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.
I did one of my favorite shopping expeditions today, stocking up on groceries in Chinatown. A giant supermarket opened there in the last couple of years, and it has everything one would want for Chinese food, including the hoisin sauce, sesame oil, soy sauce, and Botan Calrose short-grained rice that I favor. But there are many, many aisles of things that aren’t even labeled in English, and tons of goodies like the first two shown below. I love wandering the aisles (usually I’m the only white guy there, and certainly the only Jew), so it takes me much longer to shop than I usually do. They also have Chinese pastries, including various buns and cakes that are perfect for a weekend breakfast. Also congee and crullers.
About the title above: no, this, it isn’t food for cats, but cat-shaped food for humans, plus a “veggie cat” nail salon downstairs. The Chinese do love their cats, and it shows in the many products emblazoned with moggies. The “good luck cat” (maneki-neko in Japanese), raising its hand to wish you prosperity, is ubiquitous, and is on this first group of cat pastries:
I have a reclining maneki-neko in my office that is solar powered, so it waves its paw when the sun is out. No good luck on overcast days!
I’d never seen this one before: cat-shaped butter-and-cheese cookies in a great package. Now I’m sorry I didn’t buy them:
And this was downstairs, but closed on Sunday. What on earth is a “veggie cat,” and what does it have to do with fingernails?
Bill Maher continues his defense of Israel on the country’s birthday by pointing out the pervasive Israel-dissing of the mainstream media, adding that there is one thing that the American Left and Right agree on: Israel is the “monster country of all time” (he includes the NYT in this category). He also calls out Democrats, professors, influencers and young people for hating on the Jewish state. Some of the quotes Maher gives will curl the soles of your shoes. As he says, “Jew hatred isn’t just acceptable, now; it’s cool. Celebrities love it and make it trendy; it’s the new Che Guevara tee shirt.”
The guests on view are Dan Jones, a historian and author of Castles: A Fortified History, and David French, New York Times columnist and co-host of the podcast Advisory Opinions. I wonder what French thought of Maher’s slap at the NYT at 1:44.
This is more serious and less funny than his usual bits, but it’s a good one.
British physicist and science popularizer Phil Halper emailed me about two new surveys he and others had conducted with 1675 physicists, asking their views about fundamental questions in the field. This is not, of course, a guide to the truth, but simply a snapshot of where physicists stand on things like quantum gravity, black holes, and the Big Bang. The links to the surveys are in the text below, sent by Phil. I’ll highlight a few of their stands on interesting (to me) issues. Phil’s words are indented:
My co-authors and I just released the largest survey of physicists ever done. In conjunction with the American Physical Society we got more than 1600 replies to our Big Mysteries Survey.
What’s relevant for debates between believers and non believers is that we only got a large consensus on one topic and that is the Big Bang should be understood only as a theory that says the universe evolved from a hot dense state that says nothing at all about a beginning of time . Interestingly, we got 68% in both this large survey of a broad cross section of physicists and for a smaller scale survey we did of leading physicists in Copenhagen with the Niels Bohr Institute. This seriously undermines William Lane Craig’s Kalam cosmological argument which is defended by claiming that physicists agree that the Big Bang has shown that the universe had a beginning, we now have strong empirical evidence that physicists think no such thing.
On the fine tuning argument the most popular answer was that constants are brute facts that need no explanation. This was found in both of our survey and in the Phil papers survey of philosophers.
JAC: The Copenhagen Survey involved views of 151 physicists attending a conference on black holes in 2024.
And there is a video with Sean Caroll, Niayesh Afshordi, and Ghazal Geshnizjani discussing the results here. [JAC: I’ve put the video below.]
You might also enjoy the recent debate I did on science, cosmology and faith with Stephen Meyer here.
I haven’t yet watched the videos, but I did look at the big survey; you can access the pdf for free by clicking on the screenshot below:
First, a bit of methodology from the paper:
In the summer of 2024, a survey was conducted at the Black Hole Inside Out Conference in Copenhagen to assess physicists’ views on a range of ongoing controversies [1]. Eighty-five scientists responded. One year later, the authors collaborated with the American Physical Society’s Physics Magazine on a substantially larger follow-up survey, which polled 1,675 participants from the magazine’s readership and the members of the American Physical Society. The Physics Magazine survey therefore provides a broader view of attitudes within the physics community and allows comparisons with the more focused conference-based Copenhagen sample.
Taken together, the two surveys make it possible to compare views expressed in a specialist conference setting with those expressed by a much larger and more heterogeneous respondent pool. On some topics, the results are remarkably similar; on others, the differences are substantial. This paper presents the Big Mysteries Survey results, offers commentary on their interpretation, and highlights points of agreement and divergence relative to the Copenhagen survey
Here are a few bar charts from the paper. First, what the Big Bang implies (Sean Carroll explains this at the beginning of the video below). A big majority of physicists think that the Big Bang says nothing about whether it marked the ‘beginning of time”:
Of course tyros like me have no idea why the Big Bang doesn’t imply the beginning of time, but so be it: all of this is above my pay grade but I’m happy to see where physicists stand on these issues now.
What about cosmic inflation? A bit more than half of physicists think that cosmic inflation (the expanding universe) explains “an unexpected uniformity” of the universe.
Dark matter: does it explain anomalies in the rate of rotation of galaxies? No consensus:
Also no consensus on whether dark energy explains the accelerating expansion of the Universe:
There’s no consensus on why the universe’s physical constants appear to be “fine-tuned” for the existence of worlds that can produce life. (This is a favorite theological argument for God.) The “brute facts” explanation brings a stop to searching for explanations, but only 26% of physicists hold it. 20%—and I think this includes Carroll—think it’s explained by a multiverse.
There are more graphs, but I’ll show just one more. What kind of picture of the Universe is provided by quantum mechanics? The Copenhagen explanatoin, which people like me can’t reconcile with physical reality, is the favored explanation. I believe it was Feynman who said that if you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t. I’m still baffled by the issue of quantum entanglement, and don’t even understand the experiments buttressing it.
And here’s the video with Sean Caroll, Niayesh Afshordi, and Ghazal Geshnizjani. Carroll, as usual, gives some very succinct and lucid explanations. The other physicists are good as well.
Have a look at the paper for more opinions, including about what black holes mean and what they do.
Send in your wildlife photos! I am almost out. Thank you in advance.
Today we have miscellaneous photos from the Catskills taken by reader Jan Malik. Jan’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge them by clicking on them.
Here is another batch of pictures from my hikes in the Central Catskills this April and May. They are not too artistic, given the fast pace that a weekend backpacking hike demands, but they give a sample of what common animals a casual hiker can see in these “mountains” (the Catskills are an eroded plateau and, despite being steep in places, they are too low to have an alpine zone).
White‑tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), right in the parking lot at a cloudy sunrise. It was slurping water from a muddy puddle despite a clear stream flowing nearby, so it must have been leftover salt that attracted this ungulate. Woodstock residents like their roads well salted. One has to drive carefully at dusk around Woodstock, as there are many deer browsing on lawns and gardens.
In the woodland, I found the first of many red efts of the Eastern newt (Notophthalmus viridescens). This is an intermediate land stage of development between the aquatic larva and adult forms. Red efts have lungs, but air exchange through the skin is also important, supplying 30–40% of their oxygen demand. They travel through the forest litter when it is humid enough—after rain or in the early morning:
This is probably a blue‑headed vireo (Vireo solitarius), collecting nesting materials. If my identification is correct, then it is not possible to tell a male from a female, as they are sexually monomorphic and share rearing duties almost equally. Interestingly, however, a female may desert the nest just before fledging to mate with another available male:
Possibly an Eastern comma (Polygonia comma), found at higher elevation:
Black‑and‑white warbler (Mniotilta varia). I think this is a male. If so, he may be led by a female into the territory of another male to provoke a fight and allow her to judge his fitness. These birds occupy a similar niche to nuthatches and brown creepers; they climb and circle tree trunks to find arthropods:
Eastern towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus), male. These colorful sparrows hang around the edges of forest clearings:
Eastern American toad (Anaxyrus americanus americanus), hiding in a ramps patch. I wonder whether they would prey on red efts or if the efts’ foul taste would be a deterrent:
While passing through oak woods rich with acorns, I heard many alarm chirps from Eastern chipmunks (Tamias striatus). Most made themselves scarce as I approached, but one remained on guard duty:
Not a good picture, but here is a dark‑eyed junco (Junco hyemalis). These are hardy birds, staying year‑round in the forest. In winter they form close‑knit flocks with a few dominant individuals and a strict pecking order:
Chipping sparrow (Spizella passerina) on the side of a quiet road. These migrate to more southern states in winter and in summer nest closer to human settlements:
Mourning cloak (Nymphalis antiopa). There were a couple of them in the area, continuously jousting in the air for control of the territory. I see them every spring in that exact spot, but this year they were too engaged in battling each other to stay still, so this is a picture taken a few years back:
Brown creeper(Certhia americana), shown here just a moment after eating a couple of mayflies. They are common enough, but I rarely see them due to their near‑perfect camouflage. Without directly comparing the bill length it is difficult to tell a female from a male:
Welcome to the Sabbath for gentile cats: Sunday, May 17, 2026, and also National Pack Rat Day. Pack rats are really, according to Wikipedia, “any species in the North and Central American rodent genusNeotoma.” You can see where they get their name in the short video below.
Here are some edible mushrooms on sale in the UK, including slices of the delectable giant puffball, which you can fry up in butter like fungal steaks.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License, NathanLee
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 17 Wikipedia page.
I had a dream last night, which I remembered as I kept waking up. In the last bit, I was walking through a devastated post-apocalyptic city with a beautiful blonde girl, who must have been my girlfriend as we were holding hands. There was background music from Billie Eilish. At some point she gestured at a half-destroyed skyscraper and said, “That looks like an Edward Hopper painting,” but then proceeded to tell me the differences between the building and a Hopper. It also became clear that she was going to kill herself. It was a sad dream.
Posting will be light today as I’ll be out and about doing chores.
President Trump has described a potential multibillion-dollar weapons sale to Taiwan as a “negotiating chip” with China, raising new doubts about the pace and scale of American military support for the island democracy.
Taiwan’s government has been waiting for months for Mr. Trump to sign off on a $14 billion package of missiles, anti-drone equipment and air-defense systems intended to fortify the island against Beijing’s military threats.
Mr. Trump himself had pressured Taiwan to spend more on its own defense. Now he is using the very arms his administration had pushed the island to buy as leverage with China, the United States’ main adversary.
Mr. Trump told reporters on Air Force One after leaving China on Friday that he had discussed the weapons package with China’s president, Xi Jinping, during their summit this past week in Beijing. He was asked in an interview with Fox News whether he would approve the Taiwan deal.
“No, I’m holding that in abeyance and it depends on China,” he said in the interview, which was recorded in Beijing but aired after he left. “It depends.”
“It’s a very good negotiating chip for us, frankly,” he said. “It’s a lot of weapons.”
He did not go into details about what he wanted in return, but Mr. Trump has pushed China to make major purchases of American airplanes, ethanol, soybeans, beef and sorghum.
His comments appear to undermine the assurances to Taiwan from some in his own administration that U.S. support for the island is steadfast and nonnegotiable. Before the summit, a bipartisan group of senators had urged against letting support for Taiwan become a bargaining chip with China.
I didn’t expect this move from Trump and I think it’s a bad one. Taiwan, like Israel, is a small democracy seen as illegitimate by large and nearby authoritarian powers. We should be supporting such democracies, not threatening to withhold weapons from them. Remember China is grumbling about taking over the island. How many soybeans is a democracy worth?
Taiwan has insisted it is a sovereign, independent nation, after US President Donald Trump cautioned it against formally declaring independence from China.
Trump’s remarks came after a two-day summit in Beijing, after which he said he had “made no commitment either way” about the self-governing island – which China claims as part of its territory and has not ruled out taking by force.
The US administration is bound by law to provide Taiwan with a means of self-defence, but has frequently had to square this alliance with maintaining a diplomatic relationship with China.
Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te has previously stated that Taiwan does not need to declare formal independence because it already sees itself as a sovereign nation.
On Saturday, presidential spokesperson Karen Kuo said it was “self-evident” that Taiwan was “a sovereign, independent democratic country”.
She added, however, that Taiwan was committed to maintaining the status quo with China – in which Taiwan neither declares independence from China nor unites with it.
Many Taiwanese consider themselves to be part of a separate nation, though most are in favour of maintaining their current status.
Washington’s established position is that it does not support Taiwanese independence, with continued ties with Beijing being contingent on its acceptance that there is only one Chinese government.
In an interview with Fox News after meetings with President Xi, Trump reiterated that US policy on Taiwan had not changed, while making it clear he did not seek conflict with Beijing.
I’ve learned that the politics of Taiwan are complicated, overshadowed by China’s repeated statements that it wants to absorb Taiwan. The Taiwanese, of course, who live in a democracy that has considerable freedoms, don’t want that, though a few minor political parties do favor unification (and about 5%-10% of Taiwanese don’t oppose its occuring in the forseeable future). Trump, however, seems to think he has the right to not only turn countries more democratic (viz., Cuba) but also less democratic, as with Taiwan.
Israel killed Hamas’s military leader in Gaza, eliminating a long-sought target as it continues to hunt down militants linked to the Oct. 7, 2023, attack despite a continuing cease-fire.
Ezzedin al-Haddad, a Hamas veteran who took over as military commander after his predecessor was killed, died Friday evening in an airstrike in Gaza City, Israel said. He had helped plan the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that left 1,200 dead and around 250 as hostages in Gaza, and Israel said he was working to rebuild the group’s military capabilities when he was killed.
Israel said it sent warplanes to strike Haddad shortly after turning up intelligence on his location. Witnesses in Gaza City said they heard loud explosions in Al-Rimal neighborhood around 8 p.m. local time.
Hamas confirmed Haddad’s death. Another militant group, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said he was killed alongside his wife, daughter and other Palestinians in what it called a violation of the cease-fire in place since October under a peace plan brokered by President Trump.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the military was carrying out its policy of acting pre-emptively against threats.
It wasn’t clear how many people were killed in the operation. Palestinian health authorities said 13 people were killed and 57 injured in Gaza in the past 48 hours, without saying how many were combatants.
Remember that Hamas’s disbanding and disarmament is part of Phase 2 of Trump’s peace plan, but Hamas has repeatedly refused to do this, and in fact is rearming and tightening its grip on Gaza. For all I know, it may be digging new tunnels. Hamas will not go inactive unless Israel withdraws fully from Gaza, gets unspecified “international guarantees,” and, most ludicrous, makes progress towards statehood. The last stipulation is for the present impossible, which means that Hamas will remain an active terrorist organization in Israel. And since its existence threatens Israel (that’s in its charter), Israel seems justified in continuing to extirpate the group.
*Although universities across the US have ratcheted down their DEI initiatives, often it is is in name only, sometimes just eliminating the “E” from the acronym. The City Journal reports that at the University of Wisconsin at Madison DEI is going as strong as ever (h/t Luana).
Universities across the country have wound down their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in recent years, following criticism of the programs’ patterns of racial discrimination and compelled speech. In some cases, DEI roles were not removed but simply renamed and moved to other departments. In fact, a recent Inside Higher Ed survey found that 43 percent of universities have rebranded their DEI initiatives. The names change; the agenda remains the same.
Minnesota parent Matthew Stanton saw what this rebrand looked like firsthand at the University of Wisconsin–Madison when accompanying his daughter for a school visit in April. UW–Madison’s School of Education is the nation’s top-ranked education department—a big draw for Stanton’s daughter, who wants to be an elementary school teacher. But when Stanton arrived at the School of Education, he was met with a “disturbing exhibit” in the building’s main concourse.
A red sweatshirt read, “All White People are Racist.” One sign said, “UW’s Free Speech = White Supremacy,” accompanied by the school’s badger mascot wearing a KKK hood and holding a noose. Student publication The Madison Federalist also found a sweatshirt showing the severed heads of Donald Trump and Mike Pence.
The exhibit was entitled “Da Hoodzeum presents: In Direct Action—A decade of Activist Art at University of Wisconsin–Madison.” It was part of the university’s annual Line Breaks festival, hosted by the Office of Multicultural Arts Initiative (OMAI) from March 20 to April 24. OMAI was originally in the university’s former DEI division, parts of which were moved to the Division for Teaching & Learning last year.
Michael Davis, Da Hoodzeum’s curator and a UW–Madison education doctoral student, compiles artifacts that focus on a “radical aspect of history.” (Davis did not respond to a request for comment.) A description of the April 24 exhibit said that it shows “how activist art at UW is . . . part of an ongoing tradition of creativity as action, care, and collective struggle.”
University spokesman John Lucas told City Journal via email that the “display did not represent the views of UW–Madison or its School of Education, which support free expression,” that the university “did not receive complaints” about the display, and that “no university funding was provided to the exhibit.”
But the exhibit was part of a public university-sponsored event. In such events, “the university has the power to determine what art is displayed,” according to Zach Greenberg, Director of Faculty Legal Defense at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. OMAI’s festival consisted of “invited professional artists” and students selected into the university’s First Wave full-tuition Hip-Hop & Urban Arts scholarship program.
As an administrative unit, OMAI also can’t claim the same protections of academic freedom that an academic department could. “We’re not talking about a case where a professor says something controversial in class,” Manhattan Institute Constitutional Studies Director Ilya Shapiro said. “Instead, it’s about viewpoint discrimination by a public school that’s bound by the First Amendment not to play favorites among political positions.” That seems to run contrary to UW–Madison’s institutional neutrality policy, which it adopted in 2024.
You be the judge: does this violate institutional neutrality given that OMAI is is an “administrative unit”. To me this looks like free speech, though it’s certainly not free speech that promotes inclusion. “All White People are Racists” comes straight from Kendi or DiAngelo, and is itself racist. And no, free speech does not equal white supremacy; this very exhibit disproves that.
*I’m a sucker for lists like the Guardian’s new compilation of “100 greatest novels of all time“. You can tick off the ones you’ve read here, and nominate your top three novels here.
Here is my score: not impressive but not bad, I think, for a scientist:
From the intro:
As Stephen King points out, compiling a list of the greatest novels of all time is an impossible task. King is one of more than 170 novelists, critics and academics the Guardian polled for their top 10, ranked in order, which we tallied to compile an overall 100. But, as he argued, 10 books is “not enough!” On King’s list there is, he’s sorry to say, “not a single Dickens”; he wishes he’d found space for David Copperfield or Oliver Twist.
One Day author David Nicholls’s choices are “definitely skewed towards novels I read at an impressionable age”, he says. Bernardine Evaristo listed “some of my all‑time favourites, including several classics of the past 100 years”. Salman Rushdie, Anne Enright, Yiyun Li, Elif Shafak, Ian McEwan, Maggie O’Farrell, Colm Tóibín, Lorrie Moore, Katherine Rundell and many more have all cast their votes.
Never has such a list been more needed. Dwindling attention spans, screens, Netflix; whatever we blame, reading for pleasure is a dying pursuit. Half of adults in the UK say they never read, and levels among children and young people are at their lowest in 20 years. This year has been declared the National Year of Reading to address this crisis. “Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all,” Henry David Thoreau advised. We are here to help.
. . . Our list includes any book published in English, but originally written in any language. It is still partial – all lists are. Neither can we make a claim to being definitive – this is literature, not science. Is the best novel one that changes the genre, society or the individual? One that captures the zeitgeist, or has an afterlife far beyond its pages. Or a novel that scorches itself so deeply into your soul you can remember exactly when and where you were when you first read it? None of these criteria on their own is enough. My Proustian madeleine will be your raw potato. My Mrs Dalloway your Mrs Bridge. But we hope that in asking those who devote their days to the craft and understanding of fiction from around the globe, the result is as authoritative, ambitious and far-reaching as possible.
Here are the top ten novels with the lowest number being the highest rank (there’s a “see the full list here” link).
Middlemarch
Beloved
Ulysses
In Search of Lost Time
Anna Karenina
War and Peace
Jane Eyre
Pride and Prejudice
Madame Bovary
The Great Gatsby
I have read all of these save one–the wearying book book by Proust (#4). I took it to Paris years ago but couldn’t even get through the first volume—and that was in the English translation. The highest-ranking book by a living author is Salman Rusdie’s Midnight’s Children.
If you want to participate, do go to the site and tick off the books you’ve read, and then put the number below. I’m sure many will beat me, but I still claim that scientists are better read in literature than nonscientists are about science. How many nonscientists have read On the Origin of Species or even A Brief History of Time?
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is mournful, in search of lost time:
Andrzej: Are you asleep?
Hili: No, I’m thinking back to the good times.
Masih points out the people who, like her, have fled Iran against their will to find freedom and preserve their lives. The translation from Farsih:
When a person is forced to leave their homeland to save their life, future, and freedom, migration is no longer a “choice”; it is a narrative of exile, fear, instability, and the struggle to survive. Thousands of Iranian refugees and students abroad live every day amid psychological pressures, residency issues, discrimination, insecurity, and separation from family; lives that are often unseen, yet real. In this live conversation, we will discuss the hidden suffering of forced migration, the crisis of Iranian refugees, the situation of students abroad, and the responsibility the global community has toward these individuals.
With: Saba Alaleh, Mousa Borzin, Nazi Seddiqi, Shilan Bahrami, Nafiseh Norad, Hanieh Nemattollahi. Host: Mozhgan Keshavarz
وقتی انسان مجبور میشود برای نجات جان، آینده و آزادیاش وطنش را ترک کند، مهاجرت دیگر «انتخاب» نیست؛
روایتیست از تبعید، ترس، بیثباتی و تلاش برای زنده ماندن.
هزاران پناهجو و دانشجوی ایرانی خارج از کشور، هر روز میان فشارهای روانی، مشکلات اقامتی، تبعیض، ناامنی و دوری از خانواده… pic.twitter.com/m25Co6d5GS
— United Against Gender Apartheid (@UAGApartheid) May 15, 2026
From Luana; a parallel:
After losing World War II, Germany lost 25% of its territory and 14 million Germans were ethnically cleansed from Eastern Europe.
And yet there hasn’t been a single case of Germans hijacking planes, blowing themselves up, or committing terrorist attacks like Palestinians. pic.twitter.com/3Bt6dZAPnu
Two from my feed. The first has always been a great idea: allow violent prisoners to take care of homeless cats. Watch the video! Both the staff and the cats are better off:
— Farm Girl Carrie 👩🌾 (@FarmGirlCarrie) May 16, 2026
This is apparently legal, but it’s hateful. In NYC, Muslims say their prayers right outside a Jewish school. Perhaps Mayor Mamdani could have a quiet word with the pray-ers, but he won’t:
This is an ALL GIRLS Jewish school in my district. I’m all for prayer and free speech, but why do a bunch of GROWN MEN need to do this right outside of a school full of little Jewish girls??? Is not this what MOSQUES are for? Is this intentional? Mayor Mamdani @NYCMayor any words… pic.twitter.com/iFRPnGVblQ
— Councilwoman Inna Vernikov (@InnaVernikov) May 15, 2026
One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
This Norwegian Jewish boy was gassed to death as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz. He was 7 years old and would be 91 today had he lived. https://t.co/DHiFinswOx
Meet the ‘famous’ Oxford University library cat who’s been keeping students company during their studies.
Cat Isambard Kitten Brunel, also known as Issy, makes a bus commute to the library alongside his owner Jamie Fishwick-Ford, every day.
Jamie, who is a librarian at Lady Margaret Hall at one of the colleges at Oxford University, began bringing the feline, also known as Issy, to work six years ago.
And the fluffy Siberian forest cat, who spends his days lounging in Jamie’s office, has quickly become a hit with students, gaining a loyal following.
His 43-year-old owner explained that while the cat does not freely roam around the college or the library, he only leaves his office to be petted or for outdoor exercise.
‘He’s proved very popular with the students, and he definitely loves to be loved by them,’ she said. ‘There are some students who come to see him several times a week.
‘Lots of people bring friends and family to meet him, and he’s become a bit of an unofficial mascot. He even appears on some of our outreach team’s stickers.’
After Jamie got Issy in September 2019, he began bringing her to work immediately despite being told the college was ‘very dog-orientated’.
. . .’College had a policy allowing you to bring dogs to work, as long as they mostly stayed in your office and you got permission from anyone else whose office they visited.’
She added: ‘But I prefer cats! I decided to get a cat and bring them to work instead of a dog. I follow the same policy as the dogs’
The much-loved feline mostly travels on his owner’s shoulders and can often be spotted wearing a harness and lead.
‘He’s also used as an unofficial welfare animal, and he’s very empathetic,’ Jamie explained.
‘He’s always very friendly and calm, but he’s even more so when someone is upset or crying, he’s had several people come to him in tears after they’ve accidentally deleted their dissertations or so on.
‘I deliberately got a Siberian Forest Cat because they are hypoallergenic, so it wouldn’t set people’s allergies off as much, both in the library and on the commute.’
There is something about cats and libraries or bookstores. Everyone loves Issy:
Jamie said Issy has become a local celebrity with people stopping her in the streets to ask if he is the famous library cat and to get a photo with him.
‘On the bus he expects to get attention from the other passengers – and will ‘miaow’ until he gets fussed by them,’ she added.
‘He also visits my local pub with me fairly frequently. They have a policy of allowing dogs, and I just apply that to him too.
‘Other colleges also sometimes ask for visits from the famous library cat, so we go to visit them and give their students a chance to meet him.’
Though I can’t put up the pictures, you can see Issy and Jamie in this 2-minute video:
********************
From I Heart Cats, we learn about a white cat named Boy who is a one-truck moggie: he dies flips. Click to read:
An excerpt:
Silence rarely lasts long in Boy’s home, and that is exactly how he likes it. Just when things seem calm, his loud, persistent cries fill the room, demanding immediate attention. It is not the kind of sound that signals trouble or fear. Instead, it carries a sense of urgency mixed with excitement, as if he has something important to share. Boy calls out to his mom with determination, refusing to be ignored, fully expecting her to turn and watch whatever amusing stunt he is about to perform next.
His trick:
Once he knows she is watching, the real show begins.
Boy has developed a routine that feels both chaotic and carefully planned. With a burst of energy, he launches himself into a dramatic front flip. But he does not stop there. His chosen landing spots are often the most unexpected places in the kitchen. Cabinets, appliances, and anything solid seem to be part of his performance space. He flips straight into them with a level of confidence that is both baffling and impressive.
To anyone else, it might look like an accident. But Boy makes it clear this is intentional. There is a rhythm to it. A build-up, a leap, a dramatic landing. And then, without fail, he turns to his mom as if waiting for approval.
Boy does not just want attention. He thrives on it. His loud cries before each stunt feel like an announcement, almost like he is saying, “Watch this.” His mom cannot help but laugh every single time. The way he throws himself into his flips, followed by that proud pause, turns each moment into something unforgettable.
There is something deeply endearing about the way he seeks connection. His antics are not just random bursts of energy. They are his way of bonding. Each flip, each dramatic crash into a kitchen appliance, is followed by that look. A silent request for applause.
You’ve waited long enough: here is Boy doing his trick, including the pre-trick screams:
What a narcissist!
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Lagniappe: We have two bits today. First, the evolutionary achievement of house cats:
Extra lagniappe: PHILOMENA!!!!
A famous face from TV is fronting a fundraising campaign to help a small cat rescue in the south Wales valleys to open a new dedicated rescue centre.
Motherland and Philomena Cunk star Diane Morgan was so moved by the story of Moggies Cat Rescue in Aberdare, she stepped in to help and agreed to become their patron.
Now, the rescue, which was founded 12 years ago by friends Eileen Sewell and Doreen Miller, is hoping that with Diane’s help they can grow and raise funds for a new dedicated rescue centre.
A keen animal rights supporter, the actress came to hear about Moggies, which has rehomed more than 125 cats in the past 12 months, through a mutual friend.
She was keen to visit the rescue and on a recent visit to Aberdare met with staff and volunteers, as well the cats currently in Moggies care.
The comedy star, who has Welsh roots, said: “I’m extremely proud to be patron of Moggies. I’m a big animal rights supporter and when I saw what Doreen and Eileen are trying to achieve it really touched me.
“They’re working so hard to provide injured or unwanted cats with shelter and medical help. They rely solely on donations and their kindness is truly heartwarming.
“Growing up I had a cat called Merlin who was my whole world, so I have a real soft spot for cats.”
Now the charity with Diane’s help have launched the fundraiser with an ambitious target of £250,000 to build a new dedicated cat rescue centre in the valleys.
To find out more about the fundraiser and to donate click HERE
Welcome to CaturSaturday, May 16, 2025, shabbos for Jewish cats, and National Barbecue Day. Many countries have barbecue, but the U.S. form, especially Texas beef, is the best. Here’s a giant beef rib dinner from Black’s BBQ in Lockhart, Texas. Look at that plate! (Included: BBQ beans, raw onion, a jalapeño corn muffin, potato salad, and extra BBQ sauce.) I usually get brisket, but that day I treated myself to the pricier beef rib, which turned out to be fabulous. (I did finish my lunch.) If you get to central Texas, be sure to visit Lockhart, which, though small (pop. 14,379), for some reason has become the state’s barbecue capital, with at least five famous joints. I think Black’s is the best.
John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, traveled to Cuba on Thursday, a day after Havana admitted that its fuel oil supplies have been exhausted for consumers and businesses.
Mr. Ratcliffe made the visit to deliver a warning to the government that it had to make economic changes and stop allowing Russia and China to operate intelligence posts in Cuba, U.S. officials said on Thursday.
Mr. Ratcliffe is the highest-ranking Trump administration official to visit Cuba. His trip is part of a multifaceted campaign to escalate pressure against the Communist government and fulfill President Trump’s demand for regime change.
In a statement, the C.I.A. said that Mr. Ratcliffe had traveled to Havana to personally deliver President Trump’s message “that the United States is prepared to seriously engage on economic and security issues, but only if Cuba makes fundamental changes.”
The C.I.A. said Mr. Ratcliffe had met with Raúl G. Rodríguez Castro, known as “Raulito” or “El Cangrejo” (the Crab), the influential grandson of former president Raúl Castro. Mr. Ratcliffe also met with Lázaro Álvarez Casas, the minister of the interior, as well as the head of Cuba’s intelligence services, a C.I.A. official said.
At the same time, federal prosecutors in Miami were working toward securing an indictment of the elder Mr. Castro, who remains a force in the country’s politics, according to several people familiar with the matter. The scope of the indictment and the number of defendants is being debated, but it could include drug trafficking charges and accusations connected to Cuba’s downing in 1996 of planes run by the humanitarian aid group Brothers to the Rescue, two of the people said.
Mr. Ratcliffe arrived in Cuba the day after Vicente de la O Levy, the minister of energy and mines, announced that oil supplies for domestic use and power plants had been exhausted.
“We have absolutely no fuel oil, absolutely no diesel,” he said. “In Havana, the blackouts today exceed 20 or 22 hours.”
The lack of oil has forced people to rely on charcoal or even wood to cook, and some people have taken to the streets, banging on pots and pans to express their frustration.
The Cuban government has been grappling with a severe energy crisis for more than two years because of crumbling infrastructure and a dwindling oil supply from Venezuela, its longtime benefactor.
Venezuelan fuel stopped flowing to Cuba entirely in January, after the United States seized Venezuela’s leader and took control of its oil industry. Later, the Trump administration imposed an effective blockade barring all foreign oil from reaching Cuba, which had also received shipments from Mexico.
I retain an affection for the people of Cuba, as everyone I know who’s visited the country remarked on the friendliness of the people. I have no use for their despotic government, but does the U.S. have the right (or the ethical impetus) to blockade the oil of that country? I don’t think so. I would dearly love for Cuba to become democratic, and I would like to visit (you can’t now unless you are part of a tour or get an official invite), but the U.S. has no business forcing Cuba to undergo regime change. We are not the world’s police.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, have threatened to sue the New York Times for defamation over the publication of an essay by Nicholas Kristof detailing allegations that Palestinian women, men and children have been raped and sexually abused in Israeli military detention.
“Following the publication by Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times of one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel in the modern press, which also received the backing of the newspaper, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar have instructed the initiation of a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times,” Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs wrote in a social media post on Thursday.
“They defamed the soldiers of Israel and perpetuated a blood libel about rape, trying to create a false symmetry between the genocidal terrorists of Hamas and Israel’s valiant soldiers,” Netanyahu added in a statement to Reuters. “We will fight these lies in the court of public opinion and in the court of law. Truth will prevail.”
“This threat, similar to one made last year, is part of a well-worn political playbook that aims to undermine independent reporting and stifle journalism that does not fit a specific narrative,” Danielle Rhoades Ha, a New York Times spokesperson, said in a Thursday statement. “Any such legal claim would be without merit.
“Nick has covered sexual violence for decades, and is widely regarded as one of the world’s best on-the-ground journalists in documenting and bearing witness to sexual abuse experienced by women and men in war and conflict zones,” the statement continued.
The paper has repeatedly defended Kristof’s reporting over the last few days.
But can Israel sue a newspaper for defamation? The article implies not:
It is not clear in which jurisdiction Israeli officials would bring the lawsuit or whether defamation claims could even be filed by a government.
“There is no chance a US court would countenance such a case,” said David A Logan, a professor emeritus at the Roger Williams School of Law and media law expert.
There is a legal consensus, he added, that the first amendment bars lawsuits or prosecutions of critics of government brought by the government.
Mark Stephens, an expert in international media law, called the idea of Israel suing the Times “ludicrous”. “Libel is about hurt feelings, being shunned and avoided and isolated as a human (sentient) being,” he said in an email. “This is as much about politics as it is about law – and courts are alert to the difference.”
In some ways this is unfortunate, as Kristof made specific allegations, but perhaps suppose that unnamed Israeli authorities or soldiers could consider themselves defamed if their organization is defamed for sexual assault on Palestinians. I do wish that there were some way that Kristof could be called to account–made to defend his allegations more precisely. We will not, however, see a news piece in the NYT following up on Kristof’s claims. He’s there for good.
*As usual, I’ll steal a few items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news-and-snark column in the Free Press, called this week, “TGIF: sort of a fat slob.”
→ 2028 coming into swing: Polls for the next presidential race are starting! Already! It’s LOL-a-poll-ooza. And 2028 is going to be our first election without Trump in 800 years, so it’s sure to be very weird. This is the latest from AtlasIntel, a reputable shop, but still, polls now are primarily just licking a finger and waving it around in the wind.
From the Dems, we have, despite no one announcing their candidacy: AOC at 26 percent, then Buttigieg and Newsom right behind her at 22 and 21 percent. From the Repubs, it’s RUBIO at 45 percent, then Vance at 30 percent, and DeSantis at 11 percent. We might have a Latina versus Latino presidential race in 2028, and I, for one, cannot wait. I can see it now. There will be many references to abuelas, debates over whether the American dream is real, or if Cuban counts as Latino at all, a memory hole of Latinx, you know what’s up. We are all going to have to pretend that descendants of the hottest, most ruthless conquistadors are indigenous tribespeople. Okay, that’s just AOC. But I’m really excited. I genuinely like them both. I’m rooting for them both. I’d even love Meatball Ron versus Gavin Newsom.
AOC leading the polls? Shoot me now! But wait!— there’s more!
→ Go ahead, AOC. Say it to Beyoncé: Appearing on comedian Ilana Glazer’s podcast in a May 7 interview, AOC said: “There’s a certain level of wealth and accumulation that is unearned, right? You can’t earn a billion dollars. You just can’t earn that. You can get market power, you can break rules, you can do all sorts of things. You can abuse labor laws, you can pay people less than what they’re worth, but you can’t earn that, right? And so you have to create a myth, that—since you didn’t earn that, you have to create a myth of earning it.” So, you’re saying Beyoncé didn’t earn it? You think she didn’t fight for every penny? How about Oprah? The scoreboard doesn’t care about your excuses, AOC. I dare you to tell Taylor Swift that she’s only a billionaire because she abused labor laws.
→ Oh no, the Russian nuke ship accidentally sank:
The only thing I share with antisemites is a belief that when something mysterious happens, I figure it must be Israel.
→ NYU kids vs. Jon Haidt: In an episode so validating it almost feels made up, NYU’s Student Government Assembly issued a statement opposing the selection of Jonathan Haidt as the Class of 2026 commencement speaker, because of what they say is his “disturbing rhetoric.” They call his selection “deeply unsettling.” Haidt is the author of The Anxious Generation and has been a major figure in the movement to reduce screen time in childhood. He also warned that shielding students from opinions they disagree with, or even find offensive, might be to their detriment. Here’s from the NYU Student Government Assembly letter protesting him:
Since the announcement on Thursday, April 30, many students have reported feelings of disappointment, disgust, unenthusiasm, defeat, and embarrassment—feeling that their commencement, intended to be a celebratory moment, has instead become another instance of being misunderstood.
Well, indeed. His graduation speech, delivered this week, spewed vile bigotry such as: “What you pay attention to shapes what you care about. And what you care about shapes who you become.” It included these deeply disturbing lines from a poem by Mary Oliver: Pay attention. / Be astonished. / Tell about it.Students booed. And I stand with them. Why? Because it’s enough already, Jon Haidt. Your book was on the bestseller list for, what, a billion weeks? (Actually, 106 weeks. One hundred and six weeks.) Leave some room for some other heterodox Free Pressers. When I think about that fact and your literary success, well, Jon, I also report feelings of unenthusiasm and defeat.
Haidt in fact turned out to be a good graduation speaker, but what he said doesn’t matter to the kids; he’s demonized for his (entirely reasonable) books. You can see part of his speech here.
A 38-year-old Washington man has been arrested for allegedly throwing a rock at a monk seal on the shores of Maui in early May, an incident that was caught on video and quickly went viral.
The monk seal is well-known to locals who have named her “Lani.” [JAC: I think they’ve now determined it was a different monk seal, but still one known to locals.]
“Lani, we have your back,” Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen said in a May 7 statement via Instagram. “And we hope to see you swimming by Front Street for many years to come.”
Mayor Bissen noted that members of his team in the Lahaina area of Maui have been tracking and looking out for Lani the seal “for some time now.”
“Lani is not just a seal to us,” he said. “She is part of our ocean ‘Ohana in Lahaina. Many of our residents know her, watch over her, and care deeply about her well being.”
. . .Special agents with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration arrestedIgor Mykhaylovych Lytvynchuk near Seattle on Wednesday, May 13. Lytvynchuk, 38, is a resident of Covington, Wash., roughly 30 miles southeast from Seattle.
On May 5, bystanders took video of a man walking along the beach in the Lahaina area of Maui as he followed a monk seal, Lani, in the nearby shallow water. The seal was swimming and pushing a log. The man then took a large rock — one witness described it as the size of a coconut — and threw it at the seal, nearly hitting its head.The seal was startled and reared out of the water. Lani was motionless for a time, avoiding the shore, after the scare.
“Let me be clear, this is not the kind of visitor we welcome on Maui,” Mayor Bissen said in his May 7 statement. “We welcome respectful visitors who understand that our culture, environment, and wildlife must be treated with care and aloha. Behavior like this will not be tolerated.”
After obtaining video of the incident, agents were able to compare images of the man with Lytvynchuk’s Washington state driver’s license photo. They then tracked him down at a nearby resort. He was contacted there and exercised his right to remain silent.
Lytvynchuk has now been charged with harassing and attempting to harass an endangered Hawaiian monk seal, which is a violation of the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. He made his first court appearance Thursday morning at the federal courthouse in Seattle.
Shortly after the rock-throwing incident, witnesses confronted the man and said they had called police. According to charging documents, the man told witnesses that he was “rich enough to pay the fines” and walked away as Lani was immobile in the water. Such fines could add up to $50,000 for violating the Endangered Species Act, and up to $20,000 under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. He also faces a potential year in prison and supervised release, if convicted.
I am happy they found this jerk, and I hope that, if he’s convicted, they throw the book at him, including locking him up. I think he’s being outed and shunned on social media, and I’m not weeping about that, either. You can see the criminal complaint here. Here is the first page of the full complaint and a picture of the accused (from the complaint):
*Margaret Sullivan was the last “public editor” of the NYT, responsible for publicizing and correcting errors in the paper. As I said yesterday, the paper did away with those editors. But the last one commented yesterday on the paper, her old job, and Nicholas Kristof’s odious column. Here’s the caption from Facebook:
The Times’ last public editor has reshared Hen Mazzig‘s essay “The Last Public Editor,” about the New York Times’ ethical collapse since getting rid of public editors.
Danish authorities were checking on Friday if a dead whale found in its waters might be a humpback nicknamed Timmy whose protracted rescue and release captivated neighboring Germany.
The juvenile male was guided through a freshly dredged channel onto a water-filled barge before being taken out to the North Sea earlier this month in an operation funded by two wealthy Germans off Timmendorfer beach for which it was named.
That split public opinion, with some Germans saying it would be better to put down the whale as it appeared to be disoriented or ill and would suffer too much stress in the operation.
Denmark’s Environmental Protection Agency said the dead humpback found near the small island of Anholt in the Kattegat strait about 200 km (124 miles) away could be Timmy and tissue samples had been collected for potential identification.
Timmy was also carrying a temporary GPS tag, which could also serve as potential identification. It would be very sad if he died, but many experts said that the removal exercise was probably futile.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is anxious:
Hili: The vastness of the universe terrifies me.
Andrzej: Ignore it, or go see a psychotherapist.
In Polish:
Hili: Przeraża mnie bezmiar wszechświata.
Ja: Ignoruj to, albo idź do psychterapeuty.
From Masih, who argues that Iran is buying time until the Democrats get into power in the U.S. Have a look at the figures shown at the beginning of this clip.
From Luana: Maeve Halligan, an LGBTQ activist at Cambridge University, argues that some full-alphabet gender activists are making life hard for gay and bisexual people (11.5 minute video, and worth watching):
“No, I don’t subscribe to this ‘kindness’ – I’ll tell the truth instead.”
I spoke at the Cambridge Union last night about LGBs, children’s safety and women’s rights. Full video here: pic.twitter.com/XpUFS4hYjU
I love this annual tour. Translation from the Korean below:
In Minneapolis, Minnesota, a cat tour is held every year. Residents seat their cats by the windows, and hundreds of people come out to the streets to see those cats. This year marks the eighth time. The world’s most peaceful event truly exists.
미국 미네소타주 미네아폴리스에서는 매년 고양이 투어가 열린다. 주민들이 자신의 고양이를 창가에 앉혀두고, 수백 명이 그 고양이를 보러 거리로 나온다. 올해로 8회째다. 세상에서 가장 평화로운 행사가 실제로 존재한다. pic.twitter.com/P5BCEckdYN
— 고양이 트윗 번역계猫ポスト翻訳垢🐱 (@nihongowacaran) May 15, 2026
One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
This Dutch Jewish girl was gassed as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz. She was 7 years old and would be 91 today had she lived.
And two from Dr. Cobb. First, North America’s only marsupial:
North America's only marsupials, opossums have a 13 day gestation.After birth, the bee-sized babies spend 6-9 weeks in the pouch attached to a nipple, then another 4-5 months riding on mom's back.During the 'baby-bus' phase, she continues to forage.This momma has a mustache made of baby tails.
Duck: King Eiders, which some (mistakenly) think are the world’s most beautiful ducks. In fact, they rank third—after the Mandarin Duck and the Wood Duck.
Birding day with @welshnaturelady.bsky.social few RTD, GND at Tarbet Ness. Osprey at Loch Fleet also King Eider at mouth of Loch Fleet by Littleferry, oddly enough one was reported twice on birdguides at the same time off Skelbo on Bird Guides#BirdingScotland
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