Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
I came upon this list while lost in the depths of Wikipedia; it’s an entry for “Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time,” a list that has been revised several times. And of course I had to read the article (which gives only the top ten assessed at various times) and comment.
Here’s how it was made:
“The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” is a recurring song ranking compiled by the American magazine Rolling Stone. It is based on weighted votes from selected musicians, critics, and industry figures. The first list was published in December 2004 in a special issue of the magazine, issue number 963, a year after the magazine published its list of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time“. In 2010, Rolling Stone published a revised edition, drawing on the original and a later survey of songs released up until the early 2000s.[2]
Another updated edition of the list was published in 2021, with more than half the entries not having appeared on either of the two previous editions; it was based on a new survey and did not factor in the surveys conducted for the previous lists. The 2021 list was based on a poll of more than 250 artists, musicians, producers, critics, journalists, and industry figures. They each sent in a ranked list of their top 50 songs, and Rolling Stone tabulated the results.[3] In 2024, a revised version of the list was published, with the addition of songs from the 2020s.
For some reason they’ve combined the 2004 with the 2010 revision, and also the 2021 and 2024 revisions. Here are the top ten songs from the two lists:
Well of course I have my opinion, which is subjective, but I’ll give it anyway.
On the first list, if you’re going to mention a Dylan song as #1, “Like a Rolling Stone” is a good choice. However, in my view the best rock song in history was “Layla”, minus the slow piano part. Right behind it is the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.” Neither of these songs are on either list. I’m not a big Rolling Stones fan, but many are, so I won’t comment on “Satisfaction”. “Imagine” is a very good song, but there are many Beatles songs I like better. I’ve mentioned one but there’s “Yesterday,” “Blackbird,” the medley on the second side of “Abbey Road,” and so on. Of all of Marvin Gaye’s songs, I’d put “What’s Going On” on the list, as it is, but if you’re talking about soul songs, there are many better, especially “A Change is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke, which I see as the greatest soul song of all time. But if you aren’t wedded to political songs, I think “Ooo Baby Baby” is better than “What’s Going On,” though it’s simpler. And then you get into the great soul songs like “Try a Little Tenderness” (which I prefer over “Dock of the Bay”), “Ask the Lonely”, “I Was Made to Love Her” (or, in the Wonder genre, “Isn’t She Lovely”), “Since I Lost My Baby,” and so on.
Aretha’s “Respect” is a great song, but is it the fifth best (popular) song ever recorded? You tell me. In fact, I prefer her version of the Carole King song “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman” (mind you, I haven’t looked at the rest of the list; I’m judging only the top ten).
The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” is an excellent song, but the placement here is a clunker: clearly their best song is “God Only Knows”, and its omission is a scandal. It’s their best song and clearly better than “Good Vibrations.” Paul McCartney judged “God Only Knows” as one of the best songs of all time, and he didn’t mention “Good Vibrations”. Chuck Berry was a real innovator, and belongs on the list, but I like “Maybelline” better than “Johnny B. Good”. Again, remember that this is a matter of taste.
As for the Beatles, yes, “Hey Jude” is a great song, but I can think of many Beatles songs that should rank higher, and have named three above. Let me add “In My Life” to make it an even four.
I have listened to Nirvana’s “Smells like Teen Spirit” many times, trying to find out what so many people see in it. I see little of value, but many people like Nirvana’s style. At any rate, my list would not include that song at all. And for crying out loud, how could they pass up Ray Charles’s “Georgia On My Mind,” a sad and heartbreaking ballad, in favor of “What’d I Say”? Oy gewalt!
I have little to say about the second list save the necessary inclusion of “A Change is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke (listen to it here.) I see it as not only the best soul song, but the best civil rights song with the possible exception of “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Public Enemy’s song, along with those of Outkast and Missy Elliott, are not worthy of mention in the top 200, much less the top ten. And I’d replace the Fleetwood Mac song with “Rhiannon” or (my favorite) “Landslide”. All in all, both lists seem to me deficient, though they have flashes of good taste.
It is, as Karen Blixen might have said “fit and decorous” that the Beatles have nearly twice as many songs as any other group or artist. And although “Are You Experienced” is a world-class album, the Beatles’ “Revolver” (to my mind their best album, has at least five songs that should be on the list. To each their own.
Finally, here are the songs on the 2004 list given by decade, proving that my teenage and college years encompassed the best rock and pop music (the numbers vary by list, but on all the lists the Sixties and Seventies lead the pack for having the best songs. I conclude that, yes, my adolescence and young manhood happened to occur when the best music was being made, so it’s not just that we all think the best music is the music made during our youth.
The latest Jesus and Mo strip, called “Ta da!”, came with this caption, “Ta da! It’s a new J&M on an old theme.”
Wikipedia in fact has a whole article on “Criminal charges against Joseph Smith”. Here’s a summary:
Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, was the subject of approximately twenty-one documented criminal cases between 1826 and 1844 across New York, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois.
In New York, Smith was repeatedly charged with being a “disorderly person”, a misdemeanor related to his activities as “seer”. These cases resulted in one disputed outcome followed by two acquittals.
Charges in Ohio included assault, battery, and conspiracy to murder. Smith was acquitted of the assault charge, while the conspiracy charge was dismissed in a preliminary hearing.
Following the 1838 Mormon War in Missouri, Smith was indicted for treason, a capital offense. He was incarcerated in Liberty Jail for several months before escaping custody during a transfer to a different county. Smith successfully used the writ of habeas corpus to quash multiple extradition attempts to Missouri from Illinois.
In 1844, he was charged with adultery for his practice of polygamy. After Smith ordered the destruction of a critical newspaper, he was charged with inciting a riot. Rather than submit to arrest, Smith declared martial law and mobilized the Nauvoo Legion. In response, the Governor mobilized the state militia. Smith surrendered to authorities, expecting to be released on bail. Instead, Smith was charged with treason against Illinois for calling out the Legion. Because treason was a capital crime, Smith was held without bail in Carthage Jail, where he was killed by a mob on June 27, 1844, leaving several indictments legally unresolved.
Oy! What a record, and not all the charges were connected with the religion he founded! Would you embrace a religion founded by this guy after peering at the so-called golden tablets using a “peepstone” in his hat? Well, there are nearly 18 million Mormons in the world, and I guess most of them believe this stuff.
At any rate, in this strip, Mo is hoist with his own petard:
I got two new batches of photos! So hooray for the readers! Today’s photos come from Ephraim Heller, whose captions and IDs are indented. You can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
Little St. Simons Island is an 11,000-acre barrier island on the coast of Georgia. Much of it is salt marsh, with a few islands in freshwater ponds for wading bird rookeries. I was lucky to spend a week there in April, during the nesting season. This post focuses on the wading birds, and my next post will focus on other species.
I got up before sunrise every day to bicycle to the rookery:
Like flamingos, roseate spoonbills (Platalea ajaja) cannot synthesize pink pigments on their own. Instead, the carotenoid pigments accumulated from shrimp, crayfish, and other invertebrates eaten over a lifetime are deposited directly into growing feathers. Young birds have pale, nearly white plumage; the color deepens progressively with age, so a deep magenta spoonbill is also an older one.
The distinctive, flattened, spatulate bill is a swept laterally through shallow water with the mandibles slightly open, detecting prey by touch rather than sight, necessary in turbid water.
During courtship, male and female spoonbills initially interact with some aggression, then settle into ritualized exchanges: perching close together, presenting sticks to each other, and clasping bills.
Anhinga (Anhinga anhinga) lack waterproofed outer plumage that repels water. While enabling the birds to pursue fish underwater, they must subsequently dry their feathers before they can fly efficiently. Hence, the familiar spread-winged posture seen on sunny perches. Wing-spreading also serves thermoregulatory functions, helping the birds warm up after a cold swim.
Stick-carrying by the male is pair bonding behavior: the male begins nest construction before he has a mate, placing large sticks in tree forks, and continues to supply material while the female does most of the actual building.
During breeding, the bill of the tricolored heron (Egretta tricolor) shifts to a brilliant blue with a black tip, the loral skin becomes cobalt blue, and the iris turns scarlet red. The individuals I saw must not yet have been in their breeding plumage.
The prehistoric-looking wood stork (Mycteria americana) is the only stork species that breeds in North America. The species was listed as federally endangered in 1984 after its population dropped more than 75% from 1930s levels, primarily due to habitat alteration in the Florida Everglades. It was downlisted to threatened in 2014 following population expansion northward into Georgia and the Carolinas. Georgia is now a stronghold. In 2026, the federal government removed the species from the threatened list, reflecting a breeding population estimated at 10,000–14,000 nesting pairs across roughly 100 colonies.
Wood storks require falling water levels at foraging sites. As water recedes, prey concentrates in shrinking pools, providing the density of fish that a nesting pair needs to raise chicks. A pair with active nestlings requires approximately 400 pounds of fish over a breeding season.
The great egret’s (Ardea alba) breeding plumage almost drove the species to extinction. In spring, the loral skin shifts from yellow to a vivid lime green, and long, filamentous plumes (aigrettes, from the French for egret) grow from the shoulder region, trailing over the back. Each aigrette consists of approximately 35 strands of slim feathers. These plumes develop for the breeding season and are shed afterward.
In the late 19th century, the aigrettes for the millinery (hat-making) trade commanded prices per ounce that were twice that of gold, and hunters shot entire breeding colonies in a single event. The resulting public backlash was instrumental in forming the early conservation movement in the United States. In 1896, Harriet Hemenway and her cousin Minna Hall organized Boston society women into a boycott of feathered hats, which led directly to the founding of the Massachusetts Audubon Society and eventually the National Audubon Society. The Massachusetts Audubon Society, in turn, helped pass the 1897 Massachusetts law prohibiting the feather trade, the 1900 Lacey Act, and eventually the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The great egret is now the symbol of the National Audubon Society.
10-12. In the colony, the male selects a nest territory and then displays: calling, performing circular flights, and stretching the neck upward with the bill pointed skyward. Males bring sticks to females sitting on nests for pair-bond reinforcement.
The aigrettes of the snowy egret (Egretta thula) were even more valuable to plume hunters than those of the great egret, and by around 1900 scientists estimated that as few as 250 snowy egrets remained in North America. Numbers recovered rapidly once hunting stopped, but habitat loss remains an issue. In these photos you can see that the loral skin of some birds is yellow (non-breeding plumage) and in other birds it is pink (breeding plumage).
NOTE TO READERS: The next week will be a busy one for me: I have to prepare for a big podcast; we’re expecting Vashti’s second brood to hatch (we are going to try to rehab mother and ducklings since I don’t want to lose a third brood in the pond), and I have a big writing assignment to deal with. For the next week or so posting may be limited to Hili Dialogues, readers’ wildlife, and perhaps some persiflage. Bear with me; I do my best.
Welcome to a Hump Day (“হাম্প ডে (সপ্তাহের মাঝের দিন)” in Bengali): Wednesday, June 10, 2026 and National Black Cow Day, referring not to melanistic bovids but to the drink—usually a “root beer float“: root beer with ice cream. They’re very good, and a speciality of the A&W Root Beer chains. Some info from the first link:
Today we celebrate the black cow, which in many locations is simply another name for a root beer float—a drink consisting of root beer and vanilla ice cream. They are sometimes called chocolate cows or brown cows when chocolate ice cream is used in place of vanilla. In some locations, a black or brown cow is made with cola instead of root beer. In other locations, root beer and ice cream are mixed together, instead of the ice cream sitting on top.
Frank J. Wisner, owner Cripple Creek Brewing in Colorado, made the first black cow on August 19, 1893, after observing the snow caps of Cow Mountain the night before, and thinking they looked like ice cream scoops on top of soda. The first drinks were made by combining Myers Avenue Red root beer and vanilla ice cream. He soon began making the drink using cola, and it became known as the Black Cow Mountain drink. It is said that children shortened the name to the black cow.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 10 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
Breaking Nooz, ripped from the headlines: After an Iranian drone shot down a U.S. Army Apache helicopter (both pilots were saved from the water by a drone boat), the U.S. launched attacks on Iran. Iran retaliated with strikes on U.S. bases in Iran. Iran also fired at U.S. targets in Jordan, Bahrain, and Kuwait
The United States and Iran traded strikes across the Middle East early Wednesday after the U.S. accused Iran of downing an American helicopter, threatening a fragile two-month cease-fire and challenging President Trump’s repeated claims that the countries are close to a deal to end the war.
The U.S. military said its jets struck Iranian targets, including air defenses and radar sites, near the Persian Gulf. Iran said it had retaliated by launching drone attacks against U.S. naval targets in Bahrain, and firing missiles at American military facilities in Jordan. It was unclear whether the new clashes could be contained.
. . . The Jordanian military said it had intercepted five missiles launched from Iran toward a region that includes Jordan’s Muwaffaq Salti base, which has been used for U.S. air operations and was also targeted in the early days of the war. Bahrain’s military said it had taken out several Iranian drones and missiles. And the Kuwait Army said its air defenses intercepted hostile targets.
This war is not going to go gentle into that good cease-fire. . .
After trading volleys of long-range missile strikes that defied calls for restraint from President Donald Trump and threatened to tip the region back into all-out war, Israel and Iran signaled Monday that the attacks had concluded for now.
That lasted exactly one day. From the NYT:
The Israeli military struck areas across southern Lebanon on Tuesday, testing the shaky two-month cease-fire again, just a day after direct hostilities between Iran and Israel threatened to unravel the truce.
At least eight people were killed and dozens more wounded in an attack on Tyre, one of southern Lebanon’s largest cities, Lebanon’s health ministry said. The latest attacks underlined how Lebanon has emerged as a major wedge issue in efforts to negotiate an end to the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.
Tehran has insisted that any peace agreement include security for Lebanon, while Israel has rejected any such link, insisting it will keep striking there to target the Iran-allied Hezbollah militia. After an Israeli strike near the Lebanese capital, Beirut, set off a brief round of clashes with Iran on Sunday and Monday, Tehran warned that it would attack Israel again if it resumed its “aggression and hostile acts,” including in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah, for its part, has rejected any cease-fire with Israel, and has continued firing on Israel from its positions in southern Lebanon. Israel has occupied large parts of southern Lebanon, arguing that it is needed to defend itself against Hezbollah attacks, and the Israeli military issued new evacuation warnings in the region early Tuesday, warning of imminent strikes. Some of the attacks were in areas that were not covered by evacuation warnings, according to Lebanon’s state-run news agency.
President Trump said early Tuesday that both Iran and Israel had agreed to stop their attacks on each other, and that “a very, very good deal” between the United States and Iran could be finalized within days.
Yeah, well let’s see what Trump’s conception of “very, very good deal” is. Lebanon agreed to stop the attacks by Hezbollah, but of course Lebanon (and the UN) are powerless to do it, so who else but Israel. And any deal that leaves Hezbollah in place is a very bad deal indeed—just like Trump’s “peace plan” for Gaza that has so far left Hamas in power. The demand by Iran that Hezbollah stay in power shows, clearer than anything else, that it wants to continue fostering terrorism in the Middle East through its proxies.
For weeks, the parameters of a preliminary agreement to end the war between the United States and Iran have been clear to its negotiators. The hang-up? How to devise a deal so each side can claim a win.
Washington and Tehran — both neither fully victorious nor completely defeated in the war — badly want a deal. But they also need something they can present as favorable to the hawks and hard-liners back home.
Added to this fundamental dispute are the peculiarities of the two countries’ leaders. One of them is in hiding and slow to sign off on any proposal; the other is so unpredictable, his own envoys struggle to negotiate on his behalf.
Unsuccessful efforts at devising this alchemy of wording have mired the two sides in a state of neither war nor peace. They have left the global economy in limbo, too, as both sides continue their blockades of the vital Strait of Hormuz.
The longer this uncertainty persists, mediators warn, the higher the risk the whole peace process will be derailed. The tenuous nature of it all was reinforced on Monday when Israel and Iran exchanged strikes for the first time since the April cease-fire, bringing the Middle East back to the precipice of full-blown war before both sides backed down.
Any framework for a peace agreement is likely to require Iran to allow normal maritime traffic through the strait and the United States to halt its blockade of Iranian vessels. It is also likely to include a pledge to hold a second phase of negotiations culminating in Iran’s giving up its highly enriched uranium stockpile and Washington’s easing economic sanctions in return. And any deal is widely expected — perhaps most problematically for President Trump — to unlock some of Iran’s frozen assets.
The dilemma is how to sequence the terms, said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House.
“The U.S. wants to get everything and not give too much at the beginning,” she said. “And the Iranians want to get things at the beginning and give things along the way.”
But does anybody really know what they’re talking about vis-à-vis the war? Yes, of course each side wants to look like a winner, And that’s a problem—but not the way the Israel-hating NYT thinks. Returning to reality, one side should look like a winner, and it should be Israel and the U.S. When did the world come up with the notion that “winners’ and “losers” in wars are bad things? Do they not remember WWII?
*And Amit Segal weighs the same question at It’s Noon in Israel in a piece called “Israel vs Iran: Aftermath“, with the subtitle “Who won the latest exchange?”
Choosing sovereignty, Israel struck early yesterday, destroying air defense assets and a Mahshahr petrochemical plant producing missile materials. The strike proved to the free world that Tehran is not shielded from consequences, even in an era of Trump diplomacy. However, Iran refused to back down, firing another barrage of missiles by morning. Ultimately, Donald Trump’s 12:30 p.m. tweet demanding an immediate halt to the Israeli strikes ensured that Tehran landed the final blow.
According to Army Radio’s Doron Kadosh, the Israeli defense establishment had spent the night preparing a massive afternoon follow-up aimed at broader national infrastructure to cripple the regime economically. The plan was aborted on the tarmac by Trump’s declaration of peace. Whether this second wave was purely a contingency plan in case of an Iranian response or whether it was the second part of Israel’s initial strike remains unknown.
Militarily and strategically, this brief exchange was neither a resounding victory nor a crushing defeat for either side. For Israel, it was simply the baseline response. So, back to the initial question: who won?
We still don’t know.
The silence of the ceasefire has quickly been filled by opposing narratives, kicking off what is now a staple of Middle East ceasefires: firing and testing for responses. So far, Hezbollah has been quiet regarding declarations of resistance, but its patron sought to establish a clear red line. Iran warned that any further Israeli aggression—specifically “including in southern Lebanon”—would be met with “much more severe and crushing measures.”
Israel swiftly and explicitly rejected this attempt to link Lebanese territory to Iranian deterrence. Defense Minister Israel Katz declared that the IDF will continue its operations against Hezbollah, warning that any Iranian reprisal will be met with the same “great force” demonstrated yesterday. Meanwhile, Lebanon’s president issued a call for diplomatic engagement—a declaration whose impact is as significant as the rest of the Lebanese state’s actions in this conflict: non-existent.
I guess Israel has no choice but to do what Trump says. but that’s tying its hands. Lebanon is none of Trump’s business, but it’s been made his business by Iran. I would have preferred that Israel enact its “massive afternoon followup. . . to cripple the regime economically.” What does Trump have to lose by that? (A cease-fire with Iran, I suppose.) But once again Israel is not allowed to win a war; the only country, says Sam Harris, subject to such strictures.
Before Persepolis, Iran was a headline. The Revolution. The hostage crisis. The long war with Iraq. The nuclear standoff. The name Iran had fused, in the Western imagination, with images of burning flags and chanting crowds. It was a country of events, not of people. A problem to be managed, not a civilization to be understood.
The Islamic Republic worked to keep it that way, sending articulate diplomats to Western capitals, managing media access carefully, making sure that even serious newsrooms published a version of Iran that was, in effect, sanitized. Where was the story of the women who had never agreed to any of this? In the years before social media, those voices had almost no path to the outside world.
Long before morality police became a phrase that Western journalists knew, long before millions of people took to the streets under the banner of Women, Life, Freedom, one woman sat down with ink and paper and did something that had not been done before.
Through her book, which followed her coming of age story in Iran, exile in Europe, and yearslong struggle to say goodbye to a country slipping off a cliff into brutal oppression, people in the West learned that women in Iran were being stopped on the street, beaten, arrested, imprisoned for the way they wore (or didn’t) a piece of cloth on their head. They learned that the hijab in Iran was not a cultural expression, or faith freely worn. It was a law, enforced by men with authority and batons, by a government that had decided women’s bodies belonged to the state.
No wonder the novel was censored in Iran. But the regime couldn’t stop its truth from reaching the world: Marjane Satrapi was the first person to make compulsory hijab a global story.
. . .There is a video of her, in Persian, that I keep returning to. She recites the rules, the ones every Iranian girl absorbs before she absorbs anything else. “A good woman never does this. A real woman always behaves like that.” The list is long. And after reciting every rule, she declares that she intends to do exactly as she pleases. That if the price of freedom is being called impolite or difficult, then she will pay it, and gladly.
“I would rather be impolite,” she says, “than a woman who is not free.”
It is like a manifesto for women like me.
Based on this, I’ve just ordered the first two graphic books of Persepolis from U Chicago’s interlibrary loan. I’m looking forward to reading them, and yes, they were banned not just in Iran, but in many places in America.
More than 100,000 live cockroaches illegal to keep in Australia were confiscated from a single breeder in the country’s largest-ever seizure of exotic invertebrates, officials said Friday.
The haul of Madagascar hissing cockroaches and dubia cockroaches, worth 200,000 Australian dollars ($142,000), was seized in May from a commercial breeder in the city of Bathurst in New South Wales state, according to Australia’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water.
The Madagascar hissing species is one of the world’s biggest cockroaches, measuring 2 to 3 inches (5 to 8 centimeters) in length. Photos released by the department showed a shiny, brown invertebrate larger than a person’s finger.
It’s much bigger than the country’s common Australian cockroach, which measures between 0.9 and 1.4 inches (2.3 and 3.6 centimeters) long. Cockroaches flourish in Australia due to its sub-tropical climates and the country is home to hundreds of species.
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Bathurst snake catcher Stefanie Lesser told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the larger exotic species were likely being sold as as a cost-effective reptile food because their large size meant fewer insects were needed. Officials urged pet owners to seek out crickets or wood roaches to feed their lizards instead.
When I was at Harvard in graduate school, I kept about five or six tarantulas as pets, and every once in a while I’d walk over to the BioLabs, where they kept a giant breeding colony of hissing cockroaches,Gromphadorhina portentosa (don’t ask me why). The little ones were good food for tarantulas. And yes, the cockroaches hiss (through their spiracles); see the video below. It’s clearly an antipredator adaptation. Why is keeping them illegal in Australia? Guess! (Think about cane toads and rabbits.)
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the upstairs d*g is temporarily sequestered upstairs:
Szaron: Freedom has returned. Hili: That’s true, but it’s limited.
In Polish:
Szaron: Wróciła wolność.
Hili: To prawda, ale jest limitowana.
From Masih; Afghan women being shot at by the Taliban for wanting an education:
Today, women in Afghanistan are being shot in the streets simply for anting an education, wanting a job. Wanting to work and wanting to walk outside without a man’s permission.
Luana sent a video (yes, from Tommy Robinson) showing a man in trying to behead someone in the street in Belfast. Apparently he gouged the victim’s eyes out as well. I can’t embed the video but you can see it here (WARNING: blood!). Two locals beat the guy off. You can read the story at Reuters: the guy survived–plus the accused attacker, a Sudanese national, was apprehended.
The suspect, a 30-year-old Sudanese national, has been detained on suspicion of attempted murder.
Police said it was understood he lived locally, having been granted leave to remain in the UK in September 2023 after claiming asylum. He had travelled to Belfast in February that year by bus from Dublin, having flown there from Paris on an unknown date. Two posts from Emma on this:
Like, he sawed.
Not a gun. Not a chopping axe, flailing. No self defence.
Two from my feed. First a repentant gorilla (he’s much bigger than his wife!):
In Japan, a gorilla named Kiyomasa got into a fight with his mate. She kicked him out of their enclosure at the zoo, and he was later spotted sitting alone, seemingly rethinking his life choices pic.twitter.com/5FbIrCfEKF
— Community Notes & Violations (@CNviolations) June 9, 2026
One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
This Hungarian Jewish girl was gassed to death as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz. She was 13 years old, and had she lived, today would have been her birthday.
I forgot to post part 2 of Abby Thompson‘s latest batch of California intertidal photos, so here they are (the first batch is here). Abby’s captions and IDs are indented, and, as always, you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
The stars of this set, improbably enough, are two flatworms. The first two pictures are of the elegant Eurylepta californica, which I think of as the “art-deco flatworm”. It’s rare up here; I’ve found it once before. The next flatworm (Family Euryleptidae) is an undescribed species. It’s been recorded several times, almost all in the Monterey Bay area. This is its third sighting (as recorded on inaturalist) this far north. There isn’t agreement on the genus. It’s a beauty, and it’s unusual to have such a striking animal remain undescribed. Both worms are about ¾” long.
Eurylepta californica (striped polyclad flatworm) Art deco flatworm:
The starfish plague of several years ago was devastating along the coast, and several species (like the incredible sunflower stars) have not recovered, but the ochre stars are back with a vengeance. I see many more of them than of the bat stars, but the next picture is one of each buddying up on a rock above the low tide line.
The next three pictures are a slightly deceptive series. I’m not sure that the first two pictures really are otter tracks, but the alternative is probably raccoon tracks, and otter is a better match. They did not, in fact, end on the beach right next to the where I saw the otter in the third picture. But at least the third picture below is definitely an otter. This almost surely is a river otter, not a sea otter, as are most seen around here.
Welcome to the Cruelest Day: Tuesday, June 9, 2026, and National Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Day. I want to use this occasion to rant once again about filling a pie with wonderful fruit that is mixed with a horrible, sour, gritty, and foul-tasting vegetable. Here is one of the infernal pies from Wikipedia, which has this note:
A strawberry rhubarb pie is a type of tart and sweet pie made with a strawberry and rhubarb filling. This was created when the fruits were paired up and harvested in England in June and July. The British found the sweetness of the strawberries offset the tartness of the rhubarb. Sometimes tapioca is used as a thickener.
The Brits were deeply misguided; pure strawberry pie is EXCELLENT. You just cut back on the sugar.
Cameron Nordholm, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
I have sampled the foul concoction shown above, and I’ve also had strawberry pie by itself, which is superb, and extra good with whipped cream or ice cream on it. Here’s a strawberry tart I photographed in Honolulu in 2019, right before I bought a whole strawberry pie. Now tell me: wouldn’t you rather have this instead of one mixed with rh-b-rb?
Donald Duck’s first appearance on screen was in the animated short film “The Wise Hen”, on June 9, 1934.
Here’s the cartoon; Donald shows up at 2:01. They don’t make cartoons like this any more!
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 9 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
Breaking nooz: Israel appears to have struck Lebanon again today. Iran is insistent that any deal include a cessation of hostilities against Lebanon, as it wants to maintain the terror force of Hezbollah:
The Israeli military issued an evacuation alert in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, warning people in one of the area’s largest cities of imminent strikes against the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah, a day after Israel and Iran pulled back from direct confrontation.
The new warning showed how Lebanon has emerged as a major wedge issue in the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran and efforts to end the war. Tehran has insisted that any peace agreement include Lebanon, while Israel has rejected any such link, insisting it will keep targeting Hezbollah, Iran’s most important ally.
Iran pulled back on Monday after it fired ballistic missiles at Israel a day earlier in retaliation for an Israeli strike near the Lebanese capital, Beirut, targeting Hezbollah — attacks that threatened to unravel a two-month cease-fire between Iran and Israel. The Iranian military said that if Israel resumed its “aggression and hostile acts,” including in southern Lebanon, “much harsher and more forceful actions” would follow. Israel has occupied large swathes of southern Lebanon during the most recent conflict.
President Trump said early Tuesday that both sides had agreed to stop the fighting, and that “a very, very good deal” between the United States and Iran could be finalized within days.
But it was not clear if the two sides were any closer to a deal on Tuesday, and there was no immediate response from Iranian officials to Mr. Trump’s comments. The president has repeatedly said that the United States and Iran were nearing an agreement to end the war, resolve the fate of Iran’s nuclear weapons program and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital artery for oil and gas shipments.
*Amit Segal at It’s Noon in Israel describes the latest exchange of attacks in, “Israel vs. Iran: Round 3.” Trump has told both countries to knock it off, and, according to Segal, Israel is treading lightly:
Rather than 1991, Israel seems to be back in 2024, facing an emboldened Axis of Resistance alone. But in 2026, Israel is handcuffed by an additional constraint: Washington’s hunger for a deal. Tied to U.S. diplomatic goals, Israel’s retaliatory strikes have been hollowed out. Yesterday, they hit evacuated headquarters in Dahiyeh; this morning, they hit secondary petrochemical sites in Mahshahr, deliberately leaving Iran’s critical energy infrastructure untouched. Israel is using a light touch because they are more scared of Trump’s reaction than Iran is.
There are three options going forward:
Capitulation: Israel absorbs the latest attack, allowing Iran to establish a new normal of firing occasional missiles with no consequences. The fallout is immediate: Gulf allies lose faith in the U.S., and Tehran cements its regional hegemony. Iran walks into negotiations holding all the cards, having confirmed with absolute certainty that Washington will not return to military operations.
Restoration of Deterrence: The U.S. and Israel strike back decisively, and Tehran decides to absorb the blow. This scenario reasserts American dominance over the region and stabilizes the Lebanese front by cementing the rule: any attack on the Israel’s north will be answered with devastation in Dahiyeh.
Rapid Escalation: The third option, perhaps flowing from a failed attempt at option two, sees the U.S. respond and Iran—calculating that it will accelerate Trump’s capitulation—resume the war. However, a renewed exchange does not guarantee a drawn-out regional conflict on the scale of Operation Epic Fury. Given the exhausted target banks and the recognition that the regime cannot be overthrown from the air, this campaign may only last a few days before another ceasefire and a return to the status quo.
There is, however, a possibility that this highly public clash is all a carefully manufactured illusion—that Trump and Netanyahu have been secretly coordinating this entire masquerade to lull Tehran into a false sense of security before a devastating strike. But even if this is a brilliant game of geopolitical chess, the clock is ticking. Every moment these attacks go unanswered, the U.S. bleeds credibility, and the more fatal it becomes to Netanyahu’s electoral survival.
What we are witnessing is a complete strategic inversion. Since the ceasefire, the U.S. feared the Iranian front’s influence over Lebanon; today, the Lebanese front is dictating the actions of Iran. In a further twist, Hezbollah was built to be Iran’s forward defense, yet today, Tehran is stepping into the line of fire to protect its proxy—it’s like Trump jumping in front of a bullet to protect his security guards. Unless the U.S. and Israel inflict massive, unbearable costs for Tehran’s “heroic” sacrifice, Iran will simply repeat this action for every proxy in its arsenal. If that happens, restoring freedom of navigation from the Houthis, returning normalcy to Israel’s north, or securing any kind of future for Lebanon will be virtually impossible short of full regime change in Tehran.
None of the options are good ones, but #1 is unacceptable, though it seems to be the path Trump is treading. There’s no doubt that Iran will strike again, and we’ll see what happens this time. If #1 is the game plan, we’ll know quickly.
*The NYT has an interview with Scott Pelley about Bari Weiss (article archived here). Remember that Weiss was more or less forced out of the NYT, so they’re on Pelley’s side, and it shows. That said, the interview did firm up my dislike of Weiss’s attempt to remake CBS without the experience to do so. “60 Minutes” was my favorite television show, and though I don’t watch it so often any more, I would be sad if it became a mouthpiece for the center right—or any ideology. A few exchanges:
At that meeting, you spoke up very forcefully. You asked Nick Bilton [the new head of “60 Minutes”] why he’d taken the job “knowing that you will never be welcome here.” Why did you decide to have that first interaction with your new boss in public and not behind closed doors?
It was behind closed doors. I was with my family in a closed room. None of this was meant to be public. Imagine I’m walking into this room with these people who have devoted their lives to “60 Minutes.” They have not received any kind of explanation. They are waiting for Bari Weiss to walk in the room in the hope that she’s going to explain why this tragedy has occurred and why it was so necessary. I’m waiting to see who comes in and it’s Nick Bilton and one of Bari’s deputies. No Bari. People are a little shocked by this. As we’re standing in there, Nick makes his way to the front of the room and does something absolutely jaw-dropping to me. He pulls out his phone and begins reading a statement off his phone in a room full of 50 heartbroken people. The callousness, the tone deafness of that, you could hear the groan in the room. They put out a big spread of bagels like we were all going to feel better. And also, if I can give you a little bit of context.
. . . Ellison then hires Bari Weiss to run CBS News. Weiss is a former opinion writer at The New York Times who left to start her own publication after claiming bias in the Times Opinion section. I never worked with her, for the record. The Free Press, which she launched, is generally pro-Israel and bills itself as pushing against what it sees as the mainstream media. What did you make of her appointment?
I was not familiar with her name, so I did some research and discovered those things that you just outlined. What concerned me was that she had zero television experience and had never managed a large global operation like CBS News. Those were red flags to me, but I thought, David Ellison thinks she’s the right person for the job. We are absolutely going to welcome her, listen to her, and give her the benefit of the doubt.
. . . One of the arguments that Bari Weiss has made about “60 Minutes” and CBS News is that they need to be brought into the modern era. Nick Bilton also said in that staff meeting with you that “broadcast is an ice cube that is melting.” Do you think they have a point, even if “60 Minutes” is reaching a huge audience now? Does its metabolism, the kinds of correspondents that it has have to change to reach a younger audience that interacts with media in a completely different way?
Of course we have to reach out to a younger and younger audience, but their argument about joining the internet age is just disingenuous. It’s almost as if Bari Weiss and Nick Bilton were sealed in a time capsule in 1990, and it just cracked open. They’ve just discovered the internet, and they’re running around telling everybody how important it is. At CBS News, yeah, join the fight. We started our first “60 Minutes” online show, “60 Minutes Overtime,” in 2010. I shoot TikTok verticals, or I used to shoot TikTok verticals on every assignment. We’re there. We’re everywhere.
Do you think Bari Weiss needs to be removed?
Oh, gosh, yes. Look, she’s a lovely person. And her Free Press organization that she founded has been very successful. But television’s not her thing. This is like somebody walking up to me and saying, “There’s a 747, there are 400 people on it, we need you to fly it to Paris.” I’m going to decline because I don’t have a clue. And it would have been so much better if Bari Weiss had been offered this job and said, “Oh, that’s not for me, I don’t know how to do that.”
Bari Weiss has come a long way since resigning from the NYT, so I’m withholding judgement on her performance at CBS News. But I’m worried that she has an ideological agenda, too: anti-wokeness, the same agenda as the University of Austin. She is not a MAGA-ite for sure, but let’s see how it goes.
*This article in the WaPo, “Ibuprofin vs. acetaminophen: Which pain reliever should you use?” (article archived here) will be something most of us would benefit from reading. For one thing, taking too much of one of these drugs can cause serious damage to your liver. My go-to pain reliever was Tylenol, but now I’m not so sure.
Both acetaminophen and ibuprofen can be used to treat headaches.
But the two medications have different mechanisms of action. Ibuprofen is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), a class that includes naproxen (Aleve) and aspirin. These medications block enzymes that produce prostaglandins, which are pain- and inflammation-causing compounds released by the body in response to injury.
So in addition to treating pain and fever, ibuprofen is a better choice for pain accompanied by inflammation and swelling.
Acetaminophen works better for pain that is not primarily caused by inflammation, such as headaches.
And because it generally has fewer cardiovascular, gastrointestinal and kidney-related side effects and fewer drug interactions than ibuprofen, it may be a better option for some older people, those with certain cardiovascular or gastrointestinal conditions or those taking certain medications, said Gabriel Gavrilescu, chair of internal medicine and geriatrics at Cleveland Clinic in Florida.
Adults can take 650 mg of regular-strength acetaminophen every four to six hours as needed or 1,000 mg of extra-strength acetaminophen every six hours, not to exceed 4,000 mg per day. However, some experts recommend a maximum limit that’s lower. “For the elderly or people of lower weight, probably 2,000 to 3,000 milligrams would be a safer limit,” Gavrilescu said.
Acetaminophen is generally safe for most people if you stick with the recommended amounts. However, taking too much — more than 4,000 mg per day — can cause severe liver damage, even liver failure. It should not be combined with heavy alcohol use, and people taking medications that affect liver function should check with their doctor before using it
Muscle aches? Ibuprofen. Joint aches? Ibuprofen. And there are recommendations for dental pain, cold or flu, cramps, or other health conditions. But of course ask your doctor, as they say.
A 2023 randomized trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that people who drank one or more cups of coffee each day lost on average 36 minutes of sleep compared with those who didn’t over a two-week period.
There’s a catch though: People who were assigned to drinking coffee were also more active, taking an average of 1,000 more steps — the equivalent of walking about half a mile — per day than those randomized to the no-coffee group. The researchers speculated that perhaps the boost in activity is part of why coffee has consistently been shown to have many health benefits, including maybe even for longevity.
That trade-off between energy and sleep is something many of us coffee drinkers know intimately. Miscalculate, and you can end up “tired and wired”— a miserable state of mind I was in too often during medical training, living cup to cup.
Here’s the good news: You don’t need to quit. But you may need to move up your last cup to much earlier in the day than you think. Rather than the vague advice we’ve all heard to avoid coffee “close to bedtime,” researchers now have a more specific number. A 2023 meta-analysis of 24 studies on the effect of a standard cup of coffee (about 100 milligrams of caffeine) found that for the best night’s sleep, you need to finish drinking coffee at least nine hours or so before you sleep.
So if you’re in bed by 10 p.m., your last cup should be by 1 p.m.
. . .The U.S. Food and Drug Administration advises adults to consume no more than 400 milligrams of caffeine per day, and not all cups are created equal. For instance, a medium iced latte from Dunkin’ has about 166 milligrams of caffeine and a grande Nitro Cold Brew from Starbucks has about 280 milligrams of caffeine. A typical Keurig pod contains 75 to 150 milligrams per eight-ounce cup.
A randomized controlled trial in adult men found that, on average, a 100-milligram dose of caffeine consumed four hours before bedtime had little impact on sleep whereas a 400-milligram dose consumed 12 hours before bedtime had an impact. So if you crave an afternoon cup, switch to a less potent option to minimize the chances you’ll get the receipts at bedtime.
That’s no problem for me: I drink one latte per day, and it’s at about 6 a.m. Then that’s it for me. What with insomnia, I don’t want to risk any more. And here’s some good news for me:
It may not just be sleep that benefits from morning coffee drinking: In one study, people who restricted their coffee drinking to the morning hours seemed to have a mortality benefit compared with those who drank throughout the day.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili firmly educates Andrzej about cats:
Hili: It’s good that you stopped by, because no one has petted me in a long time.
Me: You could have come to me yourself.
Hili: You really don’t understand anything.
Hili: Dobrze, że tu zajrzałeś, bo dawno mnie nikt mnie głaskał.
Ja: Mogłaś sama przyjść do mnie.
Hili: Ty naprawdę nic nie rozumiesz.
From Masih. Apparently these are supporters of the regime celebrating Iran’s attack on Israel. translation from Farsi
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, once again, by firing missiles at Israeli soil under the guise of “support for Hezbollah in Lebanon,” has proven that it not only places no value on the lives, security, and livelihoods of the Iranian people, but also feeds on war adventures for its own survival.
While millions of Iranians are gasping for breath under the weight of poverty, repression, and a lack of any bright future, the regime’s supporters in their gatherings welcomed the start of a new round of war and destruction with cheers, joy, and cries of “Allahu Akbar.” The very same people who silenced every voice of protest and opposition with the label of “warmonger” are now themselves cheering for war and have become the flag-bearers of igniting conflict and insecurity.
This regime sees its very existence tied to death-mongering, escalating tensions, and proxy conflicts. For these rulers, Iran is not a country for prosperity and welfare, but a fortress and a source of fuel for their war machine and belligerent ideology. Hours after this missile attack, the Israeli army, in response, struck targets in various Iranian cities. Reports indicate a second wave of missile attacks by the Islamic Republic, and the fragile ceasefire has once again been shrouded in ambiguity and peril.
The people of Iran have once again become hostages and victims of the regime’s military and ideological ambitions. Now tell me, who are the real instigators of war, or in their own words, the true “warmongers”?
سپاه پاسداران جمهوری اسلامی بار دیگر با شلیک موشک به خاک اسرائیل و به نام «حمایت از حزبالله لبنان»، ثابت کرد که نه تنها هیچ ارزشی برای جان، امنیت و معیشت مردم ایران قائل نیست، بلکه از ماجراجوییهای جنگی برای بقای خود تغذیه میکند.
From Luana: Canada’s case of mass hysteria (the article is here):
Great piece by @HadleyFreeman in Britain’s @thetimes about the Great unmarked graves social panic of 2021-26. The story makes Canadians look like gullible idiots, but it’s a valuable international case study in mass hysteria & journalistic incompetencehttps://t.co/KiibJJ8HYBpic.twitter.com/jghA1oRZQB
Another bird, with a skill in warbling. Sound up! English translation: “The warbling of the winter wren It likely harbors the greatest healing effect in history. Please enjoy the highest peak vibration frequency
And one from Dr. Cobb, who ran into his ex in Paris:
Walking down a street in Paris, bumped into my ex who I haven’t seen in 30 years!!! I lived 18 years in Paris and only once bumped into someone I knew…
Over the years I’ve developed a set of posting guidelines, affectionately known as “Da Roolz” in Chicagospeak. You can find them on the left sidebar, or by clicking here. If you’re new here, or haven’t yet read them, I urge you to do so, as it will facilitate discussion as well as making my job easier. I’ll just point out three of them that are particularly important these days.
a) f you’re a first-time poster, I have to approve your initial comment. This won’t necessarily be immediate, as it depends on my checking email. After that, posting is automatic unless you become moderated for some reason.
Sometimes first-time posters assume that their comment was fouled up because it didn’t appear. And that could lead to them trying to make the same comment several times. Not necessary: first comments need to be approved and thereafter, if you’re not moderated (some people are), your comments should appear automatically. I do appreciate people using their real names, but understand if you have good reasons not to do so.
b) Try not to dominate threads, particularly in a one-on-one argument. I’ve found that those are rarely informative, and the participants never reach agreement. A good guideline is that if your comments constitute over 10% of the comments on a thread, you’re posting too much.
This guidelines is often violated, and I vary in how much I feel like enforcing it. If there’s a good back and forth going on, I am not strict about it. But some persons feel that they have to respond to every comment, and in that case I will warn people. I almost never remove comments when they’re posted.
c.) Be judicious about posting videos and very long comments. I like good discussion, but essays are not on, particularly if you have your own website where you can post it. Embedded videos are okay, but please think before posting: do they add to the discussion? If your comment is longer than, say, 400 words, it is probably too long. If you want to write stuff longer than that, please get your own website!
This guideline I do try to enforce, either by emailing the person with logorrhea or by adding a “reply” saying that “this comment is over the word limit; please try to post shorter comments”. Comments are just that—comments and not essays. Also, please try to keep your comments in line with what the post is about, though sometimes readers can introduce a diversion if it’s timely or important.
Well of course I have my opinion, which is subjective, but I’ll give it anyway.
