academics conducted for the November 1, 1948, issue of Life magazine (an issue dated the day before the presidential election) by Arthur Schlesinger.
Have a look at the New Republic link; the two charts are, given who’s on both of them, nearly identical. More from the NR:
That also explains the absence of Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson, although whoever turned the Schlesinger chart into a Trump meme threw in three contemporary Democrats to fill out the “Failures” tier (Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Jimmy Carter), and added — either out of respect or for a sheen of fairness — Bill Clinton to the “Average” tier.
There are, as I explained in 2024, serious methodological problems with producing presidential rankings by the consensus of a select group of academics, most glaringly the effort to produce a purportedly nonpartisan, nonideological output that very obviously includes ideological and partisan biases in its inputs. (This is why I’ve done my own ranking by separating the presidents by party.) Schlesinger and his selected panelists putting FDR second only to Washington and Lincoln during the 1948 presidential campaign was done in the same spirit, for many of the same purposes, as Trump fans putting him first in 2026. Roosevelt had only been out of office for three years, and Democrats in 1948 were wrapping their campaign themes in the need to keep FDR’s coalition together.
. . .That also explains the absence of Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson, although whoever turned the Schlesinger chart into a Trump meme threw in three contemporary Democrats to fill out the “Failures” tier (Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Jimmy Carter), and added — either out of respect or for a sheen of fairness — Bill Clinton to the “Average” tier.
There are, as I explained in 2024, serious methodological problems with producing presidential rankings by the consensus of a select group of academics, most glaringly the effort to produce a purportedly nonpartisan, nonideological output that very obviously includes ideological and partisan biases in its inputs. (This is why I’ve done my own ranking by separating the presidents by party.) Schlesinger and his selected panelists putting FDR second only to Washington and Lincoln during the 1948 presidential campaign was done in the same spirit, for many of the same purposes, as Trump fans putting him first in 2026. Roosevelt had only been out of office for three years, and Democrats in 1948 were wrapping their campaign themes in the need to keep FDR’s coalition together.
A tractor-trailer rollover sent a truckload of squid spilling into a Rhode Island roadway, leaving a stench as they sat in the road for hours in the summer heat. Local authorities have dubbed it the “Squidpocalypse of ’26.”
It was a warm, sunny day in the coastal town of Narragansett when the spill happened Sunday, and Narragansett Police Capt. Ryan Prest said he was told that the scene “started to smell bad as the squid sat out in the sun for a few hours.”
The fully-loaded trailer was taking the squid to a processing facility out of town when the trailer dislodged and tipped on its side as the driver was navigating a turn, spilling a “substantial portion” of its calamari cargo, the police department said in a statement.
Police responded at 9:27 a.m., and the intersection wasn’t reopened until 5:15 p.m., authorities said.
“Squid has a distinctive odor to it,” Richard Stevens, a Narragansett resident and fisherman, told WJAR. “It can be very foul smelling, especially if it lands on the road and stays there for awhile.”
Heavy equipment and a dump truck were used to remove the squid, Prest said.
. . . The Narragansett Police Department made light of the situation in a social media post on Wednesday, stating that the town is “still recovering” from the “Squidpocalypse of ’26 — the spill that put ‘slippery when wet’ to shame.”
And a video, of course. Look at all those squid!
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, exchanges between Andrzej and Hili are getting pretty arcane:
Andrzej: The one for whom the bell tolls probably doesn’t hear it. Hili: That depends on the context.
In Polish:
Ja: Ten komu bije dzwon raczej tego nie słyszy.
Hili: To zależy od kontekstu.
From Masih, absolutely reprehensible behavior from an American academic. It looks as if the University of Arkansas fired Shirin Saeidi in May for “violent and anti-Semitic” social media posts”. She was not only tenured, but “former director of UA Fayetteville’s Middle East studies center.” Well, this falls under the notion of free speech to me, so I don’t think firing is in order unless it somehow affected her job. The article does mention that ” Saeidi had disregarded numerous attempts to counsel her for other behavior.” Those other behaviors aren’t specified, but to me this looks like a violation of the First Amendment, no matter how reprehensible Saeidi’s speech was:
WATCH: Former University of Arkansas political science professor Shirin Saeidi is seen in a disturbing video telling Iranian human rights activist Ladan Bazargan that she will travel to Iran, find the grave of Bazargan’s brother Bijan, executed by the Islamic Republic dance on… pic.twitter.com/unHB8sgY28
A different person weighed in on Jason Arday before even Cofanas did. Harris has a 25-minute video embedded in the tweet.
🚨 EXCLUSIVE: In 2023, David Harris, Professor Emeritus at Plymouth Marjon University, became one of the first academics to raise serious questions about the scholarly standards of Professor Jason Arday’s published work, shortly after Arday had been appointed Professor of… pic.twitter.com/1s5gnTUtU3
— Committee for Academic Freedom (@ComAcFreedom) August 28, 2026
Larry gives Brits license to leave early today. There’s apparently a “summer bank holiday” on Monday.
It’s a bank holiday weekend so I say you should finish work early and start having fun. If your boss has a plan problem with that tell them Larry said it’s fine.
This Italian Jewish girl, and probably her mother, were likely gassed as soon as they got to Auschwitz. Her father didn’t survive, either. Gianna was only two years old, and would be 85 today had she lived. https://t.co/I0gwGd3kns
As I reported recently, Ghent University in Belgium suspended Nathan Cofnas from his postdoc position after the death of Jason Arday, the Cambridge professor of sociology who apparently killed himself after Cofnas started a spate of Cambridge University and media investigations by showing that Arday had plagiarized much of his Ph.D. thesis. And that was on top of Arday’s copious fables about his life. fables that were too fantastic to be real. After initially defending Arday, Cambridge finally decided to investigate him, whereupon he was found dead. I do not hold Cofnas or the media responsible for that death.
Ghent is among the wokest universities in Europe. Yet, knowing full well that Cofnas devoted a lot of his work to the inflammatory subject of ethnicity and IQ, they hired him anyway. In her letter to Cofnas announcing his suspension, the excuses that Ghent Rector Petra de Sutter gave included Cofnas’s doing work he was not contracted to do (as if no academic diverges from their research plan!), and that Cofnas’s research “had a negative impact on the functioning of the University and the well-being of, and cooperation with, students and other members of staff.” (Maarten Boudry showed that most of de Sutter’s letter was written by AI.)
The real reason, I suspect, is that Ghent got a ton of letters objecting to Cofnas’s presence, the nature of his work, and holding him responsible for Arday’s death. Whatever the reasons, though, the suspension of Cofnay, who is not really an admirable character, is still a violation of his academic freedom.
Ghent’s “preventive suspension” of Cofnas was to precede a formal investigation, even though de Sutter was found to have urged Ghent faculty to write in opposing Cofnas’s presence at Ghent. Some impartial investigation! In the meantime, Cofnas was suspended from teaching and working at Ghent, and was banned from its campus.
I was sure that Cofnas’s suspension would be followed by a permanent firing, but not it’s not clear. Cofnas is an American citizen, and first there was an announcement that the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, Bill White, had negotiated an “amicable agreement with Ghent” that would allow Cofnas to see out the end of his one-year term without being suspended. (He was still restricted from some activities, though.)
And although there’s a newspaper article reporting that Cofnas’s suspension had been lifted, Ghent continues to hold its “investigation.” As Maarten notes above, what is the point of investigating him if they’ve reached an amicable settlement?
Here’s an article from the Flemish newspaper De Morgen that deepens the mystery. Click to read the English translation:
Quotes from the article(indented) and tweets (the bolding at the bottom is mine):
US Ambassador Bill White thanks Ghent Rector Petra De Sutter on X for ‘lifting the suspension’ of researcher Nathan Cofnas. However, according to the university, the disciplinary proceedings are ongoing and Cofnas’ disciplinary measure remains in place.
“After having spoken with all parties, I am satisfied that Ghent University and Nathan Cofnas have reached an agreement by mutual consent to lift the suspension of Mr. Cofnas.”
With that message, US Ambassador Bill White responded yesterday evening to a post on X by UGent researcher Nathan Cofnas. “I am very grateful to Rector Petra De Sutter for allowing me to stay at UGent,” Cofnas said in the post.
The reports followed barely a day after Ghent University had announced a new disciplinary measure against Cofnas. This entails that Cofnas must work remotely for three months and is prohibited from taking on teaching duties. The disciplinary measure is part of the disciplinary investigation the university is conducting against the researcher.
On X, however, both seem to suggest that Ghent University dropped the disciplinary case against Cofnas, which has been ongoing since August 20, following intervention by White. “I am against the suspension and possible disciplinary sanctions against Cofnas (…) But this is clearly blackmail by a foreign state and it is scandalous,” writes Ghent University professor Tijl De Bie on X. Philosopher of science Maarten Boudry, on the other hand, is pleased with the ‘agreement’.
Investigation continues
However, UGent confirms to De Morgen that the investigation against Cofnas is still ongoing. According to the disciplinary regulations, the preventive suspension issued by De Sutter last week can last a maximum of seven working days. Instead, a disciplinary measure covering three months followed on Wednesday. The ongoing investigation against Cofnas could also still lead to disciplinary action.
However, there had already been a meeting between the university and the American ambassador. “During that meeting, the ambassador provided further clarification regarding his statements on X,” says a university spokesperson. “UGent informed the ambassador of the disciplinary preliminary investigation, the confidentiality of the procedure, and the measures that were taken.”
The meeting took place after White announced on X last Friday that he would review all American ties with Ghent University, including academic exchanges and research funding. “Insincere, corrupt institutions that engage in scapegoating the masses, or reward such behavior, are not desirable partners for us,” said White.
In his most recent post, White seems to backtrack on that and says he looks forward to further collaboration with De Sutter and wants to continue the relationship between the university and the US.
All in all, Cofnas is not at present suspended from Ghent, but the investigation of his work and behavior is continuing, and he could still be fired. Ergo, his academic freedom is still under threat (I needn’t emphasize that an “ongoing investigation” has a chilling effect on an academic). This is what happens when you work on a taboo subject.
I’ll add that I don’t think the American ambassador should be butting into this affair, even if Ghent did violate Cofnas’s academic freedom. Ambassador White’s statement above, which is indeed a form of blackmail, is out of line. The U.S. government has no business butting into the affairs of a university in another country, as the Cofnas affair does not affect American interests.
The “ducklings”—if you can call them that now that they’re fully feathered and miniature adults—are almost six weeks old: they hatched on July 25 and came to the pond the next day. All is well with them: they all seem healthy and lively, and they eat heartily, though Miss Duck allows the babies to eat before she does. It’s hard to get food to her as her brood tends to scarf it up.
The babies are already starting to flap their wings vigorously, as you can see in the videos below, and I expect that in about 2-3 weeks they’ll be trying to fly, and levitating a bit. I suspect that the “zooming” behavior you see below is both fun but also practice for taking off.
But first some photos. First, Miss Duck, the ever-attentive mom who is still monitoring the babies closely. She’a also starting to molt, and during this period she will be able to flap and levitate a bit, but when she molts her flight feathers she’ll be pretty much grounded for a couple of weeks.
First, Miss Duck on the water. I love this photo, what with the reflection and all. (I posted it the other day.)
On the edge of the pond, watching her brood. Notice that her foot is on the side and not underneath her:
And a glamour head shot. If she returns next year I’ll be able to recognize her by this distinctive beak pattern.
Here’s the brood crossing the sidewalk in the morning so I can feed them in the channel. As soon as they plop in the water (I won’t feed them on land), they immediately turn and face me, waiting for their duck pellets. They know the drill!
Make way for ducklings! You can see that Mom is still larger:
Sleeping on the water six days ago (iPhone photo). Mom is floating:
Often Miss Duck and the brood will get the “zoomies” after a meal. Usually initiated by Miss Duck taking off and flying a short distance in the pond, the ducklings go wild, zooming across the pond at high speed chasing Mom, as well as dunking themselves and swimming underwater. I’m convinced that, with Mom’s prompting, this behavior prepares them for flight. Notice how they often flap their wings during the exercise.
I’ll show two bouts. This first one took place after third breakfast a week ago (they get fed three times a day):
And here’s a vigorous case of the soomies yesterday:
The babies also “dabble” after meals. In the wild, they get most of their food by going butt-side up and thrusting their beak into the pond bottom, taking in some mud and then squeezing out the dirt but keeping the edible stuff (worms, other inverts, etc.). As I’ve shown before, ducks have “teeth”: serrations on their bill that allow them to get rid of the inedible stuff and keeping the food. In this way they’re like baleen whales.
Since the pond bottom is gravel and not dirt (a huge mistake in the pond design), the dabbling takes place in the dirt in the few pots of plants that they’ve put in the pond, which have dirt in them. Unfortunately, the plants cannot spread because the pond bed is gravel. It’s beyond my ken why they designed the pond this way, for it will prevent the luxurious growth of aquatic grasses and water lilies we were promised when the pond was reopened.
Here’s one duckling dabbling in an empty plant pot in mid-August. At this time they still had their duckling fuzz, but you can see the feathers coming in. Now they are fully feathered and fuzzless, but their flight feathers have a way to go.
And here’s a napping duckling with almost all the feathers grown in. There’s still a patch of fuzz on the butt and neck.
Ducklings napping on the edge of the pond. They always do this in the full group of four, and Miss Duck is among them, usually at one end of the line so she can watch them all. The “white” covering in the eye is their nictitating membrane.
The babies are starting to develop the speculum: the patch of blue secondary wing feathers that you can see on Miss Duck’s wing above. It is one of the landmarks of attaining adulthood. I’ve circled the nascent speculum in the first photo. Curiously, we’re not sure what this speculum is for. It’s present in both sexes, but could be the result of mutual sexual selection or selection for species recognition.
The nascent speculum is clear here:
The brood heading to one of the three Sacred Rocks to rest after a meal. There’s lot of dunking and preening before they settle down. Notice that Miss Duck gets up on the rock to let the babies know where to go.
DANGER! There is a nest of Cooper’s Hawks (Astur cooperii) in the quad, and the young hawks often inspect the pond. Miss Duck sees them before we do, and she warns the babies with a specific quack. They immediately become motionless. While I’ve seen the hawks fly low over the pond, they’ve never tried to take a duckling, thank Ceiling Cat.
These photos were taken three days ago by my friend Peggy Mason, a neurobiologist on Team Duck. The tree is adjacent to the Pond, but I let Peggy take a few pictures before I chased the hawk away.
The definitive ID comes from Bruce Lyon, who looked at the photos and said, “Yes I think it’s a Cooper’s. I had to double check that it was not a broad-winged hawk. Looks like it is molting its tail so it is shorter than typical and a long tail would indicate Coopers’.”
And we musn’t forget the turtles. We now have six of them. We originally had five but one died (I was told, without proof , that its shell was cracked when students were playing Frisbee with it). But then a student found a large red-eared slider on the Midway, far from the pond, and carried it over and let it jump in. That made five again. Then a smaller red-eared slider appeared, probably another willful introduction.
They are all well and many people come to watch them. A group of women who work in the Regenstein Library regularly visit, and they’ve named all the turtles after hamburger-ish sliders, like “Buffalo Chicken Wing” and “Beef”. Unlike me, they can recognize every turtle.
A few photos of our terrapins. Here are four sunning on the rocks and doing Turtle Yoga, stretching their limbs to catch the sun:
You can see why they call them red-eared sliders (Trachemys scripta elegans):
Finally, two videos showing the turtles. This first one also shows some of the seven species of fish we have in the pond. All are naturally-occurring (as are sliders and ducks), but there are four pesky goldfish that someone is going to remove and put in an aquarium.
This turtle is going after some leftover duck food, but they do get fed a healthy diet of turtle food (not by me):
This video shows how they swim around. They’re quite fast in the water when they’re in a hurry, in contrast to their slow ambling on land:
Welcome to Friday, the last one in August: it’s August 28, 2026 and National Bow Tie Day. I’ve worn one only at a prom, and that was years ago.
Here’s a Doctor Who video featuring bow ties (two “crackers of ties”), but it’s even better because Dr. Who and his assistant (played by Karen Gillan) transport Vincent van Gogh to the future so he can see (at the Musée d’Orsay) that he became posthumously famous and beloved, even though during his lifetime he was obscure and neglected. This clip always makes me tear up—like Vincent.
Yes, I know I’ve posted this before, but it’s worth more than one look. On a second look you may notice, for example, how Vincent is taken aback by seeing a Monet: for van Gogh knew Monet’s Impressionist paintings well and admired them.
There’s again a subtly moving Google Doodle gif honoring the National Parks (this one is Yosemite). Click to see where it goes:
As I’ve intimated, traffic, or at least comments on this site, have slowed, and if you want it to continue at least let me know you’re reading. I know the difficulties of commenting on a phone, but you shouldn’t be reading this on a phone!
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the August 28 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*A giant flood devastated parts of Nepal and Tibet on Wednesday and Thursday, likely killing over 2,000 people, including many visitors (the area is popular with tourists). The cause of the flood isn’t yet known but was probably triggered by a landslide (article archived here).
Emergency workers and helicopters scoured steep Himalayan valleys on Thursday in a desperate search for survivors after a torrent of water, mud and ice killed hundreds — and perhaps many more — as it swept through a river valley that runs through Tibet and Nepal. More than 1,400 people were still missing.
A New York Times reporter and photographer who traveled to the region with rescuers found miles of devastation and weeping residents unsure if their families and neighbors would ever be found. In one Nepalese village, a man described what sounded like a thunderclap before a wave of muddy water crashed into his home, carrying away his wife and two daughters. “They all died and I lived,” he said, adding that he still clung to a slim hope they had somehow survived.
The flood that tore through the remote river valley in northern Nepal and the Tibet region of China caught many of its victims without warning. Its speed and force destroyed roads and bridges, toppled buildings and severed communications — all of which were complicating rescue efforts.
Scientists said the flood was probably unleashed by a massive rock landslide that coincided with the collapse of a glacier high in the mountains near the border on Wednesday morning, unleashing a wall of water that surged down the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli rivers. Survivors described lightning fast floodwaters laden with debris that shattered houses and quickly swallowed up people trapped in buildings or as they fled on foot.
Warming temperatures caused by climate change may have destabilized the rock face and precipitated the disaster, scientists said, though they added it was too early to determine a precise cause.
Images captured the flood’s terrifying speed and force, and Times journalists traveling with the Nepali military on Thursday surveyed the devastating aftermath. One highway, near the Bhotekoshi River, had mostly disappeared. Scars on hillsides showed that in some places the river had risen as high as 650 feet during the flood.
Shisir Khanal, Nepal’s foreign minister, called the flood “one of the largest natural disasters we have experienced in recent memory.”
Here’s a photo shown by the NYT and credited as “Composite 3D image from Google Earth.” Although I’ve been to Nepal three times, trekking in the Himalayas, this is one area I never visited.
And here are 12 minutes of news videos, with some really scary video of the flooding. At the beginning, look at at those buses tossed about like rubber ducks by the massive wall of water! And all those people you seei n that segment are probably dead as well.
A Republican push to prosecute Dr. Anthony Fauci for contempt of Congress has stalled as the Trump administration questions whether the legal approach supports an indictment by the Justice Department.
Three weeks after a GOP-led Senate committee voted to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress, some administration officials are skeptical that the current approach is procedurally sound enough to indict him for failing to answer questions before lawmakers, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Aug. 6 contempt vote was brought by Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.), a longtime Fauci critic. He sought to bypass the Senate’s customary full-floor vote by having Vice President JD Vance certify the resolution, allowing him to refer it directly to the Justice Department for possible prosecution.
Paul, who has said Fauci should go to prison, pushed a contempt vote against the 85-year-old former public-health official after he declined to answer questions before Paul’s committee over his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. The contempt resolution, which passed on a party-line vote, would traditionally be considered by the full Senate. Given his resolution would almost certainly fail to meet a 60-vote threshold to pass, Paul’s measure called on Vance to certify it in his capacity as Senate president.
But as of early Tuesday, people familiar with the matter said that Vance’s office had yet to receive a document to certify. Paul’s office sent the report to the vice president late Tuesday, according to people familiar with the process, following repeated inquiries from The Wall Street Journal about its status. The Justice Department, which received a letter from Paul the day of the vote laying out the committee’s case against Fauci, has yet to receive a formal referral, a person familiar with the matter said. And President Trump hasn’t determined whether he wants the Justice Department to act on the referral, according to people familiar with the discussions, who say the issue hasn’t been a high priority for the president.
Paul’s move put the White House in a tough situation. While Trump has criticized Fauci, certifying the document could force the White House to defend it in court, where some administration officials say it might not survive a motion to dismiss without a full Senate vote.
This smacks of a vendetta. Yes, Fauci did lean on scientists to oppose the lab-leak hypothesis when they were writing a paper, and I consider that bad behavior. But I don’t see it as criminal behavior, and nothing I’ve read about him indicates that he should be indicted—unless he lied under oath. Even so, the guy is 85 years old and, as the article notes, a contempt resolution would be unlikely to pass a full Senate vote. The J.D. Vance maneuver circumvented normal procedure. Leave the old dude alone!
*A distressing (for me) report from the Free Press: “Are Americans losing faith in capitalism? We asked them.” The FP partnered with the think tank Populace to survey Americans of different ages and political stripes, and here are the main results:
A big question has dominated political debate in this year’s primary elections. With the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), who have racked up victories from New York and Pennsylvania to Colorado and Florida, our elections have become a referendum on our economic system. So we decided to ask Americans what they’re thinking about capitalism versus socialism.
The results suggest that the public is feeling down about capitalism but is still wary of full-blown socialism. And many are deciding whether a few socialist candidates might help shake up the system. We found that:
—Just a third of Americans privately say they have a positive view of capitalism.
—Less than half of Republicans privately express a positive view of capitalism, though two-thirds support it in public.
—Almost half of women privately say they would consider voting for a socialist.
—Nearly a third of Gen Z publicly say that America would be better off as a socialist country, but only 14 percent say so in private.
—The majority of blacks publicly say capitalism is the cause of America’s social ills, but only 37 percent say so privately.
—Of people earning more than $150,000 a year, 58 percent privately say they are open to voting for a socialist, though only 42 percent say so publicly.
They add this, too:
We asked other questions too—about Israel and antisemitism, AI and data centers, income inequality, and more. Stay tuned for our next batch of results next week.
I’m not looking forward to the data on Israel! Anyway, you can read the methodology here and how they distinguished public from private opinions. It’s a relatively small survey. Here’s what they see as most telling:
While many Americans express a low view of capitalism, and a significant share say they’re open to socialist candidates, only a very small share would prefer to adopt socialism altogether. In public, merely 18 percent say America would be better off socialist. In private, support drops to a meager 11 percent.
The younger the respondent, the more willing they are to embrace socialism in public. Nearly a third of Gen Z say publicly that America should adopt socialism, along with more than a fifth of millennials. Yet support drops considerably in private, to 14 percent among Gen Z and 10 percent among millennials. Meanwhile, Boomers are equally opposed in public and private, standing pat at only 7 percent support.
The most notable result of all may be the public-private gap among the left. Thirty-eight percent of liberals and 28 percent of Democrats say publicly that a switch to socialism would be good for the country. But in private, the left’s faith in socialism wanes by double digits. Only 22 percent of liberals and 14 percent of Democrats want America to trade in its current economic system in favor of a fully socialist one.
I wonder if those who think American should “adopt socialism” know what that really entails. Surely the approbation for socialist candidates is not the same as a full-hearted embrace of socialism, and I’d like to know the different (and undoubtedly diverse) construals of “socialism”. Do the respondents know that, classically, it means that the state owns all the means of production and distribution? I think the poll largely reflects a widespread ignorance about “socialism”.
*Also depressing: a NYT op-ed by former Time magazine writer Charlotte Alter, “What are moderate Democrats for?” , which, tellingly changed its title yesterday afternoon to “What ever happened to the young, exciting, moderate Democrats?” (article archived here). Since I’m one, I want to know. Alter’s example of someone who should be exciting all of us is Seth Moulton, a Congressman from Massachusetts who’s running for a Senatorial seat this fall. Alter’s thesis is that moderate Democrats, in contrast to “progressives,” haven’t laid out what they stand for, or what changes they want to make.
Now a six-term congressman, [Moultin is] running for Senate in Massachusetts’s Sept. 1 primary against the incumbent, Ed Markey. It doesn’t seem to be going well.
You’d think this would be Mr. Moulton’s moment. Democratic voters are in an anti-incumbent, anti-establishment mood, and the disaster of Joe Biden in 2024 has made them increasingly nervous about aging candidates. Yet polls show Mr. Moulton losing by double digits to Mr. Markey, an 80-year-old who has been in Washington for half a century.
Mr. Moulton’s bid exposes the dilemma of the center-left in a year when progressives seem to be notching win after win. Moderate Democrats must distinguish themselves from the left without antagonizing the energized Democratic base. They’re struggling to articulate a message of change that isn’t necessarily progressive change. And the 2024 fiasco has made it harder to argue that moderation is the only way to win elections.
Democrats are not “screaming that we want socialists,” as Mr. Moulton pointed out to me in an interview. Instead, he said, “there’s a whole bunch of Democrats saying, ‘The party establishment is failing us.’” But progressive Democrats do have a clarity advantage: American voters know what they stand for, whether they like it or not. Center-left candidates tend to offer more pragmatic versions of progressive ideas or wonky political strategies to achieve incremental change. This forces voters to make exhausting calculations about how to actually get things done.
. . . It’s always been clear what Mr. Moulton is against: the geriatric Washington establishment, the inertia of incumbency, whichever oldster happens to be in charge. But he’s been so busy fighting the establishment, he hasn’t explained precisely what he was fighting for.
. . . So while I had Mr. Moulton on the phone, I asked him: What does his campaign stand for, besides a new generation of leadership?
“Well, I mean, it’s a new generation of ideas,” he said. Even though he and Mr. Markey have many of the same goals, Mr. Moulton argued that he is more pragmatic. Mr. Markey is running on Medicare for all, while Mr. Moulton favors an expanded public health care option. The housing crisis in Massachusetts, Mr. Moulton said, means that “obviously, whatever Senator Markey has been doing or not doing with regards to housing hasn’t worked.” He said that expanded rail transit could improve housing affordability and that Mr. Markey’s proposed transportation plan is out of the “1910s.”
None of this is particularly new or inspiring.
But what if we consider people other than Moulton? What about Pete Buttigieg? What about Gretchen Whitman? And even what about my own Governor, J. B. Pritzker? Alter may be right that no centrist Democrat has articulated a particularly stirring message, but I’d rather vote for one of them than for a “progressive” who has articulated a disturbing message, like AOC.
With the 25th anniversary of 9/11 on the horizon, the CBC has circulated a memo to reporters and editors across all its news platforms reminding them not to refer to the attacks that claimed 3,000 lives and changed the modern world as “terrorist attacks.”
The missive from the broadcaster’s journalistic standards and practices office, a copy of which was obtained by National Post, includes a section of the “longstanding language guidance” on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks carried out by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda.
“Do not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks,” it reads about halfway through, with the first part bolded and the last two words linking back to the CBC’s internal language guide.
. . . Kerry Kelly, a public affairs spokesperson for CBC, told National Post in an email that “it is wholly inaccurate to state our journalists have been urged to declare that this was not a terrorist act.”
Rather, she said the memo was a regular reminder about adhering to the CBC’s language guide for “the terms ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorism.’
“CBC preferences use of these words with attribution to credible sources, a practice shared by many of the world’s top journalistic organizations,” Kelly wrote, pointing to an October 2023 blog by Brodie Fenlon, CBC News editor in chief and general manager.
He was writing in response to a similarly leaked memo to staff regarding the use of the same words in reporting about Hamas’s terrorist attacks on Israel that had occurred a week earlier.
Staff will use the terms, he said, but they will always be “attributed to government officials, authorities, experts and politicians.”
“But CBC News does not itself designate specific groups as terrorists, or specific acts as terrorism, regardless of the region or the events, because these words are so loaded with meaning, politics and emotion that they can end up being impediments to our journalism,” Fenlon said, noting the policy has existed for decades and many news outlets employ their own.
The post included a portion of the language guide, which urges employees to “exercise extreme caution before using the words terrorist or terrorism” because they can be “highly contested” in some instances and potentially raise questions about the CBC’s “consistency and impartiality” in covering other attacks.
Well, language evolves, but this is not a natural evolution of language; it’s an attempt by the CBC to take the “terror” out of people who, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, are “[People] who who [use] violent and intimidating methods in the pursuit of political aims; esp. a member of a clandestine or expatriate organization aiming to coerce an established government by acts of violence against it or its subjects.” Is that a biased definition?
The OED adds that the word “is generally considered to be derogatory; hence the use of terms such as partisan, freedom fighter, etc., by those who approve the actions of the individuals concerned.” DUH! So what word are you going to use? “Freedom fighter” for the pilots of 9/11? I’m sure the CBC doesn’t do that, but it probably says stuff like “Hamas, generally considered by Western governments to be a terrorist organization.”
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej is experiencing something similar to me:
Hili: Retirement is the busiest time of your life.
Andrzej: I get that feeling too, but since no one pays me for it, I can call it fun.
In Polish:
Hili: Emerytura to najbardziej pracowity okres w twoim życiu. Ja: Też mam takie wrażenie, ale ponieważ nikt mi za to nie płaci mogę to nazwać zabawą.
— We don’t deserve cats 😺 (@catsareblessing) August 8, 2026
The Number Ten Cat corrects Trump’s latest stupid attempt at renaming:
“Ontario” is a Native American word. It’s from the Iroquoian language of the Wyandot people and means sparkling water.
“America” is from the name of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci. https://t.co/5Xd1HUzYlY
Two from my feed. First, the renaming from the White House’s mouth. The name change will apply only to U.S. government use, not to other countries’ usage:
This French Jewish boy was gassed to death as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz. He was four years old and would have been 89 today had he lived. https://t.co/QNAovhMO3O
And one from Doctor Cobb, showing a male elk apparently having a dream:
This elk appears to be dreaming! About a pristine lake? About finding an apple orchard? About being late for school?#mammals #nature #deer #love #trailcam #Seattle #wildanimals #goodmorning #PNW #nokings #wildlife #elk
Susan Harrison of UC Davis is back with some nice photographs of birds, including Barred Owls. Nearly half a million of these owls are scheduled to be shot in what I see as a misguided attempt to save the Northern Spotted Owl. I think Susan agrees with me here, but I won’t speak for her. At any rate, her IDs and captions are included and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them.
Large birds of the Oregon Coast, August 2026
One fog-bound morning on the central Oregon coast, a fellow camper hailed me with “There’s an owl by the outhouses!” This wasn’t a total surprise since, in the middle of the previous night, the distinctive “who-cooks-for-you, who-cooks-for-you” call of a Barred Owl (Strix varia) could be heard. We watched as the large grey specter glided along the edge of a meadow, perching here and there in classic hunched-owl position to look and listen for camper-attracted rodents.
Barred Owl:
Sadly to me, the US Forest Service has announced plans to kill large numbers of Barred Owls in a desperate measure to save endangered Northern Spotted Owls (Strix occidentalis caurina). It’s a complicated issue upon which reasonable people (i.e., owl lovers) disagree, and you can read and decide for yourself here and elsewhere. But I will not reveal the location of any Barred Owl!
JAC: Let me add that the Northern Spotted Owl is a subspecies of the Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis) and is not itself a distinct species. There are in fact several subspecies of Spotted Owls.
A nearly full-grown Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) begged incessantly to be fed by one of its parents; the other sat silently in a neighboring tree. The juvenile finally flew off to preen, but was quickly displaced from its perch by a Red-Shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus) that repeatedly chased the young Osprey around the meadow.
Red-Shouldered Hawk:
At the nearby coast, Elegant Terns (Thalasseus elegans) and Brown Pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis) held a bathing party, and the preening pelicans stretched their unearthly pouches:
