Posting will be light today as I am abed with an annoying case of Vasco Da Gama’s revenge. I’m going to rest to see if that relieves the gastric distress. (I know, TMI).
I will thus present a truncated Hili for today and see if I can finish today’s other posts from a supine position, but first I must rest.
Many thanks to Matthew for doing the Hili posts while I was cruising off Europe, Morocco, and the Canaries!
Here’s today’s Hili; Andrzej and Her Highness are having a heavy philosophical discussion in the orchard:
Hili: There are many questions we do not know the answers to.A: But we can always ignore them.
Hili: Jest wiele pytań, na które nie znamy odpowiedzi.Ja: Ale zawsze możemy je zignorować.
Caption: These are the most beautiful days in our garden.
(In Polish: “To najpiękniejsze dni w naszym ogrodzie.”
And a photo of Karolina from Kyiv, who still cannot resist grabbing the cats:
Caption: Where is the girl in bedroom slippers running to? She is running to give a hug to a cat who is not convinced he wants petting so early in the day.

From Catspotting Society:
A tweet from Titania, who’s unleashed a spate of tweets based on Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. Here’s the first:
If Elon Musk buys Twitter, there’s a real danger that people will start saying whatever they want, whenever they want.
That’s exactly how Nazi Germany started.https://t.co/fGlWGmnlCO
— Titania McGrath (@TitaniaMcGrath) April 25, 2022
A beautiful wave and a surfer’s dream:
Perfect wave touching the clouds.. pic.twitter.com/93RsgS3YvC
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) May 3, 2022
From reader Barry. You might try this on your cat. There are two videos in the tweet:
Голова закружилась😯😍😱
I got dizzy 😯😍😱 pic.twitter.com/CKg3rkzpLX— VIKTORIA💔🙏🇺🇦 (@viktorinini) September 17, 2020
From the Auschwitz Memorial:
7 May 1896 | German Jew Dr. Curt Albersheim was born in Emmerich. A lawyer.
During the war they he lived in Amsterdam. He, his wife Martha and their daughter Ruth were murdered in #Auschwitz. pic.twitter.com/B61gGWKywH
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) May 7, 2022
Tweets from Matthew. Nice letter!:
When I was speaking at UC Santa Cruz I rented a car to get around, but it was in husband's name/credit card (bc I don't drive); in order to reimburse me the University requested a letter from him; this is what he produced pic.twitter.com/u9lSTyZv4B
— Agnes Callard (@AgnesCallard) May 5, 2022
Ross Douthat makes the classical “correlation is not causation” error:
this is a perfect classroom tool for correlation and causation day pic.twitter.com/u0bvfXM0fZ
— Sasha Frere-Jones (@sashafrerejones) May 6, 2022
Tweet of the month. Apparently an act from a cat circus:
It is calculating the physics before it jumps! 💕😂pic.twitter.com/IaPjlopT1V
— Figen (@TheFigen) May 4, 2022
More later today if I feel better. If only I had a Coke and ice!
Sorry to hear that you’re unwell – best wishes for a speedy recovery.
Great to see the outside of the house that the cats in Poland share with their staff.
Yes. Great to see the outside of the house and some of the property. I always wonder what the bigger picture looks like. Where the white gravel is, where the doors and steps are, where the paths from the orchard meet the house. And where is the river relative to everything?
In other news: “Taliban to force Afghan women to wear face veil” – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-61361826 The only surprise is that it’s taken so long.
Rob Rogers released a great new cartoon last night that simultaneously skewers Republicans and the forced-veil cabal, but you have to be a Patreon subscriber to see it.
Cat seemed to be having trouble with traction – maybe recalculating the amount of claw to put into the equation?
Will you make it to Poland this year, Jerry?
I don’t know yet. Depends on whether the refugees are still there (in which case there will be no space) and on covid regulations. I dearly want to see my Polish surrogate parents, though.
I chose to ignore Douthat ages ago.I made a similar choice after reading one of Tish Warren’s first pieces, only to have PCC drag her weekly (weakly?) religious babble into this site, which I never miss.
Re Ross Doubt-that and correlation not causation error, it’s worse than that. Even if the social decline is true as claimed, Mr Doubt-that offers no evidence even of correlation. The fallacy is merely post hoc ergo propter hoc. A proper correlation study would be to track future changes in what he might call the Male Social Decline Index in each state and regress that on the intensity of abortion restrictions imposed by that state (from none to total ban.) With Roe likely to be gone, such a study is now do-able because each state will be free to do its own thing. And then you can present it for cor-not-caus day (but only if in fact there is any significant correlation, of course.)
A similar design was used in real life to regress the size (- to +) of the 2020 Republican margin for President in each state against Covid death rates per 100,000 population in that state. I’m sure you’ve all seen it so I won’t link to it. In this context its only importance is to illustrate what the “correlation isn’t causation” trap looks like, especially when there are lots of actual numbers presented that make things look “cause-y”.
A statistically robust correlation that emerges from a hypothesis formulated before the correlation revealed itself likely does have a causal mechanism, enough to make it worth looking for one.
Yeah, ol’ Ross could as credibly have made the argument that the decline in men’s wellbeing is due to Spiro Agnew’s resignation as vice-president.
It’s the first Saturday in May, meaning it’s a good day <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oPInSfh6H4"to sit back in a rose pink Cadillac, makin' bets on Kentucky Derby Day.
In my household, it’s considered one of the holy days of obligation. Post time is late this year, 6:57 in the p.m. Eastern time.
Since your in FL, I thought you’d be watching Miami’s first Formula 1 race. Well, the actual race isn’t until tomorrow, but the festivities started yesterday.
And thanks for the Stones song. Nice to see Mick Taylor playing that lovely Gibson SG. The Stones did all their best work (imo) when Taylor was in the band.
“you’re”
Woe is me w/o the edit function.
Worth noting that 50 years since Roe, the US population has gained over 100 million people. AND the earth has gotten a lot warmer. 😆
My idea is less completely argued than yours, Leslie, but since you like it in latin, Douthat’s proposition is a typical example of a non-sequitur. His conclusion is not warranted.
In the city Hamburg (IIRC) and surrounding areas, there was a close relation between the number of births and the number of storks (a correlation that kept for nearly 4 decades). Storks were, traditionally for the kids, supposed to bring the babies in that part of Europe. I’m not sue this was/is tradition in the US.
Oh yes, Nicholas, the tradition of a stork bringing a baby was very much alive when I was a child although I think just staring to go out of fashion. My parents never presented it as an actual explanation to be believed like Santa Claus, rather just as one of those, “Oh they used to tell kids” stories. Storks were drawn in television cartoons as wearing express messenger-boy hats with babies in slings dangling from their beaks. And the New Year Baby came in by stork on party invitations for a long time.
Did Vasco get a fluid revenge, too? I thought it was Montezuma’s Revenge? Get well!
That wave is most beautiful.
I’ve been told that the highest waves are at Nazaré in Portugal, or at least the highest waves ever surfed.
This should be popular around these parts (apologies if it is listed here already).
Richard Dawkins’ latest podcast on Skeptic on his latest book on flight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unSrp0_xf7M&t=3843s
I enjoyed it.
D.A.
NYC