Welcome to Monday, September 29, 2025, the beginning of the “work” week and my last full day of R&R in Boston/Cambridge. It’s also National Coffee Day, and I have a latte before me as I’m typing this. Here’s about a dozen ways to make latte art for beginners. (I haven’t tried this, though I make my own each morning at work.)
It’s also National Corn Day in Mexico, National Mocha Day, National Biscotti Day, and National Goose Day.
Here’s a barnacle goose parent (Branta leucopsis) with two babies, which I photographed at Longyearbyen, Svvalbard, on July 8.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the September 29 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz: Lots of news today. I will be brief as some items are interesting but not earthshaking.
*Among today’s horrors, four people were shot to death in an attack on a Mormon church. The gunman died in the exchange of fire.
At least four people were killed after a gunman attacked a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc Township, Mich., on Sunday.
The attack occurred when a man drove a car into the church building, set fire to it and shot worshipers, the authorities said. Eight other people were wounded, one of whom was in critical condition.
The gunman died after a confrontation with officers. Investigators had not yet determined a motive.
We’re getting more and more jaded about these things, but of course nobody blames the surfeit of guns in America. “We can’t do anything to stop them,” people say. And since we can’t fix the mind of every loony who hates someone else, this will keep happening.
*The U.S. government is likely to shut down in two days, and the Congress still appears divided.
President Trump, facing the threat of a government shutdown in two days, is expected to meet with the top congressional leaders in both parties at the White House on Monday afternoon as they clash over the terms of a deal to keep federal funds flowing.
Should the group fail to strike an agreement to extend spending and enact it into law within hours, the bulk of federal operations would come to a halt on Wednesday at 12:01 a.m., with broad consequences for the country.
Democrats have refused to agree to a stopgap measure offered by Republicans to extend federal funding into November, demanding that any spending legislation include additional money for health care programs to protect Americans from losing coverage. Without Democrats’ backing, Republicans, who have only a narrow majority in the Senate, cannot muster the 60 votes needed to push through an extension. But the G.O.P. has refused to agree to any concessions.
With the two parties at an impasse, Mr. Trump last week rejected the idea of striking a deal to win bipartisan support and canceled a meeting he had scheduled with the two top congressional Democrats, Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, both of New York.
I’m already resigned to the government shutting down, and the usual finger-pointing on both sides of the aisle. I could worry about all this, but I have no control over it. Writing to my Senators and Representative has proven useless, because they always send me back a boilerplate letter saying they’re going to do what I object to.
*Bad news for Canada: the government has ended door-to-door delivery of mail.
Hours after Canada announced on Thursday that it had ordered its beleaguered postal service to end door-to-door mail service, shut down some rural post offices and consolidate its operations, postal workers began a walkout.
The government’s announcement came as steep financial losses threaten the mail carrier’s survival. But it also landed in the midst of protracted labor talks in which the Canadian Union of Postal Workers has been fighting to preserve jobs and services.
Canada Post, a government-owned mail service, has lost more than 5 billion Canadian dollars, or $3.6 billion, since 2018, largely because of a drastic drop in letter mail volumes. Hopes that moving parcels could revive the organization have been undermined by the highly competitive nature of that delivery service and new companies’ use of nonunionized gig workers.
At-home postal delivery had already been a fading tradition across much of Canada, with only about 25 percent of Canadians getting mail at their homes. For most Canadians, mail is placed in individual boxes that are part of community mailboxes near their homes or apartments.
Still, the elimination of remaining door-to-door service translates to about four million addresses, the government said.
Only a quarter of Canadians get mail at home! What about those remote houses and farms in Manitoba? Do they have to drive miles to get their letters and packages?
*The Washington Post has an article that, despite the title, defends evolution! Who would have guessed. Click to read; the article is by Ella Al-Shamahi, the host of “Human,” premiering on PBS this month (thanks to several readers for sending me the link, which is also archived here):
Here’s an extract:
Two decades later, I am an evolutionary biologist. Working on a documentary about our species’ 300,000-year-old story made me reflect on my own evolution — and how, when you ask people to do something simple such as “believe the science,” you might actually be asking them to pay an almost unimaginable price.
The moment I finally admitted that evolution was real didn’t feel liberating. It felt like grief. I had spent years running up against hard evidence that, despite my best efforts, I simply couldn’t refute. I was in the shower, and I cried inconsolably. Accepting evolution meant more than just accepting a scientific theory. It meant leaving my community and almost every friend I had ever known, and it was the final nail in the coffin of my arranged marriage.
This is true: for many people evolution is the first step onto the slippery slope that destroys not only their faith, but their connection to their family. At one of the old Amazing Meetins with James Randi, I was stopped on two occasions by ex-Orthodox Jews who left Judaism when they learned that evolution was true, but then were rejected by their families and their religious communities. They were alone, but had no regrets. This is the reason why I did not say much about religion in Why Evolution is True, but also the reason I subsequently wrote Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible. People beef about my thesis being wrong, but it isn’t—not in the way I construe “incompatibility”. Tell those ex-Jews that science and faith are compatible!
Author Al-Shamahi goes on:
By and large, we share the opinions of our tribe. So when we ask people to believe in climate modeling or vaccine science, what we are really asking people to do is choose between their community’s beliefs and an abstract dataset. It’s a direct referendum on the people they know and love. Most people will not betray their tribe for a stranger in a lab coat.
In biological terms, this is an extremely rational predisposition — or, put another way, it’s human nature. And it’s the main reason simply shouting “trust the science” will never truly change people’s minds.
Well, this is a bit misleading. I never shouted “trust the science” to try to change the minds of creationists. I showed them the evidence, and evidence is within the grasp of most people. Now evidence won’t change everybody’s minds—71% of Americans still think God had some hand in evolution (see below)—but, slowly, Americans are coming around. Here are the results from the latest Gallup poll: 37% of Americans are straight-up Biblical creationists, and 34% think God tweaked evolution. That adds up to 71% of evolutionary “supernaturalists.” But look at the steady increase of those who accept naturalistic evolution!:
He calls for empathy, and he has a point, but civility is more important than “empathy”, which means putting yourself in the shoes of the creationist and understanding why they reject the facts. I can’t really do that, but I can give the facts and let people decide for themselves, which they have to do anyway. More:
But data is not more important than other factors. You can’t overturn a worldview in one sitting, nor should you want to. In these conversations, I often find myself going beyond the science — wanting to talk about their life and mine. In 30 minutes, I can’t debate someone into believing the science, but I can show them a scientist who isn’t a shill, and they can show me a skeptic who has reasons for their doubt. I also point to people from within their community who accept the science. I explain that scientists are highly incentivized to overturn established theory. If I had disproved evolution, I would have undoubtedly won a Nobel Prize.
Evolution is the underlying assumption of biology; nothing in the field makes sense without it. It should trouble us that so many people still reject it. Paradigm shifts are possible, although parting with the beliefs of one’s tribe is an enormous decision. Empathy for that hesitation, not scorn for it, is the way forward.
Nobody who wants to change people’s minds about evolution will do so by mocking them. But the alternative to scorn is not empathy, but civility and sympathy. And FACTS.
*You won’t find this in the MSM, but it’s in the Nation. Cornell University has suspended the classes of a pro-Palestinian professor who tried to exclude an Israeli Jewish student from his class on Gaza. The professor himself may be suspended, probably temporarily, for violating civil rights laws.
Dr. Eric Cheyfitz, a professor of American studies at Cornell, said the university has canceled the two classes he was set to teach this semester. It comes as the provost is recommending that he be suspended for two semesters without pay on the grounds that he violated federal antidiscrimination laws, The Nation has learned.
Cheyfitz’s lawyer, Luna Droubi, said it’s the latest turn in months of investigations—carried out by different university bodies—into whether Cheyfitz, 84, told a graduate student last semester to drop a class he was teaching about Gaza because the student is Israeli. Cheyfitz, who is Jewish and whose daughter and grandchildren live in Israel, denies the allegation.
The class, titled “Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance,” had come under fire from politicians, activists, alumni, and even Cornell’s president, who criticized the course description as “radical” and “biased” in a leaked e-mail last year.
Cheyfitz—who is tenured and holds an endowed chair as the Ernest I. White Professor of American Studies and Humane Letters—is an outspoken advocate for Palestinians and has taught at Cornell for more than two decades. Cheyfitz claimed that the university is attempting to silence him as part of a broader crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism. “It’s pretty clear at this point that this is an attempt to get rid of me and the kind of material I teach, particularly material I taught on Gaza,” Cheyfitz said.
“The seriousness of this faculty member’s admitted actions while performing his teaching responsibilities warranted reassignment until Cornell can complete the disciplinary process,” wrote university spokesperson Rebecca Valli in a statement.
There will be more to come, as another Cornell professor is demanding a civil rights investigation into the whole affair. Remember that Cornell ranked very low on FIRE’s college free-speech rankings, with a grade of “F” and a position of 227/out of 257 (the bottom) in its freedom-of-speech policies.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili had insomnia as well as bad dreams:
Hili: I couldn’t sleep last night.
Andrzej: So?
Hili: I was a giant cat chasing giant mice.
In Polish:
Hili: Miałam bezsenną noc.
Ja: I co?
Hili: Byłam wielkim kotem i polowałam na wielkie myszy.
*******************
From Stacy:
From Cinemma:
From Give Me a Sign:
Ther’s not much new from Masih, so here’s her stand-in:
Remember: there is no evidence whatsoever that a sexual predator would claim to be a woman so he could enter female changing rooms and public bathrooms. It literally never happens. https://t.co/NEOhmrssMO
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 26, 2025
From The Onion via Simon:
Trump To Travel With Own Escalator Following U.N. Embarrassment
Some happy cows via Malcolm:
A compilation of happy cows.pic.twitter.com/3OaN6HjHKv
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) September 13, 2025
Two from my feed. First: a historic event:
A stray dog accidentally becomes the first to cross the border between Romania and Hungary after Romania became a full member of the European Union.
— Be Believing (@Be_Believing) September 27, 2025
Look at that tail go!
— 💖 (@twaniimals) September 27, 2025
One I reposted from the Auscthwitz Memorial:
This Belgian Jewish girl was gassed to death as soon as she arrived at Auschwitz. She was twelve.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-09-29T11:22:52.841Z
Two posts from Dr. Cobb. The ant in the first one is absolutely real:
Turtle Ant (Cephalotes varians): This is a species of arboreal ant of the genus Cephalotes which is most characterised by a shield shaped head which they use to block their nest entrances from intruders. Extraordinary photo taken by Alex Wild. #turtleant #ant #insect #nature #wildlife #ants #insects
— Wildlife (@worldwildlife.bsky.social) 2025-09-28T17:38:03.403Z
. . . and pool-playing kitties:
Timeline cleanser 🐈
— Steve 🏳️🌈🇬🇧 (@wohyeahwohyeah.bsky.social) 2025-09-26T17:37:33.211Z
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
There are two possible outcomes: If the result confirms the hypothesis, then you’ve made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you’ve made a discovery. -Enrico Fermi, physicist and Nobel laureate (29 Sep 1901-1954)
The news about Canada Post is less dire than it seems. The change is no more door-to-door delivery of mail to single-family homes. In my suburb <1/4 of people live that way (similar to the national average). Everyone else gets mail delivered to communal mailboxes like mine (behind locked doors in my apartment building). The beef with community mailboxes for single-family homes is that they’re outdoors and the versions that Canada Post builds are flimsy and easily broken into (lots of stolen mail).
You are a strange yet noble people, Mike.
I saw the article and thought “WTF? – they don’t have their own mailboxes or something? Are moose somehow involved?”
Glad you cleared it up. I was going to cancel sending a birthday cake to Leslie Mac this year, but it turns out he can just pick it up from some kind of… frozen communal dead drop?
best,
D.A.
NYC
I thought it might be related to the Iditarod.
My mailbox is about 400m from my driveway. But if I get a parcel that is too big to fit in the parcel box at the bottom, or needs a signature, I have to drive into town and line up at the post office. Unfortunately, the post office is only open on weekdays during working hours (OK for me, being retired, but awkward for working people). In the village where I used to live, everyone who lived within the village had to go to the post office to collect their mail. only those outside had it delivered, in the old days to their own mailbox, and then more recently to a ‘supermailbox.’
It’s plain that Canada Post is going to have to change, and the union cannot expect the taxpayer to keep pouring money into a business that runs at such a loss.
cats on the pool tables made me smile
“I was stopped on two occasions by ex-Orthodox Jews who left Judaism when they learned that evolution was true, but then were rejected by their families and their religious communities.” I just want to clarify that you are referring to the 14% (approx. 2.1 million) of Jews who are Haredi or ultra-orthodox. The vast majority of Jews, including the modern Orthodox, do believe in evolution and have found ways to either synchronize with their religious beliefs (for instance, interpreting the creation days in Genesis as symbolic or representing vast geological periods, aligning with scientific understanding of the universe’s age) or are follow Jewish movements that do not hold literal understandings of the Torah at all. Also, some prominent rabbis emphasize the ethical rather than strictly factual significance of scripture, leaving room for reconciliation with scientific theories, and I have known Haredi who are able to keep their faith with this sort of understanding.
Yes, I know this. I am, after all, a secular Jew. But many ultra-Orthodox Jews reject evolution. Did you think I didn’t already know what you’re saying?
And yes, though most Jews accept evolution (I think; there is no survey I know of), I still think that the religious tenets of Judaism, and particularly Orthodox Judaism, are as unfounded and silly as the tenets of other faiths.
Fellow secular atheist Jew here concurs with PCC(E). I’d also be curious about % of evolution believers.
In NYC I generally don’t talk to the “hats” (a gentle mocking nickname of our Orthodox brethren here – they wear hats, see?) about scientific stuff.
In fact here, one of the largest Jewish cities on earth, we don’t interact much at all. Those hats are over in Brooklyn and they have a nice time I assume.
D.A.
NYC
These are beaver-pelt hats, right? Is there any CITES (or similar) difficulty in supplying them?
Do I think YOU didn’t know–of course not. Do I think some of your readers who are not Jewish and may not know many Jews (if you have such readers) might not know the difference, yes, possibly. I live in the NY metro area where pretty much everyone probably knows the difference but I can say that my best friend who is from Arkansas would not have known in her youth one Jew from another (although most of the people she grew up with didn’t believe in evolution either.)
Re the evolution/religion section :
I think the ideas that (pretty sure) PCC(E) and Luana Maroja treat very well directly apply here and serve to bring some stability :
The Naturalistic Fallacy – and it’s inverse (I think – see their writing).
Obv. I am in haste but in a nutshell, evolution by natural selection is empirical knowledge, nor is Telological. Has nothing to do with sort of day to day experience of life and how one feels, and the social life – or rather, if it could be explained, you’d have a Theory of Everything. This is what Hegel thought he could see coming – a “secular” (but actually Gnostic) eschaton…. perhaps…
Hard to pinpoint!
Love that a dog is first to cross between Romania and Hungary, and it’s fun to see all those people pet Tubs. She has strong tail muscles!
The rest of the news? Not so great. I did read somewhere about Eric Cheyfitz at Cornell, but I don’t remember where. Probably not the MSM.
Evolution? Still true.
Yes, Tubs is wonderful – crazy dogs like her always cheer me up, they are such a delight. My sister has a dog who is very similar in that regard. He’s 12 now, so he’s getting on a bit, but he still reacts to everyone he meets, and everything he does, like he did when he was a pup, i.e. with unbridled joy and enthusiasm.
He seems to have a different technique from Tubs, though. Where she prioritises frequency, he goes for amplitude by thrashing the whole rear half of his body as well. It’s hilarious to watch. He generates serious power, too – it hurts if he catches you, and you can often hear him wagging from another room. Many times I have said to her, “I think someone is knocking on the door”, and she says, “No, that’s just Henry’s tail bashing the wall. He must have seen someone walking past.”
😊😊😊
Ella is a “she”.
I wondered if she would have a Brummie accent … she does
https://www.ted.com/talks/ella_al_shamahi_the_fascinating_and_dangerous_places_scientists_aren_t_exploring
Oh, how I needed the pool table kittens/cats today! Thanks so much.
This may get me relegated to moderation here at WEIT on account of being a deeply suspicious character, but ……
I just can’t abide lattes. Ruined espressos, if you ask me.
No, you don’t get banned for food tastes, which are subjective (except perhaps if you say you like rhubarb!). Lattes or coffee with milk or cream are in fact the morning drink of choice in northern Europe, while espressos are drunk at other times. I in fact would drink only espresso after my morning latte.
I could say that a morning espresso is a good way to upset one’s stomach, but I won’t. Also, espressos lack enough volume for morning coffee. A latte or cafe creme is a coffee experience; an espresso is a drug experience.
Er, at the risk of being banned, I like rhubarb.
I wonder if there is a genetic component at play with rhubarb. I recall reading that a specific gene has been found that determines whether one has taste receptors to taste or not a certain chemical that occurs in greens such as kale, Brussels sprouts, collard greens, and others.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t also a genetic issue with rhubarb. In my youth, rhubarb pie was standard fare at a diner and many if not most people liked it. But some people who dislike rhubarb don’t simply not care for it, but they DETEST it. The difference seems too big to just be different people having different tastes.
Just don’t own up to enjoying roast duck. 🫢 🫣
https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/duck__la_rhubarb_67136
If you over-indulged in the bar last night, take a couple of paracetamol. If you over-indulged in the bar during the last decade, buy an espresso machine!
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844024171691
The Post article by Al-Shamahi is interesting. “Follow the science fails” says person who followed the science … and succeeded.
” …since we can’t fix the mind of every loony who hates someone else,…”. Tsk tsk. The Elimination of Harmful Words Initiative at Stanford did not include “lunatic” in its long list of words to avoid, but it did include “insane”. It informed us that that word is: “Ableist language that trivializes the experiences of people living with mental health conditions.” It also forbade “sanity check” because “This term could be offensive to those dealing with mental health issues.” It was only yesterday that major US universities scrambled to issue similar lists—-a trend that could not be described without using some of the forbidden words.
On a similar track, it often irritates me when this or that person or group advocates for “removing the stigma attached to x, y or z,” whereby x, y or z is some bad thing such as depression, mental illness, cancer or whatever. As if these things should not have negative associations attached to them and we should all be positively inclined toward suffering from cancer! Everyone get off my fucking lawn!
Late arrival here, but the shooting in Michigan was less than 2 blocks from my house. I was home, and I heard the shots, which sounded like semi-automatic weapon fire. Then the sirens. After a while, I heard a burst of more shots which was when the shooter was taken out.
It got very very real very fast. Schools are closed today in Grand Blanc.
Jesus Mark – that’s pretty close to home. Stay firm, though. (From memory you’re a doctor?). Keep an eye on the statistics.
For eg: Once I had some planes fly into my old workplace … and it quite shook me up, but we’ve gotta look at the numbers and big picture.
Stay firm sir!
D.A.
NYC
Egads. Must’ve been unnerving. You even heard the weapons firing! That would have given me the creeps. Too close for comfort, for sure. Glad the shooter isn’t out there on the loose.
Daniel Dennett called evolution the “universal acid”, because it will corrode every ideology that comes in contact with it. It’s not unimportant at all! The implication “everything is heritable” in particular is devastating, and I have never been able to stop brooding on it.
Though one can observe that most people who laugh at creationists never take evolution that seriously, and avoid its implications as though evolution suddenly stopped or made exceptions for things they care about.
The last tweet of J. K. Rowling (as of now) starting “I’m seeing quite a bit of comment about this […]” is brilliant (more than usual). You should check it out.
I find myself puzzled by one aspect of the guns issue. There are countries such as Norway and Switzerland that have high rates of gun ownership but without the frequency of gun violence seen in the USA (Breivik’s massacre notwithstanding). I wonder why that is.
Gun-violence rates among white Americans are actually in line with those other countries; it is the gun-violence rate amongst black Americans that is wildly out of line (and which drives the stats for America overall).
Canadian, not a gun owner, so I can only guess. I think the problem is attitudes. It’s either a mature attitude of “this is a tool – for national defence, sport shooting, hunting etc.” or it is based on emotions. When guns become the means of defending oneself from the Abominable Other, problems follow. For me, the key question to ask someone owning a gun is “what for?” If you are collecting, what a bizarre hobby! I am not collecting guillotines… someone might steal them and use them for the intended purpose. If you just do sports shooting at a club, fine with me, but why do you think you should keep the gun at home if you do not intend to use it there? If you think it’s a good idea to have a loaded gun in the car… do you think you are the ONLY driver who thinks this is a good idea? That’s why road rage may end up causing a shootout. Power, not quite matched with responsibility. Maybe some people just love to feel powerful?
Yes, perplexing. In those other countries, and Canada, most of the large number of guns owned are shotguns and bolt-action heavy-caliber hunting rifles which in no country, including the United States, are used very often in crimes. The very high homicide rate in the U.S. is down to handgun violence among the dangerous classes, which most Americans can safely ignore as an intractable fact of life, and has nothing to do with long guns of the types widely owned in Canada and Europe.
So to figure out if Americans outside the underclass are more violent with their long guns than residents of other countries are with theirs, you need to look only at homicides committed with rifles, which I think the FBI says account for 3% of homicides. A peculiarly American motif is the mass shooting with a semi-automatic rifle that can kill a lot of people in thirty seconds. But you can’t just look at the overall homicide rate, which involves millions of illegal handguns wielded by erratic criminals, and impute from that that mass shootings with rifles are at all common. Also, America is a large country. More of almost everything happens there than happens anywhere else. Even if Americans are more likely than other rifle-owners to kill more people with them, aided by higher rate of fire, this difference shouldn’t be exaggerated by being lumped in with gangland handgun homicides.