Welcome to the first Monday of the month: it’s November 2, 2026, the last day before the Midterm Elections, and Plan Your Epitaph Day. I’m going to be incinerated, so I won’t have one, but have a look at the gravestone of Mel Blanc as shown in Wikipedia.  As Wikipedia notes:

[Blanc] later expanded to animation, providing the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety, Sylvester the Cat, Yosemite Sam, Wile E. Coyote, Speedy Gonzales, Marvin the Martian, Foghorn Leghorn, the Tasmanian Devil, Pepé Le Pew and numerous other characters from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical cartoons.^[7] Blanc also voiced the characters Porky Pig and Elmer Fudd after replacing their original performers, Joe Dougherty and Arthur Q. Bryan, respectively, although he occasionally voiced Elmer during Bryan’s lifetime as well.

Note the stones on top of the tombstone, signs of affection and respect places there by Jewish visitors.

If you don’t know where the epitaph comes from, here’s Blanc’s voicing of Porky Pig’s closing of Looney Tunes cartoons:

It’s also All Souls’ Day and National Deviled Egg Day. And the leaves are falling:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the November 2 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*It’s somewhat ironic that the “progressive” NYT broke the story about how Democratic candidate for Senate Mary Peltola was apparently part of a nefarious scheme to undermine her Republican opponent, incumbent Dan S. Sullivan, by recruiting another candidate, Dan J. Sullivan, Jr., in an attempt to confuse voters. (Although readers say this is legal and has done before, it’s still being investigated for possible violation of the law.) At any rate, there’s now a measure on the Alaska ballot that would eliminate the voting system that allowed this, and, further, the NYT, beating its chest, has a separate article on how it broke the story. From the first article:

Organizers of a ballot measure that would end Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system say the effort by Democrats to boost Mary Peltola’s Senate bid by stacking Tuesday’s ballots in an attempt to confuse voters should be the system’s death knell.

Since Alaska voters approved open primaries and ranked-choice general elections in 2020, opponents — most of them Republicans — have argued the system is too confusing for the average person.Now it’s been tainted by scandal involving the recruitment of a challenger with the same name as the incumbent. That has led to federal legal action, a Justice Department investigation and a separate state investigation.

. . . A similar referendum two years ago lost by 737 votes.

. . .Under current law, candidates for state and federal office in Alaska compete in one open, nonpartisan primary, with the top four advancing to November. Voters rank them in order of preference. If no candidate wins a majority of first-choice votes, the last-place finisher is eliminated and those votes are redistributed according to voters’ next choices. The process repeats until someone wins a majority of the remaining votes.

Ballot Measure 2 would return Alaska to primaries open only to voters registered to a particular party. That would be followed by a traditional general election where voters choose just one candidate.

I find the ranked-choice option confusing, and so would vote to repeal the system. After all, anybody can still run if they’re registered with a party (any party) and get the requisite number of signatures.  Below is from the second article, with the NYT so proud of itself.  Questions (in bold) are from NYT deputy editor Amy Gardner, answers are from the reporter, Kellen Browning:

Ballot-stacking is generally considered legal. Republicans have used the tactic in Alaska. What was newsworthy about the effort that led us to write an article?

Amy: It’s not unprecedented for campaigns or major parties to find decoy candidates with the same name as a major-party contender. But it is rare, and that’s what made the candidacy of Dan J. Sullivan unusual. We’ve also written extensively about other ballot-stacking efforts, by both parties — including in Alaska this year. Dan J. Sullivan’s candidacy also became a subject of interest in the Alaska political world and beyond, and questions were being raised when he barely campaigned. There is also the fact that the Peltola campaign so vigorously denied it, for so long. That made it a bigger story, in the end.

I’d add: Dan J. Sullivan is a retired schoolteacher who lives in a remote village accessible only by plane or boat. He has a Che Guevara magnet on his fridge. He gave money to a past campaign of Mary Peltola. It’s just a great story all the way around.

Kellen: Yes, Democrats have made the point that Republicans have done this, which is true. That doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t write about particularly glaring or interesting examples of it. And in this case, we were able to pull back the curtain and take readers inside the plan in an unusually detailed way.

I suppose Democrats will criticize the NYT for singling out Alaska, but I think Kellen’s response is okay, though past examples by Democrats of this kind of chicanery should have been mentioned. I can’t be arsed to go back and see if they were.

*Andrew Sullivan appears to have made the transition, at least for this election cycle, to supporting the Democratic Party. At least that’s the message in his latest column, “You know what to do” (subtitle”: It’s our last chance to show that Americans have not forgotten who we really are.”  Although I no longer subscribe to his site, the link appears to give his full article. Some quotes:

“Pretend I’m on the ballot!” the president insists, as if there is any other Republican on the ballot. It’s been two years of governance without a Congress — the lifeless body effectively passes one bill a year while deferring in every other single respect to the cult leader — so voting for a Republican congressman or senator is, quite simply, a vote for Trump. And an endorsement of his de facto suspension of constitutional balance.

So vote for anyone other than a Republican next Tuesday. Or if that’s too compromising for you, don’t vote at all. We need to send a deafening message to bring the republic back to some kind of balance — loud enough that the remaining sane Republicans hear it, and emphatic enough to render Trump’s inevitable attempt to delegitimize it futile.

Trump’s second term is, after all, a near-perfect illustration of why the Founders were smarter than he is. Economic policy has been conducted by presidential whim, not by Congressional deliberation. Tariffs can maybe work if they are raised gradually, and stably — but not when they change from rate to rate and country to country from minute to minute. Foreign policy follows the same monarchical structures so that a full-scale war, initiated by a foreign government, was launched without the American public or the wider Congress even being informed in advance. And because power is concentrated so thoroughly around one deeply unethical man and his cronies, and because the Congress is controlled by his cult, corruption is at stratospheric levels.

Yes, the war was and is a terrible idea. Yes, prices for almost everything are higher, and the president has helped make them so through war and tariffs. Yes, economic security feels out of reach for everyone on the brink of the AI revolution, with an executive obviously a mere plaything in the hands of unaccountable moguls. Yes, immigration control, however needed, has been marred by brutality, mindless enforcement, and abrogation of constitutional rights. Yes, the president has broken every minimal norm of decency, ending his campaign with jibes against jihadists and faggots and freaks, as if slurs were all he had left against El Sayed and Talarico.

But these are all downstream of the constitutional collapse: an executive branch staffed by clowns and led by a madman with no countervailing force. The answer to that is simple: a Congress that can function again as the central political body in our democratic system, so we can finally draw a line under Trump’s kleptocratic idiocracy. That can’t happen overnight, but a demonstration that the constitution still lives can be seen by the world next Wednesday morning.

. . . Voting for Harris in 2024 was an excruciating decision to put resisting a deranged despot ahead of my ideal policy goals. I feel no such conflict now. I don’t have a huge amount of confidence that the Dems will use their power wisely, but any use of Congressional power to push back on the tyrant will do for now

This was not hard for Sullivan to right, and I am pleased that he did. He even promotes a Congressional investigation of Trump’s pardons, thinking that we may need a Constitutional amendment to prevent the abuse of pardons to reward your friends.

*I’ve learned that on any subject where there’s an accepted “progressive” point of view, Wikipedia will adopt it, rendering the “people’s encyclopedia” biased and misleading. This is certainly true for the history of Israel and of conflicts between Israel and its enemies. Quillette has an informative essay on Zionism called “How Wikipedia rewrote Zionism,” a distressing example of bias (you can find Wikipedia’s article here).

Before 7 October 2023, the English-language Wikipedia article on Zionism opened by describing a movement that emerged to “espouse support for the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine.” Since then, the opening has been reworded to say that this homeland was to be established “through colonization,” immediately followed by a new sweeping claim: “Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible.” The sentence is backed by an unusually large bundle of 17 citations, drawn from historians including Benny Morris, Rashid Khalidi, Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappé, and to the casual reader it looks like the settled verdict of scholarship. It is not. The editor who introduced it in August 2024 has since been banned from the entire Palestine-Israel topic area for non-neutral editing. Yet the sentence survives, and for a year Wikipedia formally barred its editors from even discussing whether to remove it.

That matters because Wikipedia is widely regarded as a generally reliable source of information, and its influence extends far beyond the millions of people who consult it directly: it has also been incorporated into many of the datasets used to train artificial intelligence systems, thereby shaping the information those systems subsequently reproduce. That reputation and reach rest in large part on one of Wikipedia’s foundational principles—presenting a “neutral point of view.” Wikipedia articles are supposed to summarise what reliable sources say without taking a position of their own. This principle is particularly important on controversial subjects, and few subjects are more contentious than Zionism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more broadly.

The sentence is only the most visible symptom of a much larger change. Over the past three years, Wikipedia’s coverage of this topic has undergone an extraordinary transformation, best exemplified by the Zionism article itself. I recently conducted a quantitative analysis of the article’s revision history and found that since 7 October 2023, about 80 percent of the article has been completely rewritten, and only about 20 percent of the pre-October 2023 text has survived.

More importantly, this dramatic, measurable change reflected a fundamental shift in the topics emphasised by the article. For example, the volume of material associated with colonialism rose roughly two-and-a-half-fold, and coverage of ethnic cleansing roughly doubled. At the same time, discussion of antisemitism and persecution—the primary historical drivers of the Zionist movement—was cut approximately in half, while the return to the historic Jewish homeland went from the most prominent of the four topics to the least.

. . .Similarly, the scale of this rewriting cannot be explained by any recent fundamental shift in the underlying scholarship. For example, the most cited author in the article is Benny Morris, who published Righteous Victims in 1999, the substantially revised The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited in 2004, and 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War in 2008, drawing extensively on Israeli and Western archival material that had become available over the preceding decades. The same holds for the broader academic literature on the subject: the key works on which the article relies had all been published long before the page underwent its wholesale rewrite. In other words, there has been neither substantial new evidence nor a major historiographical shift since 7 October 2023 that could plausibly explain why four-fifths of a mature encyclopedic article suddenly needed to be replaced.

The explanation lies instead within Wikipedia itself—specifically, in the editorial choices determining which sources were foregrounded and how they were represented. An encyclopedic article is not supposed to reflect the political preferences of its editors, but to fairly represent serious scholarship on the subject. The post-October 2023 rewrite did exactly the opposite. Rather than neutrally presenting the actual range of views found among historians, the article moved towards a simplistic, partisan account, dominated by the perspective of Zionism’s political adversaries. Nor was the partisan editing limited to deciding which parts of the scholarship to foreground and which to push aside. It also repeatedly distorted what the scholarship actually said.

The article shows how the changes were effected largely by cherry-picking quotes from scholars like Benny Morris, changing their meaning. As the article argues,

The real issue, then, is not simply bias. It is bias introduced in the guise of neutral, scholarship-based synthesis—and nowhere is that clearer than in the opening paragraph of the article, where a sentence introduced by an editor banned for non-neutral editing still tells readers what Zionism is.

Don’t expect any change in the article, though. Those who want to eliminate the bias will be steamrollered by assiduous antisemites who hover over the article to keep it biased. That’s the way that all this ideological slant is produced in Wikipedia.

*Over at The Spectator, Douglas Murray contemplates the damage done to the City of Light in recent demonstrations, and asks “Will we always have Paris?” (archived link).

Two worlds met in Paris last week. Thanks to the presence of Art Basel, some of the world’s most valuable art that wasn’t already in the city was shipped there. It arrived just in time for Paris to go up in flames. Most of the art fair went ahead as planned at the Grand Palais, but the final weekend was cancelled.

. . . Unfortunately reports from the front line all confirm a pre-existing prejudice of my own – which is that almost no group is more detached from society than those who call themselves ‘artists’. A particularly fine example came courtesy of a woman called Louisa Buck, who writes for the Art Newspaper. Reviewing the carnage in the city, as well as the contents of Art Basel, Buck (the daughter of the late Conservative MP Sir Antony Buck) twittered admiration not for the art but for the vandalism.

Taking to Instagram, she wrote: ‘For me the most powerful artwork encountered in the last 48 hours was the defaced sculpture under lowering skies in Place de La République passed on my way off to Gare du Nord that speaks volumes of the fury and disappointment felt at uncaring governments and savage policing – and it’s not just restricted to France.’ She continued to trill about the beauty of the black graffiti that made it look almost as though the figure of Égalité was ‘weeping black tears… (or maybe her eyes put out altogether)’.

Of course to voice such sentiments, any person – especially an art critic – must have had their brains fall out altogether. The monument in question is one of Paris’s landmarks, with the 19th-century sculpture centring around a statue of Marianne, the symbol of France. But the art world has long been dominated by an elite of ‘anti-elitists’. So much so that the daughter of a Tory MP and knight of the realm thinks nothing of celebrating the despoiling of France’s national monuments because of the need for justice, progress or some such.

. . . In other words, it isn’t just France’s new culturally enriching population who believe burning things down can be good. Some of its home-grown best are up for it too. One French woman, Bettina Zourli, a sociology lecturer, was caught on camera last week arguing with a beautiful young Parisienne who had been threatened with rape by the rioters. Zourli appeared to have no sympathy for the victim, and explained to the younger woman that she was simply ‘collateral damage’. She has since apologised for her ‘clumsy’ words.

Like so many other French activists and thinkers, Zourli spoke her truth. France’s best include people who believe – to use the old cliché – that you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs. But they never do make their omelette. They just leave every-one else with a bloody, burned-out mess.

The omelette making has spread to Italy and Spain, and I’d expect, as a result, to see Europe voting for hard-right candidates in the next year. But Paris will recover, as it always has, though it is slowly changing.

*The AP reports that a Brit named Karl Bushby is about to come home, after 28 straight years of walking.

Karl Bushby has spent 28 years walking home, but as he approaches the finish Monday, it’s not clear he’s ready for the audacious journey to end.

Pushing a cart loaded with camping gear up a busy country road in northern England about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the finish line, Bushby was uncertain of the future, anxious about the prospect of living in his mom’s basement and facing an identity crisis.

“My purpose and reason for living is about to end,” he said. “It’s going to be difficult … trying to blend back into a society that you just don’t know anymore.”

Bushby, 57, was just shy of 30 when he entered the unknown at the tip of South America on Nov. 1, 1998. Since then, he has walked 31,000 miles (50,000 kilometers) across four continents, navigated shifting ice over the Bering Strait and swam — a generous description of his technique — across the Caspian Sea and English Channel. He has battled almost every type of element and terrain imaginable through 30 foreign countries to get back to where he started half a lifetime ago.

Swampy jungle, scorching desert and frozen tundra slowed him down, but mountains of red tape helped turn what was supposed to be a 12-year trek into the epic he has dubbed the “Goliath Expedition.”

It’s taken nearly three times as long for Bushby to return to his mother, Angela, in Hull, as it took the hero in “ The Odyssey ” to make it back to his wife, Penelope, in Ithaca.

“Odysseus was a bit of an amateur,” Bushby quipped. “But, you know, I’ll cut him some slack — I haven’t met any giant Cyclops.”

The route, with the green part left to go. From yahoo! life courtesy of Karl Bushby:

. . . and an AP video. He is supposed to be home today, but there’s another video him having arrived in southern England. Thgt video also shows him crossing the Darnien Gap, the Bering Strait, and the English Channel (using the backstroke).

I am not sure that this trek is a good “reason for living,” but when you think of other people’s “reasons,” it doesn’t seem so outré.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is not comfortable. In fact, she is not doing well at all, and Andrzej fears the worst.

Hili: This armchair isn’t the most comfortable.
Andrzej: Come on, let’s lie down together somewhere else.

In Polish:

Hili: Ten fotel nie jest najwygodniejszy.
Ja: Chodź, poleżymy razem w innym miejscu.

*******************

From Bad Spelling or Grammar on Signs and Notices

From CinEmma:

From Clean, Funny, and Cute Animal Memes:

And, as a treat, Khadija Khan shows us that Cenk already is blowing an artery!:

Masih shows some Iranians celebrating Halloween–in Iran!

Halloween in Iran…

The Islamic Republic calls Halloween a “Western vice” and tries to ban it. But young Iranians have a message for the ayatollahs: You don’t get to decide how we live, dress, dance, or celebrate.

While the new “supreme leader “ and other mullahs hide in fear, the young generation is out there celebrating their own lifestyle.

The regime wants to turn Iran into a graveyard. This generation is determined to turn it into a dance floor.

— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) November 1, 2026

From Luana; a spoof of the Cenk/pro-El Sayed ad:

It was an honor to be a part of this video by the brilliant @cenkuygur for @AbdulElSayed . It is so important to go out and vote! #makeamericadeerborn https://t.co/5FqIGBeCdj

— Lyle Culpepper (@ShutupLyle) October 27, 2026

From Malcolm; neurons connecting. This is not only how learning takes place, but how memories are made:

Neurons establishing relationships with each other.

Fundamentally what happens when you are learning. https://t.co/xr5BIHbAl8

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) October 22, 2026

From Larry, who hasn’t learned the mantra, “Healthy at any weight”:

No fat cats here!

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) October 31, 2026

From FB; Michael Che makes a tasteless joke about Israel on Saturday Night Live:

“This week, a record number of people voted in Israel’s election — which is great to see, regardless of if you’re on the right side, or the left side, or the genocide.”  See for yourself at 2:09 below.

Weekend Update with Colin Jost and Michael Che! https://t.co/gPYlZQs1dN

— Saturday Night Live (@nbcsnl) November 1, 2026

One from my feed, showing cat wrestling:

If wrestling is fake then explain this… https://t.co/EDB0JxMuXF

— Donnie K “Trucken Marine” (@TruckenUSMC) October 31, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This Dutch Jewish boy was gassed as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz. He was five years old and would have turned 90 today had he lived.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2026-11-02T12:11:24.431Z

And one from Doc Cobb, who saw the Fremont Troll in person:

Seattlers will know where I am

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-09-27T21:03:54.823Z

Music:  Here’s Barbra Streisand, who along with Karen Carpenter was one of the two great female pop singers of our time. Here she’s singing “Somewhere,” written by Leonard Bernstein (music) and Stephen Sondheim (lyrics) for the musical “West Side Story.”  This is from Streisand’s 1986 “One Voice” concert, given at her home in Malibu, California.  What more is there to say except that there’s a long introduction by Robin Williams along with comments with various notables, and the singing starts at 3:20?

NOTE: Did you set your clocks back last night? Daylight Savings Time ended at 1 a.m., which became midnight. You either got an extra hour of sleep (as I did, thank Ceiling Cat) or you’ll get an extra hour of leisure or work.

Welcome to Sunday, November 1, 2026: we are now approaching winter in the Northern Hemisphere. As I posted 11 years ago:

Since November has arrived, I’ll take this opportunity to post one of my favorite Wallace Stevens poems. My absolute favorite is “Peter Quince at the Clavier“, but this one is more is appropriate since it expresses both the change of seasons and the degeneration of nature, ending with a completely mangled month.

Metamorphosis

by Wallace Stevens

Yillow, yillow, yillow,
Old worm, my pretty quirk,
How the wind spells out
Sep – tem – ber….

Summer is in bones.
Cock-robin’s at Caracas.
Make o, make o, make o,
Oto – otu – bre.

And the rude leaves fall.
The rain falls. The sky
Falls and lies with worms.
The street lamps

Are those that have been hanged.
Dangling in an illogical
To and to and fro
Fro Niz – nil – imbo.

As always on the first of the month, I post the appropriate month’s illustrations from the 15th century manuscript Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. November’s illustration, below,is explained by Celtic Studies Resources:

The central panel features a pastoral scene of peasants harvesting acorns from oak trees, for the benefit of swine grazing beneath the trees. In the background on the left a château is partially visible on the bank of a river. The château has not been identified; it’s possible that Colombe relied on his imagination in depicting the château; it’s also possible that it’s not extant and therefor unrecognized.

The peasant on the left looks poised to hurl his stick into the trees, striking the ripe acorns so that they would fall on the ground to be consumed by the waiting pigs. Farther back, in the middle distance, two other peasants accompanied by sticks and pigs are engaged in watching the pigs, and in assisting the acorns to fall.

You’ll notice that the oak trees are very straight, and have had their lower branches lopped off in a practice known as pollarding. It was common in the middle ages in Europe to pollard oak and hazel nut trees by lopping off the lower branches every year or so; these could be used for firewood, and the tree would still grow and bear nuts. It also allowed more trees to be planted, because they could be planted closer together without lower branches inhibiting the growth of nearby trees.

Those are hairy pigs!

It’s also All Saints’ Day, National Author’s Day, National Balsamic Vinegar of Modena Day, National Calzone Day, National Cinnamon Day, National Deep Fried Clams Day, and, ironically both National Pâté Day and World Vegan Day.

Today’s Google Doodle celebrates Native American Heritage Month (click below to see where the Doodle goes):

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the November 1 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The NYT (and every place else) reports that a renewed war with Iran is in the works. (article archived here).

Little is clear about the power dynamics that will govern Israel and the United States in the coming months after pivotal elections in both countries. But Iran’s leaders are watching the contests closely, analysts said, and bracing for a renewed round of conflict whatever the outcome.

Tehran expects more attacks whoever takes control in Israel or of Congress, and has shown little willingness to make concessions demanded by the Trump administration to seal a peace deal.

On Saturday, Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, said on social media that he had met with senior leaders of the armed forces and directed them to respond to any kind or level of threat with an immediate response in order to establish “maximum deterrence.” He also directed them to be prepared to target all types of U.S. and Israeli assets.

“They have been expecting a new round of war already for a few weeks, and they’ve been preparing accordingly,” Hamidreza Azizi, senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, said of the Iranian government.

. . .In Israel, Iran would welcome the removal of Mr. Netanyahu from power, said Mohammad Saleh Sedghian, director of the Arab Center for Iranian Studies in Tehran. The Israeli leader helped persuade Mr. Trump to attack Iran this year and sought to orchestrate new airstrikes on Iran ahead of the election. But Iranian leaders believe that changing prime ministers would probably have an impact only in the short term rather than leading to a fundamental shift in Israeli policy, Mr. Sedghian said.

“Iranian and Israeli policies toward each other have remained consistent regardless of which government has been in power in Israel since the 1980s,” he said. “Any changes would likely be temporary rather than strategic.”

When it comes to the United States, Iran’s leaders are keenly aware of how the costs of the war, including higher gasoline prices for Americans, have affected Mr. Trump’s popularity and the Republican Party’s prospects in the midterms. Their assessment appears to be that a deal with Iran would benefit Mr. Trump politically, giving Tehran leverage in any negotiations to end the war. Iran, on the other hand, has already borne enormous costs including worsening inflation, without its leaders changing their stance.

Although the article mentions that the U.S. was pursuing a deal with Iran to help Trump and the Republicans, it’s too late now: the midterms are on Tuesday. All things told, my prediction (and I’m not a pundit) is that we’ll be fighting Iran again within a month.

*In a news analysis piece, the National Review argues that the U.S. and Israel could still bring Iran to its knees, but they have to focus on a clear objective to the conflict (article archived here).

The question for Israelis is not whether resumed war with Iran is prudent, but whether resumed war with Iran in the next six months can achieve a realistic strategic objective. The mistake of the war this spring was to seek expansive objectives, rather than to stage a series of strikes that would appreciably damage the regime, while allowing Israel to terminate operations when America dictated as much. Indeed, the reality of this war is President Trump, not Netanyahu, determines when the fighting begins — albeit not when it ends.

Trump’s relatively short attention span, reinforced by his management style, militates against long-term patient strategic planning. Trump quite clearly thinks in two- to four-week cycles. This explains his attempt to bring gas prices down through a cosmetic, ineffectual diesel deal with Vladimir Putin’s Russia in mid-October, just under a month before a probable midterm defeat. The result has been vacillation between intense pressure on Iran, negotiations, and pseudo-pressure masking desired disengagement. The Trump administration, however, is clearly contemplating a new round of strikes against Iran, as indicated by meetings with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Dan Caine and leaked planning discussions with CENTCOM Commander Brad Cooper.

The issue is the objective. Israel, with Netanyahu at the helm, will certainly be interested in resuming an offensive, but that offensive must have a clear goal to justify it. The United States and Israel can once again hammer Iranian missile and drone-launch capabilities and production facilities. They can also attack industrial targets across Iran, further undermining the country’s already battered economy. More limited strikes, including repeated ones, against Iran’s coastal missile launch sites and sensors are also justified.

Nonetheless, without fomenting an uprising or leveraging forces on Iran’s border, neither Israel nor the United States can base its immediate policy upon the collapse of the Islamic Republic, even if the Revolutionary Guard could lose its grip on power as rapidly as the Soviets did.

This does not mean, however, that pressure on Iran is fruitless. Instead, the United States can direct Israeli attention elsewhere, leveraging Israel’s capacity to solidify the anti-Iranian coalition that the U.S. sought to bring into existence under the first Trump administration.

This coalition relies on alignment between Israel and the Gulf States, not simply the United Arab Emirates. Emirati leaders, much like their Jordanian counterparts, appear to have realized that friendship with Israel is an asset in an otherwise volatile region and that Israeli military capabilities can, in fact, be leveraged in dangerous situations. But the Emiratis are only one part of the equation. The Saudis are the other. Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman has refused to move toward normalization with Israel absent dramatic concessions from Jerusalem and Washington, including over Saudi nuclearization. He has also refused to allow the U.S. to stage strikes from Saudi bases and constantly balked at even limited bombing campaigns against Iranian coastal targets.

. . . Iran aims to destroy Israel, force the U.S. from the region, and ultimately become a genuine threat to the U.S. through possession of nuclear weapons and ICBMs. Israel and the U.S.’s goal should be to destroy the Iranian regime. The past eight months show that patience is required. If we haven’t learned this, we haven’t learned anything.

Yes, and help install a regime that would not pursue nuclear weapons. I’m not sure how much time the U.S. really has to do this, though, as several articles imply that a Democratic Congress may be able to force Trump to do their bidding with respect to war. And that gives the U.S. until January 3.

*I no longer donate to Doctors without Borders (MSF) because of its blatant anti-Israel stand, but now Switzerland has suspended much of its funding to MSF for a different reason: sexual abuse in Chad by some of MSF’s employees. And not just a few employees either. Further, MSF is making excuses about how it failed to act as quickly as possible:

Switzerland’s federal government is freezing some funding to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) due to the agency’s handling of a sexual abuse scandal that saw staff victimise refugees in Chad.

Officials from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, or SDC, appear to have been blindsided by the scale of the abuse and MSF’s inadequate disclosure of information, according to Zurich newspaper NZZ, which first reported the funding suspension to MSF Switzerland this week.

The abuse was exposed by reporting by the Associated Press in 2024. Women and girls said they were forced to exchange sex for money, jobs, or better access to humanitarian assistance, pointing to staff from MSF. The agency initially reported this to Swiss authorities as a case involving three women, according to NZZ.

But the organisation would later find widespread abuse, including exploitation that may have amounted to “sexual trafficking”, AP reported in June 2026. MSF later acknowledged that it had identified 59 allegations of “misconduct, including sexual harassment, exploitation, and abuse” involving “staff, daily workers, external contractors, and suppliers”.

The organisation says it has dismissed 18 staff. However, SDC appears to have been in the dark about the extent of the abuse until the June 2026 media report, the NZZ report suggests.

As with all cases of sexual abuse, the findings are likely an undercount as victims and survivors are often hesitant to speak, or to trust investigators tied to organisations that employed their abusers. Some 4.5 million people in Chad need humanitarian assistance, including refugees who have fled the civil war and genocidal attacks in Sudan, internally displaced people, and host communities.

What MSF says: “As we investigated the abuse in eastern Chad in 2024 and 2025, we remained in contact with the SDC, informing it about the media reports and providing updates on the ongoing investigations and their progress during meetings in Bern and Chad,” an MSF spokesperson told us. “However, we did not proactively communicate the full scale of confirmed cases and dismissals as early as we should have.”

The AP report in 2024 implies that MSF’s behavior is not limited to Chad:

Christopher Lockyear, MSF’s secretary general, said the organization was not aware of the allegations and wanted to investigate. “Asking for money or sex in exchange for access to care or a job is a clear violation of our behavioral commitments,” he said.

MSF would not say how many such cases had been reported among Sudanese refugees in Chad. Last year, out of 714 complaints made about MSF staff behavior where it works globally, 264 were confirmed to be cases of abuse or inappropriate behavior including sexual exploitation, abuse of power and bullying, Lockyear said.

MSF has dropped the ball on this one, not disclosing information that it should have. Sexually exploiting the very people it’s supposed to help is shameful behavior.  They won’t get dime one from me, and I suggest that if you’re donating them, you reassess your strategy. There are a lot of groups that help people and don’t have a track record like MSF.

*Haley Stevens, the Democrat who was beaten in Michigan’s Senate primary by Abdul El-Sayed, is not taking defeat graciously, but that’s ok—I detest El-Sayed. The NYT recounts what she’s saying about him and why she may convert to Judaism. (Article archived here.)

Representative Haley Stevens of Michigan stood up from her dining table, where the tuna fish and matzo ball soup sat half-eaten, and let loose about the moment she grew disillusioned with Dr. Abdul El-Sayed.

It happened this month, during her state’s first Senate debate between Dr. El-Sayed, who defeated her in a bitter Democratic primary in August, and former Representative Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee. Dr. El-Sayed, an outspoken critic of Israel, was asked if Iran or Israel posed a greater threat to the United States. He dodged the question, calling it a “ridiculous hypothetical.”

This was unacceptable to Ms. Stevens.

“He’s a good speaker,” she said during the lunchtime interview on Friday at her home in Birmingham, Mich., raising her voice and rising from the table. “He’s an orator. He is gifted. Then how does that happen? Come on!”

Since the debate, Ms. Stevens has sat for a procession of cable television interviews that have been increasingly critical of Dr. El-Sayed, her endorsement of him becoming shakier by the day. Their hug at a party unity brunch in August has faded into distant memory.

Representative Haley Stevens of Michigan stood up from her dining table, where the tuna fish and matzo ball soup sat half-eaten, and let loose about the moment she grew disillusioned with Dr. Abdul El-Sayed.

Since the debate, Ms. Stevens has sat for a procession of cable television interviews that have been increasingly critical of Dr. El-Sayed, her endorsement of him becoming shakier by the day. Their hug at a party unity brunch in August has faded into distant memory.

On Friday, Ms. Stevens announced that she would attend a Sunday church service in Detroit with Dr. El-Sayed, a peace offering brokered by Representatives Debbie Dingell of Michigan and James E. Clyburn of South Carolina. But Ms. Stevens’s statement came with a caveat: a demand that Dr. El-Sayed publicly disavow an ad that one of his allies posted online. She called the ad antisemitic because it blamed U.S. support for Israel for high grocery prices. [JAC: note below that this meeting is off.]

On Friday, Dr. El-Sayed pushed back.

In a blistering statement, he offered a reminder that he beat her in August and an assertion that “Congresswoman Stevens seems intent on relitigating a primary that ended three months ago.”

. . . .Several times in the interviews, she returned to her anger over the online ad, made by Rebellion PAC, a left-wing group that backed Dr. El-Sayed, and his refusal to publicly disavow it. The El-Sayed campaign has said it did not make and is not responsible for the ad.

“Maybe it’s how you fund-raise, maybe it is what you want people to believe, but the reality is that we are not going to say that the cost of groceries is because of Jews and the Jewish state,” Ms. Stevens said. “We’re not going to say we don’t have health care because of Jews and the Jewish state.”

Other Democrats, though, are criticizing Stevens for upsetting the apple cart. After all, Democrats are supposed to stick together so Republicans won’t retain Senate control.  But to me, enough is enough.  Is that end worth any means, including supporting a closeted anti-Zionist who can’t bring himself to condemn an antisemitic ad? Seriously! Stevens is acting like a Democrat should, condemning what should be condemned.  It’s gotten so that anybody who calls themselves a Democrat deserves support, no matter what they say or do.

Also, according to the Wall Street Journal, El-Sayed has disinvited Stevens from their joint appearance scheduled for today:

Abdul El-Sayed has disinvited Rep. Haley Stevens from a joint campaign appearance planned for Sunday at a heavily Black church in Detroit, the latest sign of Democratic division in this critical state.

The Senate nominee’s campaign has asked Stevens to stay away from El-Sayed events ahead of Tuesday’s election, according to two people familiar with the decision. Politico reported on the move earlier, after the two Democratic primary rivals sniped at each other in public on Friday.

Bickering within the party could hardly come at a worse time as Democrats try to hold on to a critical Senate seat.

Yes, winning has become everything, with party labels overriding anything, including antisemitism and blood libels.

*Over at his Substack site, which I can’t read fully because I don’t want to pay for any more subscriptions, Jesse Singal gives his reaction to the new documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, “You Can See Everything,” and he thinks the movie is terrific.

You Can See Everything is great. I saw it last week, after having been exposed to weeks’ worth of buzz making it sound like a documentary created in one day by Jesus himself, so I went in with certain expectations.

I’m not sure it was as good as social media and the most enthusiastic reviewers said (a dumb standard, to be sure), but it’s a great documentary. It will stick with me for a long time.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I think Nathan Fielder is a capital-G Genius, I believe Nathan for You is one of the, say, seven (?) funniest TV shows ever produced, and I think The Rehearsal (particularly season 2) is one of the most interesting and original TV shows ever produced. I am just a giant Fielder fanboy in general, even as I acknowledge that he is Not For Everyone (for some of the same reasons I Think YouShould Leave is NFE) — not everyone can handle the level of cringe he tends to bring to his projects. (I thought The Curse was good and I’m glad I watched it, but it bounced off me a bit in a way none of his own work ever has.)

I went in knowing as little as possible about YCSE given the insane level of Discourse, and you should do the same.

Singal then recounts part of the movie in which Holmes doesn’t understand the famous “Who’s on first” joke, even when it was explained to her; Singal thinks this is a deliberate attempt to buttress her reputation, as John Carreyrou puts it in a NYT piece, “the neurodivergent entrepreneur who operated on a different wavelength.” By the way, Carreyrou, who exposed Holme’s lies, wrote his own take in the NYT, and you should definitely read it. Back to Singal:

Fielder and director Lance Oppenheim (who I am furious at for being only 30 years old) linger on these moments, often heightening the weirdness with painfully long close-up shops, not to make sure Holmes has her say or that we’ve really heard her out, but to attempt to simulate, to the extent possible via film, the extent of falling under her sway.

Except it’s too late for that. She’s been convicted and is headed to jail, so now we’re dealing with a diminished version of her that has only a camera crew and Fielder to plead her case to. And she’s doing so not from glamorous digs but from a dusty beachside Airbnb.

But it’s the same thing: She’s a bullshit artist, and bullshit artists are going to bullshit. She will use whatever tactics are available to her, in a given situation, to attempt to cast a spell over whoever she is trying to bullshit. But she’s trying to bullshit a bullshit artist — and the difference is that Fielder is very open about being one.

The film is “about” a number of different things, all interesting — that’s what makes it great. And the more you watch it, the more layers you notice. But Fielder is almost always playing “Nathan Fielder,” at some remove from himself, when he’s on camera in supposedly documentary settings. And for the first half of YCSE, he plays the part of someone who just might be falling under Holmes’ sway.

Okay, that’s it: I MUST watch this movie. It’s playing locally and I’ll have to find the time to see it. If you have any interest in Holmes, or at least interest in movies and an acquaintance with her story, you should, too.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Andrzej remember old times (Hili is still ill and is being force fed and given IV fluids; I am quite worried).

Hili: There was once a big table in this room.
Andrzej: Our life was different back then.

In Polish:

Hili: Kiedyś w tym pokoju był wielki stół.
Ja: Kiedyś nasze życie było inne.

*******************

From Give Me a Sign:

From Now That’s Wild:

From Jesus of the Day:

Masih highlights the women, injured or shot by the Iranian regime or by Islamic patriarchy, on stage in Lodz. The group will also testify in Germany in about a week. There is translation of anything in Farsi:

What would you do if someone threw acid in your face or shot you in the eyes with a shotgun?

Look at these beautiful women. Yes, bravery is beautiful. Bullets took their eyesight. Acid scarred their faces. But they are still fighting not just for themselves but to protect all women from Islamists terrorists.

On November 9, these women will enter the German Parliament. They will stand alongside courageous women who have survived prison, torture, persecution, and authoritarian regimes.

This gathering is deeply personal to me.

In 2025, during Berlin Freedom Week, I met Julia Klöckner, President of the German Bundestag. Our conversation inspired a vision that is now taking shape.

Evelyn Zupke, Germany’s Federal Commissioner for the Victims of the SED Dictatorship, is hosting our Women Summit.

The participation of Julia Klöckner the President of Bundestag and Yaël Braun-Pivet, President of the French National Assembly, brings an important international parliamentary dimension to our shared commitment to women’s freedom.

Women from Iran, Afghanistan, and other authoritarian countries who have been denied education, erased from public life, imprisoned, flogged, sexually assaulted, and sentenced to death for demanding freedom and security.
#LetUsTalk

— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) October 31, 2026

*From Luana. This tweet highlights an interesting post on population differences in gene frequencies, something that “blank slaters” argue is insignificant. As Luana and I argued in our Skeptical Inquirer paper, there are differences between human populations that are significant both historically and in terms of traits. Sadly, the article is largely paywalled. The tweet is part of a ten-tweet thread:

10/10

SNPs and structural variants describe DNA changes. Polygenic describes how many genetic influences contribute to a trait.

Specific variants bring their mechanisms—and uncertainties—into focus.

Population differences beyond polygenic scores:
https://t.co/X0EBW4zS4i

— Davide Piffer (@DavidePiffer) October 31, 2026

This tweet from the Number Ten cat reminds me of the cat Mehitabel’s song, “There’s a dance in the old dame yet.”

Life in the old cat yet!

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) October 29, 2026

From Malcolm, one delightful minute of cats and their boxes:

Cats obsession with box 😂😂😂

#Meme https://t.co/e5oJRkHCaW

— Merajul Hasan (@jusslaugh1) October 20, 2026

Two from my feed. First, Halloween humor:

This is hilarious…Happy Halloween 🎃 https://t.co/Rz08OGIbh3

— Meidas_Charise Lee (@charise_lee) October 31, 2026

Miss Dugan recounts some responses she got while teaching The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald would be baffled:

Miss Dugan.. The Great Gatsby 😂 https://t.co/mSrTYQXJag

— Brian4new (@GustBrian) October 30, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This German Jewish girl was gassed to death as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz. She was 13 years old.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2026-11-01T12:16:10.183Z

And one from Doctor Cobb, displaying vocalizations of Mephitis mephitis:

So, if anyone wants to know what my yard sounds like at night…it's this. My yard skunk has A LOT to say, starting around 10 p.m.I did not *know* it was the skunk until tonight when I got a look with the headlamp from safe distanceIt is NOT a soothing sound 😂www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoP_…

— Cri 🕊🐝🐜📝🎭⚽😷 (@crawlieswithcri.bsky.social) 2026-10-08T06:13:25.343Z

**************

Music: Few pop and rock music lovers appear to know abut the 1964 T.A.M.I Show and its video, but it’s important in music history. It was the first widely publicized appearance of many stars and groups, especially James Brown, whose performance in the full video below (he appears at 1:17:37) is fantastic, showing why he’s been called “The hardest-working man in show business.” I love the bit in which they try to drag him offstage in a cape but he keeps coming back. From Wikipedia:

Welcome to CaturSaturday, October 31, 2026: shabbos for Jewish cats, the last day of the month and Halloween! Here’s a short Tik Tok video from The Quack House featuring ducks and an appropriately carved pumpkin:

It’s also Carve a Pumpkin Day, Girl Scout Founder’s Day, National Candy Apple Day, National Caramel Apple Day (watch those fillings!), and National Magic Day.

In honor of the last one, here are some amazing card tricks by Shin Lim in a 5-minute performance on America’s Got Talent:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the October 31 Wikipedia page.

There’s an animated Halloween Google Doodle today; click to see where it goes:

Da Nooz:

*The Times of Israel claims that although Netanyahu may remain in power for some time since there’s no clear path to anyone else becoming PM of Israel, he isn’t acting as though he won the election. What gives?

In the two days since Israelis cast ballots, there’s been a yawning gap between the results and the way Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is talking about them.

The final vote tally, while inconclusive, indicates that barring drastic change, Netanyahu will stay in power indefinitely. Nobody has a clear path to a coalition, so the incumbent remains, possibly through multiple rounds of elections. And after the wars, catastrophe and domestic strife of the past four years, Netanyahu could reasonably count that as a victory.

Except that Netanyahu isn’t acting like a victor. Yes, he crowed that his party was the largest, but as he himself knows well, that doesn’t guarantee another term. He spent much of his election night speech militating against a Jewish-Arab opposition government — recognition that his opponents, however fractious, have the majority.

Moreover, in the days since then, he has protested that the election was “stolen” and that the vote was illegitimate. He’s demanded investigations and lashed out at his opponents.

Usually, the candidate who won doesn’t claim that his election was stolen, and doesn’t try to delegitimize the vote. Yet Netanyahu is in power and will probably stay in power. So what’s going on here?

A likely possibility is that Netanyahu, by demonizing his opponents, is laying the groundwork for a repeat election in the coming months, in which he may improve his showing. But he may also realize his coalition is fraying, and that while he will remain at the head of the government, his days of effectively governing may be numbered.

This seems to me a correct deduction, and if a coalition can’t produce a Prime Minister, the Israelis are in for more elections.  As Bret Stephens says, though (see below), a different election outcome may not lead to a drastic revision of Netanyahu’s policies, though it may call a halt to some of his actions (e.g. , towards the Supreme Court of Israel).

*Over at the the NYT, Bret Stephens offered four lessons from Israel’s election, even though he wrote his column before the election results are known (they’re still not known with respect to who will lead the country). The article is also archived here.

The first thing to say about Tuesday’s election in Israel is the one that tends to be mentioned the least: The country is having one. Competitive, lawful, on schedule and with a plausible expectation of unseating the powerful incumbent.

That’s more than can be said of the Palestinian Authority under the presidency of Mahmoud Abbas, who was elected to a four-year term of office in 2005 but has bypassed elections ever since. It’s more than can be said for Hamas, which won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006, went to war against its domestic political opponents and has ruled through fiat and fear ever since.

It’s also more than can be said for Egypt, whose president came to power in a 2013 coup and won an “election” the next year with nearly 97 percent of the vote; for Turkey, whose president stays in power by jailing popular political rivals and nettlesome independent journalists; for Jordan, a repressive dynastic monarchy; for Lebanon, whose parliamentary government cannot enforce its writ against Hezbollah and its masters in Tehran.

The second point is that, for an election widely billed as the most important in the country’s history, very little is likely to change, at least as far as the outside world is concerned.

This is not 1977, when the Likud’s Menachem Begin broke the Labor Party’s lock on power, later making peace with Egypt and going to war in Lebanon. It’s not 1992, when Israelis returned Yitzhak Rabin to office, leading to the Oslo peace process. It’s not 2001, when the election of Ariel Sharon in the midst of the second intifada signaled the end of Oslo and led to the full withdrawal of Israeli troops and settlers from Gaza.

This time around, all the leading contenders are on the political right. Not one of them wants a Palestinian state. Not one of them is going to remove Israelis from the West Bank or issue a blanket ban on settlement construction. Not one of them wants anything less than an assertive military posture toward Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. And if, as polls suggest, no party emerges with a clear majority, then nobody is likely to have the votes to force the kinds of tectonic policy shifts achieved in those earlier elections, including the military conscription of the shirking ultra-Orthodox.

All this means that no plausible alternative to Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister is going to shift the country’s course sufficiently to mollify its growing list of global detractors. But there’s a different kind of shift Israel desperately needs.

Hence the third point: What’s at stake in this election isn’t about policy. It’s about spirit. It’s about whether the Jewish state will honor the foundational idea “klal Yisrael,” the whole of Israel, and the Jewish principle that every Jew is responsible for every other Jew.

Since returning to power in 2022, Netanyahu has repeatedly violated both.

. . .Finally: What’s at stake in this election isn’t Israel’s “standing.” Of the many intellectually flabby critiques of Israeli policy since Oct. 7, the idea that Israel should have traded its physical security for the sake of some added dollops of liberal pity is among the flabbiest. As I’ve written before, Israel doesn’t exist to showcase Jewish victimization. It exists to end it.

What is at stake is whether a people who have borne the burden of Hamas’s terror and Iran’s missiles and a nonstop state of emergency that would have broken weaker democracies and the unceasing chorus of global condemnation that is one part ignorance, two parts bigotry and three parts self-delusion should have a government worthy of their sacrifice, steadiness and courage. This week, a free and sovereign nation once again has the chance to elect one.

It’s clear that Stephens doesn’t think that Netanyahu should be part of that government.

*The Ilhan Omar kerfuffle is heating up, with the New York Times reporting Thursday that “Several current and former law enforcement officials said an Obama-era investigation found some evidence that Ms. Omar had entered into a sham marriage with a man suspected of being her brother.” (Article archived here.) Of course, as the Washington Free Beacon points out, the NYT and other sources have also assured readers over the year that there was no substance to the Omar incestuous-marriage claim. From the NYT:

The federal investigation of Representative Ilhan Omar is focused in part on whether she entered into a sham marriage in 2009 to help a man suspected of being her brother obtain a green card, according to current and former officials familiar with the matter.

The F.B.I. and Department of Homeland Security investigated the marriage in summer 2016, during the Obama administration, and found some evidence that it was fraudulent, current and former officials said.

Speculation that Ms. Omar committed marriage fraud with a brother has shadowed the Minnesota Democrat’s political career for more than a decade and President Trump repeated the accusation last week. She has long called it a right-wing conspiracy theory that federal officials debunked during her first race for elected office in 2016.

But that case stalled chiefly because prosecutors concluded that the potential crime, a felony, fell outside a five-year statute of limitations, according to the current and former officials, most of whose law enforcement careers spanned several presidential administrations.

. . .The reporting for this article is based on interviews with three current and former officials familiar with the present-day investigation and six current and former officials with knowledge of the 2016 investigation.

It is unclear what evidence prosecutors, then or now, have showing that the person Ms. Omar married was her brother. Marrying anyone for the sole purpose of securing a green card is illegal under federal law. Marrying a sibling is illegal under state law, but it is not clear whether state authorities ever investigated the matter.

It is also unclear whether federal prosecutors could find a path to charging Ms. Omar that skirts the statute of limitations that applies to marriage-based immigration fraud, a crime that would not threaten her citizenship.

Regardless, they could cite the marriage in an indictment or civil action that describes a family immigration fraud conspiracy — a broader case that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has said could lead to Ms. Omar’s deportation.

Omar is an Islamist and an antisemite (“follow the Benjamins”), and if these allegations are true, I hope they can circumvent the statues of limitations by finding legal ways to indict her. Frankly, as with the Alaska fracas, I’m surprised that the NYT is putting significant investigative resources into this case, especially since in the past, they’ve downplayed it:

From the Free Beacon:

This will no doubt come as a shock to loyal Times readers, who were repeatedly assured that Omar did nothing wrong. Following her election to Congress in 2018, the Times ran a glowing profile casting Omar as a bullied Muslim refugee with a “soft voice,” “delicate features,” and a “uniquely American” life story who has come to regard her adopted country as a cesspool of racist cruelty. Running for office, the Times lamented, had “forced Ms. Omar to make public details about her complicated private life, which became fodder for conservative bloggers, who seized on her brief marriage to a British citizen.”

Months later, the Times published what it claimed was a “fact check” of President Donald Trump’s numerous “attacks” on the historic Muslim congresswoman, including the allegation that she married her brother. “Rumors … have been circulating since 2016,” the Times explained. “No proof has emerged substantiating these claims.”

The lazy and dismissive fact check, which relied almost exclusively on Omar’s public denials, declined to acknowledge any “murky” aspects of the marriage. It included multiple links to an equally dismissive Associated Press fact check based on some actual reporting. Despite reviewing Omar’s marriage records, the AP declined to mention the bizarre detail about the Christian minister’s signature. Neither did the Times, obviously.

*Once again I’m stealing a few items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly snark-and-news column in the Free Press, called this week, “TGIF: Fake & Gay.”

→ Excuse me, what are the VCs doing?: Joseph Lonsdale. . .

Breed how many what now? Sir! Please. No monkey breeding. Not after the pangolins. We’re not ready. Should I email my friend Joe and ask him why he’s getting into the monkey-breeding business? No, no. I don’t want to know. (Okay, fine, I looked at the website, it’s to test new drugs before human trials to save human lives. I’m still against it!)

And then there’s a new company called Warhound, started by Ben Lamm and Palmer Luckey, and they’re genetically engineering new dog lineages for war. They call themselves “the advanced canine genetics and cybernetic platform.” Woof. Here is the image on their landing page:

Guys. Men of tech. You know I stand with you on so many freaky things. I say every week: Let the cars drive themselves. I’ve installed Flock cameras in my powder room. ChatGPT is my therapist. But I do not want monkey farms, and I do not want mutant killer dogs even if it’s very cute how their ears stick out from their combat helmets. Tech men, we have found the fissure, you and I. Can’t wait to see you soon (when I’m outside the monkey lab protesting naked with PETA slogans written across my back).

→ My new favorite Cambridge professor:

Under “dictator” Mao! It’s the quotes that get me. I love this guy. He’s a political economist and development studies professor at the University of Cambridge. He’s teaching Cambridge students about good and bad ways to do development. Of course, “development” means millions of deaths but who’s counting when all those hectares of land are being passed around? Did you know that under Mao, steel output grew? These are the same people who are anti–data center because the buzzing sound bothers folks nearby. Mao’s policies killed tens of millions of people to get you that steel, and Professor Hauge is out there nodding along like, it’s worth it, baby! He doesn’t deny the deaths, he’s just like. . . yes, and? Did you want the nuclear weapons or no?

→ Oh wow, The Economist is going for it: Okay, let’s do this slowly and calmly. I’m scared but I’m ready. No one get mad.

And then they have the data:

My first question: If it’s not so bad, guys, why’d you have to use a log scale? Like, “hardly an epidemic,” but you gotta use a log scale to chill the data out a little bit (log scale pushes that “10x” to be less visually alarming, like to pretend it’s all kind of a smooth distribution, like a ladder). Anyway, I think it’s good to speak of these things. If we can talk endlessly about the rape culture of frat boys, I think—yes—we can talk about the rape culture of Afghanistan, a place currently run by the Taliban.

Alright, now I’ve gotten a text requesting that I leave New York City by sundown.

*A decade ago, Massachusetts voted to legalize the sale of recreational marijuana, and now 23 states have joined it. Now, though, the citizens of Massachusetts are voting  next Tuesday on whether to make the sale of weed illegal again: the first state to reverse course this way.

Stephen Kronberg voted 10 years ago to legalize recreational marijuana in his home state of Massachusetts, hoping that it would lead to a boost in tax revenue and a “cleaner product” compared with black-market weed. “I thought it seemed like common sense,” he told me.

But next Tuesday, Kronberg, 63, will vote to make recreational cannabis illegal again. He plans to vote yes on Massachusetts Question 8, which would “prohibit the legalization, regulation, and taxation of the retail sale of adult recreational use marijuana” while keeping possession of small amounts legal.

Massachusetts was the sixth U.S. state to permit the sale of recreational marijuana. Today, weed is legal in 24 states—and the Bay State could soon be the first one to reverse course. Since the vote to legalize cannabis took effect in 2018, Massachusetts’ marijuana industry has generated about $10 billion in revenue and $2 billion in state and local tax revenue, according to the state’s Cannabis Control Commission. The 943 licensed marijuana businesses in Massachusetts range from small family farms and cannabis-infused gummy manufacturers to delivery couriers and posh retail shops.

But there have been problems, too. A Massachusetts General Hospital study found that psychiatric emergency hospital visits among young people between 12 and 17 rose sharply after the sale of recreational marijuana became legal in Massachusetts. (Marijuana sales are legal only for people who are 21 and older.) A separate study found that hospital admissions for cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, a condition caused by heavy marijuana use that entails vomiting, nausea, and intense cramps and can last for days on end, jumped 1,350 percent after legalization.

For some voters, the stakes are personal. During the pandemic, Kronberg watched one of his family members struggle with what he described as “around-the-clock” marijuana use that led to “panic attacks, psychosis, anxiety, depression” and a lengthy stint in rehab. “It completely changed my mind,” Kronberg said. “I support free markets, but this market—the marijuana market—can damage lives, and it has to be watched closely.”

The measure to repeal recreational marijuana sales in Massachusetts probably won’t pass. In a poll last month of likely voters by Suffolk University and The Boston Globe, 71 percent said they would vote to keep the current law in place. But even if the measure fails, the fact that it is on the ballot at all shows that the backlash against legalization is gaining momentum. Parents, physicians, and even users are increasingly troubled by marijuana’s drawbacks. A similar measure in Maine has received nearly two-thirds of the signatures needed to go on the ballot next year.

If you compare marijuana to tobacco or alcohol, the plant is far, far less dangerous. Although younger people may use weed instead of thanbooze or cigarettes, weed has a far less serious effect on public health, and of course people smoke marijuana largely for the pleasure (or relaxation). Weed is not nearly as addictive. What we’re seeing appears to be a new form of prohibition or paternalism, and I hope it does not grow in support.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is still ill but seems to be improving. Still, she’s beefing about attdistractions. Please cross your fingers for Hili as she is barely eating, which is dangerous for a cat.

Hili: I’m afraid we have more attractions than we need.
Andrzej: I’ve noticed that too.

In Polish:

Hili: Obawiam się, że mamy nadmiar atrakcji.
Ja: Też to zauważyłem.

*******************

From Terrible Maps:

From Divy:

From Shit Signs:

Masih is quiet, so let’s start with Luana, sending a tweet from her natal country of Brazil:

🇧🇷 Welcome to Brazil, where posting this picture could allegedly land you in prison for up to FIVE YEARS.

Why? Because Brazil’s Supreme Court effectively turned basic biological facts into a potential criminal offense.

Let that sink in. https://t.co/uIp4msRoAk

— Dr. Simon (@goddek) October 29, 2026

From Malcolm. Voyager 1 is still operating, and is now one light-day from Earth—over a billion miles!

Humanity’s most distant spacecraft, Voyager 1, is rapidly approaching an unprecedented cosmic milestone. On November 18, 2026, NASA anticipates that the legendary probe will officially reach a distance of one light-day from Earth. This monumental span equates to approximately 16.1 billion miles, which is roughly 25.9 billion kilometers.

At this profound depth of space, the vast physical gap severely impacts communication lag. Even a radio signal, which inherently flashes through the void at the absolute speed of light, requires a full 24 hours to cross the distance in a single direction. Consequently, when flight controllers on Earth beam a command to the spacecraft, the instructions require a whole day to arrive, and any corresponding reply takes another full day to travel back. This latency creates a grueling 48-hour round-trip delay for a single exchange, a baseline timeline that does not even account for deep-space network scheduling or onboard computer processing times.

Voyager 1 has traveled for nearly half a century to reach this historic boundary. Originally launched on September 5, 1977, the spacecraft primary mission focused on exploring Jupiter and Saturn, famously transmitting unprecedented, close-up observations of their swirling cloud tops, intricate ring systems, and diverse moons. Rather than stopping there, the probe maintained its outward trajectory. In August 2012, Voyager 1 made history by becoming the very first human-made object to breach interstellar space, crossing the heliopause, which is the magnetic boundary where the solar wind gives way to the raw interstellar medium.

It is vital to recognize that a light-day is a strict measurement of immense distance, rather than an indication of travel duration. It has taken the mechanical explorer 49 years of continuous flight to achieve a separation that a single photon of light can cross in a mere 24 hours. Even at this unimaginable distance, the scale of our cosmic neighborhood remains humbling. While Voyager 1 has long since exited the sun’s protective bubble, the inner edge of the Oort Cloud, a colossal and distant reservoir of icy primordial bodies bound by solar gravity, still lies far ahead on its endless journey.

For the dedicated engineering teams remaining on Earth, this expanding gulf transforms the nature of spaceflight operations. The luxury of real-time troubleshooting is entirely gone, forcing engineers to meticulously program sequences in advance and patiently wait days to discover if their commands succeeded.

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) October 22, 2026

The Number Ten Cat says farewell to the late Patrick Stewart with a lovely video of him, his moggy, and Shakespeare:

One of the best videos you’ll see on this site

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) October 29, 2026

Two from my feed. Patrick Stewart on Graham Norton discussing whether he’s circumcised:

I can’t stop laughing.

Listen until the very end of this.

Rest in Peace Sir Patrick Stewart. https://t.co/bVoNOyjkW2

— Kosher (@koshercockney) October 29, 2026

Cat love explained (or not explained):

https://t.co/tydXxrEQjR https://t.co/Tmn8jMkfKt

— Michael (@Michael951413) October 29, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This Austrian Jewish boy was first put in a children's home, and then transported to Auschwitz, where he was gassed on the spot. He was eight years old.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2026-10-31T11:23:58.909Z

And two from Doctor Cobb. First, a condensed Shakespeare play:

A play in five acts, by @shakespeare.lol

— Dan Stirk (@jdanielstirk.bsky.social) 2026-10-16T17:54:03.032Z

Matthew explained this one why I asked “Why?”: “Because he could! He was beheaded and rather than being dead the power of faith enabled him to walk around with his head! A MIRACLE! HALLELUJAH!”

Saint Firmin who carried his head about. Nice trick but don’t try this at home

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-10-29T15:23:15.619Z

Blind Faith performing “Can’t Find my Way Home” in an early performance (1969) at Hyde Park in London. The lead singer is Steve Winwood, with Eric Clapton on guitar (he has a nice solo), Ginger Baker on drums and Rich Grech on bass.  The group released only one album before dissolving. Years later, Clapton and Winwood reunited to perform the same song in a great performance (with Derek Trucks).