Welcome to Thursday February 26, 2026, and only two days until Duck Month begins! It’s also National Pistachio Day, one of the trio of World’s Best Nuts (the others are macadamia nuts and cashews).
The seeds of Pistacia vera are not nuts but seeds, at least in the botanical sense. From Wikipedia:
The fruit is a drupe, containing an elongated seed, which is the edible portion. The seed, commonly thought of as a nut, is a culinary nut, not a botanical nut.
Here’s a video about their harvesting and production in Iran, the world’s largest source of the seeds:
It’s also Levi Strauss Day (the Jewish man who dressed the world was born on this day in 1829), National Chili Day, and, in the UK, National Toast Day.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the February 26 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*More on Trump’s two-hour State of the Union address on Tuesday, which, at 10,599 words, is the longest in American history (George Washington’s address lasted only ten minutes).
Going into the speech, Mr. Trump knew that he needed to use it to maneuver out of a politically treacherous moment for himself and his party. A majority of Americans oppose how Mr. Trump is pursuing his anti-immigration agenda, and more than 70 percent of them think his priorities are in the wrong place. His approval rating has plummeted to 41 percent.
His solution was to wrap himself in the imagery of American heroism with staged asides throughout the speech while throwing the blame for every problem, from the security of elections to the state of the economy, back on his opponents.
In a number of cases, Democrats gave Mr. Trump the confrontations he sought.
Representative Al Green of Texas, who was ejected from the chamber last year for waving his cane at Mr. Trump, was once again removed after he held up a sign proclaiming “BLACK PEOPLE AREN’T APES” — a reference to a racist video Mr. Trump recently shared on social media.
Representative Lauren Underwood of Illinois got up and walked out rather than “take another minute” of the speech. And Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a frequent target of Mr. Trump’s, was one of a handful who yelled at him.
“You’ve killed Americans!” she shouted as Mr. Trump talked about immigration enforcement.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” the president shot back.
When did these speeches become barroom brawls? Both sides are guilty of disrupting the President when he’s from the other party, and I’d be happier if the audience would be respectful; this would set an example, for instance, for speakers on college campuses. And I’m not sure about whether the Democrats should have remained seated when Trump asked Congress members to stand if they prioritized Americans over immigrants. This was a trap of the “are-you-still-beating-your-wife” variety, but I don’t think it will help the Democrats. Readers?
The NYT has fact-checked some of his assertions, and it’s not pretty. Here two of its verdicts as screenshots:
*In an article called “Why Iran will escalate” (article is archived), Foreign Policy assesses Trump’s motivations for attacking Iran and warns of potentially dangerous fallout from such an attack.
Trump’s own behavior also increases the risk of escalation. The president’s ever-intensifying wish to be seen as a historic peacemaker has led him to an unnecessarily binary choice—strong-arm Tehran into a major new deal or use substantial force. And the nebulousness of his motives makes this flash point much more dangerous. Trump seems interested, in no particular order, in demonstrating the prowess of the U.S. military, strengthening his negotiating position, showing he was serious when he vowed in a January Truth Social post to protect Iranian protesters, and differentiating his approach from President Barack Obama’s. This mishmash of objectives contrasts with the focus he brought to his previous successful operations and will make him less prepared if a strike does not yield the expected, swift capitulation. All told, today’s conditions mean that an attack by the United States on Iran could result in unexpectedly deadly retaliation—and a much longer and potentially damaging conflict for Washington.
. . . Iran knows that it cannot win an outright war with the United States or Israel. In theory, if Trump strikes, Tehran would be best off seeking a quick de-escalation—as it did with Israel in April and October of 2024 and with both countries in June 2025. But Iran is facing a very different situation now than it did then. Today, Israel and the United States both perceive Iran as a paper tiger. The proxy militias that it used to deter Israel and terrorize the Middle East for years have largely been neutralized. Its nuclear program is in ruins. Its air defenses are in tatters: the June strikes destroyed most of its surface-to-air missile sites and punched massive holes in its early-warning radar network. And in December, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went to Mar-a-Lago and got Trump’s permission to strike Iran’s ballistic missile program, the keystone of the country’s defense, at a time and place of Netanyahu’s choosing. This development threatens the very existence of the Islamic Republic. The program is Iran’s only remaining means of threatening Israel. (Iran also mostly makes these missiles domestically, so Israel would have to strike Iran every six months or so to keep the arsenal sufficiently degraded.)
. . . The ambiguity of Trump’s current intentions also changes the Iranian calculus. The U.S. president is not threatening to attack Iran because of any imminent threat or in response to any act of Iranian aggression. His motives are various and unclear: he is disappointed by the negotiations’ progress, he feels compelled to defend the redline he established with his Truth Social post, he is desperate to avoid unflattering comparisons to Obama, and he believes he can undertake major operations with minimal consequences. From Iran’s perspective, both Israel and the United States appear to have concluded that they can strike without any direct provocation and when doing so serves domestic political needs; Iran even thinks the two countries will be tempted to strike frequently. As a result, Iranian officials feel they need to give Trump a bloody nose or they will perpetually be at risk.
. . . . Finally, Tehran could target global oil flows and international shipping, sending energy prices up and creating a serious political liability for Trump. Iran may well encourage the Houthis to resume attacking ships transiting the Red Sea. The country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has also been preparing to selectively seize adversary ships in the Strait of Hormuz. If conflict with the United States deepens, Iran may seriously consider targeting the Gulf Arab states’ energy infrastructure directly. In 2019, during Trump’s last “maximum pressure” campaign, Iran directly attacked Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oil processing facility, the world’s largest. That assault appeared to be designed to damage easily replaceable components, thus limiting the consequences to the global energy supply. But if Tehran instead assaulted infrastructure that it knows would take longer to repair, the results would be much more damaging. The relationships between Iran and the Gulf Arab states are stronger now than they were then, but Tehran knows that Gulf leaders carry real influence with Trump and could appeal to him to back down if they came under pressure.
Iran may be weak. But it still has ways to inflict real pain on the United States—and much more incentive to try than it did before. If Trump wants to maintain the playbook that has worked for him, he will need a decisive and low-cost end to this saga. But powerful forces, both within him and external to him, have led him to dismiss the many off-ramps he already had. Iran hawks such as Senator Lindsey Graham are urging Trump not to “talk like Reagan and act like Obama,” a comparison Trump hates and fears. It may seem implausible that Trump, who promised his supporters an end to forever wars, would take out Iran’s leaders or commit ground troops to regime change and nation building. Yet he has come this far. He may well be pushed onward, regardless of the cost
The author, Nate Swanson, clearly doesn’t think the U.S. should attack Iran, noting that he’s not alone: “70 percent of Americans—and a majority of Republicans—oppose military intervention in Iran. Trump will struggle to justify any American deaths in a conflict of his own making.” I have predicted that Trump will attack, but also that if he really wants regime change, he’ll have to put American boots on the ground, and, as Swanson notes, any American deaths will be hard to justify to the public. But if he just wants to stop the nuclear program, the U.S. and Israel will have to bomb the country over and over again.
*The WaPo surveyed 2,300 Americans for what they think the best and the worst things that Trump has done during his Presidency.
To figure out which Trump measures stand out to the public, a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll asked more than 2,300 Americans to name the best and worst things he has done since January 2025. People who support Trump — 39 percent of U.S. adults in the poll approved of his job performance — were asked to describe his best actions, while the 60 percent of Americans who disapproved were asked to name his worst actions.
Here’s what Trump’s supporters and opponents said. (I added screenshots; the article is archived here):
Immigration is by far the area for which Trump gets the most approval. And while he’s reduced it to nearly a trickle, he’s done it in a scattershot and often hamhanded way, with most of the people apprehended not having committed criminal acts besides illegal entry into the U.S.:
Note that the first two areas, immigration and the economy, are the very areas cited by his supporters as his big accomplishments:
I agree that the Trump presidency has been a disaster for the U.S., but one has to admit that some of his actions (Title IX changes, cutting back on DEI initiatives) have been salubrious. Yet when I asked readers to name one or two things that Trump did that was good, I was excoriated, and got heated emails that some people had unsubscribed from the site. People can’t admit that any Presidential actions have been a net good, even if the intention wasn’t benevolent. So be it. It’s still good to “steelman” (I hate that verb) the other side, as it increases your own credibility when criticizing it.
*A math professor at Vanderbilt University was the focus of social-media opprobrium when he published a math problem that was really propaganda for Palestine and against Israel. (I believe I reported this before but can’t find the post). The problem is given in the tweet below:
Vanderbilt University – why is mathematics lecturer Tekin Karadǎg bringing his anti-Israel, antisemitic bias into his classroom?
This is unacceptable @VanderbiltU @VU_Chancellor pic.twitter.com/pGqC6fDveu
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) February 21, 2026
I actually emailed Vanderbilt’s Chancellor, Daniel Diermeier (the University of Chicago’s Provost not long ago), calling his attention to this guy, though not asking that he be penalized or fired. Now we find that even before I wrote Dr. Karadağ was under investigation.
Vanderbilt University has launched an inquiry into a mathematics lecturer whose classroom exercise about Palestinian territory drew criticism from the activist group StopAntisemitism.
Tekin Karadağ, a senior lecturer at the university’s department of mathematics, drew the ire of the antisemitism watchdog after it obtained a slide from one of his lectures that used a pro-Palestinian protest slogan and suggested that Israel was shrinking the Palestinian territory.
. . . Karadǎg, a Turkish national who received his PhD from Texas A&M University in 2021, included the question under “examples related to the popular issues” in a survey of calculus class, according to StopAntisemitism, which wrote in a post on X that Karadǎg was “bringing his anti-Israel, antisemitic bias into his classroom.”
In a statement shared with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Vanderbilt said that the content had been removed and that an inquiry had been launched into Karadağ.
“The university has received reports alleging a member of the faculty engaged in unprofessional conduct related to content shared during course instruction,” the school said. “The content in question has been removed, and a formal inquiry has been initiated consistent with relevant university policy.”
. . . .The inquiry was not the first time that Vanderbilt took swift action against the expression of pro-Palestinian sentiments on its campus.
In March 2024, the university, which has roughly 1,100 Jewish undergraduate students, was among the first universities to expel students who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Last year, the school’s antisemitism “grade” from the Anti-Defamation League was bumped up from a “C” to an “A.”
Sadly, the University of Chicago never penalized anyone who violated University rules in a meaningful way and the ADL gave us a D+ (see below and here; for other schools go here):
The administration has been loath to penalize anyone who, during protests, violates rules like deplatforming speakers, participating in prohibited sit-ins, or encamping. Diermeier would have done a better job.
*New Zealand’s kakapo (Strigops habroptilus), the world’s only flightless parrot, is one of my favorite birds as it’s ineffably cute—and highly endangered. Moved to islands and isolated areas to stave off invasive predators, the kakapo is now making a comeback. And, as the AP reports in its “odd news,” this is promoted by a bumper crop of berries this year.
. . . the nocturnal and reclusive New Zealand native bird ’s fate is teetering toward survival after an unlikely conservation effort that has coaxed the population from 50 to more than 200 over three decades. This year, with a bumper crop of the strange parrot’s favorite berries prompting a rare enthusiasm for mating, those working to save the birds hope for a record number of chicks in February, which would move the kakapo closer to defying what was not long ago believed to be certain extinction.
Kakapo live on three tiny, remote islands off New Zealand’s southern coast and chances to see them in the wild are scarce. This breeding season has launched one of the birds to internet fame through a livestreamed video of her underground nest, where her chick hatched on Tuesday.
The kakapo is a majestic creature that can live for 60 to 80 years. But they’re undoubtedly weird to look at.
ADBirds can weigh over 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds). They have owllike faces, whiskers, and mottled green, yellow and black plumage that mimics dappled light on the forest floor.
That’s where the flightless parrot lives, which has made its survival complicated.
“Kakapo also have a really strong scent,” said Deidre Vercoe, the operations manager for the Department of Conservation’s kakapo program. “They smell really musky and fruity — gorgeous smell.”
The pungent aroma was bad news for the parrots when humans arrived in New Zealand hundreds of years ago. The introduction of rats, dogs, cats and stoats, as well as hunting by people and destruction of native forest habitats, drove species of the country’s flourishing flightless birds — the kakapo among them — to near or complete extinction.
By 1974, no kakapo were known to exist. Conservationists kept looking, however, and in the late 1970s, a new population of the birds was discovered.
Reversing their fortunes hasn’t been simple.
It’s hard, with every bird sporting a small backpack that allows researchers to track it. And they remove eggs from females (replacing them with dummy eggs), putting them in incubators to ensure hatching before replacing them beneath the females.
Since January, admirers of the birds have had a rare glimpse into the process through a livestream showing the underground nest of 23-year-old kakapo Rakiura on the island of Whenua Hou, where she has laid three eggs, two of them fertile. So precarious is the species’ survival that the eggs were exchanged for fake replacements while the real ones were incubated indoors.
Go read about their weird behaviors (e.g., male “booming’) and do look at the livestream above. New Zealand is devoting considerable effort to saving this bird, and I think it’s worth it. There’s nothing even close to it in the parrot world. And thank Ceiling Cat for the bumper crop of berries!
“We don’t have the Eiffel Tower or the pyramids, but we do have kakapo and kiwi,” [Operations Manager Deidre] Vercoe said. “It’s a real New Zealand duty to save these birds.”
For sure. And I can’t write about the kakapo without again showing this classic video clip of Stephen Fry and Mark Carwardine studying the bird, with Carwardine becoming the subject of Sirocco’s romantic longings:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej has an armful o’ cats:
Hili: A penny for your thoughts.
Szaron: He’s probably thinking that at least during the night we’ll leave him in peace.
In Polish:
Hili: Grosz za twoje myśli.
Szaron: On pewnie myśli, że przynajmniej w nocy damy mu święty spokój.
*******************
From Give Me a Sign:
From Stacy:
From Joolz, a house known as the “Hitler House” because it looks like him, Joolz took the photo from Google Earth, but you can also see it, along with a bunch of human-faced houses, at this site. Some info:
Probably one of the most recognisable face houses in the world, this end-of-terrace property went viral in 2016, when someone spotted that its exterior looks like German dictator, Adolf Hitler. Its slanted roofline and prominent door lintel definitely bear a resemblance to Hitler’s side-parting and moustache, don’t you think?
Located in Swansea, Wales, the property hit the headlines again when it went on the rental market for just £85 ($108) per week. Rather unsurprisingly, the Hitler House has been dubbed one of the ugliest in the world.
From Masih, a tweet that I can’t embed (why??). Another woman protestor killed by Iranian cops (click to go to original):
From a reader, a blockheaded and misguided doctor who signed a petition he hadn’t read:
Today on Beyond Gender we interviewed Dr. Gordan Guyatt—the “godfather” of evidence-based medicine—who recently signed a statement calling paediatric gender medicine “medically necessary” despite knowing there is no good quality evidence that it is safe, beneficial and effective.… pic.twitter.com/G8SpVqDQPG
— Mia Hughes (@_CryMiaRiver) September 8, 2025
From Simon, a lovely video of snow in NYC:
Blizzard in New York City – Central Park, February 23, 2026 pic.twitter.com/mhI4pzanh4
— Noel Y. Calingasan • NYC (@nyclovesnyc) February 23, 2026
AOC trying to rebut the word salad she emitted when talking about foreign affairs last week. What’s hilarious about this is that her partner is snoring in the bed right next to her, and snoring LOUDLY. Sound up!
The dangers of drunk, late-night posting🤣🤣! @AOC – not too presidential. https://t.co/7nPRz79X6z
— Jim Walden (@jimfornyc) February 23, 2026
From Susan, a man guides a swan back to the water. This is really why I love “X”:
While on vacation, this man took the time to help guide this confused swan back to the water below.
The bird’s reaction when he is back on the water is pure joy. 🥹 pic.twitter.com/fjboJ2JBCE
— Blonde of War (JJ) (@BlondeOfWar) February 22, 2026
One from my feed; it’s totally bogus but I love it anyway:
— CATFLIX (@CatFlixer) February 24, 2026
One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
This Dutch Jewish boy was gassed as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz. He was eleven years old. https://t.co/5z98COYQ1M
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) February 26, 2026
. . . and two from Dr. Cobb. Is the Hubble Space Telescope going to drop from the sky?
The inexorable power of entropy. It will get us all, in the end.
— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-02-25T06:37:05.444Z
Cat train!
Although it doesn’t matter a jot in The Scheme of Things, I tell this story relating to the McHammer item:
My college roommate referred to me as M.C. Allister, because, well, because of my name.
(My own joke to my wife was that we needed to name our first born son, Allister.)
Iran – not a bad analysis from Nate, above, but always consider China – Iran’s main monetary benefactor – in considering Iran’s world view.
While it accounts for a fairly replaceable % of China’s oil imports, China buys a huge % of Iran’s exports. And China don’t want no funny business in the Gulf – this stays the Ayatollah’s bony hand somewhat over the “FIRE” button I think.
D.A.
NYC
Trump did not ask Democrats, “When did you start supporting illegal aliens more than you support your own citizens?”. That would have been akin to a “When did you stop beating your wife?” question. Instead, he proposed the following: “So tonight, I’m inviting every legislator to join with my administration in reaffirming a fundamental principle. If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support. The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.” This framed the moment as affirmation of a principle. It is only the Democrats’ predictable response that opened the door to accusation.
Compare this statement to that of President Obama in June of 2009: “And it is my first duty as President to protect the American people.” The contexts differed (foreign policy vs immigration), but Obama’s assertion of principle does not differ substantively from that of Trump. One can care about illegal aliens (or citizens of other countries) as people yet still acknowledge that one’s chief responsibility is to one’s own citizens.
The proper response to Trump would have been to call his bluff and stand. The Democrats could have both seized the principle and outmaneuvered Trump politically. Instead, Trump gambled; the Democrats lost. And they lost because the party has lost its way on this and so many other issues since the early Obama years. Many of them can no longer honestly affirm what Obama himself said in 2009. It is a “citizens of the world” mentality run amok, a selective empathy, and a mindset that cannot bring itself to side with the perceived “oppressor” over the “oppressed.”
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-Cairo-university-6-04-09
I think you’re exactly right, Doug. They should have seized the moment, called his bluff, and stood. In fact I think they should have anticipated something exactly along these lines, in advance, and figured out ahead of time that this provided them an opportunity to look sensible.
This is what is known as a “coordination problem”. If the Democrats had had present a clear leader, an Obama figure, who could have made an instant decision to stand, then all the others could have followed suit. Absent that, and with no time to coordinate a group response, no-one wanted to be the first to stand (and risk being out of line) and so none of them did.
COULD A.O.C. stand at that point tho? hehehe
Hard to ignore Ilhan Omar’s (D., Mogadiscu) childish stupid outburst, seated as she was next to unconvincing female impersonator Tlaib.
D.A.
NYC
Mm hm—
And consider :
If the operating principle is that the power in the system is illegitimate – that the friend/enemy distinction (Carl Schmitt, 1932) ranks higher in priority than most other ideas — what sort of a political performance might be expected?
I add, from an eXtwitter user, a SOTU comparison to 1995 “for your consideration” (a la Rod Serling ) :
https://x.com/seanfeucht/status/2026855732516368527?s=46
Grok report on the video :
[begin Grok check ]
Checked: Top is real C-SPAN footage from Trump’s Feb 24, 2026 SOTU (full chamber, standing ovations, VP Vance visible). Bottom is authentic from Clinton’s Jan 24, 1995 SOTU. Just a split-screen edit with “HOW THE TIMES HAVE CHANGED” overlay—no deepfakes or fakes. Pure juxtaposition of the eras.
[ end Grok check ]
Well, maybe. However, my guess is that had Dems stood and applauded, the distinction you’re drawing regarding principle would have been lost to many in the Dem base. The act would have been interpreted as an endorsement of Trump’s strategy & tactics. Trump was in a no-lose situation. If Dems sit in silence, he calls them out as he did. If they stand and applaud, he looks directly into the camera and says, “See! They all agree with me on immigration and all their protests are fake news!” He’s unguided by principle. One cannot “call his bluff” because when it happens, he plays a different card.
When Donald friggin’ Regan spoke at my undergrad graduation, many of us did stand up…and turned our backs.
Trump’s SOTU performance was so completely insane, it was better for Dems to not participate (stand) and take the hit over immigration.
My somewhat educated guess is that the recent steep loss of altitude by Hubble is due to the expansion of denser Earth’s atmosphere due to a very active Sun period. I think that the Sun might be entering a quieter part of its cycle allowing Hubble’s orbital decay to become less dramatic..though it is lower now and de facto in denser atmosphere and I do not know the trade off. Without reboosting it will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and (hopefully) burn up sometime in the next decade. Even the final Shuttle servicing was delayed because, if I recall correctly, a shuttle servicing Hubble, could not get to the ISS safehaven in an emergency due to orbital constraints. The servicing mission was a risky one, finally ok’d by the Nasa Administrator….again, if memory serves.
And of course, Station is approaching the end of its shelf life.
Schumer’s reason for not standing (“We’re not going to be a prop in Donald Trump’s little show.”), shows that he cares less about his contituents than he does about opposing Trump. I haven’t heard any explanation from others who chose not to stand, but, yeah, it looks bad and is perfectly in keeping with their protect-illegals-at-all-costs-and-ignore-anyone-harmed stance. As has been observed before, if Trump himself, today, cured cancer, the Dems would suddenly announce that being anti-cancer is racist and they would be in favor of cancer.
“If Trump himself, today, cured cancer…”
The spin would be “Trump puts thousands of oncologists out of work, decimates cancer drug therapy industry…”
No, I think what would happen–no, I know what would happen– the headlines would be
“Trump Charges Three Million Each for Six Series of Cancer Cures”
Followed closely by
“Study Shows Trump Cancer Cure Costs Five Dollars to Make”
And
“Study Shows Trump Cancer Cure Effective With One Dose”
I can absolutely guarantee you that the cure for cancer will cost somewhat more than $5 a dose to make, Robb. I can also guarantee that if the company that invented a $5 marginal-cost cure was told it would be restricted to a price of $5.75 — 15% markup, sounds generous, right? — it would go into some other line of research like homeopathy and all those cancer sufferers could pound salt.
If there was a cure for cancer, wouldn’t you pay $3 million to be cured and get 30 or 40 extra life years? Who cares how much the inventor makes off it? Spite him by dying with orphans if you like. If you didn’t have the money and couldn’t borrow against your Social Security entitlement, wouldn’t you want to enlist the power of the state to force your neighbours to pony up for it on your behalf? Your life might not be worth $3 million of your own money — your children might grumble if you blew it all on yourself and would retaliate by selecting a uriniferous nursing home for you — but it sure as Hell is worth $3 million of strangers’ money who don’t know your name and therefore can’t resent you. (You can easily blow 3 mill on cancer care today that doesn’t even work.) I’d even rob a bank or sell Crypto to raise $3 million for my right to health care. (Isn’t that what the “right” to anything is? To extract money at the point of a gun to pay a willing seller to provide it to you?)
This is Pharmacoeconomics 101 in a nutshell.
“Schumer’s reason for not standing (“We’re not going to be a prop in Donald Trump’s little show.”), shows that he cares less about his contituents than he does about opposing Trump”
And, sadly, this is true for the majority of Congress, regardless of party. There are probably a few others who don’t care more about their “team” and, more importantly, their job on that team, but the one who immediately comes to mind who does not play this game is John Fetterman whom I have tremendous respect for.
AOC for President….I cannot believe it. There are too many reasons to list here, but this late night posting from her highlights one of those reasons. And it is this…despite being 36 years old, she still comes across as a naïve, obnoxious, and vain 20-something. I’ve never seen a possible Presidential candidate with less executive presence than her.
But then again I never thought that a cartoon character like Trump could be President once, much less 2x.
Ditto Jeff but I can top that. For some months I hooted at the hicks promising them: “Don’t worry, we might be crazy in NYC but we’re not stupid enough to elect Mandami. If we do I’ll eat my hat! HA-Hhahaha.”
Fortunately nobody called me on the hat thing…
D.A.
NYC
The boyfriend of AOC sounds like a pickerel frog.
I have watched the cat ordering, unpacking, and breaking the vase so many times (it came across my feed too). For some reason cats provide the subject matter for most of my favorite AI videos. Not sure why they work so well?
Because cats are cute and funny and, in some ways, predictable, which is of course the subject of that video!
In other news the State of California is being taken to court for allowing antisemitism to be taught in schools…
https://brandeiscenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/CA-K12-Complaint.pdf
Don’t know. I didn’t watch any of it, but it looks like it’s more fun this way 🙂
I didn’t either, partly because it’s performative nonsense no matter who does it but mostly because I can’t avoid it the next few days anyway.
…..and that’s my Da Rulz posting limit.
I’ll see myself to the door.
The reaction of some people to your request to name two things that Trump did that were good reminds me of this quote from Eliezer Yudkowsky: “But politics is the mind-killer. Debate is war; arguments are soldiers. Once you know which side you’re on, you must support all arguments of that side, and attack all arguments that appear to favor the opposing side; otherwise it’s like stabbing your soldiers in the back.”
In case it’s not obvious, he is not a fan of that approach.
So pistachios are “culinary nuts”? I guess that makes tomatoes “culinary vegetables” as well.
Yeah, and strawberries aren’t botanical berries at all, but bananas are! Where will it stop? It’s a conspiracy, I tell you. It goes all the way to the top.
But rhubarb is culinary excrement!
The swan herding video was cute and everything. It even had the obnoxious, cloying, awful music that goes with those kinds of vids. It was sweet of that dapper young man to help that beautiful bird find the river.
But my question is why? Why didn’t the bird just fly down to the water? It could clearly see it. It’s just so weird to see a bird not able to figure out that it only needs to flap its wings to get to where it needs to go. It’s like a beached whale being helped to swim off but saying to its rescuers; “no thanks, I’ll walk”.
Me no understand. Is this a domestic swan that is more pet than bird?
Swans are so heavy, they need a long runway to start flying. And there was no free runway in the direction of the water.
You are correct. The interesting thing is that they also need a fairly long runway (waterway?) to land, so I wonder how it got there.
Fascinating to read about New Zealand’s Kakapo. I had never heard of this interesting parrot before.
The Hitler house is ridiculous, but it does look like Hitler!
Trump. Mostly bad but some good. I’m hanging on for dear life.
Iran. Trump boxed himself into taking action when he told the protestors that “Help is on the way.” He needs to keep his word, as he doesn’t want to be remembered as being no better than Obama in Syria. After running his mouth about helping, Trump learned from his advisors that a limited attack on Iran may not achieve much. Yes, it might delay Iran’s nuclear program or set back its missile defense system, but many think that he cannot have a permanent impact without a deep and lengthy involvement.
My concern is that Trump will do something limited and mostly symbolic, declare victory, and leave the regime intact. The Israeli policy of “Mowing the lawn” in Gaza got them October 7. A weak response by Trump will force the U.S. and Israel into a “Mow the lawn” strategy with Iran. Where might that lead?
A snippet I got on NPR this morning is that negotiations with Iran may well settle on Iran making a deal with the US about our getting oil or mineral rights.
Unbelievable.
That clip of Dr Gordon Guyatt on ‘Beyond Gender’ never gets old. When he realizes that yes, he signed a document which explicitly endorsed something he thoroughly disagreed with, the Father of Evidence-Based Medicine turns into your father caught-in-a-blunder-but-really-annoyed-anyway. “Ok, fine, I get it, I’m an idiot, BUT BUT BUT YOU SHOULDN’T BE FOCUSING ON THIS RIGHT NOW ….!”
Diddums.
A little less in the above photo, but our friend Andrzej is like a Robert Trivers impersonator of the finest order! (this is a compliment, btw, RT is the GOAT!)
D.A.
NYC
[woops started to write then clicked comment before reading Sastra’s better and shorter post]
To clarify, Gordon Guyatt isn’t just some misguided doctor. He helped create the field of evidence-based medicine. And he didn’t sign someone else’s petition. He wrote a series of systematic reviews of the evidence base for “gender-affirming medical care” for minors (the subject of yesterday’s post and Jesse Singal’s NYT op-ed). He had financial support to do that from the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine. “Trans” activists hounded him so that he disavowed SEGM. The “petition” was his letter of disavowal, written by him and his systematic review coauthors
https://hei.healthsci.mcmaster.ca/systematic-reviews-related-to-gender-affirming-care/
In the letter they call puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and all that frankensurgery “medically necessary care for gender-diverse youth.” But in the podcast Guyatt scoffs and says he would never call it “medically necessary.” When caught in the act by the podcast hosts he goes full darvo. Amazing performance, worth watching the video clip in that tweet.
Best nuts? PECANS!!!!
A BIRTHDAY THOUGHT:
An compliment is something like a kiss through a veil. -Victor Hugo, poet, novelist, and dramatist (26 Feb 1802-1885
People here were talking about certain psychedelics causing visions of humans or some such the other day.
I mentioned DMT/ayahuasca in that regard as that kind of thing has been reported.
Today Fern came out with a video about this very thing along with some other info on the drug. I found it informative and correct, as per my research on the neurochemical dynamics of this interesting drug. (35 min)
D.A.
NYC
I started watching this and felt I had to make a correction. DMT is not “the world’s strongest drug”. It is not even the strongest psychedelic drug – LSD is hundreds of times more potent. That’s not to deny that DMT has an overwhelming effect in high doses, of course.
Objectively speaking, I don’t see how Trump’s second term has “been a disaster for the U.S.” – at least not yet. Heck, even Sam Harris said in a recent interview that he thought Trump deserved a Nobel Prize for getting the hostages out of Gaza. Trump also negotiated ends to various wars. Controlling the border, ending DEI, getting men out of women’s sports, promoting patriotism, and some other domestic priorities were good too IMO. There is always the risk though that his unstable character will lead to some disaster. And he has appointed goofballs like RFK Jr., Noem and Bondi to high positions. So there is a mix of positives and negatives, though so far his presidency has been less disastrous than Biden’s, and probably far less disastrous than a Kamala/Walz government would have been. The final verdict remains to be determined though.