Welcome to Thursday, October 22, 2026 and National Nut Day.  One of their more tasty incarnations is in pies, particularly pecan pie. Here are some of the pecan pies that competed in (and were on sale after) last year’s South Side Pie Challenge. I will be at this year’s competition on November 8, ready to buy four or five prizewinning slices.

It’s also Eat A Pretzel Day, National Tavern Style Pizza Day (meh), and Wombat Day.  If you don’t know by now that wombats are the world’s only organism that produces cubic poop, well, now you know. See the video below, and read this paper for more explanation.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the October 22 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The WSJ, in an article labeled an “exclusive,” says that Elon Musk was responsible for slowing Ukraine’s access to Starlink satellite data that provides it with military intelligence. Musk had earlier denied he bire any responsibility for this, blaming Trump or the administration.

Elon Musk ordered the slowdown of a military-grade version of Starlink relied on by Ukraine, a decision that sparked panic in Kyiv and confusion inside the Trump administration, U.S. officials and people familiar with the matter said.

Both Musk and President Trump have expressed anger at Ukraine for attacking Russian diesel refineries in recent weeks, which the president blames for high energy prices. Last week, Musk capped the speeds at which Ukrainian hardware could stay connected to the satellite-based network, the people said, rendering some offensive drones and interceptor drones virtually useless.

Musk and Trump discussed the Starlink decision in a call soon after the slowdown became public, while the president was campaigning last week, two of the people said. One of the people also claimed Musk and Trump discussed the matter prior to the decision to throttle Starlink.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s public complaints—namely that Ukrainians could die if the unrestricted service wasn’t restored—led to widespread confusion about who ordered the slowdown, and to an informal investigation inside the White House.

, , ,Musk himself posted on X hours after the slowdown became public, “Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS,” using the acronym for president of the United States. Trump told reporters Monday that he didn’t know who was responsible for the Starlink slowdown, “but I would like to find out.”

Some U.S. officials say that Musk acted unilaterally and that Trump didn’t specifically order any retribution against Ukraine. But a person familiar with the situation said Musk talked to multiple senior administration officials, including with Trump, before imposing the new speed cap, which Ukrainian officials said had allowed Russian missiles to evade their defenses.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration didn’t make any request for a throttling of Starlink. “There was no foreknowledge,” he told reporters during a visit to India.

Did Rubio lie? Who knows?  But it’s clear that both Musk and the Trump administration worked together in a way that hurt Ukraine in its war with Russia. It’s reprehensible for the U.S. to help the Russian oligarchy merely to punish Ukraine for supposedly driving up the price of oil in the U.S.,

*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal argues in a post called “Sooner or later,” that yes, Israel and the U.S. will attack Iran, but not before the midterms. But Iran might attack Israel between their elections (October 27) and the U.S. midterms (November 3), trying to get the U.S. involved so that the Republicans would lose seats in the House and Senate.

It’s Wednesday, October 21, and according to the Financial Times, Benjamin Netanyahu attempted what many suspected he might: start a war before the election. Three people familiar with the matter told the paper that Donald Trump shut down a multi-day campaign set for the weekend of October 10. “We will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the midterms,” Trump has declared, and he seems to be sticking by it.

This would undoutbly be a story about a rift if Trump hadn’t spent Sunday writing Netanyahu an endorsement that made the most ardent Bibi supporter blush. Add Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s visit to Israel on Monday, and it is clear that Washington and Jerusalem are in lockstep on everything but timing.

If Netanyahu did float an earlier date, I doubt he meant it in earnest. For a man with his ear firmly pressed to White House grounds, I doubt he would have missed Trump’s clear timing preferences. If it happened, Netanyahu was testing the waters, not drawing a line.

The plan the FT describes is roughly what many expect: a multi-day bombing campaign over a weekend, before markets reopen, hitting nuclear sites, the regime’s apparatus of repression and its energy infrastructure. Though not stated in the report, the plan afterward is likely to maintain the blockade and wait for the streets to fill with protesters.

The smooth plan obscures what will be far from a clean process. The fallout will send energy prices soaring, as the regime tries to take as much of the world’s energy capacity down with it. Meanwhile, whatever spring arrives to the streets would be far from bloodless.

But the enemy also gets a vote, and I doubt Iran is casting it for Trump. If Tehran takes his many statements at face value, or reads anything into the third aircraft carrier on its way, it knows an attack is coming and that it can do little to stop it. Waiting politely until every vote is counted and the markets close for the weekend buys it only a few more days of slow strangulation. The price of that reprieve is the initiative, and after twice seeing what Israel and the U.S. can do with it, Tehran knows exactly what waiting costs.

There is a week between Israel’s election and the midterms; there’s a good chance the Iranians won’t let it go to waste.

Yes, it will be messy, and yes, oil prices will rise. And no, I am not at all sure that the people will rise up and force regime change. But Iran has not yet gone to ground, and I am in favor of Israel and the U.S,. finishing the job.

*This morning I see a NYT article reporting that Israel and the U.S. are indeed hatching plans to attack Iran after the midterms.

The U.S. and Israeli militaries have developed specific plans for renewed strikes against Iran after the American midterm elections, according to U.S. officials and other people briefed on the deliberations.

As planning for a short but intensive operation progresses, the U.S. and Israeli militaries have stepped up exercises, flying planes over Iraq to practice strike maneuvers. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel this week to discuss new strikes, U.S. officials said.

The targets would likely include Iran’s energy infrastructure, nuclear facilities, and missile and drone arsenal. Some officials say one more big round of attacks could push Iran’s economy over the brink and force the country to make diplomatic concessions after nearly eight months of conflict.

Still, there are reasons to be skeptical that a renewed war would be any more successful than the first phase of intense U.S.-Israeli strikes between February and April. Those rounds of fighting drove up energy prices and inflation around the world, eroded security in the Middle East and severely strained the Pentagon’s supply of missile interceptors.

It is also far from certain Mr. Trump will approve fresh strikes. Repeatedly this year he has vetoed plans for a return to major combat operations, including this month when the U.S. and Israeli militaries were nearly ready to attack.

All of the officials interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss military planning.

Iranian officials have promised to retaliate this time by expanding their targets beyond commercial ships and energy infrastructure in the region to data centers and underwater internet cables.

They say the fighting will neither be quick nor limited.

Note that although this is a “news” piece, the NYT’s subheadline and text raise doubts about the success of the planned strike. This is not news but opinion, and of course the NYT wants the war over soon, with the U.S. sustaining a loss.

*Representative Ilhan Omar seems to have disappeared after the feds searched her house, also getting samples of her DNA (this site implies through “dumpster diving”) and taking her passport. The Times of India notes this:

Is Ilhan Omar missing from public view? The Minnesota Democratic congresswoman has reportedly not been seen in public since federal agents raided her Washington, D.C., residence last week as part of an investigation into alleged immigration fraud. According to Fox News Digital, Omar’s daughters have been spotted arriving at the property in recent days, while her husband, Tim Mynett, has intermittently appeared outside the home. Sources cited by the outlet said investigators are examining whether Omar or her father provided false information in her citizenship paperwork. Omar has strongly condemned the raid, accusing President Donald Trump’s administration of weaponising federal law enforcement against political opponents. Vice President JD Vance has denied that the investigation is politically motivated, saying it should be guided by the law and the facts.

Omar reappeared yesterday riding in a car, promising to reappear and asking for campaign money. (She doesn’t need it; her reelection is a sure thing.) Click on the screenshot to go to her Instagram post:

I’ve said that if the whole case is about Omar or her father lying about her age (by one year) to get her American citizenship, it’s not only making a molehill into a mountain, but it’s governmental persecution right before an election—something traditionally avoided.  Alan Dershowitz, someone not widely admired, says that Omar seems to be in deep trouble, though (h/t: Jay). Have a listen even if you don’t like Dershowitz.

Where is Rep Ilhan Omar? She used to be one of the Democrats loudest voices and most effective fighter — and now 2 weeks before the midterms she is missing in action. That may say quite a lot about the scope of the fraud case against her. https://t.co/B0ApuF0bIZ

— Leland Vittert (@LelandVittert) October 21, 2026

And a spoof from the Babylon Bee that’s hilarious (h/t Anna):

*The common wisdom of how magician and escape-artist Harry Houdini died at 52 is that he was subject to a “sucker punch” to the stomach from a visiting student who wanted to test Houdini’s claim that his muscles could withstand any blow. And, so the story goes, that blow either caused appendicitis or aggravated an existing case of appendicitis, causing Houdini’s death nine days later.  Now, says the NYT, a urologist went back, looked at the data, and has another theory, one involving Chinese-American food.  After running through a panoply of existing and probably incorrect theories, the urologist says this:

. . . . Many consider it more likely that the student’s punches simply brought attention to an existing case of advanced appendicitis.

Now Larrian Gillespie, a 77-year-old retired urologic surgeon, has deployed the skills of a forensic medical investigator to challenge the conventional wisdom and clear Whitehead’s name.

“This isn’t just a story about Houdini’s death,” Gillespie writes in “Houdini: The Man Who Died Twice,” released in July. “It’s a story about how truth disappears — and why, sometimes, it takes science to bring it back.”

. . . When she reviewed Houdini’s city death certificate, she thought it seemed off. Information was scratched out. Names were inaccurate. It was signed by a physician who had not been present when Houdini died.

“I knew immediately things were wrong, that this was not the way a death certificate is normally filled out,” she said in an interview. Gillespie was intrigued, even though she “had no interest in Houdini whatsoever,” she said, adding, “I’m not into magic.”

. . .To research Houdini’s death, Gillespie consulted 1920s medical textbooks, affidavits, death certificates, letters and newspaper accounts. She interviewed experts, medical practitioners and a Houdini relative.

Gillespie said that, in addition to the Michigan death certificate, there had been two others, one filed in Detroit and another with Houdini’s insurance company. The city one was later proven to be invalid by the head of fraud at the Michigan State Vital Statistics Department, Gillespie said, because of several indications of tampering.

Gillespie said she found a paper trail of misstatements and actions by more than a dozen people close to Houdini, including relatives and employees. Among them, she asserts, several helped to cover up of the date he died, in part to make it appear to be Oct. 31 — “we remember Houdini because of the association with Halloween,” she said.

. . .The accepted account is that Houdini died when appendicitis, aggravated by the blow, led to Streptococcus pyogenes peritonitis, a form of infection.

Gillespie argues that the appendicitis was not the primary cause, and that the punch was not a critical factor. Rather, she argues, the culprit was a bowel obstruction, brought on by a fibrous mass of chop suey that Houdini ate on Oct. 28.

The obstruction led to emergency surgery on Oct. 29 in the late afternoon, Gillespie argues, an enterotomy to evacuate the bowel. But it was too late; according to the author, septic shock set in, Houdini’s fever spiked to 105 and his rapid breathing led to muscle spasms and unconsciousness.

“You don’t expect someone to survive 24 hours in this condition,” she said, “and so he doesn’t.”

But the bowel obstruction was never mentioned in any of the death records.

Houdini was operated on a second time on Oct. 30. Gillespie’s research into the death certificates indicates that the magician died that afternoon at 1:26 p.m., not on the following day at 1:30 p.m. But the documents were manipulated to change the date.

“Not identifying on the death certificate the second surgery is the critical tip-off,” she said. “That’s the smoking gun. Why was that not mentioned?”x

. . .The accepted account is that Houdini died when appendicitis, aggravated by the blow, led to Streptococcus pyogenes peritonitis, a form of infection.

Gillespie argues that the appendicitis was not the primary cause, and that the punch was not a critical factor. Rather, she argues, the culprit was a bowel obstruction, brought on by a fibrous mass of chop suey that Houdini ate on Oct. 28.

The obstruction led to emergency surgery on Oct. 29 in the late afternoon, Gillespie argues, an enterotomy to evacuate the bowel. But it was too late; according to the author, septic shock set in, Houdini’s fever spiked to 105 and his rapid breathing led to muscle spasms and unconsciousness.

“You don’t expect someone to survive 24 hours in this condition,” she said, “and so he doesn’t.”

But the bowel obstruction was never mentioned in any of the death records.

Houdini was operated on a second time on Oct. 30. Gillespie’s research into the death certificates indicates that the magician died that afternoon at 1:26 p.m., not on the following day at 1:30 p.m. But the documents were manipulated to change the date.

“Not identifying on the death certificate the second surgery is the critical tip-off,” she said. “That’s the smoking gun. Why was that not mentioned?”

Death from chop suey!? I’m not surprised. But really, the truth is far less romantic than often described (including the claim that, contrary to Gillespie’s research, Houdini died on Halloween). It does, however, exculpate, Joscelyn Gordon Whitehead, the McGill University student who supposedly struck Houdini in the stomach.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is trying to be profound:

Andrzej: What can you see from this rooftop?
Hili: A wider horizon.

In Polish:

Ja: Co widać z tego dachu?
Hili: Szerszy horyzont.

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

From Meow Incorporated. I knew a guy who had a white cat and a black cat, and named them Null and Void respectively (true!):

From Give Me a Sign:

From Bad Spelling or Grammar on Signs and Notices:

This tweet from Masih can’t be embedded, but I wanted to put it up anyway, and apologize if it upsets you. But these are public spectacles, and Iranian children are sometimes forced to watch them. The hanging is done on cranes that are slowly raised, so I suspect that the victims (protestors in this case) are slowly strangled rather than the faster process of “long drop” hanging that snaps the neck. Click the screenshot to go to the tweet:

From Luana. You can read the article here.

Accreditation standards were saturated with DEI for years, and the AAUP was fine with it.

The one kind of diversity they can’t stand is diversity of ideas. https://t.co/ekyx4Epivg

— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) October 16, 2026

Like me, Larry is peeved at hos Trump & Co. is treating Ukraine:

The stated position of the Trump administration is that the President of Russia is a humanitarian and that the President of Ukraine should be removed from office.
The American electorate have a chance to make their feelings about this known in less than two weeks.

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) October 21, 2026

From Jeff Maurer. Sadly, I don’t subscribe so can’t read the whole thing:

“If AOC is trying to memory hole past wokeness like it’s an ill-advised Mumford & Sons phase, she’s doing it in a weird way. Since her remark, she has repeated virtually every trope that most people now agree was, indeed, crazy with four ‘y’s.” (link in next tweet) https://t.co/rtNTBO1vnN

— Jeff Maurer (@JeffMightBWrong) October 21, 2026

The link to the above is here, and below is an excerpt:

AOC’s recent comment that “woke 1 was crazyyyy” rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. The problem, as I see it, is that she wasn’t saying “woke was crazy and we should not repeat those mistakes,” but rather “woke was crazy and you can’t hold me responsible for what happened way back five years ago.” At least, that’s how it seemed — I’m deducing meaning from the timbre of her laugh and the number of “y”s in “crazyyyy”.

But if AOC is trying to memory hole past wokeness like it’s an ill-advised Mumford & Sons phase, she’s doing it in a weird way. Since her remark — which was in August — she has repeated virtually every trope that most people now agree was, indeed, crazy with four “y”s. She’s like an ex-alcoholic informing us that she’s a reformed and sober person now while dropping the whiskey shot into an Irish car bomb.

Perhaps the most memorable woke 1 trope was the upgrading of institutional violence against Black people from “problem” to “the defining aspect of American society”. That habit was why at woke 1’s peak, large numbers of left-leaning people overestimated police shootings of Black people by several orders of magnitude. Last month, AOC recreated this logical flaw by tweeting this misrepresentation in response to an initiative by fellow Squad member Ayanna Pressley. . . .

Two from my feed. The first is funny, though a lot of kids don’t seem to have any idea what their dads do:

These kids were asked what their daddies do for a living, and their answers were absolutely hilarious and completely unexpected! 🤣🤣 https://t.co/zcGAVoNxet

— Simply Amaka (@StelxyG) October 20, 2026

I had no idea. It’s a good thing I don’t have a cat or I’d test it:

Did you know?

Cats are far more sensitive to sounds than humans, and they can hear frequencies that we cannot. So, when your cat hears the teeth of the comb being flicked around, it irritates them enough to make them gag. https://t.co/ybV7qHCMB9

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) October 21, 2026

And one I retweeted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

Four Dutch Jewish children were gassed together as soon as they arrived in Auschwitz. Betsy, pictured on the left, was seven years old.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2026-10-22T10:58:47.113Z

Two from Doc Cobb. Matthew didn’t know about beetles mimicking bees, and neither did I:

An insect from a different tribe altogether that's pretending to be something it isn't. Eurasian Bee Beetle, as the name suggests, is rocking a bumblebee look this season to deter bird predators that don't fancy dealing with a sting in the tail.

— Jon Dunn (@dunnjons.bsky.social) 2026-10-21T08:48:44.148Z

This was a real name; check the link. (He was called “Formalin” for short.)

My son very kindly sent me a link to the Wikipedia page for this gentleman, Preserved Fish. “There were at least ten other Fish family members with the Quaker given name Preserved, whose lineages are often confused.”en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preserv…

— MꙬse Allain (@mooseallain.bsky.social) 2026-10-21T09:48:11.621Z

Today’s song is “Taxi,” written and performed by Harry Chapin, who recorded it in 1972.  (Chapin died at only 38 in a car crash on Long Island.) It’s a sad song about a weed-smoking cab driver who picks up an old girlfriend who, in contrast to the driver’s meager life, has become wealthy.  They recognize each other and make plans to meet again, which are futile.

A lot of it is semi-autobiographical: Chapin got a cab license, but never drove a cab, and he did have an on-and-off romance with a woman who dreamed of becoming an actress (see Chapin’s intro below).

From Wikipedia:

Chapin debuted the song on NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, which prompted calls and telegrams from viewers requesting that Chapin return to the show. It was the first time in the show’s history that host Johnny Carson brought a performer back the very next night for an encore performance. “Taxi” helped to establish Chapin’s musical style and emerged as his early signature song, with Chapin often associated with taxi-related imagery.

. . .Chapin said, “there’s not a single line that tells how the guy or the girl felt. It’s a very cinematic technique. But it’s also a very uneconomical technique. That’s why my songs are so long. I literally put you in that cab and let you experience. It’s a more involving form of music than sitting and hearing somebody sing ‘I’m lonely’.

Record World called it “spell-binding,” saying that Chapin “sets up, develops and resolves a situation in 6:40. A very short 6:40.” Billboard called it “a strong piece of folk ballad material while lengthy, should garner hefty top 40 and FM play with sales and chart action to follow.”

The falsetto part is performed by John Wallace, one of Chapin’s backup musicians (3:38 in the video below). The version below is live; the original recording is here and the lyrics are here. Before the song starts at 1:08, Chapin is interviewed by John Denver and explains what factual basis there is for the song. The live performance ends at 7:35 and is followed by the recorded version.

It’s a beautiful but bittersweet song about romances that fade away, and it reminds me a bit of the Eagles song, “Lyin’ Eyes”.

Welcome to a Hump Day (“El ombligo de la semana” in Spanish): Wednesday, October 21, 2026, and National Reptile Awareness Day.  Here’s a big ‘un I photographed in the Galápagos three years ago.  These guys can live up to 175 years in captivity and weigh up to 880 pounds (400 kg.).

It’s also Apple Day (mainly in the UK), Garbanzo Bean Day, International Day of the Nacho, National Pumpkin Cheesecake Day,  and National Mezcal Day.

Again, posting will be light today as I have to drive a long way to Costco to get new (temporary) glasses. My retinal exam yesterday indicated that all was fine and healing up.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the October 21 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Three NYT science writers, Carl Zimmer, Kenneth Chang, and William Broad, discusses the biological question, “How did life arise?”

Here’s what’s known about three of the biggest inflection points in the evolution of life on Earth.

William Broad: “Where did life first emerge?”

Scientists agree on little regarding the origins of life, including where it might have arisen — at Earth’s surface, or in its watery depths.

“It’s hard to answer these questions,” said Joanna Masel, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona. “The evidence is sketchy. So people argue.

. . .On the other side of the argument is the watery-depths camp. In 1977, American scientists exploring the Pacific seabed stumbled upon an alien world of volcanic vents and otherworldly ecosystems, including eerie fields of albino tube worms. They drew their energy not from sunlight, which powers surface ecosystems, starting with plants, but instead from chemicals emitted by the hot springs.

As other deep-sea ecosystems came to light, scientists proposed that all life on Earth had perhaps arisen in the depths, nurtured by a warm, steady diet of chemicals and sheltered from the killer rocks and cosmic radiation that bombarded the planet’s surface early on.

In recent years, new discoveries have bolstered both sides of the argument.

In 2009, for instance, John D. Sutherland, a chemist at the University of Manchester, in England, described a new way that the molecules of life, energized by the sun’s ultraviolet rays, could have assembled spontaneously on the surface of a primitive Earth. And in 2017, an analysis of mineral deposits in Australia suggested that surface hot springs had nurtured the land’s earliest signs of life. In 2024, an influential group of scientists voiced strong support for the finding.

Even so, the deep springs theory has also gained new support. This summer, a team led by scientists at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany, proposed that the warm chemicals available in the deep sea included metals such as nickel, cobalt and palladium. These metals, the researches contend, could have served as catalysts that helped the earliest forms of life build metabolic pathways.

Broad suggests that both theories could be right—that life could have risen twice independently. That seems unlikely given the common features of life (L amino acids, methods for making proteins, etc.), suggesting one common ancestor of all living organisms.

“How did life get complex? by Carl Zimmer

About two billion years ago, a new kind of cell emerged on Earth, one much bigger and more complex than the microbes that had come before. Today, these so-called eukaryotic cells inhabit our own bodies, as well as those of other animals, plants and fungi. How this new brand of cell emerged remains one of biology’s great mysteries.

“Eukaryotic” comes from a Greek term meaning “true nut,” a reference to the nucleus, the compartment in which eukaryotic cells coil their DNA. Eukaryotic cells have many other vital compartments, including thousands of mitochondria, which generate energy. The huge volume of a eukaryotic cell is supported by a scaffolding that can be quickly dismantled and reassembled; it also serves as an internal shipping network, whizzing packages of molecules from one compartment to another.

In contrast, a single-celled microbe such as Escherichia coli is far simpler. No mitochondria, no scaffolding, no nucleus; a nut-free “prokaryote.”

Eukaryotes — organisms composed of eukaryotic cells — all descend from a common ancestor, which in turn descended from ancient prokaryotes. The earliest eukaryotes were single-celled protozoans; their oldest known fossils date back 1.8 billion years. How long before that the first eukaryotes evolved, scientists can’t say.

Recent studies suggest that the final exchange that gave rise to eukaryotes was the most spectacular. Around 2.25 billion years ago, one species of bacteria took up permanent residence inside Asgard-like cells, using their own metabolism to generate fuel for the cells they occupied. They began to be passed down from one generation of hosts to the next, evolving into our mitochondria.

. . . And they don’t know why the merging of microbes apparently gave rise to big, complex cells just once in the history of life. Was there some exquisitely rare set of circumstances that allowed it to happen? Or did evolution conduct other experiments in complexity that ended in extinction long ago?

There’s another kind of complexity, too: that of multicellular organisms like redwoods and kangaroos. You can ask the same question about this “complexity,” but the answer will be different from that above.

“Why did life get big?” by Kenneth Chang

Then, about 720 million years ago, the world went haywire.

First, Earth froze over, sealing the planet in an icy shell that blocked sunlight from the oceans and shut off photosynthesis. Except for a 10-million-year thaw in the middle of it, Earth remained a shiny white snowball, not a blue marble, for 85 million years.

Scientists marvel that life did not die out. Instead, after that long era of darkness, it underwent a mysterious jump in size and complexity.

“That is the absolute wackiest interval of Earth history that anyone’s aware of,” said Nick Butterfield, a paleobiologist at Cambridge. “You go in the one end, and it’s this old, dreary, boring microbial world, and you come out the other end after these two massive glaciations, and all of a sudden, there’s animals on the scene, and all the microbes have changed.”

From then on there’s disagreement, even whether larger organisms occur before or only after the Ediacaran.  And there’s disagreement about what allowed size increase. It could have been an increase in oxygen due to the advent of photosynthesis, or perhaps something else.  The article, part of the NYT’s “unknowns” series, clearly shows how little we know about the origin of life—called “abiogenesis” in the trade. If you ask evolutionists if they could have one question about life answered, many would say “How did it start?” Abiogenesis is technically not part of evolutionary biology, since evolution can’t proceed until there are already organisms with heritable material, but it’s damn close to evolution.

*Over at the Free Press, Douglas Murray analyzes the recent unrest in France (which has spread to several European countries) in a piece called, “France stares down the abyss of history.” subtitled “Even great things come to an end. There’s no guarantee that French culture and traditions will survive ceaseless attacks from discontents inside the country.”).

It does not take a historian to notice that the current events do not look like school protests. Even if it were true that some students were protesting about their schooling, they would have absolutely no justification for doing so. Last year, French government spending accounted for a staggering 57 percent of gross domestic product, and French education spending is above average within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. This is in a country whose debt-to-GDP ratio is 115 percent. France is, if anything, spending too much on the education of its youth. Or rather, it is borrowing money to educate a generation, portions of which are now protesting against their expensive (though clearly inadequate) education.

When I say it does not take a historian to understand what is going on this month, I mean that identifying what is fueling these protests requires nothing more than having eyes.

Yes, there are students involved. But since the early days of the protests, groups of hardened, adult rioters have moved in and stoked the unrest to its current level of conflagration. The result has been apocalyptic scenes, including the burning down of the historic town hall in Limoges and the ransacking of the Galeries Lafayette in Paris. Those responsible are not students demanding better math instruction. They are far-left activists, anti-capitalists, green activists, and Palestine fetishists.

Importing generations of people who have no loyalty to or love for the country, many of whom desire to burn it down, has contributed to France’s climate of disorder. The snarky, schadenfreude-filled nature of much of the international commentary is itself sickening. “The French voted for this,” many online warriors have said as they watched tearful French shopkeepers trying to stop mobs from destroying their livelihoods. But that is not true. The French public never voted for this. Like their counterparts across Europe, in Britain, and indeed, in America, the public has consistently voted for governments that promised to secure the nation’s borders, maintain order on the streets, and prevent the civil-war scenarios that so many people, inside and outside the country, have warned about. Their leaders simply never heeded them, or failed trying.

. . . . More than any other country in Europe, France has suffered decades of attacks and riots linked to lax border and immigration policies and an atrociously failed integration policy. It has one of Europe’s largest Muslim populations relative to its size, yet rather than integrating these newcomers (if integration is possible), the country has become a breeding ground for resentment and extremism. In just a couple of years, from 2015 to 2017, the country witnessed Islamist militants kill figures ranging from the nation’s most famous secularists—the journalists of Charlie Hebdo—to Father Jacques Hamel, 85, whose throat was slit while celebrating Catholic Mass in a church in Rouen. It has endured nights of terror across the country, including November 2015, when Islamists attacked the Bataclan theater, the main soccer stadium outside Paris, and cafés and restaurants. And it has seen the murder of schoolteacher Samuel Paty by an Islamist who beheaded him for the supposed crime of “blasphemy.”

. . .French politicians have no answer to this. President Emmanuel Macron has once again used his silky words to talk at the nation, but he seems incapable of listening, changing course, or doing anything about the catastrophe. Even after the police have lost control of the streets in Marseille, France’s second-largest city, and Parisians and others have been forced to protect their own homes as the disorder has worsened, the president still refuses even to declare a state of emergency. His rivals on the left and right are no better. The socialist Jean-Luc Mélenchon fans the flames because many of the rioters are his left-wing supporters, who believe that violence always brings something beautiful and constructive in its wake. Meanwhile, right populist Marine Le Pen tries to pander to what she imagines to be the political middle ahead of the next presidential election, refusing to seize the moment to call for the remigration even of those caught burning France’s cities.

Generations of French politicians, commentators, activists, and others have helped bring about this moment. But, like children who start a fire, they have no idea how to put it out. For now, almost all are running away—unequal to the moment and inadequate to the challenge. Meanwhile, the socialist left is aligning politically with discontented immigrants, forming a movement large enough to vie for real power.

Murray tends to blame unrestricted immigration and lack of integration to many of Europe’s woes, and in this case he’s at least partly right, but we—or I—can’t be sure whether these riots would be taking place even if there was no immigration. The omnipresence of Palestinian flags and chants at least suggests that sympathy for Islamist terrorism and/or antisemitism is at least playing a role.

Here’s a tweet Jay suggesting (which seems reasonable) that the media is, for ideological reasons, largely ignoring the violence in these protests:

JUST IN: The BBC calls these fiery protests “mostly peaceful.” 🤦‍♂️

You Can’t Hate The Media Enough https://t.co/GXfw3bwIbb

— The Rubin Report (@RubinReportShow) October 19, 2026

*As I’ve mentioned before, Marine Le Pen, head of France’s National Rally Party that’s invariably called “far right” in the media (some readers disagree), is gaining considerable political clout from the riots and demonstrations in France. The WSJ explains:

The riots sweeping France have rocked the country’s political establishment, but one person is positioned to emerge from the chaos with a stronger hand: Marine Le Pen.

For more than a decade, the far-right leader has cast France as a nation adrift, buffeted by waves of immigration and lawlessness that have torn at the country’s social fabric. As bands of hooded rioters in dark clothing have descended on city centers across France, raiding city halls and looting thousands of stores, Le Pen has sought to present herself as the sole candidate in this spring’s presidential election willing to restore order.

The strategy was on display this week as Le Pen released a video address that bore the hallmarks of a president addressing the nation. Seated at a desk before an august bookcase and flanked by France’s tricolor flag, Le Pen cast the riots as a crisis of faith in President Emmanuel Macron’s authority.

“Our country is caught in a vice, held hostage between violence and powerlessness,” Le Pen said. “In six months, the French people will be able to choose a different path—one of authority and restored security.”

The approach has given Le Pen an air of inevitability as she pursues France’s highest office.

“It’s as if she’s at the office, already at the Élysée Palace,” said Adélaïde Zulfikarpasic, a pollster at the French polling firm Ipsos Bva.

Le Pen’s long-running focus on law and order, Zulfikarpasic said, allows her to position herself as a guarantor of stability when democracy itself is in crisis.\

. . . The riots are working to Le Pen’s advantage in other ways. As the violence has flared, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the far-left firebrand running for president, has dominated headlines with his support for protesters, drowning out establishment candidates and bolstering his chances of reaching the second-round runoff with Le Pen. If he succeeds, polls show, Le Pen would beat him handily.

. . .“The social instability over the weekend absolutely plays into Le Pen’s campaign that the establishment has delivered chaos and now is the time to try something different,” said Mujtaba Rahman, head of Europe for risk analysis firm Eurasia Group.

Rahman said Le Pen ultimately aims to persuade voters that she “is not the risk, voting National Rally isn’t the risk. The risk is coming from the established parties that are failing to deliver on the economy.”

Le Pen’s anti-immigration stance, meanwhile, gives her another way to frame the unrest. Le Pen has cast the unrest as the work of far-left radicals allied with youths from France’s banlieues, the poor urban outskirts where much of the country’s minority Muslim population resides.

While the unrest, partly motivated by France’s economic problems, is playing right into Le Pen’s hands (a nightmare for the protestors), she herself may exacerbate those problems since one of her past campaign promises is to lower France’s retirement age to 60, which will jack up the national debt. Another issue is her legal problems:

As Le Pen approaches the final stretch of the campaign, however, she faces a legal minefield stemming from her 2025 conviction for misusing European Parliament funds. Le Pen has denied any wrongdoing. In July, an appeals court upheld the ruling, sentencing her to a three-year prison term, with two of the years suspended. The remaining year, judges said, could be served wearing an electronic bracelet, raising the possibility that Le Pen will have to campaign under judicial surveillance.

I have no prognostications here for the elections, which will occur on April 18 of next year. And of course if the riots get worse, her chances are boosted.

*At It’s Noon in Israel,” Amit Segal has been suggesting that both Israel and the U.S. are planning some kind of big attack on Iran—and soon. That’s suggested in yesterday’s piece, “Bibi’s secret meeting in the desert.”

It’s Tuesday, October 20, and last night Benjamin Netanyahu skipped the Beitar Jerusalem game. Instead of a roaring welcome from 30,000 potential voters at Teddy Stadium, he flew to Nevatim Air Base in the south to meet U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and, according to Walla, Emirati officials.

The game ended in a goalless draw. The meeting’s outcome is classified, but it’s safe to assume it matters more for Israel’s future than Maccabi Tel Aviv extending its unbeaten streak.

That Netanyahu, a week before an election, gave up a stadium holding roughly three-quarters of a Knesset seat’s worth of voters says how serious it was. Recent waves of attacks show that Tehran is recovering its ability to target ships in the Strait of Hormuz. On one day last week, only seven tankers made it through, under half the weekly average and the lowest since July.

There is also the possibility that Iran is preparing to attack immediately following the Israeli election to sink Republican chances in the midterms.

The visit came a day after President Donald Trump formally endorsed Netanyahu, declaring that without him as prime minister the U.S. would have to go it alone. Whether that was a threat or an observation about the opposition’s mettle remains unclear. A trip by his defense secretary a week before the vote could be either, or not politically connected whatsoever.

The next round with Iran remains murky, but let us hope it ends more conclusively than last night’s game.

Segal’s reporting over the last week suggests that he knows something that the Western media doesn’t.  I guess we’ll find out.

*And from the UPI’s odd news, a Canadian man who won a seat on the local city council despite a campaign averring that he didn’t want the job:

A British Columbia city council candidate whose humorous campaign signs went viral appears to have won his election, despite branding himself as unqualified.

Brady Rogers, 33, gained attention online for his Kelowna City Council campaign signs, which bore slogans such as “I barely want to do this,” “Just trying to pay my rent,” “Fine. I’ll do it,” and “How hard can it be.”

Here’s a news report on Brady’s campaign, which include an interview with the candidate (he says the job is something “he feels he can do.”

Even Rogers’ campaign website opens with the message: “Do I enjoy politics? No. Do I know what I’m doing? No. But am I qualified? Also no.”

Preliminary results from Saturday’s municipal election show Rogers receiving 12,635 votes, coming in fourth among the 37 candidates. If those election results are certified on Tuesday, Rogers’ seat on the council will be guaranteed.

Rogers released a video on his campaign’s social media page after the preliminary results were announced, saying that despite his campaign’s tone, he plans to take the job seriously.

Preliminary results from Saturday’s municipal election show Rogers receiving 12,635 votes, coming in fourth among the 37 candidates. If those election results are certified on Tuesday, Rogers’ seat on the council will be guaranteed.

Rogers released a video on his campaign’s social media page after the preliminary results were announced, saying that despite his campaign’s tone, he plans to take the job seriously.

“I’m being a little bit tongue-in-cheek when I say I’m unqualified,” Rogers told Global News before the election. “I’ve never been a politician, but I certainly have experience that I think is very relevant and helpful.”

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili insulted Andrzej:

Andrzej: Why are you staring at me like that?
Hili: I’m listening to all that nonsense you’re muttering to yourself.

In Polish:

Ja: Czemu się tak przyglądasz?
Hili: Słucham co sam do siebie wygadujesz.

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

From CinEmma;

From Cat Memes:

From Terrible Maps, and it’s true that in Jersey you can’t pump your own gas. This has been true since 1949, but curiously diesel is exempt.

And lagniappe from Scott:

Christiana Amanpour leaves CNN after 43 years. Here’s her announcement:

An update from me… https://t.co/AKLOEekEO2

— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) October 19, 2026

One post at Townhall speculates why she’s leaving, though I have not an inkling of its truth:

CNN is bracing for a “bloodbath.” Paramount’s merger with Warner Bros. has been approved after an antitrust lawsuit was settled, paving the way for the $110 billion deal to close. In its wake, CNN could undergo massive changes, with even CBS News’ Bari Weiss considered to retool the network’s editorial direction. Weiss already has her hands full with the 60 Minutes revamp, but her name has been tossed around. Should she be selected, it’ll be hell on Earth for liberals. For now, the news of the settlement has many walking around the network offices like a funeral is about to begin (via Variety). . . .

From Luana. Unlike the destroyed-store story I posted yesterday, this one appears to be true:

🇫🇷 Owner of La Barrique, Aline, was beaten and disfigured. Her restaurant was completely burned down. She has lost everything… https://t.co/gFqDUZPP85

— Asian Dawn (@AsianDawn4) October 18, 2026

I hadn’t hear of the latest lunacy from Trump, but the Number Ten Cat did:

Much more of this nonsense and we’re going to have to insist that America stop using British places in their names – we’re talking to you New York, Boston and Washington

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) October 19, 2026

Here’s Greta touting her latest cause du jour: Zionism is racism and Israel is a genocidal “apartheid state”.  It’s hard to get so many things wrong in one minute, but Greta manages to do it.

Greta Thunberg has come out to defend the Green Party’s racist Zionism is Racism policy. The enthusiastic jump from the environment to antisemitism shocks me still. https://t.co/VQLhccxmDM

— Heidi Bachram (@HeidiBachram) October 19, 2026

Two from my feed. First, a horse/dolphin encounter:

A horse meeting a dolphin in crystal clear waters https://t.co/cY7ZmXa5Hl

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) October 20, 2026

From Jay, a prescient Netanyahu:

.@netanyahu: “On October 7, @EmmanuelMacron called me and asked for an immediate ceasefire and to solve this by diplomacy… I told him that if we don’t stop Hamas here, you’ll see them on the streets of Paris.”
https://t.co/3FAGOY07yd

— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) October 19, 2026

Kitty discovers sunbeam:

Kitty discovers a sunbeam for the first time and is utterly baffled by the sudden warmth https://t.co/OiWuyzXAUm

— Science girl (@sciencegirl) October 20, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This Dutch Jewish girl and her mother were both gassed to death as soon as they arrived in Auschwitz. The girl, Roza, was three years old, and would have been 88 today had she lived.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2026-10-21T11:02:52.234Z

And one from Doctor Cobb, who says, “This is true.” I am not so sure as I don’t have the data. Several people in France were injured though, as far as I know, nobody was killed.

— Xela Hart (@xelahart.bsky.social) 2026-10-19T13:38:35.626Z

Welcome to The Cruelest Day: Tuesday, October 20, 2026, and it’s National Chicken and Waffles Day, celebrating a dish that is purely American, and arose in kitchens of the Pennsylvania Dutch. From Wikipedia:

Chicken and waffles, as a combined recipe using pulled boiled chicken, first appeared in the United States’ colonial period in the 1600s in Pennsylvania Dutch country.  The traditional Pennsylvania Dutch version consists of a plain waffle with pulled, stewed chicken on top, covered in gravy.

A version using fried chicken is associated with the American South. The soul food version of chicken and waffles grew in popularity after the opening of the Wells Supper Club in Harlem, New York, in 1938. The waffle is served as it would be for breakfast, with condiments such as butter and syrup. This version of the dish is popular enough in Baltimore, Maryland to become a local custom.

I’ve never had it, but would gladly devour it were I presented with a dish (to be sure, lots of restaurants on the South Side serve it). I’d prefer the Southern version with butter and syrup, as I think the salty chicken would go good with a sweet waffle. Here’s a photo from Wikipedia:

It’s also International Chefs Day, National Brandied Fruit Day, National Mozzarella Stick Day, Office Chocolate Day, and World Calvados Day.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the October 26 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The NYT gives us a biased account of “what you need to know” about the riots and protests in France.

What happened this weekend?

More than half a million people joined some 110 marches throughout France on Saturday, the interior ministry said, in the biggest day of protest since the demonstrations began about a month ago. A major union, the C.G.T., gave a higher estimate, saying 800,000 protesters had turned out.

Amid many peaceful demonstrations, rioters vandalized roughly 1,500 shops and many symbols of the French state, leading to roughly 2,000 arrests. An arson attack largely destroyed the town hall in Limoges, in central France. In Marseille, the second-largest city, masked people broke into a government building and tipped over a bust of Marianne, a symbol of the Republic.

. . . Why are students protesting?

High school students started protesting last month to express frustration with the condition of their schools.

They have pointed to crumbling infrastructure, overcrowded classrooms, overloaded schedules, a shortage of teachers and staff, and underfunding in schools. Many are also calling for an overhaul of state-run admissions platforms for higher education and universities that they call unfairly selective.

Students have blockaded hundreds of schools. They have set fire to, or damaged, at least 24 of them, according to the government. Thousands have been arrested since September and over 1,000 police officers, students and school staff have been hurt.

. . . Why did other groups join the students?

Throughout October, labor unions and other campaign groups have increasingly joined the students’ demonstrations. They have held bigger rallies to express solidarity with the students as well as to protest a broader range of issues.

Some are angry over the cost of living and rising fuel prices that have surged, in part, because of the Iran war. Farmers have joined in, angry at agricultural costs.

. . . And left-wing parties have also seized on the protests as part of a wider expression of discontent at President Emmanuel Macron, who is limited to two terms and is nearing the end of his time in office.

. . . What is the political fallout?

On Sunday, far-right leaders and the centrist government blamed the far left for the chaos. They pointed in particular to a major far-left party, France Unbowed, that they said provoked the unrest.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has accused party leaders of sowing distrust about the police among student protesters, and said some rioters were members of the “ultra-left.”

France Unbowed has rejected that accusation and its leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has instead blamed the government for actions that he said made the unrest more likely.

And that’s about it. No mention of pro-Palestinian protestors and Palestinian flags, no mention of immigration, no mention of looting of the “vandalized shops”. All of that, of course, would make the protestors/rioters look worse.

*For another view, read the WSJ’s editorial-board op-ed, “Why France is burning.” In fact, the piece doesn’t tell us at all why France is burning (apparently the paper did that before), but discusses how French politicians on the right and on the left are using the protests/riots to their advantage.

We’ve explained the underlying fiscal and political woes behind the crisis, but the news this time is the pre-election play by far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

Heretofore Mr. Mélenchon, head of the far-left Indomitable France party, had taken a somewhat detached attitude to the protests. But this weekend he participated in protests in Paris. He also blamed police for “unleashing” on protesters, while condemning looting and arson.

The riots are ostensibly about declining public services, but the presidential election next April figures into the protest calculations. Marine Le Pen of the insurgent right National Rally is leading in current presidential polls. Mr. Mélenchon is in a three-way tie with two candidates on the center-left.

The race now is to see who can emerge from the first round of voting to get to the two candidate runoff, probably against Ms. Le Pen. If the riots help Mr. Mélenchon consolidate support on the left, he could be the one. If the riots move more center-right voters away from the centrist candidates and toward Ms. Le Pen, Mr. Mélenchon may figure he has a fighting chance to become the next President in the May runoff.

. . .The parties of the right and left see a rare opportunity to use the moment to gain the Élysée Palace. It’s no coincidence that some protesters came uncomfortably close to the palace before police dispersed them.

Mr. Macron addressed the country Sunday evening, asking for public calm and order. But as a lame duck, he is left to rely on police to protect the French streets. They couldn’t do it on Saturday, as protesters ransacked shops in Marseille and elsewhere, and even torched the historic town hall in Limoges that survived the Nazis.

France is in a violent democratic funk, and it will probably get worse. Don’t think it can’t happen in the U.S. given the current state of American politics.

That’s a lot of the editorial’s content. Not only does it not answer the title question, but it doesn’t even show how the parties are using the unrest to their advantage. All it shows is what the consequences will be if the riots move the public in one political direction or another. Sadly, this op-ed appears to be a waste of space.

*Trump is justifying his easing of sanctions on Russia because it’s part of a “peace deal” that presumably will end Russia’s war with Ukraine—by facilitating the release of unnamed hostages.

President Trump, defending his decision to ease tariffs and other sanctions against Russia, said on Sunday that he was making “great progress” in a peace deal with the Kremlin and suggested for the first time that the process included “hostage negotiations.”

He did not specify whose release he was seeking. But the only American now categorized by the State Department as “wrongfully detained” in Russia is Stephen Hubbard, a Michigan teacher who was seized from his home in Ukraine just months after Russia invaded that country in February 2022 and was charged with being a mercenary. He was sentenced to more than six years in a penal colony, on charges that the United States has said are fabricated.

“My decision on Russia is a very simple one,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media, an apparent reference to his move late on Friday to neutralize the sanctions resolution that he had signed only a few weeks earlier. “I am in the process of negotiating Peace in the war between Russia and Ukraine, and don’t want to do anything that will drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table.”

Until Sunday, Mr. Trump had said little about the remarkable, rapid-fire steps he has taken over the past 10 days to side with the Russians in a conflict that has now gone on longer than World War I. Those steps amount to the reversal of nearly five years of sanctions following President Vladimir V. Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.

In that time period Mr. Trump has announced that the United States will buy diesel fuel from Russia — though the announced purchases are far too small to have a significant effect on prices, despite Mr. Trump’s claims — and that he will waive imposing tariffs on Russia under a newly signed law named for its chief proponent, Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who died in July.

Both decisions have been criticized by U.S. lawmakers, including fellow Republicans. Senator Darline Graham of South Carolina, who was appointed to her brother’s seat and is now running for a full term, gently disagreed on Saturday with Mr. Trump’s decision on the sanctions law, saying that she “would choose to put the pressure on Russia to end the war and get gas prices down.”

The breach with Ukraine has been sudden and perhaps irreparable.

Indeed!  Presumably a peace deal will require the cooperation and assent of Ukraine and Zelensky, and you don’t get that by suddenly cozying up to Russia. (There has been no cozying up to Ukraine.) And one hostage does not a peace deal make.  All we have is the depressing site of Trump cozying up to a dictator and blaming Ukraine for America’s high gas prices. .

*The WaPo personalizes the U.S. administration’s war on science with a piece called “Meet the researchers leaving the U.S. because of Trump’s funding cuts and politicization of science“.

Halley Froehlich was sure she’d spend her scientific career in the United States. Her family has been in America since the 1700s.

But over the past two years, delayed federal grants and fears about the future motivated her to pack her life into boxes. She moved to Finland with her husband and daughter and is continuing her research — studying how fish, shellfish and seaweed that humans eat are responding to climate change — at the University of Helsinki.

When the Trump administration began upending U.S. scientific research last year, dismantling the federal grant-giving process and attempting to exert more political influence over what projects get funded, foreign universities saw an opportunity. They adopted programs to lure U.S. researchers abroad, promising more stable streams of funding and academic freedom.

Since then, many have taken the bait. While there is no way to quantify the overall change across the nation, scientists, researchers and professional groups say the shift is clear, unprecedented and concerning.

“You can almost talk to any vice president for research at a university and they will tell you of one or two top faculty that they’ve lost,” said Tobin Smith, senior vice president of government relations and public policy for the Association of American Universities.

. . .White House spokesperson Liz Huston said Trump is “ending waste” and is “committed to keeping America the world leader in scientific innovation, and that means funding real science.”

But more than half of American states have lost scientists to recruitment programs in other countries, according to an April report from the Business for Federal Research Funding Coalition. Last March, early-career biomedical scientists were about 20 percentage points less likely to say they would “now” stay in the U.S., compared to their recollection of how they felt six months earlier. And physics Ph.D. graduates in 2025 left the U.S. at the highest rate in 30 years, according to the American Institute of Physics.

Countries including Canada, France, Belgium and Finland are touting their recruits from U.S. institutions, a disturbing and surprising development, scientists say, for a country that far and away leads the world in Nobel prizes for medicine, physics and chemistry.

“It used to be the shining city on the hill where we all want to go,” said Christine Stawitz, now at the University of Birmingham in England. “That reputational loss, I think, is hard to quantify, but also really damaging.”

International scientists who have come to the U.S. because of its research reputation are also leaving the country.  And of course the less attractive America becomes for science, the more scientists leave, so we’ll get a snowball effect. Now I’m not worried that in the long run this will persist, as Trump won’t always be President, and I presume that future Presidents, even if they’re Republicans, will have the sense to stop cratering science. But it looks like these scientists move only when they can continue their research, so the amount of research by them won’t change. Frankly, I don’t care which country is ahead so long as the work gets done. What is more worrisome is when science is quashed, and that is also being done with Trump’s widespread cancelation of grants.

*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal theorizes why Trump finally endorsed Netanyahu. Segal floats the suggestion that the endorsement, if it’s successful, will make the U.S. partner with the Jewish state on what Segal thinks is an upcoming Big Attack on Iran.

If this episode teaches anything, it is that, like Mark Twain’s death, the reports of daylight between Trump and Netanyahu are greatly exaggerated. The difference is that the media only announced Twain’s death once before they learned their lesson.

When it comes to Trump and Netanyahu, there is always more to the relationship than what makes it into print. Here, the “more” is the subject the endorsement kept returning to: Iran.

It appears that after vanquishing Israel’s opposition, Trump and Netanyahu plan to move on to what is left of the Islamic Republic. If plans have already been set, it is understandable why Trump would want the leader already briefed to remain at the helm.

Whether Trump’s claim that without Netanyahu “America will have to do this work ourselves” is a threat or an observation is an open question. If Trump is demanding Netanyahu as a precondition, that doesn’t mean he is voting for the coalition, only for a government with Netanyahu.

America doing the job alone is threatening Europe with a good time but would spell disaster for Israel. If the U.S. is returning to Iranian skies, likely for the last time, Israel needs to get its punches in before the window closes. “Unity” may be a dirty word in the opposition today, but we will see how the term evolves if Trump adds Iran into the equation.

The truth is, unity is likely the only way Bibi remains at the head of a stable coalition. Trump would be angry to find out that his name alone is insufficient to net Bibi another five or six seats. That reflects the dive in both Trump’s and Bibi’s popularity, and the difficulty of convincing what even Moses called a “stiff necked people.”

All of this implies that Segal has some secret information that both Israel and the U.S. want to finish off Iran fairly soon. I have seen nothing about this in any other American media, but of course Segal has “ins” in Israel that the U.S. media doesn’t.  I would not be unhappy to see Iran “finished” to the extent that there is regime change, and I don’t think that’s a clear objective of Trump, but it may be a felicitous byproduct of military action.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili’s sensitive ears detect a catlike noise:

Hili: A child is crying.
Andrzej: Where?
Hili: One floor up.

In Polish:

Hili: Dziecko płacze.
Ja: Gdzie?
Hili: Piętro wyżej.

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

From Things With Faces:

From Cats Doing Cat Stuff:

From Give Me a Sign. This might be a jab at all the flavored beers being made:

This video from Masih will make you tear up:

Emotional moment two women blinded under Islamic regimes meeting each other for the first time.

Fahimeh is from Afghanistan. Her husband threw acid on her face because she was fighting for women’s rights against the Taliban. As her face burned, he told her: now I have taken your eyes and your face, people will be scared of you, so I dare you to go out and talk to people.

I invited her to come on stage with me and talk directly to thousands of people in Poland.

She met Kosar, an Iranian woman who was blinded by the Islamic Republic during the Woman life Freedom uprising.

We are now together stepping into Jewish history in Poland, including Auschwitz, and understanding the connection between the Holocaust and the Islamic Republic’s massacre on 2026.
If any of you think it’s easy to live under Islamic republic or Taliban just listened to their stories.

These women are not fighting for themselves. They are fighting to protect democracy everywhere from the most dangerous cancer, which is called Islamism.

— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) October 19, 2026

Rawan Osman blames most of the unrest in Europe on Islamists? I’m not sure I agree:

Who Is Setting Europe on Fire?

After a weekend offline celebrating my son as his childhood came to an end, I switched my phone on and saw Europe ablaze.

My immigrant family, who once punished me for being an outspoken Zionist, is staying with me. They finally understand: Israel is not the problem. The Palestinian cause is our crucifix.

In 2015, I warned that imported misogyny and antisemitism would fuel the far right. The Washington Institute published what I wrote. Europe dismissed it, Germany most of all. Germany’s reconciliation with the Jews after the Holocaust stalled. Since October 7, it has gone into reverse.
So who is setting Europe on fire? The men stealing jackets and food can’t organize riots across a continent. The mastermind who wrapped Greta Thunberg in a keffiyeh can. He recruits young Westerners to open the gates of their cities in the name of human rights.

Who comes through the gates?

Victims, and the abusers they fled. A system that can’t tell them apart will be seized by extremists who punish everyone. Alice Weidel would deport Syrians and Afghans without exception, including the Druze, Afghan women, and Yazidis. Denmark moved to deport an Iranian activist back to Iran. A Yazidi woman met her ISIS tormentor in a Berlin supermarket; Germany had granted him asylum. Still, Weidel sounds more realistic than Macron, who vows to make masked, unregistered rioters pay. How will he find them?

How are the gatekeepers recruited? Through unions, universities, parties, mosques, and social media. Workers mobilize for money, students for ideals, politicians for votes, radicalized Muslims for faith. The strongest is the Islamist. His project belongs to the ummah, for Allah’s sake. Jail or kill him and it goes on. How do you defeat someone who wins even when you kill him? Victimhood, martyrdom, paradise.

What does this model remind you of?
Half-measures won’t stop it. Ban the keffiyeh. Dissolve UNRWA. Abolish Palestinian refugee status, so that “Palestinian” becomes a cultural identity, not a citizenship. Let those who want to leave the West Bank and Gaza resettle elsewhere: Islamists where Islamists belong, those with family in Jordan in Jordan, and those who value Israel on a path to citizenship if they prove to be law-abiding.

I hope the West finds the courage to act before more tragedies force its hand.

#FranceRiots

— Rawan Osman روان عثمان (@RawaneOsmane) October 19, 2026

The Number Ten Cat appears to be healing well from his cyst removal:

Feline fine.

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) October 19, 2026

From JKR, and the story is here:

The thing that never happens and could never happen and that only evil people predicted would happen has happened again.

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) October 5, 2026

Two from my feed. Sound up on the first one to hear the cat reading along:

Never gets old seeing this https://t.co/EaR4jwNfzz

— Cats with aura (@Catsworldtweet) October 18, 2026

Translated from the Turkish (of course): “The fisherman, noticing that the pregnant cat he feeds fish to every day is visiting more frequently, finally can’t resist following her and learns that she’s not taking the fish for herself 🥹♥️”

Her gün balık verdiği hamile kedinin ziyarete daha fazla geldiğini fark eden balıkçı, sonunda dayanamayarak kediyi takip ediyor ve kedinin balıkları kendisi için götürmediğini öğreniyor 🥹♥️ https://t.co/QWbBRLyUEq

— Serkan Tanyildizi (@srkntnyldz) October 18, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This Dutch Jewish girl was gassed to death (along with her mohter) as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz. The girl was six years old.

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) October 20, 2026

And one from Doctor Cobb; a photo (I like it):

Scrolling back through my phone; just re-discovered this random photo that I took in Antarctica last winter. It shows a blizzard over an ice-speckled ocean. Seems almost surreal – not sure if this is a good photo or not!

— Prof Michael Meredith 🌊🧪🥼❄️ (@oceanandice.bsky.social) 2026-10-19T14:53:30.538Z

Have some Buddy Holly: in my view, his best song, “True Love Ways“, which he co-wrote with Norman Petty.  It was first released in 1960, almost two years after Holly’s death on The Day the Music Died (February 3, 1959).  Holly was 22 when he perished in that plane crash.

From Wikipedia:

Holly biographer Bill Griggs points out that the melody borrows heavily from the gospel song “I’ll Be All Right,” a favorite of Holly’s, and one that would be played at his funeral in 1959. According to Griggs, the framework of the melody was written by Buddy, with the remainder, and lyrics, added by Petty.

Holly’s widow, Maria Elena Holly, claimed that the song was written for her as a wedding gift. On April 29, 2011, she unveiled the never-before-seen “True Love Ways” photo of their wedding kiss, now displayed at P.J. Clarke’s above Table 53, the table where they became engaged while on their first date, on June 20, 1958.

And did you know this>?

John Lennon and Paul McCartney saw Holly for the first time when he appeared on Sunday Night at the London Palladium. The two had recently met and begun their musical association. They studied Holly’s records, learned his performance style and lyricism, and based their act around his persona. Inspired by Holly’s insect-themed Crickets, they chose to name their band “the Beatles“. Lennon and McCartney later cited Holly as one of their main influences.

I don’t know a rock/pop song this old that has a jazz-influenced saxophone riff:

Buddy Holly and the Crickets, 1957 (Holly’s in the middle):