(Written at about 5 a.m.) We lost another duckling yesterday, and we’re down to five. I suspect it was a bird predator as crows were mobbing something nearby in the morning. I am absolutely heartbroken.
UPDATE from above.. I just fed the ducks/ducklings at 6 a.m. and the missing duckling has reappeared! In all my years of tending these birds, I have never seen a duckling disappear and then reappear. They are always around their mother, but the straggler was not to be seen for hours yesterday afternoon, and after a close inspection of the pond, I could not find it. I have no idea where it went, but I am SO happy that we have six again! I would name the straggler “Lazarus” if I knew which one it was. I gave them extra mealworms as a treat.
Welcome to a Hump Day (“Hari Punuk” in Indonesian): Wednesday, May 14, 2025, and National Buttermilk Biscuit Day, perhaps the greatest indigenous breadstuff ever created in America. There is nothing to match a good biscuit, and below shows some I consumed at the Loveless Motel and Cafe outside Nashville on March 26, 2012. It’s no longer a motel but still famous for its food—especially biscuits.
The sign (note “Hot biscuits and country ham” at the top, always worth stopping for:
Carol Faye Ellison, the “Biscuit Lady”, now deceased but replaced by another excellent biscuit maker (I believe the white-haired lady is the owner, but I’m not sure:
The biscuits with homemade jam. They come before breakfast, so it’s too easy to fill up on these wonderful things:
And the full Monty: biscuits, country ham with red-eye gravy (left), grits, and fried eggs. This is what the gods eat for breakfast. Anybody saying they don’t like grits will kindly keep their sentiments to themselves.
It’s National Brioche Day and International Dylan Thomas Day, celebrating “the anniversary of the first reading of Under Milk Wood, which took place on May 14, 1953, at the 92Y Poetry Center in New York City.
Thomas is one of my favorite poets. When I was in Wales, I visited his home and writing shed in Laugharne, as well as his grave. Here are both. The shed is apparently how it was left when he died in 1953.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 14 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Trump is cozying up to yet another terrorist/dictator in the Middle East, this time the new ruler of Syria, who was a member of Al-Qaeda but then formed his own terrorist group that overthrew al-Assad. That new government is now bent on destroying all minorities in the country, including the Druze and Christians (the IDF is actually in Syria trying to protect them). But Trump wants to help these new rulers:
President Trump announced on Tuesday that he would end sanctions on Syria, saying at the start of his four-day tour of the Middle East that he had decided to do so after consulting with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and the President of Turkey.
Mr. Trump’s announcement drew rousing applause from the crowd at an investment forum in Riyadh, where he spoke before some of the world’s business elite and members of the Saudi royal family. “There is a new government that will hopefully succeed in stabilizing the country and keeping peace,” he said, referring to the rebel alliance that ousted the dictator Bashar al-Assad in December. “That’s what we want to see in Syria.”
Mr. Trump intends to meet with Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Shara, on Wednesday in Saudi Arabia, according to a White House official and a regional official with knowledge of Mr. Trump’s plans. The lifting of sanctions on Mr. al-Shara’s newly formed government would allow for international aid and investment that would help the country recover from a devastating 13-year civil war.
The sanctions announcement was a surprise at the start of the first major international trip of Mr. Trump’s second term. The tour is expected to focus mostly on signing wide-ranging business deals with some of the region’s wealthiest economies, although some of the agreements his administration hailed were in the works before he took office.
“The United States is the hottest country, with the exception of your country,” he told the crowd, name-checking Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler.
Ending sanctions on Syria (especially with Turkey’s approval) constitutes tacit approval of a terrorist government. President al-Shara may now be wearing a suit instead of a military uniform, but he’s still a terrorist inside, and, as far as I can see, no substantial improvement over al-Assad. Why is Trump helping him? I think that our “President” fancies himself The World’s Great Peacemaker, which is a recipe for disaster.
*I suspect that this new HHS report on pediatric gender medicine will be dismissed because of its source, it was commissioned by the Trump administration. However, the summary in the City Journal was written by Colin Wright, whom I consider reliable, and of course he has read the report (you can also read the same summary on his website, which is a useful but brief account of what the HHS found)
One of President Trump’s first executive orders was the provocatively titled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.” The order directed federally funded insurance programs to end coverage of pediatric sex-trait modification and barred hospitals receiving federal funds from performing such interventions. It also instructed the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to conduct a review of the evidence and ethical considerations surrounding pediatric gender medicine.
That review, “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices,” was released earlier this month. It is already being described as America’s Cass Review, the landmark gender-medicine review published last year in the United Kingdom.
This report is long overdue. While European health authorities in countries like Sweden, Finland, Norway, and the U.K. have moved away from the “gender-affirming” model and toward cautious psychological support for gender-dysphoric children, American institutions have only become more entrenched in the model despite growing evidence of the harm and weak benefits.
The HHS report breaks this trend, providing a comprehensive and sober reevaluation of the science, ethics, and clinical practices in pediatric gender medicine. At more than 400 pages, with chapters on history, terminology, evidence, ethics, and clinical realities, it is the most thorough and ambitious document of its kind in the United States.
The report’s central findings are clear and direct: gender-affirming interventions such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries are supported only by low- or very low-quality evidence, while the potential for irreversible harm is substantial. Risks include sterility, sexual dysfunction, impaired bone-density and brain development, psychiatric comorbidities, and surgical complications. The report rejects claims that gender transition reduces suicidality, finding no high-quality evidence to support this oft-repeated assertion. In line with international reviews, it concludes that psychotherapy should be the first-line treatment for youth with gender dysphoria.
Some of the report’s most powerful contributions are found in areas not typically emphasized in such documents. The chapter on terminology is especially significant. Unlike most U.S.-based clinical guidelines, which adopt ideologically loaded terms like “assigned sex at birth,” the HHS report rejects euphemistic language and insists on terminological clarity. It calls out the concept of “gender identity” as scientifically ill-defined, noting that it lacks a stable, observable referent and is inconsistently used even within affirming literature. The report also critiques the classification of children into “cis” and “trans” categories, arguing that this framing falsely reifies identity claims into diagnostic categories and forecloses open exploration. It rightly points out that describing a child as “trans” presupposes the correctness of the gender-identity claim and biases all subsequent treatment decisions.
. . .Despite this omission, the HHS report is a landmark document. It does what no American medical body has had the courage to do: assess the state of pediatric gender medicine without ideological blinders. It does not bend to euphemism or advocacy language. It does not inflate poor-quality studies to preserve consensus. It does not equate policy with science. Instead, it re-centers the debate on the core question: What does the evidence actually say?
For too long, American medicine has been governed by slogans: “trans kids know who they are,” “affirmation saves lives,” “trust the experts.” The HHS report is a long-overdue invitation to move past slogans and return to science. Let’s hope the medical community has the courage to accept it.
We’ve discussed the medical conclusions before, and in general they’re correct, and have been adopted by most of Europe. Now I haven’t read the report, but you have the link above so you can determine whether it’s “transphobic,” for it will surely be characterized that way buy gender activists no matter what it says. Colin goes on to describe the other results, including a harsh treatment of WPATH, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health—a misguided and harmful organization if ever there was one. If this really is the Cass Review for America, as Colin says, then it’s a good thing, for it will slow down the unnecessary medicalization of gender-dysphoric kids. Yes, some of them will need hormone treatment, and maybe even surgery, but remember that over 85% of gender-dysphoric cases resolve on their own without surgery or hormones, usually with kids becoming gay.
*The government is ratcheting up pressure on Harvard University after the school outright refused to sign on to the President’s attempt to force changes on the University. And it’s doing so by withholding money, though less than last time.
The Trump administration is cutting another $450 million in grants to Harvard in its escalating pressure campaign against the nation’s most prominent university.
The announcement follows the cancellation of about $2.2 billion last month and a pledge last week by Education Secretary Linda McMahon to stop providing Harvard with any new federal grants.
“Harvard University has repeatedly failed to confront the pervasive race discrimination and anti-Semitic harassment plaguing its campus,” the administration wrote in a letter Tuesday signed by members of the government’s antisemitism task force, which has been leading the charge against elite universities.
The letter singled out the Harvard Law Review for alleged race discrimination when evaluating articles for inclusion in its journal.
A Harvard spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Harvard has been locked in a battle with the Trump administration since late March when the government said it was reviewing nearly $9 billion in federal funding over antisemitism concerns.
The government demanded oversight of Harvard’s admissions, faculty hiring and governance to address what it said was the school’s failure to stop the harassment of Jewish students on campus.
Harvard filed a federal lawsuit last month arguing that the government has violated the university’s constitutional rights as well as due process. The administration has responded by threatening Harvard’s tax-exempt status and its ability to enroll international students. It has also said it will review Harvard’s reporting of foreign gifts.
I’m guessing that Harvard will win that lawsuit, though it may take some time. And I’m betting that if they try to remove Harvard’s tax exemption (a selective move since virtually all American colleges and universities, public and private, are exempt from federal taxation), that will also be declared unconstitutional.
*Sean “Diddy” Combs, rapper and music producer, is in big trouble, facing 78 people of both sexes who have filed sexual assault lawsuits against him as well as a sex-trafficking trial that began yesterday. If even a small fraction of the allegations are correct, he’ll be spending the rest of his life in prison (he’s 55). Testimonies so far have been in line with what his accusers have said.
Several striking patterns emerge in the 78 sexual assault lawsuits filed against Combs as of May 1, four of which have been settled, dropped or dismissed. Like Ventura’s, many suits involve young artists or aspiring entertainers who believed Combs could make or break their careers. According to their lawsuits, many also found themselves assaulted after being lured into his world — allegedly humiliated, abused, beaten or threatened in settings that include lavish parties, hotel rooms and Combs’s famous Bad Boy Records in New York.
And many — including Ventura — recount being offered what they believed to be drugs or a spiked drink before losing consciousness.
In other ways, some of the subsequent lawsuits diverge from Ventura’s. There are almost as many male as female accusers. About one-fifth of the plaintiffs allege they were minors when they were assaulted. And whereas Ventura came out publicly with her accusations, dozens of other plaintiffs have pseudonymously filed lawsuits as Jane and John Does, many claiming they fear retribution.
Combs has denied all allegations against him. Here are the most prominent patterns we noticed in the sexual assault lawsuits.
Here’s a bar graph from The Washington Post, and you can see the takeaways simply from the categories:
It always amazes me how people with such wealth and clout resort to palpably illegal behaviors, like spiking drinks and forcing minors into sex. My only explanation was that Combs saw himself as invicible. With all those people involved, did he not consider that all it took was a handful of them to put him in the dock?
*From the AP’s reliable “oddities” section, we learn that many Alaskans celebrate Mother’s Day by visiting, yes, muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus). It’s a tradition, Jake!
It is one of Alaska’s favorite Mother’s Day traditions, getting up close and personal with animals that have survived the ice age.
All moms get a daisy and free admission Sunday at the Musk Ox Farm in Palmer, about an hour’s drive north of Anchorage. Once inside they will have the chance to view 75 members of the musk ox herd, including three young calves just getting their feet under them. Also a draw is an old bull named Trebek, named after the late “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek, a benefactor of the facility.
“Who doesn’t want to celebrate Mother’s Day with a musk ox mom and the most adorable calf you’re ever going to find in your life?” said Mark Austin, the farm’s executive director.
Mother’s Day is the traditional start of the summer season for the farm, which traces its roots back to 1964 and at several locations before moving in 1986 to Palmer.
“When we opened the doors here, we started doing Mother’s Day as a grand opening every year,” Austin said.
He called it a natural decision, celebrating mothers with cute, newborn baby musk oxen on the grounds. So far this year, three baby musk oxen have been born and are on display, and more could be on the way.
Mother’s Day is the busiest day of the year, attracting more than 1,500 visitors. It is a tradition that now stretches over three generations.
“It’s a huge, just kind of rite of passage for a lot of people,” Austin said. “If we ever talked about not doing it, there’d be a riot.”
Musk oxen are ice age survivors.
“They were running around with saber-toothed tigers and mastodons, and they’re the ones that lived,” Austin said. The herd members all have diverse personalities, he added, and they are crafty, smart and inquisitive.
Of course you’ll want to see a video taken on Mother’s Day. And yes, the babies are adorable. These are some hairy critters!
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is spending time ordering her pangs of conscience, though I don’t know if its from the worst on down or from the smallest up.
A: What are you doing?Hili: I’m putting in order my pangs of conscience.
Ja: Co ty tu robisz?Hili: Porządkuję wyrzuty sumienia.
*******************
From Meow:
From reader Pliny the in Between’s Far Corner Cafe:
From Jesus of the Day, an early cat painting:
Masih is still recovering so I’ll demonize myself by showing a tweet from JKR, which I couldn’t resist because it features a CAT. I can’t embed it for some reason, but click on the screenshot to go to the original. It’s funny, too.
From Luana, none must have prizes:
It is absurd that Palo Alto School district just voted to remove honors biology for all students & already removed honors English. They call it de-laning. I call it an assault on excellence. I took many honors classes at Council Rock High in PA.
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) May 12, 2025
From Simon: something I didn’t know (or didn’t remember):
Let’s break this down—because the gaslighting is wild:📌Oct 2022 – Biden signs EO to cut drug prices📌Jan 2025 – Trump takes office and kills Biden’s EO to cut drug prices📌May 2025 – Trump signs his own EO to lower drug pricesTrump canceled Biden’s plan then brought it back w/his name on it.
— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline.com) 2025-05-13T03:51:45.060Z
Two from my feed:
I’ve never seen a cat make that shape in my life 😭😂 pic.twitter.com/HDrjgdLcsJ
— Why you should have a cat (@ShouldHaveCat) May 12, 2025
You go, bro (or girl)!:
Bro takes revenge on the vacuum cleaner for all the cats pic.twitter.com/eykKUEJtJT
— contents that ll heal your depression 🌻 (@catshealdeprsn) May 13, 2025
One that I reposted from the Auschwitz memorial:
A Jewish girl from Ukraine was gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz. She was about 14.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-05-14T09:47:43.530Z
Two from Dr. Cobb. First, spot the predators:
Give yourself points if you can find the little predators lurking among these bicolored frostweed aphids (Uroleucon verbesinae). I'm quite pleased with how this photo from today turned out. Might make a good print.
— Alex Wild (@alexwild.bsky.social) 2025-05-13T00:55:28.072Z
Matthew says that this animal is new to him. I’ve heard of it!
Meet the thin-spined porcupine! This nocturnal rodent, also known as the bristle-spined rat, is found only in parts of northern and central Brazil. Unlike many other porcupines, this one's quills are more like bristles than spines!Photo: ultimosrefugios, CC BY-NC 4.0, iNautralist
— American Museum of Natural History (@amnh.org) 2025-05-12T14:52:46.896Z
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence. -Hal Borland, author and journalist (14 May 1900-1978)
Infinite boiling softens the stone
something I heard once – unknown origin!
That’s a little poem.
Infinite boiling
Softens the stone
Something I heard once
Original unknown
….
M I N D B L O W N
Poetry team!
🙌😁
Knowing trees, knowing yew,
There is little they can do.
Knowing trees, knowing you,
Just dig in and make – it – through.
Brilliant!
Very good!
The white haired lady in the Biscuit Lady picture looks like Paula Deen, the celebrity chef known for southern cooking and generous use of butter.
It could be; there are photos of celebrities all over the restaurant.
WPATH shows what socio-gnosticism blended with science/medicine looks like – gnosis of a social order, heretofore hidden and incarcerated by the gnostic social prison, to be smashed free by the instruments of medicine according to the rules set by WPATH. The blending is by dialectic – a paltering marriage of truth with lies. Here it comes as usual :
Science, Politics, and Gnosticism
Eric Voegelin
1968, 1997
Regenery Press, Chicago;
Washington D.C.
Very glad to read the small but intense duckling report – phew [wipes brow]! (… and no gnosticism required!)
What is of more concern to me than “de-laning” is that Palo Alto appears to still be teaching biology first to high schoolers. In adopting the disciplines of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), which they claim to have done, they could easily teach physical sciences (nee physics and chemistry) first, followed by life sciences (nee biology, previously botany and zoology), and concluded with Earth and space sciences. The current ordering of biology first is a more than a century old concept from the 1892 Committee of Ten Report which developed a national framework for the emergent U.S. high schools’ college preparatory curriculum. Since that time the mid-20th century happened in which biology became heavily biochemical in nature. Yet chemistry is still taught after biology in virtually all states…and of course physics is the basis of chemistry. The reason/excuse for the order in 1892 was the need for math sophistication for physics and that math was to be taught senior year. Algebra is now taught much earlier and a couple of thousand high schools, mostly specialty schools, in the U.S. have adopted the late Nobel Prize Laureate Leon Lederman’s “physics-first” philosophy, but to my (admittedly a couple of years dated) knowledge no state has and even no full school district has. Lederman’s efforts date to the mid-90’s, yet the sclerotic K-12 kingdom plods on. (Botany and zoology were to be taught first because in 1892, being simply classification of plants and animals, they required no math and were already taught in primary school).
Oh…and so glad that all of Esther and Mordecai’s family is present and accounted for this morning!
Interesting points, Jim, which hadn’t occured to me. Makes so much sense to teach especially chemistry before biology. I actually hated the old high school bio, which was mainly memorizing phyla, iirc. Became so much more interesting when it became biochem and molecular genetics.
In testifying to our state board of ed, I even pointed out that chapter one of their approved standard high school biology textbook is called “chemistry”! I guess all the chemistry one needs for biology in the 21st century can be done in a week. Objections to a change in order are several fold: we have always done it that way; we have too many biology teachers and not enough chemistry and physics teachers; kids need logarithms for chemistry which are not taught until algebra 2. With web-based training and education, surely some biology teachers can add chemistry or physics endorsements to their resumes over a couple of summer PAID coursework (they are science teachers for Ceiling Cat’s sake). Surely, a math teacher and chemistry teacher can get together over the summer on a 12-month extended contract and put together the course “Algebra 1 with Applications to Chemistry” so kids will have the math needed to take chemistry right after algebra 1. It is simply a matter of absent political will in this nation.
When I taught Introductory Biology, I always reviewed basic chemistry and (very) basic physics before getting into biochemistry and then cell biology.
The course was for non-majors and a lot of them really needed to be brought up to speed on this material before we could deal with biology.
FWIW, my high school’s science sequence (for the academic stream / track / lane¹) was chemistry, biology, physics, advanced chemistry. I just assumed that this was The Way Things Were Done. Personally I would have preferred a second dose of physics instead of chemistry, but it was The Way etc.
Re having too many biology teachers and not enough chemistry and physics teachers, I suspect it’s due to the F/M ratio in the respective fields, and a similar ratio among school teachers in general. OTOH, half of my HS maths teachers were women (but none of the science teachers).
And I told my local LLM to write a joke starting with “A math teacher and chemistry teacher walk into a bar….”
Its reply was so much better than expected:
……..
¹ Maybe I’m reading too much into the fact that these now-demeaned terms are for things that actually enable you get somewhere. Too “Western”?
How much of logs do you really need in beginning chem except maybe for pH?
That is enough for an excuse. And easily cured in Alg 1 I believe. Math course order was created independent of science courses. It is well past time to see a math/science/engineering design collaborative development to replace the stovepipes of the previous century. Another example is VA added “modeling and simulation” to the lab and experimental methodology standard for most sciences (a GOOD thing), but has not addressed the idea of numerical integration techniques anywhere in its math standards.
If, as HHS says, there really is no such thing as a transgender kid, — there isn’t, because no one can be born as the wrong sex — why would any of them ever “need” to take hormones and surgery intended to make their healthy bodies (sort of, vaguely) resemble the sex they aren’t, ablate their ability to secrete their own hormones, and inflict a lifetime of chronic illness on them? What diagnosis would the doctor be making to drive such treatment as medically necessary and ethically in the patient’s best interests? (And which would or will violate the law anyway in several states, regardless of what diagnosis the doctor wrote down.)
By the way, since today’s Hili includes a duck report, I will report that the bufflehead ducks and goldeneyes that were wintering around our storm-water retention ponds appear to have all migrated north. We are at the northern limit of their winter range, so this is to be expected. Several mallards and a great blue heron ot two are in residence.
The whole trans cult, when we realize, will one day make lobotomies and the thalidomide scandals look like a walk in the park. Lobotomy especially: mutilation and lifetime disasters of trans as well as the sheer numbers of patients make lobotomy look piddlingly small.
It’ll be little comfort to know people like Helen Joyce, J.K. Rowling, Colin Wright etc. (and me) were right to yell about it for years.
The last decade will be remembered as an era of moral panics and socially transmitted manias – all detrimental to society. More changes than the 60s and all of them bad.
D.A.
NYC
Very well stated. For years JKR was the lone voice crying in the wilderness; and when the Humanists recalled Dawkins’ award, I resigned from their association.
RE: “mutilation and lifetime disasters of trans as well as the sheer numbers of patients make lobotomy look piddlingly small.”
I don’t know. The lobotomy era lasted from 1935 to about 1965. (The inventor of this barbaric procedure got a Nobel prize for it.) The consequences of a lobotomy last a lifetime. One would have to look into how many people got lobotomies, to say whether the lobotomy era was worse than the trans medical craze. The trans craze will be about 20 years, when it’s over (about 2010-2030).
On lobotomies:
Paul A. Offit: Pandora’s lab: seven stories of science gone wrong. Washington, D.C., National Geographic, 2017
Chapter 5: Turning the Mind Inside Out. pp.131-159
Andrew Scull: Desperate remedies: psychiatry’s turbulent quest to cure mental illness. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2022
Chapters 9-11, pp.135-187
The scale of both manias are hard to pin down, for sure Peter, but I’d argue a few points as to why trans was worse:
Lobotomy was done in an era where the tool kit for understanding and treating mental health was very insufficient. No scans, most drugs yet to be invented, various psych theories yet unmade. They were flying blind.
Lobotomy patients/victims trended much older and were in serious states psychologically – mostly they were out of all options. Trans is routinely done on young, healthy bodies.
20 vs 30 years (assuming it stops in 2030) is something but from memory lobotomy started slow for a decade before gathering steam. Trans burst into society in full force between 2010-2014 and, unlike lobotomy (I think), enveloped the entire Anglosphere. It is hugely popular in the UK, Canada and Australia. (I am unsure of the complete numbers with trans – to some extent they are unknowable given how we take records in the US, and do we include the permanent damage of puberty blockers/cross sex hormones and/or surgery?)
Trans is more “infectious” in that being a social transmitted mania it spreads by media and meme. This was the main insight of Lisa Lipman and RODG.
And seemingly all of society and the media believes the nonsense of genderwang. Lobotomy was always classed as a treatment not, as Time wrote on its front page in 2014 “The New Civil Rights”.
The above are the basis of my (admittedly broad) comparison.
cheers,
D.A.
NYC
Another way in which the trans mania is worse: how many people lost their jobs or got arrested for disagreeing with the idea behind lobotomies? How many familes were ripped apart due to them?
ISTM that Thalidomide was a public horror but not a scandal. It was tested for pregnancy complications. There was (AFAIK) no malfeasance or negligence involved.
Why then the horrible results? It’s chemistry. Search ‘Thalidomide racemic’. Like with air crashes, we learn to avoid repeating the same mistake.
I am struggling to believe that the HHS report on gender medicine in minors was commissioned in the Trump administration. When that very long report came out, we were barely 100 days in.
The predators among the aphids are lacewing larvae.
“The predators among the aphids are lacewing larvae.”
The longer, skinny critters, right?
Surely you can’t imagine that the report was commissioned by the Biden administration.
Biscuits are a fine thing, particularly when cream gravy (with sausage bits) is included. But another place that took that concept to a great height is Venice, where they put green olives in what would be considered a dinner roll here. Incredible how well they pair. Whenever someone mentions Venice, my reply isn’t about San Marco Square or any of that – it’s these these olive rolls! They pair extremely well with Soave, too.
Regarding the JK Rowling tweet:
I clicked through (and I love the Gif of the cat appearing dumbfounded and disbelieving) and looked at a view of the responses to it:
Sick Burn:
https://x.com/moment_mirthful/status/1921238914691412419
Funny photo and cute little kid, but it’s clearly photochopped.
Trump’s coziness with Qatar is costing him support in certain Israel supporting circles.
I suppose the numbers aren’t huge but it’s worth noting.
This woman was formerly a big supporter.
https://evebarlow.substack.com/p/pricks
Reader comments show a drop off in support too.
I’ve noticed a bit of… disquiet.. and concern from the Big Zionists and Israelis on twitter/x.
It is partly why I couldn’t vote for Trump. As I explained to a fellow Jewish atheist: sure he’s good on Israel NOW, but what if Netanyahu doesn’t compliment the chocolate cake at Mar a Lago or slights Trump in some way? The chaos makes any bet impossible.
Let’s hope Trump’s recent noises are just the usual attention seeking babble and that the larger ship of state continues towards Israeli victory. Keep well Frau K
D.A.
NYC
Very happy to hear the missing duck returned! An assignment for Duck Tracy.
I’m glad you’re feeding them the good stuff!
My mealworms bring all the birds to the yard. 🎶
I am glad to hear that Lazarus has risen from the dead! We have seen crows hound baby rabbits in our yard and it’s a terrible sight. (I will spare the details.)
I probably won’t read the new HHS report on gender-affirming care, but I’m very glad to read your summary. I hope that the report brings evidence back into the care of people with gender dysphoria.
I’m reading today that Trump signed a deal with Qatar that promises $1.2 trillion in economic exchange. Information is from whitehouse.gov. Seems pretty bad to me, but what I know. Also today, Bill Ackman is learning that Trump may not like Jews as much as he thought.
Remember John all those “deals” – even the big Boeing one aren’t enforceable. They’re more akin to indications of interest or broad “intentions”.
If you look back at the “GREAT DEALS” signed during Trump 1, you’d find few ever actually worked out. They’re showcraft in other words.
best,
D.A.
NYC
Congratulations on the returned baby!
Re new cat shape: “Spider cat, spider cat. Does whatever a spider cat does.”