Saturday: Hili dialogue

Welcome to CaturSaturday, February 21, 2026, and Boiled Peanuts Day. If you ever see them for sale, as I did ion 2013 at this stand near Warm Springs, Georgia, buy them. They are terrific, especially when hot.  (Note that they use immature peanuts.)

It’s also National Sticky Bun Day, World Kombucha Day (again? I still haven’t had it), World Pangolin Day, and World Whale Day.

Today’s Google Doodle is on freestyle skiing. Click to see where it goes:

The Olympics end tomorrow, after the U.S. men’s ice hockey team play’s Canada. Will we have another “Miracle on Ice” after 46 years. I think so.

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

Da Nooz:

*I wrote last night about the Supreme Court ditching Trump’s recently-imposed tariffs. Whether he can circumvent that, as he pledges, remains to be seen.

*The WaPo reports that a poll of Americans show that most of us think Trump has gone “too far” with his immigration scheme. (Article is archived here.)

Thirteen months into President Donald Trump’s second term, a growing majority of Americans have soured on his handling of immigration, with 58 percent saying he has gone too far deporting undocumented immigrants, a rise of eight points since last fall, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll.

The survey finds that a slightly higher number, 62 percent, oppose the aggressive tactics of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a result that comes after federal immigration personnel shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis last month. More than half the public is “upset” or “angry” about enforcement operations in that city.

*A group of faculty at the University of British Columbia is suing the school for promulgating social-justice initiatives that, they say, violates a provincial law requiring universities to be politically neutral.

Job candidates required to describe how they would advance “decolonization.” A video that suggests starting meetings by identifying oneself as a “settler” on unceded native lands. A political scientist who says he was instructed to teach game theory “from an Indigenous perspective.”

Each, a practice at the University of British Columbia, is now evidence in a lawsuit brought against the school by a group of professors who claim such social-justice efforts violate a provincial law requiring universities to stay out of politics.

The suit, filed last spring and currently under review by the Supreme Court of British Columbia, has set off a major legal and cultural battle at one of Canada’s top universities, in which each side accuses the other of trying to push an activist political agenda in the name of free speech.

The case underscores how Trump-era opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts has spread north to Canada. But more than a snow-covered battlefield in the culture war, the suit raises important questions about when public speech in a democratic society is political.

The professors who petitioned the court say the university’s measures promote a campus culture that punishes contrarian ideas and pressures academics to endorse progressive political positions with which they may disagree. They seek to ban the university from a broad range of actions that include requiring job applicants to commit to diversity principles; and the making of so-called land acknowledgments, ceremonial statements which often precede public events and that note Canada is the ancestral land of Indigenous people.

The professors’ case hinges on a decades-old provincial law, called the University Act, which mandates that universities be “nonsectarian and nonpolitical in principle.” But the law does little to clarify the bigger question before the court: What counts as political?

“In recent years, university administrators have given in to the calls to take political positions,” said Josh Dehaas, a lawyer for the Canadian Constitution Foundation, a libertarian organization, who is representing the professors suing the university. “In this particular era, the pressure they have given into is often progressive causes.” Before 2020, he added, an accomplished academic did not need “to commit to D.E.I. principles to become a professor at U.B.C.”

The four professors who brought the lawsuit declined to speak on the record while the case is under review by the court.

In a brief submitted to the court, the university argued the professors have not shown proof of harm to their careers or liberties, and denied that either land acknowledgments or D.E.I. policies constitute “political activity” under the law.

Well, that last bit depends on whether ideological activities, which DEI measures and land acknowledgments clearly are (they’re banned at the University of Chicago), count as political activities.  I predict the plaintiffs will lose on the grounds that they don’t have standing (is that a thing in Canada?). That is, they haven’t shown personal damages to themselves.  But at least at the University of Chicago all these activities are not permitted since they count as violations of institutional neutrality.

* Three articles from the NYT about the new ballroom that’s supposedly going to replace the already-demolished East Wing of the White House. And oy, vey!—look at the titles.

• A commission approved final plans for Trump’s $400 million ballroom addition to the White House, even as one member revealed that the public’s response to the plan had been widely negative.
• The final ballroom plan is notably different from earlier versions. See the changes (archived here).
• Trump has been dumping rubble from the project into a public park in Washington — part of his plan to turn it into a luxury golf destination.

Excerpts from all three:

An arts commission stacked with President Trump’s allies approved his $400 million ballroom on Thursday, bypassing the normal review process and fast-tracking the vote on a project that would transform the profile of the White House.

The vote came even as the panel’s longtime secretary — one of the only people involved who was not appointed by Mr. Trump — described mass opposition to the project, saying he had received more than 2,000 messages from across the country in one week.

The Commission of Fine Arts had been expected to hold only a preliminary vote on Thursday, but the panel chose to push forward and give its final approval ahead of schedule. Mr. Trump wants to have the ballroom built and open to guests within a year and a half.

You can see the newest plans at the second link above

In an earlier design released by Shalom Baranes — the new architect hired by Mr. Trump in December — the east and south porticoes each had a triangular pediment. The one on the south portico has been removed in the latest plan.

But the pediment on the east portico (not shown in the view above) remains and its height is about four feet taller than the roof of the executive residence. Critics have said the design would dwarf the existing White House.

. . . These are the first renderings that include details about a garden that would replace the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, which was demolished with the old East Wing

Finally, the number and design of the arched windows on the new “wing” have changed. You can see the changes if you subscribe to the Post, or see them at the free archived page here.

As for the new golf course, it will be a luxury course that will replace the cheap public golf course on an island with both a nice park and the Jefferson Memorial. Here’s what’s there now:

It’s a neat place. There are hundreds of cherry blossom trees, a road for cycling that wraps around the perimeter of the island, and a primo picnic area at its eastern tip. Most of the park is taken up by an affordable golf course that has been there in some form since the beginning. The course, East Potomac Golf Links, is a bit shabby, but the prices are unbeatable: $42 for 18 holes.

This will be replaced by a much more expensive course, I think, and sue me if it won’t have Trump’s name on it. I am not sure if what he’s doing there is even legal. The plans:

“We’re going to make it a beautiful, world-class, U.S. Open-caliber course,” Mr. Trump said when asked about this last month. “Ideally, we’re going to have major tournaments there and everything else. It’s going to bring a lot of business into Washington.”

That would involve demolishing the adjacent park and replacing it with a course that would cost hundreds of dollars to play. And no, it may not be legal, but it’s already a fait accompli as debris is dumped all over the island.

*Daily college Jew-dissing. This one comes from Haverford College in the eponymous Philadelphia town, and was reported in The Philadelphia Inquirer. The excuse: an Israeli reporter was supposed to speak. (h/t Ginger K.)

During a talk by an Israeli journalist at Haverford College earlier this month, a group of about a dozen masked people sat and stood in the audience.

At one point, one of them began shouting through a bullhorn, “Death to IOF,” or Israeli Occupying Forces, a name critics use to refer to Israel Defense Forces, and “Shame,” according to a video of the incident and people who attended the event. The protesters’ faces were covered by masks or keffiyehs, a symbol of Palestinian identity.

“When Gaza has burned, you will all burn, too,” the protester shouted at the audience of about 180 people, many of them members of the local Jewish community, according to another video viewed by The Inquirer.

An audience member grabbed at the bullhorn and appeared to make contact with the protester as the protester yelled in his face, according to a video. The college’s campus safety personnel ejected both the bullhorn user and the audience member and has since banned both from campus, college officials said, noting that neither is an employee, student, or alumnus of Haverford.

The event sparked renewed charges of antisemitism on the highly selective liberal arts campus, which already is under scrutiny by a Republican-led congressional committee for its handling of antisemitism complaints and is the subject of an open investigation by the U.S. Department of Education.

It will also lead to changes in Haverford’s policies. In a message to the campus after the event, president Wendy Raymond — who faced intense questioning from the congressional committee about the school’s response to antisemitism last year — said “shouting down a speaker whom one does not agree with is never acceptable and stands outside of our shared community values.”

College officials acknowledged that Haverford needs to upgrade its event policies and said changes would be rolled out no later than after spring break.

Some people who attended the event to hear journalist Haviv Rettig Gur said they were afraid because they did not know who the masked attendees were or what they had in their belongings, and in light of recent mass violence at Jewish events around the world.

Click on the screenshot below to see the screaming, unhinged (and, of course, masked) student on Instagram. You can see a different but equally disgusting video embedded in the Inquirer article. (Sound up, but not too loud!) Finally, you can hear the professor in the class talking sternly to the protestors here. Finally, if you want to write to President Raymond, her email is publicly available here. I’m writing to her in a minute.

*Finally, in Chicago news, a local man filed a lawsuit against Buffalo Wild Wings, arguing that their menu item “boneless chicken wings” was deceptive, as the “boneless wings” were not wings at all, but just breast meat formed into winglike shapes.  To me that’s deception, but a federal judge said that the term was okay.  Here’s an ABC news clip in which both reporters make as many jokes about chicken wings as possible:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej finishes Hili’s thought:

Hili: If we weigh it all…
Andrzej: Then the outcome could truly surprise us.

In Polish:

Hili: Jeśli zważymy wszystko…
Ja: To wynik może nas bardzo zdziwić.

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

From CinEmma, presumably photographed on Valentine’s Day:

From The Language Nerds:

From Cats, Coffee, & Chaos 2.0: A cat-loaf sandwich (is that cream cheese?)

From Masih, an ineffably sad post showing a ten-year-old boy whose mom was killed by Iranian cops:

“I wanted to become a police officer… but the police shot and killed my mom, I don’t want to be a police anymore…..My mom is dead. One bullet, and my whole life collapsed.”

These are the words of 10-year-old Ilya, standing at his mother’s grave on her 40th day in Iran and his… pic.twitter.com/JRUFyxW2j7

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) February 20, 2026

From Luana; this is horrific:

If public schools are going to be this explicitly political, they cannot be surprised when legislators treat them as such and start targeting their funding. https://t.co/lKd7CuREkZ

— Corey Walker 🇺🇸 (@CoreyWriting) February 18, 2026

From Malcolm, a cat wants into a Mercedes:

OPEN THE DOOR! 😾 pic.twitter.com/n5zB9wKG75

— Posts Of Cats (@PostsOfCats) January 31, 2026

Larry the Cat makes a funny:

Why does he look like he’s investigating my murder?! https://t.co/nFZ0KodbeP

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) February 14, 2026

One from my feed. Crikey, look at the Taliban’s new laws!

Afghan Taliban passes “domestic violence” law, but it’s not what it sounds like

Under the new law, men have the full right to beat their wives and children, as long as it doesn’t result in “broken bones or open wounds.”

A husband can face up to 15 days in jail if he seriously… pic.twitter.com/IiU5XkIDqP

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) February 20, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

Two Dutch Jewish sisters, the older one a ten-year-old, were gassed as soon as they arrived in Auschwitz. https://t.co/jr6j6tjB6R

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) February 21, 2026

Two from Matthew. First, the U.S. vs the UK:

— Mike Luckovich (@mluckovich.bsky.social) 2026-02-19T19:42:02.342Z

And a lovely nudibranch:

Nudibranch Phyllidia #gili #giliislands #lombok #diving #scuba #trawangan #diveandstay #giliair #pets #ocean #sealife #marinelife #padi #seaslug #nudibranch

— Terumbu (@terumbudivers.com) 2026-02-18T10:22:22.000Z